JoshK

Yesterday I went up to the buck creek trailhead on the end of the chiwawa river road. The road is currently gated 6 miles from the end but is completely passable by car until the end. I took a mountain bike for those 6 miles...a shout out to the forest service..I really needed that extra 12 miles of bike riding yesterday. Anyway, down I rode with skis and shit on my back. My goal was to go up buck creek, hit fortress and chiwawa and red and go out through chiwawa basin. After 7 or 8 miles of going up through the buck creek drainage (almost all of it on bare trail) I turned around. At 4600 the snow pack was pretty much all gone. From that point forward it would have been that awful trail-snow-trail-snow crap until quite a ways higher up. I was in this area around July 4th a few years back and I swear the snow pack wasn't all that much worse then. After bailing I decided I'll just go back in a month or month and a half and do that loop on foot instead. It sucks...that ski tour should still be really good at this time of year.

Totally doable...in fact, the whole thing is doable in a day if you really wanna haul ass. If you know how to bivy (translation: really light) then I think you'll have a much more pleasent time. It's a great area, and as Tom said, you'll have a much better shot with the weather.

Now if our government wanted to actually do something useful with their crackdown on civil liberties, the would ban the FOX network as a whole...

Now *that* would be some sort of descent!

I'd like to get some educated guesses from people who have climbed this route before. What nature is the "construction" of the NE ridge. Does it tend to melt out quickly? It's not a terribly high peak so I'm wondering if it's climbable on mostly rock now. It also looks like most of the climbing is pretty low grade, so I'm assuming snow, if it was there, would not be a huge obstacle. thanks, josh

Personally I think the "right thing" has nothing to do with christianity or any other religion. I think things like this are common sense for any modern person. I don't need a religion to tell me that killing, disrespecting my wife, stealing, etc. are bad. On the opposite side, however, many people do use religion as an excuse for the bad things they do.

Yeah, ended up bailing due to the weather. The system was acutally making things *worse* on the east side of the crest from what I can tell and I didn't feel like climbing rock in snow and rain. Sometimes you're better off just staying home and getting require things done, as much as it sucks

I'm pretty sure it is. I PMed Paul. Unfortunately it's just my backup shovel that I give to partners who dont have one so they can dig my ass out I really want to find the handle to the nice voile (sp?) shovel I have.

Yes, I'm pretty sure I remember seeing an antenne (the weather was moving in, it was late, and the snow was hardening, so we were on the summit all of a couple of minutes) I know we were certainly on the true summit, you could tell that.

Yeah, cause nothing works on macs, including the viruses and shit

Cool, I'll check those features out. Finding out BillG supports Bush's re-election has renewed my interest in using something else

In what ways is it so much better? I am not arguing as I am open to trying something different, but I just didn't see what I got in return for an extra piece of software on my computer.

Well, my several day experiment with Opera has ended with the removal and purging of it from my computer. Too much junk on the screen. I just want my simple browser back. I give them credit...much faster (and correct) layout than most of the alternative browsers, but I'm still not too impressed. I think it's still at the level of "well, it's not microsoft" but not actually better in any way. My 2 cents.

Hey Paul, thanks for the reply. I just noticed Robinson myself. Looks big and interesting and easy to access. I would imagine the snow level is probably pretty high around there now, but who knows.

Never been to much in the area. During this time of year what would be the best bet to get someplace cool in the pasayten (high peak, etc.) considering road avilability, trail access, etc...

I found a squirril at 12k on mount adams once. Couldn't figure it out until I realized some bird caught him then couldn't hold on.

LOL! Damn, that's awesome. There isn't much wildlife outside my window save the neighbor's mangy dog and the annoying birds that fight and wake me up every morning. Bald eagles are cool.

I would agree that all religions are particularly sexist in their beginnings. I wont address my general dislike for organized religion as a whole but let's just say I like Islam the same as the rest of them. I'll call a cigar a cigar. The scarfs are a sign of male dominance in their culture. Frankly, I dont give a shit if 0.1% of their female population "likes" them, the fact is in lots of those countries if they dont wear them they'll be stoned or beaten...for religious reasons. Yes, it may be a horrible interpration of a religous writing but the fact remains that it is used to conduct a mass injustice. Will you get stoned if you dont participate in hot dogs and listen to rock n' roll? No, I dont think so. Yes, it's their culture, and I reserve the right to dislike it. Frankly I value the basic rights of a human being over the forced religous and cultural beliefs they had the misfortune of being born into. P.S. I agree about Iraq vs. the other countries there. Our "allies" are the most fucked up.

Climb: McGregor Mountain-North Side Date of Climb: 5/15/2004 Trip Report: I was hoping Forrest would supply us with a humorous TR including a breakdown of the various ski/boot carrying methods we used on this trip, but, alas, it seems it is up to me. Considering this trip happened a week ago I have barely enough interest to write it up, let alone inject humor into it Anyway, last weekend ForrestM, Gordy and myself ski-climbed McGregor mountain. McGregpr is a peak that many have probably not heard of. It is located very near Stehikin and rises above the south fork bridge creek valley. From Stehikin access is fairly reasonable and there is a route to a lookout on the south slopes. The north side, however, is a different ballgame. No trail enters the basin beneath the north side of the mountain and the only reasonable access (save going through stehekin and up and over rainbow lakes pass) is to enter from SR20 on the bridge creek trail. You follow this for several miles and then branch off onto the rainbow lake trails. Once in the wide basin where the drainage you want heads west, you just start going up. Thank god the snow cover had started so schwaking was kept to a minimum. I would imagine this valley is unpleasent without snow. We quickly set up a camp about 4pm on saturday and headed up the mountain around 4:30. I think the summit was reached shortly before 7:30 if I recall. The clouds began to roll in and the temperature began to drop. Fully expecting a lousy ski down we took off. Much to our delight the snow was actually very surprisingly good. The entire descent of 3500 feet or so probably took 20 minutes tops. Soon we were back at camp where Forrest cooked us up a gourmet meal. We all enjoyed a nice long night of sleep and slept in the next morning. The walk out was long, but not that bad. It only took us just shy of 6 hours, which I think was quite fast considering the terrain and conditions. It took us much longer on the way in for routefinding, etc. Gear Notes: Skis, Skins, normal backpacking stuff. Approach Notes: Bridge creek trail starts on snow. You start to lose snow near fireweed camp. It is pretty much snow free until a mile up the rainbow creek trail where it alternates (annoyingly) between snow and trail for what seems like forever. Nearing the basin beneath the rainbow lakes pass it becomes solid snow. The definitely crux of the trip (at least I thought) was finding ways to get across the various rivers. The first log crossing on the bridge creek trail is still intact, but nothing else from that point on is. Forrest was the trip hero for finding us a big ass tree across bridge creek that had recently bit the dust. Wading would not have been an option. I think the S fork of bridge creek would be best desribed as a river most places. It was flowing fast and high.

Huh? Since when am I conservative?

Snowboarders are smart enough to get a pair of crampons on!?!?

he needs to pick Edwards! That guy is sweet. Southern, confident, well spoken, well liked, not ugly (something Kerry and Bush cannot claim) and just damn cool.

No, Warren Buffet is a good man, and one of the few who does vote with his mind and heart and not pocketbook. He is a billionaire and supports liberal causes. The fact that PP said to hell with him is a good indication that he is on the side of the just.

Check out the Camp XLC490s. I went with those cause they had a more agressive secondary point and were even lighter still...