ivan

maybe some day i'll move back to ireland if my dear wife would only pass away she's got me heart nearly broken w/ her naggin she's got a mouth as big as galway bay see her drinking 16 pints of pabst blue ribbon (commercial!) and then she walks home w/o a sway if the sea was beer instead of salty water she'd live and die in galway bay!

another thing i remembered - in the months leading up to denali every 2 weeks or so i'd climb hood via the dog-route at night - get off work, get a phatty-dinner while driving up to t-line, take a quick nap in the parking lot, then do the slog, get back down, take another power-nap, then drive to work. pink's right, getting motivated to get after it in inclement conditions/darkness is a big part of the training thang. a few months out i'd recommend doing 2 a day workouts too, 'fore work and after. don't know how poor you are - i couldn't afford then or now much in the way of big gym or special class fees - running n' hiking n' climbing are pretty damn good training for running n' hiking n' climbing though...

fighting irish? a bit redundant, no?

you mean da governmint doesn't always arrest evil doers?!?

and what i mean by this is, everyone go up there and beat in the track and put in all the tool placements for me so i can skip work n' solo it monday night!

sure, the n face might be in like flynn, but this weekend's my little girl n' dear wife's b-days, so i've got better things to do b/c i, after much mediation and soul-searching, have straitened my priorities

no way i'm sharing my camels or my sammy!

on the plus side, this recent rain/snow event oughta have put in the n face gullies after all those tr's saying it wasn't set up yet

and to keep the bulk up, a mandatory 40 oz of da blue bull upon passing through the ledge on each lap

running on a treadmill ain't so bad - just smoke a huge blunt first, then listen to an entire hendrix album while you haul ass - you get extra pts for air-guitaring through the entirety of "voodoo child" sublime and other assorted ear-candy help the miles melt away bottom line, doing an hour of intense cardio a day quickly gets you in whatever cardio shape you gotta be - big mountains like kili, denali, etc ain't that tough anyhow - mostly a lotta glorified hiking w/ plenty of time for sitting around camp sucking down ho-hos and smoking your toilet paper

you might still be able to go the back way from hood river though, no? take a right off 35 going south in whatever the hell that last little town is?

2 weeks later, only 1 memory of this climb remains for me - the 8 pound thanksgiving sandwhich i hauled up to illumination for me dinner (a whole loaf of french bread w/ alternating layers of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy - christ, i'm drooling just thinking on it!), plus the bottle of merlot and exactly 3 smokes i brought along to chase it down to my mind, that is precisely the difference between alpinism and mountaineering, and gawddamn, mountaineering has it's place!

Let's see... ...illegal immigrants, 1st floor, meth lab, 2nd floor, grow op, top floor. I think I can make 12K/mo pencil out. are the immigrants working on the top floors for their rent? might want to switch the meth and weed floors though, so when the lab bursts into flames it don't take the chronic w/ it and give all them poor fire-fighters a mighty-funny-feeling

true dat - gautheir's on this site a fair bit too (though perhaps not recently, or i'd imagine he'd of responded) - try pm'ing him (what's his avatar?) or check out his website for an address.

and the fall alpinist or the one before that had that huge picture of el cap w/ a buncha folks on it - the list said the good cap'n was supposed to be there but i could never figure which one he was...

"space seed" was on last night - it'd been awhile...

if you're just taking a bivy sack, are you planning then on sleeping at the muir hut? cooking in the open can be damn near impossible if the conditions are poor. it can be really, really, really shitty up there in winter - on a denali training climb on rainier in december a number of years ago, it took us almost 2 full days just to make it to muir! (granted, in poor weather and deep powder w/ a shit-ton of camp-weight) be confident in your ability to navigate in white-out!

and, as of last weekend, the reid and luetholds coulior (and probably yocum's too, on a cold, cold day) were in - the only question for the next few months for the first 2 will be avi conditions, as that whole side of the mountain is Dangerous when slides are happening the standard route is in, w/ the path of least resistance being the old crater (left of the pearly gates and hogs back) the north face i'd say is def cooler than the reid, but much more difficult to catch in the right conditions and not really an enjoyable day climb when having to hike the entire tilly jane trail to boot! that whole side of the mountain is where you wanna be though if you want the whole wilderness-meal-deal - the south side is a human zoo on anything resembling a decent weather day...

what rough monster, it's hour come round at last, slouches towards bethlehem to be born?

are the boots so she can still do it in zero-g?

dunno - i had mine for 5 years before losing it in a spastic stupor on the lucerne dock while staring at a tasty little MILF - never had problems w/ it and liked it much more than the cheap bastard i have now

but THE MAN won't let me!

when in rome...

gotta imagine she is pretty clueless though...