JoshK

This makes no fucking sense. So instead of allowing the courts to do their job (as the, what do you call it, um, constitution, says) they are going to instead force the courts to overrule this law? I think any 3rd grader could tell you this is unconstituional.

I obviously dont know the story, but I wouldn't be frustrated that you turned around on the same trip you almost got swept down to price lake. Sounds like whatever happened was a good reason to turn around. In any event, I think you are a making a good choice. The route will be there, just wait until you get some nice conditions so you can enjoy good fun neve instead of dangerous annoying slop.

Sounds really fun.

007, have you even climbed anything at all? From your witty banter here, it isn't evident if you are a climber looking to do an 8k peak, or just some random wank who has watched one too many climbing shows on the outdoor life network.

Matt, you may well be right. I guess I was jumping to conclusions given the apparent recent rise in climbing's popularity. It certainly seems as if more people are getting involved with it, but that certainly doesn't say anything about hiking then compared with now. In any event, I still think that the environmentalist who argues for conservation now has not gone back on his word in any way. As the land recieves different pressures, the methods of protection will obviously have to change. Seeing some roads dissapear (which is, of course, speculation on these guys' part) in return for having a whole new area set aside as wilderness is a damn good deal in my book.

Fairweather, i agree with the argument here that the road needs to be reopened. I think, however, that the assertion that the environmentalist has gone back on his word is wrong, however. Times change...people "recreating" is a bigger threat than it was 20 years ago. The sad fact is tons of people in some previously seldom traveled areas causes damage.

sailBOI, wtf, man. One is an issue about fixing a road into an existing wilderness and the other is about making a new wilderness area. Personally I'd much rather have a protected wilderness area with difficult access than a future george bush logging project with great access. wilderness areas are good. you are not. While you are on your stupid ass little projects, could you pleae get better access into the pickets? I find it ridiculous lame how far you have to walk to get into the northern pickets. THere should be a road up to whatcom pass, and probably one up access creek. It saddened me to see so little people tramping around up there and not taking advantage of this great wilderness. If we put up a road (maybe a visitor center or snack shack too?) more people can enjoy this lovely place. As it is, I find the lack of people makes the area seem, I dunno, kind of remote. Who wants to feel isolated when they are out in the wilderness!??

Well, I think only you can answer the quesion about it being wise or not. I, personally, dont tend to enjoy steep snow climbing when it's 85 degrees out, but that is just my opinion. While cold conditions dont nescessarily mean no chance for serac fall, icefall, etc. I would certainly think that warm weather can increase the chances greatly.

I was in this airport a month or so ago. I dont remmeber much about it, which probably means it did it's job. On the other hand, I can give a DETAILED description of London Heathrow. The pain of that place is still fresh in my mind.

I think the climbing thing to only eat meat may have been for calories sake? Horsecock, for example, has tons of fat and thus calories. It's stupid tho...carbs are most efficiently converted into energy. A climber not eating carbs is just...well...dumb, IMHO. Fatkins apparently does cause some short term weight loss in fatasses but you sacrifice overall health. I mean seriously, eggs, bacon and red meat all the time?? I am convinced the only reason the fatkins diet "works" is because it is easy to stick to. Who couldn't just eat fat and protein all the time? It tastes better than restricting calories or another sensible method. When I was in Ireland a few weeks ago I didn't see a single mention of Fatkins anywhere, as opposed to ten times daily here. Europeans actually walk places, that's the difference.

I think I know exactly where you described the accident happening. Descending after climbing the NR a couple of years ago I did almost the exact same thing. Luckily I was able to arrest enough to slow me down somewhat but I still hit the rocks. I was feet first and it didn't do any damage, and I certainly felt very lucky for that. It's a good lesson: it isn't always the technical bits that are dangerous, it can just as well be the parts that seem routine. I'm glad to here your friend is doing ok. Rescues always suck, but it's much better when you find out that people come out alive. Alpinfox, I generally agree, but some of us suffer from very worrisome girlfriends! Being able to call from a summit or a high col and let them know of a late arrival is often worth it to avoid the headache after arriving home!

Hi Kyle, I'm glad to know we weren't the only ones that didn't find much in similar with the lower part of the route. Overall, a great route in my opinion!

Climb: Dorado Needle & Eldorado-SW Buttress & East Ridge Date of Climb: 7/21/2004 Trip Report: I really have no particular passion for writing up route reports at nearly 2am but the can of redbull and the giant Jack in the Box "big ass cup" of coke have ruled out sleep for the next little while. So, anyway, David K and I climbed the southwest buttress on Dorado needle today (well, technically yesterday now...). We also climbed eldorado's east ridge(yet again...), but that was pretty much out of sheer boredom. Details below... Day 1(Monday): After a *very* lesiurly departure we arrive at the eldorado parking lot. We are surprised to find a decent amount of cars for midweek. Damnit...no fair...we expect solitude! I can't remember what time we left but it was probably 2 or so. The weather was cloudy with sunbreaks and the forecast called for showers tappering off and clearing by mid day on tuesday. Up we climb...yet another eldorado creek approach...joy! Fog sets in heavy just about at the top of the eldorado glacier. We get a 15 second break, pick out the bivy and head straight in that direction across the inspiration glacier football field in a total whiteout. We soon arrive at the bivy. 4 hours with 3 day packs and climbing gear..pretty decent I thought. We set up the megalight and get to cooking, etc. The whiteout limits visibility to all of 20 feet up eldorado's east ridge and the wind picks up. No worries, the unfallable NWS says clearing tomorrow. Day 2(tuesday): 6:00amWe wake up to rain...back to bed. 8:00am...raining, harder now. 10:00am...yup, still raining, getting very bored now. 12:00pm...raining off and on, really really bored now. So bored, in fact, I suggest we play the "what object am I?" game. 1:00pm...ok, this sucks. we came here to climb and we are bored senseless in the tent. I would have paid good money to be able to watch some paint dry or grass grow. We make the call to head up eldorado at 2pm rain or not so we can use the cell phone to call for a weather report. If shit weather is supposed to stay...we bail. 2:00pmGeared up with the latest in high tech climbing gear (the top part of a whipet) we head for the top of Eldorado. 2:50pmWe summit the mighty Eldorado. The phone comes out and I call my roommate for weather. Mostly sunny tomorrow? OK...we stay. Then I call Wayne to get the scoop on which col works best from getting from the inspiration glacier to the marble creek cirque. Beta on demand...the joys of modern technology. 3:15pmWith the excitment of the cell phone calls done with we head back to camp for another exciting 5 hours of tent-sitting. 5:00pmHey, check it out, sucker hole! Wait, nevermind, there it goes... 5:45pmI think it's clearing up over there...[/b] 7:00pmHmm...still a whiteout, and still bored senseless. Nap time. 8:00pmDinner time. 9:00pmBed time. 12:00amPiss time...cool, I can see some stars! Day 3(wednesday]: Despite sitting around nearly all day and going to bed early, getting up at 4am still sucks. We had originally planed on walking out on Thursday, but we figured an early start would give us a good chance to just walk out Wednesday night. By 5:30 or so we are packed up and ready to head out over the Inspiration glacier towards Dorado needle. We quickly reach the Inspiration-McAllister Glacier Col and head down the McAllister. From the McAllister glacier, the Marble Creek Glacier is easily gained by skree surfing down a 30 foot gully. We head down the glacier to the base of what we think the southwest buttress of dorado needle is. The only problem is there are several areas that match the description of the "clean white slasbs (easy)" in the book. After a bunch of time spent practicing our cramponing skills up and down the glacier we pick what we are pretty certain is the route. The slabs are fun and easy and the rock is painfully cold. I climb this part with gloves on because I am a little sissy girl. For the next pitch Dave says he wants to climb the face to our left rather than the pitch described in the book. I hem and haw because I basically just want to finish the route and walk home. In all fairness, it turns out to be a stellar pitch on steep slabs and knobby face sections. Maybe 5.8? From here on up we basically followed the route description the best we could but since the route isn't done too often, the beta is pretty general. For all I know we were right on the first ascentionists' route, but we were just as likely climbing something totally different. It will go down as a mystery of the ages for sure. The reason I think we have been off route is we encountered a lot of 5th interspersed with 5.7 or so where the beta mentions 4th and low 5th. We climb on the crest for a whie and eventually peel off to the left as we get forced around a gendarme. There is a short traverse here followed by what I thought were two of the coolest pitches I've climbed on an alpine rock route. None of it was harder than 5.7, but it was really fun climbing. Several more pitches lead to a final traverse and a gully signaling the merging with the "standard" route. This is the first place (aside from the 1st pitch) where I can say for certain we were exactly on the route as described. The final 2 pitches to the summit are about as fun 5.4 as you'll find. From the summit we downclimb two pitches until we can sling a horn to rap down to a flat section on the snow. We are pleased to find perfect plunge stepping snow on the way down. Soon we are back up to the col and back at camp. We manage to pack up in 10 minute and whip out the deproach in a shade under 2 1/2 hours, arriving to the car at just about dark. Cold Fosters are cracked open and we embark on our final test...driving the 3 hours home without falling asleep. Of course, that is where the redbull and coke, and this resulting TR come in. In summary: This was a very enjoyable route! There is definitely some loose stuff, but it doesn't detract from the climbing. You just have to check blocks in a few places. Overall I found the rock to be very sound and enjoyable. It is also quite clean. There are lots of those nice "hand walk" aretes too...I like those. It took us a damn bit longer than mentioned in the book, but I am still fairly certain we climbed some altogether different stuff on the way up. We probably could have shaved off 2 hours alone by not continuously checking the route beta and just continue climbing. The peak is definitely out there, but once you've done the Eldorado approach to the 7600 bivy, you are pretty much there. To get to the base of the climb is about 2 hours from there, and to get from the top back is about 1 hour. The Marble Creek cirque is really beautiful. A very remote yet peaceful place I thought. Interestingly enough we saw a tent down below the glacier???? We figured it was other climbers but they never came up on any route and we later saw their footprints coming up the col from Marble Creek onto the McAllister glacier. Anybody here? If anybody here has climbed the route, get a hold of me 'cause I'd like to compare notes. Gear Notes: 1 set of nuts .5,.75,1,2,3 BD cams, with a few doubles A few tricams and 2 big hexes We could have gotten away with a smaller rack but there were definitely parts where it was nice to be able to sew it up. The large BD #3 cam came in handy several times. Approach Notes: Standard Eldorado Peak approach. Since it's pretty close to the climb, the standard Eldorado bivy makes the logical camp site.

Markinore, well done! Hilarious!v

Heh...tolerate but not nescessarily accept? Afraid the big bad gay boogeymen will be coming for you in the night?? Anybody who has issues with gay people should look in the mirror and ask themselves what their sexual orientation is. P.S. The christian right wing nazis suck balls!

WTF is the OBL? Oil of Bush Leauges? Old Bastardly Losers? Oil Barrons Limited?

Interesting...but litter none the less...Damn, Helan lived to 104.

Yo, I know somebody must have been up there recently. Whats the haps for running water? At the east ridge bivy?? Were there often good drips off rocks? I'm going up that way but dont want to carry snow melting crap with me. thanks! -josh

Nice job! This is one of my favorite climbs for all out fun factor in a great area.

RIP James Lowell, as the others noted, thanks for the history of this amazing person. It's awesome that you keep together the information that interests so much.

I've always wondered...why is it the standard route is to avoid the crest and instead do that lousy snow traverse? Is the ridge really impractical at that point? It seems like it would be more "pure" to stay on the ridge...that and I hate traversing steep snow.

LOL! The lure of easy tang is a powerful force.

"The first permanent U. S. settlement north of the Columbia was led by George Bush, an Afro-American, in the 1840s."

with bush's help we'll have great crag access following the clear cutting of the entire icicle to make it "healthy"

"What a cool president?" umm, ok dude. Guess what, I mountain bike, climb, aannnd I can even speak without fucking up most of my sentences! I must be really damn cool. I seem to remember reading Lance's political views were pretty dumb, but I certainly still want him to whoop euro ass. well stated...bush can suck it. t-minus 6 more months of his dumb ass in office!