ashw_justin

No see that's just it: the government gets $15 for a permit and this would be totally normal, except that it exclusively and noncompetitively oursources permit sales to Active.com (a ticketmaster clone), which then fleeces you with a 47% middleman fee for simply running your credit card. The government is guilty of shirking its duty to provide a service (i.e. selling and managing permits) that should be paid for by the climbing fees it is charging. I call that fraud. Not to mention that a private company should have no place as a middleman, collecting and marking up fees for access to public lands. That is government-subsidized scalping.

Sounds like we have been duped by the media on this one. They came down on the same day, on their own. I would hardly say that climbers were 'rescued' off of the mountain as reported. I'm totally guessing, but perhaps they were walking out anyway, and just called for some directions.

The Man will assure you that it is not free before April, by giving you a fat ticket for not having a sno-park pass. But at least with that permit you are actually paying for something (plowing of the roads).

Agreed about pre-programming waypoints. Re: innaccuracies- proper use of a GPS includes being able to estimate signal quality/consistency, so one should at least know when to trust it or not. Also, contrary to the widespread opinion that GPS elevation readings are poor, I've generally found them to be pretty accurate above treeline (>4 strong signals).

Understood, thanks for the info. (I guess I could have worded that second question better.)

Did they approach via Illumination Saddle? If so, why didn't they just have the GPS on, on the way up? Retracing your tracklog can be the easiest and most powerful way to use a GPS, especially in a whiteout. Is it safe to assume that this was an unsolicited, precautionary decision made by rescue folks? (edit: I should have worded this 'did they ask for someone to come get them?')

Word is out. Hood epic make famous, give story tell gurls for get layd.

(*edited out thanks to reporting of actual circumstances below*) layton I'm not seeing the express line (one plank or more) anywhere on those floormaps. Did they sell out of skis already?

Well, only if the video was so sick that they died while watching it. skull

I don't think they could have actually known it was 37 feet. They probably just estimated the maximum theoretical height one could conceivably have fallen vertically. People routinely huck 100+ foot cliffs without injury--albeit into powder. Other people were reportedly hitting this particular jump without problems. The problem is that risk requires skill (including the ability to judge terrain), and the vast majority of ski area patrons aren't prepared. Maybe they should hand out day passes to the 'big' park only at the bottom of the 'small' park, and only after a clean, controlled run.

I'm thinking about two different arguments. The first is, do we as a society have the collective responsibility to help prevent the naive/stupid/hyper-aggressive from accidentally maiming/killing themselves? The second is, should the operator of a business be compelled to respond in some way to repeated severe accidents occurring on a particular artificially engineered feature? I say no generally to the first one, even though there are many counterexamples (such as protecting youth by controlling their behavior). On the second, I think recreational parks do need to try actively to cut down on the devastating injuries. I'm not saying I know the best way to do that, but then again I'm not running the business.

Too much music enjoying! You stand around buy alcohol, or you out mister!

"The number of people that hit a jump is inversely proportional to its size. ... Even in the biggest parks, the number of people that hit the biggest jumps is in the single digits on any given day." Well by that reasoning the accident rate just gets higher (15/x?). So the ski area management was either oblivious, or consciously ignoring the problem. Either way that's bad business. For lack of a better explanation, they assumed that they didn't have to do anything about it because they couldn't be sued. Cop out?

I think the two main reasons why this resulted in a payout to the plaintiff are 1) trial by jury (unavoidable sympathy bias) and 2) the ski area's negligent/dismissive attitude toward severe injuries happening in its terrain park at the time. Devastated young man vs. heartless company. It seems like not only did the ski area know exactly how badly people were hurting themselves on their huge(?) jumps, but also quite clearly didn't give a shit. I'm very sympathetic to the 'ski at your own risk' philosophy, but misjudgments are a given. It's also given that the bigger you build jumps, the more severe the consequences of inevitable mistakes will be. Given these two facts, the ski area does in fact have control over how many severe self-inflicted injuries occur. Yet ski areas consciously decide that the appeasement of the status quo to 'go big' (i.e. keep the customers coming back) is more important than avoiding inevitable severe injuries. I have mixed feelings about the legal implications of the ruling, but if anything, it screams "wake the fuck up" to ski areas that bring in a lot of dough by operating terrain parks. People maiming themselves in terrain parks could actually be bad for business. But looking at it from the other side, what can a ski area do to reduce the rate of severe accidents in big terrain parks? How do you protect the naive/dumb and aggressive from themselves? I think it would have to do something with restricted access and a second waiver.

Huge thumbs down for the new Mt. St. Helens permit system. With no alternative and no competition, the feds are asking climbers to pay an extra 47% directly into the hands of active.com, ("partnered with ESPN") for the opportunity to legally climb in public federal lands. $7 may not seem like a huge deal, but what else in regard to recreation on public land are the feds willing to put into the pockets of private companies? If the feds are going to forgo the work of vending permits, then apparently they should be getting $7 less per permit. And what does that $7 "service charge" get you? From the sound of it, absolutely no service whatsoever. What a scam.

Immigration is not a "terrorist" problem. Terrorism doesn't scare us remember? Isn't that what Bush told us to think? But I'm interested in the broader topic nonetheless. I think it's interesting to consider who the losers will be in the event of a crackdown. Obviously, those kicked/kept out will stand to lose something. But who else? The general (citizen) public? No, not really... Who else stands to lose? Large sectors of business/corporate america. Big time. Specifically, those currently invested in the very cheap, no-strings-attached source of labor offered by our illegitimate brethren (agriculture, construction, etc.). I'd be curious to see an investigation of just how much time and money is being spent by such businesses to coerce lawmakers, and/or to help rile up public opposition to immigration reform. Just follow the money...? Citizens cost more. Those in the business of exploiting cheap labor will see both citizenship and banishment as equally profit-deflating villains. So, why fight immigration reform? Isn't it time to do something before our entire lower working class consists of illegal (and illegally exploited*) illegitimate residents? Give the ones already here now a chance to become legitimate citizens (so they can stop being exploited*); go medieval on companies that employ illegal immigrants because they are cheaper than legitimate workers. This does seem to be the problem, right--Mexican laborers know that there are jobs waiting for them here, even if they come in illegally. *you may argue that the subject may not consider themself 'exploited' (and then argue that if it's so bad, then why are they here?), but by legal standards of employment and workers' rights, these are by far the worst treated workers in our country.

Logically since this would essentially define a new route, the climb up to such alternate/short anchors should be named something different to avoid confusion. Something catchy and meaningful, like "Gang-hangers."

More motivation for us to climb 5.11

Well also there is the logic that no hardman superstud should have to be shut down from getting on this uber-classic tuff route, because some poser yuppies are hanging all over the sit-start...

V-Tech government conspiracy strip populace means protect itself totalitarianism baa skull

Yeah really, those three guys on Hood didn't seem to have any problem?

Get your bikes now. When we run out of fossil fuels we won't be able to manufacture bikes, either.

I wonder how many folks see bikes beating them to work, yet still fail to realize how much simpler/cheaper/faster it would be for themselves to bike-commute. I guess that contrived contests like this help to puncture the widespread dogma that cars are the fundamental mode of urban transportation. The whole Lance/fancy bike craze has done a lot for urban biking--now even affluent middle-aged people have caught on. That's why I have no problem with the lycra-clad types riding their $5000 bikes in the middle of the road--one less car clogging the streets, threatening to run me over.

Well that depends. The booming rock climbing economy has come with a steady inflationary rate of perhaps one letter grade every 5-10 years. So yes, perhaps in the late nineties we were seeing Mambo go at 5.10a; but as consumer demand for higher ratings remains strong, current forecasts are putting all of your favorite hand cracks in the mid-5.11 range by say 2015. (Experts are optimistic, and continue to ignore the possibility of a market crash, in which a new fad sport emerges, and the only market left is composed of sandbagging hardasses.)

Oh yeah I forgot. What is Mambo up to now, 5.10c/d?