catbirdseat

Just saw on the TV news a story about a huge 60 car and truck pileup on I-90, westbound, west of the summit. One of the reporters remarked it was the worst he'd seen in his 17 years on the job. Eastbound lanes are also closed. Story on King5 Website

I think he means Truth is Stranger than Friction I had a partner long ago who was fond of chewing tobacco. He wasn't able to chew at work, but would partake on his way home. We went together to climb Liberty Bell one Saturday and found it was raining when we pulled into Blue Lake Parking Lot. If the weather forecast was to be believed, it would clear by the afternoon, so we decided to chill in the car and try to wait it out. I passed the time by napping, while my partner enjoyed his chew. Well, he was used to about an hour's worth of such enjoyment a day, but on this day, he'd already been at it 3 hours in the car on the way, plus another couple in the parking lot. By and by the clouds parted and we were off on the trail. After a few minutes I noticed my partner was lagging behind a bit. I stopped to let him catch up. His face was literally GREEN. He'd made himself sick on tobacco. Fortunately, by the time we were ready to climb, he'd "composed" himself a bit, but he had me worried.

So you finally got your rocks offed! Aye?

The manufacturer will tell you not to do it. I wouldn't recommend it on rock under any circumstances, maybe on glacier, if it was a nice, mellow glacier that I was pretty sure I could avoid a crevasse fall. Prusiking up 8 mm would be hard and rigging a z-pulley would also be hard because it is so stretchy.

It was an awesome show. Fantastic pictures. Very enjoyable. Thanks Colin.

REI's cources tend to be oriented towards use of GPS receivers. If you don't already have training in good old fashioned map and compass, you would be short changing yourself if you skipped over this essential skill.

Says you.

I'd like Sheaf_Stout to clarify his position for us. Which of the following does he believe? 1) Global Warming is not happening, therefore there is nothing to worry about. 2) Global Warming is happening, but not as a result of man's activities, therefore there is nothing we can do about it. Que sera sera. 3) Global Warming is happening, is the result of our CO2 emissions, but the immediate cost of doing something about it is not worth the benefit of avoiding future hardships that result from it. It has to be something close to one of the above, but rather than bring out his true motives into the open, he decides to obfuscate his position, by instead making ad hominem attacks on a messenger, Al Gore. My guess is that most conservatives are actually in Camp 3. They don't like to admit being in Camp 3 because that means they are telling all the poor people in places like Bangledesh and the Maldives "too bad, you are going to lose the land on which you live, while I can afford to move to higher ground." This just doesn't look good.

Stiff can be a good thing, depending on how you look at it. Stiff ropes are less likely to form hockles.

Sheaf_Stout's tactic remind me of an old banned poster, Martlet. Remember him? He's a bit more reserved perhaps, but similar.

If there is one species that is plentiful, it is sea lions.

A bowline on a coil is essentially the same as a bowline but is considered a different knot. What about the clove hitch? Yes, I could get by without it, but wouldn't want to. And it's such a damn easy knot to tie.

Sounds a lot like long distance sailboat racing.

What you talkin' Willis? That was my first ever visit to Mountaineer Creek. So you're saying I have some "special affinity" to that place?

I suggest that if you aren't doing this aleady that you get a group of your classmates to go climb and practice the stuff you are being taught outside of class. You don't learn by osmosis, you learn by doing. Get your hands on this stuff and it will make sense. Also, read as much as you can. Go buy books and magazines other than those provided by your class. Finally, go climbing with some of the people on this site. Many are quite willing to take newbies out cragging.

I was forced into a short course in modern music education on a long trip to Canmore. Some of it was tolerable, but none of it was memorable. As far as I am concerned, it's good music if there is a melody that you can remember after you've heard the song and can hum or whistle it. Most rap doesn't have melody, neigher does it have harmony. It only has rhythm and the rhythm it does have is standardized and monotonous. People used to complain that most rock is too simple because it has only three chords. Rap often doesn't have one chord. The bass line is frequently one or maybe two notes.

That was all well put and I see your point, but in this case let me say this. Few of us know who Ondra is so we don't have a personal connection to him. Bob didn't provide any details other than the grades, so we have no idea about the "drama" of the moment. We don't know what he was feeling or saying for that matter. Few of us have climbed in Europe so we can't form a mental picture of the routes. So to sum it up, Bob's post is pretty damn sterile and hard for us weekend climbers to relate to. There's no story.

I was up there on Saturday, Feb. 24 and some of the climbs are still hanging in there. It was still worthwhile to visit. The one we were on is hollowing out between ice and rock near the top. If some cold doesn't come along soon there won't be much left. If you go take snow shoes. You'll need them. A lot of new snow has been coming down. There is a rain crust that I was punching through occasionally that made it really annoying without the slow shoes. There is still a convenient snow bridge to make it easy to cross the creek, upstream a little from the climbs.

Twins are easier on the belayer because he always treats them the same as single. It's a little harder for the leader because he has to clip two instead of one, but that's not hard with practice. Nice thing about halves on hard routes is if you are in the habit of clipping high, and fall while blowing a clip, the other rope will catch you without all that extra slack.

"I used to smoke marijuana. But I'll tell you something: I would only smoke it in the late evening..... Oh, occasionally the early evening, but usually the late evening - or the mid-evening...... Just the early evening, midevening and late evening. Occasionally, early afternoon, early midafternoon, or perhaps the late-midafternoon. Oh, sometimes the early-mid-late-early morning. . . . But never at dusk. I would never do that." - Steve Martin

I think Jamin would like to make the pick of his ice axe a part of some of the wiseguys on this thread.

In one of his books on training for rock climbing Eric Horst compared three skills: driving, rock climbing and golfing. Granted, he wasn't discussing safety per se, but rather overall skill. The learning curve is steepest for driving, followed by rock climbing and finally golf. I would have to say that alpine climbing has a much longer learning curve than just rock climbing, as there are many more facets to that activity, and the greater role of judgement.

What's black and white and comes in gallons?

$1 pitchers! It's like a wet dream!