dylan_taylor

And, well, I guess there is no "people" or "cultural" catagory, but...

my scenic runner ups? Shivling night and day in the gharwal himalaya, India

This photo of this mysterious ice formation was my runner up for the ice catagory...

rock climbing... J. N. on Hoop Dancer (Indian Creek)

Bouldering... Jonny C in the Gharwal Himalaya:

Humor????

Skiing...

You are documenting the goat's inate tendency to seek out pee to satisfy its craving for salts. If you wrote an article for National geographic about "The salt-seeking mountain goats of snow creek wall and WA pass" than your photo would be full of journalistic integrity, but if you were to use these photos to portray "the goat in its natural habitat" than some might have issues with that.

I agree with most of the things you said, and I think they are well said. But, regarding above, devils advocate: A sports photographer takes a photo of a basketball player squatting with the ball in their hand, about to leap up and make the shot. The photographer forgot to change the batteries in their D2X and the motordrive is working super slow. The next shot they get off is when the ball has already swished through the net, and the player is about to touch ground again. The photographer is frustrated. They missed the "f(t+.5)" moment when the player was airborne, legs askew, enormous hand palming the ball, look of concentration on their face. Rats. Thats ok, the photographer goes back to their laptop, opens up photoshop, and creates that image that "actually existed" by creating a composite of images they shot throughout the game. If a sports photographer ever did that, I would strongly disagree with it. I agree with griz in that, hey, if you missed the shot, tough luck. There will be plenty more possibilities. What was it Galen Rowell said? "Chance favors the prepared mind". I think that if one uses photoshop as a tool, just like graduated filters, polarizer, etc, to help technology mimic what the human eye would have seen in that particular moment then that is legitimate because it is part of taking a really good photograph. We all know our cameras and our film and our lenses can't always do what our eyes can do. But the problem is when we use our technology to do more than what our eyes can do. Photographers do it all the time. In my book, thats not a photograph, thats a photo-illustration. Just as valid, but I think it ought to be listed as such in the caption. "photo-illustration by so and so". That way, the photographers that had perfect light perfect composition and, IMO most importantly, perfect moment can get from us the credit and praise they deserve.

maybe you can stay at my parents house if you take care of the cats.

where do you plan to use it? The cheapest phones and service plans, i think, are from global star and maybe Inmarsat?, and the phones themselves are smaller and more portable, but they only work up to about 60-70 degrees of latitude (and thats with a clear field of view) and they don't work in the middle of the oceans, or in most of africa or in parts of southeast asia, and probably others too. For the best coverage you would have to get Iridium phones, but they are bulkier and pricier. I rented mine from outfitter satellite - they've got them all. It was the cheapest monthly rental, but they ream you on the fedex overnight shipping(over $100 round trip). In alaska, you can rent them from a bunch of places in anchorage (or from air taxi's), it costs more, but you get it right away.

why wouldn't wiregate ovals work for a carabiner break? shouldn't the rope be over the spines anyway?

Wouldn't lower altitude at the same place mean higher pressure and better weather? Yes it would, I am not such a good editor, huh. Yes! I wrote it backwards, i meant lower pressure, not altitude, oops.

Mike, you know I live in a giant bucket.

The short answer is check out a meteorology text from the library, and read the instruction manuel for your unit. My long-winded, off the cuff answer is this: The unit uses an algorithm to calculate altitude based on barometric pressure, or vise versa. The absolute pressure is the pressure that your watch measures at your location. The "sea level barometer " is quite a useful feature. It does indeed tell you what the atmospheric pressure would be if you could suddenly jump into a hole in the ground and fall all the way to sea level. The reason this is helpful is this: Absolute pressure is directly affected by both changes in altitude and changes in relative barometric pressure (due to changes in weather), while the sea level barometer is only affected by changes due to weather (as long as you remember to recalibrate to the correct altitude). While you are traveling in the hills, your altitude is changing, but so must your barometric pressure (which is inversly proportional to altitude). Unfortunately, barometric pressure also changes over time, because of changes in weather. If you are moving for a while after calibration, and you stop for the night, your calibration might be out of whack again already. By using your map and compass (or GPS) to pinpoint your exact location (and thus your altitude), you can now compare this true altitude with the one on your watch while you are recalibrating. I won't go into the weather forcasting any more than this oversimplified concept: in short, we are looking for positive pressure changes (or negative altitude changes) to signify a continuation of favorable weather. When we see the opposite we may suspect that a less than desirable change is on the way. I especially like the sea level barometer function because: a) you could call a local airport (or look it up on line) and see what their sea level barometer is and calibrate your altitudebased on that - even in a high altitude place like denver, etc - the sea level bar. is just a normalized standard that different people at different elevations can use to calibrate or share information. Just punch in the correct SEA barom. and voilah, your watch is set for the correct altitude. b)On expeditions, I log sea level barometric pressure (post-calibration) in my notebook. It is usually in the neighborhood of 1010mBar for neutral pressure. lower means low pressure, higher means high pressure. As my position on the mountain changes, the sea level baromter always reads somewhere in the ballpark of 1000mbar, and this is only affected by relative changes due to weather, it is NOT affected by changes in elevation, like your "absolute" barometer is. c. you can brainstorm other methods of calculationg an unknown relating to either altitude or pressure Sorry for being long winded. I hope this helps and i hope i didn't butcher the explanation too much. DT

we had ambitious goals for a two day trip from the ski area towards the park glacier but pulled the plug after sampling how awful the crust was, somewhere in the head of the wells creek drainage. The ski area looked horrible. Icy, crusty, etc.

or go rock climbing

Went to baker, had high hopes, but the snowpack was heavy and sopping wet. Got some turns in, sometimes corn, sometimes breakable crust... The touring wasn't so bad, as long as you didn't go downhill Decided to head home and throw in the towl, after sampling some tasty death cookies... I suppose it's rock season again...

In case anyone is curious, here is a shot of pan dome on Nov 17. Hmmm. Get it while its hot - literally. Pun intended, i don't think it's dropped below freezing in the last couple of days and it was certainly cooking when we were touring up there today.

The ultimate solution: Vinylove! 100% waterproof, 0% breathable, and relatively disposable (only costs about $10-$15 in a marine supply store near you) Besides Center-for-disease-control orange, they also come in UN-weapons-inspector Blue!

A metal shovel is better for avy stuff, A plastic shovel is better for digging tent out in storm. on 6 Denali expeditions, I or other members of our group have broken every metal shovel made by black diamond (usually the handel breaks, on a few occasions the blade has snapped with very little prying). On subsequent trips to other places, I have broken 3 out of 3 BCA shovels taken. The only metal shovels that have done a good job of holding up to tons of abuse in our guide service have been Voile shovels. Keep in mind the durability of a shovel when you are racing to dig through tons of avy debris and you are inadvertantly prying because you are desperate. Some of us have also had good results with g3 shovels. Probes: Carbon fiber seems to be less floppy and less prone to snapping than aluminum. Plus, it weighs less so you have no excuse not to be carrying it. It makes avy rescue way more efficient, it can be usefull for pit work, and it is good for finding crevasses below your camp when on glaciers. The probes that come inside shovels suck. In the cascades, it may be more worth getting a 3m pole rather than the standard 2m size. Also consider getting a saw. They make performing stability tests way faster, easier, and more convienent, plus, they really don't weigh too much (wasatch touring makes a tiny folding saw, G3 bone saw also works very well and comes in a case that actually works)and they are good for camp work. suerte

Cross the coleman at 5000' towards the medial moraine and bedrock between the coleman and roosevelt. Sometimes, no more than a few hundred feet up and right from the andesite outcrops, are some "slabs" of ice. 3 or 4 ropelenghts when conditions are right. some years it rocks, some years it sucks. A new hole in the coleman opened up this year (more global warming????) a few hundred feet above this spot. Watch out for hangfire. If you have to wade thru large chunks of ice boulders and avy debris, you should probably rethink your routfinding.

THe other thing i wish i would have gotten are those silly little rubber crampon-covers that you get at REI that all the Musketeers always seem to have. I had always poo-pood those things, favoring crampon bags or tyvek mailing envelopes as my crampon coverage of choice, but now, with the difficulty of carrying razor-sharp fruit boots in my flimsy rucksack to and fro, it gets me thinking...

The boots are perfectly comfortable, and no sharp points hit me in the feet. There are no T-nuts (or any nuts) on the inside, i used stainless steel drywall-type screws, and i predrilled the holes into the plastic bottoms of the boots. I took the boots to the hardware store so i could make sure i didn't buy screws that were too long ( that would hurt! ), but hey, it was just a jury-rig solution, nothing special, and nothing pretty. Jesse, I think you are on to something with the T-nut idea. There are nuts that look like T-nuts, but without the little friction-activated sharp hook thingy's that are on real t-nuts (the kind designed for wood) Instead, there are T-nut-like nuts at the hardware store (kind of like the nuts you see inside of a newer pair of downhill ski boots) that you could use. If I had to do it all again I would go this route. Just drill the holes all the way thru your soles (yes, into the inside of the boot) insert the nut into the hole from the inside, and screw in a machine screw (maybe even allen-head if you want to make it look as fancy as those jobs from La Sportiva, Lowa, Kayland, etc...), cover it up with a regular cheap insole or superfeet or whatever, and you are ready to party. The toughest part for my little project was drilling thru the metal on my bionics. I went thru a couple of bits. I drilled more holes than I needed, in case I ever wanted to change the configuration of the 'pons, or rotate the front bit a little less aggressivley. Good luck. Someone with more creativity and tools could do it far better than I did.

It took a few hours and a few drillbits...