Off_White

Old news, you just don't spend enough time with your old family here...

you don't have children do you? Don't worry Muffy, sooner than you expect they'll be teenagers and your problem will be getting them up, not to mention they'll require (desire) a little less Mom input. 6 hours is about my norm too, and I'm with BB, 4 is unsustainable over any length of time.

Nice report, doubly nice to see some stoke rather than doom and gloom about the park.

Gosh you two, that's so sweet and entertaining.

I believe the phrase is "visual pollution of the historic viewshed," though why that doesn't apply to the view from the twin sisters escapes me: roads, winnebagos, fences, and an ecosystem redefined by grazing. One cool tidbit is that the two adjacent similarly shaped domes are completely different rocks from different geological periods. Here's the "historic viewshed": In other directions though, it's a nice view from up there, eh?

2007 SEASON IS OPEN We'll start up this Wednesday, and continue on with every dry one we get until the time changes again next fall. Things are looking pretty damn fine right now. As always, PM for directions, waiver required, Wednesdays are open, other times by arrangement.

Looks like a great time, pity you didn't take any photos of the green fun down low. Is it already too late for the brush to be covered up?

heat/arc/crampon/divot/icefall, dude! how we've all missed you. got any schwag to "sell" us?

The nice thing about an early season solo outing is you don't have to apologize for your glacial pace to anyone: I'm a little self conscious about acting like a drag anchor. On the bright side, I'm better off than I was a year ago, nonetheless it took me 4-1/2 hours up. Spent some of that time standing around gawping at the floaters on my eyeballs in the whiteout while waiting for a glimpse of where I was going, still, I'm sure I wouldn't have beat the guidebook time of 4 hours. Chesterboo: haven't done that variation on route one, just the regular big creek route, this one, the highly recommended SE Buttress, and one time wandering around by myself in scary terrain looking for the Great Groove over on the NE side.

judging from the 15 cars I saw parked at the base of the spur road up to the upper TH on 5-5-07, I'd say that road is not yet clear.

Trip: Mt Washington - Route 2 Date: 5/5/2007 Trip Report: If you live in the Olympia area, your closest taste of the alpine world is Mt Washington, 56 miles from my door in Tenino and even closer if you live in Olympia. I headed out for an early season outing. Route 2 heads up the next drainage to the left of the standard Big Creek route, and gets only a fraction of the traffic. I had a fine and lonely day, with no other people or footseps. I did this route last year about a month later, my first time up it, and was struck by the beauty of the basin cradled between the SE and E ridges. Today however was a different day, and a combination of whiteout, snow, and occasional brief clearings changed both the nature of the routefinding and the breadth of the views. Here are a few photos: This is a good two thirds of the way up, one of my weather windows. The route ascends to the base of the rock wall in the left third and makes a turn up a steep hidden snow ramp. Closer to it, you can get an idea of the ramp and angle Variable snow conditions led to some postholing. Really wished I'd brought gaiters, but made do with this hippy gaiter concoction: medical tape and bandanas to strap my pant cuffs to my boots. Okay going up, but not up to the rigors of plunge stepping. In a whiteout, lower part of the route visible behind me looking over at the upper SE ridge from high on the snow ramp On hitting the summit ridge just below the top you can look over to the regular route and Mt Ellinor. I liked the line of this corniced ridge. summit self portrait Looking out the East Ridge from the summit. The route ascends in the murk over the right edge. Looking down the NE Face. Approached from the Jefferson Creek road, this one is on my list for one of these days. Nicely filled in right now. All in all, a great day out in the mountains Gear Notes: Axe, crampons, wished I had gaiters Approach Notes: Park at Route 1 parking, rockslide partially blocks the road as of 5-5-07. Walk down road past waterfalls, out to outside bend in road. Find rough trail that leaves road, ascend open timber, turning rocky. Bear right to cross minor ridge.

Don't worry Kev, the mailbox thing is a hoax. It's not Russian in origin either. Here's the Snopes report.

I think the less elevation you want to lose, the more difficult the route. There's a swell third class ramp from the shoulder of Sahale into Boston Basin, I think I like it better than the Boston Basin approach. I've gone from Torment basin into Boston basin from pretty high on the shoulder and we did one rap over some downslabbed mossy crud. Should be a pretty good high route though. There's some other stuff from that area up towards the N Cascades highway, Isolation traverse maybe? Something goes out the Klawatti icefields too, I'd bet that has some crevasse potential, might be a bit much. I've also thought there is something fun to do from the Mt Daniel area, past some of those cool lakes on the west side, over Hinman maybe, and onto that ridge above the middle fork of the Snoqualamie. I'm sure you could put together a great low third class route in that area.

Trip: Mt. Woodson - Date: 4/28/2007 Trip Report: Last weekend I went to Mt Woodson in San Diego County as part of a climbers reunion that grew organically out of a thread on Supertopo. A great conglomeration of over sixty people showed up from as far as Colorado and (duh) Washington. With an array of friends, acquaintances, and lesser gods of my SoCal youth, this beat the pants off the one High School Reunion I've attended. Some of these people I hadn't seen in over 25 years. I got down there on Thursday, got picked up at the airport by my buddy Bob, did a little family visiting, and went out to Mission Gorge to poach a couple boulder problems in a closed area. Hey, it didn't use to be closed. The next day we got a tour of a hush hush private bouldering area, some of the finest stone I've ever climbed on in San Diego on a gorgeous high ridge with a decent breeze. Saturday was the big event at Woodson. Here's an assortment of shots; some are mine, some I shot with other's gear, some are shamelessly pilfered. Woodson is the furthest peak with the telecom junk on top. As you can see, there are a few boulders in the area. An adjacent hillside: new routes waiting to be plucked by those willing to bushwhack. Unlike many bouldering areas, Woodson features an amazing array of splitter cracks. Between bad landings and highball problems, top ropes are pretty common. This fine example is Robbins Crack. At 5.10a, it's a very accessible and usually climbed ropeless. Bear in mind that this is also the descent route. Anyway, on with the shindig. A large clot of us gathered at the bottom of the hill around 10am on Saturday. It was already getting warm, probably hit 85 this day. First route of the day was Razors Edge. At 5.10+ it's a little stiff and steep for a warm up, but hey, it's one of the first great things you come to. Bouldering is a social thing, and this crowd was into shutterbugging. The party moved on to the area around Jaws, a stellar crack that goes from tips to hand, with all the flavors in between. Here's part of the horde seeking shade: Jaws 5.10d Looking down Jaws TV Screen Crack 5.10a Baby Robbins 5.9 Horde at the base of Bat Flake Bat Flake 5.10d with wide fist crux at the top Spectating I see old people, with souvenir headbands Slogging up the hill A semaphore beta flagging discussion... pays off with success on California Night 5.11c Yeah, there's face climbing too And cracks so thin you might as well be face climbing. Oh, and wide goodness too Plenty of wide in fact It was a long splendid day, we stayed up there until the shadows got long. Followed up with some of the folks making it to a barbeque buried somewhere in suburban Escondido. As a cherry on top, the flight home went right over Tenino and I could peer out and look at my house and property. All in all, a damn fine four day weekend.

that may well be, but that does not dis prove that humans are part of nature. I'll bet someone could get funding to try to disprove this though... Well, yeah. I mean, nature is dirt and stuff, whereas we're all made in God's image. Ergo, God is a Bellevue housewife on a taun taun with an urgent breast implant appointment. It makes sense, right? I think about this kind of stuff a lot.

I believe ol' Yvon Chouinard said this in Climbing Ice, along with "if you carry bivy gear, you will bivy" and "there is no rockfall in Sierra gullies in September."

in PDX who doesn't buy a ticket for the Hold Steady show at the Crystal on May 28th. They're like Springsteen might be if he remembered how to rock and did drugs. The Hold Steady

You guys are so mean. Kevbone doesn't have much of an internal editor - to think it is to type it, and the volume of his output is prodigious, but I'm pretty certain he's neither a bad guy nor a creep.

At my company sick time is considered indistinguishable from vacation time, both are earned benefits that employees are entitled to spend on whatever they want. Totally circumvents the concern that your employee might call in sick and go skiing - it's allowed. In return, my employees are considerate about schedule and company obligations with regards to use of sick/vacation time, and they are encouraged to not spread whatever horrid virus they have around the rest of the crew.

Yamnuska if you're feeling a wee bit stout and bold. Grotto Canyon near Canmore is alright short sportish limestone. The slate slab climbing on the golf course in Banff is worth it just for the ambiance, though many of the bolts were for shit when I was last there over 15 years ago. Lots of other stuff in the area too. You can always just go hike around with your mouth hanging open. Seems like most of the hordes never venture more than a hundred yards from their vehicles.

On the other hand, beer and dog food is sometimes just the ticket.

I thought this one: looked more like, "fuck, would you put both hands on the rope?" Thanks for the pics and the report.

You don't know what information was admissible to the jury. They may well have not known anything about prior convictions or other history, as well as what other information may have been provided about the victims. Having just served on a jury for a domestic violence case, I was surprised at how little evidence was actually provided. "Beyond a reasonable doubt" is a very high standard of proof, it sounds like the prosecution just didn't make their case. Four hours of deliberation is not very much either, so odds are the jury was in substantial agreement already when deliberations began.

Mont Blanc du Tacul: It's the obvious line up the middle:

Yeah, you should borrow Tvash's impact driver.