catbirdseat

This is significant. This may be Distel32's first foray into a political thread.

No, I don't. I don't agree with him or "his points"; most of which will cost me more money in taxes and restrictions on my freedom as an American. What is my "fair share" of taxes, catbirdseat? Why, because I am successful and work hard, is the government entitled to such a large share of my life blood? Roark Do you make over 1 million dollars? I don't thinks so. Why are you always sticking up for the ultra rich?

It's a diabolic plot. Go stick your nose in some skatole.

We need more guys like Fairweather. How do you have an argument of there is no disagreement?

Regardless of what you think of Michael Moore, you have to concede he makes some good points.

Yes, I meant Long Mountain. I should have waited until today to post. I was way tired. Actually I am still tired. Martin Creek works for Long, but not for Bald Mtn.

Imagine what you could climb if gravity was one sixth that on earth.

Don't press your luck.

Climb: Bald Mountain-South Face Date of Climb: 1/25/2004 Trip Report: Marek, Jake and I needed a trip to get in shape for some upcoming climbs. I suggested Bald, as I had been eyeing it on an earlier ski trip up Deer Creek Road. According to Beckey, Bald is a straightforward walk up, so we didn't bring a rope or harnesses. We must have been in an optimistic frame of mind because we were talking about how we might do both Bald and Low Mtn on the same day. Due to the new snow that had fallen on Saturday, there was no way we would have time. From the hairpin at 2834 ft we ascended the far right margin of an avalanche swath. Snow conditions consisted of 18-36" of heavy powder over about 18 " of solid base. At about 3600 ft we encountered a rock step that we threaded our way through using a series of ledges. At 4000 ft we gained the northeast ridge and ran up it until it became impassible near the summit. The ridge became as a knife edge with sheer drops on either side. Looking for a different way we retreated down the ridge until we could traverse across the south face. Marek scouted to the northwest ridge and found the summit block no easier from that side than the other had been. Looking up the face, there was rock, ice, snow and lots of small trees. Although it was very steep, about 70 degees, it seemed there were enough holds. As the others weren't interested in unbelayed 4th class climbing in winter conditions, I headed up the face in crampons using a single ice axe. I carried 40 ft. of old rope. I reached the summit in about 30 minutes. It consisted of a razor of unstable snow and since it was getting late, I snapped off a couple of pictures and started down. I checked out the north west ridge and found it a no go, so went back up and followed my own tracks back down the face. I used the rope several times as a hand line by placing it doubled around trees and down climbed. I found that the frozen moss makes great pick placements and was glad to have them. By the time I was down, and hour had elapsed and Jake who was cold had already headed down with the car keys. Marek and was anxious to split as well. It was now 2:30, so we beat it down to the skis and made it to the car just before dark. Gear Notes: Skis, snowshoes, poles, ice axe, crampons. Should have brought rope and harness Approach Notes: Skied Deer Creek Road from parking lot on Mountain Loop Hwy to the hairpin below Bald Mtn. Hid the skis in the woods and switched to snowshoes. Skis saved about an hour on the way out.

Great story! How's that for home-made adventure?

Josh and Dave, you drive me nuts with your confusion between to, two and too, there, their and they're. There's no hope for ye.

Here's another one of those hairbrained catbirdseat ideas. Design a 60 m rope that is 10.5 mm in diameter for 10 m on each end, but the middle 40 m is 9 mm diameter. The reasoning goes like this. The 9 mm is plenty strong provided you don't take a high fall factor fall on it. When are you going to take a high fall factor fall? -when you are first leading out from the belay. So you can climb 5 meters and fall on your first piece (FF 1) or climb 10 meters and fall on the belay (FF 2) and be held by nice fat rope. After that, the rope tapers down to 9 mm and you don't need it fat because any falls will be on successively lower fall factors. Why make it fat on each end?- so that you don't have to worry about which end to lead on. Total weight savings over a 10.5 x 60 m rope would be 24% or about 3.5 lbs. Probably it's not worth the technical difficulty of engineering such a rope. Back in my sailing days, we used to buy skinny kevlar cored ropes for spinnaker sheets and then pull the core out of larger ropes and slide part of the kevlar rope inside the cover so that half of it was larger diameter for better handling, while the other half was not covered so it would be super light and not weigh down the spinnaker in light airs.

BOLTS? Run away! Run away!

Bronco, you have some damn good stories. Truth is stranger than fiction.

So MisterE, you've been climbing with klenke too, haven't you? You lied about the passenger seat though. It's got one. You need a coat hanger to close the rear door.

No doubt about it, trask was an "enabler".

Let's resurrect all of trask's old threads, shall we?

I see the trusty klenkemobile in the background. Well, it wouldn't be a klenke trip without some bushwacking.

I saw the movie. It was the best climbing movie I've ever seen. It was incredibly well done in almost every way. The climbers in the movie actually looked like climbers, walked like climbers and climbed like climbers. The shots of the mountain were beautiful and the clouds were really cool. It was rather painful to watch at times. In the scene where Simpson is trying to stand to get over the rocks and keeps toppling over, I kept wincing with empathic pain. I will not ever be able to use the word "epic" again without at least thinking about that movie. It will become the standard to which all future climbing movies will be compared. I is amazing to me that a movie could be made like that. They must have told all the Hollywood types to "bugger off" with their nitroglycerine, as Simpson might have put it. I'm a bit knackered. I think I'll toddle off to bed.

It's not important.

He's got a 60 m rope already. If he gets a 50 m, he can take whichever rope is more appropriate for the route.

Goddam, I feel like kicking my dog, and you know I'm not the dog-kicking type.

Good grief, that 12 year old might have been Spiderman.

From Rock and Ice.com TWO KILLED WHEN BELAY FAILS On October 19, two climbers died at California's Tahquitz rock when, still roped together, they grounded from near the top of the 600-foot-high crag. Although still under investigation, the accident was the result of a belay-anchor failure. Witnesses reported hearing then seeing rockfall, followed by the falling leader and then the belayer. The climbers were likely on The Step (5.10), a multi-pitch trad route with a loose, nebulous summit section known for difficult route finding. It's an area "where you have to place your own gear and set your own belay anchors. There's no pins or fixed pro," says longtime Tahquitz climber John Long. It's still not known if the leader fell and zippered gear or, unprotected, fell directly onto the belay. That the belay failed is certain, as the belayer was found with his rope still clove-hitched to the pulled belay anchors. Killed in the fall were Kelly Tufo, 32, of Anza, California, and David Kellogg, 41, of San Diego. See our next issue for full details.

The tent is okay if the vomit is local microbrew.