Gary_Yngve

We went to the open forum at Town Hall w/ the Secretary of the Dept of Interior and Director of NPS last night. Quite an interesting experience. First, some good news -- there's an awesome-looking budget for the NPS, ramping up from now to their centennial in 2016. Other tidbits: -My god, politicians pander and brown-nose till their brown-faced. Assistants would read statements from congressmen to the Secretary regretting they couldn't attend but they thank him for coming here and they value anything he do for them and thank him for what he's already done... like five minutes worth of zero substance, just to say, welcome to town, bro. -The Secretary was an active listener and taking notes throughout the night, but his face seemed especially tense/poker-faced when global warming came up (as how it could affect the parks). -Much of the talk last night was from the historical side, not the wilderness side. Lots of folks interested in their pet projects. One particularly cool one is that Japanese internment camps becoming historical sites. -Various special interest groups wanted their say. Horseback folks (who do much trail maintenance) had issues with the new regulations requiring feed to be certified as not having weeds. Their problem is that feed is not sold in WA. The orienteering folks want courses established in Natl Parks. Some cleanup/maintenance crews want it to be easier to get approval for helicopters/machinery. -There's some concern about projects just targeting visitor centers and frontpieces, not the park as a whole. -Lots of folks want gateway communities to be considered as major stakeholders. -Getting children into the parks and getting them experiencing nature instead of Nintendo seems to be #1 priority. -If you want to speak at one of these gigs, you need to show up early. You can comment on the NPS plans here: http://parkplanning.nps.gov/commentForm.cfm?parkID=442&projectID=17892&documentId=18372

very cool letter

Vantage was the place to be this past weekend. We even slept under the stars Saturday night. I went with Wayne and Lane, and we must have bumped into at least 20 people we knew. We climbed at MidEast Wall on Saturday and Millennium/Riverview on Sunday. Much less crowded than Sunshine Wall. We climbed all three- and four-star routes and were impressed by the quality of the climbing. George and Quincy didn't have F&W parking passes this past weekend.

fyi - The Mountaineers Basic Rock 2 Fieldtrip will be at Mt. Erie next weekend (Mar 31, Apr 1).

f'n awesome!

The companies got off easy for Bhopal. Why should they get nailed for a couple of animals?

Awesome!

I think a better analogy might be climbing a route w/ one hand down your pants.

egregious gregarious would be the opposite of these men at the time, as they were each solo

You don't make sense to me. Isn't the decision normally, to STOP the antagonist or not? The effective way of stopping someone is multiple shots at the center of mass. Maybe you can argue that he decided incorrectly or too early to STOP the antagonist, but I don't believe that we can contest the degree of his response.

Sounds more like the kidney/urinary system is in charge, not the ass.

More Jamin from NWHikers: I was trying to get some grip with my crampons before I actually went into the self-arrest position. It would be easy to stop yourself on any of those slopes.

The French have a scale for grading alpine routes. It goes something like: F (easy) PD (less difficult) AD (more difficult) D (difficult) TD (very difficult) ED (extremely difficult), with +/- thrown in and numbers in the higher end. South Side of Hood is probably an F. The DC on Rainier is probably a PD. Liberty Ridge is probably a D. My guess is you've never climbed anything harder than PD, and Rainier might be your only PD? Liberty Ridge is a serious route, requiring a carryover of overnight gear for all but the fittest and most competent parties. Much of the climb would count as "no-fall" terrain, and retreat is unappetizing at best. Why don't you try other nordwands first before Lib Ridge? Like Cooper Spur, Adams Glacier, NF Shuksan, NF Buckner, NF Maude, etc.? Or other routes on Rainier like Kautz or Fuhrer Finger that have less commitment.

Sweet! I recall when you were in Pakistan a few years ago, you had gotten frostnip earlier in the season on Andromeda Strain. Did the frostnip bother you on Nanga Parbat? Do you think the frostnip will affect your summer plans?

Please don't try Liberty Ridge until you get a lot more experience.

crap, i missed it because i was too busy to read CC.com yesterday. doh

He's gradumatated from UW with a degree in ChemE, and he's headed to the Chamonix area for the next two months!

I got a conference paper deadline tomorrow night, and I'm supposed to do my share of final exam grading before then. No fun for me.

oh yeah. it rains ticks over there. you'll find some the next day too. really bad at SCW, not as bad elsewhere.

In the case of Air Guitar, the bottom can be climbed at 5.9 using faceholds well within reach. Avoiding any facehold definitely makes it harder. Actually, I'll be a dork. The last time I was at Vantage, I speed-toproped Air Guitar, from both feet on ledge (not boulder) to slapping the chains in 1m37s. If anyone wants to play the game of trying to do it faster, it might be fun in the "Uncage the Soul" Colorado lamer sort of way.

Why wouldn’t you use the face holds at the bottom? Why would a climber contrive it to be just the crack when other holds are within reach? why climb?

I'd say 5.9 if you use face moves at the bottom. The "OW" move at the top is easier than the crux on Steel Grill.

The noise from the nightclub doesn't bother me one bit. It's the afterparty in the streets at 2AM with gunfire that bothers me. As far as I'm aware, that's not standard fare for a nightclub.

I think the easier face climbs at Vantage are pretty boring, jug jug jug. I think the harder ones are more interesting. Narlux (10c) is certainly not a straight-forward jugfest. The trad routes vary. The handcracks are usually not splitter with smooth walls inside, which to me, is not that aethetic (I only climb G&M to get to the top of Red M&Ms). I have high praises for Sensimilla (10c) and Steel Grill (5.9). Air Guitar is cool, but the jamming is too short. The first half of the route is basically a face climb, and there's one fist jam at the top. It's way easy for the grade. Bob's Your Uncle has a short but sweet 5.11a strenuous fingercrack/lieback at the top.