Al_Pine

Inspired by MVS's concise and provocative TR, I headed up Mailbox Peak on Friday. I woulda taken a picture of me on the "summit", but the splendor is captured well by the three photos already posted to this thread. In an attempt to satisfy the Necro criteria for a good TR I will now present some useful beta: Don't go, unless all you really require to satisfy your soul is a stiff though short workout and you don't have the time to do Si. The first half of the hike is thru that totally boring generic uniform second growth forest that we all know and love so well. After about 45 minutes, it breaks into some older trees and views open up of other clearcuts and I-90. But then after a bit of open ridge running, you reach the summit. As pictured, the top of this "peak" looks a pullout around Darrington or along the Middle Fork Road . There was even a fucking palette up there! Woo Hoo! Also, it's too cold and windy up there . Here's some more beta: If you do go, don't bring a bunch of stupid shit up there in the belief that people will think it's great!! Instead, if you need some ungainly weight in your pack, bring a case of beer . You know how people talk about training by carrying water up Mt. Si, then dumping the water on top to save their knees on the descent? Well, for Mailbox Peak all cool people bring a case of beer (bottles is best ). They then drink however much they want on top then stash any leftovers under the rotting couch or the shotgunned TV. Excellent training. Do a search for this in the Body Results Fitness Forum. You can leave the empties up there too. It will add to the "ambiance". Lots of people will think that's a cool funny joke.

The LFC, the off-width to the "pod", then the step across over the top of the pod and up the easy face crack to the top of the feature. That's what I'm calling the three pitches. Didn't say any of 'em were hard.

The RPM start replaces two boring pitches with one easy boring one and one outstanding one. Though it's not an original thing to say, I really enjoyed the complete N Ridge of Stuart. Matt may bag on the lower part ("blows goats" or something like that ) but I thought it really added to the experience. Long expanses of continually clean and perfect granite. Some harder most of it easier. Climbing the feature from the bottom to the top also holds some aethetic appeal. The three short Gendarme pitches would be multi-star multi-pitch at a crag on the ground. Sometimes there's a good reason that things get named "Classic".

Most excellent bash! Great place too. Agreed about how good that Pale Ale was. Thanks Jon!

Shit CBS. We've all already got our knots figured out. We are each perfectly clear about our preferences with respect to cordelettes and rabbit runners, about our racking procedures, and in which cases double-rope technique is preferable. We have mastered fall-factor calculations. So now...what else is there to BS about except ethics? Surely you don't expect me to stoop to posting in that smiley thread?

This quote from the article implies that Haliburton had to do competitive bidding to get the job. I was under the impression that their contracts were awarded without bids. But maybe that's because I am just a robot. Does anybody have any substantiation either way about whether there were any sorts of competitive bidding procedures for the reconstruction work in Iraq? If so, were foreign companies allowed to bid?

Maybe Erden could use a boat with a motor, as long as he built the engine himself? Even better, if it were a bio-diesel, perhaps he could run it off of his own waste, and thus still be human powered .

I was going for the Mtngoat feel, fuckhead

Fifteen pins on 3000 feet that 2 people have freed is equivalent to nailing a 100 foot Disneyland popular 5.9 finger crack? "Sure, he did a VI solo, for his first big wall, but IMHO, he didn't do it in the best style." Sad. No Necro seal of approval. Perhaps he will try again, and maybe someday attain this lofty status. "Anyone with a hammer can bash their way up anything, given enough time." You're sounding a bit like Dwayner and 5.14. Why don't you go solo Zodiac first and revisit this statement? "What about the challange of bettering the style? What about the purity of a clean ascent? What about the satisfaction of working past a grim section clean, where others nailed?" It seems clear that he overcame a significant challenge. "If the techniques didn't evolve, and people didn't REALLY PUSH to do the route as clean as possible, every route would become a bashed-out mess." I would certainly agree with you here if this were respect to your Exasperator example, but on a 3000-foot wall route? Shit. I'll bet there's way more alteration going on nowadays by people trying to "free" those routes. How many fixed pieces did the Hubers leave? "Dick-not-hard-o's ascent wasn't about the climbing, it was about the climb. Now he's got a big trophy he can call "Zodiac". I'd rather bail." So your not going to send him your underwear or anything? I guess he's really going to be sad . Really, I see the only possible problem here is that he might have damaged the stone. All this other crap about whether or not Ricardo has the right to feel happy about his ascent is just that.

Perhaps PTPP is Trask!?

I guess it's about time for this topic to get thrown around again. Hey, I'm all for it if it means people divulging their true identities! I think there are many reasons people here seem like assholes. First, it is difficult to consistently write posts in which you disagree with someone and never come off sounding like an asshole. This is especially difficult if you ever try to be funny or sarcastic. How many times have you had weird fights started with your friends over some offhand email comment? I mean, Rudy, you had a period there where everything you wrote was one-liner spray insults. I know you were probably just kidding, but how is anyone to know? Those little gremlins only go so far in terms of broadcasting true intentions. For good or bad, the predominant culture of this site seems to be "insult people". How do you expect this to continue and at the same time nobody getting their feelings hurt? Of course the anonymity makes it easier to be insulting. I guess some people find fun in doing the anonymous insult game, but if you are doing this, you limiting the value of this site to yourself. I think the best part of this site is that it enables you to meet many like-minded climbing peoples. If you get too insulting, you can probably never "come out" and you sacrifice this benefit of meeting these people. Also, it's not just the anonymity of the sprayer that might increase the viciousness, but also of the targets. I know I certainly worry more about offending avatars that I know in person than someone who I know is always gonna hide. One final thing to remember: if you are trying to have your cake and eat it too, by having a known personality and an adjunct insulting one....the administrators and many of the moderators know who you are . Don't do anything that you'll regret too much! And just in case anybody doesn't know this yet, in the spirit of this thread, Al Pine is workday cover for chu cK.

Good idea about posting on RC.com, but he probably would have been banned. Maybe he tried it already and it went down the memory hole? And how do we know that PTPP is not here already? Lummox?

It now seems obvious that this was the strategy since before the war "ended". The fact that there seems to be unlimited amounts of bombs for booby traps. The fact that they find houses stocked to the gills with munitions. The fact that the Republican Guard unexpectedly "collapsed". The fact that we haven't found any WMD's. It appears as if they're taking it to us, in perhaps the exact manner in which they planned. Just think if there really are some actual WMD's floating around . I hope it's not true, but I don't think we've seen the worst of this. All you folks who pissed about George Sr. not going after Saddam back 1991, maybe we now see one reason he was reluctant to "finish" the job? I have nothing positive to add. Unfortunately this situation just seems to suck no matter which way you look at it.

Scary story! I experienced the same thing though not as immediate as yours perhaps. Climbing the Curious Cube at Static Point I was amazed at the awesome sharp horizontal cracks and thin sharp flakes I was finding there. I was hoping that this wasn't all loose and ready to go since you just don't seem to find such nice crackage at Static. Came back the next year and noticed the giant white scar that was where I had climbed. Though mine was much more likely to be freeze thaw than yours, it did get me thinking. Also got me thinking was the fallen tree lying across the approach trail that had rap slings around its base. link A true statement, but couldn't the same thing be said about driving, smoking and eating at McDonald's? My main purpose is replying to this post is so that I could link up our monkey avatars!

My partner popped off the tether connecting his rain-jacket to his harness while squeezing through the "chimney" on p1 of Orbit. The jacket was zipped into one of its pockets so was about the size of a softball and a half. It bounced down the rock right to me and I was able to catch it with my free hand. Caught a TCU a partner had dropped above me at Static Point. Have a buddy who caught his partner's street shoes when they came bounding over the bulge on Diedre.

Hey veggie your so dum you can't even spell "stupid" correctly!

Bringing this somewhat back near to Dryad's original post, does this phenomenon of good climbers dying on easy terrain imply a) shit happens, or b) accidents happen from complacency? The armchair asshole in us can take some comfort in the b) route and say, "they made a mistake, it won't happen to me." But at the same time, it's pretty tough to believe that one is immune from mishap when it's happening to very experienced climbers. I, for one, felt pretty mortal when hearing of the very experienced climber dying on Exasperator this year in what was basically a sport-cragging accident. I mean, if it happened to a guy like that, with way more experience than me, what chance do I have?

I was thinking Martha Stewart, then thought that the reactionary repubs of this board probably wouldn't sympathize with her. It got me to thinking...that ol' Martha is the perfect scapegoat!! Noone is upset about her getting made an example of, and at the same time the media feeding frenzy virtually guarantees no-cost advertising that our justice department is "cracking down" on those terrible people who have removed our trust in the legitimacy of the stock market. Well, at least they're cracking down on one high-profile miscreant with anti-charisma, anyway...

Maybe they can send Rush there.

Picking a nit here...It is anecdotal because the reporting was spurred by the fact that it was an "interesting" result. We would likely not have heard about it otherwise. I guess you could make it non-anecdotal by also including, without bias regarding the outcome, all lead-falls that you witnessed.

I think I would finfd it better to be unemployed ina summer than ina winter!

But it's anecdotal data CBS! Can't make valid scientific inference out of that now can we? I think you would have a better point if you also post to this thread everytime you hear of someone taking a lead fall where they were not reeled in. Also, present lead falls where the person was reeled in, but wouldn't have hit anything anyway. Then we'll have something to talk about.

I really like the idea of the 3 X 1 reeling setup though! What would that do to the Fall Factor?

...yeah and make it so it's not accessible to anyone with USFS or maybe .gov domain! Perhaps wee could combine it with the "Are permits necessary for Boston Basin?" forum.