billcoe

These guys are awesome and local: http://www.bergfreunde.org/ and the old standby: http://www.skimag.com/skimag/forum/0,16566,,00.html Please note that I don't post at either of them, Bergfreunde you have to join to post. So your mileage will vary. Bill fixing links, that's all...

Hi Paul: humor and a lawn chair are about it, and the lawn chair is optional. If you have a spotting scope or binoculars bring them along. Dave Anderson, the fish and wildlife specialist for the area, stashed a set at the Beacon office, and if we can hook up with Erik Plunkett of the park service, we can use them, I have a set as well, but am waiting for a tripod for the scope. Sitting and watching the south face of Beacon for 4 hours is about it. Then we'll most likely mosey down to Skamania and have lunch. I could see a few quick climbs (not at Beacon due to the closure) being a part of the ritual, but this Sunday I would like to be back in town buy @ 2:30-3PM, so I'm gonna try and trash myself Saturday and just feel the sore muscles Sun. It will be important that we maintain a small presense and stay out of the way, so carpooling is important, of course, if you want to have a vehical close by, we can always ferry people in from the Beacon Rock tavern if you park there.

Sunday AM with Joseph and I for those interested. Shall we call it "Beer, Birds and Beacon" to see if we can attact more than just Ivan this time? You are all welcome to come along, most likely meet at the Jim Dandy 7:30 am and carpool. A show of hands would be nice for pre-plannig. Anyone? Bueller?

Soooooo, no pretense of climbing now eh? Straight to the beer trough. Steve, dark beer for me please.

Well Peter, I would hope that you could find consolation, peace and solice, in the fact that the Willamette Week, a small Oregon weekly, won a Pulitzer Prize for confirming that a certain former Oregon Governer had his penis in a girl who was repeatedly under 15 years old. Talk about keeping your pimp hand stong!

Right you are brother. No Question Rob, Iwo Jima! I'm sure both places equally sucked bad in their own time. Thanks for the strong pimp hand correction. Regards: Bill

The dramatic picture of the Marines raising the flag on Guadacanal during WW2 was staged as well. (after the photog missed the first flag raising. ) The facts remains: we took Guadacanal and both sides paid a heavy price. The Japanese paid the heaviest, but in the end, the real US flag was really flying over that piece of blood stained black sand. What's your point Peter?

Best appropriate reply to get to your level may be: "Thats what you are but what am I? nah nah nah." Again and to reiterate: We pay good money to have professionals examine these things in depth on many levels. You of course may second guess them if you like. However, what Alex said years ago about baseless internet spray with no substance and lots of blah blah blah with some psydo-science tossed in STILL seems to apply to your posts with nothing else tossed in. so back at ya. Probably better if we don't feed the trolls or the swine. Please reply to the Faster than Poo fella if you want to though.

Dude, "Midnight Oils greatest hits" must be a long playing single about giving it back eh?

Damn if I don't 100% agree with you. BTW, something similar to this happened to me elsewhere and the solution was to buy a place at the area. Before I did that I was starting to mental about it. The houses suck bad, however, as much as I radically hated seeing them coming, buying one, which I was soooooo opposed to having any there, did assuage the hurt somewhat. "They paved paradise, put up a parking lot". Joni Mitchell

Bonus points for a creative way to slam 2 different ethnicities. Wonder if the football team named the fighting slanted Asian Irish?

Might check where your fingers have been.

http://www.alpkit.com/special/jamalots.php I think Joseph could adapt and improve these - but pretty innovative?

Is it true Ron Artest will be playing for North Korea during his suspension?

Thanks Mark: Joseph would be the best guy to post the history and potential projected future of all of that out has happened at Beacon. There are raptor closures at many other crags for a variety of other birds, not just Falcons. That being said, the monitoring which Greg Borton has spearheaded in SW and Central Oregon has resulted in bans being lifted sooner as the birds clear out. That may in fact be the case this year as its been exceedingly warm and the regular timeline appears (catch that word appears) to have been moved up by mother nature. That really won't be clear until later in the year though. Yes, the Peregrine comback has been remarkable indeed. There are birds throughout the Columbia gorge, and in fact, the pair which origonally nested on the PDX Fremont bridge have been responsible for quite a few other urban birds. From the Audoban society " out of 25 youngsters that have been hatched on the Fremont Bridge between 1994 and 2002, 15 have survived the fledging process and twelve of those birds required some sort of intervention or rescue." Now there's birds at plenty of other locations just in Portland itself, at some point there may be more Peregrines than bums downtown if this keeps up. So it's probably just a matter of time until there is a softening of policy, but I swear to G**, sometimes I think us climbers are our own worse enemies. I think we'd be climbing on parts of Beacon now if it weren't for the actions of a few. These birds can and do move nesting sites. For instance, the pair which used to be on El Cap moved to the otherside of the valley a while ago. I don't think anyone has figured out why yet. In either case, it's a nice way to spend the AM (maybe less so when its so wet and cold), and as the little ones hatch, activity will pick up and make for some great viewing. If anyone wants to join in, this is going to be a semi-regular thing for some time - you're all welcome and encouraged to come along.

Well. Short TR in order. Ivan, me, a north Portland roof and some bungees (Green plastic tarp) 50 gallons of water falling out of the sky per min., cold - wet -windy. Great view of Beacon from the boat ramp for the 1-1/2 hours I could tolerate the cold and no Peregrines: thats right - NO Peregrines, but the highlight of the day other than hanging with Ivan and getting soaking wet and cold was seeing 2 immature (pretty damn big birds) Bald Eagles hanging out in the area, as in within 50 feet I suppose at one point. We had seen a bit of them the previous week, but this time they stayed longer and were closer. Next week still has openings if anybody is interested in coming.

Well, looks like Peregrine Monitoring at Beacon Rock is going to take flight! Please contact me via PM or e-mail billcoe @gmail.com if you are interested in helping monitor the birds. Be looking at 3-4 hour stints and still have time to climb (although not at Beacon:). Regards: Bill

How about living in moms basement to keep the overhead low, have my own dog, $2,000 in cash and a used Ford Pinto which doesn't have any payment on it. I'm just trying to brackect an actual dollar figure and get a clearer understanding of the reasoning here. I would think if somebody had a million dollar home, but no cash, you wouldn't be interested, but maybe if they had $200,000 in stocks, a home with $200,000 in equity and a reasonable amount in the 401 K, maybe they could apply?

Alright: how about $55,000 in cash, $1200 in travelers cheques, 5 golden pieces of 8, a visa with a $10,000 limit, and a Ford Taurus which is paid off, abiet 7 years old? Would that be close enough?

What? He couldn't have swallowed some pills, jumped off a bridge or slit his wrist? Do you still want me to say it cause I will.

How about a net worth of $750,000 but $350,000 is house value?

Are you talking net worth, or cash and cash equivalents? And what is the reason that someone with $900,000 in assets need not apply? Just curious?

R. Robbins, Y. Chouinard, W. Harding, T. Frost, R. Jardine.

Hell, that won't even fit around my waist so I'm out.

I have mine for sale on e-bay individually if you want to pick up one or two. http://search.ebay.com/camalot_W0QQfkrZ1QQfromZR8