Geek_the_Greek

Lots of beautiful climbing in western cape province. Tafelberg (Drakensberg) is a blast - beautifully solid alpine trad quartzite. The water drip is hard to find (inside the cave, maybe? we never found it...). Beware of sandbags (local grade conversions always end up on the stiff side). This goes for Table mtn also. The sporty areas (Rocklands) might be different, though. At least on the Table and Tafelberg, be ready for very trad gear belays all the way up, and pretty much no fixed pro anywhere. Also beware of typos and bogus beta in the guidebook! I ended up on my first ever unplanned bivi because of this (book said go left, but really should have gone right...). Get (rent/buy) a car, because public transport is either expensive or sketchy (hitching is even sketchier). Only you will know where the fine line between "adventuresome" and "dangerous" lies for you. ...Just some thoughts from the top of my head. I was there in '99, so caveat emptor ... Great place, though, (SA) with enormous climbing potential.

Ok. I concede. For some reason I thought it was 'retronamed' Ha Ling because people thought Chinaman's was offensive. Whatever.

Bah, if Chinaman's was the original name, it should stand. Changing the name in the hope of undoing a lot of historical racism is BS. Keep the original name as a reminder of all the Chinese blood that was spilled building the trans-can railroad.

quote: Money is a representation of each of our efforts to create something with our lives. Ouch. As if! You can never walk in another person's shoes, know what it's like to have lived through their lives. The business world, which controls a good deal of money in this world, is based on croneyism - who you know. That's why playing golf is a business skill, and why good contacts will score deals more often than merit (ever gotten a friend a job? ever gotten a job from a friend?). Money also tends to stick in families. You can't actually be saying the Rockefellers, the Kennedeys, the Bushes all grew up with the same potential to make money as the gal who's deadbeat alcoholic dad beat and raped her? How hard you work may be one indicator of your potential wealth, but is far from the full story. Much more important, I'd say, are demographics, like parents' income, urban vs. rural lifestyle, single vs. dual parents, and I hesitate to mention them, but yes the much-hated PC stats like ethnicity, sex, disability, etc.

Yeah, if you're actually going getting into the environmental impact of sport climbs vs trad climbs, I think trad wins for greater impact. First, though, you'd have to agree on some sort of quantitative measure (like biomass, number of species, whether or not to include subjective things like visual aesthetics, etc.). I'm pretty damned sure more life gets squashed/scrubbed out of cracks than off little edges. I have yet to see tree stumps in the middle of face climbs... The thoroughly offensive visual blight of bolts seems to matter only to humans, and mostly climbers at that. I think chalk marks get more notice than bolts from non-climbers.

I like the various ways of going up the canal side slab no-hands. Always a good warm-up (sort of) or cool down. Downclimbing it no-hands is good too, and a bit scary near the top.

Well, shit, yeah they fucked up, obviously more than once. But you have to give them a break. They have the most contradictory mandate(s) of any US government agency. By law, they are responsible for sustained yield of timber from public lands (never repealed) from 1897's Organic Act; maximum production of recreational values, wildlife habitat and numbers, water quality, and timber yield from the Multiple Use Sustained Yield act of 1961 (also never repealed; how the hell do you maximize 4 non-translatable variables?); a legal mandate to take into account public opinion in forest planning from the 1974 Forest Management Act (still holds); and further responsibilities in the PNW that generally overshadow all previous obligations from the 1994 NW Forest Plan. Essentially, they can't fart without getting sued for violating some law. All this takes place in an environment where public trust in the agency is pretty much gone (understandably, perhaps), and the reality that fighting forest fires for all those years has led to the current fuels crisis in dry forest types. Agency morale is one of the lowest in the government agencies. Since the timber sale program has gotten dramatically smaller, their main source of revenue is gone (potentially replaced by various equally unpopular fee demo projects). And while it's clear that fighting forest fires is still useless or counterproductive in many areas, the FS can actually still get sued by landowners for not putting out fires that start or cross national forest land (and subsequently go on to burn private property). Plus, in a lot of dry forests, just letting fires burn in their current fuel-heavy state is not an option that will lead to what most people consider a healthy forest (because they will burn up completely, whereas historically they only had low-severity underburns; see my post in Bushwacked, p.3 for more details (near the bottom)). So in sum, they can get sued for not cutting trees, for cutting trees, for not maximizing recreation, wildlife, or water, for fighting fires and for not fighting fires. So the USFS is pretty messed up right now, but I don't think they could do otherwise. They need a new mission and vision (and I don't reckon they're going to get it from Mr. Bosworth). But I wouldn't bash the FS employees too much, because they can't do right now no matter what (I believe the term is 'analysis paralysis'). ...not that misplacing 200+ million dollars is particularly forgivable. I doubt this quote: Eric Lynch, a policy analyst for the taxpayer group, said "the misplaced millions could have been spent to reduce fire risk long before this year's fires ravaged the West." would have made much difference, though (maybe a wee little bit). Most analysts estimate that it will take over 40 years to get the national forests back to a relatively safe/healthy state, fuel-wise, and it currently takes years to approve most fuel-reduction projects.

Wings of desire at Skaha was awww-sommme. That was probably the most pumped I've ever been. Stood at the no-hands rest for a good 10 minutes to recover before the little roof...

Geek the Greek may be a geek, and may be a greek, but his opinions do not necessarily reflect those of geeks or greeks.... I'll stick to the forestry issues, and this thread has drifted way off, so I'll just watch and drink... That "remove forests" gag actually wouldn't solve the fire problem at all, though. Prairies burn even more often than forests!

quote: Most clear-cutting and strip-mining occur on government property because the offenders have no stake in the future value of the land. At least for clearcutting, this is patently untrue. Most timber in the US (like, 80%) currently comes from private land, the vast majority of which is clearcut. At its logging peak in the late '80's, public land only supplied 40% of the US-grown timber. Industrial logging is a business of clearcuts on private land. Weyerhaeuser tree farms all over the PNW are a prime example, but the most glaring examples are in the southeast. Douglas-fir plantations grow just fine (brilliantly, actually) in clear-cuts. It's the other forest values (wildlife, water quality, etc.) that may be compromised by clearcutting, not the crop trees. The jury's still out on whether soil productivity decreases after several rotations (yes in some places, no in others), but this matters less with intensive fertilization.

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...