MisterMo

No, not Langdon, dig deeper.......... My enduring recollection of the City council hearing was Dick Emerson getting up to speak and introducing himself as "Mr. Pat Emerson". He got quite a laugh with that. Pat was then president of the League of Women Voters and, as you can imagine, frequently gave the city fathers well-deserved hell.

That is good. Never knew I was such a badass or kept the company of such evil sorts. Interestingly enough not a single resident ever came out from behind the curtains to say "Hi, Goodbye, Please Leave, Fuck You, or What are you doing". They just assumed the worst & cried to uncle. We wuz just climbin' it.

In the early 1900's a trip out to the Rock involved a hike from somewhere...no houses, no streets, no stupid ordinances. It probably made a pretty nice day wandering out there through some fairly big timber & on up to view ridge for a view of the lake. Probably not to dissimilar from going up to Flattop in Anchorage in the afternoon.

By all means............. Old thread # 1 Old thread # 2 Sign me up for any efforts to get the city fathers to see the light. I was part of the original, doomed attempt to have climbing there not be illegal. It would be fun to go back and win.

So, on an REI upper, a guy I work with had a REI work pack, lugged it dutifully all over the hill daily for ten or fifteen years. By and by a zipper or two failed, maybe a buckle broke or ripped off.........and not knowing anyone else to do the sewing took it back to REI offering to pay for repairs. He didn't want a new pack, didn't want his money back or any warranty deal, just wanted his old worn pack fixed & was more than willing to pay. They fixed it all and charged him zero, wouldn't take his money. YMMV but nothin' wrong with that.

OK let's take a look at your story: You don't seem too eager to tell us how much you'd used it, although you admit that it was beyond BD warranty. And you're being all down on the manager for asking pretty much the same thing. You expect us to believe that it broke "hanging from your pack". Yeah, sure, bullshit. You snagged it on something or you smooshed it against something. Maybe it's cheaply, too lightly, or poorly made or designed but, no, I don't believe it broke just hanging there. It's such a horrible piece of shit REI shouldn't sell it, yet you bought TWO of them. Your insight seems rather finely tuned here......... Then there's your whole testosterone-laden confrontation trip of which you appear fairly proud........... In the meantime all those REI customers that everyone feels so superior to because they're fondling shirts instead of orgasming over wiregates or something have bought YOU two fucking helmets...........like magazine subscriptions or something...........use it a year, take it back and claim it's defective. I submit here both that a 100% Satisfaction Guarantee carries ethical obligations on both sides and that disagreements between adults have a ground rule or two about conduct expectations. Maybe yer a nicer guy than you paint yourself to be, but, based on your account your star ain't shinin' real bright at the moment..............

True dat. There's lots of picturesque crowns popping up lately locally including some monsters that popped all the way to the ground. The latter were earlier in the week though.

Hey DC. I will not make it down (which I think you knew) but if you've the time I'd like to keep up on where you folks get & where you might want to go. Thanks

Bob Kamps passed away a year or so ago.

Great read. Makes me want to read Hemingway.........buy plane tickets.... Thanks

Read, if you have not already, David Roberts Escape From Lucania. Pretty comitted stuff.

I don't walk anywhere in mine that I don't have to. They ski awesomely but you pay a price........ Might be OK strictly for cramponing though.

Thank you. That is sort of the data I was looking for. On another note I've been fortunate enough to have employer (and before that union) paid health insurance pretty much my whole adult life. Nobody has ever asked me diddly & I've pretty much formed an impression that those plans take everyone in a group regardless of individual variables.

In the time frame you describe you could easily do Baker, then Shuksan, then tootle over and maybe do Eldorado or something like that. These are all technically easy but very pretty mountains. You would need to know self arrest and crevasse rescue stuff if you don't already. The tricky part is that some Junes are beautiful and other Junes are horrible. You might never see the sky on the west side at all. Oops. If I had read your post more carefully I might have noticed that you asked about a guide service. My bad

Of course, and rightly so if they had asked and you had misrepresented that fact. I think some companies and governments are moving towards plans that reward participants (through reduced copays or ?) who follow through on some portion of a list of healthy choices. I think King County does this. Don't know all the items but I'm pretty sure tobacco, diet, and excercise are on there. Excercise was the awfully minimal 20 or 30 minutes 3 times a week if I remember. Gotta start somewhere

Of course. But a million, a billion, a brazilian. Not contracting smoking caused disease doesn't mean you won't get any disease. Not dying from smoking doesn't mean you won't die. Something's gonna get ya Higher health insurance premiums for smokers are actuarily justified if the cost of those people's health care, on a long term, to-the-grave basis is significantly higher than those who do not smoke and ultimately die from other medical conditions. If one person dies at, say, 60 from smoking related causes couldn't their lifelong healthcare be cheaper than some one who dies at 90 form another cause? I'm not trying to defend smoking but I sometimes get the sense in these sorts of exchanges that people get the illusion that non-smokers don't die at all, or that when they do they go peacefully (and cheaply) in their sleep. Few are so lucky. Most of us are alotted an expensive little bit of misery on the way out.

OK smoking is bad, bad, bad. A truly unwise thing to do. No quarrel there. That said, everybody dies, and if you make it out of your twenties and escape the auto wreck lottery, chances become much stronger that you'll die of some disease. So if you don't die of lung disease but instead fall prey to one of the many other killers, how much lower will the cost of your care be. Doesn't all of that other shit that kills you cost a fortune as well? Climbers may only escape scrutiny because their numbers are so small. Private pilots, race drivers, and the like enjoy (I think) higher insurance costs.

No, but one may exist. There's currently on vacant chunk in town with a for sale sign up and several parcels up the river, past the end of power, phone, and civilization as we know it. Pretty though.............

Really good points. Thank you.

Index is probably not the best choice for most here, but I'll volunteer our little meeting hall. I'd also attend if it works with my job & I get over this evil flu bug.

The original, "lure the investors", plan for Alpental involved Lifts to the top of Mt. Snoqualmie, the Olympics, and yada, yada, yada. This was not only pre-global warming but pre Alpine Lakes Wilderness as well. I'm not familiar with the boundaries but I would almost bet any dreams at Alpental are constrained by them to some extent.

It is my impression that the Reiter area already enjoys at least quasi-official ORV status with DNR. Much of the upper land, at least, is state owned in one form or another. I suspect the Copper Belle clearcut is private, and I've been told that the pit area is private as well. I fully agree that ORVrs need their little chunk of the world, and I further agree that more stringent enforcement would not be easy or cheap. But what's the alternative? Is it necessary for someone to get killed? I submit that one full-time cop-ranger in Western Washington, paid for out of ORV registration fees, and enforcing a handfull of you'll-wish-you-hadn't-done-that laws with teeth and the problem would lessen in short order. Once upon a time the trail from the mine to Isabel was almost all vehicle free except for a chunk of old road in the middle. Is that no longer the case? I haven't been to Isabel in a long time. See above. I suspect that whole clearcut is patented mining land, not public. As they do in several areas up near and at where the gravel road forks off from the pavement.

not the best idea to post those sorts of words in a public forum. right now there is just some yahoos throwing stuff down, next thing you know you'll have an organized group working against climbers...and there are a lot of ORVers. Better to take the high ground, IMO, and get things done via official methods. Its more work, takes longer, is frustrating, but in the end it might be more effective than starting a war between user groups. A person could maybe go HERE or HERE , start a dialog and see where that leads. Some other observations: 1) It ain't hikers chucking stuff; it's ORVrs A fact which will do nothing to prevent your getting killed. Nobody in their right mind would walk the old road out to the top of the wall in its current state. Twenty-five years ago it was a nice 1 mile flat to a cool view....perfect for taking your auntie from Indiana. Now it's a 1 mile mud wallow. 2) As responsible and serious about preserving access as most ORVrs seem to be, Reiter seems also to draw a large number of dickheads and party-hounds. Law enforcement is pretty lax, due, of course to stretched resources. There's frequently non street legal rigs at high speeds on Reiter Road itself despite clear signage that this is illegal. The trash and environmental damage is absolutely appalling. 3)I've had a couple of interesting chats with the rangers at WFSP (which oversees the state park land up the wall)about dumping issues. They're concerned and do what they can but they're limited as well. A couple of solutions offer possibilities if the ORV community can not or will not behave as a group in a more acceptable manner: 1)Close EVERYTHING above the ponds at the fork to motorized traffic, or at least close the gate up under the power lines about 2 miles from the top of the wall. 2)License ORVs on state land and use those funds for enforcement of some simple rules of coommon decency. There's a shitload of irony working on me here. The young MrMo passionately hated gates and all forms of regimented government supervision and rules, etc.....but every time I ride my (pedal) bike up Reiter a different light shines. The rumbling noises you hear are generations of vice-principals laughing their asses off in their graves.............

Didn't think I commented on Salomons. Did I miss something here?

I've got a pair of Sportiva Glaciers that I've been really happy with for all sorts of things. The last two winters I've also been wearing them at work (in the snow, all day, every day) since I decided I hated klonking around in the Koflach plastics that I bought specifically for that purpose. I have no real complaints. They are plenty warm, fairly light, accept crampons, edge OK, don't kill me on the hike....etc. Since I got the neato blue ones they kind of look like RRs on steroids...........if perchance you remember RRs.