Thinker

http://vip.mikrobitti.fi/~tapiob/whitelines.gif funny video.

Me too. I only lasted about 3 weeks on the wagon.

In case anyone wants to pinpoint the location of the Hulahula River, its mouth is roughly 10 miles west of Kaktovik (Barter Island), AK. The nearby Jago River is another one commonly rafted. It seems to me that the coastal natives are much more pro-drilling than the inland natives. Different tribes, different origins, different migrations from Asia, and different means of supporting their lifestyles. In very simplified terms, I think the dynamics boil down to whaling vs totally dependent on Caribou. I've seen first-hand the dole-out the major oil companies gave the villagers in Kaktovik so they could conduct high-intensity sonar surveys of the ocean bottom in the area ....shameless. It was driving the migrating whales further out to sea and stressing them terribly. Finley, did you fly with Walt Audi?

About 5 years ago I chose ATT, reasoning that because their system was older they would have more (analog) towers in more remote places...compared to the newer networks that seemed to concentrate on digital towers in large metro areas. I was happy with my choice at the time, though I'm not so sure my reasoning holds true today with the other companies expanding their networks. Funny story, I was on the summit of Mt Baker on Father's day a few years back and thought I should call my dad then...wouldn't be back to cell coverage for a number of hours after that. I took a little stroll away from the herds of climbers so as not to impact their wilderness experience and called my dad, hiding the phone inside my shell hood so as not to spoil the view of the wilderness for the herds. Short good conversation. When I got my bill ATT had billed me some extra charges, saying I made that call from Canada. When I offered to send them summit photos, affidavits from my climbing partners, and a map of Washington State showing where Mt. Baker is the customer service rep capitulated and took the extra charges off my bill. The extra charges were less than a dollar or two, but it was the point of the matter...let's be accurate! One certainly wouldn't get that same service now that Cingular has bought out ATT Wireless.

http://www.music-map.com/ For an instant demo, click this link: http://www.music-map.com/coldplay.html

I've been eating a lot of goat lately, too. Either that, the lime pickle, or the dahl has really been messing with my GI tract.

Another instance of an experienced climber rapping off the end of a rope, or rapping the short strand by mistake.

I'd settle for a little yak butter to make some tea with...

http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_3277176 Photos Baffin Island, Part 1: On the Edge -- Ascent puts cousins atop cliff, changes lives forever The ascent that put cousins atop a 2,400-foot granite cliff changed their lives in ways impossible to imagine. By Brett Prettyman The Salt Lake Tribune Kyle Dempster, left, and Drew Wilson share a moment after reaching the summit of a never-before-climbed cliff on Baffin Island. (Photos by Pete Dronkers) Part 1 of a 2-part series. Sometime between the "real" summit shot and the customary costume picture - this one with a grass skirt, coconut bra, blow-up monkey and Viking hat - Drew Wilson and Kyle Dempster reveled in their extraordinary mountain-climbing accomplishment. "I'd go climbing anywhere in the world with you," Kyle, 22, told his cousin. "I'm with ya, bro. We did some damage to that wall," Drew, 24, answered. It was mid-May and the first cousins stood on solid ground for the first time in 12 days after navigating an unnamed, unclimbed 2,400-foot granite wall in the Stewart Valley of Baffin Island in northeastern Canada. The lighthearted photos on the summit only strengthened the bond between the cousins and longtime climbing partners. The Canadian Arctic changed them. So did the Inuit people who helped them get to the valley and the formidable wall itself. In another 48 hours, everything for the cousins would change again, this time tragically. Reaching the summit would come to mean everything - and nothing. To make time go faster, the cousins talked about past and future climbs, past and current loves, funky family members and what they would name the route and wall if they made it to the top. Climbing cousins: For Dempster, of Salt Lake City, and Wilson, of Louisville, Ky., the climb began decades ago during family vacations stretching from Colorado to Cape Cod, Mass. Drew was the leader - make that daredevil - and Kyle tried his best to keep up. "At times Kyle was a bit scared to follow, but usually did so because Drew was very convincing that 'it would be all right out there on the edge.' He convinced a lot of people of that," Drew's mother, Kate Wilson, said. To keep the pair out of trouble, their families sent them each summer to Anderson Western Colorado Camps in Gypsum, Colo. By the time they were teenagers, Drew and Kyle, who shared the middle name Barrett, their mothers' maiden name, had tasted adventure sports including kayaking and mountain biking. Climbing had emerged as a favorite. When they were able to get together, they climbed: Yosemite, Zion, Red Rocks, Whitesides and more. "Get your shoes and get ready for this," Drew would say to Kyle. "We are going to do something stupid and dangerous today." Their parents always sighed with relief when they returned. Drew frequently found ways to get his friends into trouble, but was always there to help them get out of it. He drifted from his family in his late teens and for about three years only talked occasionally with his cousin, mostly about climbing. Kyle, meanwhile, developed into a sport climber, focused on getting up and down quickly on well-known routes with safety pitons or bolts already in place. Drew preferred traditional climbing on big walls, which required picking a route and placing his own safety devices. Kyle longed for time with his cousin and took up traditional climbing, hoping it meant he could spend more time with Drew. Kyle headed to California in May 2004 to become a Yosemite big-wall climbing bum. Drew eventually joined him, and it didn't take long for the cousins to find the important rhythm, trust and shared desire partners of the wall must have. They had become more than childhood companions in adventure. They were now officially climbing partners with big plans and serious destinations. "Two partners are needed": Cruising the Web looking for gear one summer day in 2004, Kyle saw a posting that caught his attention. It sought climbers for a trip to the Stewart Valley in spring 2005. Kyle, like many climbers, had seen pictures and video of the enormous granite walls found on Baffin Island, the fifth-largest island in the world. He picked up the phone and called Pete Dronkers at his Reno, Nev., home. They planned a trip to Yosemite to get to know each other and talk about plans for Baffin. Ross Cowan, an experienced climber also from Reno, and Grover Shipman, a physician from Klamath Falls, Ore., already had committed to the trip. As Kyle shared his excitement about the pending climb, Drew showed more interest. Kyle ended up calling and asking whether his cousin could join the team. Pete asked Kyle to have Drew send a résumé: It was clear Drew had more big-wall experience than any other member of the team. "When Kyle first started talking about Baffin Island I was a little hesitant," said Terry Dempster, Kyle's mother. "I got a feeling of peace about it when I heard Drew was going." Granite destination: The team gathered in Reno in mid-April to pack for the trip to Clyde River, the settlement closest to their remote destination. Among the estimated 800 pounds of gear for the five-member team: 1,600 feet of rope, a 10-gauge shotgun for protection from polar bears, three music players and 43 days' worth of food. They stood in awe at the amount of gear laid out in Ross' garage. Better to be over-prepared. Kyle and Drew left Reno on April 20. The others boarded their plane two days later. They flew to Ottawa, where they had a two-day layover to pick up last-minute gear and food. From Ottawa, they flew to Iqaluit, the capital of the vast Inuit-run Nunavut Territory. During their layover in Iqaluit, the cousins struck up a conversation with fellow passenger Shari Gearheard, a research scientist living in Clyde River studying Inuit hunter and elder knowledge of climate change. She invited Kyle and Drew to dinner. Over their plates of barbecued pork ribs and corn bread, Shari and her husband, Jake, answered excited questions about the Inuit people and the area where the cousins would be climbing. They taught Drew and Kyle a couple of Inuit words, how to say "qanuippit?" (how are you?) and "qujannamiik" (thank you). "They were both really interested in culture," Shari said. "It was obvious they were extremely close, although I didn't realize they were related until after the climb. You could just tell by the way they talked to each other and about each other that they had this deep trust and confidence going on." Shari and Jake served dinner again when the rest of the team arrived. Afterward, in a more serious exchange, the climbers handed over their wallets, cell phones, passports and other items for safekeeping. Dream becomes reality: On April 26, the climbers met with Levi Palituq, owner of Palituq Outfitting, and began packing haul bags for the 110-mile, 14-hour trip in snowmobile-driven sleds over frozen sea ice and land to the Stewart Valley. The cousins knew the Canadian Arctic would be cold, but nothing could have prepared them for the bitter chill they would experience that day. It didn't matter once they reached the massive walls of Sam Ford Fjord and the Stewart Valley - more granite than they could climb in a lifetime. They felt the hugeness of the world - and their small part in it. To Kyle, the rock itself provided an inner warmth. The group set up camp in the middle of the 12-mile valley and pulled out spotting scopes to find possible routes up the gnarly granite walls. They looked for shadows from cracks in the cliff - any sign of a crevice or crack to grasp, even if just big enough for a fingerhold. In the never-ending daylight of the Arctic, the group soon lost all concept of time. The climbers spent two or three "sun cycles" scoping the cliffs, but always found themselves drawn to a spire on the south side of the valley. The plan was for two teams - Kyle and Drew as one and Pete and Ross the other - to hit the wall, with Grover serving as a base camp manager. Drew and Kyle began to set 1,400 feet of fixed rope and the team hauled gear and 20 days' worth of food up 2,000 feet of talus slope leading to the cliff base. They hung two portaledges (think high-rise window-washing platforms enclosed in tents) about 700 feet above the base. Here, roughly 58 stories from the ground, they would cook and sleep for the entire climb - their base camp on the wall. About 10 days after picking their route, they were set. An increasingly anxious Ross then dropped a bomb. He would not try the climb. And Grover didn't feel up to the task, either. The cousins feared the other two were apprehensive about having Pete as a climbing partner. Challenges and clashes: The saying three's a crowd is widely considered as truth in big-wall, long-haul climbing. But Pete, lacking a partner, understandably still wanted to make the climb. He had, after all, planned the expedition. So Drew, Kyle and Pete hit the wall. The route to the top proved as difficult as they imagined. A personality clash between the cousins and Pete added to the challenge. Pete, who eventually felt like he was in the way of the more experienced climbers, decided to leave the work and the decisions up to the cousins. He attributed the tension to his more serious nature. "I'm kind of stuck in this bubble of 'God, this is so serious' and they helped me crack that and have some fun," Pete said. "They made the experience on the wall more enjoyable." Kyle and Drew took turns leading the way up the wall, drilling holes for safety bolts and setting rope. They averaged 16-hour stints, sometimes making just 80 feet of progress before dropping back to the camp to rest; one glorious day they managed 400 feet. To make time go faster, the cousins talked about past and future climbs, past and current loves, funky family members and what they would name the route and wall if they made it to the top. They even talked about possible routes they could see on the other side of the valley. The cousins didn't need to talk much about the climbing - for that they had an unspoken understanding. Kyle and Drew had never been closer. They slept less than 10 feet apart, head to toe on the 48-inch-wide portaledge. They were never more than 200 feet from each other as they climbed. On the 11th day on the cliff, they ran out of rope. They had fixed all 1,400 feet worth of the rope to the wall. A quarter of the climb remained, about 800 feet. A bold move to the top: Drew, in typical form, pushed for a bold, all-out marathon to the top. Pete resisted, worried they would get hungry and tired during the lengthy climb. Finally, they agreed to rest for a day, then go for it. Drew and Kyle led the way, with Pete following and taking one turn in front. The sun had completed 1 1/2 revolutions when Drew pulled himself over the top. Pete was next, with Kyle pulling up the rear. After donning their summit day costumes and posing for pictures, the trio sat down for food, water and a little nap - just "basking in it." The descent did not take nearly as long as the climb. Just like he had on the way up, Drew performed as the leader, spending two hours longer than the others breaking down the pitch lines and carrying the weighty rope to camp. About 35 hours after their departure, the climbers made it back to their wall camp. Exhaustion replaced the adrenaline rush from reaching the top and they crashed into their bags able to reach a deeper sleep knowing they had accomplished a major feat. The team stirred after an estimated 16 hours of sleep. While eating, they relived the climb and the glory, but it was time to get off the wall. They felt like dogs on leashes, always being clipped onto something. Drew talked about how nice it would be to really stretch his legs on a long walk. Pete climbed up to retrieve the first pitch rope, while Kyle and Drew began to break down camp and pack the haul bags. Kyle planned to stay at the wall camp to lower bags down to Drew. As Drew clipped onto a rope to rappel the 700 feet to the base of the wall, Kyle turned to him. They smiled. "See you at the bottom," Drew said. Kyle turned to continue breaking down the camp. That's when he heard the scream - and the inconceivable sound of plastic boots scraping rock. Part 2

oh please. about 75% of American men [think that they] have to shell out big bucks for sex.... but for some bizarre reason, it's deemed normal/ethical/legal when the payment is in the form of dinner, flowers, shoes, diamonds, etc. Bertrand Russell made a number of good points on this subject circa 1929.

My earlier post that was deleted went something like this: I think the fact that there were no slings on the cams contributed to the gear pulling. photo 2 shows all the cams being yanked into a horizontal position by the rope. when the top cam is loaded and violently pulled (back?) into a vertical position all bets are off when one starts predicting where those cam lobes will end up. ...POP....goes the weasel. Lather, rinse, and repeat as necessary until you deck.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4470522.stm Clothes of 1924 head for Everest By Virginia Phillips BBC Science staff When mountaineer Graham Hoyland returns to Mount Everest next year, he will not be clad in modern hi-tech fibres with tog ratings and windchill factor reduction. Instead, he'll be sporting replicas of garments last taken to the Himalayas in 1924, on the ill-fated expedition of George Mallory and Andrew (Sandy) Irvine which left both pioneers dead. Whether they reached the summit before succumbing to Everest's harsh conditions is unclear. They have acquired a reputation for a somewhat amateurish approach, based in part on photographs taken at base camp showing them wearing the English gentleman's attire of plus fours and tweed jackets. Hoyland is a great nephew of another of the expedition's members, and six years ago was one of the team which discovered Mallory's final resting place. "When we found his body it was a mixture of horror and amazement," he told the BBC's Science in Action programme. So why would Hoyland, a seven-time Everest veteran, even be contemplating going back to the mountain with the same designs and fabrics? Part of the answer is that Mallory and Irvine swapped their plus fours for much more appropriate attire when they began their ascent. "Even when we found the body," said Graham Hoyland, "it was obvious that he had layer upon layer of thin garments, although the clothes were in tatters." The layers were of silk, cotton and wool, alternating beneath an outer covering of tough gabardine. "The typical myth of Mallory was that he was under-equipped and amateurish," said Mary Rose, Professor of Entrepreneurship at Lancaster University in the UK, who was inspired by the discovery of Mallory's body to attempt a recreation of his wardrobe. In fact, she said: "We've found that he understood his clothing probably better than modern climbers. "It was quite an advanced system; the silk gave wind-proofing, and the silk and woollen layers moved off each other so it was quite easy to climb." Reconstructing the past Professor Rose worked closely with outdoor clothing manufacturers and researchers at other institutions. Vanessa Anderson, a performance sportswear masters student from the University of Derby, recreated several items including Mallory's cotton leggings. "It's a knitted fabric using a tuck stitch which gives a 3d structure - similar to a honeycomb effect," she said. "It's ideal for trapping air next to the skin, giving better insulation." From historical documents and the remains of Mallory's cotton leggings, Vanessa Anderson painstakingly reconstructed the 80-year old yarns and knitting patterns to recreate the garment. She has also reconstructed the gabardine jacket which Mallory wore. It was initially developed as a shooting jacket, with a 'pivot sleeve', allowing arm movement over the head without exposing the midriff to a nasty chill; perfect for mountaineering. Testing times The researchers have also found that Mallory's apparel weighed much less than modern equivalents. This, said Mary Rose, has inspired outdoor clothing manufacturers to reconsider the role of natural fibres; though the reconstructed clothes need to be tested in Himalayan conditions. "If you simply simulate you won't understand the tacit knowledge behind the clothing," she said. "Actually testing it in the field gets you a real sense of how the clothing performs." This is what Graham Hoyland hopes to discover when he tries it out on Everest next year. "I guess I will find it much easier to move across the terrain, but I imagine the wind will be really cutting," he said. "I think Mallory and Irvine did actually climb the mountain in 1924, and certainly there's nothing in this clothing to suggest they didn't."

my 2 cents: I lived there for 6 months in 1999 or 2000. The INEEL brings in educated professionals from all over the country. The city was only about 50% Mormon when I was there. The mayor was female and non-mormon. Ray Charles played one of his last gigs at the grand opening of IDF's newly remodeled permorming arts center. Brew pubs!! Good food, low crime rate, good air quality. If you're that concerned about the kids, send them to a private school. Tons of close climbing, skiing, biking, and fly fishing. Idaho Alpine Club...google it. I'd definitely rec living in IDF over Blackfoot, which is closer to the hops plant. They might want to consider Pocatello...a bit more of a drive to the plant, but maybe a little more liberal attitude overall given the university there. Search Amazon and other sources for books by Jerry Painter. He's a local newspaper columnist and guidebook author. Here's one link that's not on Amazon.

So what's up with the heavy-handed moderation and post deletion here? Mine was NOT spray.

One of the guys I climbed with this year sports this helmet:

I think it and Onanism are running neck and neck. Only if you're trying to decorate your organ with gold bangles....

Don't forget Mammonism

and lest we take this too seriously: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typoglycemia for fun: http://www.typoglycemia-translator.com/

But the one I posted actually names the disorder and has more content.

the last thread about dh that I started was deleted......though it didn't merit much ponderance as to why.

This kitty was found along side the highway near where I grew up in BFE Nebraska....

Believe it or not you can read it ..... I find I can read it best by speed reading. I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid Aoccdrnig to rscheearch taem at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Such a cdonition is arppoiately cllaed Typoglycemia - Amzanig huh? Yaeh and yuo awlyas thought slpeling was ipmorantt.

I actually got that photo from a friend in my email today. It included the caption: Family Fotos Are Priceless NEW CAMERA $350.00 NEW SCHOOL CLOTHES $400.00 NEW BACKPACKS $60.00 SPECIAL HUNTING DOGS $4000.00 PICTURE OF THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL . . . PRICELESS!

So did any of the 120+ viewers of this thread, thus far, pick up on what company byproduct is pictured? I'd bet more than a few of us have them on our rack....

I finally got a couple of shots of a cool way one business here in SLC has reused some industrial byproduct. It got me thinking about other examples I've seen in the outdoor industry. One that comes to mind is the climbing gym in Idaho Falls that is (or was, at least, about 6 years ago) using excess parts of TEVA soles all over the floor to cushion falls (much like the gravel in the local seattle gyms). Something about turning climbing ropes into rugs and floor mats strikes me as 'wrong', though. What other examples have YOU seen?