JoshK

I totally agree. Things are never cut and dry. I was just putting forth a book that I'd read that I thought was worth of discussion. I do believe however, that while the US has done much good, it has also done much harm in bringing us to the current state of affairs where we're a nation culturally marginalized and only interacted with because we are the last remaining superpower and exert huge influence on the global stage with an unbeatable military to back up our brand of diplomacy. Agreed. Interestingly enough America did most of it's good when it was still strugling to move to the forefront of world influence and policy. We now truly have the power to change almost anything we want and do nothing worth while. Our recent shift to support right-wing isolationist morons in our goverment has a lot to do with this, I believe. To make things worse FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) are spread through the media by our government to help gain support for our shit-ass global policies. I suppose it's always hard to draw the line, however. Even if we try to play nice with everybody, before long you'll encounter some form of jackass that wants to hurt you no matter what. Osama is this kind of character. We could pull out of the middle east entirely (which would degrade that place into a bigger shithole than it is today, I'm sure) and they'll find some other beef with us.

You bitch about us providing aid to attempt to improve the lives of to people who don't want to help themselves and bitch about those who *do* want themselves illegally doing what they need to do to improve their own lives. Whadda ya want?

Well said, man. But who are we to allow somebody to improve their lives? THey are taking $14 of my tax money!

What the hell are you talking about, avatar?

JG - you started a very interesting arguement. good points from a lot of people here, and surprisngly little spray (give it time, I know), so far. The comment I would like to add is that things are never as cut and dry as people like to make them seem. Examples: 1.) Us giving aid to israel is wrong. we do it simply to confront and limit power of the muslim countries. bullshit. if it wasn't for israel and U.S. help, the muslim countries would get their way; which is eliminating the jewish religion. those guys aren't the poor helpless victims of the U.S. that some make them out to be. 2.)The U.S. is horrible to islam, europe stands on the side. wrong, europe (in the name of christianity) did more harm to that group of people over the last 1000 years than the U.S. ever has 3.)sweeden is great. well, yeah, I'm sure it's nice to live there but neutrality is bullshit. if the rest of us had taken that approach in WWII there would be no sweeden today. Overall, I agree with a lot of what you say, but I hardly think it's a case of the U.S. being big bad and evil and not understanding everybody else. Stereotyping a country of 300 million people is silly. Idiots abound everywhere you look, in the U.S., Europe, China, whatever. I think we have lots of problems to fix here, the first of which is getting rid of GWB. That isn't to say, however, that it makes everybody else problem-less and innocent.

It isn't us again them Greg, jeezus. Fuck, I'd much rather have illegal mexican workers here (who get completely mistreated by good ol' boy american bosses) working an honest day's work to feed their families than fucked up drunk homeless americans begging me for change. The line isn't as defined as you hard liners always make it seem to be. You got lucky in your life, face it. You think you worked hard for eveyrthing. bullshit. wake up. you were born in this country, and compared to the poor bastards born in niger, chad, somalia, central america, and so on, you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth. so were all of us here. Some of these people will work 10x as hard as you for their entire lives and earn barely enough to feed themselves. Until the world as a whole (yes, the U.S. too) works to address the problems of all the people in the world, it'll remain everybody's problem. If we continue to take the "well, things are good here, so deal with your own shit" attitude, it'll come crashing down some day. maybe not in our lifetimes, but it will.

Anatoli's time is sickly fast, but he only ran half the race...

That Eolo harness is pretty cool. Very very light and packable. I bought one from jim to replace my lost alpine bod, but took it back a couple of days later when my alpine bod was found again. You've seen this year's alpine bod, right? They added two moderately stiff gear loops too it. If you rack stuff on your waist, that may be the best choice for you. if you mostly rack to your chest, I think that Eolo harness is hard to beat.

Torment is showing signs of activity. It may erupt before august, so erik is right, best to check back right before you climb.

I'm glad it wasn't me just being a sissy. The other thing that shocked me was the fuckers kept hanging around no matter how high you got. I was getting eaten alive at a belay at 8300 feet!

Yeah, but the P.T. is much better with skis, and skis make going out through bachelor creek hell.

Yeah, obviously fit is important. Believe it nor not, however, these boots do fit some people's feet. I wasn't aware the Trango S (which I got) or the Trango Extreme S was the "trendy boot of the month" Quite to the contrary, I think the Trango S is about the ugliest thing out there, but I think they fit my needs quite well.

Haha... great TR Jay! Nice pics. I did that route a few weeks ago with skis and it's a beautiful tour of the mountain.

No way, not a bit over B1+, It has a trail. The avalanche path sucks after the snow melts out, stay just right of center, seemed to offer the least resistance. Good stuff! shit grows you know. go in there now, and let me know if you can find a BW1 route on a "trail" through the alder. there were remnants of this trail but that was it. If you do find it, get a GPS log and bring it back for me.

Timmay, sweet pics! those sunset ones are awesome. you serious that those tools had O2 canisters on Adams? WTF for!?!?

They suck. Too narrow in the toebox. Great feedback, tool. Your feet suck. They're too wide in the toes.

Klenke, here are the pics i promised you and never posted http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/plab/showphoto.php?photo=1248&papass=&sort=1&thecat=504 http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/plab/showphoto.php?photo=1250&papass=&sort=1&thecat=504

Paul, you called it with this line: "in May, the "growth" rate of the brush may make it more formidable but I don't know" The difference between May and June for us was huge. May wasn't all that bad, but by June the fully mature alder sucked. From your description, maybe we got off the "trail" at some point, cause we had worse 'whackin.

It felt like a solid BW4 with the skis, but I think a lot of that was due to the skis catching on shit. It's probably only BW3, and since I wouldn't count the first 8 or 9 miles of easy trail in the grade, probably a grade III.

Based on your TR and the TRs of others I am beginning to think it's safer to solo liberty ridge. I'd rather trust my own skills than trust being slower while roped through all that rockfall! BTW, you are kidding when yuo say almost as commiting as the rock climbs back in missouri, right?

I've done it twice in the last two months. it sucked both times, but sucked much more the second time due to rapid blossoming off the slide alder and the addition of skis to my pack. trail is fine to bachelor creek turnoff, and fine for about the first 2 or 3 miles after that. after that the trail becomes somewhat hard to follow in places, but not all that bad. about 1/4 or 1/2 mile before the "trail" crosses to the other side of bachelor creek it becomes a bushwhack. what is left of the trail through the slide alder sucks balls. be prepared to swear, esp. considering the fact that their are now probably lots of bugs in there. the slide alder continues for a while on the other side of the creek before you head back into the forest. a little ways after that you'll hit the avalanche you mention. last year (I think?) a big ass slide came down from upper bachelor creek basin and fucked shit up. the trail is now pretty much covered with avy debris from this point until the basin right below cub lake pass. from that area to the pass itself was still covered with snow when I was there, so I'm not sure what that'll look like. If you've gotten that far, somehow I doubt there is much you'll find there to stop you anyway. The moral of the story: Unless somebody has seriously cleaned up that trail since I was in there, I would classify the approach as pretty sucky. Despite all that shit, I still thought it was worth it both times, cause once you hit cub lake the area is just so amazing.

man, just re-read this and want to get back to the area. I've been to blanca lake once and it was stunningly beautiful.

Anybody know what the sherpa glacier coulior is like one it melts out? It was starting to get thin in places when I came down the other night. I'm guessing it's pretty horendous once the snow is gone, but who knows...

I think balling up crampons is one of the scariest things in the mountains. I used a pair of poons with anti-balling plates for the first time the other day. I think I may start using them myself. it definitely beats the step, step, whack routine.

In my opinion, this poll basically just proves how idiotic the american public is, not much more. I'm not sure what changed in the past few months or how they thought that stuff like this *wasn't* going to happen.