catbirdseat

" 'They can't look at a chainsaw and decide if it's blood or rust or red paint,' he said. Mr Despres was detained, after police spotted him wandering down a motorway in a sweat shirt with red and brown stains. " Hey, as long as he doesn't look like he's from the Middle East, he can't be a bad guy, blood stains or whatever.

I haven't been there this year, but it's a safe bet there will be some snow in it still. You can't even tell until you are right up to it. Up until last year, it had some ice in it, but there hasn't been a big snow in 5 years so it's all gone now.

He's playing on KPLU 88.5 FM right now according to the announcer.

You could be either a mother or work in daycare.

A dog will keep away the deer, but you obviously got to keep it outside. Then you gotta have a fence... etc., etc.

Bring back Hello Kitty!

Sloppy Seconds.

When considering what is or is not a good time to clean, I say that the benefit of the doubt ought to go to the guy who's actually DOING THE WORK. Amazing how people are so ambitious for others to come and freeze their ass off on a November day so they can climb nice clean routes in July.

Jazz Alley

It seems to me that a separate belay wouldn't have been any help once that rap anchor rock cut loose! It would still have taken out the rappellers and either broke the belay rope or pulled the belayer down along with them. That very well may have been the case here, but it doesn't invalidate the practice, which is a common rescue technique.

He plays trumpet and he is muy caliente. I've seen him play on TV years ago on BET.

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?

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