catbirdseat

Jim Nelson was telling me the other day that Munter Hitches and Figure Eights don't necessarily twist the rope. He says that proper handling of the rope prevents twisting. I think this needs to be demonstrated to me before I'll believe it.

I presume you are talking about Hatchery Creek Road off of Hwy 2 in Tumwater Canyon?

How could anyone get bored in the presence of the lovely dryad?

OK, I'll concede that point. I've always wondered why this is so and whether it is a necessary condition to that level of creativity. I believe that many if not most of us have the creativity within ourselves. We just lack sufficient motivation to produce. People like Hunter Thompson wrote not because they knew they would be rewarded in the end. They wrote because they had to. For them it was a compulsion and it provided an outlet for all the emotion they had bottled up within.

They have some rocker, but not as much as the Scarpa. The problem with the AFS "Expendition" is they are very high AND the tops are rather stiff. At first glance, the Scarpa Inverno and the Asolo AFS are similar, but having both, I can say the Scarpa are easier to walk in on hard surfaces.

Well said.

Nickerson is fine with me. Plenty of room for the folks and lots of parking.

Wish I had some beer. The refrigerator is bare. Did someone say chat?

Can you imagine? An insulting post on cc.com? It couldn't possibly happen.

Hey, everybody, he's alive. Harry's alive!

If Iraq pays out a billion dollars it basically comes from the US anyway. It's a billion more we'd have to spend to rebuild that country. Still I feel for the pilots. They deserve some compensation, but a billion dollars? Every pilot would become a multimillionaire. Senator John McCain didn't complain about not being compensated for his torture in Viet Nam. He was just doing his duty.

Badda bing. Yo, lummox. When are you coming up to "sunny" Seattle? I'll buy you a drink if you show up to Pub Club.

Is there any trick to getting one end to sleeve into the other? I should think you would need a fid to do that. The weave may be too tight to get the fid to exit.

I was there and I couldn't really tell. It was October and there was no snow anywhere. It looked just like smal talus and scree. The rocks all moved very easily underfoot. We were never sure about exactly what a rock glacier was. I was able to find this definition: "Rock glaciers like this one, in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado, are rarer than ice glaciers. A rock glacier takes a combination of cold climate, a copious supply of rock debris, and just enough of a slope. Like ordinary glaciers, there is a large amount of ice present that allows the glacier to flow slowly downhill, but in a rock glacier the ice is hidden. Sometimes an ordinary glacier is simply covered by rockslides. But in many other rock glaciers, water enters a pile of rocks and freezes underground—that is, it forms permafrost between the rocks, and ice builds up until it mobilizes the rock mass. Rock glaciers may move very slowly, only a meter or so per year. There is some disagreement over their significance: while some workers consider rock glaciers a kind of dying stage of ice glaciers, others hold that the two types are not necessarily related. Certainly there's more than one way to create them. For more photos of rock glaciers and a taste of current research, visit this page at Queen's University of Belfast. " Link

At least you don't have to worry about sitting on a seat that someone has pissed all over.

That's a squat toilet. Climbers don't need to shown how to use one of those.

You are right, Dave. The cider thing is just a "nice to have".

If you are doing much rock climbing, the doubles (half ropes) would be much more durable and more versatile. I'd get larger than 8.0 however.

(1) If it is a sport route, what is one more bolt? The important thing is climbing at a consistent grade. (2) Fine, as long as the bolt is truly for aid and isn't added to protect a run out stretch after the FA without permission of the first ascensionist. (3-5) I don't think it matters. (6) Amend the topo. Wait a while while word gets out, then chop the bolt.

I was a snaffle in another life. Believe me, it's not all it's cracked up to be. The fleas can be murder.

All those urban puffies have got to show up eventually at the thrift store, so dirtbag climbers don't have to pay $500. So what if there are a few pieces of duct tape on it?

Speaking of ethical treatment of animals. Why don't people keep their dogs on a leash. We've had two women fall off cliffs in the past week chasing after their unleashed dogs.

Look at the fricking radio antenna, OMG!

That's pretty darn cool, if you ask me. It should be stronger than a water knot. My only concern would be the ease with which you can monitor the length of the tails when buried out of sight. In a similar vien, there are some single braid splicing techniques from the sailing world that could applied to tubular webbing. These are very strong and can be executed safely by the amateur. Example: http://www.ropeinc.com/sp12b_sbraid_eye_lock_stitch.htm The splice may be too long to be worth the weight. Maybe for a double runner.

Dryad will soon be moving to Boston to take a job with a big pharmaceutical firm. She'll be leaving either the first or second week in March. She deserves a proper send off. Her preference is non-smoking and with hard cider on tap in that order. Where shall we go to drink?