catbirdseat

I had heard that the Western Washington U Bookstore had copies of a book which included Baker Crags. There is a brief mention of it in Smoot's Climbing Washington. I made a brief visit there. The rock is a sort of volcanic conglomerate. I'm not sure I'm using the right terms, but parts of it, the Cobblestone Wall, for example look like some old pyroclastic flow that became cemented together. There was one 5.8 route I did, the easiest I could find, which had these hand sized rounded stones for holds. Anyway, the climbing area is right off the uphill side of the highway at about Milepost 39, if I am not mistaken. The bouldering areas are up the road a bit from the sport climbing areas. I don't think there is any trad at all.

Why would someone want to sell something like that? It must have been acquired from an estate.

Catbird, Any reason why you exercised your Olfactory Nerve. Sticking your nose in other peoples shoes? If the smell doesn't bother you, who cares what other people think. Just wear them. There are shoes that are so bad, that you don't have to stick your nose anywhere near them. The odor permeates throughout the general area. When you are tethered to the same anchor as your partner, there is absolutely no escape, except for the sweet release of death by plunging into the abyss. The cause of the odor bacterial action on unsaturated fatty acids. They start out with chain lengths of of 16 carbons or more and are non-volatile and hence odorless in that form. When the bacteria, present on your skin, go to work they shorten the chains down below 6 carbons and you get the smell of valeric acid and others, which is quite foul like dog or goat. Also oxidation of unsaturated groups results in cleavage and aldehyde formation. Aldehydes have a rancid odor.

I'm a non-fan of REDUNDANT statements! "Oh, you say that it's magma.... AND it's red hot?" Well DUH! You are most unique in that regard.

Winter, would you care to elaborate on that post?

It could very well be some form of armor plate.

I'll be there for four or five days between Christmas and New Years. I still haven't got the details or partner arrangements lined up. The plan is to drive out from Laguna Beach in a minivan I hope to borrow from either my sister or brother.

I doubt your shoes could be as stinky as Toast's or Ade's. I'd put some baking soda in a sock and stuff it in the shoe after first air drying it for a day. Either than or store with charcoal Odor eaters insoles in them that you would, of course, take out when you wear them.

This line of inquiry is definitely part of "Wayne's World".

I just saw a disturbing bumper sticker: "To Hell with Our Enemies God Bless America" On the face of it, who could argue with the sentiment? But what lies beneath is what is disturbing. It sort of sums up our current administration's approach to foreign policy. Basically, it is one of "we don't care how many friends we alienate, or how many new enemies we create. You are either for or against us, and we don't care what the hell you think."

I climbed on sharp edged crimpers all day at Clem's Holler and my finger tips are fine. I think you folks with the new home climbing walls are suffering from over zealousness. Back off a little and give your hands time to heal. Then get back on and give your hands time to build up callouses. Use a moisturizer at the end of the workout to keep the skin from cracking.

Seems as though a pair of 50 meter half-ropes are effectively longer than a single 50 meter rope if there is any wander in the route. The individual ropes travel in a straighter line and hence go farther up the route.

Just yesterday I found an HB offset nut that was coded with a unique identifier- a single band of black electrical tape! Certainly no one else would think of that.

I got pulled over on Hwy 2 last week on the way to Leavenworth not far from the Rest Area. My speedo said 58. The cop said I was doing 67. I told him so. I lucked out and he gave me a warning. He also gave me one of those cards that allow you to check your speedometer over a measure mile. By George, he was right. I've had that truck with those tires for years and never knew the speedometer was off by that much.

My partner, and I climbed this Leavenworth route yesterday. Jim was leading and was having trouble getting started on the layback when he asked to be lowered so he could tape up his hands. He had put in a "supplemental" green Alien in a crack or flake to the left of the main flake. At first he down climbed, but then got to a steeper section and as soon as he weighted the rope, the Alien popped and he dropped about ten feet and was caught by the bolt below. He was entirely uninjured. Apparently, the flake expanded beyond the range of the cam and out it came. After taping up he had another go at it and forsook the rack, deciding to rely on the bolts. He made maybe a single jam with his right hand before sucking it up and going into the lieback. He was successful on this try. This mistake was a learning experience. Although I couldn't know how secure the cam was, I had a feeling that I should have had him clean it while downclimbing to the bolt, but didn't. Had the cam waited longer to pop, he could have grounded before the bolt caught him. (Edit) I almost forgot to mention about the anchor. It features a single bight of chain between two bolts. This chain passes through a large stainless steel ring. If either bolt were to fail, the ring would slide off the end. For this reason, someone had added a nylon sling tied off with two aluminum rappel rings. I seem to recall that this chain arrangement once resulted in the deaths of two or three climbers at Yosemite and witnessed by John Long. Someone should go up and replace that setup with two separate chains or else take a hacksaw or bolt cutters and cut it. It's unlikely that a new 3/8" bolt is going to fail, but one way of looking at it is this: you wouldn't rap from a single bolt, would you? This setup has twice the likelyhood of failure as a single bolt.

Sounds like bungee jumping. Yikes.

The take home message for me is what I've always known: the greatest danger is when you first leave the belay. The higher you climb and the more gear you place, the safer you will become. Build a SRENE anchor, get a piece in right away and place your gear close at first until you get some rope out.

Some people will go to significant trouble to get something for free, even if they don't need it.

And you speak from experience?

So the relative importance of the artist is signified by the size of the orb? How is relative importance measured? Record sales?

Aw, that's just another cock and bull terrier story!

Orbital flight would require a lot more shielding which weighs a lot more, even with the lower reentry angle. Achieving orbit with his concept would require everything to be bigger, heavier and more expensive. With a larger orbital vehicle, the carrier plane (White Knight) would have to be made much bigger.

Look, the guy got into suborbital space on a budget of something like $25 million. With the $10 million prize and $21 million technology licensing agreement he has signed, he will make a profit on the venture. You gotta respect that. It is quite true that Space One is a long way from orbital capability, but the true significance is that Rutan demonstrated a new pathway to low cost launches.

A gleeful Rutan, celebrationg an apparently flawless flight by his private spacecraft, couldn't help poking fun at his favorite nemesis - big government space programs such as NASA and major aerospace contractors such as Boeing and Lockheed. "I was thinking about how they're feeling, that other space agency...the Boeings and the Lockheeds...I think they're looking at each other now and saying, 'We're screwed,' ", he said to wide applause and laughter. "We've only begun", said Rutan. Source: Seattle PI, Tue. Oct. 5, 2004