catbirdseat

If the ratio of males to females gets high enough in China and India, eventually the true worth of the female will be realized and the power will shift in the woman's direction.

Ah the joys of parenthood.

Just staying home, but we're putting on the usual feast. It's one of my favorite holidays. Turkey with stuffing, slow basted with butter Vegetables Oyster dressing Potatoes Gravy Cranberry Sauce Baked Quince, home grown Apple Pie Pumpkin Pie Chess Pie

When I think back on my climbs, there is almost always something that stands out about that climb that makes it memorable. It isn't always something to brag about. Sometimes it is a stupid gaff. Even though mistakes are embarrassing, they make for good reading. I think that if you can laugh at yourself, then others will laugh with you rather than at you. What I try to do in a TR is to not spend too much time covering details of a route that are either common knowledge or can be obtained easily in a guidebook. Changeable features like snow and ice deserve the most detailed comments. Weather is something that is always different from one climb to the next. For me climbing is as much about the people who are my partners as the climbing itself. Everyone is different and people say and do the most amazing things. I used to go on scrambles with this guy who always had the funniest hats. A whole collection of them. He's bring several on each trip and rotate through them. It was hilarious. I did one climb this year with a guy who was constantly cracking jokes and laughing, even though we were on a seriously steep, exposed and chossy fourth class scramble. He made the difference between what would have been a miserable failed attempt and a fun outing. So the best suggestion I can offer to others is to not exclude the mistakes, the little things, the human things. If the only thing that was memorable about a climb was a particularly funny joke, then focus on that. Of course, if you have a first ascent to describe, you got to give us the salient details.

You are getting warmer...

It a LIVE webcam, knucklehead. If you had wanted to capture that moment, you would have had to upload to cc.com's Photo Gallery.

If you want to stay alive, stay out of the hospital. Layton, you are a survivor of the US medical establishment- a statistical anomaly.

I dreamt that I met the girl in lummox's avatar image and it turned out she had a butter face.

I've noticed a lot of new login names with low post counts. From the posts, I get the impression that most of them are not just new avatars. I think it is actually a hopeful sign for the board. New blood, new perspecitve- it's good.

Actually, there was one (CBS?), and the climber in the picture was flamed for "sewing it up". I think it was dryad's trip report. That was dryad's first alpine trad lead and she did well to sew it up. The person who ridiculed her was properly chastized by others, if I recall correctly.

I'll tell you someone I WOULD NOT want to see in a kilt. Dave "turkeylegs" Schuldt.

More on the nature of the Ledges. A section fell away long ago and what was left was a 45 degree slope leading up to a headwall on your right. The wall has no cracks suitable to protect the route with gear. The snow is what makes the traverse safer, as you can use an axe to self-belay that tough but short section. When we crossed it, there some some snow, but it wasn't very well consolidated and I remember thinking that I didn't want to yard with much force on my axe shaft- it would just break out. Once past that section the "ledge" is wider, albiet still sloping, but the snow is such that here you can put in pickets or flukes, if you like. We placed three flukes on the last rope length to the base of the chute, just because it was kind of steep and we could. We placed three flukes on the exit chute, although I would have have been happier to lead that section with four or five. I am sure plenty of parties do not place running belays at all, but that is what we did. Tomcat had this awful story about a friend of a friend who got avalanched in the chute and unfortunately he had to tell everyone just before we did the pitch, so everyone was all nervous.

Picture of the Wilson Picket By the way 10 oz is 284 gram, so Yates is the lightest 24" picket.

I think that even on gaper routes there are things that happen on trips that can be either humorous, or informational. Not every person will see the humor. Not every person needs or wants the information. A Good TR targets its audience, but that is very difficult to do on a place like cc.com where tastes, ethics and experience levels run the gamut. As one who does the gaper routes, I target my TR's more to the gapers. The hardmen can get their jollies by reading TRs by BobbyPeru and PolishBob. My TR hero and I think of many people is UncleTricky, because his humor works across many, many levels. There's a universality about it. Uncle Tricky

What surplus? SHOW ME THE SURPLUS!

Trask's #1 Rule: "Always employ an insult when you can't think of an argument."

Why does this crowd seem to think that someone sharing their trip and what they learned is cheastbeating? No wonder few people want to put their trip reports on this board. I for one think it is cool to hear what people learned and how they challenged their own limits. That's one of the reasons I read mountaineering books periodically. It would be so incredibly boring to just get the facts about distance, elevation gain, grade, and time. Kinda like reading a guidebook. Come on people, what are you so bothered about? I agree with ehmic. Posting a trip report is not in and of itself chestbeating. It is how you write the report that counts. The number of trip reports have fallen way off and I regard them as the most important aspect of this site.

Moderators, can we get this thread moved to the Rainier Forum, please?

A crappy photoshop job, but funny, nonetheless.

Josh's new nickname, "Old Yellow Streak".

Snomobiles bother me a lot. I encounter them all the time. They are noisy and smelly. Those are my two primary beefs with them. It wouldn't be such a problem if they would just adopt modern four stroke engines, but those won't be common for another ten years, thanks to Bush. The two strokes will be around for another 20 years at least. Has anyone thought of using rotary engines on snowmobiles? They are lighter than four stroke piston engines and cleaner than two stroke engines. Wait! The answer is YES. I have a friend who used a 90lb Wankel type engine on his 30 ft racing sailboat. The engine was air cooled and put out the same power as engines weighing three times as much. He won a lot of races.

May your sled rest in pieces- in a crevasse- preferrably a bottomless one.

What do you think can be done about the camping situation? Any ideas? How about more camp sites? Good? Bad? Seems to me that even though there have been more people, there hasn't been a new campground built in many, many years. Why?

I'll tell you one thing. The national deficit would not be $500 billion.