downfall

Its mathematical in a sense that its dealing with layout of planar graphs (sets of nodes and edges which can be layed out w/out any edges intersecting), which is a classic problem from graph theory. Graph theory is a branch of discrete mathematics.

What's a "see-food" diet? You mean you just eat whatever you want? Try eating more low fat protein. Whey is cheep and good. Stay away from Soy. Whats your goals for this weight? You wanna look like a bodybuilder? Personally I wouldn't want to gain weight as a climber.

Thats awesome.

We were up there last weekend and unless you like to climb bowling alleys with mixed conditions then I wouldn't attempt it. The snow is not continuous and rocks were coming down all day. I have a pic at home. PM me if you want me to post it.

This isn't true in the current market. Since rents are well below the average monthly mortgage payments for a similar place you have that extra capital to invest and make money on. You also don't have maintenece costs when renting which are typically underestimated by home owners as well as most rental places include certain utilities like sewer, water, and garbage. And you don't have to pay property taxes. All in all renting, especially in the current market, will probably save you money especially if you are only going to be in the place for 3 years. The best data I've seen on housing performance and bubble indicators is included in the economists housing market index (I think thats what it's called; just look around on their site and you should find it). The main statistic they look at is the historical ratio of rent to mortage payments which right now strongly favors renting in our market. There hasn't been much historical data on housing prices kept which is why you'll probably have trouble digging up the wealth of info you could for other investements.

Pulling up on a solid hand jam yesterday my left hand went numb. It still is't totally recovered with the numbness centered on the back of my hand between the pointer and index fingers. Has anyone had this happened to them before? Is it likely to be a long term reoccuring problem with jamming; is there a way to prevent it? This is the second time its happened to me. The first time was when I was pulling through a roof on a single hand jam and close to 100% of my body weight was on the 1 jam. That time the numbness went away after about 20-30 minutes. This time was a releatively straightforward jam. I'm worried that I may be setting myself up for a long term recurring problem. The first time I was taped but yesterday I wasn't taped so I'm not sure that makes a difference or not. Any pointers on how to fix this would be appreciated.

I think the defense that we need more money going to our forests is bunk. They are just forests, they don't need money, they don't need to be managed, trails don't need upkeep, roads don't need to be maintained. If it were to be something truely wild (which it is becoming less and less of) and that is what I value in the wilderness it doesn't need any resouces or money or staff or management. Its trees, rocks, water, sun, fire, animals, life and death. Once you start charging for something people start expecting something for that money. People don't view wilderness and something and especially not something they will pay for. They want their trails wide, paved, signed, and safe. And to take it a step further than what Ireneo user fees start us down a slippery slope of development.

So when this thread came up I emailed the district which you were in to get a clarification on the matter (basically asking if this was a change in enforcement policy). Here is the reply I received as well as some contact information which might get you to the people you need to talk to: When a person receives a citation there are two things that can happen. One, they can choose to pay the collateral bail (in this case it's $30) and the matter ends. Or two, they don't choose to pay the collateral bail and the Courts assume they are contesting the ticket. This happens no matter what correspondence is included when the ticket is sent in. The citation is supposed to be sent to the Central Violations Bureau within 21 days of receipt. If it is not sent in, the Courts automatically set a court date. A court date is set for an initial appearance at which time the person either pleads not guilty and asks for a court date or pleads guilty and it is handled on that date. I'm assuming your friend is in the latter. You can have him/her call if they have questions about the process, but I don't adjudicate the merits of the charges since that is what the US Magistrate does. Let me know if I can help. . . This is the same process as is used in all of Western WA and has not changed since I have been around. Sometimes our "centralized" process makes it a little confusing since we don't set the Court Docket locally and the defendants can even be notified before we are. Christine Lynch, Patrol Captain SW WA Zone, Gifford Pinchot NF 360-891-5132 Office / 360-891-5130 FAX 360-751-2943 Cell clynch@fs.fed.us

yeah, I doubt it too. Was up there end of last august and it kind of looked like the road wasn't coming back any time soon. I kind of hope it doesn't come back as they would have to re-route it way uphill; there was a thread on the re-route about 8-9 months ago in the access forum.

Sounds like you've got a good basis there. How many carbohydrates you need is hard to judge since most people don't have a good reference handy so if you think you're getting a lot of fruits and vegitables you still may not be getting as many carbs as you think. For my meals (I'm 155 lb ~12% body fat) I generally eat about 4-6 oz of meat (21-28 grams of protein) and 36-45 grams of carbs and lots of fat (snacks I eat less but same ratio). So, some examples of carb content: 1 apple ~18 grams carb, 1 pear ~27 grams carb, 1/2 cup blueberries ~9 grams carb, 3 cup broccoli ~9 grams carb, romain lettuce 10 cups ~9 grams carbs, snow peas 1.5 c ~9 grams carb. So you see that you need to eat a lot of veggies or fewer fruits to get the same amount of carbs. I personally try and eat a bit of both but get a majority of my carbs from fuits and black beans (1/2 c ~18g) since I don't have to gorge myself to get enough. But don't cut out the vegitables as there are invaluable vitamins there.

If your loosing more than a pound or two a week you are loosing water weight. Its not possible for your body to loose that much fat in that short of time. I don't know what advice you are following but a drastic drop in water weight is usually related to ketosis (sp?) where you are not getting enought good carbs (vegies and fruits) and your body is attempting to get rid of all the waste produced by the engergy back up mechanisms.

Loosing weight is a bit more complicated than just creating a calorie deficit. You're body has many places to get energy it needs (stored fat, stored glucose, muscle) and it will do different things depending on what hormones you've got running through your body regardless of how many calories you've consumed. The main one of these hormones being insulin. A lot of modern foods, including the ones you've probably been eating, force your body to produce insulin to signal that surgar needs to be removed from your system. Unfortunately this insulin has side affects which keeps your body from burning fat. So even if you're eating a reduced amount of calories you might find it very difficult to loose fat if you've constantly got elevated insulin in you're blood stream. Anyway, the Zone, by Barry Sears goes over all this. Lots of athletes follow this diet or higher fat variations of it and have excellent results.

So when do you people replace helmets? What if, for instance, you dropped you Ecrin Rock helmet off the 4th pitch of silent running and it skidded down the slab but didn't actually impact anything directly. Say after that there were minor dings in it but nothing that bumping your head on an overhang or something wouldn't leave? Can there be structural problems after this type of fall in the plastic which you can't detect? Not that I actually did this and am still wearing the helmet.

There are alot of different types of hand strengtheners esp for people who are in to grip strength or strong man comps. I find that spring grip trainers are good for overall hand strenght but don't translate well to climbing since most grip strentgh in climbing is static power and not really dynamic (i.e., you don't close your hand while climbing but hold it static on a hold). Iron Mind (www.ironmind.com) is going to be the place to really dig in to what kind of tools and training are available if you want to get serious about grip strength. I have their Captain of Crush Trainer and #2 grippers which I keep on my desk at work. I've never seen anyone even close the #2 (~195 lb of force neede) though its definitly doable by mortal you just have to work hard to get there. They go up to #4 which takes about 365 pounds of force to close. Here is a link to their grip tools: http://www6.mailordercentral.com/ironmind/departments.asp?dept=7 You'd probably be good by figuring out how to work static grip strength either with some of their tools or by coming up with some technique of your own. They publish a monthly web column by John Brookfield called Grip tip of the month, this article is awesome, but beware that it's a bit addictive and you might referring to you "Crushing strength" in normal conversation. http://www.ironmind.com/ironcms/opencms/IronMind/GripTips/griptip.html Click on the "more" link at the bottom to scroll through the previous grip tips. I wont even go in to the bending nails . . . (and no I don't work for iron mind I just really like their stuff and think grip strength is cool though I'm really just a grip gaper.)

So I just got a copy of Routes and Rocks Glacier Peak to Chelan and am wondering which of the high routes people here would recommend or have done (only interested in the routes which still don't have an established trail). There seems to be some cool things in there. Also are there any other high routes which haven't necessarily been documented by becky or crowder & tabor which can be recommended?

I've got the pieps DSP and like it in the mock scenarios I've used it in. The multi-burial feature is much easier than the tracker (though hope you don't have to use it). The only issue I've seen which I've also seen with the older analog pieps beacons is that it has a problem with real old beacons which may have experienced some signal drift which I did not see with the tracker. Anyway if someone has a beacon with signal drift they probably want to get a new one anyway so I would recommend it.

I've redirected by putting an additional piece above the anchor solely for the purpose or redirecting. It seems that this solves some of the problems with attaching to just one point or to the power point of the anchor and you still have the efficiency when swapping leads since the first piece of the next pitch is already in. Does anyone know any problems with this approach?

Drove by yesterday on the way home. I've never been up there so am not 100% sure what I am talking about, but what I thought was the pencil looked formed and touching down (pencil is on the side of the drainage right?) and Drury did not look like it was touching down (assuming that is the one at the top of the drainage).

What about dual vertical front points versus dual horizonal front points? Do you find that vertical front points fracture/break the ice less than horizontal?

I just talked with a staff member at congressman McDermott's office about this. He was pretty up front with me and said that even though alot of people are opposed to this its really not going to get any attention unless something as public as the opposition over the IRS access happens (which is unlikely since most people are entirely ignorant when it comes to understanding this program). He suggested that the best course of action would be to start adressing the issue for next year, as there is a way to override it, via handwritten letters to your representatives and the key leaders stated above (the staff member said he doesn't pay much attention to pre-printed statements, postcards and email; I don't really know about phone calls though). He did mention he had no hopes of this being changed untill we have a chance of changing the balance of power in congress in two years. I wouldn't take this as discouragement but OnTopofPoo is right they are really just revisiting this bill because of the IRS issue and nothing else is planning on being discussed. Personally I'm going to keep up the calls over the next few days but then after than I'm going to start addressing the issue via letters to hopefully get some action next year or at least continue getting people educated on the topic. On a side note if you are not sure how you stand with respect to fees for public lands I'd suggest reading Ken Wright's book Why I'm Against It All.

You also might want to think about how to articulate the difference between drilling bolts on the climbing routes themselves versus drilling them on the granite sidewalk to a non-climbing audience (esp. since even the climbing audience here most of the time can't agree on the difference).

Maybe these should be added to the Learn Slab Climing From Experienced Instructors thread. Anyway, maybe the event and team sponsers should be notified about this too since I believe alot of them have Leave No Trace ethic policies. http://cbs.sportsline.com/u/cbs/sports/ http://www.necky.com http://www.adventuresportsmagazine.com http://www.ellsworthbikes.com http://www.montrail.com http://www.mytopo.com http://www.highgear.com http://www.golite.com http://www.visitsanjuans.com Nike ACG Balance Bar (i.e., Cliff Bar) Holofiber Reebok Adventure AROC North Face Timberland Silva Dirtworld.Com Gore-Tex (Bunch of others too)

Was out at GoldBar bouldering for the first time this weekend, had a good time and was wondering if any beta existed for this place. I've also been interested in checking out Middle Earth (I was assuming this was a different place than the GoldBar boulders) but I don't really know since everyone seems to be so secretive about this place. Would anyone be willing to share some beta about it? Thanks. sct