catbirdseat

Since the newbie chicas have been agitating to lay siege to the Tooth, I thought I'd bring this one back to the top for their amusement.

Planet Mountain makes reference to a "Marchand Knot" but doesn't show it. I tried googling it and did not come up with anything.

Take a look at the DMM Belay Master sometime ( the one mentioned in the article). REI carries it. It is a manual screw gate type with a plastic clip that snaps over the locking screw ensuring that it cannot turn. Furthermore, the clip will not close unless the screw is completely closed. The clip divides the carabiner into two sections preventing it from rotating and thus avoiding a cross-loading situation. I needed a new pear shaped locking biner and thought about buying the DMM, but finally went with the Petzl Triact. I wanted the keylock feature. Also, I thought the DMM locking clip would prove to be a pain in the neck. Certainly, if I used a figure 8 device, or a bod type harness, the DMM carabiner Belay Master might be the way to go.

The important thing that one can learn from that photograph is that he likes gourmet ice cream.

Today I saw a truck pulling an invisible trailer. How do I know it was pulling a trailer if it was invisible? I could tell by the way the driver pulled wide during a right turn that it was there. It's a damn good thing I don't make a habit of following too close. Harry_Pi can back me up. He's seen invisible stuff too.

In fact, they do, Iain. Also for nurses and doctors and those who have taken WFR.

When I did that route, we camped at 6,400 to the left of a rocky moraine. To the left of that moraine was snowfield. To the right crevassed glacier began with some big crevassses opposite camp. As we were roping up at 2 am we saw some headlamps coming up on the right. I went over and saw that they were not roped up yet. They were unaware they were on glacier. I pointed out the huge crevasse and that's when they figured it would be a good time to rope up.

The Basic Course is Alpine Mountaineering. It covers, in addition to following on rock, glacier and snow climbing. If rock climbing is what you are interested in, they offer the Crag Course.

Now that you mention it, they do! Seeing is believing.

nEEther-nIEther, EEther-EIther, let's call the whole thing off.

Of course they are. No one knows what they are. Unless it can be determined, they will remain UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECTS or UFO's. UFO does not mean "alien spacecraft from another planet". Apparent slow speed and lack of tails, would seem to rule out meteors. The only other possibility besides aircraft would be ball lightning.

Great TR, Iain. Top notch.

Well said pope. Dechristo was apparently reading judgement in wally's post where none was apparent- at least to me. Wally was just calling attention to what can happen. People can't make choices for themselves when they don't know the consequences. When we participate in a dangerous activity, each time we do it and nothing happens our brains become desensitized to the danger. The danger may in fact be always the same, when in fact the perception of it decreases.

Super, thanks for the great pictures. I don't think I'll be doing that route any time soon.

Says the New Boulder Boy.

I ran 4 miles of hills on my lunch break. I invited my new boss along. He said he runs three miles every day. I asked him at what pace he runs, and he said "8 minutes per mile". "Oh, good, that's just perfect", I said. Only problem was he never runs hills. He pooped out on the first hill. Hee hee.

Tell us what it is we are expected to download on faith.

Has Lenin lost his sting? Do we no longer fear his ideas? Certainly he is known more for his ideology than his deeds, unlike Stalin. Certainly, 40 years ago, his statue would be unthinkable. He is in Fremont because our system won the cold war and communism is no longer a threat to us ( or is it?). Maybe in 50 years, someone will find a bronze statue of Osama bin Laden in a dump and bring it home as a piece of funky art. Right now that is hard to imagine.

Bite me!

That statue has an interesting story associated with it. Some art connoiseur, Lewis Carpenter, was travelling with his wife in Slovakia shortly after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. This statue of Lenin had been standing in the town square and had been toppled. Some wino was living in it in a junk yard. The thing had been installed quite recently and was solid bronze. He asked what the price was and I guess they only wanted the equivalent of the melt down value of the bronze, $13,000. So they guy buys it for reasons only he could know, and spends a fortune to ship it to Issaquah where he installed it in front of his home. It was so heavy that it sunk into the ground and fell over at one point. I saw this thing in the guy's yard near High Point Way or the Preston exit, I've forgotten which. So this guy dies suddenly in 1994 and his wife is stuck with this thing she didn't want, so where else would she go, but the People's Republic of Fremont. They agreed to "temporarily" display the thing so the widow could try to sell it. It actually had a "For Sale" sign on it at one time. Well, to my knowledge nobody actually wanted it, but the good people of Fremont got used to it, and so it remains. I guess you can still buy it if you want for $150,000. Story Article

This is a good reason to practice your 5:1 and 9:1 raise systems. I've heard people say, "how often, really, would you have to do a raise, as opposed to a lower?". Well, here's your example. There's no way two guys could lift a big guy like me with just a z-pulley.

Cool. Enough snow to clean things up, but not hide the crevasses.

So is it settled then? Oct. 1-3. How come so few people voted? I hope it isn't an indication of turnout.

Are you saying that Al Qaeda didn't know that Khan had been arrested? If anyone goes without communication for long enough, they will be presumed to have been arrested. The guys who leaked the information of Khan's identity probably had reason to believe Qaeda was already aware of his capture.

Oh, it's a book she's holding?