Geek_the_Greek

Ah, the glory of Squeamish squishiness. Yes, we'll have to head back there soon. This time, in your car!

Sunny B

Agreed. Probably a foot or so of fresh on the north side of Forbidden yesterday. Nice for morning cramponing, I'd say, but probably a pain for placing ice pro.

I just remembered - when Sloth and I were up there a couple of weeks ago, the summit register was totally full (like, back cover and everything), so we took it. If you're going up there and you care about such things, you could always contact the Mounties and get a new register (or just bring a little pad of paper) to stick in the can.

Shit, Droo, how many years and you still haven't learned to ski? How can someone enjoy something as obscure and contrived as canyoneering and not be into skiing?!

Chrizntchz shows it better than any of us can say it.

Man, that sounds like shit! Or at least, alpine climbing in winter (except for the plants bit). I'd add that once in a while (depending on your patience for good weather and whatnot) you just get out there and run up something under the clear blue sky, moving smoooove like butta, with your shit totally together feeling like nothing could stop you. The climbing is killer, the views are grand, the company is rad, and there's just no place better in the whole world. Those days are what will probably bring you back more than anything else. But yeah, you can expect some suffering before you get there. If you climb mostly in the summer and wait for decent weather reports, expect much less suffering, but also considerably less climbing (around here, anyway).

...the many faces of the Cavester...

Yeah, but they obviously realized it. So the elitist spray and finger wagging was totally unnecessary.

What's your point, spliff? That doing things that are dangerous is a bad thing? That's obvious to some extent, but it's all relative, because no one can argue that we wouldn't all be safer staying in bed every day than doing any climbing at all. And as for "experienced climbers" being immortal or something, that's a load of crap. If you look at the compiled data from 50 years of Accidents in N. A. Mtng, accident and death stats are pretty much equal across ability levels. Sure, newbies make more avoidable mistakes, but veterans counter it by pushing things more - and either "getting lucky", or not. Experience level is not what it's all about, it's more like personal preference for varying danger levels. E.g. Twight et al. on something like Reality Bath. Or that nut Jim Beyer and his solo A5 route up on Baffin. Very experienced, doing something many considered insanely dangerous. They got away with it. All the better for them. It was perfectly obvious from the SA TR that the party knew they had made certain mistakes and learned from it. Why are you wanking on and on about needing to punish them for it?

I don't know, I think when contemplating an old bolt you have to think about why it was placed there. Was it to create art? Were the first ascentionists trying to express themselves or make a creative statement? I think a fair assumption is that most of the time, they were scared or concerned enough about a fall that they wanted some pro. For us to view bolts as anything other than protection is missing the point. If a bolt has outlived its safe (useful) life, it's no longer serving its purpose. I say don't paint them pink, but don't camouflage them either. On granite, where the rock is a black and white mosaic of shadows, it's often hard enough to see bolts as it is without artificially making it more difficult. For those who seek it, there's plenty of opportunity to hurt oneself on lead-bolted alpine routes without resorting to purposely leaving shitty bolts. If someone's thinking about replacing rusty quarter-inchers, I say to them. "Changes aren't permanent, but change is."

Uh, no. This is a discussion board, designed so that Cascade climbers could discuss issues pertaining to climbing - such as a TR of a poorly-thought out climb. It does sound like you had some valid points to make, but your vitriolic post above certainly gives the impression that your criciticm was anything but constructive. I'd suggest that it's still a shame it was deleted, but then I didn't read your post.

The point is that we obviously do know certain things (a great many, as it happens) about humans. It's obviously not a perfect analogy. But the fact is there are many fields of science where we are trying to understand processes that move at time scales far slower than our lives allow us to study directly. Try astronomy, for one. I presume you're not arrogant enough to try to arge that all astronomy is bunk? Geology? Continental drift? I study trees, many of which live far longer than humans, and therefore the field shares some of the same problems. There are plenty of analysis techniques you can use when you can't directly study a process. Substituting space for time is one, making empirical models is another, and making process-based (mechanistic) models is another. Or sometimes you are forced to just look at the rough evidence that you do have (fossils, craters, e.g.) and come up with a qualitative idea of what happened. The point is that I'm guessing you're not a climate scientist. Neither am I. So maybe we should just leave the climate science to photomatt and the other climate scientists, and trust them, just like we trust engineers to build us fast cars that won't spontaneously self-destruct, or we trust doctors (within reason) to mend and rehabilitate our broken bones. The pop-skepticism is pretty silly.

My goodness, Bushwacker, you're right. In fact, even we humans have been around evolving and fluctuating for about one MILLION years. That's a thousand thousand. So considering that each of us is only around for a century or so, it's obvious that we can never know anything about humans either. Obviously, the only solution to finding happiness is prayer. All together now, let's "pray for our great nation".

Graphite is a solid (powder), so I would assume that the spray is a suspension of the powder in an alcohol-based liquid, which then evaporates, leaving the powder to the work its magic. Please tell me if I'm off-base with this. Graphite lube is great precisely because it's not a liquid, and therefore the cleanest stuff to use. Otherwise, yeah, you don't want the cams dripping wet when you place them, but otherwise it's not an issue. It depends on the rock somewhat, but mostly cams bite into the crystal texture rather than relying on absolute friction. A reasonable wipe down of the cams' toothed surface should take care of the shiz that's still present. It's more a matter of them picking up additional dirt (undermining your cleaning efforts entirely) if you don't wipe off the extra lube.

Mea culpa. The correct reference would be 'Hyped up Mystique' (gotterdamerung, 2004).

It's a fine line between getting where you are trying to get, and developing a new trail or route through the woods. If you're just trying to get somewhere yourself and find your way out easily, then yeah, clean up your trash on the way out. But if it's anything close to a popular area, especially near treeline, then having one established route (trail, path, whatev) will cut down on environmental impact immensely. And I'm not talking about the aesthetics-only impacts of the trail(s), but rather in terms of effects on vegetation, lichen, soils, etc., which are usually VERY sensitive high up. Deserts are also really sensitive - one footprint off trail somewhere like J-Tree can kill the soil for hundreds of years. I agree with Cavey on this - forget the so-called "mystique" of trying to pretend that you're the first one ever to visit the valley. You're following a guidebook description, for crying out loud. All the better if you don't have to choke down facefulls of devil's club by following some flagging tape, and can save some wildflowers along the way for the next party to see. And obviously along logging areas and roads there's all sorts of flagging that has nothing to do with climbers. It definitely looks like shit, and all the better if someone out there is into picking it up.

Jimmy the Kid says: "At times there are good things on Dutton cliff, but the approach makes it hard to justify. I hope to get out there this winter to climberate it." There you have it. 'Bone, check your pm's for contact info.

My impression is that yeah, there's a bit (you thinking of Vidae falls? maybe something on Dutton Cliff?), but it's really short and the approach hardly makes it worth it. In the winter, doing anything there that isn't right at the rim demands a pretty hefty ski approach on top of all the driving just to get there. This is what I thought I remember my friend (long-time climber who works full-time there) telling me. However, I emailed him to ask just to clarify. Stand by and if he's sober I'll post his reply within a couple of days.

I seem to have temporarily suspended my hatred of this site, so maybe I'll finally go this year...

Bon Echo was still going strong, last I heard (earlier this summer). I think it helps considerably to get in with the ACC in terms of using the cabin, getting the boat shuttle, etc. Definitely not a sport area (wear a helmet!), and heavily sandbagged (or so I'm told - like, 5.3 can be a decent climb), but a cool spot to check out.

Ok, great, everyone makes their own decision, blah, blah, but the arguments against helmets aren't very good. It's hot (Oh no!) It's uncomfortable (Discomfort while climbing? Egad!) It looks dumb (Heavens! Above all, one must be fashionable in the outdoors.) Compared to lugging a fuggin rope and all that damn ironmongery around, a helmet is cake. Only place I don't wear one is in the gym.

I once kept some family-recipe Tsipouro (like Ouzo, but stronger) in a 500 mL lexan for about a month. The bottle was basically unusable for the following month, it was so potent. It took about half a dozen week-long soaks before it was clean. I would think 151 would have a similar effect.

Went to Squamish, got 39 pitches and a half dozen boulder problems in in 2.5 days....a personal record. Then my car got busted into, so I went home.

Done that. If anything comes of it, I'd sure be psyched.