Gary_Yngve

you're talking about a shortish mellow route on the Mole or something harder? i did the SW face a few years ago, starting maybe 50 feet below a chockstone, traversing left on easy cracks to the top of a flake that you drop behind and down-chimney for like 15 feet, then a short 5.7 lieback before it backs off to low 5th

So if you're really concerned, you'll need to build the 2nd far enough away.

Why do you need to build such a burly anchor anyway? It's gonna take a long time, which might expose you to additional objective hazards. In soft snow, I like the hip belay from a sitting braced in a stomped out seat. Good for reducing forces too. Harder snow, carabiner-axe belay. But above all, the rule on steep snow is don't fall. For rescue purposes, we use multiple deadmanned pickets connected via a cordalette or multiple v-threads connected via a cordalette.

everyone makes minor mistakes when speaking. big f'ing deal. if he said "i have a relative who helped liberate a Nazi death camp at the end of WWII," he would have been perfectly correct.

FW, it's spray. chill out.

though it can take 3 hours to reach peak

at least when i'm noncommittal about the weather and stay home, I can always hope on a bike that moment and catch some sweet views within 15 minutes.. Lake WA Blvd, Magnolia Loop, etc.

You Skagit guys are putting Seattle to shame! Like the pic too.

Erden rocks! He's funny too! His semi-daily reports rowing across the ocean kept me motivated while I was finishing my thesis.

On weekends like this where there's not likely quality alpine time to be had, bicycling on one of the islands in the sound is pretty good.

Why was she a disappointment? I know she has a laid back style of communicating and all. Were you expecting her to do jumping jacks? Arch, where did you see Lynn Hill speak? I saw her up at B'ham about 3 or 4 years ago. I remember her speaking style wasn't very captivating... I wouldn't quite call it depressed, but definitely subdued. I didn't leave the show stoked the way I do after other shows I've been to. Again, that's nothing to knock on Lynn Hill's success and achievements... just disappointing that I didn't get the stoke I expected from the show.

she now has a crap arch?

Bummer about your foot! Get well soon!

It can also serve as a tease.

I'm spotting him! Me too! Me three, I just got certified in spotting!

I go by that rule too. Although if dinner leads straight into something else, then the dishes/pots can simply be put into the sink and quickly rinsed / filled w/ water so they don't dry up and be a pain to wash later.

I think I know how to do it. Step high onto a thin edge with right foot while sidepulling/underclinging with right hand around the corner and pulling on some crystals with your left hand. And I still can't do it. Maybe it's not because I suck, but rather because I don't have good edging shoes?

You mean incessantly changing the channel every five seconds until all 200 channels have passed, then starting over to see what they missed? I'd rather watch Oprah for two hours than put up with Attention Deficit Remote Disorder. The punchline is "men are hunters and women are gatherers" (from Seinfeld)

i want to second steve swenson. He balances climbing, a nonclimbing career, and family, and he is a class act.

bush thinking that we're winning in iraq? hillary thinking that she's winning the democratic nomination?

now Thin Fingers at Index has a bizarre rating. The boulder move at the start of 2nd pitch seems way harder than 11a, but the rest of the route has moves at most mid-10, but sustained. I haven't done Colchuck Balanced Rock, but I heard the long crack pitch is similar -- 11a but no individual moves harder than low/mid 10. I think I also heard people saying the 5.8 chimneys there were sandbagged.

That brings up a good point about sandbagging in general. In my mind, something is sandbagged only if it seems substantially harder than similarly rated routes in the same area. So going back to BoC, if I'm a 5.9 climber, new to steep cracks, who got spit off BoC and think it's sandbagged, I really don't have any bearings to make that claim -- I'm probably just saying it's sandbagged to nurse a bruised ego. Rather, if I have climbed Toxic Shock, HoC p3, D-H, Libra Crack, Thin Fingers, and feel that BoC is inconsistent (which it's not), then I could make that claim legitimately.

if you upgrade BoC, then you'd also need to upgrade a number of other pitches at Index... Libra, HoC p3, D-H p2... which are all 10A.

there's a 40' route at Vantage to climber's right of Fat Man's Squeeze that I think is rated 10B and has a lot of slopers. To me, it felt harder than many Vantage 11As! the 10A unprotected start to G-M (at Index) seems sandbagged, even on top-rope

RC is great for stretching BoC or MK into one LONG pitch and getting extra pump! But otherwise I tend to approach BoC/MK by rapping from the top of GNS, because Lizard/GNS/variants are so fun.