murraysovereign

Chirac ought to be waiting at the finish line to present him with a Legion d'Honneur. Hell, if Jerry Lewis can get one, Lance should get two.

Cat Lake isn't a provincial park - it's just a "recreation site" officially under jurisdiction of the ministry of forests. Same for Brohm Lake. There's a private campground in Paradise Valley, just a short drive north of Squamish (10 minutes or so?). Doesn't get as crowded as the ones on the highway, but it's quite nice. The kids will probably enjoy the Railway Museum, too. They had "Thomas the Tank Engine" there earlier this summer, and it was a total zoo - kids dig locomotives. Also some nice walks in the Squamish River Estuary, adjacent to downtown, and there's a newly accessible beach at the south end of downtown - currently hosting the North American windsurfing championships, which might keep the kids' attention for a few minutes at least. More importantly, there's about an acre of wet sand, which is as good as gold for kids.

There's no sense spending your life being consumed with jealousy, TLG. Come on up - there's plenty of blueberries to go around

You seem to be suggesting that he's criticizing American activities in the Middle East. But in fact, he's pointing the finger squarely at Whitehall. When he says the "we" he refers to is Britain, not the US. At the end of the First World War, it was predominantly Britain, along with France, and the US in only a supporting role, that carved the Middle East up into the jig-saw puzzle we now know and love. There's a good book on the subject I read many many years ago, with a great title - "A Peace To End All Peace". And it's the fall-out from that post-WWI drawing up of mid-East borders that we're finally having to confront. Yes, the US has become a dominant player in the region in the years since WW2, but it was Britain that got the ball rolling in 1918, and that's what Livingstone is tracing the current situation back to. He hasn't "forgotten" anything - he remembers it all too clearly.

Sorry for the late entry, but my "weekend" just ended. I spent two days climbing in the Smoke Bluffs, after a two-year forced hiatus due to various tendon injuries . My climbing partner for the two days hadn't climbed in years - his canvas EBs and Willans harness were still state-of-the-art when he last tied into a rope. So we're talking full-on Bumblies, here. I was afraid that two years of not climbing would mean that my abilities would have deteriorated, but I found that in fact I still suck exactly as much as I ever did . I have, however, decided to modify the grading of all climbs in my guide book by adding the letter "d": for instance, Mosquito (5.8) will now read "Mosquito (5.8d)" and Corner Crack (5.7) will now read "Corner Crack (5.7d)" This, I feel, more accurately reflects my personal experience of these climbs. The third day of my weekend was spent taking said friend for a hike up to Echo Lake, across the river from Squamish. Next time you're sitting outside Starbucks or the IGA (or my store, for that matter ) look across the valley to the west and you'll see a series of waterfalls coming down the side of Mount Lapworth. At the top of all those falls and cascades is Echo Lake. So we hiked up through 3,000 feet of waterfalls and pools and cascades and rain forest, eating blueberries and huckleberries all the way. Then we spent the afternoon swimming, sunning on the rocks, exploring around the lakeshore, swimming some more, eating more blueberries and huckleberries, then going swimming again to wash off all the blueberry and huckleberry stains, and then sunning on the rocks some more. Then we hiked back down, eating blueberries and huckleberries all the way back to the river, and finished the day being eaten alive by the most voracious mosquitoes I've ever encountered while loading the canoe onto the truck. I think they were some variant strain of Africanized, Killer Mosquito. Fortunately we were able to get into the truck before the main swarm arrived, and escaped to the Brew Pub for dinner. Best three days off in a long, long time. And next week I get to do it all again

I've got two pairs of shoes, and a couple of other climbing-related items, that were turned in here at the store in the aftermath of the Climbers Festival. PM me with descriptions to claim your booty

Hmmm... the "finalize CD" box was already checked, and subsequent CDs burned with that box checked are still just spinning when they get to the end. Maybe it's just a cheap POS CD player, or... any other suggestions?

It's raining in Vancouver, apparently, and the forecast calls for the same in Squamish. The "MurrayCam", however, is dry and warm and leaning slightly north due to a moderate breeze coming off Howe Sound. If the MurrayCam didn't have to work, it would be out climbing or hiking or something, enjoying a pretty nice day out.

I've been using "Nero" to burn CDs, and have noticed the CD player can't tell when these burned CDs have ended. It gets to the end of the last track, and just keeps spinning away. Is there some little piece of code analogous to a "period" I can insert after the last track to tell the player to stop, or is this something I just need to accept and get on with my life?

Maybe he's looking here? For what it's worth, it's been fairly nice all day today - cloudy and cool, for sure, but no rain, and the last hour or two saw a fair bit of sun breaking through. And the view south toward Horseshoe Bay looks like more of the same for at least the next couple of hours. So it's possible that tomorrow and/or Sunday will be the same as today. Or we may actually see measureable rain sometime in the next couple of days to fulfill the forecast. Or...?

There's miles and miles of mountain biking around Squamish. Contact corsa cycles for information. Also the mountain bike park at Whistler - aka "the Trauma Park" by paramedics - is tons of fun, but make sure your insurance is paid up

Who cares? I want to hear more about the whip and the librarian glasses...

Tricouni Peak is great if you've got good clearance 4WD to get to the trailhead. And I've recently finished a new trail up to Echo Lake across from downtown Squamish, and an extension up onto Mount Lapworth is about done as well. I can draw up a map & directions for you if you like. You'll need a canoe or some such vessel for crossing the river, but that can be arranged locally, and it's well worth the effort. If you can extend your stay by one day I'm taking a friend up on Tuesday and you could come with us.

Don't be so quick to criticize. He's trying to take an insurgency that's in its last throes, and somehow make it last for another 10 or 12 years. That's no simple task, but I think he may be just the man for the job.

I agree, it's a tricky job, and I also agree they usually have a pretty good idea of what's coming once they get to within a couple of days. But the five-day forecast is about as reliable as my last car. Once we get into July and August, the patterns become pretty stable and predictable, but when all the north Pacific is a giant seething mass of Highs and Lows and Fronts all travelling in different directions at different speeds, the way it is April thru June, I wish they'd just level with us and say "we don't know yet, and we won't know for a couple more days" instead of publishing forecasts that they know are 90% guesswork.

Serves you right for being so foolhardy as to venture outside my sphere of influence.

Try this page on that site, which allows you to locate the forecast for the nearest town And don't pay too much attention to the forecast this far out. As can be seen in this recent thread, the weekend forecast for this area was utterly useless until sometime Friday. That said, though, holiday weekends double the likelihood of rain, and this weekend coming up is a double-whammy "Canada Day" Friday / "Independence Day" Monday which means it's probably about four times as likely to rain as any other weekend. But maybe we'll luck out again. Last weekend's forecast started out with "100% chance of heavy rain Friday thru Monday" on Monday, and by the time the weekend arrived the actual weather was "Sunny with Cloudy periods and a very brief rain shower on Sunday afternoon that most people probably didn't even notice". So keep checking the forecast - it will change a couple of times in the next few days.

Come and get it!

Classic!! I always shake my head when I walk by a gym full of people who have all driven down in their cars to pay money to sit inside on a machine that simulates what would have happened if they'd ridden their bikes instead of driving

Where were you trying to climb? It was in Squamish all weekend for RocTrip. I'll probably be accused of "conflict of interest" for saying that, but it's better than lying

Just a couple of days ago, Cheney was telling us the insurgency was "in its last throes"

But even as a "trend", it fluctuates dramatically from one day to the next. Warmer and drier than average one day, colder and wetter the next, then warmer and wetter, then colder and drier... I saved screen shots of these "trends" for five or six days in a row last month, then went back at looked at them in sequence - it was completely random. And "Hi" tlg, how've you been? Are you going to make it up for a visit this summer?

weathernetwork forecast has been just as volatile this week - 100% POP one day, hot and sunny the next, then back to 100% POP. For a little idle amusement, try following their 14-day trend outlook from a few days I don't know why they even bother with that stupid waste of bandwidth. Once we get into July/August maybe it will provide meaningful information, but the last couple of months I swear you can almost hear them calling "heads" or "tails" in the background.

As owner of one of the local gear stores, I may very well be suspected of lying through my teeth, of saying whatever I had to in order to get people up here. As owner of one of the local gear stores, I may very well be passing on a bit of local knowledge based on 6 1/2 years of constantly watching the forecasts and then comparing them with the actual weather. You decide. But before you call me a self-interested lying S.O.B., maybe take a look at the forecast as it looks now And then maybe come up this weekend and introduce yourself, maybe buy some shades or some sunscreen - looks like you might need them. At least, according to today's forecast. By this time tomorrow it will likely have changed again.

I wouldn't worry too much just yet. Any attempt to forecast the weather around here for more than two or three days out is doomed to fail. On Sunday evening the forecast for next weekend was 100% chance of heavy rain Friday through Monday. Yesterday the forecast was for something like 40-60% chance of showers Sunday and Monday. By this time tomorrow they'll be forecasting something wildly different again. They simply don't know. By sometime Friday afternoon they'll be starting to get a fairly realistic idea of what to expect for Saturday, but really they won't even know that until early Saturday, so they habitually low-ball the forecast to cover their asses. We beat the forecast probably about 80% of the time during spring and early summer. The weather here is almost never as bad as they predict.