Jake

All these Beckey talks and I'm on the other side of the country Does he give good talks? Am I missing anything?

How about, sitting in your car listening to music after a hairy solo trip in the mountains.

Nobody wants to guess?? http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2003/s2100.htm

So what is your assessment on this winter? Will it kick ass or suck ass?

What a great night. Over 1000 different beers in one place!!! Just watch out for the $45 bottles. The beer list is 10 pages long. http://www.thebrickskeller.com/ http://www.thebrickskeller.net/_wsn/page3.html

I have no idea. Is there anything to mine up there? Maybe somebody was gonna build a little shack or something??? See any black helicopters?? Anyway, Triad lake is a pretty cool place. I gotta get back there.

My buddy said he saw Willis in Georgetown a couple days ago with Brooke Burns. Said Brooke was way hot. Of course, I'm never around to see that stuff.

How stable is that stuff? Does climbing put lots of holes in it from tools and crampons?

Yeah, outdoor camofires are illegal during after mid to late summer in most places - the forest circus decides exactly when. It is pretty easy to find out when they are banned, websites, trailheads, newspapers etc. This is from their website. "Campfires are allowed only in developed campgrounds and in designated Wilderness areas in the Lake Wenatchee & Leavenworth Ranger Districts" It really is stupid to burn down the forest because people are too dumb to put out their fire. That Thirtymile fire that killed those firefighters was human caused. So was the Rat Creek fire that burned up the Icicle. It really pisses me off.

What happened to the lookout anyway?

Depends which way the wind is blowing, I guess. But try this out. http://www.fs.fed.us/r6/wenatchee/crystal-fire/crystal-fire-photos-2.html

Yet another question on snow. Anybody been up there recently - what are the snow conditions?

Pay a few guys to sit in the bushes with baseball bats for couple nights and beat the living hell outa any dipshit thieves. Or, cover the bastards with food and leave 'em out for the grizzly bears to bite their balls off.

Interesting. Wires aren't the only obstacle out there either. I remember something about an A-6 flying into a cliff down on the Columbia River after he came out of the Palisades some years ago. I guess they figured the pilot got blinded by the sun and didn't make the turn downriver in time and hit the cliff. It's great being out in the mountains watching military jets fly by, though.

Was descending Maude by myself early in the afternoon in total quiet except for the breeze in the valley below - hadn't seen a person all day. Then I hear this tremendously loud noise that surprises me enough that I fall down on my ass on top of the sharp talus and slice up my hands. I looked up and saw an EA-6B, which had apparently rocketed over the col by 7 Fingered Jack and Fernow, fly by me at my altitude about a few hundred yards away and dive down into Phelps creek valley below me. Never been that surprised/startled in my life. It was pretty cool though when I somewhat recovered my senses to see the guys in the cockpit as they screamed by.

Right on!!

I agree that what has been done out there is a major improvement and I guess it makes sense about firefighters and stuff using weird setups - though some of the bolts just seem useless they are so far away from the cliff. What I was referring to most of all though were a few bolts, and I don't really remember exactly where on the main wall, that had loose hangers. Anyway, things do look better on the whole, especially since some of that spray paint is gone. By the way, there are other worries out there besides paintballers. I was bouldering out there the other day and saw this scary looking guy probably about 25-30yrs old smoking weed with two preppy high school girls who couldn't have been older than 14. Sex offender in action, I guess. They tried to hide what they were doing and run off when they saw me. It's really too bad.

How about cleaning up some of those bolts? There are some weird ones out there that are pretty sketchy looking or are in strange locations that don't seem to be very useful. Somebody ought to shoot all of those idiots with the spray paint and the broken glass too.

What about those people that live high in South America and the Himalaya? Are they retarded too?

Spring break was last week. It rained nearly the entire time. Mother nature sucks.

NWAC has hourly updates from various mountain locations. http://www.nwac.noaa.gov/nw05000.htm#Hourly%20Mountain%20Weather%20Data

Well, there is that rating system of classes 1-5 to start with. Real climbing would start at class 4, i figure. Class three would be more scrambling so it would fall under something similiar to hiking. For instance, you can really hike/scramble to the top of many peaks, though lots of people will say "I climbed that mountain" when all they really did was scramble up a hill around trees and rocks.

Full Sail What is your favorite style? The seasonal Half Pipe Porter is pretty good.

Well, I can't find the photos of toketie wall that I thought I had with me. I think they are at my house right now and I won't be back there for a couple weeks. Hopefully someone else has some to show before then - it really is a sweet looking stone. Sorry to get your hopes up.

The cliff is pretty big and cool looking - I'll try to post some pics if I can find them. I haven't climbed it, but hiked up there a few years ago in the fall to look at it and the approach is definitely a grunt. I went up snow creek until I got to toketie creek and then followed that drainage up trying to keep high on the hills to avoid the rocks, steep bushy crap, and burned trees. I don't remember exactly how long the round trip (we stopped at the lake - the wall is on the other side of it and would probably take another 20+ ? min to get to), but I am guessing it was was probably around 6hrs. It might be a shorter trip if mother nature doesn't decide to snow on you like she did to us. It might be cool to hike up there one afternoon and spend the night at the lake and climb the next day. There are a couple towers on the ridge south of the creek that could be fun to check out too.