RuMR

wow dane...what can i say? You will heal up and this will be a memory... contact Mr.Radon on this site...he went through one of the most devastating injuries that i've seen personally (broken back) and his recovery is inspirational, despite the numerous "brokeback" homo jokes that he is now the butt of...

all of those kids are amazing in their own right...i've long since gotten over the bitterness of getting crushed by some kid...it happens ALL of the time...its awesome...what fool would want the younger generation to not exceed the older generation????

it was a low key, yet whirlwind trip...this was my oldest boy's and Mr. Radon's first climbing trip to the valley...i think they were both, at times, spellbound, shocked, overwhelmed, amazed, pleased and beaten soundly...all in all a tremendous trip... I saw a movie with Ron Kauk narrating and personally introducing the film on Saturday night with Drew and Jdog (Radon chose to watch "Rambo" at camp instead..., my boy is more sophisticated than him!). The movie was really more about the valley, in its seasons, seen from Kauk's eyes than a true climbing flick. In fact, there was probably only 10-15 minutes of actual footage of him climbing...but it was a lot of scenery and his reflections on a lifetime spent in what some consider to be a sacred place. The film was called "Return to Balance: a Climber's perspective on a lifetime in the valley"...its been on PBS... I was/am hoping that Drew sees this side of climbing, and the campfire side of climbing, and the camaraderie side of climbing, complete with the shittalking, s'more eating, dirt bag living than the euro sporto model of crushing routes and competition and teams etc. For this, i can see why Dwayner appears bitter and i can see his nostalgic look back into time...

you are such a flickin' douchebag...why don't you come up with something new, dinosaur

dunno exactly...i know there is a ton of them that made Worlds after nationals...most of them are back and are expected to place high enough to make the world team again... of course VW is huge, so your ratio-ing will always place them lower...ie, a one person team who makes nationals will always "place higher" using your method, right?

well said...i thought ahab was much much harder than generator...

and have very low standards...

Wow, you're a pompous dickwad. Obviously it DOES happen, to climbers of all abilities and experiences. What a terrible tragedy, my thoughts are with his belayer and his family and friends. I personally agree with the victim that practice falling was not a bad idea...its unfortunate that his gear pulled...i was not slamming him at all!! everyone else was on boadrd with saying " what a stupid idea, blah blah blah" piss off...

mmmm....burnt meat!!! T A S T Y

barbecue BBQ...so, when is the f-ing barbecuing season (summer) gonna get here???

I don't think it's possible to always know when you'll be coming off... Just last week, i was gym leading on a vertical-slightly overhung route, and got up to where the last bolt was near my feet. The clips had all been to the left of the route at that point, so the rope was hanging down my left side, vs. between my legs. The route then went left around a slanting arete (less than vertical), and i couldn't see that the only way to stay on was to step out onto an insecure slippery foothold around the corner until I was already there...and the rope behind my left ankle. When my foot blew, i inverted, but luckily my belayer caught me before hitting anything. Only injury was a rope burn around the leg. But it got me thinking hard about the helmet--there's NEVER a good reason not to wear it outside (except when your head won't fit through a squeeze chimney, in which case I start to ask myself if I should be there in the first place... ) this might be a bretty good reason to suspect that a fall may happen...again, hardly without a warning...

you shoulda bouldered with me and Drewber instead of baking all day on nutcracker with carter and jdog...

just got back yesterday...it was f-ing awesome fun...too short of a trip....need to go back...

About what I would expect from you. However, now that you brought them up, what is wrong with 'honor' and 'sacrifice'? You Lefties preach individual sacrifice for the good of the collective. How is a soldier's willingness to sacrifice any different? Further, how is 'honor' now a bad word? The problem with "honor" and "sacrifice" they're basically lofty-sounding abstractions designed for the parents of dead children and inscriptions on tombstones, to give the living some meaning for senseless waste. They have no meaning whatsoever in and of themselves: the same language is used by kamikazis, Prussians, Commies, Doughboys, Mongols, or Marines. The Nazi SS talked loads of this stuff, but through history's lens were they honorable and virtuous? Submission and sacrifice to the State is the essence of fascism but it's always dressed in the very same terms you unquestioningly swallow. Any "leftie" worth his salt would never accept your premise about "preaching individual sacrifice for the good of the collective". The ones I like tend to be a bit more historically literate and less prone to razzle-dazzle marketing campaigns dressed up as patriotism. Finally, "honor" is a bad word when it's used as first to charm impressionable boys and then as ideological cover to mask national chauvinism and belligerence. Denying the existence of honor is a long tradition of those lacking that trait. Honor is real and I have seen it personally. If less people would forget what honor was, this world might not be so bad. Things like Pride, Duty, Self Sacrifice and Honor should not be bad words. They are ideals that we MUST instill in our children; not try to erase. Perhaps the reason you are a nhilist is that you have nothing greater than yourself to believe in than a washed up philosophy that killed more people than the plague. My point is not that these things don't exist, it's that the relationships between the abstract ideas and what they're realistically in service to need to be examined. I think people can be honorable, exhibit virtuous qualities, etc. but that killing people in the service to and for the benefit of the State (much less invading and occupying Iraq) doesn't meet the criteria. Would you say this to a D-Day vet or a beach storming pacific theatre vet?? I think not... Personally, i disagree with this war from all sorts of angles, but addititonally, i think that there are sometimes justifiable, morally/ethically/legally, wars and combat. Arguably, blood should have been shed in Rwanda to prevent the atrocities there and additionally, it should be shed in the congo now...Iraq? Its a silly gentleman's war with waay too high of a price, both in american blood and iraqi...Perhaps, if it had been waged more intelligently, that price could have been lowered...

are you sure on the "on sight ground up" part, daryl? I thought it was used in terms of protection only...ie, its foil would be "rap-placed"...yo yo ascension used to be considered valid, and that would hardly be "ground up on sight"...just have to lower after each fall, that's all...

sure...anything can happen...I haven't inverted after my first couple of years...I fall alot...especially now... matt...i never commented on the helmet issue...i commented about the moment that you are disengaging from the wall...like i've said, i have a hard time envisioning myself going invert on steep climbing...slabs and trundling falls, all bets are off as you may "trip" up on the way down... perhaps i'm not pushing myself hard enough, but i generally have a decent sense of when i may be coming off...that split second for me is enough to get myself orientated (i think)...hard sport or trad ( "hard" is relative to the climber), i feel i'm a lot less likely to flip...even redlined...

inverted falls do not come from "nowhere"...they should simply never happen...i can not think of a time when i've flipped upside down...it just doesn't happen... learn to fall properly...also, learn when not to fall no matter what...

uhhh no...

a one person "standard"....now i've heard everything...guess i'll go paste some more anchors up to keep the falls to a "standard"...

eagle egos aloft!!!!!!!

Man, that would be bitchin'...at summersville, we would all go in and just rent a boat...perhaps that would be an option???

I woulda asked in person, and probably not too nicely, that you control your dog if i thought my family was being threatened by a dog. I agree that its not cool to drop a name via internet but you initially got in Pax's face first "I woulda smashed your head in with a rock" over something where he was flat out in the right...I apologize for the namecalling, but it still was a "tool" thing to do to both the dog and others...Its obvious that you recognize this, hence your apology...

you gotta admit that it wasn't fair to the dog to put him in a situation without his owner around, right? plus, its not fair to the other folks... somewhat of a sore issue with me as i've had a pack destroyed by a dog and on another separate incident, my kid bowled over...perhaps i should leash the kid???