JoshK

Or bring a girl as a climbing partner, then you won't even really care about summiting

FWIW, I've heard from a couple of folks that going up Access Creek is not nearly as bad as legend holds.

I'm not sure if somebody posted this yet or not... http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/news/story?id=1797903&partnersite=espn Very sad to hear.

Yeah, it's funny that people would let 6 miles stop them. It's 2 hours, 3 if you are slow. That isn't enough to make a climb that much harder.

Wow, fairweather and I agree. Of course he couldn't help but throw in the comment about those damn liberal pinko environmentalist commies! If the road can be routed so that it does very little to impact watersheds, etc. Fixing one 5 mile stretch of road is hardly going to be destroying the wilderness. As it is we easily have the top 2 national parks in the country and the rest of the country doesn't even really know about them since they contain so little in the way of roads. It could be a lot worse...it could be yellowstone.

Thanks for everybody's comments. I ended up getting a Mega-light and I look forward to trying it out!

The shadow looks like a great pack, but I've never used one. After much experimentation I have finally decided I am willing to spend an extra pound to have a frame and suspension. It makes packing the pack easier (which is nice for frequently pulling things out and putting things in the pack, and it just carries better all and all.

How many others are going with you? I haven't read what Beckey says about it, and I am not familiar with Challenger arm in particular, but if you are a group of 3 or more, then I would simply concentrate on basic glacier travel skills. Here are the points you probably want to touch on: *Basic roped team walking on glacier *Crevasse navigation (esentially being able to pick a route through the slots and follow it to avoid double backing, etc. *Being able to arrest a crevasse fall and set an anchor while down *Being able to extract the unlucky bastard who is in the crevasse If you are at least 3 strong and all posess these basic skills then I would feel that is a good margin of safety. I would leave 2-man glacier travel alone until you have more experience. Try to get your partners to go climb Baker via the coleman-deming with you. It may not be the most glorious route technically, but the coleman is definitely very broken later in the year and will make use of these skills.

Umm, I think it was white, with maybe some blue lines or leterring? I know planes, but not helis, so I couldn't tell you what model it was. I wonder why, then, on reality shows, cops, and other such crap they blur out standers-by? In any event, next time I'd really rather have whoever is up there think twice about hovering right over somebody. It's kind of obnoxious and not exactly what I think of as enjoyable in my wilderness experience. Then again, it obviously made for a good story.

Farrakhan is an evil son of a bitch. He's a complete racist and anti-semite. He's hardly an example of postive Islamic leadership or anything like that.

Like I said then, I just figured my mom or my girlfriend got their days confused and called in a rescue or something.

Ha...I know. The little crying dude was my sarcasm back. Hmm...seems these little faces aren't as good at implying subtleties as we thought. Anyway, I'm off to the mosque...

Yeah, ya never know. I would imagine if you threw somebody's picture on an advertisment for supergaper sports drink you would get in trouble for sure. In case anybody was confused I was making a crack at our over-lawsuit-happy society. I would never sue for something that stupid.

Why all the hostility? I'm serious, I am curious if anybody noticed the trend of converting to islam that took place a while back.

So has the whole 9/11, war on terror thing put a dent into the "convert to islam" trend? I swear it seemed like their was a popular trend for people here, esp. minorities, to convert from whatever religion they were to islam. I'm wondering if the recent bad publicity has put a clamp on this?

First off, I was kidding. But it is illegal to use the "likeness" of somebody without their permission. Irregardless if my picture shows up in some magazine I could really care less.

It was definitely not military. So, I guess we'll be famous now or something. If they use my photo without paying can't I sue and get mad cash or something?

I can definitely see the slow computer issue. IE is big. I just find most people tend to complain about it simply because it's microsoft. It always works fine for me and stuff actually shows up correctly which is more than you could say for nutscrape.

So Marylou, what exactly is wrong with IE?

BWAAAHH! Some great quotes. It's hilarious how the automakers seem to be saying "yes, our customers are complete idiots, but we build what they want" "Fred J. Schaafsma, a top engineer for General Motors, says, "Sport-utility owners tend to be more like 'I wonder how people view me,' and are more willing to trade off flexibility or functionality to get that."" "According to Bradsher, internal industry market research concluded that S.U.V.s tend to be bought by people who are insecure, vain, self-centered, and self-absorbed, who are frequently nervous about their marriages, and who lack confidence in their driving skills" "...Bradsher writes, loves to tell the story of how at a focus group in Los Angeles "an elegant woman in the group said that she needed her full-sized Lexus LX 470 to drive up over the curb and onto lawns to park at large parties in Beverly Hills." One of Ford's senior marketing executives was even blunter: "The only time those S.U.V.s are going to be off-road is when they miss the driveway at 3 a.m."" "My tape recorder went skittering across the cabin. The whole maneuver had taken no more than a few seconds, but it felt as if we had been sailing into a squall. Champion brought the car to a stop. We both looked back: the TrailBlazer had hit the cone at the gate. The kid on the bicycle was probably dead. Champion shook his head. "It's very rubbery. It slides a lot. I'm not getting much communication back from the steering wheel. It feels really ponderous, clumsy. I felt a little bit of tail swing.""

Huh? What was that in reply to? No need to rant about hummer limos...everybody knows they are gay as hell!

Oh seri0ously, this thing has me freaking giddy. The ability to download a giant section of overhead photos and scroll around and then instantly switch to topo is just awesome.

The only thing I know about your splitboard shenanigans is that it resulted in a giant bloody mess I'll bring the first aid kit and we're good to go!

(This is not necessarily directed to the poster I quoted, just seemed like a good place to put it:) Honestly, how do you ass clowns get to the mountains, by riding a bike? "Oh no, we carpool in my subie outback." So you are better than the SUV drivers because you only pollute half as much eh? So your shit only stinks half as much? Good job Go get a flipping clue. I really dont want to start up the SUV vs. cars debated again, but remember two things: 1.) there is a huge difference between those who need SUVs (< 1%) and every fucking soccer mom driving one. There is currently no disinsentive for people to pick some sort of reasonable vehicle, so the suburbanites get caught in a war of ever increasing vehicle size. My new theory is it's suburban husbands who need to get a minivan for their family, but can't stand driving a minivan so they get a large poor handling minivan (Suburban, expedition, etc...) 2.)SUVs pollute way more than cars, not just 2x. Fuel economy may simply be twice as bad but remember they have to meet very light efficient, crash safety and pollution standards due to their classification as light work trucks.

Excellent....a fellow simpsons character!