MisterMo

It was clear at 4AM when I left. Supposed to hold until Thursday. Currently at Stevens it is just a little high clouds........a fine morning.

I feel your pain. I once assembled a motley collection of cast-off, unwanted poultry: ducks, banty hens and several roosters. I whacked together a quick, inadequate pen and coop and became quite attached to my little flock, especially the ducks. Then the raccoons came....and shortly I was left with only the pen and coop. On the other hand everybody's gotta eat, I guess. The raccoons are no different than the people in the meat aisle at Safeway, huh?

I eat only the supposed "free range" eggs and they are white without exception. They don't taste any better than eggs from tortured, miserable chickens & they cost a lot more but somehow it all works better for me to do that.

I love seeing other people's work, a lot of nice stuff here. Tough to vote and probably tough picking these finalists as well.

I know there's limestone on the South side of the South Fork near there. There was a limestone quarry across the river that fed the cement plant at Grotto. Never been there but: Approach off old Lowe Creek road. There are some small outcrops hidden in the trees on the extreme west end of Baring but I don't recollect what they are.

Molenaar's account, with map, also appeared in Summit mag about the same time. I'm pretty sure John Frieh has a copy.

Formosa = Taiwan

You are paying premiums on yourself, and they are accepting your money, AND they deny your claim? What the fuck? Just curious: sole prop or corp? I know things are weird for corp officers.

Correct. I'm suprised nobody jumped on Blue Mountain = Gunsight (Dome area) after all the ink & effort Beckey devoted to the name change over the years.

Yup. All the Chinese stuff that changes every few years is just new or improved phonetic interpretation of the same word, isn't it? For example Beijing has been previously and widely called Peking and Peiping....but all the while the Chinese called it the same thing?

It was just a desire to get rid of the hill, nothing to do with logging as I recall. A bunch of it was done hydraulicly with the spoil ending up as fill on the tideflats south of downtown. I read 'Profits' eons ago. A very good book

Denny Hill is the Regrade

Howzabout: Tanganika Rhodesia Czechloslovakia USSR East Germany North Vietnam USSR Blue Mountain Peking Mao Tse Tung

No joke, no troll. I use boiling water in the dough. I use a sock on the rolling pin (with flour on it just liike on the pastry cloth). Works like a champ......and........nobody ever leaves any of my pie crust uneaten.

Of course. Just one of the many reasons not to have a real job.

18" inches overnite and still coming. Wahoo.

Nope. Sorry. Wrong. 1)Crisco 2)Boiling waterin the dough & using a sock on the rolling pin. (tie)

Mister Crankin, sir.... One obvious downside is the spectre of having to find and hold a real job, as opposed to, say, napping on a snowmobile in the sun, on Uncle's dime, with occasional breaks for ice cream bars. But that's not til March

So...didn't rule number 4 have something to do with glass houses and stones and shit like that? No hard feelin's eh? Don't forget to carry the 1.

JoshK it stopped snowing and started raining almost exactly when I went out about 5 this morning . It rained pretty hard all day to make certain I got good and fucking wet , and then (mail in your protests) changed back to heavy snow early enough to give me a couple of inches to sweep off my car . Howz that for whinin'? I am torn between being stoked that it's actually being a good skiing winter and being bummed that I can't do all the cool stuff I did last January when it was warm & sunny.

Somehow I feel vindicated for sticking with my old widemouth poly-something bottles which haven't killed me yet even if they were supposed to. On the other hand maybe I should play it safe & stick to bottled beer.

This won't help with the approach. It may help with the stoke. Excellent skiing all the way up to the top of the concave slope below the Kautz ice cliff thing (although it was admittedly less than perfect the day I took this).

The winter route in is well described in Ted Mueller's old book, Northwest Ski Trails. It avoids the avalanche prone slopes near Comet Falls just below the park itself and is a very safe route. I'd be suprised that if Rangers didn't know of it; it was in common use for years and years..........maybe it's just their standard position. Anyhow, (using the 7.5 minute Mt Rainier West quad) from the Christine Falls trailhead ascend following the left side of Van Trump Creek. At about 4200' the creek and its drainage make an obvious right turn; at this point climb NW away from the creek to reach the top of Rampart Ridge in the flattish area at around 4800' Follow Rampart Ridge NEsterly past a short steepish section to where the timber begins to thin, then follow open slopes and benches east of the ridge crest to where a crossing to the east may be made of the obvious stream gully...into Van Trump Park itself. In very extreme conditions this gully crossing could pose some slight avy hazard, but I've never seen it. It's only maybe a hundred feet or so deep if you cross at the best point. Above this point the skiing is safe, obvious, and generally less wind blasted & superior to that above Paradise. Fine skiing can be had all the way up to 10,000' or so. Coming out it's suprisingly easy to be led astray on the flat part of Rampart Ridge; it's a good place to pay close attention. It would also be super safe and feasible to go in Rampart Ridge all the way from Longmire but that would add quite a bit to the trip. Hope this helps. Enjoy yerself. Feel free to PM me if you want more info.

Though I was not aware of this I had not meant to offer him forth as an idol but rather as an individual who posessed the talents for commercial success. I don't know what motivates people to purchase photographs. The availability for sale of prints by Bradford Washburn or Tom Frost would put me in the market pretty quick though.