jonah

This happened to John Gill, a very prominent climber (and former gymnast). I think it happened when he was 50. He was back to doing one arm pull ups in 6 months. Also happened to my dad, who regained full strength without surgery because his brachioradialis compensated for the loss of the biceps. I know it also happened to a member of the us mens gymnastics team, and he is competing again, too. Shitty injury, but you can fully recover.

One arm hangs, unweighted with a pulley system on a relatively large edge. Make sure you are directly underneath the edge with your arm slightly bent. Do it with supination (i.e the position your hand would be in drinking a beer). 3 sets of 5 second hangs each hand with 3 minute rests between sets. I was able to go to deadhanging with one hand fairly quickly and safely that way, but more importantly I got stronger, sent harder shit and held off injury.

Since nobody else has admitted to this yet, I'll take one for the team. I wiped with it. Worst thing that ever happened to me in my life. Won't go into details, but I had to take a 4 hour exam while I had it and couldn't sit down for the whole thing.

Re. Bronco's last post. Funny how I can look at the same attributes and come to a different conclusion, even though I assume some of our feelings on government are similar. I look at Kerry's pro-choice stance as pro-freedom. Maybe we see things differently. I'm a patriotic american and believe in minimal governmental interference in people's lives. Yes, this extends to the bedroom and decisions about having children. Although I am anti-abortion, I am pro-freedom, therefore I am pro-choice and support Kerry. I also support raising taxes to balance the budget, just like Bush and Kerry. Bush advocates tax increases at the local and state level to make up the shortfalls his federal tax cuts for the wealthy incur. Of course, he doesn't say this explicitly, but I don't think there are any literate people in the world who don't realize that's the effect of large federal tax cuts and deficit spending. Bush's dad, of course, advocated raising, and did raise, taxes in an attempt (completed by Clinton) to balance the budget. Pretty good job, in my view. Bush is much less than an angel. Reading Woodward's new book (which Bush himself recommends on the White House website) makes Bush seem like a streetcorner preacher. The guy should be in counseling, not the White House. I don't want to spend any of my hard-earned dollars on more wars because Bush thinks God told him to go to war, and refuses to look at reason or facts. Dude's a nutjob, totally unfit for office.

Sweet TR; good go on primrose. Damn, I miss the Creek. I don't think the guidebook will hurt too much, Tex, but I see your point. At least 50% of the people that go there get so spanked their first time they don't want to climb there anymore, though. Besides, incredible handcrack, et al., will eventually get so eroded inside that they will be offwidths, most people will think the supercrack butress is schwaggy offwidth and that it's all IC has to offer, and stop going. Then it will once again be a land of endless, unclimbed splitter heaven.

I used to go there a bit, and know the guy who does most of the ranting. I told him I thought not taping is cheating because it gives you a better feel for the jams. He didn't have a good response, other than to say "I soloed Incredible Hand Crack." Whatever. Dean Potter was there last spring barefoot with tape on his feet. Is that aid, too? Funny folks in Utah...

Telenut, please explain: Why would we feel more scared if these attacks had come under Clinton or Kerry? Isn't Bush intentionally trying to make us scared with all his duct tape, orange alerts, etc. bullshit? I personally am LESS afraid when there is a president at the helm with a proven record of foiling terrorist attacks (e.g. Clinton: Seattle on New Year's Eve 2000 and the al Qaeda LA airport bombing attempt) or with a proven military record (Kerry). I am frankly scared shitless that we have to trust our foreign policy and our security to neocon ideologues who cannot objectively assess a situation if the solution does not accord with their own political views or business interests. Also, if you are saying that there will be another attack and it will be very bad, isn't that an implicit admission that Bush is failing in either his policy or military strategy (or both) to effectively fight terrorism? If he's doing such a shit job that it WILL happen again, why in God's name would we want him in office???

It does now. I'm not a republican, but I think their actions should be held up to their rhetoric. And telenut: you're welcome for the enlightenment.

Yup, my bad. Sorry to the real Josh.

You're right, Josh. You are clearly no lawyer. I'm going to have to guess you're not even all that tuned in, mentally speaking, to actually try to defend Bush and his cronies in the face of this shit. C'mon, man. They're destroying the Republican party and everything it stands for through their wanton deficit spending, their brutally irresponsible fiscal policies, and the total ineptitude of their whole draft-dodging, sons-of-privilege foreign policy group. What happened to the party that stood for freedom, individual rights, and opportunity? Bush has destroyed it, the economy, and our standing as the greatest country in the world. Also, your quasi-racist statements about Islam aren't helping. Attitudes like that are part of the reason alot of the world hates us, and that hatred is the reason alot of the world supports terrorist acts against us. I can only assume you have NEVER been in an Islamic country. If you had, you would simply be unable to make the baseless, ignorant statements you're making. Good luck, Josh. I hope you and people with attitudes like yours start critically thinking about your political views, those of the rest of the world, and the disastrous consequences of perpetuating your kind of ignorance. P.S. I'm not trying to insult you personally. If you're going to make statements that belie a profound ignorance, though, you got it coming.

Not to be a dick, but don't you guys think it's a little odd to be ragging on this guy's style of ascent? The way you say "well, it's not REALLY trad" makes you sound as if you're suggesting that if YOU were to do it, you would place all the gear. Newsflash: you're not gonna do it in any style, preplaced gear or otherwise! Ever!! So why try to bring down the accomplishment of someone who did?

For anyone worried about the incidence of contracting diseases from CPR versus the potential payoff in life saving, I just have to say: do CPR. I worked for many years as an EMT in 2 states. I have personally seen CPR bring people back (at least when used in conjunction with advanced support that arrives quickly). As important (in many ways), I guarantee you will feel like shit for the rest of your life if you stand around feeling like you could have done something but did nothing because of a vague fear of contracting something. CPR is gross, but you are very unlikely to contract HIV or even hepatitis from doing it, especially considering that climbers are a generally low-risk population for most freaky blood borne diseases.

How do you know you tore it? Is it a torn muscle or did the biceps head detach? My dad's whole bicep ripped off, and he didn't do anything about it surgically, just did pt, and now he has full strength again (the brachialis apparently can compensate). Of course, it looks very odd. Same thing happened to John Gill, but he had surgery and was doing one-arms again in 6 months; he was over 50 at the time, too.

I just saw the Berlin Wall on thecrag.com. Where is it? Trad or sport? I'm still kind of new to Seattle, so that may be a stupid question. Looks like a high density of hard routes, though. Thanks in advance.

My biggest score wasn't making the vulture rounds. We found an box of Hostess hohos at the base of the cliff, buried under some rotten leaves. They were probably about 10 years old. We ate all of them, and they were just as bad as if they were new.

I wasn't thinking about bolting a roadcut, actually, but the cliff bands about 500-1000 vertical feet above the road on the side near the ski hill as you enter Alpental, and on what i think is snoqualmie mountain on the right side of the road. I'm very sensitive about access issues; I've done quite a bit of legal work for the access fund. Sensitivity does not mean simply not climbing in areas where other users may see us, though. Climbing is not a criminal activity. It looks like this area has a lot of potential and some well-thought-out development could be great. Obviously, I'm a complete outsider, so I really appreciate everyone's input here.

hey. i just moved here, and was hoping for directions to the rap wall and beta on the routes (i.e. names and ratings right to left). Looks like fun. Also, are there any regulations on bolting around alpental? Looks like there's some great potential right by the road for some nice steep sport/mixed routes. Thanks in advance for any help

does anyone know what the fastest car to car time is on the tooth?