catbirdseat

You need to clip into some anchor in many situations, even if it isn't the rap anchor. It may be a temporary one. In this case, what might have prevented the tragedy would have been to have a separate belay from a separate anchor with a separate rope. There were three ropes in the party and it would have been possible to do a double rope rappel and still have a belay.

PP, are you laughing your ass off yet?

It's in the PI Scroll down towards the bottom, please.

The injured climbers were part of a Seattle Mountaineers party led by Doug Smart. Apparently the anchor man of the rope team held the fall and prevented an even worse accident. PI Article I recently bought a pair of aluminum crampons and if you just look at the package instructions, you'll see that they are not recommended for anything other than use on snow.

Bug? Who's bug? That was my attempt at klenkesque humor.

I just heard on the radio that they helicoptered off two men from the 13,000 ft level, one with a broken leg and the other with a broken ankle.

I'd recommend you either pick up a third person for your rope team. Barring that, I'd suggest making arrangements to travel with another rope team you meet when you get to base camp.

It's taken several years but it appears that one long time member has finally turned to the Dark Side for real.

I'd hazard to guess that it means a "complete idiot" which is not to be confused with either the pidiot (partial idiot) or the tidiot (total idiot).

Excellent point! We are the ones who would have otherwise become criminals had we not been "socialized differenetly" into becoming climbers.

It seems to me that the point he was trying to make was that the cleaning was unnecessary for the purpose of climbing.

An article appeared in this morning's Post Intelligencer. CascadeClimbers.com was mentioned and our own Bug was quoted. Way to go, Bug! It's in the P-I

I've heard some say the Cave Route on Concord Tower sucks and others say it's okay. What say you?

editpage@seattlepi.com

This isn't what you were doing, though, was it?

Could it be one of Dave Morales projects?

There is this one rap station on Prusik that is actually pretty prone to rockfall, if you happen to go that way. I missed getting smacked by a 6 inch rock, by a couple feet. Had I been really smart then, I would have put a carabiner on the rap station to redirect the pull of the rope and pulled from the side where I had everyone else standing.

Decending Johannesburg, I finished one rappel where it really looked like it was pretty certain that the rope would cause rockfall when we pulled it. Ordinarily, I'd clip into the next rap anchor while waiting for partners to descend. I didn't like the location at all, so I walked right on a ledge and built a temporary anchor under the lee off a projecting rock. We all clipped to that. When we pulled the rope, a positive rain of rocks scoured the rap station to my left. I guess I made a good call in that one.

We talk about stuff and say things that normally we would be too polite to say in person. That's what it is all about. Some things are discussed that need to be addressed and other things that don't really but are anyway, the poo threads for example.

Sounds good to me. Who else has a 32 oz thirst?

Boxtop, High Priest

Why is it that the cops don't do anything about distracted drivers? Yesterday on southbound I-5 in Marysville within the space of ten minutes I saw: A man reading a document on his steering wheel while driving. He holds the paper with his left thumb, then reaches over with his right hand to take a sip of his Big Gulp. A woman playing a video game while driving. Maybe it was a PDA. I couldn't tell.

A vegetable belay bush broke on me once owing to poor technique. I fell what must have been six feet onto a thick carpet of moss. Klenke- Remember Lewis Peak?

Goes to show you that intelligence was never a significant consideration in sheep breeding programs.

We live in a country of euphemisms.