catbirdseat

Absolutely incredible singer! The best I have heard in a very long time. That piece of music is truly awesome, but anything less than a stellar performance would fall flat. In selecting it Paul went for broke and pulled it off.

Realize that with this knot that if a piece fails, you CAN get extension, depending on which piece fails. My guess is that it would be mitigated by a lot of friction as the rope pulls through the knot. Second point is that since the rope is part of the anchor, it is more difficult to handle emergency situations.

Jail food for supper.

In many cases hexes can be used in inward flaring cracks such as can be found at Tieton and a few at Vantage. Hexes are dirt cheap. Some of the newer cam designs work better in flares because of their greater range. Examples of these are the Max Cam by Trango, the SuperCam by Metolius and the Link Cam by Omega Pacific. These cams tend to be more expensive, however. Regarding nuts, certain stoppers work better in flares than others. You can buy offset nuts, but they tend to work best only in flares. Alternatively, you can buy Metolius Curved Nuts which seem to work pretty well in both standard and flared crack.

Tried to do Saints but I'm quite sure we got off route. We belayed at the bolt anchor rather than going up 20 ft as described on SummitPost. From there we went up and slightly to the right. My best guess from looking at bwrts description is that we must have gone on to Angel. The climbing felt like mostly 5.6-5.7. The rock was quite clean. All the same we had an enjoyable outing.

Found on Friday, June 15 near Ride 'Em Cowboy. PM me if they are yours.

I'll say something nice about Bellevue. They have very nice parks that are wonderfully uncrowded. I used to work in Bellevue and would go running at Wilburton and Bellefields Parks on my lunch break. I would go to the park and there would be several cars in the lot, but almost no people walking or running on the trails. There would be people in the cars, however. They were generally either eating, talking on cell phones, or smoking, or various combinations of the three.

People want to climb. Most don't want climb mank and don't want to have to clean a route before they can climb it. There are some climbs that have to have an old fashioned scrubbing to stay climbable. No amount of traffic will keep them clean.

You got a point there. They are definitely not paid to think.

Pretty far If you read the article you will know why D** changed his name to G-Spotter.

Go out and look for yourself. You will find that in most cases, these "cracks" are problematic on one way or another for trad leading. It most cases, they are either weak flakes, offwidth flakes, laybacks, flares, etc. I'd have to say that in the case of The Javelin that most of those arguments don't fly. As a layback it is simply a lot easier to protect and they thought it would see a lot more traffic that way (bolted), which is true- 5.10- bolted, but 5.10+/5.11- on gear only. Gorilla my dreams is another example, although a more extreme one. It could be led on gear, but you'd need multiple big pieces (5-6") whereas Javelin could be led on a single set to 4". In answer to MCash's question, Ron Cotman did many of the routes at Clem's/Special Spot/Retardant Rock.

Interesting how the Islamists will take advantage of the slightest humanitarian gesture of their enemies, in this case medical care, to attack. Then they complain when harsh measures are taken against them.

It was not clear whether they plan to put the ladder back in place. Should they?

It goes to show how much force two or three burly dudes can exert using a three-to-one tackle. You can not only bend ice axes, but you can hurt the person you are trying to raise if you act blindly.

The cops don't give a hoot about your civil rights or the law. The correct response by the cyclist should have been, "yes,sir. Sorry sir, I didn't see the sign". Then, when the cop turns the corner, you get back on your bike and continue on your way.

Nice work. You just ruined a perfectly good ice axe. What makes you think the shaft needs to be bent? People climbed hard ice for many years with straight shafts. You can put a technical edge on the pick using a file. I've done this myself, but you can't call the result an "ice tool".

I used to have trouble with big calluses forming on the fourth finger on the pad between the 2nd and 3rd joint while bouldering in the gym. It's becoming less of a problem and I attribute that to better technique. You might consider more frequent but shorter workouts, if that is possible.

Fenderfour?

I think they are making too much of the size thing. Size is one of those traits that can change very rapidly with relatively minor genetic alterations.

Similarities — whether of DNA, anatomy, embryonic development, or anything else — are better explained in terms of creation by a common Designer than by evolutionary relationship. The great differences between organisms are of greater significance than the similarities, and evolutionism has no explanation for these if they all are assumed to have had the same ancestor. How could these great gaps between kinds ever arise at all, by any natural process? One studies relationships by looking at both similarities and differences. We study evolution by making some assumtions about the rate at which differences arise (which we validate when we can, such as through the fossil record). The greater the differences the greater the evolutionary distance, i.e. time has elapsed since the common ancestor lived on earth. If we look at the accumulation of genetic markers in the Y-chromosome and mitochondria of modern man (more recent than 30,000 years) we can study his geographical migrations through time from the common ancestor in Africa. We can compare the data we get to similarities in languages. Furthermore we can also use radiocarbon dating of remains. All three of these methods agree fairly well. Extend this to the study of more ancient and distantly related hominids. The genetic differences accumulate to the point that they become significant enough to define a species boundary. As different as the many "races" of man may seem to each other there is really little difference. We know that within populations of people there is much more genetic variation than between populations. The reverse is true when comparing different species.

The most radical test was a belay loop cut 75-80%. It failed at 8 kN. This is a lot more force than one can exert using any belay device. Take home message is that minor wear and tear is not a concern.

Joseph, your definition of sport climbing is quite different from mine. I don't believe sport climbing naturally equates to bad behavior.

You forgot the poll option, "Chop the route only after you've had a chance to climb it".

I just wanted to report that the Everett Mountaineers put a crew of eleven on the Eightmile Trail to Three O'Clock Rock as part of National Trails Day on June 2nd. The work focused on removing downed trees and also some tread work. I haven't been up there to see the work yet myself. Anyone been up there? How's it look?

There once was a clothing maker named Snow Lion out of Berkley, CA. Holubar was selling close out down parkas following the demise of Snow Lion- $40 for a $100 jacket. There were two left, a large (blue) and an extra large (rust orange). My brother and I each decided to buy one. Even though I wore a large, I let my brother have the large and I took the extra large, since I was a little bigger than he. We took our new parkas on a backpacking trip in the Sierra Nevada range. We each strapped the parkas in their stuff sacks to the back of our packs because we didn't have room inside. I remember telling my brother to double tie the jacket, but he didn't listen. When we pulled off the trail for a rest break, his jacket was gone. We all hiked back and searched for that jacket, but never found it. It likely bounded down a slope. Here it is 25 years later and I still have my orange jacket and seldom wear it because it is too warm.