catbirdseat

UC, Irvine Anteaters. Rallying Cry: ZOT!

Bug, sounds like you learned in the "Sink or Swim" school of climbing.

I can do midweek. The Park is the only glacier on Baker I haven't done yet.

Don't sell yourself short, girl.

Go eat some glacier worms.

The Feathers can be fun for farting around on when you arrive at FC late in the day and want to kill an hour. Pencil_Pusher and I ran into FiggerEight there on Friday night. He told us he had met Erdan there earlier in the day and they had climbed Air Guitar together. How cool is that? That night three fellows from Montana showed up with a guitar and one of them was really talented. He could make up lyrics as he went along. We sang around the campfire till the wee hours of the morning. Every once in awhile wild howling would come from the West side of the Feathers (concert goers). We figured there must have been chicks over there taking their tops off, but we never bothered to verify this. The concert crowd is really getting out of hand. There must have been several hundred. They fill the two privvies with their shit and cover the ground with their litter. They don't pay a nickel and don't give a damn.

I was never any good at sports in school. I tried all the usual ones and sucked. The only organized sport I ever loved was cross country running. Even though I didn't measure up to other competitors, I had a need to push myself and try to get better. In college I got very involved in competitive sailing. It seemed like the first sport I was every any good at. I could actually beat people who had been sailing for years. I found what made one good was passion. The more you think about the more focused you get, the better you get. When I started going up against the big boys, I had a nasty surprise. Money is what counts in sailing and it doesn't matter how good you are if you don't have the money to put into sails and hardware. The money factor really started to jade me to sailing. So where does climbing come in? I'd always loved hiking and backpacking. I loved climbing trees as a kid- dirtpiles, hills, rocks at Joshua Tree with Y Indian Guides. Sometimes I'd think it would be cool to get into climbing, but it seemed totally inaccessible. I didn't know anyone who climbed. It seemed ridiculously dangerous too. I lived many hours from the mountains and so climbing remained a dream, until I moved to the PNW in 1990. I bought my first house and it and my young kids took all my time for several years, but in 1997 I took the Mountaineers Alpine Scrambling Course. That got me on top of mountains with other like minded people. Some of those people were also technical climbers. I was good at it so I was encouraged to take the Mountaineers Basic Course in 1998. I was still doing a lot of sailing at the same time, so my attention was divided. I soon realized the climbing was much more engaging. Besides, the wind only blows in the PNW when it's raining. If the sun is out, it's usually dead calm. In 2000 I took the Intermediate Course because I thought Basic Climbs were pretty lame and I wanted to do harder stuff. Lead climbing in rock and ice I decided was really fun and challenging. It was also really scary, but I liked the feeling I'd get after topping out. It was almost drug-like. For some reason I never made any contacts outside the Mountaineers until 2002 when I joined CascadeClimbers.com. In one year I have probably learned as much as in all the previous years. Certainly unemployment has helped my climbing a lot too. I'll probably continue to do some climbs with the mountaineers because I like teaching other people and sharing my passion and joy with them. But it really is cool climbing with all sorts of different people from different backgrounds that I've met through cc.com. It's like a light went on for me. I still will never match the natural althleticism of many of my fellow climbers, but as long as I can measure my progress against my past performances and continue to improve, it will remain very gratifying to me.

Bear-Bird, you are being redundant. The fact has been established already.

Inspiring. Glad you had a good time.

So what is your point? The Basic Course is not a climbing class, it is a mountaineering course with all that entails: fitness, route finding and navigation, equipment, weather resources, roped travel, crevasse rescue, etc. It is up to the students to become good climbers on their own. The mountaineers just give them the tools to be safe.

It will be pleasantly cool and good for climbing if it doesn't rain. I'll go with you if I can't find a partner for Vantage or Tieton.

There's been a change in the Prophet. Our formerly mellow yellow is on eveybody's case all of a sudden. What's going on? Erik, have you cut back or what? Did the price go up?

Ade confided to me today that he'd made the whole story up. He was truly amazed at the response. It was quite entertaining.

The climbing partner (who shall remain nameless) who I had lined up at Pub Club last night didn't show so I prevailed upon Ade to go with me this morning. He and I went up to Darrington and climbed Westward Ho, 5.9. Ade led the odd pitches and I the even. They all seemed about the same difficulty. If that is the only route you do up there you don't need much of a rack. I got in a supplemental blue Alien on the second pitch and 1 inch and 1.5 inch cams on the last pitch. Ade noticed a few 1/4 inch buttonhead bolts to the right of Westward Ho. They are few and far between. The route looked too sketchy for us to try. There does seem to be more gear placement opportunities there than on Westward Ho, but still it is severely run out. We were wondering if the route had a name and what the history was. I should think with some upgraded bolts it might be a worthwhile climb. We were done so early that we decided to go do the West Buttress. We started it on the second pitch. Ade got to lead the 5.9 pitch (#3) and liked it. We trundled a couple of big loose rocks on the middle of the fourth pitch. They made quite a noise. Saw some rocks spontaneously fall down onto Westward Ho from the ridge above and were glad we weren't on it at the time. We were going to rap the route from the top of the fourth pitch, but said "what the hell" and finished at Blueberry Terrace descending via the rap route that starts at the big pine tree with the orange and yellow slings. Ade trundled some rocks while rappelling and they sailed off to one side of me by a good margin. They made quite an interesting whirring noise as they soared by. It was rather hot up there and the one liter each we brought didn't go far. We were parched when we got back to our packs. The additional liter we had stashed there tasted great, as did the sodas and beers in the car. Cleaned up a horrible mess some other climbers had left at the camp site. Someone took a shit not five paces from the fire ring, and tore up some clothes for TP and fucking just left it. In Darrington we bought a gallon of water that we made short work of. It was a great day.

This is what comes from consolidation. We never should have allowed all those oil company mergers. There are only one or two major players in each market now. They can charge what they please. You can all thank the Republican Party.

Seawolf, did you get your Ph.D in "vomitology"? Seriously, you must be working on something like bulimia research.

The climbing partner I lined up at Pub Club didn't show. Who want to go do a four pitch 5.9 slab climb on Exfoliation Dome (Blueberry Hill) today? We need to leave by 8 or 9 am.

All of you who voted for Tim Eyman's various initiatives can go look in the mirror to see who is to blame.

Aparently urine is actuallty really bad for your ropes. the link that fern posted (referenced above) is probably where I learnt that, but I am too lazy too check. In the respect that it doesn't do much for the smell (and feel- yuck), it is really bad, other than that, I doubt it.

Dustin, the EDK has been debated previously on cc.com, ad nauseum. You can do a search and turn up probably several threads worth of discussion. I use the knot now myself almost exclusively.

Dude, do you realize that you are taking away Attitude's only reason to live?

What are they waiting for? It's time to put those rats to work on the real thing!

"Dribbles"? Erik you are much too young to have prostate problems. At your age it should be like a fire hose. Looks like I got a by accident. I'll take it.

I'd like to take two or three days to do the route. I can leave Friday, if necessary, to ensure getting the necessary permits. PM me if interested.

What a difference a day makes, Twenty-four little hours...