Off_White

I've got a copy you're welcome to borrow, along with some ancient local knowledge. I'll pm you.

Hah, that's funny. The top two are spurious. (sorry Chuck) Dru is in a class by himself, especially if you include his other puppets as well as the long time his post count was capped by imperial fiat. I'm impressed that Iain comes next, given that he's largely given up on that name and moved on to others, as well as the evidence of all of CBS' hard work. I'm equally shocked to find myself in the top 20, I think of myself as a modest sprayer with much to be modest about.

Oh Pope, I wasn't issuing a challenge or some such nonsense, just a friendly invite to come climbing. You live in Tacoma, right? That makes it relatively close to home for you. Pete & Ted's can be started off to the right without the holds by climbing through some really rotten rock, but as I stated, the holds weren't put on to make it through a section that's too hard (like the holds at Dishman or on the Comp Wall at Castle Valley Ranch), just to make it more enjoyable to get to the good climbing. You're certainly welcome to try both starts, and based on your experience lobby for a change, but there are better routes to do for a first day at this place that also dry off earlier in the season. I have no doubt you'd make it up the 5.10 bottom of the route, the crux at the top will offer some challenges though.

not anymore, soft tissue does decay you know...

Be careful, I remember hearing some guy named Divot may have disappeared on that route.

Oooh, a big shout out to our latest entry in the "I'm not a woman, I just play one on the intardweb" category.

Sounds to me that the real root of the original question hinges on whether it's a good idea to have your lover and your climbing partner be the same person. Otherwise, why would it matter what your climbing partner's sexual orientation is? Given that it's harder to find a sweetheart than a climbing partner, you'd be better off training up that emotional/sexual compatible individual into a climber rather than hoping to find your ideal dreambot right out of the box.

Where are you staying? I'll fax you a Mickeys.

Those things are such wicked hunters, every time I see one I'm glad it's not the size of a horse. I hardly ever see them out in the wild, I think their camo must work splendidly.

Yes! You should come down some time Eric, I bet you'd have fun, though it might make you feel like a dirty dirty boy. Since you bring it up, let's talk about my awful faux pas. Those four holds allow passage through the fabled "shitstone band," a layer of crumbly choss which is all that ensured this quarry was blasted for rubble rather than cut for block. (hence leaving a quarry of climbing interest unlike the other quarrys around Tenino) It seems the vein of bad rock must have run upwards, because all that's left of it in the current face is an arc through the lowest section of the cliff. It doesn't matter how much you scrub, it's choss all the way down. The last time I climbed the loose and manky work around to get to the base of Pete & Ted's Excellent Adventure I pulled a briefcase size hold off onto my leg and decided I'd had enough of that. I could of course have bolted a ladder to the wall, or made a via ferrata, but the four holds up the most solid segment of choss make for a climbing like experience with less visual impact. Note that this is both private property and a man made crag. The holds were not put on to bring a crux down to my level, but to provide a way to reach the good climbing above. With only 35 routes here, I was not willing to abandon the line. It's also not anything I would do anywhere else. Curse me for a moral relativist if you will, at least I've got a climbing area in my front yard. The invitation is sincere btw, you're welcome to come check it out. You should bring Chirp with you.

Wanna watch some trains? Maybe you'd rather go to the dump and shoot some rats?

remember when Dan Ackaroyd was skinny?

I always had a fondness for the "giant gophers" explanation.

I moved the thread from Climbers Board to Oregon Cascades with the intent of keeping the information in the most relevant and likely to be searched forum.

This is actually good advice. Sounds like you're getting some good info here (I have none to offer), but I'm sure you'll get some additional useful information from some of the folks over there who favor the concealed carry option.

Chalk balls are pretty useless if you're crack climbing, but if you're doing the face thing and all you want to do is chalk your tips, they're pretty handy and have the beneficial side effect of leaving less chalk on the route. I've been using one climbing at the quarry down here in Tenino. Actually, I've been trying to use it less in general, to separate that part of chalking up which is truly helpful for climbing from the part that is merely a calming ritual, like fingering your rosary beads.

I couldn't agree more. It's what Thurston County has gone to, and they're far better than the punchcards we used to have, no hanging chad, and for the vote by mail, no trying to punch the correct tiny little number tab because you didn't have the pin registration ballot that they used at the polling place. Simple and pretty damn foolproof? Where's the profit in that?

I saw Borat over the weekend. I share some of KK's squeamishness about using a real country as his purported home, but aside from that qualm it was pretty damn funny. There is nothing innocent about most of the people skewered in the film, they do it to themselves by the things the believe and say.

What I've Done With This Thread: So, I picked a spot in the chestbeat bickering and spawned it off onto it's own spray thread, where folks are welcome to carry on in that vein as they please. There remains plenty of discussion on the topic woven in amongst folk's reports on these three pages, so lets be done with here and move back to the original topic. So, a big thumbs up to anyone climbing hard or lots. I don't think I have any personal best ticks for the year outside of getting out more: cragging, hiking, alpine, the gamut. It wasn't frenetic by any means, but I think I got out more than any of the last five years, and that makes me a very happy boy. Good friends, good times, wonderful places: these are a few of my favorite things.

If you ask me, religion is much more of a choice than sexual orientation. Jay, I'd start an initiative on the idea of getting the government out of the marriage business if I didn't think I'd wind up in the same bin of "human interest stories" as the guy to tried to float an initiative to ban "irritating daytime running lights on cars." I do understand your antipathy to the way the initiative process has panned out in WA state. What do you think of the idea to ban paid signature gatherers? It seems to me that if you believe in your idea, and the support is there, you should be able to get enough people to volunteer to tilt at your windmill. Of course, I have no idea how that squares with the current legal concept of money=free speech. Tash, I sure there are any number of people here who would prefer to refer to you as "biatch" but thanks for supporting the cause!

I don't think that either of us have ever let that dissuade us from arguing a position. Matt, I guess I just want to see something other than a pell mell "ha ha fucker now I get to wear the boot" riot. I suspect Bush's improprieties are far more serious to the welfare of the country than blowjobgate, but the bulk of the democratic party's failure to press when they were a minority makes me doubt their suitability to pursue charges when they're the top dog. It's more about pursuit of power than justice, and it's just plain ugly no matter who's fist is in the glove. I am certainly not insulted to be called an idealist.

What a mess, I'm declaring a time out and locking the thread for a bit. I'd like to send all the Kevbone shit to spray, but I don't want to take out Still Climbin's input, since I think he hits the nail on the head. Odds are I'm going to split some of this off so you can chew on each other in spray, and preserve the balance of the topic for everyone else. I may wind up deleting some posts just for continuity/brevity's sake, so don't take it personally if your carefully assembled golden words disappear into the cybersphere. EDIT: this is it, the new bitch about chestbeating thread, cuz you know, humble is all the rage.

Well, I can only speak for myself, I don't have a lot of sway with the democratic party, since they no doubt consider me as fringe as the republicans do.

I don't think that the fact that Republicans began using impeachment as a partisan scourge back in the Clinton era means a power shift should result in payback. I want to see solid evidence before we bandy the idea about, though investigations may well be called for. I want to see some clear and intentional violations of law that result in harm to our nation as the bar for the rather extreme act of removing an elected official. Then again, I'm a proud neo-lib, and unlike many of our conservative brethern we don't believe in putting our boot on the neck of the losers, anymore than we believe that torture is a viable tool for the good guys.