catbirdseat

We recently visited a lava tube on the Big Island of Hawaii that was a mile long. One can stand up in it most of the way. It is only about 200 years old, so it still looks like new inside except for roots hanging down. It was way cool.

Sounds like Holcomb Valley Pinnacles at Big Bear here in the San Bernardino Mountains of California. It's a great climbing area, but the roads are unimproved, the trails are unimproved and there are no bathrooms or other amenities whatsoever. Nonetheless we are expected to display a trail park permit. They ticket religiously. You can count on it.

I saw that scene playout yet again Monday night. Fortunately he didn't fall too hard. Guy was a good sport about it too.

Dr. Finch Obituary He was said to be a climber. I wonder if anyone knew anything about climbs he did in his youth.

I've climbed Sunday Cruise twice. It's not as easy to find or follow as Rainman, as there aren't any bolts. None. You could have rapped down Checkered Demon. It has rap stations. Did you have a copy of Matt's topo from this thread from July 2006? Sunday Cruise 2006 TR

Of the above mentioned crampons, which fit large feet the best. Too often crampons will not fit well on boots over US size 11. My size is 11.5. I usually have to buy long plates for steel crampons so they will fit.

If one were interested in testing the efficiency of the stove as one heats liter after liter of water, the results would vary depending on whether the canister were allowed to warm back to room temperature after each liter was boiled. This is the usual way that stoves are used.

The Invernos are heavy, but you could save some weight by springing for Intuition Liners. Plastic boots are nice and warm.

When we were there last, some of the bolts that were not stainless steel were rusting badly. Have they been replaced?

The gear could be set up correctly at the outset, but in use it could come unclipped and not be noticed. It's just one of those set ups that is not worth the risk. The only thing you gain is not having to rotate the biner to clip it. There is so much more to lose.

I remember him talking about that. Can you remember what his name was for the device?

Good thing he had the cell after he went back out without helmet, transceiver and jacket!

Cached

Every time one approaches a dangerous situation and nothing bad happens, the perceived risk decreases. The reality of the danger is unchanged.

Has anyone seen the new North Face movie? I saw an advance screening at REI. It looked very authentic to me. I didn't notice anything that was implausible, except for perhaps a part where two guys are hanging from one piton, and the pin is starting to pull. The guy at the belay is pounding it back in with a hammer and yelling, "the piton is pulling out!". Then one of the guys below sees they are f---ed, pulls out a knife and cuts the rope. Apparently, this movie was filmed in 2008 in German. It is only now available with English subtitles. Review

Everyone is incredibly excited down here about Giant Squid. I can't believe I scooped G-Spotter on this important development. [img:left]http://www.freakingnews.com/Pictures/2/Giant-Squid.jpg[/img]

Mark, I really like that quote. That's the way to live.

I've used Yosemite Bum a couple of times and their work has been excellent. http://yosemitebum.com/

We just returned from a week long tour of Utah and Arizona that included Red Rock, Zion, Bryce Canyon, Natural Bridges, Canyon De Chelly, and Grand Canyon. We took along our new Garmin Nuvi which, along with paper maps worked great. The paper maps are really essential, because they tell you what kind of road the GPS is routing you on. In one case, we saw that it had us on a gravel road in the backcountry. We asked the locals and they said, we'd better not try it, so we didn't. With snow all bets are off.

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Barry, hook up with Kirk Bishop. He's going down at the same time. I can get you contact info. Your rack is perfectly adequate. Only think you can add is maybe some optional DMM Offset Stoppers. Expensive but nice at JTree. Be sure you talk to Rob, he'll have some suggestions.

Thus far no one has seen fit to discuss the merits of the article from the original poster. Basically the article is saying that we are making huge public health decisions with poor information on the effectiveness of flu vaccine. The reason for this is because of the unwillingness to conduct placebo-controlled clinical trials which are perceived as unethical. I imagine that you could get college students to volunteer to be inoculated with flu virus to test effectiveness if you paid them. Problem is you will end up knowing effectiveness in college students and not the demographic that needs protection- the frail elderly. A similar ethical dilema exists in cancer treatment. The way that works is that the control group, rather than receiving a placebo, receive "current standard of care", which is active drugs. The test group might get the test drug by itself or in combination with standard of care drugs. This wouldn't be possible in the case of a vaccine. All you folks who say you don't need flu shots are probably right. You're healthy. If you get it, you fight it off.

I usually carry a cell phone, just because it weighs nothing and I always carry a cell phone. Never had to use it, but I did manage to send a nice photo of Mt. Whitney to my brother so as to say, "the view is here, wish you were beautiful".

We used to call that the "old-man hole"!

I wonder if the goats do it on purpose, or is it they just like to be above you and the rock fall is incidental. I've seen them knock rocks on the approach to the Beckey Route at Liberty Bell.