ivan

dunno for meself - i've always strived for mediocrity in all things - i thiiiink i've suceeded pretty well at that endeavor

"There are, in every age, new errors to be rectified and new prejudices to be opposed." Samuel Johnson

So in other words...you are incredibly selfish... dude, did you not know? i am the calm little center of the world. you vying for sainthood? st bone does have a fine ring to it...

rousseau's "social contract" has your answers stp - yes, you can be forced to become enlightened - it's what made so many heads roll in the french revolution! in this case, i don't think the state is trying to paint a picture of what an "ideal society" looks like, merely saying, "here are some elements it WON'T have, like shamelessly discriminating against people based on an inherent characteristic" - you're not one of those nut-jobs that think folks chose what they fancy to fuck, eh? polygamy should be legal - the state has no right to tell you who or how many folks you can marry - it's none of its business - prostitution should be legal too - pedophilia as you mention is dumb (clearly the state has an obligation to protect those who can't protect themselves, like children and the mentally disabled) how is the state invalidating the wishes of a parent in this issue? the state can't keep you from retreating to a shack in the middle of the woods, shunning all outside content - home-school baby!

if i stopped climbing i would kill my kids, my wife, my neighbors, everybody in safeway, anyone driving a prius or a ford truck, non-smokers, the religious, the spastic, every "john" in the world, anyone to the political right or left of me, and generally everyone i randomly ran into - it is for the good of the global world order then that i fritter away the best days of my life in meaningless combats far from the eyes of the disinterested

you moving to florida rob? i figured if i couldn't climb anymore that scuba-diving would be the next great hobby frontier for me...

i think that they twain of us could consume all the xanax in the world and not be able to achieve such an end how the hell was VT 4th though? jeebus, they're the gheyiest state in the union, no?

Sounds like you guys need to dial in the "leave no trace" system a bit. huh? seems to me this reads like we did, in fact, leave no trace?

nature is not a person - it doesn't exist, it has no feelings, no preferences, so it doesn't give a shit what we do to it - if nature did have a brain i doubt it would worry - its 5 billion years old and would know full well in a short time all the alterations of man will all be gone anyway that said, you could have a zero bolt crag, you'd just have to work to keep it that way and be prepared for things to get nasty - duh. the folks out at rocky butt are plenty succesful in chopping new bolts as they appear. of course they are broadly considered fools. if your no-bolt crew doesn't maintain a presence though, the bolts will appear.

if only i had 250$ i reached the anchor from my hook - i just wanted to about it!

but we had to beat the goldbar traffic! actually i woulda liked to continue up the last crack, but the long drive ahead, the lack of consensus, the recalcitrant dankness and the topo assurance of it being a 'dirty crack' nixed the motivation - ah well, i was never in any danger of being hardcore - next time i'll just aid solo it and there'll be no debate!

homemade cheat stick based on my memory of beaconben's design - the smallest gauge aluminum i could find at home depot and two shitty biners w/ a bunch of duck tape - after the last debacle at smith w/ the shredded rope i've taken to carrying another small roll of duck tape wound round a baby syringe in my back pocket as it happened, the cheat stick made my life a great deal simpler at the top of the 4th pitch

kev's right - a tr w/o pictures is like a day w/o killing - so in honor of you, magic bone, here are some shots i just find from the other day at the ratt cave: the grueling, ugly approach (note 6 pack in hand to cushion the blow) dope on a rope loooooks like solid rock, no? portrait of the artist as a young man

requiem for a rock

you labor under the illusion that drunken teenagers, seeing such a sign, would throw LESS off the edge

clearly you didn't see the chix she set out w/

she's not the wordsmith needed to craft a fine-spun tale, though the lesbian beach-weekend she had the other week did indeed have fine source material

yesterday my boy mike thanked the good people of goldbar by disposing of his sack of human shit there - now if more folks did this we'd have a more powerful effect than some g'damn letter writing campaign!

shoes make you not naked naked hijinx in the land of poison oak is madness indeed!

Trip: Index TW - Waking The Dragon From Her Winter Slumber Date: 4/4/2009 Trip Report: this past weekend miker and i brought in the spring to upper wall - we arrived in crisp, cold air but under glorious bluebird skies - the wall was dripping like mad, but with the prospect of fine weather to continue, we decided to thole a soggy portaledge experience saturday night and finished up the green dragon on sunday, even as the last of the snow melted off up top and the wall dried out the beast in question, center frame nothing so cool as to be able to belay on a wall while looking across at a fine traverse you've already done! the main waterfall pouring off the wall made life continuously interesting - sudden strong gusts of wind would send squalls shooting through us, on the ground or up high no difference i used my mad short-fixing skills to reach the belay under the green roof in one push - the 5.9 start was mandatory aid for me as it was a small waterfall, the 4th class bit on the ledge hardly better! the next long bit took nuts beautifully and soared up to the anchor for our portaledge - though it was blazing hot i was cold and damp the entire time as the crack pulsed w/ water - that night i realized i burned the bejesus out of the back of my neck and yet my face had not an ounce of sun on it below the green dragon's namesake roof we decided to set up the portaledge (only my 3rd time attempting this most exotic manoveure, one that went very poorly last time) - when we first arrived the drip and funk was not so bad there, but sadly it grew worse later - a fun moment when a knot in of the stays failed - camp established, mike set off to lead and fix the next pitch to under the final roof the drip and wind-borne mist grew worse as i sat and shivered, chain-smoking - eventually i rigged up my z-rest as a big-wall awning to keep the worst off my head, then worked my way into the haul bag to get my extra layers on and my sleeping bag and bivy sack over my legs mike returned, and w/ the better part of my liter of wine dispensed, i took care of the serious business disinterested in figuring out how to make a pocket-rocket work w/o a hanging system, we subsisted on cold ravioli and chowder and took in the evening ambiance as it grew cold - the moon came out, bright enough to read by the night proved interesting - we couldn't really pimp too well w/ the infernal shower that, unlike a true rain-storm, held no hope of ever ceasing, so soon enough we crawled deep into our bivies and set to sleep, not much of a problem since we'd left vancouver at 430 in the morning - still, my dreams were troubled, and i woke to find my feet 20 degrees above my head, the ledge dangerously out of balance - i'm simply too retarded to ever comprehend these most inconcievable contraptions! the day broke bright and warm to the sight of the fixed pitch that would quickly warm me up time to get down to bidness off i shot up the fixed line, intending to short-fix above while mike broke down camp and followed me - mike also won the hero-award for the weekend when he used my preoccupation as his opportunity to have a nice BM on the ledge - i've yet to try this delicate operation meself! our humble camp the rest of the climb was uneventful - the aiding out from under the roof was wild fun, very like takes fist or the crack w/ no name at beacon - my main complaint being the bit just below the next anchor where, inexplicably, the bolt ladder ends, leaving the typical fat-ass aider such as myself most of the rope out facing a very long fall - happily, the vermin-hook i was carrying fit a small pocket-hole perfectly, enough for me to clip the next bolt w/ my cheater stick at full reach mike used the opportunity under his belay roof to catch one of the many banes of our existence the night before - by the time we'd finished on the route though the drip was almost entirely gone and all the approach pitches bone dry a number of double-rope raps got us down to our bags and off the wall - i recovered the many butts i pitched down the wall and mike his sack of shit and we made our goodbyes to the upper wall, where we'd seen no one the whole time, only to encounter a veritable goddamn zoo at the lower wall a long tiring drive back to the 'couve and my spring break was over - dammit! Gear Notes: my newly purchased dmm offsets have proved quite nice in the 2 trips i've made w/ them Approach Notes: index might have taller and more numerous routes than beacon rock, but god damn that hike up to the upper wall, together w/ the long drive, sure brings the balance back!

these problems will all get better after obama invents the teleporter

falling 3 1/2 stories and landing on your head is a perfectly speedy way to die - i seem to recall much of the ground around horsethief is very broken too and conducive to icky landings

yes, save the tears...for the endless slow walk up the hill w/ a giant haulbag to even reach town crier thanx for the recommendations - we woke up the green dragon from its winter slumber this weekend, overnighting on a ledge under the big green roof, but unfortunately not out of the continous drizzle - by noon yesterday the upper wall was dry, except for the large waterfall and davis-holland, green dragon and town crier were in fine climbing form!

nah, that level of dap ya only get after ya catch a fly w/ a pair'a forking chopsticks