ivan

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

you seem to precede with the idea that the many states were born out of the federal government when it was exactly the opposite - the original 13 states decided to throw their lot in with each other and form an entity called the united states - they did this despite the monstrous misgivings of many whom had made the revolution possible (like patrick henry), who held the most extreme version of a view that was widely held to a lesser extent, that each state was entirely soveriegn and independent of the others (essentially each state was it's own country) and that that soveriegnity would be too abused by a strong union (the result being that our first written goverment, the articles of confederation, were so poor the whole thing was redone - a fate that the current constitution does in fact still allow, since in theory we could always make an amendment completly negating everything else before it and instituting a monarchy) the 13 sovereign states agreed to a union between them anyway, but nowhere on the "dotted line" did it say they were giving away their independence, a premise so specutacular that to take it away you need somehting more than just implication - the preamble sums up why the states were agreeing to a common government - military protection and economic well-being probably the two must important, both of which were being threatened, southern states felt, by the republican adminstration (which also violated the article 4, sect 3 excerpt from above by allowing for the creation of west virginia out of soveriegn virginian territory) secession is legal - i feel no need to fight a civil war all over again to secure the right though - i had plenty of relatives killed on both sides last time

put on some weight and grow a beard! if my wife doesn't head back to work soon i'll be doing the same thing don't forget to finish the 40 BEFORE your shift

wow

perhaps b/c chix then knew they'd likely get their teeth kicked in if they tried to split as mentioned though, in the english speaking world divorce as a matter of politics had been established as early as henry the fat-guy, quite a few centuries earlier

please explain why the marriage analogy is ludricious too - debates work better when they go beyond merely insulting the argument 13 states decided to get married in the late 19th century - a little more than a half century later many of those states realized they had developed irreconciable differences with the others and wished to terminate their civil union only to be confronted by a rather homely man, albeit a good soul (and certainly it hurts to argue on behalf of mother-fuckers, but that's my heritage), who cast himself much as the pope of the reformation, hell-bent on dealing death to those who would divorce (jeff davis as henry 8.0 makes me chuckle too - i forget which pope lincoln gets to be)

re: constitutionality of secession - what bullshit! of course states should be able to secede - secession is not specifically denied, nor the feds specifically empowered to prevent secession, so according to the 10th amendment the right to secede remains w/ the states and the people. a more comprehensible metaphor: consider marriage, a union between two folks (gay or otherwise )- do we think divorce should be illegal? should a man be able to beat the crap out of his wife if she tries to dissolve the relationship when that relationship has evolved to the point that it no longer is in her interests? how is the marriage of states any different? similiar mechanisms should have been used in 1861 to what would happen in a divorce court today i.e. a spelling out of continuing obligations (child support) and agreement of divying up marital assets. i must admit though that without that unjust war and it's historical outcome the 20th century would have turned out far different, and likely much worse - i recommend harry turtledove's series of "what-if" books that explore an alternative historical timeline where the south had won independence, then sided w/ the central powers in world war 1.

i hate skiiers! mostly 'cuz i'm a mean man and jealous that i have no balance nor grew up in a place where learning to ski was an option. i throw my poo on your ski-tracks! ha!

is any route w/ snowshoes on desirable? the closest i got to getting killed last winter was taking my big brother out on snowshoes for his first volcano experience (he's a damn Easterner) - walked around timberline on hood w/ him and was so engrossed in a story of family drama he was spinning i didn't notice the cornice i'd tap-danced onto 'til it exploded under me, allowing me to ride a sweat-o avalanche down a gully for a few hundred feet - yeah! that'll convince my brother my jackass lifestyle is safe! don't know the status of the road, but perhaps you could slow-shoe up to cascade pass?

as in desiring "longsumne lof?" certainly! hope married life's treat'n ya well dan-o!

don't think that was directed at me, but i love climbing at smith, though i like the trad lines more than the sport stuff (mostly 'cuz i'm a real shitty technical climber and there's no better place to be confronted by that than on sport routes) bolts have their place in the world, IMHO - some of my favorite lines, like young warriors at beacon, are mixtures of both trad and sport

bottom line - sounds like skipping the gendarme is your best bet for sucess (and for avoding frustration) - reckon you'll be happier returning to get the gendarmes and failing repeatedly after having at least completed the vast majority of the route in the past.