Mtguide

I have a Jewish friend (born and raised in the US) who had been living for about 18 months in a Kibbutz in Israel when the "October War" started with Egypt. My friend, in his 20's at the time, became increasingly fed up with the constant propagandizing from the Israeli government and from those who ran the kibbutz. He decided to leave the kibbutz, disguised himself as an Arab by dying his skin brown with walnut juice, and somehow managed to go to Egypt to see for himself what was going on. He literally risked his life to do this. He came away convinced that the Israelis were completely at fault. He never returned to the kibbutz, booked passage home to the US, and while not renouncing his religion and upbringing, has been very active over the years promoting initiatives for a Palestinian homeland and in various pro-peace groups within Israel. One of my own favorite incidents occurred during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon back in the late 80's. At the UN, the Israeli ambassador stood up and during his presentation, made a direct reference to the people and state of Israel as "the Chosen People of God". In response, the Saudi oil minister, Yamani Zaki, said. "If indeed this is true, that the Jews are the Chosen People of God, then this is discrimination on the part of God!" The entire UN chamber collapsed in laughter, and the Israeli ambassador quickly sat down, red-faced and fuming. The simple fact is that there is more than enough guilt to go around, on all sides (including the US and European nations), so much blood spilled that it really no longer matters who was, is, or shall yet be, to blame. The history is by now so twisted and convoluted as to make it impossible to unravel. The most essential thing is to find a way to stop the bloodshed as quickly as possible, and to base all further actions in the region on basic, essential principles of practical humanity and the international rule of law. A moratorium/cease-fire has to be imposed, with violations punishable by immediate incarceration regardless of military rank or civil status. Unfortunately, there is no longer any practical way to implement this--it's the job the UN was designed for, but the member nations, including the US, have all decided they don't want to follow anyone's rules but their own. Funding and international will isn't there. I always liked the solution proposed by an old rancher who was neighbor of mine in Wyoming some years ago. He said that what should be done is to take everyone who wants to fight, and ship them all to someplace like the middle of the Sahara desert or outer Mongolia's Gobi desert, where they couldn't hurt anything, fence the whole place off permanently, lock them in there, give them whatever personal weapons they desired, and just let 'em go at it to their heart's content.In the meantime the rest of us could get on about the business of daily life without some bunch of arrogant assholes telling us who we had to go kill and why. Admittedly far-fetched and overly simplistic-- but I'd still like to try it.Sometimes simple works pretty well. After all, it was Ted Kennedy who said in the late 60's that "the way to bring the soldiers home from Vietnam, is in ships! In planes!...".

It's only about 5 or 6 years ago that a Seattle man and his son were killed in that very area by an avalanche in early march. AV danger at the time was rated "moderate". With the right snow conditions, avalanches originating from the base of the Tooth and Chair Peak can sometimes travel well out into the basin. Watch yer topknot.

That's it! The one and only... "We survived for days on nothing but food and water... -W.C.Fields-

Hey,you just might have something there; condoms with glow-in-the-dark images of the Virgin(!) Mary, the crucifix, Jesus, or, for the real he-man, the special Twelve Disciples condom, featuring one disciple per inch; how many disciples can YOU go, Big Boy? Other models could be the Samson, David and Bathsheba, the Prodigal Son, the Sodom and Gomorrah Fireball, etc. And, just in time for Christmas, the Roll-in-the-Hay-Manger..."O Come, all ye faithful..."

Kind of like driving in Portland when it snows--it's not the snow and ice that's dangerous, it's the idiots on the road who have no business being out there.

In the early 80's I was living near Pinedale, Wyoming, at the base of the foothills of the Wind River Range. One fall a cougar known as Old Three Toes (missing a toe on the left front paw) came down from the Bridger Wilderness, hunting the ranches along the valley on Pole Creek road. In ten years, I had seen his tracks numerous times on the pack trails, from one end of the range to the other, and that's a big area, over 110 miles. In the first couple of nights it was around, it caused some havoc among the calves on one outfit, and made an attempt at a new colt on another, but had no luck, being fought off by the mother cows and the mares. Over the next three weeks or so, no more calves or colts were bothered, but almost every house and barn cat in the area disappeared, including one of mine. Finally the cougar was shot and killed one evening, in the shop at a neighbor's ranch, trying to pull down an antelope carcass the owner had hanging after a successful hunt. Old Three Toes, who had been a legend in the Wind River Range for almost 20 years, was almost toothless, severely emaciated and mangy, and had obviously had his lower jaw broken, probably by being kicked in the confrontation with the cows or the mares. The left front leg, with the famous three-toed paw, was crooked, with a large hard knot on the foreleg where it had apparently been broken and healed at an early age. He also had a large, jagged, indented scar about 4 inches long on the left side of his head, leading from just above the eye to the ear, which was about half gone, and another large crooked scar almost 7 inches long on the opposite shoulder. There were numerous smaller marks on the head and neck, like bite wounds. These all appeared to be pretty old, possibly from an encounter with a bear. For any wild animal, and especially a predator, an injury of that kind is pretty much a certain death sentence, but somehow this old cat had managed to make it through to carry on a long and storied career. In the last few weeks of his life, he was still living by his wits, beyond the ability of his failing strength, doing whatever he could to keep going. Even in death, there seemed to be a fire deep down in that dark blue eye, now clouded over. He had lived a very long time for a cougar, well beyond the average known life span. We stood around, looking at him, talking about what to do with the carcass. The meat, what little of it there was, wouldn't be much good, tough and stringy. Some wanted to skin him and display the hide with the famed three toes at Faler's General Store in town. Others thought he ought to be mounted by the taxidermist and put in the historical case at the Courthouse. Finally, Murl Morss, the foreman at the Fayette ranch where Three Toes had paid his first visit three weeks earlier, spoke up, his eyes glinting from the shadow under his hat brim. "Fellas", he said, "I think we oughta take him home." Early the next morning, we helped Murly throw his pack string together and ready Old Three Toes for his last journey home to the mountains. And help is what it took, too; Simon the Mule wanted no part of whatever that was wrapped up in a plastic game bag and two layers of canvas. Simon had probably packed over a hundred elk out of the mountains, but he seemed to know that whatever was inside that canvas, was not only dead and wild, but had also been damned fierce. He was snorting and blowing and rolling his eyes like a outlaw bronc. It was quite a rodeo until we blindfolded him with a jacket and took up a hind leg. Once we had the bundle lashed tight and yarded the cinches down, we handed the lead rope to Murly, pulled the leg rope and blindfold, and stepped back to watch the show. Old Three Toes would have been highly honored indeed; Simon put on a real old time skywalking, sunfishing, suck-back-and-spin, chin the sun, and paw-down-the-moon classic sashay, but he could not shed that pack, and as the sun broke over the mountains, he threw up his head, sides heaving, and trotted off behind Murl as we all laughed and hollered and threw our hats in the air. Four days later Murl was back; snow had come to the high country, and he'd made it out just in time. He never would tell us exactly where he took Old Three Toes, except to say that it was somewhere in the high country up under the continental divide, between Timico Lakes Basin and Angel Pass on the north, well east of the Highline trail, down to the Dream Lake/Rainbow Lake country to the south, going northeast over the divide to Wolverine Peak, and back up to the Golden Lakes and Angel Pass. "He's somewhere in that circle," he said, 'cause that's the area where I first started seeing his tracks. I left him in a tree, not under the ground. He musta had a heart like a mountain, so that's what I gave him for a headstone, and that's all I got to say." Then he added, " I was real glad to see that snow fly; no one'll ever find him."

Those are some nice pics--where was the bottom one taken?

Well, yeah, unfortunately, Kerouac's later life and end was pretty much as you say, but that certainly wasn't the comparison I intended; I just saw in your style and flow of writing some of that same wonderful energy from the likes of On the Road, Dharma Bums, etc., which is (especially Road) some brilliant stuff. But that youthful fire was partly fueled, and later dimmed and finally extinguished by the alchohol. Kerouac actually did climb a little, worked a couple seasons at the Desolation peak fire lookout in the N. Cascades, early 50's, and much of Dharma Bums is about a climb of the Sierra's Matterhorn Peak done in the fall of '56 with Zen/Beat poet Gary Snyder ( Snyder made it to the top; Kerouac, perhaps prophetically, felt too tired and scared to go the last pitch or so.) Kerouac never really had the discipline or self-restraint necessary to really bear down on his writing, was probably already an alchoholic very early on, and had a more "anything goes, nothing matters" idea of Buddhism and Zen, not what its' really all about. While strictly speaking, there's no such thing as a "failed Buddhist" (they say you should never give up on anybody) it's sure as hell necessary to put in your time on the meditation cushion if you're gonna see anything. After all, we do have to accomplish something; Suzuki Roshi in his little book Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, says that while not everyone may experience a great awakening, even in years of practice, "at least we must have SOME enlightenment experience." Thoreau said once, "Did you ever know of anyone who simply persisted in what he was doing, who did not achieve at least some measure of success?" A lot of climbing, Buddhism, and life in general is just that simple. There's an old Zen koan (meditation problem) called "Go straight up the forty-nine switchback trail! What does this mean?". And the answer is to get up in front of your teacher and march rapidly, with great energy, back and forth, forty-nine times, as if you were going up a mountain trail. It means that often, when we're going up the switchbacks, it can seem as if we're going further out of our way than we need to, and we may be tempted to go off the trail and impatiently charge straight up. Doing so, we might make it, but we might burn out, too. But if we just stay on the trail and keep going, we will,eventually, most certainly reach the summit. Of course, maybe the old Zen masters couldn't have foreseen the development of modern climbing--but I'm not so sure of that, either, considering how deep and powerful a meditation climbing is. And the implied meaning of that koan is, as you've shown us in your TR, that it's all about the journey, not just the summit. Anyway, you can really fuckin' write, man, you have a great eye and sardonic wit, you're raising a family and managing to get some time in on the rock and ice ( and it's important to not just meditate, too--Zen Master Hakuin says "the warrior's saddle is his seat of meditation"- meaning that the path is right where you are, doing what you're doing) and making people laugh, making a lttle magic.... We can't all be Lionel Terray or Gaston Rebuffat, or Kerouac, but as I'm sure you know, what's more important is to just be who you are. On that basis, I'd tell your mom not to worry. And keep on writing.

Nicely written TR, Ivan-the new Kerouac has appeared. It was indeed foretold that his reincarnation would be revealed in the mountains of the Pac. NW, freely dispensing stream-of counsciousness Crazy Wisdom, Hanshan-like, swinging a mean ice tool (the 21st century Vajra-scepter), showing the youngsters how to laugh at the rain and cold, breaking the slavish bonds of attachment to comfort and warmth, shattering misguided delusions of achievement and success, further deepening North America's own tradition of rollicking, waked-up alpinist-lamas and mountain adepts who have transcended good and bad weather, sleep, and all-the-best-new-gear, to find highest perfect enlightenment on the end of a sodden rappel rope, and then kicked it in the ass and let THAT go sailing off into the void too. Kinda like the old Northern Plains contraries, the Heyokas or "backwards warriors"; "Shivering in the white heat of summer Sweating in the cold rides his horse backwards says yes but means no when arriving, leaves having departed, arrives; Having failed, succeeds.

[you people are wasting a lot of money that could have been spent on climbing gear] Good beer and wine IS climbing gear.

You're correct; and the Chinook word for "rough water" or "troubled waters" is 'Skookum'.

I think if anyone-the Federal govt, the US Army, Marines, etc.,-- had tried to strip the Idaho and Montana Nat'l. Guard of their weapons, we would already have heard of it by now, because it would have started a civil war. I don't think you'd want to lightly go mess with those homegrown country boys, no sir.

What about the Falkland Islands War with Argentina back in the 80's?

I also remember the opening of the movie, filmed from a chopper flying over the coast range forests, while Charley Pride sang "The Family of Man". And the book is really one of my favorites Kesey ever wrote. Newman was great in the movie, and was of course the star, but Henry Fonda as Pa Stamper was terrific, damn near stole the show. The Stamper family motto, "Never give an inch," was perfectly characterized by Fonda, also this line, when someone was moving too slow to his liking," God damn it, man, we got timber to fall, orders to fill, things to do, an' cats to kill!!". I think the old house where the movie was filmed is still there on the banks of the Siletz River, about 2 miles upstream from the mouth opens into Siletz Bay at Kernville, south of Lincoln City.

Go hunt up Chumstick Snag if you want a classic climb on Swauk sandstone. It's described in the original Guide to Leavenworth Climbing Areas by Fred Beckey and Eric Bjornstad, as " a spectacular little sandstone pinnacle...". Fred says, "it is difficult to spot, even from the highway". Here are the directions: " drive north from Leavenworth 4 miles on the Plain road, and exit left on a short dirt road called Spromberg Canyon to a farm at its end.Taking care both of bulls (yep, they were there, alright ) and charged fence wire, follow the meadow paths to the wooded spur that divides the valley. Climb to the ridgetop and continue on about 1/2 mile until just above the snag. It is easiest to follow the ridge until the Snag is below and to the left, and then make a very short descent to the upper saddle." The south face or standard route is rated 5.7,1 hour, (by 1950 standards), and the SW face at 5.6, 2 hours,done in '63. The rock is good quality with juggy solution holes, or huecos, with thin cracks. We used to use knifeblades and Lost Arrows, nowdays you could probably use cams or chocks in some of the huecos, and thin wires or minicams in the cracks; there used to be some bolts (well, what we used to call bolts) at strategic points,and a few fixed pins, including a summit rappel anchor, but it's been years, and I have no idea what's there now. Very fun little spot, quite a lovely place.

Thanks,Bug, for your comments, and your focus on socks and gaiters, which I completely spaced. And yes, there are some excellent lightweight boots that give a lot more protection in snow and wet conditions. I forgot to mention Scarpa and Merrell, among the boot manufacturers, and they both have some really great lightweight boots. And I use both knee-high and lower ankle-type gaiters, depending on what kind of boot or shoe I'm wearing. Even if you don't need them for snow, they're great for keeping out dirt and gravel, pine needles,etc. Your system (liner sock, vapor barrier,heavy sock, etc.) is identical to what I do,except that I don't use the vapor barrier. I started using silk, later poly liners, in the 60's because mountaineering socks were mostly rough, itchy ragwool. As the socks got better, I continued to use them with socks like Merino wool, Ultimax, etc. It seems, for me at least, to provide an extra layer of air which works kind of like a breathable layer, and I seldom seem to have a problem with getting cold feet because of being too wet. I also usually use foot powder to help keep my feet dry. The other downside of having damp or wet feet is that it softens your skin and that can make it easy to get blisters, even in really comfortable boots. That happened to me once descending Hood, wearing a very well used, comfy pair of Koflachs.

Depending on the season, many trekkers, as well as climbers, use a lightweight trail or approach shoe, or even running or trail running shoes with an agressive tread, for the hike in to Everest base camp, NOT a heavy mountaineering boot. The most important criteria is comfort and light weight, as well as durability. If you're going with a trekking guide service, you might ask them what they recommend. Also consult the various catalogs of climbing boot and shoe makers, such as La Sportiva, Lowa, Asolo, Koflach, Salomon, Vasque, etc., and communicate with their staff online for advice. They can recommend what will be most suitable for you based on your size and weight, how much you'll be carrying, any particular foot problems you may have, and whether or not you intend to do any actual climbing beyond just hiking. It might also be useful to find someone who's actually done the trip, although each individual will have their own needs and preferences. The main thing is that the hike in to Everest base camp does not automatically require a pair of high tech heavy mountaineering boots.

I recently saw a video of Chris Sharma making multiple attempts, soloing an arch somewhere in the Mediterranean or Adriatic. They showed him falling from the crux over 70 times (in rapid replay) over two days, until he finally nailed it, which was shown at normal speed. Each time he fell it was about a 35 or 40 foot drop into the sea, a pretty good smack from that height, though of course nothing like decking on solid ground. But you had to be impressed by his patience and persistence, and it is a pretty remarkable route, long and pretty much completely overhanging from beginning to end, on rough marine limestone. I think it was rated a 5.14/something. In the late 60's Fred Beckey became a standing joke among Seattle climbers for his fanatical obsession with his project route over several years on the N.face of Bear Mountain in the Chilliwacks near the Canadian border. He would call people in the middle of the night trying to round up climbing partners, pester the hell out of the guys at the National Weather Service office in Seattle (I've heard they eventually quit taking his calls, hanging up on him the minute they recognized his voice). Some of this is no doubt part of legend rather than fact. I have no idea how many different people worked on that route with him, but it was a lot, and of course, in the end, the fact remains that he finally did complete it. He just never quit, determined to finish the route. By today's sport climbing standards, the rating difficulty isn't that high, but it is a huge wall, and it holds up still as a very respectable trad climb by anyone's standards, with extremely complex route finding, immense exposure, plenty of solid hard free climbing to satisy anyone, a North Cascades classic. It's one hell of a big, tough, remote wilderness wall. Anyone who's ever even tried to do the approach has come away with plenty of respect for Fred's effort. And, in the true spirit of never giving up, Fred is still climbing at the age of 86, or is it 87 now? Most folks who succeed at whatever they do, are usually the ones whose greatest talent is to just outwork, out-gut, out last everyone and everything else.

The 2nd amendment is very brief, yet not exactly clear: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." The interpretation of this is endlessly debated-- whether the authors of this amendment were referring specifically to the "militia",as the "well regulated" body authorized "to keep and bear arms", or "the people"(meaning the population at large), or both. And does "the State" refer to the individual states, or to the nation as a whole? Whereas a militia is usually thought of a a local or regional, therefore small 'state' level organization, the relatively small size of the entire nation in colonial times might mean that the founding fathers were referring to the entire country. So is this a local, "state" militia' like the colonial Minutemen, or a national military, like the present-day National Guard? We don't really know. One thing is for certain, and that is that an armed populace is a very strong deterrent to any government that might try to subjugate its citizens. In spite of the vast and overwhelming firepower of the U.S. Armed Forces, just imagine the bloodbath that would ensue if the federal government for some reason tried to put down an insurrection in, say, Montana, Idaho, Texas, Tennessee or Oklahoma, etc., where a very high percentage of the populace are conservative gun owners. Whereas a local "militia" would be hopelessly outmatched by tanks, warplanes, and disciplined troops, just the negative press such a conflict would engender, would make any administration think twice before entering into an action against it's own citizens which could potentially become inflamed into a large-scale revolt, even another civil war. You may remember the "Militia" group in central Montana a few years back, and the tragic ATF action against the David Koresh religious cult compound in Waco, Texas. These are people who have no trust in the government of any administration or party. Regardless of whether one thinks the federal government acted properly in those incidents (and many do not), the overall effect was to heighten the fear among gun owners that the government wants to take away your guns. And currently, Obama's election has triggered a huge spike in gun sales nationwide, as many fear that a more liberal administration will enact much stricter laws on gun purchasing, ownership and registration, particularly of semi-automatic and assault-type weapons, automatic pistols such as police-style Glocks,etc. (Personally, I think that with the economic crisis, global warming, the resurgence of Russia in Eastern Europe,etc., gun control is going to be a far lesser priority for the Obama administration. There are a thousand items to adress at the moment with far more immediate impact and seriousness.) Anyway, everyone knows that these are not guns for game hunting. So there is, I think, a very evident and demonstrable belief among the general public that there is indeed a personal, individual "right" to "keep and bear arms", that this "right is actually guaranteed in the Constitution, and that this "right" is a major part of what stands between individual freedom and potential dictatorship. I lived in Wyoming for over ten years, and while most people owned guns for hunting, you could talk to any number of people who were life-long NRA members, and who felt that firearms served a multi-faceted purpose: as hunting weapons, as personal security against home invasion and property theft, and if need be, as defense against their own regional, state, or national government. Many of the people I knew did support some sort of reasonable regulations--they didn't want to see nuts being able to get guns--, and the school shootings that began during the 80's made many hard-line gun owners rethink their ideas about regulation. My own position is that non-violence must be the starting point in all situations, whether local, regional, national, or international, and I have read and studied the teachings of Ghandi since the early 60's. As a kid, I saw on TV the appalling brutality of the clubbings, lynchings and shootings of black protesters and white civil rights workers in the South in the late 50's and early 60's. I was a junior in high school during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, and we went to bed that night wondering if we would be incinerated before the next morning. I shook John F. Kennedy's hand in Fort Worth, Texas, the day he was assassinated in 1963 ( an anniversary which is coming up soon this month), and the later killings of his brother Robert, and of Martin Luther King, and the loss of my boyhood friends in the Vietnam War, all of these things convinced me that violence and killing are never the answer. However, we all do have an inalienable right to defend ourselves from violence. And Ghandi himself is quoted by Thomas Merton as saying, in his book,"Ghandi On Non-Violence", that while you should use non-violent means to achieve your aims or to stand up for your rights and freedoms, as far as they will go, but if they are still not sufficient, and you are facing injury and death, that then, the man who hesitates to defend his home and family by the use of violence, is a coward. So even Ghandi, the originator of the principles of non-violence, recognized that there are times when you do have to fight. There is no reason to let anyone walk over you. I always liked Teddy Roosevelt's phrase, "Speak softly, and carry a big stick." And in a famous cartoon strip from the 60's, "Rick O'Shay" (modeled after the old "Gunsmoke" TV series), the character of the gunslinger, "Hipshot Percussion", has a discussion, during his target practice, on firearms with the preacher, Jubal Lation, who tells Hipshot that he places too much trust in his weapons. The preacher says that in II Corinthians, we're told to "face hardship and affliction with patience, purity, and love, as well as by the word of Truth and the power of God." And Hipshot says "That's a fact, Jubal... but it ALSO says, "by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left. ", as he emphasizes his point by twirling his revolvers Roy Rogers style and then sending them home in their holsters with a crisp "whack! whack!". In another strip, Hipshot's version of "A soft answer turneth away wrath.", becomes "A soft wrath turneth away answers.", when an aspiring, but young and foolish challenger calls Hipshot out for a gunfight by threatening to gun him into "dollrags". Hipshot, not wanting to needlessly gun down a hotheaded kid, says, "OK, now did you have anything else you want to say, Bub, or are you content for those to be your last words?".The youngster wisely backs down in the face of certain death. The creator of this cartoon strip was, by the way, a former cowboy from Red Lodge, Montana, named Stan Lynde, and about as peaceful, generous, and mild-mannered a fellow as you could hope to find. But Stan Lynde was also a WW II veteran who had a real steel in his character. So be peaceful, gentle, non-violent, and kind... and also be vigilant, strong, and prepared. Like the writer Ken Kesey used to say, "Kiss no ass...".

Any idea where this is? Goats are frequently seen on fifth class climbing routes in Glacier and Waterton Lakes National Parks. They've also been known to suffer fatal falls. Pretty amazing. A good caption for this one might be, "Hmm...".

Your post is really interesting. A week prior to the election, Obama was endorsed by Hamas,(this from truthout.org) evidently because they felt he might be more proactive in restarting the Mideast peace process, and that he'd deal more fairly with the Palestinians.They may be having some second thoughts about just where Obama stands now. In an interview this afternoon on PBS, Palestinian spokeswoman Hanan Ashrawi said that while the choice of Emanuel was "less than ideal"(!), they remain for the time being,"cautiously optimistic". The immense amount of money raised by Obama during the campaign didn't come out of nowhere, though the campaign tried to give the general impression that millions of small online donors were driving the effort. He is most certainly beholden to some extremely powerful players at the corporate and international level, and the lobby in congress for the Jewish Defense League and Israel is a major gatekeeper for any serious contender to the Presidency. This is not anti-Semitic sentiment, this is just fact, the status quo. Obama was known in Chicago as a nice guy who could nontheless throw his grandmother under a bus if that's what it took to win, yet look very gracious, measured and thoughtful in the process, just as he did during the debates. Rahm Emanuel is very well known on Capitol Hill as an enforcer, capable of ruthlessness when necessary. On PBS this afternoon, he was referred to as Obama's choice for "bad cop". It's a rough game, and I doubt that's going to change anytime soon. It would be great if Carter, Brzezinski, etc. could somehow exert a leavening influence, but I'm not holding my breath.

While it might seem like a good idea to find a friend/mentor to teach you skiing, there are a number of excellent reasons why this is NOT such a great idea. While you may find a friend who's a truly fantastic skier, they may or may not be any good as an instructor. Too often issues of ego, lack of training, and an inability to properly evaluate and adjust instruction to the level you're at in your skills, may result in little or no progress, or even in teaching you exactly the wrong things for what you need to be doing for your own improvement. Certified professional ski instructors have been rigorously trained and tested, and have the people skills and technical skills to understand the myriad of difficulties and challenges facing students of all ages and physical abilities, and although they may seem expensive, for my money they are well worth every last nickel in saving you unnecessary time, effort, and even potential injury, spent in your re-inventing the wheel just because you wanted to save a few bucks. Also, it's not necessary to spend hundreds of dollars. Most instructors prefer to have you take a lesson for a morning or afternoon, and then go skiing 3 or 4 times (by YOURSELF, I might add-to avoid so-called "friends" and well-intentioned but misguided "mentors" from undoing everything your professional instructor has so carefully and patiently shown you) in order to digest and really get the "feel" of what you've covered in your lesson. It doesn't all happen right there in the lesson. You don't ski with an instructor for two hours and then go out conquer the mountain. A good way to do it is to take a lesson at the beginning of the season,then go skiing by yourself several times, take another lesson a couple of weeks later, go skiing several times by yourself again, take another lesson, etc. right on throught the whole season. Sure, you'll be spending most of your season skiing by yourself, but you'll be able to really focus on the technique and feel of evrything you're learning, without the unnecessary chatter and distraction- it's really like a meditation, a practice, and as you gain and progress in skill, technique, strength, balance, timing, and rythm, and really begin to flow, you'll discover an inner quiet and freedom in motion unlike anything else you've ever experienced. This is what skiing is really all about, and it is far,far, beyond price. And there are many really fine skiers who continue, even after many years of skiing, to take a lesson or two every season, because there are always new things being developed and discovered, it never ends. The best skiers are those who are always growing. And the best instructors are living examples of that. It's said that, along the way to really becoming proficient at any one of the three main types of skiing (alpine, telemark, or x-c) you'll fall about a thousand times. You have a lot of face-plants and "yard sales" ahead of you, and a ton of fun and good times with great friends in great mountains, if you do it right, from the beginning. As the old Chinese proverb goes, "It is easier to repair the beginning, than the end." Just as the best quality climbing harness is truly cheap at the price, compared to the value of your life, so too is the money spent on the very best instruction you can afford, for what can be a long and fulfilling lifetime of "freedom of the steeps". After all, you've already spent hundreds of dollars on skis, boots poles, clothing, lift tickets, gas, etc.,--and, after all that investment, now you want to skimp on instruction, the very thing that will help you to make real the true value of that investment? That's just crazy, because without the ability to use all that stuff, that's all you have-just a pile of ski gear-stuff. You can actually do fine by skimping on the gear-I've never seen a pair of skis that wouldn't slide downhill in you point 'em that way- (you should have seen the short film some years ago at the Banff Mountain Film Festival about the kids at an orphanage in northern India, skiing on a rope tow with skis made of old wooden planks with scraps of sheet metal and tin cans nailed to the bottom-they were having the time of their lives, and some of them were really pretty good skiers)-and you sure as hell don't need fancy clothing or the latest boots.etc.--but you really DO need the best instruction you can find. And you know what? Even though you're paying them for it, your instructor can often become one of your finest friends, because they once stood right where you are standing now, with everything to learn, and nowhwere to go but up--They Have Been There- and they also had to put in the time and effort and take the thousands of falls, to do what they do now. And they admire and respect you for being there, standing in front of them on that slope, ready to learn, ready to go, and being willing to pay them for their hard-won knowledge and experience, in a honorable exchange, to enter the fellowship of skiers, because they know what it takes. Maybe some people find that a racket or a scam, but I can't think of any money I've spent that was more worth it. Most of the instructors I've met are just great, great people, and they can open the door for you time and time again, to a whole new world. You would be doing yourself a great disservice to let a few bucks come between you and that expansion of your life, believe me. Finally, a couple of really good, essential books: Ski The Whole Mountain-by Eric and Rob Deslauriers, and, Breakthrough On Skis-by Lito Tejada-Flores. Best of luck, and great skiing!

Regarding Bridwell, he's actually not a bad writer himself, ("Tour de Force", about climbing Shiprock,in his book "Climbing Adventures", is a classic.) If you want climbers to buy your book, he'd be a great endorsement.

Any TR's, photos, on N. Face of Mt. Monarch,(Coast Range); Sikes' Slab (Powell River, B.C.), and Mt. Denman (also perhaps near Powell R.) would be much appreciated.

If you're going to Vantage be prepared for heavy wind at times. Also be sure you've read up on the climbs and have the recommended pro for the routes you plan to do. Many of the climbs take larger size cams(4 or 5) or even Big Bros the closer you get to the top, as the stacked columnar basalt pillars tend to spread as you go up. And Vantage has its share or pretty crappy choss.