J_Kirby

Yer gettin ripped up there, though I wouldn't move to Portland just to save a buck or two. Any Seattle folks got a better idea?

Get over it. Go get their $8 cable package, get the $10 discount. It doesn't matter if you have a TV or not, you save $2/month off the old price with no spray interuption.

Mmmmmmm . . . Mad Cow burger.

I really like my Olympus Stylus 400. Don't know why those wankers were complaining about image quality as it works great at what it is intended to do. Its got all the features mentioned except sound with video. I don't shoot video with my camera though, so I don't consider that a drawback. At 4 MP and with all the rubber seals and metal case, this was exactly the camera I wanted. It is very small and the case can be slippery when wet as I found out the other day when it took a bit of a ride out of my hands. It bounced squarely off a metal edge on the way to the floor and only suffered a small ding. Needless to say I am happy with the beefy construction. As far as battery consumption goes, this camera takes close to 500 pictures on a single battery charge. It only takes a Li-Ion battery but the battery can be recharged in 2 hours using the included wall charger.

Dually noted. Plans were changed and my bro and I hit the pow at meadows on Saturday. Except for some near whiteout moments, a good time was had by all.

First time my dad drove his chocolate brown Volvo 240 (with NC plates) through Elgin circa 1985, the cops pulled him over cause they figured he MUST be a drug dealer. Only drug dealers drive Volvos.

Nice Call Mr. E. This will save lots of headaches later. Some gyms will also use a tiny nail tapped in right on the edge of the T-nut. The head of this nail should hang over the back of the T-Nut for extra security against spinners. Spinners will happen over time no matter what you do, so also remember to build the wall in such a way as to be able to remove individual panels without having to tear down the whole wall. This will make repairing spinners A LOT easier.

I suppose that I probably didn't need more than that to stay in some sort of shape, but I'm happy with the way mine turned out. The old wall I mentioned had mattresses for crash pads like yours. I learned the hard way though that if you come off and land knee first, you can actually smack the floor pretty hard through a mattress. I spent a bit extra this time and made myself two queen size foam mats that keep me off the concrete even when I flail and come off the ceiling. Guess I'll have to put off buying that #4.5 Camalot til next year.

About $700 of that figure is in the 350 or so bolt-on holds I've got up. Those holds were from people looking to cash out and were great deals at sizes ranging from 2"-2' across. The rest is in high quality plywood and framing lumber ($450), hardware ($150), and crashpads/flooring ($200). The day I finished wall construction I was hanging like-new holds on around 375 SF of climbable wall. Cheap is fine, but I wanted a top shelf wall and that's what I ended up with. You say you built a wall for $250? What size? Fized or free standing? Multiple faces or single face? Straight or changing angles? Aretes and corners or flat faces? I helped build a 8' x 8' wall when I was in college for around $200 total, but that wall was a lot different from my current setup. It hung from the rafters in our garage, had adjustable pitch (read: moved when you climbed on it), and a 36 pack of Metolius holds. You better believe that thing didn't see much traffic after a while. I’m just giving Lambone the benefit of the doubt and tossing a number out for a quality wall that’ll add value to a garage and get some real traffic.

For a 1/3 garage, fixed base wall/ceiling well outfitted with all hardware, holds and mats my experience says figure in the $1500 range. It may seem like a lot but when the weather sucks outside and the freshies are not-so-fresh, having your own wall .

GT-The one to the right IS kinda exciting actually. Its your stock Smithy nubbin/edge tiptoe for the first bit and mellows at the end to finish at the same anchors as Catherine Finds an Edge. The no-pro step off the pedestal with a bit of exposure made for a pant-loading experience for me when I was just working into 5.9 land. Also, its probably MUCH cleaner than when I did it years ago. Pretty exciting to clip the first couple bolts and look all the way down at the anchors for Jete/Dancer.

GT- The route on the right skyline of Asterix pass (from the main area) is Catherine Finds an Edge. Its a bolted 5.7 and proly the one you guys did (stellar views of both sides of the park from there). Sounds like good times.

A buddy of mine used to answer to Spanky the Wonder Trout. His kid has yet to ask why we call him "Spank." Another friend goes by Zippy the Wonder Sloth. If you ever see Zippy on a WRX with an OR plate, that's him.

The sign has been up for many moons now. The Northwest Forest Pass is required for all good little lemmings. I think I saw two in the entire lot this weekend. I think your jibbers meant they were "dragged up" those routes by their helmet sportin' middle aged troop leader.

There was a van full from PU on Saturday, but the thing that really got me about them was not their numbers but the pile of several dozen 20oz water bottles stacked next to them on the trail. One of the younger ones in their group (someone's kid?) was occasionally pitching one off the trail and watching bounce down the slope into the trees. Shoulda pitched the parent off too.

Saturday, a friend and I were up the Salmon River getting a quick bolt clippin fix at the slab and decided to go over and check out the zoo at French's. The pullout lot was full and the place was crawling with people. Most lines had a herd of people or a rope on them. I counted almost thirty people and five dogs, too many people around for us to break out the rope, but I showed my friend the lines anyway as he had never been there before. While walking around, I noticed that the direct start to Giant’s Staircase (straight up to the anchors from the downhill side) has been bolted since last time I looked closely at that face. It was my understanding that this line was historically a scramble/TR route and I had done it a few times as such. We didn’t climb the line Saturday, as we were attempting to avoid the cluster, but the bolts looked poorly placed from the ground with longish studs left sticking out. Any Portland folks know anything about the retro of this route? Who dunnit? Why? Did it receive FA approval?

I smell a TR in the making . . . .

So, operating under the assumption that his sexual identity crisis is in fact a disease in need of treatment (as the lawyers seem to be arguing it is), wouldn't following through on this operation simply bring the inmate's gender confusion to a "head"? The jokes just write themselves Doctor, doctor, I'll just DIE if I don't get my junk lopped off (or these pink pumps)!

Mmmm, The Dalles, Armpit of The Columbia Gorge©

That wall is maybe 18-20' tall. Seriously weak sauce that they kicked you out. I used to "solo" in there on a regular basis, especially the chimney. Then again, it pays to know the guys (girls) working the desk.

That's the Ataris. Not bad at all FWIW. A little more

"Take on Me"

SB - Thanks for the clarification for winter, makes sense to me now. Sounds just as bomber as the Bowline on a bight but maybe easier to equalize. I'll have to give it a shot this weekend and see how it works for me. I also like to add some adjustability to my distance to the power point when using the Bowline on a bight. It probably would work with sb/retro's method too. I tie the bowline (or Figure eight) an extra few feet from my harness and use a clove hitch to take out the extra slack, leaving my figure eight tie in as the backup. Then I adjust the clove hitch as necessary to move around the stance.

Tying two knots is overly complicated? Clipping two loops is unecessarily dificult? Thanks, Twight. Hadn't heard of that method but it sounds interesting. Kind of like an american triangle using rope instead of webbing. Wouldn't that generate similar forces on each bolt to an american triangle setup (approaching 2x the load on the master point)? If my mental picture is right, you'd be generating a whole lot of force on those two bolts in a leader fall situation right off that belay. Sounds like it could get ugly if the anchor wasn't rerigged for the lead of the next pitch.

Gotta second Toast and Mr. Long. The bowline on a bight and a directional figure eight are the shiznit for two bolt Smith-style anchors when you're swinging leads. Single pitch or changing leaders requires something more involved with a single point accesible to both climbers.