Double_E

A few years ago in Royal Basin, before our attempt on Mt. Deception, I found myself realizing that iceaxes make excellent cathole-digging tools. cut thru that dirt and glacial till like butter. i thought (and probably said) to myself: "...niice... one more reason to love the iceaxe.."

SJ, have you seen my recent thread re. Mt. Shasta? you want to climb Shasta on your way down there to the Whitney area??!! Maybe August 5/6? cool, man. that works for me. and especially this part: I can't be-liieeve how many people on this site seem open to the idea of connecting with a total stranger via the internet, meeting them for the first time at a trailhead, and then 2 or 12 hours later roping up to climb a heavily glaciated peak, or else a big wall climb or something..... without getting to know each other on a long dayhike or a practice climb, etc. pretty fuckin crazy, if you ask me.

wasn't there some Edward Abbey book where he was talking how he'd measure the distance to some place by the number of beers it took to get there? sayin how (for instance) it was like "yep, it's five beers to Durango" .... "might be seven beers to Flagstaff"... etc etc (??)

bump. OK... anyone know of a northern Cal version of CC.com? or have any friends down yonder who might want to join?

I swear, much of this thread, and the one which spawned it, have made me realize more than ever how arrogant, smug, and self-important some climbers are. Intersting how some of the most super-hardcore climbers I meet, either in person or on websites, tend to remind me a lot of the computer geeks I've met in my time ... skinny, sort of odd/awkward/etc ... probably were outcasts and picked on in high school ... but then eventually got reeaally reeaally talented at something that they rest of the world can't do .... and consequently developed a lifelong smugness and arrogance towards the rest of society......including towards climbers like myself who aren't true climbers cuz we don't do "this" type of climbing or "that" type of climbing. On the other hand, some of the-most-awesome people i've ever met have been climbers too.. which is probably part of the reason I got into climbing.

funny.. amongst squirrels and bees and other animals, threesomes are probably usually of the MMF variety, whereby the males of the species are just competitive enought to hunt down the same receptive female at the same time, whilejust uncompetitive enough to the point where they dont mind a little bit of the other guy's goods getting a chance at fertilizing said female. I somehow doubt that MFF threesomes are that common in the animal world.. few non-human male animals are smart or suave enough to seduce more than one female at a time. on the other hand.... Interestingly enuf, MFF threesomes in the human world were probably invented (and much needed) shortly after the earliest wars between the earliest tribes, 10s of 1000s of years ago..... men suddenly found themselves in a situation whereby the tribe was all of a sudden like 75% wimmin. sigh... the one single, solitary benefit of war.

I'm kinda rusty on my chemistry, but... wouldn't ANY/ALL food take longer to rehydrate/cook/etc,.... at 17,000 ft?

yeah I'm up for some z-pulley practice, thatcher. A few weeks ago, myself and a few others were talking in a couple different threads about wanting to do this (and with some of them, the idea was to do this as a precursor to climbing Rainier, Baker, etc, with each other). Well the idea(s) kinda fizzled out... long story ... but from my end of things, a sprained my ankle made me have to put this and lotsa other stuff on hold as of about 3 wks ago. Anyway, the ankle's pretty much better. and so this weekend, I went and did a one-day crevasse rescue class with RMI. Did it on this steep snowfield about 2 miles north of Paradise. I learned a shitload ... had done Z-pulley before, but really needed to brush up on it. Also made plans with a couple of the classmates to maybe just maybe hopefully climb a glacier or two later in August. Yeah but so one thing the guides said which struck home was that you really got to practice this shit again and again.... also said that, while it's good to do so on snow/ice, you can and should set up the ZP in your backyard or driveway, just cuz practicing the mechanics of it are almost as important if not more so than doing it in on snow/ice. (had also heard this promoted a lot in this recent thread in the Climber's Board.) so let's get together some evening after work and play with pulleys and prussiks in my driveway, or else yours.... and then maybe go up to Rainier for a day and do it. got plans with two others for driveway ZP practice for Wednesday July 27, about 6 pm ... also tentative plans for the Emmons route on Rainier, weekend of August 20/21. PM or email me!

mmm. yum. before I got hooked on the freeze-dried stuff, one of my favorite alpine dinners was "tuna, noodle, n' cheddar slop." highly recommend Backpackers Pantry dinners. not only do they have a ziploc seal which makes cooking go faster .... but also, the ingredient list also has an item called "vitamin supplement". Idon't care too much about supplements when I'm in the city, (prolly should i guess), but I do like having them up in the mountains. taste pretty damn good, too, compared to some dried dinners.

I and I no waan no muss, no fuss .... wid da fancy diinah.

Going mountain biking with some friends in early August, near Lake Tahoe. Hoping to climb Shasta on the way down there or on the way back. (Probably on way down.) Anyone else want to come along for the Shasta part?? I'm thinking of doing it solo, but would totally enjoy some company. Would do one of the easy routes, either Avalanche Gulch or else Clear Creek ... Or, could also be talked into doing a glacier route, if people are gungho on that and know their shit..whatevr. Two-day trip...camp one night at trailhead and then one night at like 10000 ft. Ideal dates would be July 31 - August 1 (Sunday/Monday), but any dates between July 30 and August 6 could potentially work. For general Shasta beta, go here and here.

The purpose of terrorism is just that.... <<long pause>> ...to terrorise people. --Tony Blair, on the telly a few minutes ago. watta fuckin genius. maybe he's trying to bring himself down to Dubya's level. maybe Dubya's cronies have been telling Blair's cronies "..c'mon now, does he have to appear so damn braiight all the durn time? he's making our boy look dumb."

I think this needs an illustration... taken from a long-gone thread. thanks again to Dru for the url ( www.cougardate.com ) and to Fejas for being brave enuf to venture far enough into that site to find this priceless picture.

well, if you're a young guy and the chick's older, i think one term in use is cougar. not sure if it's a young girl and an old dude. get yer terminology straight, TLG... "Cougar" has a very specific meaning. it ain't just any older broad. it's a skanky older broad who smokes a lot of cigarettes and wears lots of makeup purchased at Walmart and hangs out in bars, trying to pick up young men.

thanks.. yeah, I keep forgetting about TAY.com. great site. ...um.. unless I'm much mistaken tho (have jussst started the scoping/map work on it all) ... the Hotlum/Wintum route isn't the same as either route I mentioned. looks like CC might sorta skirt the edge of the Wintum Glacier tho..(?) hey another thing,.. anyone know... between CC and AG, which is gonna offer the better glissading??

anyone go up the Clear Creek or Avy Gulch routes lately? also, any chronic Shasta climbers have any "predictive beta" on what those routes will be like the first week in August? I actually just called the Avalanche and Climbing Advisory number, from this site ..... VERY COOL how detailed of a report the message gives you!!!! for instance, road to Clear Creek TH is currently about 1/2 mile snowed in. anyway, was wondering if anyone else had 2 cents to add.

nice beach picture, BreezyD! here's some from my trip to Point of Arches, about 13 months ago. still need to put up my pics from this summer's beach hike....

I'm with ya on that one, Fern. as long as it's above say 50 degrees, I'll just brave the rain (if it's light to moderate) with layers of polypro..... all the while daydreaming about the nice dry goretex I'll put on when i get to camp.

nursing a sprained ankle. (it's fine to walk on, on flat ground, but stairs or other uneven ground is not going well). was hoping for a hike and skillz-practice at Mt. Rainier on Sunday, but that ain't gonna be happ'ning now. so instead .... doing a couple gravel road rides on my new bike (Iron Horse Trail yesterday, maybe Tiger Mtn tomorrow). taking some shit back to REI, maybe buying some other shit. catching up on emails, photo stuff, music stuff, Spray, and other computer ..... stuff. BBQ at friend's house on Monday, then maybe head down for the fireworks afterwards if we dont get too crunky.

When I climbed Olympus, we didn't do the last 20 vertical feet of the summit block, cuz of lack of rock protection (nor superlative rock skillz). When I clibmed Hood, we were speculating as to whether that rocky crag over thataway was maybe just maybe taller than the thing we were sitting on. The two times I climbed St. Helens, we made it to the rim but not to the very highest part ot if. (one time cuz of brutal winter weather, one time cuz of summertime lazyness). Still in all, I consider all of the above successfull "summitings" of those peaks. standing on theee-very-highest part of the mountain (give/take a few meters) is so relatively unimportant to me, compared to all the other reasons to be up there.

why don't you like Fox forx, Ken? I' just got my first one (Talas RL) and love it. most people seem to put them on equal footing with Marzocchi. actually I haven't found that to be true at all; some say noway, you gotta just buy the other parts separately. when I bought my Stumpjumper at Gregg's Greenlake, I wanted to swap out the SPD pedals for Times... they said they could only give me 20 bucks credit for the SPDs ... ... not their full retail price of 80... said it was cause, even tho they were brand new (not even on a bike ont he floor yet), they couldn't be sold for retail prices cuz they weren't in their fancy, sleek box, they just came in the big box from Specialized. I finally got them to give me 50 bucks credit, which is close to REI's killer price on the same pedals, so ... that was all fine n' good. sounds like some fun night riding there in Rwanda, Ken!!! first time I ever rode a motorcycle (well, for more than a 1/4 mile at least) was on rural roads in India... dodging laughing kids, cows, goats, oxen-carts, busses, etc. ... that was in daytime tho.

Knock knock. Who's there? Nyuk Nyuk Nyuk, nyuk who?? MisterE, the king of the nyuk, nyuk jokes.

I'm sad, sad, sad,.. about the fact that haven't been to Europe for a whopping 8 years now.

Marie .... most (not all, but most) of the stuff that guy did & said was pretty weak. Still, tho.... That's fuckin ridiculous. If you don't like the way a date's going, just finish your dinner real quick (or whatever portion of it you want to eat), ask for the check, split it halfway, then get on your merry way out of there. I mean, if something your date says really, REALLY pisses you off, to the point where you can't stand one more minute of him (or her), just walk out of the restaurant, whether or not you can do so secretively ...... and stiff the asshole (or bitch) with the bill. but why plot/contrive stupid lies like that? lame.