catbirdseat

'Twas Plymmig, and the Beamsey sheets Did gybe and spinnake o'er the beach, All burgee were the mizzen beats And the stay tack outreach. Beware the jurygaff, my son, The cleats that jam, the shrouds that stretch, Beware the trimaran, and shun The clumptions cataketch. He took his tiller luff to deck Long time the distant main he sought, So ruddered he by the gallefry And anchored there athwart. But as in clewsome fend he keeled The cataketch with forestay guide Came riding through the gale and heeled, All reefed upon the tide. About! About! and in and out The plimsoll mast went log-a-smack! He left it barred, and planing hard He jibbed, abafting back. "And has thou slooped the cataketch? Port to my helm, my boomish bouy! O freeboard horse! O transome course!" He portled in his joy. 'Twas Plymmig, and the Beamsey sheets Did gybe and spinnake o'er the beach, All burgee were the mizzen beats And the stay tack outreach. A luff Lyric of Vertue and Boaty by Merton Naydler (David Lewis; The Ship Would Not Travel Due West, Chapter 8)

I am sure that most of you already know that the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body and vice versa. It is also true of the eyes. If you are sitting on one side of a lecture hall taking notes, one eye has a better view of the podium than the other. I've heard it said that if you are left brained and want to comprehend best what you are seeing and hearing, then you should sit on the left side of the lecture hall.

You posted the wrong link, but I found the right one with a little search. The beer should be here tomorrow. Can't wait.

Trask lives to keep us guessing. The day he is found out is the day he jumps to another bulletin board. I too tried getting through Atlas Shrugged, but it couldn't keep my attention. Rand is too preachy and heavy handed for me. Figuratively, it's like being clubbed over the head. She has some good ideas, but instead of showing us and letting us make inferences, she prefers to TELL us in the baldest of terms. I saw the movie The Fountainhead with Gary Cooper recently and her preaching was hard to take- no subtlety.

The figure I recall is that about 10% of the population is left handed. There is evidence for handedness in the animal world too. I write using my right hand as well as saw and hammer with that hand. I can drive nails left handed, but without as much power. When climbing, I try not to favor either hand when belaying or rappelling, but use whichever hand makes the most sense given the circumstances. I want to have about the same dexterity in each hand in case one of them becomes injured as, for example, in a rock fall. I was climbing last summer with a fellow who had dropped a manhole cover on the index finger of his right hand two weeks before. He was so dominant-handed that he tried to belay me using this still heavily bandaged finger. I asked him to belay me with his left hand. I decided I had better not take a leader fall, anyway.

I don't think it is arrogance at all on the part of climbers. The 4x4 and snowmobile users take away others enjoyment of the outdoors by their very presence, by their noise, fumes, litter and erosion. Attitude aside, the reverse is not true. Climbers, hikers and skiers don't impact offroaders enjoyment of the outdoors one iota, except to the extent they can successfully exclude the latter from gaining a toehold on new territory. Asking climbers to team up with the offroaders is like asking the hen to seek protection from the fox.

So, iain, have you done many rescues when the weather was really awful as it is now? That would really suck trying to find someone when the visibility is poor and its snowing or raining. My hat's off to anybody willing to volunteer for that duty.

It was fun compared to staying at home and sitting around. That's for sure. Josh, we could have used you out front kicking steps!

To my knowledge Cryptosporidium is not as widespread in the mountains as Giardia. Though incurable, normal healthy people recover eventually. I believe that the 1 micron filters will get Crypto as well as Giardia. The 0.2 micron filters can remove bacteria in addition to the aformentioned bugs, but are much slower to pump. I use the 1 micron myself.

Those were some great slides, Wayne. Cool climbing wall. I'm jealous!

I've done practice on several occasions and never paid any attention to the direction of the knots. I've never noticed problems with twist in the rope either. The knot is loosened most easily using the thumbs, so I suppose that having them opposed would allow for each thumb to work best on the knot according to its orientation.

I heard that Pete Schoening is ailing. He has a form of cancer called multiple myeloma. Best wishes, Pete!

Something I almost always have at least once on longer trips is a concoction consisting of dried potato flakes and Knorr instant broccoli-cheese soup mix with a good pat of butter or margarine added. I usually add powdered milk equivalent to however much milk is called for by the potato flakes recipe. I'm a carbo junkie and this stuff just hits the spot for me. Just add hot water, stir and let sit 5 minutes. I use an insulated mug.

There are things that one can do when the avy danger reaches ridiculous proportions. Klenke and I did a ridge run on Lewis Peak which was perfectly safe (at least from avalanches). We watched two big slides rumble off Morning Star Peak on the way up.

Dwayner, I already did my rain slog yesterday with klenke (see Lewis Peak TR). I'm sore and tired and I'm actually looking forward to hanging out with wayne1112 in front of a TV and drinking beers. If the game gets boring, we can always swap climbing stories or play on his climbing wall. I made delicious lemon squares to bring in case anyone develops a sweet tooth.

Lessons learned by catbirdseat: 1) Better be in shape if you want to hang with klenke 2) If you scramble with klenke, better put everything IN your pack, because there's brush in your future. 3) It doesn't matter how good is your gear- your boots are going to fill up with water. Learn to live with it. 4) Helmets are good on 3rd class deproaches when you are going downhill in the dark in the rain and blindly stepping on slippery branches.

Paul Klenke and I climbed Lewis Peak today. We made it to the summit and back in one piece, more or less. Paul wanted to do the trip report, but he got poked in the eye with a branch and it was bothering him a lot. I told him to go home and go to bed. I am sure the eye will feel better in the morning. He promises to write a detailed report then. Suffice it to say that it was very wet and very brushy.

If you use iodine pills, make sure you give them time to work. They work best in warm water. Put the tablets in a liter of water and stick it in your pack and hike with it for a while- maybe an hour to be safe. Giardia is supposed to be somewhat resistant to iodine.

No big loss. What's the point, anyway? Everybody was a two.

Our first year in the PNW was 1990 and it was a cold, cold year. We had more than a week of 12 degree F lows at night with 20 degree F highs in the day. I lost several expensive orchid plants in my greenhouse that year because the heater couldn't keep the temperature above freezing.

Josh, were you going on klenk's Lewis Peak trip? We'll only get wet. We'll think about you in your warm bed as we're slogging in the rain.

Yes, a single ice axe stuck in to the snow as an anchor for crevasse rescue. Yep, that's the way to go.

Does anyone recall the scene in Seven Years in Tibet in which Heinrich Harrer is on Nanga Parbat and his partner, Peter Aufschnaiter, takes a fall. He's holding the guy hanging in mid air using a hib belay. The hemp rope was cutting into his leg. Now those were the good old days.

I did some research on flavors and fragrances for a toothpaste and mouthwash project I was working on. Much of what we regard as "taste" is actually smell. Our tongues can sense sweet, sour, salty and bitter and that's all. Our noses on the other hand, can detect thousands of different odors. When you swirl the brandy snifter around, you are increasing the surface area so as to volatilize more of the flavor components into the air. When you drink, some of the air in the snifter is inhaled. Some of the liquid you swallow gives rise to vapors that reach the olefactory receptors though a connection to the sinus cavity. When you let a bottle of wine "breath" you are letting acetaldehyde escape so you don't smell it. Acetaldehyde is a foul smelling, but very volatile compound with a low boiling point. Allowing the wine to sit a few minutes allows the acetaldehyde to escape but not the less volatile, but more desireable compounds. By chilling your vodka, you are reducing the volatility of all its components. So you smell it less, but you probably also taste it less because less alcohol and flavorants will be adsorbed by the tongue and mouth tissues. Incidentally, I like gin and club soda with a mexican lime. My folks have a tree in their yard that has limes on it almost all year round.

Trask, if you've ever been treated for giardiasis, you'll know that the cure is almost worse than the disease. Standard treatment is metronidazole, which is an antibiotic used to treat gram-negative, anaerobic and protozoal infections. It's been around a very long time. It makes you nauseous. So picture this: diarrhea, vomiting, nausea, gas, flatulence... not nice!