catbirdseat

This was covered already by another poster on the main Hood thread. Winter is the safest time to climb this particular route for a number of reasons. You can't go and blame people just because the outcome was bad. These northside routes have been safely climbed numerous times. Okay (edit) Mr. Phil beat me to the punch, but I concur that the intense media focus on this accident has caused a distortion of reality. People just don't have the expertise to pass judgment.

Second post since 2004. Welcome back Beck!

Look up Dave (Thinker). I am pretty sure he still lives in Salt Lake.

Ha ha! Keep 'em coming Raindawg!

Well do you think it would be a good thing to better educate the general public about climbing? I don't think it will ever become "mainstream", at least I hope not. I rather like the idea of climbing as a fringe activity.

w00t, w00t! See you there.

One can compare Bill O'Reilly to Washington State's people's initiative process. Some uninformed wacko get's an idea and thinks there should be a new law. There's a good reason we have a legislature. Those elected officials are paid to study all proposals and come up with good laws. People think they can become an expert on anything, like climbing, in one week.

In answer to your original question, if you are using half ropes you should clip alternately for greatest redundancy, UNLESS you have a good reason to do otherwise. If the route wanders way left and then right again, that would be a good reason to clip only the "red" rope initially, and then the "green" further up the pitch.

Lots of very hard wind crust on exposed slopes. Bring crampons.

I think that there is a perception that if risk taking is part of making a living or your everyday life that it is more "acceptable" than risk taking for recreation. I'd ask the question, why? I don't think that it is any more legitimate to take the risk of driving to the Gorge for a concert than it is to drive to Vantage to climb rocks.

A bulletin board is just a multiuser blog with interactive, capabilities.

Someone early in the thread brought up almost the same sort of statement as Luke and it was addressed and debunked. Obviously, he didn't bother to read the whole thread from the start.

They are a lot more PUBIC.

This boy is getting the hell out of Dodge.

Ketch, his profile says that he is a freelance writer. That suggests that he can pretty much live where he chooses. He ought to live in Twisp and hang with Uncle Tricky.

It is called a lenticular (lens shaped) cloud, and it is caused by fairly dry fast-moving air, with laminar flow, interacting with the mountain so that it is forced upward in a smooth arc. The temperature drops just enough for the moisture to condense. As the air falls again on the lee side of the mountain, it warms back to its initial temperature and the cloud evaporates. The reason that Rainier was the only peak with a lenticular cloud cap was because the air was too dry for any other peak but the highest to raise the air enough to cool it below its dew point.

Are you asking whether he has been made to eat humble pie?

I just saw a report saying that they got a ping of the cell phone late Tuesday. Now it seems that he's turning the phone on and off to conserve batteries. If this is so, it is good news indeed. If he can conserve batteries until he knows weather improves for a rescue that will improve his chances tremendously. http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/12/14/missing.climbers.ap/index.html

Maestro is going to just love that one.

As orginally heard it was a guitar player and not a bass player, but I had to change it just for you.

My recent interest in keylock style biners comes from recent ice climbing where I found the hooks on biners catching on things and making unclipping difficult. Standard biners aren't such pain when rock climbing where you don't have gloves on. I have one DMM Revolver that I have been using to see how it works. The Revolver needs to be part of a draw that holds it captive so that it can't rotate. The sheave is useless unless it is in contact with the rope. Experience tells me that a majority of rope drag actually comes from contact of the rope with rock and not carabiners. I think there are relatively few situations where the Revolver will help, but having one or two on hand might be a good idea. I tend to keep the draw with the Revolver in reserve until I've used all the others so I have it when I actually need it.

It would be nice if that AlpinFox feller would clean out his mailbox so folks could send him PMs. Damn, I wish I were half as popular as he.

You can always tell when a thread has run out of steam when the talk turns to windshirts and neutrinos.

Qwest field! GO HAWKS! Ya'll can look for the good doctor on the sidelines.

That's a good one. I've heard it before. Here's a new one. A bass player and an accordion player manage to get a gig at a nightclub for New Year's Eve. The gig goes really well, so well that the manager asks to hire them for next year's event. The accordian player then asks, "can we store our equipment here"?