Geek_the_Greek

Damn - finally a topic I actually care about, and I'm three pages behind (fire/thinning, not campaign finances). As with everything in ecology, "proper" management practices totally depend on the particular forest type, as well as your objectives. In dry forest types, (ponderosa pine, sagebrush, etc.) or where there has always been a lot of lightning (florida and much of the SE), fire suppression for 50-100 years, along with grazing and other land-use changes has led to huge buildups in fuels, and big changes to the ecosystem in many cases. In these places you can thin (take out small trees), which is very expensive, or do prescribed burning under relatively controlled conditions, which is slightly cheaper, but has less certain outcomes. The 'let-burn' idea is appropriate for forests that naturally only get fires every 50 years or so (or less often) - subalpine forests, west-side old-growth, Canadian boreal etc. This is because these forests will not have unnatural fuel buildups from fire suppression. Bear in mind, though, that these tend to be "stand-replacement", or "high-severity" fires - that is, if you let them burn, you will tend to end up with the classic newspaper image of blackened toothpicks. This is completely natural, but may not be desirable. With the current reduced levels of old-growth in the PNW, for instance, there are plenty of good arguments to keep putting out these fires to save certain species, eg. salmon habitat, certain birds I won't mention, etc.... If you just let dry (eg ponderosa pine) forests burn in their current state, you will also tend to end up with blackened toothpicks, rather than the low-severity "cleansing" fires of old. That's why some treatment (prescribed fire, under controlled conditions) or thinning is generally needed in these forests before doing the let-burn thing. Thinning would work fine if you just took out the small trees (much better than prescribed fire, actually). But as someone previously said, to make it cost-effective, you have to give up some bigger trees to the thinners, which gets you into the political game of how much is too much, and are you actually still accomplishing your objective. Thinning is a word that is being used for too many things these days, and needs to be further defined to be useful. Ok, I'm done working for the day, so I shouldn't be thinking about this stuff any more....

Ah the memories... Isn't that right below "two over par"?

I HAVE heard that if it were possible to sneeze with your eyes open, your eyes would get blown out. I knew evolution had its good points...

I've had my eye on that one for a while too. I might be willing to share in the craziness if you're looking for a partner...

quote: five minutes of the same 10-second loop of drum-machine beats, some bit of pseudo-hip sci-fi movie dialog, and random computer noise Everything is relative. This is the good stuff! Chill, groove, and enjoy! the orb

Why is trad climbing 'real climbing'? Other than the fact that you climb cracks and not bolted faces (although plenty of 'trad climbs' have bolts protecting the odd face move) and place your own gear, it should be the same damn thing. You can be into on-sighting or redpoints/projects, be it sport or trad (although because of the gear thing, redpointing trad leads is a bit silly). Still, it's not like Ron Kauk sent Magic Line on his first try or anything. He worked it. If you take away the annoying anti-sport holier-than-thou attitude of the old-school trads, and the equally annoying attitude of the anti-trad sport types (rarer), you're left with the same damn thing. Drive up, get your gear, consult a guidebook for something you want to do, climb it. In trad climbing, part of the problem is how to protect it, and on bolted climbs you just focus on the moves. Big deal. It's not like trad climbs are 'cleaner' (since a lot of classic cracks have been totally changed by pitons and cleaning, during the fa or over time), although they often follow 'cleaner' lines, which is nice if you're into that. Talking about 'purer climbing' is like listening to enviros debate whether humans are natural... totally value-dependent circular arguments. Trad climbing's great. Sport climbing's great. Same shit, different smell. Shit, I've been reading the same tired shit for the past 8 years, and it was old back then. Shit. Enough ranting.

I wear Euro brand shoes (Boreal, Scarpa, I think La Sportiva fit me, but don't own any). 5.10's don't fit me at all. I've tried on 3 different kinds and they're never fit.

Helmet on when -leading on anything (trad, sport, ice) -riding bike -hanging out at base of really crowded crags, especially those frequented by gumbies (e.g. burgers & fries, 8-mile rock, even morning glory (smith) where you get rockfall from people climbing zebra/zion) -climbing on multi-pitch anytime -sometimes top-roping or seconding single-pitch stuff (depends on area, rock quality, etc.) -but not gym climbing, bouldering (but I may start), wanking, cooking, drinking, hiking or doing field work (for some reason this seems to cause the most controversy) -definitely when rocking the house (at least the drummer's got one on! or is that hair?) ooh I got page top - does this make me cool? I wear my helmet while on top of the page...you could fall, eh? [ 08-20-2002, 07:05 PM: Message edited by: Geek the Greek ]

Anyone try the mile high club scenario on that romp.com website? I kept getting my ass kicked and having the annoying flight attendant geek interrupt in the bathroom while he was going down on her... ...on second thoughts, maybe this isn't the type of thing I want to be admitting to...ah, what the hell... "you're nothing but a cock-blocking stewardess!"

Dandelions leaves, boiled for a few minutes and served with a dash of olive oil and salt, make a nice green vegetable, sort of like spinach. It's not but it's good climber food... The Greeks call it 'horta', which means 'grass'. Something always gets lost in the translation... A bit of a guess here, but I'd suggest that maybe the reason crows are protected is that they're native species (there's a forest wildlife prof at UW who's considered the world expert in crow biology... why all the crows around UW have little bands on their legs). City rats are introduced (from Europe), as are most city squirrels (from back east). Seeing as how people feel about euro-dogs and easterners, you're free to blow them away!

Yeah, I was thinking that too: "who are the other losers on the 'puter right now?!" I have to do about 4 hours of work today, starting in a few minutes.... ...but as they say, excuses are like assholes...

Bouldering's good when you want to climb but don't have a partner 'cause you live in the boonies. Mind you, this isn't the safest way to do it, but if you can figure out how to place your pad right at the spot where you're going to fall, you're set. The bouldering scene is very silly, I agree. The shirtless guys in toques always crack me up! All climbing is contrived these days, at least to non-climbers. What, you're not actually doing anything *useful* up there, are you? Climbing is the moral equivalent of golf... There's my bit of unsolicited opinion for today...

Ok, I got a new one. Went bouldering at the Acid Castle area in Ashland yesterday. A bit obscure, but fun nonetheless. Stupid (SW Oregon) guidebook has "suggested grades" listed, noting "Routes are graded using the V-scale....the most common grading system in the world for boulder problems...problems graded V1 are pretty hard; in fact, the hardest problems in the area at this time are V3". What crap. If you're going to use the V-scale, use it properly. A grading system is of no use whatsoever if it's on its own planet. As far as I could tell, "V1s" there were generally between V2+ and V4. I didn't get up any "V2"'s or anything harder. Ok, I'm not the world's biggest hardman or anything, but gimme a break, I can do V2 problems. My continued bitterness and disillusionment with climbing grades has intensified. Numbers are bullshit. Climbing is dumb. Life is pointless.

MF Overhang in Leavenworth has slain me twice so far. Definitely harder than most 5.11's I've tried. Perhaps third time will be the charm? Squamish grades are inconsistent, I think. Sure there are the easy ones (Exasperator, pitoned into submission long ago, and Banana peel is now 5.8?), but there are plenty of ".10b" sandbags. Seasoned in the sun is rough for .10a, Caboose is rough for .10b, and while I have yet to get up there, the mighty Split Pillar (.10b) is considered one of the big cruxes of the .11a Grand wall. Brown ale For a good (and rare) Skaha sandbag, try Supercharger (5.10). Then have a for me....

The horror...the horror... Nah, I got it figured out now...

Well, the spendier ones have hand-held brakes! No, I don't know how they're supposed to prevent you from flying forward when you suddenly jam the brakes on, since you have nothing to brace yourself with except your feet...

I thought it was Sagan too. Stephen Hawking tells that story in the first chapter of A Brief History of Time. I could use some shroomy shrooms right now - might make my data meaningful for a while... (My girlfriend is now on this board and I don't know who she is. It's driving me crazy! If you're my girlfriend, please give a hint...)

Dude that's hilarious! I weep... (working hard to be horsecock lover...)

I like Revivex too. A good wash, hot dry and touch up with an iron works pretty well too (the ironing supposedly melts the microscopic frayed threds or something). I usually use all of the above.

Pad (MEC El-zee) arrived on Friday (1 week after I ordered it!). I spent Saturday bouldering and lounging around on it at Smith (hot hot ). I sucked, but the pad rocked! I dunno, I guess I don't have much experience with other pads, but it seemed well-made and durable, without a lot of bells and whistles (standard MEC fare). If you want a decent pad without spending a lot of $, I think it's a good buy. BTW, the bouldering grades in the back of the Smith book are all over the place - some way undergraded, as well as some real sandbags. Then again, what's an "S2+" supposed to feel like anyway??

The MEC El-zee goes for Can$148, which squares out to 100 US bills if you ship it. It's not quite as big as the Cordless large, but is half the price. Because it's MEC brand, they will also ship to the US. I took a risk and ordered one, and it should be here in a few days, so I'll give a report when I get it.

Climb with 'em, hang with 'em, and am unashamedly one myself! (know the literal translation??) Yasou vre malaka! -GTG

A couple come to mind: Getting ready to teach a beginner's class at Sugarloaf, Squish, I set up the anchor and rapped down to the eager students. One of them piped up "Shouldn't your harness be done up?". I looked down to see my Arc'T Neutrino held on by nothing but the velcro. Forget double-backing, I hadn't even threaded the buckle... Sheeeeeit....I tried to turn it into one of those "ok, what have I done wrong?!" lessons, but it was way too late for that! Then there was my first attempt to lead Jabberwocky (.10a fingers at Squamish). Had some trouble on the start, had to do the shoulder stand (as suggested in the guidebook!), put in a nut, went higher, put in another nut, relaxed 'cause I was past the crux. Then a toe slipped, a loose finger lock popped, and I said "aw shit" and slid down a few feet past my top nut. But then I felt a sudden release, a brief burn on the back of my ankle and before I had time to think about it I was screaming headfirst towards the ground. "Holy shit!" screamed my belayer, who thankfully caught me as my (bare) head bobbed to within 3 feet of the deck....(top piece popped, rope running behind my leg flipped me arse over teakettle, and bottom nut caught, thankfully). I thought about quitting this stupid sport while I was still alive...instead I bought a helmet and some more pro... Yikes

"cuz when ya booze ya lose and when ya lose ya booze and then ya wonder why ya lose ya shoes" (Hugh Masekela, ~1980s)

"cuz when ya booze ya lose and when ya lose ya booze and then ya wonder why ya lose ya shoes" (Hugh Masekela, ~1980s)