catbirdseat

You can say that again.

Must be I have either short fingers or the distance between the end of the stem and the trigger is large on Clog cams, but I could not do it the way you describe. I plan to gradually migrate to the new Costalots anyway.

That works...if you have simian hands- I don't.

Clint Eastwood in Pale Rider, "Nothin' like a nice piece of hickory".

Presumably from climbing too long with cold hands and/or belaying with cold hands, my thumbs stopped working as I was leading a wide 5.10a crack climb at Vantage. They were cramped in such a way that I couldn't open them. The good news was that I could still make a fist jam. The bad news was that I couldn't extend the thumbs enough to retract the lobes on my single stem cams to make a placement. I found myself wishing I had U-shaped cams because you don't need thumbs to place them. I was finally able to shake out a hand enough to place a cam and finish the exit moves. Anyway, I remember thinking, "Gee this would be really pretty comical if it weren't so damn serious".

TG, that's a great story.

A friend of mine decked on Neat and Cool after a cam pulled. He broke both wrists. So many people get hurn on this one climb that the nurses at the local hospital know it by name.

Can anyone comment on recent snowfall up on Rainier?

Climb: Vantage-Chips and Dips, Oral Office, and others Date of Climb: 10/25/2004 Trip Report: We traveled to Frenchman's Coulee on Friday night and found the camping area remarkably clean thanks to the recent efforts of the volunteers. We heard a lot of giggling coming from two large tents nearby, which turned out to be ten high school age girls from Forest Ridge School in Seattle, there to climb at the Feathers. Their instructor was a young fellow from the school who was a member of Seattle Mountain Rescue. He'd taken several of the girls to Joshua Tree in April for ten days. The wind was blowing, as it usually does, from the west as we set up the tent. Just as we were falling asleep, an almighty gust came out of nowhere and blew a cloud of dust into the tent through a slightly open window. We battened down the hatches and tried to sleep through the noise. We awoke to quiet and discovered that both of the porta potties had both blown over. Fortunately, there was no mess, as they had recently been serviced. Tipped back up, they were good as new. We met two friends who had never been to Vantage before and we warmed up on Chossmaster and Peaceful Warrior. I led Chips and Dips, 5.8, which was better than I predicted. It would probably see a lot more ascents if it had a chain anchor at the top of the crack and before the dirty alcove you have to tiptoe through to get to the mesa top. I think this route deserves a star in the guidebook, if someone would remove the dead bird carcass from the crack and scrub some of the excess quano. On the other hand, Oral Office, 5.8, at Kotick Memorial, doesn't deserve a star. The only good thing about it is there is a convenient chain anchor from an adjacent sport route. The crack is so rotten you can't get many decent jams in it and it is tricky to protect because I didn't want to trust the soundness of the rock. I ended up using almost all face holds. If you are careful to pod your cams, it is safe enough, but if I want to do face climbing there are plenty of bolted routes. There was rockfall sound going on the whole time, which it turns out was caused by some fellow cleaning a route on a heretofore undeveloped far right area of Kotick. Saturday evening was cool but almost windless and pleasant with a full moon. We enjoyed a delicious meal prepared by dryad, which she calls a "cassoulet", which features this really good chicken-turkey pesto sausage from Trader Joe's. It wasn't really a true cassoulet, but needed a name. The morning brought more high clouds but a bit more sun, but still pretty cold for climbing. The pancakes were tasty. We ran into Leland Windham at the parking lot. It turns out he was the one doing the cleaning the previous day. We asked him for advice on sunny climbs of moderate difficulty and he suggested Riverview Columns, which I had being eying in the guidebook anyway, so off we went. Turns out he was the one who put up all those routes back in 1997. They were fun as it turned out. We warmed up on Red Hot Chili Peppers (Tomato Wall), which was cool, then did #s 1, 2, and 3 all with Windham-esque names, of course- high falutin' words like "crepuscular" and "aeolacrymation". Route #3 had this thin crack as the only useable hold, just above the second bolt. I just couldn't get enough of my fat fingers into it to make it work and had to cheat my way around the move. Dryad, on the other hand, found the thin crack to her liking and pulled the move. For her this was a huge coup as it was the first time she'd pulled a move I couldn't do. We moved back towards Tomato Wall to say hello to some people we knew there and I led the 5.10a fist crack to the left of Ten Bucks and a Sandwich, 5.9. The guidebook says "standard rack" WTF is that supposed to mean? I was a little short on big cams as it turned out, but I got by. The book should read "Friends to #4" or "Gear to 3-1/2 inches". Anyway the route is very soft at 5.10a because of abundant face holds and the adjacent arete. I'd give it a 5.9-. We finished up a fun weekend by top roping Ten Bucks and a Sandwich, PG-Rated (bolts plus gear) and decided I was glad I hadn't led it. Whoever put it up put the bolts in the middle of the face so you could go up either arete, but it just makes for difficult clips. They should have bolted for the right side which is much better. Gear Notes: 1-3.5 inch cams Approach Notes: Gully #3 is the best approach for Riverview Columns

Oh Canada, to the rescue. What what we do without her?

Actually he made an exception in my case, but that was very generous of him. I count myself among the worthless wankers.

Chiron President and CEO Howard Pien was quoted in BioWorld Today (Oct 22, 2004) as saying "we believe the water supply could be to blame". This is the first possible explanation I've heard for the contamination that caused 48 million doses of vaccine to be withdrawn.

Trask thinks the site sucks right now. It is populated by none but pansy ass wankers with no cahones. He has no desire whatsoever to come back.

Miss Byrd, we'll have some hot spiced wine waiting for you when you arrive.

We'll be down there all weekend. If you can get yourself to Seattle, we might be able to crowd in one person. We leave Friday after work. We'll probably hit up the easy trad climbs on Sunshine Wall and Middle East Wall.

I've got a little group of four or five going. Anyone else planning on going? Probably the warmest and driest bet other than Smith.

Those Democrat stinkers, how dare they interfere in the internal affairs of other countries by insisting on human rights? The Republicans would NEVER do that. Invade a country and overthrow its leader, maybe...

Everything is a trade-off, Dru. The thimerosal is added to keep bacteria from running wild in the vial, in the unlikely event that the seal were to leak or the sterilization was imperfect. If you got a shot of contaminated vaccine you could easily die. Apparently, they are updating processes to do without thimerosal. Article Article 2

You hit the nail on the head. The higher elevations of the Sierra Nevada range are remarkably free of brush. Some of the lower elevations have a nightmare of manzanita thickets tough as any slide alder we have here in the NW.

I think the reason beginners do well at Exit 38 has a lot to do with the low angle of the rock, at least at the popular newbie areas like Deception and Wright Off Wall. They can use their legs more.

That is true, but there is a lot of route development going on now in other areas of the Tieton, such as Goose Egg Mountain, The Oasis and others.

Sports commentator, Art Thiel was talking on the radio about Yankee fan's behavior in the 1995 AL Championship series against the Mariners. They were chucking batteries, beer cans full of urine at the players on the field, also full liter bottles of liquid. The relief pitchers were doused with beer while they were trying to warm up and had to take the field soaking wet. Just because of their rotten fans alone, I say screw the Yankees.

Yayyyyyyyyyyyy! Go Red Sox! Boooowaahhh!

5. Lightning Crack: C'mon, do you really think those cams will hold in shallow, flaring, swauk sandstone? How many fatalities now? Plus, the first pitch crux is miserable loose. You said it! That freaked me out. That is a good application for tricams if there ever was. If anyone ever does the first pitch of that route, tie off a tunnel before the crux with a runner. It could save your life.