ivan

as the author of one of the terrible things said that came to pass, i'd remind you to re-read what he wrote too - he asked for advice on something that was dumb, he was told it was dumb, than got angry that he was told his idea was dumb. harsh language is fun, especially on the inter-web b/c it truly doesn't matter here - if you're from nyc you're skin oughta be plenty thick. obviously no one actually wanted him to die. do you really want a totally shiny happy cc.com?

jeez, i stop reading the hood shenanigans thread for a couple of days and it blows up like a spaghetti-pinata - can anyone give me the highlights so i can not die during my next hike?

god i hate that fucking clown! when my parents had the good sense to show me that flick when i was 8 i immediately came to understand eddie murphy's deep contempt for white people ("why do white people stay in the house when there's a ghost? in poltergeist, not only did the white people stay, they invited more white-people over! and come on, the girl was like 5 years old, how attached could you really be to her anyway?" the boy was total choad too - for fucks sake, the clown tried killing you - what the fuck was he doing in any sort of recognizable shape a couple of days later?!?

then you might be interested in buying this fine publication every year - imagine stripping this thread down to the quintessential facts and lessons - you'd get about 3-4 paragraphs - available in fine bookstores everywhere

kinda like a car accident though - i can't NOT look!

the times about come to stop worrying about details - it's over folks - time to let the folks who have the grieving to do to get to it w/o the temptation to continue to follow endless speculation over crap that truly does not matter. no amount of reconstruction reverses that fact that 3 men are gone. so what if you had a play-by-play, minute-by-minute transcript of the events? - unless you're a relative or friend it's just morbid curiosity - and if you did know the deceased, the search to understand what happened will never end, no matter how many more details you acquire. start healing. start remembering the good times. turn the tv off. make your last thank-yous and go back to the bosum of your diminshed family. if you've the blood of a good irish-man like me, it's time to tie one on nice and tight, and please let other people do all the buying. there is no concievable lesson to be learned here beyond the fact that mountaineering is indeed dangerous, especially in winter, regardless of training or equipment. and that death for young men in good health is not cool.

i don't know how to put words to what i'm feeling mt hood has always felt like an extra room in my house - a great big playroom - intimate, familiar...home. i feel as if a crime has now happened inside my demense - a murder, a rape, an unspeakable act of violence - i fear that it will be a long time before i will be able to walk on that hill i love so much without seeing the ghastly fingerprints of the tragedy. i want to go back now very soon - as soon as the mountain clears again i will return, if only to excorcise the demon that has temporarily claimed it. i don't need to look like some voyoeur on the crime scene. i need to forgive the mountain, and try too to forgive myself for the things i am inexorably drawn to do to those who love me. perhaps it's best not to anthropomorphize the mountain? - it is afterall only an immense piece of frozen lava thrust high up into the rarified and stormy pacific airflow - it doesn't care about me or you or anyone - it has no sense of self, no spirit - it is rather for we humans, especially we climbers, to infuse that lifeless mass of rock and snow with the charity and warmth of human endeavor, with a soul of memories from countless excursions up its graceful flanks - undboutedly that glow will dim for awhile, but it will not die - as long as men and women feel the nebolous desire to test themselves in tempestous places it will be a home - i hope for all of us, most particurarily the families of the lost (a band of the bereaved that includes many more than just the families from this most recent tragedy), that the seasons will renew in us the love of nature that was our birth-right, that time will erase the memories of the horror and confusion and agony of this terrible theft, and leave us in the end with only the cherished memories of happier times and the people we shared them with, when the fate that hangs over all our heads was not known to us, when it seemed that the smiles could never die. the mountain will live longer than all of us. longer than our children. longer than our race. it will last longer than any tombstone. it is therefore a fitting and appropriate memorial for all who have left their lives there. please don't look towards it with hate. let that go. go there again soon, with me if you want, or alone which is often much better - go there and look up from timberline, or make tracks up the long slope - go there and remember it is a place of dreams, even if sometimes they turn to nightmares - in the morning we will all wake and it will better - believe it.

no, the descent down the cooper spur or sunshine route on the north isn't as hard and just requires careful downclimbing (no rappeling) - there is more exposure to deadly falls on the north side though, also more avalanche potential, plus there's no immediate civilization at timberline on the north, but 2500 feet more of snowy trails to reach a parking lot edit - oops, kinda misread your question. from the summit, to drop off onto the north side isn't as hard as to climb the entire north side - no rappeling is required but you certainly must be very careful as falling there will be fatal

climbers w/ experience crave more difficult routes to test themeselves against- that's not a shame, that's normal - barry bonds prefers to play ball against professionals, not kids i too hope no one is hurt looking for them - they wouldn't want that either of course

i like the indian explanations better... "big mountain make cloud angry! death to go up there, pale-face!"

and with your intellect you = 0, so it all evens out. now that's fawk'n funny!

thanks dan_ - already said i'm hoping for the best and i meant it - if anyone wants the whole story on that exchange from a year and a half ago either start another thread or pm me

definetly b/c of the kim thang - that was a great story in that it had all the elements of a movie, man vs. nature, epic survival, hope, salvation and then tragedy thing and the media was already in a frenzy over that and still doing details on that story when this one broke - and this story also has those uber-dramatic elements as jordop mentions - its a tidy story in the sense that it lacks the moral complexity or total boredom of an iraq story, or politics, or any of the other crap that's more important in the grand scheme of things but not so interesting to actually sit down and watch. it'll be a much better story if our boys come down from it in the end to make a tv-movie of the week and turn into spray-dogs.

their planned route was strait up the center in that deep gully that runs strait up to the summit - it's about a 50 degree angle

man - i'm hoping "ice-slut" gets mention in the ny times too - gotta love the avalanche of folks w/ 1-20 posts showing up in the hood thread

they weren't descending the ascent route (or even that side of the mountain)- and wands placed in the north face gullies on hood wouldn't last more than an hour or so in weather like this anyway

shit! 107 folks currently viewing the oregon forum - how you gon' get noticed for your command of fine swear-words over here in the lame-o climber's board forum?

so i'm too lazy to look up the distance, but how far a walk from the nearest point of entry to a route on rainier right now? what a cool time to do a climb...arc must be crazy stoked!

if PMR or anybody needed help this would be the perfect place to ask for it - there must be a hundred of us here who've climbed that hill 3000 ways to sunday (and could gladly use an excuse to skip work to do something that normally has zero practical use at all)

I hope for the best still. It's been awhile since i read -148 F. I seem to recall those 3 toughed it out in a snow cave for a week or so (anyone remember how long?) with almost no gear or food. There seem to be dozens of stories of folks going for days in the steamcaves ontop of rainier during foul-weather. It can be done. These guys can make it.

because there's no civilization on the north side. no phones. no people to help. i am confused by the apparent proximity of the cave to the summit and yet they went down the cooper spur? the south side would have made far more sense, and if they were already in whiteout, then zig-zag might well be where they ended up

it just seems like one of those things to me - you pay for your ticket and get the time off work, you want your money's worth on the climb, and are more likely to accept poor conditions where if you lived out here you'd just stay in the hot tub pounding beers, planning for next week - that dynamic can't really be changed or regulated, when traveling to climb you just need to be aware of the tendency towards doing stupid shit and be extra-sure you're not going to get yourself killed just to justify a couple hundred bucks

you know, a night in the new love box n' all....

Some analogies do involve binding personal contracts. Try enlisting, then walking away in the middle of a battle, stating that you've 'changed your mind', and see what happens. i warm to your idea, but an enlistment contract is pretty damn specific as to your obligation (you will serve X numbers of years - and the oath makes you affirm that you have no intention of shirking your obligations in a fight) it just seems to me that, as the states did say they were individually sovereign prior to the constitution, that the constitution would need to be equally specific about forever and eternally trumping that sovereignity as a condition of joining i would never enter into any relationship that i thought impossible to dissolve - it seems strange to me that anyone would - perhaps this is why i failed as a papist?

War of Northern Aggression word - his quotes/speeches are like butta! so joining the usa as a state then was like joining a gang? or becoming muslim? once in, you can't get out w/o getting killed by the other members? if the north had choosen to secede from the south, there would be two countries where today there are one. and you can bet secession would be considered legal. in the end, truth is meaningless - strength is everything, and the north was stronger. i would be interested in knowing the opinion of each of the constitution's signers on whether or not they thought the state they signed for would be able to leave the union later if the union failed to live up to the promise of the preamble - i'm sure some of the federalist papers must mention it, but i'd rather have brain surgery then read those in my spare time