catbirdseat

Tangled up in blue can't be 10c, else I never would have been able to lead it. It doesn't take huge gear at all. I remember cams in the ca. 2 inch range. It takes gear really well. It's not a bad choice for a first 5.9 lead. It might seem a lot harder if you have short legs, because stemming makes it so much easier. I like to think of TUIB as Party In Your Pants without the crack on the right. Your left foot bears your weight on a series of horizontal joints, and your right foot is stemmed out the whole time on face of the right side. My right butt cheek was sore the day after I led it. Yesterday I led another 5.9, but this time a single crack route called Whale of the Wanapum (two stars) at Tomato Wall. It seemed pretty easy for a 5.9, but perhaps that is because it is a bit shorter than TUIB. It is definitely a quality route. I'd recommend it. Takes a standard rack, ie. a set of cams and some nuts or aliens for the lower part.

The plot thickens...

Without a doubt.

I'm the bird, of course.

This happened to me at Exit 32. It was just starting to rain as I got off rappel and rope wouldn't pull. The chains had shifted and pinched the ropes. It was an easy enough route that I could climb using a prussik as a safety over the wet rock. By the time I was back down, I was soaked to the skin. My partner, who had wanted to leave earlier, felt I got my just deserts.

I forgot to mention that I had top roped the route the previous week, so I knew exactly what I'd need. I'm beginning to learn that leaving behind the gear you don't need can be as important as bringing the gear you do need. It saves weight and it makes it easier to find the right piece when you need it.

Up to this point I've always pulled a cam of my gear sling, placed it and then added a draw to it from my harness, either a long quickdraw or a tripled shoulder length sling. If you have cams with the doubled slings, which I do not, frequently that gives you enough extension by itself and you don't even need a sling. On advantage of doing it this way is you may not know in advance which pieces you need and how long a sling you'd like to add. Yesterday I was going to lead a 5.9 crack at Vantage and I could pretty much tell exactly which pieces I was going to need and that the route didn't wander. I experimented with racking the cams with the draws (some quickdraws and some triples) already on them, ready to go. The result was that the pitch went very smoothly for me. The advantage is that it saves time and therefore energy when you are hanging from one jammed hand. I suppose a potential disadvantage is having a draw on a piece you might not necessarily use. I imagine a lot of people must do this at times. When is this most appropriate and when not?

Sounds like what you might do if you got rappel ropes stuck, that is you rapped off and couldn't even get the ropes to move at all, hence you still have both ends.

No one mentioned Kangaroo Temple north face. That is three pitches of easy climbing. The only caveats being that it has a lot of exposure in places and a huge almost free-hanging rappel from a sharp edge. If you are pretty sure your newbie is confident with exposure, that's a pretty good one.

The question is will the Asian birth rate continue to exceed the rate at which our jobs are exported to them. Will they ever catch up so that jobs shift both ways? Or will they continue to absorb our jobs until we are all flipping burgers and the the asians are elbow to asshole.

Sure, sounds good in theory. How about when you decide not to join a Union shop specifically because you do not want to put up with the BS associated with Unions, you show up to a job (comercial construction) and the Union guys on the job spend their time sabatoging and destroying your work, slashing your tires, picking fights with your fellow employees and causing general mayhem. Seems to me like just because you choose not to join a union doesen't mean you don't have to deal directly with the Union mentality and problems. Mind if I ask what union you work for? Unions only succeed if everyone is a member. If one guy decides he doesn't want to pay dues, but he still wants to reap the benefits won by the Union, how do you think that makes the dues paying guys feel? All warm and cuddly?

There you go, taking the Muffy approach. Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks?

Well, they may be good for making fun of, but I have noticed that in many of these photographs people are wearing great big smiles on their faces. They are having a grand time- perhaps more fun than when they actually become "veteran" climbers. I've decided I'm always going to try to have fun when I climb, even if it sometimes means doing something easy. If it's not fun then why do it?

Greg, you are a hard-headed fellow. I have no illusions about ever being able to change your mind about anything. But what I CAN do is piss you off every now and then, and certainly THAT is worthwhile.

It is a lockout that has been going on since last August. I thought it was pretty general knowledge to anyone who reads the newspapers or watches news. Story

I'm surprised that a working stiff like yourself could be so anti-union. Unions make life better for for a lot of people.

A Martian finally wandered into the field of view and everyone is in a panic. National security people are agonizing over what to do. The Pentagon people want to nuke 'em. The State Department people want to send a diplomatic robot lander. It might be a while before they get it all sorted out.

The ones he had looked really old. Perhaps they were an old model, or else they were just worn out, but the lobes had a lot of side to side play in them.

The partner I climbed with last week had a set of Trango mono-stem cams and he said he didn't like them. He liked the way the Clogs placed better.

What was that Robert Duval quote from Apocalypse Now? "I love the smell of burning tp in the morning!"

Do your girlfriend a kindness and floss your teeth before you go to bed.

Not public radio, commercial radio, as in KOMO AM. They are paying good money for those ads and they will have a devastating effect on Darigold.

I sense a lot of people still cling to the notion that we are going to suddenly run out of oil. We will NEVER run out of oil. NEVER. It's price will rise, inexorably, and demand will fall until it is in line with supply at the given price. The use of oil as fuel will be the first to be curtailed. It's use in manufacturing (i.e. plastics, chemicals) will persist for a very long time to come. If oil ever gets too expensive for that, then coal will be gassified or Canadian tar sands utilized.

So I've heard. Icckk!