JoshK

JayB, the Bush administration could use good men like you. It's good to see Clinton has sent a friendly fuck u to the bushco and spoke at the climate change meeting taking place in Montreal. http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/americas/12/09/climate.clinton.ap/index.html Good for him. Oh, and since somebody needs to point it out: climate treaties are MEANINGLESS without our fucking government getting in on it. As pointed out, we are responsible for 3/4 of the garbage so we need to get on board. It isn't easy to rally the world to change if we just sit there. We are the hegemon, we need to act like it. Quit letting our government get away with shirking our responsibility. People need to realize it is ***US***, as Americans, (or any first world citizen) that stand the most to lose, not the Chinese or Zambiens or whoever else we try to push the impetus on.

The 19 out of 20 figure is very interesting. It's why so many snowboarders (ok, ok, a few skiers to ) with zero backcountry experience never get hurt while out of bounds in a place they have no business being. The chances are it won't happen *most* of the time, but 95% odds are pretty shitty when we are talking about your life.

I go by two rules: 1.) Err on the side of caution. This one is pretty obvious and it seems you did that. 2.) Assume people giving you random beta are stupid. They may be, or they may not be, but that is why we have skills and brains - to figure out things for ourselves. I like to keep those decisions between me and my partner(s) unless I know that I am getting the information from a reliable source. -josh

I found this on climbingboulder.com and figured it might be of interest to some. Sorry if it has already been posted. "Mike Donahue, owner of the Colorado Mountain School, died on November 16 from a malignant brain tumor. He was 59. Donahue came from a long line of climbers, and was the author of the 1992 trail guide "The Longs Peak Experience." His maternal grandfather built the north Longs Peak trail in the 1920s and 30s. Donahue became an assistant guide and then later a full guide while in his teens. His clients included the first blind climbers to summit Longs Peak as well as the first paraplegic to summit the peak. One of his climbing partners was Beck Wethers, who gained fame as one of the American survivors of the 1996 Mount Everest disaster. In 2003, when Donahue was diagnosed with the malignant brain cancer, he was said to have stood on the summit of Longs Peak 250 times. He is survived by his parents, his wife, his three children, his brothers, and two grandchildren. " http://www.denverpost.com/obituaries/ci_3255636

I went to Vail last week, now that snow has finnaly come. (unfortunately the negative temps have now come too. ) The snow was great, no doubt about it. Down low coverage was a little meager still. Tree skiing up in the evergreens was legit but once you got down in to the Aspens and whatnot I quickly managed to eat shit on a thinly covered horizontal branch. I quickly went back to the open terrain. The only "expert" terrain I got to ski was definitely not hard. Fun, yes, very, but the only challenge was avoiding the early season snowpack features. I agree that the bowls were overrated. I forget the names of the ones we hit because that place is so big. All and all it was a great day of skiing with awesome snow, but the few runs of real skiing (i.e. not lifts) I got in Paradise Valley on Rainer the other weekend still top that! Oh, and I got to enjoy my first true I-70+snowstorm experienced. Much like WA, 4 out of 4 of the vehicles that were spun out on the side of the highway along the drive were SUVs. Some things are universal I suppose.

American View: I did this really fast, but some other guy did it faster, which sucks. Euro View: It was fun. What a great experience pushing my limits. I'd love to do that part of the trail, but more likely as a mega-light overnight or something. I don't think running it would be my thing but a very brisk hike would be great.

Sing us a song, you're the piano man, Sing us a song tonight... We're all in the mood for a melody, and you've got us feelign alright...

Good for beating Notre Dame! How do you Oregon guys feel that a 1-loss pac-10 team (Oregon) gets passed over for the second year so we can watch fucking Notre Dame, a 2-loss team that has only beat 3 teams with winning records!? Fuck Notre Dame.

Isn't "hair raising adventure" the same thing as "we got lucky and nothing bad happened, cause of it did, we would have been fucked"?

You've obviously never done it with McBee driving. It's 675 miles, 670 on I-90, and I've done it every time in 10 hours or less including a sit down dinner. 10 hours is a far cry from 7 hours man. That's another 200+ miles at interstate speed. I would agree ten is about average.

The road is closed, but you can get there by skiing down through the flats from Paradise, and over to the Reflections lake area. Getting to the Tatoosh from Paradise is definitely easier than getting to most peaks in the winter.

hahah!

Miami!? Oh no...what a loss...

Damn, too bad I'm in a different state - that sounds like a really fun idea.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/11/29/wilkerson.interview.ap/index.html OK, Spin PP, spin!!!

So you argue a large deficit is a GOOD thing? This wasn't a case of deficit spending to facilitate an economic recovery. This was a case of a tax break that generated very little economic output due to the fat that it didn't actually reduce taxes to the segment of the population where additional spending is required to stimulate an economy. What, do you think millionaires suddenly decided to buy a second yacht because they got a tax refund? Oh, no, wait, the common masses obviously spent tons due to their whopping $230 tax break or whatever it amounted to. You are so lost, PP. The way you continue to defend this bogus administration despite so much evidence of their failures is laughable at best. I am curious, what do you do for a job, anyway?

Those haven't been the "qualities" of the Republican party in years. The only one that possibly applies is "lower taxes", of course at the expense of fiscal stability and the future generations getting fucked for it. They'll be some good solid Republican losses in next year's elections. Most encouraging is barring a large turnaround Rick SantMORON will be gone from Pennsylvania.

Ivan, i know if I was dumb as you (oh wait, you often talk me into being as dumb as you ) i would go with a tree descent. the doug's direct is going to cross a TON of avalanche terrain. That bowl above the middle fork is huge and of perfect pitch. The traverse below mix-up peak is also seriously scary with snow. I went down into Pelton basin and up some couliors to avoid that one spring since Mixup has huge snow deposits that can bomb you from above. I think C-J is just plain stupid, but I'm a pussy. I like DPS's idea of retracing the route down. It's steep but you don't generally see avalanches roar down vertical tree-covered ribs. Other than that there isn't really a way that I think anybody would consider "safe" to get off the mountain in winter conditions other than wait for very settled conditions during a good weather window and following a very solid melt-freeze. And we all know how (not) easy it is to get one of those during a PNW winter.

7 hours from Seattle to Bozeman? I call BS...

A nice pick and now Shawn has gotten rolling. They are lookin a lot better.

Truck ads have traditionally shown "tough" guys using their trucks for various construction or dirt-related activities. I just saw a Ford ad that asked "How tough does your truck make you?" and then there is the Chevy ad with Howie Long where he convinces "Jerry" to bypass road contruction by driving his truck off road. So, I ask...does this seem like advertising geared towards people using their trucks for work or a new push to sell trucks to insecure suburbanites looking to be more "tough", a la SUV ads?

This may be the new topper for my stupid statistic! What would be particularly interesting is to see numbers breaking down religious vs. secular giving and how the states compare.

Verizon. works in the pickets. the other carrier we tried there did not. 'nuf said.

Yes...out with the details! What piece of pro held? Singles or doubles?

There is an insane amount of rap slings going up the north face/rib/whatever it is called on the north peak of index.