Off_White

Yup, if he wants that close to full retail, he should just return his "gift" to REI.

Yup, its pretty much whatever turns your crank. If you want the experience of bolting on the lead, just hand drill it. On a dodgy stance, its often more stable than using a drill anyway as once you've got a hole going you get some stability out of it, and it's easier to drill higher. On the otherhand, if you come off (and hooks are often not all that secure) and ground out and wind up in a wheelchair for the rest of your life for the sake of being "pure" on a 50' route you've scrubbed and tr'd, you'll have a lot of self justification to help keep you busy. Make no mistake, its all about the experience you want to have and how you'll feel about it afterwards. After the route is established, it won't matter how you put the bolts in with regards to how future parties will experience the route.

Ding ding ding! Bill hit the nail on the head!

Well Gyro, sounds like you've got control of your dog, so it wouldn't be much of an issue, and you pick your trails. Lots of dog owners are neither that on top of it or that considerate. My dogs are willful geeks with short attention spans, they'll respond to verbal commands but they think everyone is their friend and all dogs want to wrestle, so they go on the leash. They're also apt to get all excited and chase off after something in the woods, decidedly uncool wilderness behavior. Its probably exacerbated by the fact I live on 32 acres and the beasts have the run of the property, but at least they know the property lines. I rather like the idea of Bug as the spiritual leader of Spray. The Trashtart plays a different role.

Pink, I haven't a clue what you're on about. Oh, I saw John's post about his day of birth deadlift personal record, whatever. What's this about eharmony, and whats it got to do with this site? If you want me to ban you, its gonna cost ya. Up front too, Squid offered me a six pack to ban him, and I've never seen a drop.

There's some great country for poking around out that way. I don't know of much route development, aside from the Goose Lake & Quincy Wildlife stuff that's in LaBelle's Rock Climbs of Central Washington. I'd imagine Rick might know of what else is happening around there, though who knows if he'd admit it. The merely vertical basalt stuff doesn't really seem like Marty Bland's thing, but he or maybe Burdo would be other brains to pick.

Sorry my friend, but it's gone gone gone, and all in a pointless effort it seems. My apologies if you really miss those particular pearls, but I assure you: you have written much better.

Roy, I don't have any problem with your opinion on unleashed dogs on trails, and if you killed my unleashed dog on a trail after it bit your son, I'd be very sad, but it would be my own damn fault. Then again, when I've got my two dogs out on the trails, they're pretty much always on a leash, unlike a lot of other dogs I encounter. That, however, was not the topic you wanted to broach. You wanted to have a bitchfest about another site, and as Jon (one of the owners of this site) explained, we (the owners, administrators, and moderators of cascadeclimbers.com) don't see anything positive that will come out of silly flamewars between climbing websites and you were discouraged from carrying on about NWHikers. You should view that as more than a polite suggestion.

Yeah, and what's with those guys who did Girth Pillar, the Ice Cliff Couloir had already been done, without any of that whack and dangle shennanigans! According to Mike Priess, his route and IB overlap for 3 to 5 pitches, so really neither is a variation of the other, and we're talking about two different FA parties on adjacent routes. I completely understand the disappointment in having your adventure route overshadowed by an adjacent later sport route, but its not the same as having your bold line retrobolted by latecomers. Down at Smith, would you say that To Bolt Or Not To Be completely disrespects the line and style in which Sunshine Dihedral was put up?

Jon, great statement of policy.

Kevin, your parsing of what is spray and what isn't is notoriously faulty. The OP put it here because he wanted the responses to be serious, not spray. I left it here to respect the wishes of the OP and to attempt, perhaps in vain, an adult conversation about a difficult topic. If we could talk about religion, just maybe sometime we could have a conversation about climbing ethics that didn't instantly devolve to churlish insults and behavior you'd be embarrassed to have your mom witness. Damn, I am an optimistic pollyanna, aren't I.

Would that mean the one who belches the most flames or the one who is least coherent? It would be different contenders for each interpretation.

Pfft, gender is a social construct.

Oh, your comments are more than welcome if you wanna make them, I didn't ask you to keep mum. You're wise to be wary of the slippery slope of online jabber though, it's been the ruin of many a poor boy...

Congratulations on seizing the moment, but that is just so wrong. Drive to the trailhead/snow free at the end of January? Wow.

C'mon peoples, this is an attempt at having this conversation without having it devolve into spray witticism. If you don't have anything serious to bring to the discussion, butt out and go play elsewhere.

Kurt, that one looks like a rappeller to me.

I'll concur on The Worst Hard Time, its a great read. Tim Eagan's a great writer, and he got this one done while he could still talk to folks who'd been through the dust bowl. There's a great history of farm subsidies buried in there too, but that's a different topic.

I hear Thai women really like that. Yr wife sure does!!! spurt spurt spurt What has everyone started drinking early today?

I hear Thai women really like that. That's a weird thing to say, elaborate a little so we can know if its as creepy as it seems to be.

Well that's just the point, innit? Climbers don't do just one thing.

Its been awhile, but I'll second BStach's endorsement of a sling for the day to day thing, it worked well for my daughter who wanted more interaction than a pack lends itself to. It was a functional thing, not a philosophy. We also had one of those Kelty sorts of backpack, with a rain hood, for the marching about. I clearly remember the last trip with that pack; between growing size and vigorous thrashing about, I was done having her on my back. She walked everywhere since then, though at 18 now, she still asks to be carried now and then. I always tell her no, but I'd be glad to drag her by one foot like pooh bear.

Yeah, what Bill said.

She's been dead these last 33 years, be careful what you ask for.

Its only spray if you all choose to treat it that way. The question of whether a spiritual practice can contribute to your climbing ability is not without merit. I'm a flat out atheist, so its not a path I'm likely to explore. Still, a lot of climbing is in your head, so it makes sense that the other things going on in there will affect your climbing.