gslater

I think it was 3 years ago now that an ortho doc confirmed my self-diagnosed L5/S1 partial/minor herniation. Hurt like a mofo all the time, with lots of fun nerve pain shooting down my leg. I went the very conservative route, with lots of stretching, careful movement for a while, and lots of anti-inflammatory meds (pretty much just ibuprofen, although I tried some of the other stuff like Celebrex, which didn't work too well for me). The doctor hooked me up with a physical therapist, but I never went. After a couple/few months of being fairly miserable, I started getting active again. Strangely, running was one of the few activities that didn't hurt, so I kept doing that in small doses. Then I started adding back in snowshoeing and mild hikes (it's amazing how much work your lower back does on even mild hikes, yet you never really notice it until some condition like this comes along). Within 6 - 9 months, things were feeling quite a bit better, and I basically ramped back up to my usual activities. I'm just a lot more careful now. Sudden movements, lifting heavy loads, etc. all cause me to think about my back first. Every once in a while I'll do something to strain it a bit, and then I start hitting the Advil for a few days, and do a bunch of stretching, and it gets better. Sadly, I expect this to be the pattern for the rest of my life (I'm almost 39 now). The biggest benefit to me comes from the following: 1) Stretching, particularly the hamstrings. After doing a bunch of online research, I found someone who recommended hamstring stretching as the closest thing to a miracle cure. I hadn't really been focusing on that, but I started to, and it made a HUGE difference for me. Now, whenever I feel that ache in my back starting to flare up, it seems it's well-correlated to tightness in my hammies. 2) Lying/sitting position. When sitting around, reading or whatever, I lie with my back flat on the floor, with my knees up. At night, I usually sleep on my back with a pillow under my knees. If sleeping on my side, the pillow goes between my knees, which reduces some kind of weird angulation in my hips that starts to hurt my back after a while. 3) Ibuprofen. But people need to understand that the so-called NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) such as ibuprofen really only are effective once they build up to a certain level in the blood, AND STAY AT THAT LEVEL FOR SOME TIME. You get very limited effectiveness from taking a dose or two of Advil. You need to take it continuously for at least several days for maximum effectiveness. 4) Paying attention and not doing anything stupid to my back. Sadly, I have had to come to grips with not being 20 years old and able to get away with anything physically. Good luck with the rehab. It's no fun, but I think pretty much everyone with a minor herniation who is fairly careful and diligent eventually gets back into their usual activities.

Link to MHNF climbing conditions page

This news story mentions the WSP doing a so-called "rolling slowdown" to get people to drive slower during a hailstorm. I don't see why that's news; they seem to be in a perpetual rolling slowdown mode. Few things piss me off more than state troopers driving a few MPH under the speed limit (not that it ever stops me from driving at a more reasonable speed...).

Big Fork seems to be all about getting drunk. Each of my nighttime visits there (preciously few) seems to involve drunkenness, bar fights, and bar fights spilling out onto the streets. Good times.

That's just gotta be from the Onion...

Great pics. Very handy reference for those us who have yet to explore that route... Thanks.

You sound like someone who flies Alaska/Horizon quite a bit...

The equivalent altitude will spend a lot of time in the 5 - 6K' range, but 8K' is the upper end, at least according to my aero coworkers.

The cabin of your typical commercial airplane flying high is at an equivalent of somewhere around 8000'.

I think the Jug is operating under a new name. Probably still the same high-quality operation though...

Yup, approximately 46th & Fremont.

Glad to hear I wasn't the only one. Never could get that image out of my head during the movie...

That's not the image that springs to mind when I think "Amazon". But it probably will be now... Thanks. 6' 3" and 425. Nice.

5 GALLONS of barleywine?!?! That should do some damage...

Yeah, Dada's cool. I really like that song she did with Eminem... What? You mean that's not Dada? Oops.

if you're really worried, why don't you just get a beefier AT binding than the dynafit to start with? I'm not really worried about it; I just covet the light weight of the Dynafits. If I save enough weight in bindings, then I can keep carrying a bunch of this body fat around. Kind of like when I was a bike racer, and I'd meet 240 lb guys who were sure they'd be faster after replacing their tiny little seatpost bolts with titanium equivalents, thus saving a whole gram.... Anyhoo, I know there are bigger, "beefier" bindings, but I'm not sure that they're any better as far as what I'm trying to find. Bigger doesn't necessarily equate to stronger retention.

I'll admit that it's a hell of a motivator.

All - Thanks for the info. Coming from a life of using regular downhill gear, the little two-pin rear heelpiece mechanism just seems kind of sketchy to me. But lots of people have been using the stuff for a long time, so I guess it must work. Would be nice to get some data from 200+ pounders, though... I suppose I could always try the Dynafit setup, and then if I don't like it, that'll just create a cheap buying opportunity for a CC.com resident, right?

Giant's Gym at 52nd/Sandy is cheap, open 24 hours, uncrowded, and has everything you need, except for the ever-elusive hot girls with spandex. OK, there's an occasional hottie, but not often. It's quite different from the "24 Hour" Fitness down the road a ways. Absolutely no glitz; in fact, it's kind of grungy, in an "I came here to get a workout, not to see and be seen" way. I once read something that said that if Rocky were training for his big fight in Portland, Giant's is the gym where he'd do it. WAY more than enough weight equipment, with some aerobic stuff. But the emphasis is definitely not on spandex-clad aerobicizers. And it's almost always uncrowded, which is nice.

From today's news: Associated Press SEATTLE -- Long droughts and more winter rain than snow could become common in the Northwest and threaten the region's water supply, fish and more, climate scientists here said Friday. The Cascades are in trouble if climate projections from new studies for the coming decades are accurate, said Edward Miles, leader of the Climate Impacts Group at the University of Washington. Northwest temperatures will increase by about 3 to 6 degrees Fahrenheit by the 2040s, and the Cascades snowpack will decline by 59 percent by 2050, Miles said. "If you think about this in terms of risk management, it's past time to buy some insurance," Miles said in reporting the findings at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. "And the insurance is planning. It takes 20 years to change a water supply system, so time's a-wastin'." "These results are more dramatic than past results because we have more improved models that include much greater climate detail," Miles said in an interview. He also reported on a new University of Washington study with scientists from the University of Colorado that examined 800 snowpack records from 1950 to 2000 for the entire West. Although he declined to give details because the findings have not been published, Miles said both computer models and direct observations tell the same story about the past half-century: About 75 percent of the West has seen declines in spring snowpack in excess of 30 percent in low to middle elevations. He added that the Cascades have been particularly hard-hit, along with mountain ranges in Northern California. Philip Mote, research scientist with the University of Washington Climate Impacts Group, and Martin Clark of the University of Colorado found that the Cascades' average April 1 snowpack had decreased by 60 percent between 1950 and 2000. "I was expecting to see only a zero to 30 percent decline," Mote said in an interview. They also found that average temperatures had increased by between 2.5 and 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit at many sites throughout Oregon and Washington since 1920. "What these observations emphasize in surprising detail is that the projections for the future are already coming true," said Mote, who is the Washington state climatologist. Mote said that the largest snowpack declines in the West are projected to be in the Cascades, where they have been for 50 years. Miles and his colleagues attribute the snowpack losses primarily to temperature increases. The Northwest has had a 1.5 degree increase in average annual temperature in the past century, nearly a half-degree more than the global temperature increase. In addition, the scientists project that summer drought seasons will lengthen by about a month to six weeks. "Spring flow peaks will come earlier and won't be as large," Miles said, which will put more demands on water from the Columbia and other rivers.

Not really planning on big drops and such with the AT gear. If I want to do that stuff, I'll use my regular downhill gear. I'm more concerned about general "big boy crankin' some hard turns through heavy spring crud" type stuff. Mainly it's the torsional loads that have me wondering if I'll be prereleasing all the time, leaving me wishing I'd gotten Freerides instead.

I'm trying to put together an AT setup, and am currently shopping for bindings. The light weight and track record of the Dynafit bindings are appealing. I've been trying to find testimony from satisfied Dynafit users who are larger than average. I have no doubt they're fine for 150 lb skiers, but I'm typically about 220, and have a very strong downhill skiing background. If I get the Dynafits, will I be blowing out of them all the time? Are there any heavier/stronger folks out there who can share their experiences?

I've got Doolittle in my CD player as I write this. And Frank Black discs close at hand...

Except when NOT using the belay loop, and threading the biner through as if tying in, it's easier for the biner to end up resting in a position where there is cross-loading on the gate.

Not hatin' at all. Just jealous.