pindude

Nice TR and photos, thanks for sharing. Especially like the wood axe with the off-white tape.

E, it's gonna take at least a month to plan and get folks together. Ted, yes, I will ask the MS folks, thanks. I just got assigned a new work project that will take me to Wenatchee during weekdays for at least the next 6 weeks. I'll be back on weekends. How about a weekend day in June. Who's interested in helping, and what weekend day would be good? And hey, E, I like the new avatar with the nice big, uh, beer steins.

The West Face is another free route commonly done in a day by fast parties. 20 pitches total, mostly 5.10, with 4 "spots" of 5.11 or so.

I moved away from Seattle when I was still fairly young, so others may know better about JP. Regardless, he was a Seattle icon throughout the 60s and 70s, and is speculated to be the inspiration for Matt Groening's Krusty the Clown.

JP Patches, every morning before school.

Frontline is meant for dogs and cats, and is dosed by weight/size. Yeah, I think best for you may be to do the collar thing. No guarantees on what might fall off, though.

Frontline isn't meant to be ingested, it's applied topically between the animals shoulder blades where the animal can't get to it and ingest it. When used correctly, it's safe and it works. For dogs and cats vs. ticks and fleas, I understand it's the most recommended by vets. The red-hot needle thing is also plain wrong and flat-out unnecessary. I'm sure quite a few kids were burned from it.

DON'T twist them as you pull: that's why the body is being pulled off the head. The twisting "trick" is plain wrong. And forget the alcohol swab thing too. After getting the body perpendicular to the host skin surface, and separating it from as much hair as possible (and as I mentioned above), slowly and gently PULL IT STRAIGHT OFF. My nurse wife calls it "perpendicular traction." Archie, if you brought your pet over, I'd be glad to give you lessons. Frontline is the best. It will very effectively keep ticks from latching on, but our dogs will still bring ticks into the house on top of their fur before the ticks bail off wherever they may be in the house, not untypically on our beds. And oh, yeah, Makers Mark will indeed work. But only if you drink it yourself. Work for what?

I realize you said you're burnt out on nursing, but I've got a couple friends, plus had a US Marine cousin, who had RNs and went on to become nurse anesthetists. All have or had great interests in the outdoors, and being a nurse anesthetist allowed them a fair amount of time off to play, plus they received good pay.

OK, so my wife who is a ARNP took some of the smirk off my face. Thanks mtnsk8r. Mouth parts can be accidentally left in, which can cause serious complications. Another tick malady most know about, and is more prevalent in the Rockies, is Rocky Mtn Spotted Fever, which can occur with imbedded mouth parts. I once watched another "fiddle" a tick out with tweezers, pulling the body apart, and the tweezers were ultimately useful to get the mouth parts out. This person was an MD. In my experience, tweezers--especially sharp ones--are more likely to tear a tick body off before the tick is pulled out. Especially if the tick is an enlarged, engorged, blood-filled female, fingers work better. When you're done, just don't lick your fingers or eat before you wash your hands. Less than 10% of the ticks I've pulled are the engorged type: Most are like this little guy, which is about 10-20% the size of the above:

So, did your doc fiddle around with you with Vaseline?

In my 40+ years of living in the northwest (mostly east of the Cascade crest), I've pulled more than a 1,000 ticks off dogs, horses, sheep, and a few off myself and others, and NEVER have I pulled the head off. I'd expect the tick to be dead if by chance you did; certainly it's not going to regenerate a body. Ticks generally latch on in hairy areas. You don't need need tweezers. Position the tick so it's ass end and body are as perpendicular as possible to the skin it's attached, and separate it from hair as much as you can. Pinch it gently on its abdomen as far forward as possible, between your thumb and forefinger. Pull gently. The tick will likely take a few tiny flecks of skin with it, but cause no or minimal bleeding. Some say to pull on the tick for up to 60 seconds before pulling it completely away, causing the tick to fatigue a bit and relax it's clamp so less skin is lost, but I've found that their grip is pretty tenacious and that doesn't help much if at all. You can't easily smash their tiny exoskeleton bodies by stepping on them. If pulling off one or two, I'll smash them between a pointed small rock and a hard surface; for more I'll put them in a jar which can be emptied in a toilet. One tick does not make a "savage attack." Most recently I pulled 17 off my folks' dog in mid-April when we realized ticks had just come into season here in eastern Washington. I immediately after that topically applied to the dog a product called Frontline, a systemic prevantitive that will keep ticks from latching on to dogs or cats, and lasts about 30 days. The ticks will go away once we get a few days in a row of real heat, but they could last for a couple months overall. Lyme disease in incredibly rare in the NW. A boating buddy of mine was diagnosed with it 20 years ago. His doc told him his was the first reported case in the Inland NW. Tick Paralysis is another malady: Coming home after a week of climbing, I went to my folks' house to pick up my dog. His hind end collapsed underneath him as he came running toward me. I immediately found and pulled off a fat female who had latched on right on top of his spine near the base of his tail and likely had been there the whole week. He was fine after that. Jeez you guys, you're supposed to be burly, manly climbers, what gives? Check your pets and yourselves frequently, and have some fun with it with your wife/girlfriend. Eric, Rocks of Sharon is crawling with the little buggers right now, be careful. Not sure how well DEET may help. Bigtree, good thing you've got a non-squeamish wife. And Mtn Mouse, buck up, or we'll send Donny Baker over to take care of you.

Mmm mmm mmm mmm. Forgetting something, Dru? Always thought it was a Canadian thing since the Crash Test Dummies wrote about "shaking and lurching all over the church floor." Leave it to Yanks to perfect it, though. -4WbwwhBmRk

My personal opinion is that it's not all that controversial. Westerners and Yanks have continued to explore and climb in Pakistan over the past 10+ years, although there certainly are areas of Pakistan to avoid for gringos. Thanks for posting, I didn't know much about Mountain Fund before. If their website is an accurate portrayal of the organization, they'll do many great things.

Right, that's nymphodema

Hey NYC Just head out to the local crag and show up there on your own. Before the advent of climbing discussion boards (in the old days), Spokane-area climbers used to just show up at Minne and find partners that way. It's still the best way. I've been out there a few late afternoons so far this spring, and there've been several groups of climbers. Most are pretty social and would be glad to share a rope or a belay, including learn or be pushed a bit by a climber such as yourself. For quite a few years, especially in the late 80s, the varied group of folks that hung out there were pretty tight. Back then and up through the early 90s, I'd show up most weekday evenings. Finding partners was usually not a problem, even with less climbers back then. If I didn't find or didn't want a partner, I'd boulder or rope-solo. I'm sure Post Falls/Q'emiln will have a similar scene as Minne nowadays. It can't hurt either to twist Bigbro's arm. I'm also sending you a PM for another possible partner who would swap leads with you. [edited to add: yeah, spotly would be a good podner too] Good luck.

Thanks spotly for your offer. Yes, we need to get everything we can from the main bouldering area, to main to secondary faces including Don Q, and the bouldering area we can reach above secondary face. It'll be an effort. I estimate it'll take a full day with at least 4-5 people to pull compressor, haul around and load sand pot, blast, and cleanup. For areas off the ground, I have a steel cable to hang from that can be rigged from above. No date yet, but it'll take time to plan and recruit. Here's three photos from 2002's gargantuan effort where we blasted over 4 days, and 200 folks showed up for the final full day. Folks showing up on the wet morning of the big, final cleanup day: Novice Rocks blasting with compressor, sand pot on truck: Blasting on Heart Route:

My wife recently traveled to Wisconsin. She asked me what I wanted her to bring back. I said simply, "cheese." She brought back a white cheddar with cranberries in it. Took me a week of thinking about it plus some hunger before I could try it out, which was about 45 minutes ago. It's actually pretty good.

Thanks, E. A few weeks I am glad to wait. I'd like to see her results too! Cheers

High, Glad you said something. I was just about to sandblast all that off. I don't want to take anything away from your cutie. How long does she need for her little experiment? BTW teach, it's spelled Minnehaha, "Minne" for short.

Man, mccallboater, you've climbed and skied everything! I'd hate to ask what you've boated. I've only looked at this coming and going from a couple other points in the area. Oh yeah, never mind...there's no climbing in North Idaho, none at all.

From what I'm reading in the online medical lit, there isn't a standard treatment for chronic lymphedema. In addition to Layton's suggestion of drainage massage, there's a procedure called Sequential Gradient Pump Therapy, and also compression, "therapeutic exercise," and topical treatments. Not sure if you've seen the following, but for anything health-related, I typically go to Medline first. Medline search: http://search.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/query?MAX=500&SERVER1=server1&SERVER2=server2&PARAMETER=lymphedema&DISAMBIGUATION=true&FUNCTION=search&x=101&y=7 Vascular Web: http://www.vascularweb.org/_CONTRIBUTION_PAGES/Patient_Information/NorthPoint/Lymphedema.html Even Wikipedia has some good lay info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lymphedema Good luck with it all, Oly.

Arch, I don't think you've heard of ex-BD engineer Chris Harmston's lab tests and evaluation after the incident, which is some interesting reading. Surprised no one's mentioned this yet. Rope age initially was a question considering Osman had left his ropes and rigging up for quite a while, although I can't remember exactly how long, before his last jump. Harmston did some personal testing of the actual rope and came to his own conclusions, among them that the rope was okay and he would have climbed on it himself. He concluded the rope broke not due to tensile overload but because it came into contact with another rope during the jump, with nylon rubbing on nylon. Here's Harmston's report in pdf format at AdventureGuides.com. Yes, just an opinion, but an informed one nonetheless. I agree with your bottom line Arch that one always wants to ensure they're on "good equipment." For those just getting started--what this thread is supposed to be about--know that it is incredibly rare for a rope to break. Lastly, climbing IS dangerous, but there are ways to mitigate risk, least of which is to learn from others.

Hey Spotly, You're forgetting your local resources. Looking through my own library, I've got 3 guides you of all people are more than welcome to borrow: 1. The Climber's Guide to Lake Louise, by Krause & Vincent. No date, but I bought in '97, has same list of climbs Gene Pires ref'd above. Tiny guide, only 30+ pp. 2. Bow Valley Rock, Perry & JoJo, 2000. Real comprehensive, beautiful work, 400+ pp. 3. Banff Rock Climbs, Toft, 2nd ed. Again no date, I bought in 1988. About 100 pp. So when are you goin?