olyclimber

its 4/20. take care of business.

way to go raindawg. you tell em! well, now that you got that middle east thing patched up to everyone's satisfaction, what's next? disneyland?

awesome! nice work Pax!

hell yeah! awesome sky, way to reprezent cascadeclimbers core values!! baa

MEXICO JUST MADE IT ON THE CIA WATCH LIST FOR TERRORISM. BE SAFE!!!!!

i love hummus

who let the dogs out?

kinda of reminds me of this one time at band camp

have you ever heard of a zoom lens? i was using one. we wouldn't want to haven't too close anyway, as the wind was blowing pretty good. i have a few photos of the snow blowing off the baker which was quite impressive.

I SO enjoy the misfortunes of others.

Are you talking about Papa Bear O'Reilly? If so, then nothing he could do would be considered immoral.

Barak exposed!!!! http://www.newspiritualbible.com/index3.html

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004348334_webdalai14.html "Dalai: ur smiles charm, ur actions harm." Why doesn't the Dollie leave poor lil China alone? "I like some of his ideas about nonviolence. But I think he is behind some of the violence in Tibet," ....then i found this site!!! http://www.newspiritualbible.com/index2 I never knew Tibetan Buddhism was so evil and violent! Obviously I'm just another deceived westerner.

next time bottle it up and sell it on the street corner

I know. It was a tough choice day. 1. Flying 2. See Dollie Llama Superbowl 3. Mariners at the Safe (actually winning!) In the end I chose flying as the other things are pretty much everyday occurances.

This map was created using GPS Visualizer's do-it-yourself geographic utilities. Please wait while the map data loads... Tracks:

i don't know why we even bother with doctors anymore, now that we have the internets. i've heard that if you eat enough pickles you can kill the tick with a salt overdose.

Its a very worthy slide show! I saw the one up here in Seattle at Feathered Friends, you don't want to miss this one.

Great pictures! Way to get out there.

Baller.

Big.

Trip: North Cascades - Scurlock's Backyard Date: 4/12/2008 Trip Report: I was lucky enough to go flying with John Scurlock (the "Washburn of the North Cascades") on Saturday and he gave me a great tour of his backyard. We had been planning the trip since before I broke my leg, and was pumped to get John's "all systems go" email early in the week. I haven't flown in a plane of that size before, and I didn't really know what to expect. When I arrived at the hangar and got a look at the plane, the magnitude of it all sort of hit me. Now I'm not afraid of my own work, but to trust my life in a flying contraption that I assembled with my own hands? John is truely a Big Baller. The kit plane that John put together is a delicate little sports plane. You've got to be careful easing yourself into the seat so you don't break off any flaps (well it probably isn't that delicate, but you don't take any risks in heeding John's advice as to how to get into the plane). Once you're in the plane John walks you through the simple but elaborate harness system and hands you a noise canceling headset so you can talk with him over the noise of the plane. Before we take off there is a call to Kelly Bush with a rough flight plan, a thoughtful precaution. You taxi across the grass and get on the end of the runway so you're against the wind. Then you start take off, which is exciting in a plane with a rear tail wheel. Right before you take off the plane lurches forward as you've got to get the rear wheel off the ground first. Thankfully John pre-warned me about this and I left his seat unsoiled. Once in the air we started climbing and headed towards Mt. Baker. We pass a small limestone mountain, apparently of the same stuff that helped create the town of Concrete. We climbed and Mt. Baker got closer and closer. Soon you could make out the snowmobile tracks as the riders made high marks on the glacier. You could see the specks below, bunches of sledneckers riding around. We started slowly circling Mt. Baker, but didn't get too close John pointed out the snow blowing off the pass between the mountain and Colfax, which represented some wind we didn't want to get into. After a couple times around Baker, we moved on to the perfect pyramid of Shuksan which we circled a couple of times. After this it was pretty much a blur of beauty to me. We made our way to the North Pickets, then the south. All along John runs through the names of all the peaks and various information about them, it is obvious that he enjoys researching and learning as much as possible about his backyard hills. Over here is the "largest gain from valley to summit in the shortest distance" or some such claim to fame (Mt. Davis). Over there is Wayne's Mongo Ridge (well, he didn't have to point that one out to me). John has each peak etched in his mind from the thousands of photographs he has taken in all sorts of light (when I get home, I find that even after filling an 8 gig card with RAW images that only so many turn out. It is certainly a learned art to take photos from his plane). I overloaded on the view and just snapped away, filling up my mind and memory card, but at least I'll have a GPS track to remember where we went and what photo goes where. We didn't hit too much turbulence, but a bit started shaking the plane as we turned and dove back towards Concrete. John let me take controls of the plane for a while, and I barely resisted the urge to do a barrel roll. Actually, I didn't try anything fancy or dramatic, just barely moved the stick, it is an amazing feeling to fly a plane. But of course, the more engaging part is the actually take off and landing of the plane. I think for me the most exciting part of the whole flight was the landing. First you head directly for a small hill, getting a little close for the untrained eye before making a U-turn back towards the airport. Right before the landing you're skimming some trees and headed almost directly at the airstrip ( I mean, at the same elevation). Its definitely something that for me to perform would take some getting used to, but my faith in John once again kept my shorts and the passenger seat clean of debris. It was definitely an experience that I hope to repeat and won't ever forget. John provided the narrative of an experienced guide, and it is obvious that he knows and loves his backyard. Thanks John! Here are a few pictures I took, though I can't even begin to compare to the unbelievable resource John has provided to climbers here. Gear Notes: kit plane Approach Notes: avoid staters on your way to concrete

saturday!

Why can't you just say "the late Larry Kemp"? he is just messing with you Mark. don't let him get to your head like that.