catbirdseat

It is important to dry out your boots quickly after they have been soaked. I take the foot beds out and put them in front of a small fan, which dries them in a couple hours versus more than a day without the fan. Every hour your boots stay wet, the fungi are chewing up the leather.

Castle Rock was completely dry. It was great climbing conditions. Ran into mattp and his friends Chris, Mark and ------.

On the Burke-Gilman trail: a tandem recumbent bike, a recumbent trike and two different types of hand cranked recumbent bikes driven by paraplegic guys and they were flying along at a good clip. I love it when I see people overcoming perceived limitations.

Coming back from Castle Rock we noticed a new snow slide up on Windy Mountain that went right down to ground. It was relatively small in area, but was right in the middle of a bowl at the top of a big avy gully.

Those sort of rules are pretty universal. Who knows why they exist? I guess because the gyms are trying to sell their classes. It seems rather silly. They are going to make more money from the new climber's gym fees. More likely, their lawyers told them they would be more liable if someone was injured on the same day the belayer was trained.

I don't know about that guy. I think he could be dangerous.

It wouldn't have made any difference had you told them this information. Doubtless they had never seen nor heard of a Munter Hitch. If it is unknown, it is DANGEROUS.

I remember your having said how much you hate glacier slogs. Go out and do a couple and you'll remember why you like rock climbing so much.

Klenke, that was a geeky thing to say, even for you.

Oh, yes you can and they do.

If we had McCain as president the Republicans would have a man they could support in good conscience. Hell, I might even argue on the side of McCain some of the time. There's a man who has honesty and integrity- a real straight shooter, the sort of guy climbers admire.

Thad is our new speling be champeon.

I watched Great Trails of Washington with Steve Raible(sp?) last night at 10 pm. One of the places they went was Cascade Pass. They had a shot of a woman smoking a cigarette and admiring the view.

I saw a commercial the other day that featured some pretty boy who was supposed to be a climber, but when they showed him "climbing", I almost fell over laughing.

Hey Dru, JGowans is not going to be happy.

Someone will have a great business opportunity for a new spray-on product called "Smart Car Remover".

It is a good article.

Somebody has got to come out and say that Greg is absolutely correct. It's getting boring. It's just a lot of griping and it is no longer stimulating any debate. We all pretty much agree that Bush sucks so just let's move on to something else. Bush is going to lose Washington State as he did in 2000 and we're not going to change that.

Wear those babies as you descend to Camp Muir and enjoy the strange looks you'll get.

Luke, they get a rise when they manage to piss you off. So now that they have made you mad, you have just given them what they wanted- a flame war.

I've rappelled from "really hard snow" before on several occasions. We didn't have ice screws. All we had were ice axes and 1" double length slings. By pounding the spike repeatedly into the edge of a moat, a hole was bored through which the sling was passed. I was glad to have the wide material for this. Perlon cord would have just cut right through.

Where is wirlwind? He's got competition in EternalX

Why, pray tell?

Ever been hit in the head by a flying microphone stand? You should try it sometime. It's a riot.

Slothrop, you'll have to follow up with a "Bathtub Ring TR". Those can be heinously difficult to surmount. Yet for the sake of girlfriend, SO, wife, prevail you must.