Gary_Yngve

My favorite part was when Kerry was saying that we started the war only with the Brits and Aussies behind us, and Bush interrupted to say that Kerry forgot Poland.

It is a service, but many people seem to think it is a right and not a privelege. Cheers to Jon and Timmy for all their hard work running this site.

Agreed, great show! Some priceless stories, including that of his partner who'd brush the snow off with his mitt, take his hand out, lick his fingers, grab the hold and let things freeze, and rip his hand off the hold later... Then there was Vaseline Research...

My dad's been fighting a hairline fracture in his ankle for the past few months. Basically he's been resting it until the pain goes down enough (a few days), running ten miles, having it swell up, limping for a few days, resting a few more days, and repeating. Obviously the bone hasn't healed. I'm sure he doesn't want to keep off of it for a full month, but that might be what he has to do. Any advice on how to deal with this stubbornness?

K&K!

Damn Colin, nice job! When I first read your TR I was impressed, but after seeing Robson a few weeks ago, I'm now really impressed. btw - here is some Robson porn:

I assume you're talking about the Shark Mountain approach? Sadly they don't allow bikes past the 7km mark anymore.

Thanks to Ken, Mary, Tiva, and Anne for being great partners on this trip. Ken wins the award for most expressive with his jaw-dropping, disconcerting "Oh ... my ... God" when he saw the impassable-looking ice jumble in front of him to his I-just-won-the-lottery "Woohoo!" when our bivy site came into view.

We had a beautiful marine layer set in Sat night / Sun morn: Skies were clear as the sun set and the reds waned from Glacier Peak. Over the course of the night, the valleys started filling up, and I anxiously awaited sunrise. The sun finally crested over the mountains on the horizon. And not too long after, the clouds lit up. Views all around were grand, including toward Rainier and toward Sloan.

Climb: Kyes Peak-Pride Glacier Date of Climb: 9/25/2004 Trip Report: The glacier was quite broken up. There were mandatory rock sections, sketchy snow bridges, circuitous routefinding, and other stuff to spice things up. At the bottom, there was just a little bit of snow on ice, where you could pretty much avoid it. At the very top, there was just enough snow to kickstep without your foot shearing/slipping. But in the middle, the amount of snow on ice was pretty darn annoying and required constant mental focus. Gear Notes: Screws were nice once you shoveled off 4"-8" of snow off the ice. MSR pickets with hacksaw-sharpened tips were great... except for the person who had to clean them. Placed a picket as rock pro once... Approach Notes: Small ponds at Pt. 5771 bivy and at bivy on yellow shoulder above the glacier. Deproach: On the S Ridge, we tried contouring west around the 5800 knob instead of going over it... annoying bands of brushy trees, and in my opinion, not worth it.

I was on another nordwand this past weekend. Found things to be quite broken up. There was snow over ice. Snow was bonding well. But it was too much to ignore (i.e. more than an inch or two), but not enough to kick-step confidently. Made things a real pain in the ass. Wish I had a shovel every time I wanted to place a screw, especially near the top, where the most snow was.

Lambone, have you heard the argument how the route is not in wilderness according to the USGS maps? As far as I've heard, the routesetters consulted the USGS maps to see where the boundaries lay, but it turned out that the official wilderness boundaries are different from what's on the USGS maps. Personally, I'd be all for stripping the bolts from Garfield if they'd also boot the snowmobilers off Baker and St Helens.

I'm getting PMs asking for more info about WFR, so here it is: schedule/syllabus: http://www.nols.edu/wmi/courses/outlines/wildfirstrespondoutline.shtml Remote Medicine Inc can be contacted at (206) 686-4878

Dec 10-19. Cost is about $500.

I signed up to take WFR in Bellingham through Andrew Cull of Remote Medicine Inc (affiliated with WMI and NOLS) this December. Looking for other folks who have already signed up or may want to (preferably from Seattle) who would be up for sharing food, accomodation, gas, etc.

I have a Canon S400 and have been happy with it. The S500 that Ursa_Eagle has is basically a 5Mp version of it. Regarding the zoom being only 3x: the body is small, so the lens is relatively cool at a 2.8 max. Any zoom beyond 3x in all but bright sunlight you'd probably want a tripod. The S400 does let you bracket exposures +/- 2 in thirds, and you can use the half-press to use the light meter on what you want.

How are they doing in the Cascades? They're in their prime in the Canadian Rockies now. Seems like they should be a little early in the Cascades this year. How do the Enchantments, Maple Pass, etc. look now?

Yes, one of them was quite the snorting fellow when my friend bumped into him after dark. We saw three bull moose in a standoff, but alas, just posturing and no fighting. Anyway, it rained/snowed almost every night, though there were only noticable snow accumulations above 2500m. We managed to see ALL of Robson and all but the very top of Assiniboine, so we consider ourselves lucky. Larches were great, mushrooms were even better! Pretty much just backpacked, though did scramble up Titkana by Snowbird Pass.

I dug up the ANAM report from 2000. I'll leave out the details of the setup and miscommunication that resulted in having his head smash against the rock from his partner weighting the rope. He had a basal skull fracture, required emergency brain surgery to remove clots, and was in a coma for a week. All of this with a bucket on his melon. I think all of us would agree that he would have likely died if he were helmetless.

Cool, hopefully we'll have a few good days over there. Heading up there for a little over a week with two others -- our first time. We'll be backpacking/scrambling in the Assiniboine, Robson, and Lake Louise areas... it will be nice to get an idea for the place and the standard approaches as well as gape at climbing routes to put on my must-do list.

I always put alcohol in Nalgenes. Only thing I've noticed is that with stuff like red wine or whiskey, you have to work really hard to get the smell out of the cap. I really like those small 1-2 oz Nalgene bottles. Perfect for packing just a summit shot.

An advisor who won't say, "What were you thinking?" when he finds out I'm still the CCP?

Freedom of speech is definitely chilled if you go to protest somewhere public and someone in the majority can manhandle you out of there scot-free.

If it's not "the man" pulling your hair, to what extent can you legally physically defend yourself from that? Or, if it's not "the man" pulling you out of the room by your hair, would you have a legitimate case to charge them for assault?

My BD nut tool has holes in it that can be used to tighten nuts.