billcoe

The awesome DMM stainless tell V-twin belay device at Climb Max for $20.00!!! Designed for 8.0 to 10.5mm ropes. http://climbmaxmountaineering.com/index.asp same site has Kong Pitons for $1.99, unfrikkan belivable. Pretty good pin too. Adam got a couple and we slammed them into some junk rock and they work great. If you're in PDX, these are great folks and you can save yourself the freight and go gear whoring in their shop.

Oh? You are a fish and wildlife biologist and you disagree with this?

Wow . Nice work, that's out there. You weren't fearful of snow sloughing off/avalanches or cornices breaking off above you on that line ? Big congrats!

Not sure if that's the issue up there for Kaskadishflajforejf, but this will help you count Rad. LOL! http://obamaclock.org/

Welcome back Dane! I can totally relate right now as I've decided to head to Yos Thursday (bit later than planned) to be with my bros. My leg is over 5/8s of the way back, weak, tad swollen...etc, etc. No climbing or training for 3 weeks if you don't count drinking, eating and working on enlarging my manboobs and love handles:-) s'alright...I can be camp bitch and climb the climbs Dwayner would do if he still climbed. Thinking Grack Center, best 5.6 in the universe like every day in the am and quit for the day and read a book and drink some wine. I'll do a daily lap and a nap..LOL! BTW, the only reason I didn't start my post "Holy shit!" was because that's already been used on this thread. I was thinking it though. I feel for you and Debbie for sure. Damn.

http://www.oregon.gov/OPRD/PARKS/OCT_main.shtml Looks good. They should be charging, someone did a lot of (good) work on the public nickle.

About time someone figured this out! ps, the Reuters byline is real, this is NOT the Onion! "Afghanistan's only pig quarantined in flu fear Reuters KABUL (Reuters) – Afghanistan's only known pig has been locked in a room, away from visitors to Kabul zoo where it normally grazes beside deer and goats, because people are worried it could infect them with the virus popularly known as swine flu. The pig is a curiosity in Muslim Afghanistan, where pork and pig products are illegal because they are considered irreligious, and has been in quarantine since Sunday after visitors expressed alarm it could spread the new flu strain. "For now the pig is under quarantine, we built it a room because of swine influenza," Aziz Gul Saqib, director of Kabul Zoo, told Reuters. "We've done this because people are worried about getting the flu." Worldwide, more than 1,000 people have been infected with the virus, according to the World Health Organization, which also says 26 people have so far died from the strain. All but one of the deaths were in Mexico, the epicenter of the outbreak. There are no pig farms in Afghanistan and no direct civilian flights between Kabul and Mexico. "We understand that, but most people don't have enough knowledge. When they see the pig in the cage they get worried and think that they could get ill," Saqib said. The pig was a gift to the zoo from China, which itself quarantined some 70 Mexicans, 26 Canadians and four Americans in the past week, but later released them. Some visitors were not concerned about the fate of the pig and said locking it away was probably for the best. "Influenza is quite contagious and if it passes between people and animals then there's no need for the pig to be here," zoo visitor Farzana said. Shabby and rundown, Kabul Zoo is a far cry from zoos in the developed world, but has nevertheless come a long way since it suffered on the front line of Afghanistan's 1992-4 civil war. Mujahideen fighters then ate the deer and rabbits and shot dead the zoo's sole elephant. Shells shattered the aquarium. One fighter climbed into the lion enclosure but was immediately killed by Marjan, the zoo's most famous inhabitant. The man's brother returned the next day and lobbed a hand grenade at the lion leaving him toothless and blind. The zoo now holds two lions who replaced Marjan who died of old age in 2002 as well as endangered local leopards. In all, it houses 42 species of birds and mammals and 36 types of fish and attracts up to 10,000 visitors on weekends." _________________________________________________________ Yahoo news link

no close no and no

We are in agreement on most of that. They were delisted yesterday and the states now take over management. It's good they are keeping this at a local level and the wolves will do fine as management is moving to the states is all and they can decide what to do locally. I just got back from Eastern Oregon Sunday where they are still discussing Oregons first major wolf encounter. 2 Wolves killed 19 lambs (final count I believe although 12 was the initial number) but only ate 2 of them near North Powder. Here's a link to that encounter with them. Link to pic This won't be cheap to deal with. However -large predators are critical in ways we often don't understand. Turns out, the aspen were dying in Yellowstone and no one knew why. When Wolves were re-introduced the aspen started coming back. They know why now. Guesses? ps, there is an organization which compensates ranchers for losses, I don't believe it's the gobment though.

I thought my wife was doing a casserole as 4she had fired up the slow cooker yesterday with a bunch of beans and stuff in it. So I stopped and bought a baguette from the French Bakery (man, it's spot on the money like Parisian bread). Turns out she was making Burritos. At the burritos and the entire baguette too last night. Damn that stuff is soooooo friggan good. Love French food.

This may be as awesome as it ever gets John! Hot damn, thank you so much for sharing it. AWE-FRIGGAN-SOME! Very very much! Where's Dan and Elises TR?

These kinds of things is why I read all the rest of the drivel ya know:-) The description of the drivers ed teacher could be right out of a Hunter Thompson novel.

It may be true that Meth heads are usually poor, but all poor people are NOT meth heads. Many are honest and good people. This fee will not prevent the meth heads from camping miles away and showing up during the day to steal your things. It will also NOT prevent them from just camping for free there and breaking the law by not paying as some otherwise honest folks will choose to do as noted above? Walking a mile in our less fortunate brothers shoes would be a thing to start with here IMO.

Thanks in advance for going back to put the pin in. I clip all those fixed pins on Superstition. Furthermore, big thanks for aiding that line as well. Thing collects a lot of dust and makes it even harder for the first free party in the spring. I'd imagine some of that got knocked off, and if nothing else, the pins get tested! If they won't hold bodyweight or the pull from a weighted line, they really really need to be replaced or rehammered in, and as none of the freeclimbers ever carry hammers to test, a rude awakening was in store for the unlucky person who was to fall or even hang on that one without backing it up with a small nut eh? Fortunately, most of those can be backed up with a small RP if you look. I'm not in agreement with Jefe who said:

This is bullshit. You think the gov't can make money charging $5 here? I have never camped at grasslands and don't plan on starting. I won't be personally bothered by this and will most likely never ever pay this fee myself. Furthermore, I don't worry about $5 as I often pay more for a beer than that and I would bet I paid more money in taxes for the year than your car costs. $5 is less change than behind my seat cushions as far as that goes. The fact that I am more affected in no way diminishes the bullshit nature of this bullshit. For me, there are several layers of wrongness about this bullshit that almost calls out for a new Robin Hood to show up and fix this crap. 1st) I suspect they will be losing money trying to administer this new tax. The Bush admin lost plenty of money on stupid things, most of us were hoping that this new Obama one would reverse that trend. During the Reagan years, they started this add a fee thing, it was wrong then ad it's still wrong now, especially as everytime a new tax is added, which is what this is - the fixed administrative costs goes up. 2nd) It's regressive, unlike the income tax, and poor people will be getting shit on hard. Not idiots with more money than brains like me. Just because the government chooses to continue to f* the poor because they can in no way makes it right or honorable. 3rd) As far as many people choosing to go camping down the road or stealing the space by leaving before the govenment gets there to collect, by starting something unnecessary which is unfair and most likely money losing which is going to make people compete, lie and disrespect our government - it adds to the total wrongness of this $5 fee. Lets start something unfair which gets otherwise normal and honest people to try and cheat the government? Bad idea. Bad. They want to take a piece of undeveloped land and make a campsite and charge a fee and add services where it is needed. Uhhh, OK. I'm fine with that. IF IT IS NEEDED. They did that very thing and Smith Rocks very effectively. This is just more counterproductive government bullshit in my eyes for at least the 3 huge reasons I outlined and I hope they reconsider and drop it. We should not have to pay AGAIN to use our own land. IT'S JUST WRONG.

Wow, what a story. "Adventure is for the adventurous. My face is set. I go to make my destiny. May many another youth be by me inspired to leave the snug safety of his rut, and follow fortune to other lands." "God, how the wild calls to me. There can be no other life for me but that of the lone wanderer. It has an irresistible fascination. The lone trail is the best for me." denver post "Wanderer's last trail found after 75 years After Everett Ruess vanished in Utah's wilds in 1934, relatives tried to retrace his steps. But a few overheard words are what have now led to his bones. By Kevin Vaughan The Denver Post Posted: 05/01/2009 12:30:00 AM MDT Updated: 05/01/2009 08:46:05 AM MDT Archaeologist Ron Maldonado examines the crevice in the Comb Ridge area of southeastern Utah that held Everett Ruess' bones, above. The bones were from a man 19 to 22 years old who was roughly 5-feet-8, matching Ruess' age and size. (National Geographic Adventure magazine ) As the man's eyes wandered across the red-rock country of southeastern Utah, he first saw a weather-beaten saddle jammed in a canyon wall crevice and then, behind it, bleached bones sticking out from the earth — the keys to unlocking one of the West's enduring mysteries. That discovery, made more than a year ago, came full circle Thursday with the announcement that the bones belong to Everett Ruess, a poet and painter, writer and thinker who vanished near the Four Corners area in 1934. For 75 years, the answer to his disappearance at age 20 had been the stuff of speculation. It might never have been solved but for a Navajo medicine man's admonition, a grandfather's story of long-ago death, a curious writer and contemporary forensic-science work conducted at the University of Colorado. Maybe, some posited, he had slipped while climbing a canyon or met his end at the fangs of a rattlesnake. Maybe he'd been murdered. Ruess died, not long after he was last seen, in a remote wash miles from anywhere. "The family is deeply, deeply appreciative of everything that came together to solve the mystery," his niece, Michele Ruess, said Thursday during a conference call announcing that work by CU anthropologists and DNA experts had identified the remains as those of the wandering intellectual. Tale of Ute chase, clubbing Born in Oakland, Ruess was just a boy when he began writing, and by the time he was 16 he was exploring the West, on a horse or a burro or on foot. He trekked through the Sequoia and Yosemite parks. He crisscrossed the canyon country of Colorado, Arizona, Utah and New Mexico. He painted. He made woodcuts of the beautifully stark images of the landscapes he visited. And he wrote of his own restlessness and the land. He scrawled "Nemo" on rocks, maybe because it was Latin for "no one," or maybe because it was the name of the main character in one of his favorite books, "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea." Bones removed from the crevice by forensic anthropologists Dennis Van Gerven and Paul Sandberg. (Vaughn Hadenfeldt) was Christopher McCandless three generations before the subject of Jon Krakauer's "Into the Wild" wandered off in Alaska. On Nov. 11, 1934, Ruess wrote a letter to his older brother, Waldo. "As to when I revisit civilization, it will not be soon," it said, in part. The next day, Ruess set out from Escalante, Utah, with his two burros, heading off on the Hole-in-the-Rock Trail. A week later, a sheepherder talked to him close to where the Escalante River emptied into the Colorado. He was never seen again. Daisy Johnson was a young woman in 1971 when she walked in on a conversation between her grandparents. "Grandmother was getting after him, saying, 'You should have never, ever messed with that body,' " Johnson said. " 'You should have left him down there.' " Daisy asked her grandfather, Aneth Nez, what they were talking about, and he told her the story of sitting on desolate Comb Ridge, of sometimes seeing a young white man riding a burro in the canyon below him. He told her about the day he saw three Ute Indians chase down that young man, club him and leave him for dead, and how he later sneaked into the wash, where he picked up the bloodied body and carried it up the canyon, then buried it in a crevice. Now her grandfather was sick. A medicine man blamed his cancer on what he had done with that corpse, and said he needed to return to it and take a lock of hair that could be used in a ceremony to cure him. Nez had Johnson drive him out to Comb Ridge, and then set out on foot into the desert while she waited. Two hours later, he returned with a lock of hair. He lived another 10 years. Bones, family's DNA a match Uncle Everett was always a part of Michele Ruess' life. Paintings and prints hung on the walls. Books bulged with his writings. On a rock slab, her grandmother painted one of her uncle's favorite sayings: "What time is it? Time to live." And her father, Waldo, spent his life trying to uncover the mystery of his brother's death. He went to Utah in 1964 to see whether any human remains had been found during work to build a dam, creating Lake Powell. He wrote to magazines imploring people with information to come forward. Waldo Ruess died in 2007, still wondering what happened. He was 98. In the spring of 2008, Daisy Johnson told her grandfather's story at a family gathering. Her brother, Denny Bellson, had never heard it before. Bellson searched the Internet for disappearances in the Four Corners area and found stories about Ruess. He got a map of the Comb Ridge area and had his sister show him where she had taken their grandfather. On May 25, 2008, Bellson drove to Comb Ridge. He parked and descended into Chinle Wash. In a slot in the chalky red rock, he saw the remains of a saddle. Bellson moved closer. There, behind the saddle, were bones. "I looked around and I knew it was him," Bellson said. Bellson took a friend to the site. That friend knew the Ruess story, and he knew David Roberts, a contributing editor at National Geographic Adventure magazine. Roberts had researched the Ruess mystery extensively in 1999 for a story. Roberts approached CU anthropology professor Dennis Van Gerven, asking whether he would examine a jawbone discovered on Navajo land. "I was actually not interested, but David persisted," Van Gerven said. Van Gerven and doctoral student Paul Sandberg carefully exhumed the remains and determined they were those of a man between 19 and 22 who was roughly 5-feet 8-inches tall. All of that matched up with Ruess. They photographed facial bones and superimposed them over pictures of Ruess. They matched . Next, they turned to Ken Krauter, a CU biology professor, who directed the process of extracting DNA from a leg bone unearthed from the grave. They compared that to DNA obtained from Waldo Ruess' four children, and it matched exactly as one would expect between an uncle and his nieces and nephews. Krauter called it "an irrefutable case." The scientific work and Nez's story answer many questions about Ruess. But they don't complete the tale. There is no proof of how — or when — Ruess died, or how he ended up 60 miles from the place he was last seen. And there is no way to know who might have killed him. Still, the discovery of his remains brought a measure of peace to his surviving family members. "Even though it's very sad to imagine the manner in which he died, we're happy to know how it happened and where he's been resting all these years," Michele Ruess said, "and that there was such a man as Aneth Nez who cared for a fellow human being." Her uncle's remains will be cremated, she said, and scattered in the Pacific Ocean near Santa Barbara, Calif. It's the same place where the ashes of Waldo and other family members have been scattered through the years. It's the place where Everett Ruess will be one with the earth forever. "

LOL, I was joking on the SPCA crack (Society for the prevention of Cruelty to Animals) The thanks was genuine Rod. Regards Bill

I think on some long alpine routes where you are pushing your limits and barely hanging on, and a pound or 2 can be the tipping balance for a tumble....it would matter in a huge way. Otherwise, why would it. McCale packs are suppose to be pretty damn good themselves are they not Matt? Probably something each of us has to answer for ourselves due to their own attitude and usage. When I was young, I had no money and made due. Not that I liked doing that. I climbed harder then as well, however, my partner was a total gear whore with no kids and big discretionary income. Bivys were often uncomfortable in more ways than one for me as I'd be freezing looking over at buddy all warm, dry and cozy:-).

Going with Blake on Cilogear 110%. Sure, you can buy a Chinese made pack cheaper, but not better. I was thinking of using a standard 60L Cilogear pack for rockclimbing/new routing and Graham talked me out of that (bad) idea. "You don't want to be hauling a lightweight pack over rocks" he said, or something like that. Wise man. He did take it to heart and is soon to be coming out with a kick assed strong (but not overly heavy) backpack based on Yosemite climber Ray Olsen's much ballyhooed and loved discontinued Big Wally design that gregory produced when he was there. (Ray designed the first Chouinard climbing pack when he worked there). I learned about this pack from Joseph who found one used and was crowing on it. I later found a used one and understood why he was so enthusiasic. I got to try and trash the demo prototype pack Graham made last summer, and then Graham donated it to the Kevin Rauch fundraiser still looking great. Kyle was bidding on it so I didn't want to step on his toes but then he got snipped at the end. How many Chinese pack makers have ever donated packs to raise money for disabled local climbers? Here it is above getting ready for one of those solo climbing/ getting in some shooting trips. You can tuck the straps and make it a haul bag in less than a minute. The last day I had it, I hauled 4 full (2 inside and 2 on top) sized climbing ropes and all my gear out of a relatively isolated canyon. This involved some rappelling over real sharp rock and pulling my ropes (one which core-shotted from 2 people rappeling on it) so they wouldn't be wintered in. This back looked close to new when I cleaned off the dirt and turned it over to the next pack tester. It performed amazingly. Glad Graham talked me out of one of his lightweight race packs cause I'd have trashed it for sure. I'm first in line for the production model of this pack and I'm damn jazzed up about it. Cilogear rules. Anyhow, like some of you are saying, if I'd used my 9.1 Beal Joker to toprope with my buddies doing laps like last night (bad idea) and lead I doubt I could use it for a full year before it was trashed. I love the rope for those long routes where light is right though so my tired and old ass can shave some weight.

I go no on the bridge but don't get to Smith much, so maybe thats .02 of a regular vote , but I want to thank you for both bringing the supplement out and for donating the extra to the SPCA. Regards Bill

Fine then, if we want to see a list of your recent 5.5 rock and easy class one snow slogs we'll rattle your cage. Meantime, we can only hope this helps you out... Good luck.

Never sank one. Adam sank a Rurp Sunday (larger than these) that was surprisingly way tight and bomber though. Thus ends Bills random post dejour

I was just out toproping with a full sized Beal 11mm rope and a junk pack. It was a 30 foot walk from the car though in an urban area (steal the pack - Please!), the weight meant nothing. That doesn't mean I don't love the fact that short life, very uber light helium weight products are available if I want them! Love em all. Sure, my Beal Joker 9.1 won't last 3 years, and the 11mil above will easily last 5 but most likely 10 years. I'm happy both are available to me. Have to pick and chose for the application.

they said a black man could never be elected as President....100 days into it - Swine Flu. Badabump. (insert rimshot noise here)

F*UK THE POOR! New government motto evidently. I can easily pay this, but will avoid it every chance I get as it's wrong. This is holdover BS from the Reagan years. Pr*cks. Fire their asses and let them get real jobs. From here: LET THEM EAT CAKE AND GET THE HELL OFF THEIR OWN LANDS IF THEY CAN'T AFFORD IT link. "It’s Not Just About the Five Bucks: An area campground becomes a recreation fee case study Written by Mike Bookey Wednesday, 29 April 2009 Up past Smith Rock State Park, on a road lined with farmland and flanked by pine-covered hills on each side, there’s a small brown sign that you’d miss if you weren’t keeping a keen eye out. But it’s a sign that seasoned climbers from Central Oregon and beyond know well. It marks the entrance to the Skull Hollow Campground, a small collection of picnic-table-and-fire-pit camp sites nestled amongst brush and scattered trees. The campground is rather primitive, as far as campgrounds go. Other than the tables and fire pits, the only other amenities are a dirt road that loops through the grounds and a pair of toilets that are basically just pits in the ground and on a recent afternoon were absent of toilet paper. For years, Skull Hollow has been a refuge for weary climbers who spend the days tackling Smith Rock and retreat the roughly eight miles to Skull Hollow to sack down for the night come sundown. And they’ve always done so for free – Skull Hollow hasn’t required a fee, only a 14-day limit on stays. But a public lands advisory committee has recommended that the campground include a $5 nightly per-site fee, and anti-public-land-fee groups, as well as climbers have taken issue with the fact that come May 15, Skull Hollow (which is currently not planned to receive improvements or additional facilities) will no longer be a free campground. Opponents say that their issue with a fee at Skull Hollow isn’t about the five bucks, but rather the increasing prevalence of pay to play on public lands. While the initial fee is minimal, they say the process has major flaws, and in this case is possibly illegal. The recommendation for the fee at Skull Hollow was unanimously passed by the Pacific Northwest Recreation Resource Advisory Committee – a group of volunteer members ranging from guides to state tourism officials who represent different areas of the outdoor recreation arena and make recommendations on new or increased recreation fees on Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management land – at a January 30 meeting in Portland. Skull Hollow was just one of the sites that was recommended for a new fee or increase at the meeting. The idea of a fee at Skull Hollow has been discussed for years now, and beginning in 2006 the public began writing into the Crooked River National Grasslands (the 110,000-plus-acre, Forest-Service-managed area that encompasses Skull Hollow) to comment on the proposal. In the 29 comments received by the agency, only two were in support of the fee, which is why people like Scott Silver, executive director of Wild Wilderness, a Bend-based non-motorized outdoor recreation group with a national presence, find the decision troubling. “In this case it’s not the $5 that’s my concern. The reason I’m raising concern over this is the way in which the (Pacific Northwest) Rec RAC broke the law in approving this,” says Silver, who has long been a watchdog of what he sees as a move by federal agencies to privatize public lands. He has previously referred to this as the “Disneyfication of the wild” and organized more than 100 protests in 16 different states. Silver says that the committee is required to show that there is “general public support” for an issue before a recommendation should be made. Silver is referring to the committee’s bylaws, Section VI of which requires the committee to “include documentation of general public support” in their recommendations to agency officials for a fee. Kitty Benzar, the president of the Western Slope No-Fee Coalition, a Colorado-based group that opposes all fees on public lands, attended the Portland meeting and also objects as to how the committee proceeded in regard to the public comments opposing a fee at Skull Hollow. “The actual proposal documented that almost every comment opposed the increase and we reminded them that under the law they need to see evidence of public support,” Benzar says, who adds that nationwide these types of committees were meant to act as “rubber stamps” for fee increases. Dennis Oliphant lives in Bend and is the owner and founder of rafting guide company Sun Country Tours and is also the chairman of the Pacific Northwest Recreation RAC. Oliphant says that there is a misconception as to the committee’s role when it comes to public commentary and that the committee is making its decision based on a presentation by the Forest Service or BLM at their meetings. “We look at the presentation before us and then make a decision,” Oliphant says, “The important thing to realize here is that this an advisory group and we have no decision-making authority.” Acknowledging that Oliphant is correct that the committee is, in fact, an advisory group, Benzar says that for all intents and purposes, the recommendation of the committee is a final decision. Should the agency wish to overrule a Recreation RAC, the issue would have to be passed on to committees in both the House and Senate. Benzar believes that rather than send the issue up to legislators, Forest Service and BLM secretaries approve recommendations, even if there are concerns about public support of the recommendation. “To me, Skull Hollow has become the poster child for the process. The committee substituted their judgment for the will of the people,” says Benzar, “This is probably the worst single example of [disregard for comments from the public] I’ve ever seen.” Oliphant says that one of the committee’s responsibilities is to make sure the agency has “done their due diligence” in researching the issue, which includes presenting budgetary issues pertinent to the particular site. He also says that sometimes public comments aren’t always the best measure of the correct course of action for the agency. “Most of the time they would get no input or very little input. If 100 percent of the input was opposed and that was two letters – and that’s just an example – the agency has to weigh that decision,” Oliphant says. Benzar reiterates that the argument here is hardly about the actual $5 fee, but more focused on what it means to put any sort of fee on a previously no-fee campground like Skull Hollow. She says that once a site has a fee, it’s common for the agencies to increase that amount as time goes by. “Keep in mind that right now the $5 fees are all going up to $10,” she says, referencing several fee hikes around the region in recent years. Wild Wilderness’ Scott Silver says that now that the Forest Service is in the “business of selling camping,” the agency is looking at private campground fees and adjusting their prices accordingly. Such is the case, he says, with the campgrounds operated locally by Hoodoo Recreation. “What [Hoodoo CEO] Chuck [shepard] is saying to the FS is that you can’t keep the prices artificially low because I can’t raise my prices,” Silver says. In a 2007 letter to Detroit Ranger District, Shepard wrote: “I don’t know why the USFS feels the need to hold the fees lower than the market would say is reasonable…Please do not hold your fees artificially low, this actually hurts the concessionaire model which I know that the national USFS is anxious to have work.” Oliphant says that while he would like to see “free and open lands,” he and other committee members acknowledge that campgrounds like Skull Hollow require money for maintenance and regulation. And while the Forest Service does provide some maintenance at the site, Skull Hollow also receives help from people like Ian Caldwell, a member of the Smith Rock Group. In the past, the non-profit group has provided volunteer maintenance to the campground, including emptying the toilets. In the minutes of the January Recreation RAC meeting, the issue was raised of whether the group would continue to provide this service should Skull Hollow become a fee site. Caldwell says the group has yet to decide how they’ll proceed with their maintenance. “We’ve discussed it a little bit, but if they’re charging a fee to have an employee go out there and do that, there’s not really reason for us to do it,” says Caldwell, who first stayed at Skull Hollow in 1991. Caldwell also illustrates another possible problem that could result from the mere $5-a-night fee at Skull Hollow. “The climbing community is looking for free camping and we recognize that if they don’t have a free camping site they’ll move to another place,” says Caldwell. He believes that climbers and others looking for a free night of camping will simply continue past Skull Hollow and camp off the grid, thus impacting nearby wilderness areas. The issue of recreation fees may soon take the national spotlight with the introduction of a bill by senators Max Baucus (D-Montana) and Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) that would repeal the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act (FLREA). Baucus told NewWest.Net last week that “we shouldn’t be taxed twice to go fishing, hiking, or camping on our public lands.” Silver feels that the FLREA, which is sometimes referred to as the Recreation Access Tax (RAT) by opponents, is flawed in that it allows an agency to keep the money it collects, thus creating an increase in incentive to raise fees. But congressional change or not, out at Skull Hollow, likely somewhere near the message board that informs campers of the seemingly loosely enforced 14-day limit, will soon appear a box. And this is where campers can drop their $5 bill."