JoshK

Parts of the NCNP have been logged, if that matters, and, as ML says, pretty much parts of every other wilderness area. The wilderness act is not perfect I am sure (i know little about it) but I will always default to *more* protection as opposed to less protection. It will never be perfect but I would rather see the policy sway towards decreased access over the possibility of the logging companies getting rich of OUR land.

The 777s are definitely nice. On my way back from London a couple of years ago I got to fly on one that was 6 weeks old...very cool plane. Haven't gotten to hit the snow as much as would like The rockies aren't the cascades, but, damn, I guess I picked the right ski season to escape..

I'll add...toulene?

Wow, sweet, really cool guys. That looks awesome! Were skis even nescessary at all? Seems with that little snow the remaining crap would be consolidated enuf. yes, no?

Hehe, right on FW, couldn't have said it better myself. The new 787 is going to be sweet. As I said before, I think it fits the market better than the euro-spruce-goose does. Again, I predict the goose to be a moderate failure. It's the shorter intracontinent markets that have been seeing all the growth, as far as I've heard. With fuel costs being such a huge part of airline expendatures, I think the 787 will be a hit. Also, you'll notice that a lot of airlines are moving to the 777 for longer flights. The newest version (300ER I think?) is now the longest range commercial jet available and still carries 300+. The main benifit, of course, is 2 engines instead of 4. Also, a salute to the 777's versitility...I have two flights scheduled between seattle and devner this coming month and both are on a 777. This is traditionally a 737 or 757 route.

Dude, I'm with you. Objective danger sucks. I would rather challenge my skills, not my blind luck.

Wow, really glad to hear you guys are ok. That is some scary shit. It reminds me of last spring in the north face coulior on buckner when we got pounded by shit sliding. Thankfully for us it was almost all snow and very little ice, but I still remember taking some shots to the helmet that hurt and being scared I was going to get knocked off. Aaron, wear a helmet, bro!!!

Yeah, the engrish is classic No, flash isn't based on microdrives, it's solid-state memory as opposed to a tiny little magnetic drive. for climbing, i think the best bet is still a smallish player that takes some sort of replacable batteries, be it a standard size or a rechargable. I use my creative muvo^2 4gb for this purpose. I odn't know why altitude would make a difference, but maybe it is rather the cold? In that case you could always tuck it in next to your balls or something.

I have the XL, I think the lite is just too small for 2 people if you plan on being out for a few days. If I need to go the lightest I would take a bivy. FWIW, the ID tents are superior to the Biblers, IMHO. The pole inserts and attachments are better.

I have a full size iPod and really like it, but I have to say the shuffle is a pretty lame effort on apple's part. MPIO's player is smaller, lighter and has a screen. It costs roughly the same as well. Apple is advertising the random shuffling of songs as some sort of advantage, which is pretty ridiculous. Every other player comes with a shuffle feature, so I am not sure why the lack of any control over your music is cool. Basically this is thier effort to save money and make it "look cool" by not including a screen. I'm not impressed.

One more thing...I don't the airbus jumbo-spruce goose thing is an example of passing us in terms of engineering. Make something big doesn't make it better. I predict it ends up being a failuref...but who knows, i'm generally wrong.

Yup, the government of the past 5 years has done a pretty poor job economically. The problem is we are running up a huge deficit for reasons I cannot understand. I would be all for dumping money into education in extreme amounts, even with debt, as that is where our real problem is going to be in 15 or 20 years...the fact that our citizens are going to be completely unedgimicated compared to the rest of the world, esp. compared to asian countries. We should also be pumping tons of money into new energy sources. Not only will it push our engineering and R&D but it's just one step closer to getting rid of a giant dependence that does nothing but hurt us. I would also like to see us pressure the Chinese to let their currency float. That has a good deal to do with our ever-increasing trade deficit. The current administration has made the mistake of pushing our might militaraly without backing it up with the other nescessary factors that contribute to a nation's success. The problem is further ignored as the administration doesn't even place the military expenditures for Iraq in the budget. I don't think it's the extreme doom and gloom some may think, but I completely agree that we need to start building our economic and political strategies around a concept of keeping America on top and working to get what we want. As it is, we are content resting on our laurels and expecting a powerful military to do it all.

Damn, fucking awesome! I picked the wrong winter to leave Washington. Looks like y'all are taking advantage of some awesome opportunities!

John's pictures are fucking awesome... I also think it's great that he is exposing "secret" lines that people like to keep yet never really do anything with. Looks like a ton of great shit to get...

THat looks great! That narrow water ice looks like a lot of fun. I can't believe you can drive to 3100' on a forest road tho.

Whats up Sisu. I would agree that the two being inversely proportional is not evidence of guns preventing crime but a coincidence. Crime rates have been lowering for years, as you noted, but most attribute it to societal changes. This is due simply to population and demographic factors and isn't even remotely related to gun control or the lack thereof. The rocky mountain region is, relatively to other areas, sparsely populated. DC and Maryland (at least the maryland suburbs of DC were I would imagine most of the crime occurs) are heavily populated cities where crime rates are obviously going to be much higher anyway, along with poverty, drugs, etc. With that said, I have recently decided that I care less and less about fighting guns. There are so many more issues that the republican party, in general, is backwards on and frankly gun control is one I care least about. The bad economic policies, silly fiscal policies, pro-business emphasis, lack of environmental protection, "family values" farce, and a long list of others matter a lot more to me. I guess you have to pick your battles and when I realized this it just really made me care a lot less about gun control. I would rather just try to play nice with the NRA and other gun lobbies to come to some sort of reasonable compromise and assure then no further attemps to restrict gun ownership. For example, i think safety controls to protect kids and banning completely insane assault weapons is good. If we could get this I would really have no problem with other guns. -josh

I was just saying I don't think luck has a lot to do with them succeeding when others fail. They checked the forecast carefully, planned well and pulled it off. They are badass and I love reading TRs like this. Also, I would argue forgetting a piece of gear isn't bad luck, but bad preperation.

Heh, I'm not sure luck has anything to do with these guys succeeding. Nice job guys, that's really fuggin awesome. I can't imagine attempting that, let alone pulling it off. Seeing things like this makes me miss winter in the PNW even more They mountains here are great,but aren't the cascades.

Ok, that is sort of what I thoguht. Like I said, i figured if somebody was going for a new route, that would be the logically first choice. I've always looked at it in pictures and wondered what it would be like.

So it's sweet to see a new route up there. My question is if this route has been climbed (see yellow arrow). This seems by far to be the most obvious line on the face and I'm surprised it wasn't the first new route.

Anybody know who the mystery skiers were? Is the first ski of the north face coulior since Sky and I went down it last spring?? -josh

Well, i'm in CO rigtht now and while it's certainly better than at home, it isn't exactly awesome here either. It hasn't snowed in a while and no interesting terrain is open. The advantage is the terrain on the slopes is fairly free of rocks, trees, etc. so they can run with much less snow.

It seems like a few of you know him. Is the Erik who passed the same guy who moved out of state but used to post as "erik"?? thanks, -josh

Yes, if somebody could describe erik, give his last name (if released) etc. it would be very helpful. I know so many eri(c/k)s from climbing. thanks, -josh

Whatever, the Sierras are essentially the same skiing as WA and you know it. a few good weeks, or even winters, does not make a permenant trend. The "powder" there is just like here, and the crap is just like the crap here. Personally I'll take less expensive prices as a lack of Californians and tourists. Alpine Meados is really cool tho. Squaw is the most overrated place I have ever been however.