ken4ord

Though I realize you are being completely sarcastic, it probably will help the situation some do close down Guantanmo. It will be interesting to see what their demands will be with the hostages being held. Isalm in general is very peaceful oriented and devote religion. I live in a country that is more than 80% muslim and feel no concern about safety to be honest. I have found them to be very generous people and very famil oriented more so than most other people in the world, especially considering most of them have been dealt this shit that everyone of them must be part of jihad or some terrorist organization. These terrorist cells are no different than what you find in the States and Europe in white supremecy groups. Their extremist and represent a small minority.

yeah and in my case, add move out of the country to the list. Damn I miss ice climbing hell any kind of climbing. Nice TR, I damn jealous.

That sounds good, though I wonder about strain on the finger tendons. I sort of envision the handles pressing on the finger in small area, where as using the 3 inch PVC you use more of an open hand grip the pressure is spread across the whole hand.

Cool thanks for the info.

Good workouts for dry tooling, won't do too much for swing tools on ice and prescision. Preseason ice climbing I usually like do to do tool swings with dumbells. I usually do 3 sets of 10 reps, repeated three times with each hand. I also do it front of the mirror so I can focus on swinging to the same location. First set of 10 I do directly overhead, 2nd out about 5 degrees out and 3 out another 5 degrees. Make sure to get your flicks in and 10lbs is generally good enough weight, any larger the weights tend to get in the way of the flicking action. I generally follow tool swings after doing sets of alternating dumbell curls. Pullups on PVC pipe (3") usually wrapped with grip tape. Calf raisees and stairs are also reall good fro preseason ice. I have thought about taping or fixing weight to my tools, but always end up using dumbells. Sometime I use my toools for pull up but I find it easier than PVC.

You fucker! Damn that looks nice. There ain't anything around except for some barely smokeable herion (haven't tried it yet, but I guess it is really poor quality and cut with all kind of crap). Oh yeah if I was into needle, the like injecting some pharmacuetical compound, not really my style. No real 420 times for a while

Please share any info you do have on Madagascar, I would really like to get there someday. I am curious on what info you have found so far. It suppose to be a beautiful country. The only thing I know about it there have been a few teams over the years that have gone and set up some climbs but everything I have seen so far about it is big wall climbing and then followed with freeing the climbs at a hard grade. * Lyn Hill set up a climb that was hard 12 or easy 13 can't remember. * These guys had a sucessful trip and established a 800 12a http://www.alardsbigwallclimbing.com/madagascar1.htm * This place looks awesome, sort of Thailand looking, though probably not as humid or well traveled. http://www.gdargaud.net/Climbing/Madagascar.html * Here is a collection of articles on climbing in Madagascar http://www.planetmountain.com/english/News/list.lasso?search_idgenere=1&search_idtipoprod=&search_parola=madagascar&cl=1&id_marchio=&l=2&func=search&submitButtonName=Search If you were interested in more moderate stuff I would try to get in stock with local embassies or NGO's Generally in everyone of these developing countries a lot people from all over and I have found usually at least one or two non-local people who are not on the cutting edge, but that enjoy the sport who could lead you in the right direction. Some friends who have traveled around the country said it was amazing that there are several cliffs all over the country from big walls to single pitch size cliff. They do any climbing and were mainly there to go hiking and kiting. I'm having dinner with a friend tomorrow night who was living there for a few year and and ask him if he had heard of anything or set you up with some contacts. Cheers, Ken

There were crampon marks all over the route when I climbed it, so I am sure it has seen many ascent in winter or winter like conditions.

Thanks for the TR that is definitely all I needed to be convinced that I should have my boards here with me. How much did you ended spending for the taxi, mountain access and lodging?

What freaking cool looking climb. The videos were great on the blog. I can't wait to get to Nepal someday.

Thanks for posting a report on this area. It is definitely I will keep in the back of my mind since I am pretty close by. Right now I am focused on getting up to Nepal first, hopefully soon.

I love getting out and hiking ever since I could remember. As kids we went hiking up a small canyon that had climbs up in it, but never saw anyone climbing and couldn't imagine ever climbing. As I did more hiking, I kept on looking for challenges, finding it in distance hiking, bushwhacking and scrambles. Eventually I ran out of steep trails and was finally interested in getting over my fear of hieghts. I used to go out with a crew that was just learning to climb and we would toprope anything, 10 foot walls, buildings and quarries. I was scared shitless every time. I'd get up 10 feet and say "take and lower". Then my bud who took me and another newbie out and tooks us the 8 pitch long slab classic Sliding Board on Whitehorse. Never being more than 10 feet off the ground, I remember telling my friend Craig, "shouldn't we start off on something shorter?" We didn't, we just climbed the route. After that I remember all I could think about was climbing. I have pretty much thought about climbing every single day since then.

It is amazing politcally locked down I feel by not owning a gun. complete sarcasm.....

Yeah I do have more to say, first I think we need to look at the 2nd amendment in the context of the time that it was written. Of course now-a-days our english that we use has changed so much that it make it quite easy to interpet the 2nd amendment a million different ways, given the time period and english that was used at the time, they were concerned more about outside forces trying to control the "State", the United States that is. They mention a "well regulated militia" which = military, not every Tom Dick and Harry. And the right for people to bear arms just like anything else there should be certain critrea met inorder to do this. Would you want a teenager without any drivers licenses or training driving a semi down the road, hell too dangerous. There should be limits what is reasonable, I jsut don't see how assualt guns reasonable for most people. Though the ATF may have made some poor decision in the cases you presented, I am glad they went in. In my book they are extremist no different than the Bin Ladens of the world, is there a place for extremist like them in the States, I hope not. I found you Ghandi parphrase very interesting I am going to have to look this one up. The point I really agree with you is that Obama's priorities are most likely going to be or should be at least on more important issues at hand. And your last paragraph, though I don't find strength or preparedness on a pistol grip.

You really are as dumb as I think you are, if you think Dru's posts are similar to your worthless posts. I actually know of one person who used to be on this board regularly, but doesn't contribute anymore cause he so annoyed with your worthless drivel. I thought about doing the same myself, but miss the NW so much and reading the TR's climbs I have done or want to do, that I can't stay away from this damn forum. I guess it is the price of admission these.

Same exact thing happened to me and my partner. My partner had everything GPS, Compass altimeter and some waypoints for the descent. Even then it was still difficult to navigate couldn't tell if we were on flat ground or slope and at time could barely see a few feet in front, the wind was blowing hard which made it difficult to walk and communicate. Compounded with exhaustion and fading light we found it better to dig in for the night. At that point if we would have had a crevasse fall it would have been very difficult and serious extraction with our state of exhaustion, it was muuch safer to stay put. Now if this would have happened under different circumstance then, like at the beginning of the climb it would have been much easier to keep going with all that gear that we had. So basically your decission should be dictated by the situation that you are in and what you are equipped with. I might not carry any navigation equipment with me but I have been prepared for whatever the mountain dishes out to me.

I am not sure if you can count guns and drugs in boat that is like compare oranges and potatos. First off I think guns for hunting definitely serve a purpose. Now guns designed for hunting humans in my opinion don't serve any purpose other than to kill an other person, yeah they can be fun shoot off and shit, but point blank there purpose is to kill another, that just just does not sit right with me. I don't believe that illegalization of those type of guns will make me feel much safer, realistically. I think it will keep society a little safer. And you keep going off about guns are for political freedom, I haven't bought it yet, as far as I can remember in any type of politcal action I have taken I have never used a gun, I used my voice, a pen, a phone, money, protest, sit-in, boycott, but never a gun. Now drugs on the other hand are not designed to kill. They are designed to enlighten and have fun. Yeah they do end up killing some, but hell a butter knife could kill ya if used improperly. Also not all drugs are illegal, some are perfectly legal and ones deemed more dangerous are not. And some that are legal there are restrictions on them to try and protect society as whole. I think there are a lot of drugs I would rather see legalized and controlled than there are now. The only think I can see that is similar between the two is that the restrictions on both are needed and those restrictions should be reassessed from time to time.

What the hell is work, it's been too long since I have done that, I forgot what it is????

If I bring anything it is a compass and knowledge of where I am going. I am going to get techno soon and get myself logger, just so I can start mapping mountain bike routes, but that is about as far I like to go. I love looking at maps and studying them, but rarely carry them with me. I owned a GPS unit for several years and never took it out of the box, finally I just gave it to a friend. I try to remember terrain features on the way up and in a white go with the feel of the terrain on the way down. I figure worst comes to worst I end up in the wrong valley and go up and over again. I guess I like the adventure. I have found the snowball trick useful a few times in mountain whiteouts. That is if you are unsure if you are at the edge of an abysis or crevasse throw a snowball what the terrain is before commiting. Or just kick clumps of snow ahead of myself. I always make it a habit to look back whenever I am traveling anywhere.

Hell yeah I always hit that place up at least once whenever I am back in Seattle.

Only #1 and the latter half of #3 are a) true, b) attributable to Bush and c) positives. And the latter of these driven entirely by and for the interests of friends of Cheney's in the oil industry. I agree Joseph. Aksheet, first number 1 wasn't only in Africa it include other high risk countries in Asia, number 2 yeah right that shit is still stewing only a matter time he did nothing there, number 3 are you kidding you really think they have stopped their programs, number 4 they were already underground before he was president the ones taken out have just been replaced by others, number 5 don't know anything about (I don't much about it but I do seen how farmers live and it is not like they are rolling in the cash, number 6 just wait for the next dictator to arive I am sure he will be just as nice (hopefully things will change but we really won't know for at least 10-20 years), number 7 again are you kidding, oh yeah myopic view in the states yes as bad as 911 has happened, but look at what has happened in London, what is going on in Iraq. Dude open your eyes.

I agree there PEPFAR was a good initiative though there was a alot of stipulation to it. Mainly in that AIDS prevention needed education in abstenance and none of the funds could be used for condom promotion. Luckily there were other organization out there that could help in that arena. Beyond that I can't think of anything else that really was good that was done by that stupid monkey.

I would agree with what other have said. The route picture that you posted from the col short cut is what it looked like when we did it. Also the descent from the col that I Dave and I would be fun two pitch snow and rock climb up if the the conditions really were not favorable. Furthermore I would would not expect full water ice conditions on that route ever, it is more neve than anything else in most conditions. There is not much above to feed water to create a nice water ice climb.

Yeah and socialism is the worst thing that could ever happen. Could you imagine what that would mean, jeezs everybody in the states would have such a good life and not have it be such a struggle, trying to get by. The horror! I mean how could anyone think that any type of work has similar value? Come on folks don't you see sitting behind a CEO failing banking desk jobs should be worth the hundreds of thousands dollars a year and guy hauling off your garbage should be happy with his 45k a year? In regards to fairweather's new name: unfairestweather

Hey Akhateet, I don't know who bonked you on the head, but dude you sound like chicken little running around screaming, "The sky is falling!!! The Sky is falling!!!" I find it super humorus keep up the good work.