Pandora

Dude, not when you're dishing out the mountain porn! And wtf is up with that anyway? Boulder Boy Wonder in da Hillz?! Be still my beating heart!

Happy Bday to all the birthday kidz - icegirl, blue_weasel, weber, and Alex_Mineev!

Oh jeezus, just what we need - Dru setting up hundreds more email accounts to supplement his stock of avatars

This sounds pretty cool. Maybe it would look something like ... Whoa, that's the kinda ring I could go for! Maybe the only one.

I'm Primeminister Honeynuts!

Make sure the rest of your body is warm enough. If it's not, bloodflow will be concentrated in your core instead of extending to your hands.

What and where is that climb?

Wow! It's like I got my very own "Worst Photo of You" thread . Thanks for all the 'happy birthday' wishes, guys.

Wow, klenke really *is* a peakbagger! Rockin' the S-over-P in the Rockies, w00t!

Black Cloud Thunder by Twark Might It is eleven PM. Thirty feet of snow has fallen in the last twenty minutes. My fingers are frozen solid. The wind is pounding our ropes and our determination. Our belay consists of one piton hammer stuck three millimeters into a rotting hunk of moss. Harry Hampered is vomiting green and brown spew and bleeds copiously from his rock-fall-broken nose as I get ready for the final pitch of our new route on Les Grands Tombés in Chamonix. Worst of all, I think I’m out of batteries and can’t listen to my Discman. * * * I got the call three weeks ago in Boulder. I was sitting at the Airy Green Fairy café with--let’s call her--Amy. “Twark,” she pressed, sensing doubt perhaps by the way I held my pinky on my espresso-cup hand, “now is when I need you. I’m starting my organic community garden for underprivileged Latino youth with cerebral palsy and autism, and I need your support. I want you here with me and those kids, being a role model and helping.” Away off in the distance, September snows dusted the Rockies. Her voice drifted away into the clear empty air as icy couloirs, sheer granite cracks and ripping winds filled my mind with the usual NWA soundtrack: “You think I give a damn about a bitch? I ain’t a sucker!” “I’ve got stuff to do,” I told her, throwing a fiver on the table and standing up. Idly, I wondered if she was good for another round in the sack, and then forgot about it as I saw the Big Bad Bodies Gym sign down the street. Time for pain. * * * Climbing will go faster, I realize, now that I have cut Leif Trailer free from the rope and he has fallen to the death that suits wussy people who refuse to lead dangerous pitches. His screaming is nearly gone from my mind as I start up the pitch. I find a tenuous placement for my left tool. An enormous chunk of ice slams my right shoulder, breaking my arm. I now have only one arm to climb with. As the pitch begins to overhang by 45 degrees, I have to do one-armed dynos with my left tool to ever smaller holds with no feet. I move up thirty feet on no gear, then grab my tool with my teeth so I can use my arm to put in a screw. “Eat my ass, Will Gadd, Raphael Slawinski and Stevie Haston,” I mutter through a mouthful of tool. “THIS is mixed climbing.” * * * Alpine climbing is brute amazing pain, punctuated with moments of elation that only the few and the proud—the hard alpinists—will (and should) ever be able to savor. I begin my training routine with six hundred one-armed pull-ups per arm off of my Stubai straight-shafts. Bent tools are for posers. I follow this with six marathons and two thousand push-ups. In the weeks that follow, the frequency of Amy’s phone messages drops to around one per day. I get into the Zone, crank up the Joy Division and the Rancid, and get hard. Nights, I rent Masters of Stone videos and wonder at all the losers working boulder problems, prominently displaying their Patagucci and Horse Race clothing. The only way you could get farther from Real Climbing is to sit on a beach and imagine a mountain. And then float up it. * * * “Secure,” I scream at Harry. Towers of black cloud thunder over us as Harry jugs the pitch. He arrives, and I look deep into his eyes, and want to kiss him when he says “You are one crazy motherfucker.” This is why I climb in the alpine—to feel so close to both death and another man that kissing him and watching him die become equivalent sensations and equal possibilities. We are close, Harry and I, as we posthole toward the summit up the final snow slope. Then I hear the rumble of the avalanche. * * * I want to go light. We pack two screws, one nut, three small cams and one two-millimeter rope. Weight is for gumbies. I am naked under my Gore-Tex suit. The harness feels delicious on my scrotum as I test my gear in the privacy of my apartment. We will bring only water, energy bars and caffeine pills, and we will climb for 80 hours non-stop in order to finish the route. Boulder is full of girls with ‘biners holding coffee mugs to their backpacks and morons in SUVs with Petzl stickers as I head to the airport. Maybe the hardest moment of the climb is persevering through the dangerous approach slopes of sport, trad rock, bouldering, aid and gym climbing that threaten to avalanche safe idiocy onto me as I work toward The Real Thing. * * * Hanging with one heel spur, the avalanche roars over me. I vaguely hear Harry screaming as I take his full weight and he dangles in space. Something jogs my Discman, and suddenly the music returns. “Don’t call, don’t call me white,” sings Pennywise, something I can identify with. Who wants to be a member of the lame loser class that dominates? I get energy, and use my arm to haul Harry up. We continue to the top, blink twice, and stumble down toward bed. The next morning, we discuss the route name and grade over coffee. We agree on “Fuck the Entire Universe, Who Are Losers but Don’t Know It,” and grade the route at Grade VIII, WI7 A5+ 5.15c M22X. Harry, after this experience, will never climb with me again. And so, at the end of the climb, I am only really beginning up the lonely mountain of total alpinist commitment. http://www.falling.ca/

What about "Iain European Yourself"

Yep, I'll be there!

men in southern states actually ask women out on dates. men in the nw are either cowards or think it's the woman's job. btw, if i woman doesn't show interest ... well, i would assume she's probably not interested. Why does asking someone out have to be a "job" assigned to a certain gender? If you're interested, just be straightforward. It's all the game-playing that gives people a complex about this shit anyway .

Happy birthday, Jason. You're awesome, scorched shorts and all.

CC and I noticed a group of people over at the Great Roof on Monday. After reading the route description I figured they were working on freeing it. Now I wish I'd gotten a closer look. Here's the photo skyclimb mentioned:

w00t! Drink one for me, Foxy!

Wow! Never heard of this peak. Looks really cool; super nice photos!

After a jaunt on Adams last week, I started to wonder about letting one's hands freeze as training for the mountains. It always seems that if I let my hands get really cold, once they warm back up they are warmer than normal. I was just too lazy to put on gloves in this instance, and the weather was clear so I wasn't worried about permanent damage. So my question is, will freezing your hands (certainly not to the point of actual frostbite) help, hinder, or have no effect on your ability to deal with cold?

Thanks, genepires . The link I found for Rainier ( ldfe93u534nlokg ) isn't quite the same as the forecast used to be. The old one had temperature estimates for Longmire, Paradise, Muir, and the summit. I still miss those, but this is much better than using Seattle's forecast and guesswork .

The one for Rainier (http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/afos/SEA/REC/SEARECSEA)has been down for months It used to say "no current product available" but now I get the same message as blue_morph did, telling me to update my bookmarks. Only it is impossible to find the correct link!

w00t!

This post reminded me of the beginning of the year when I was in the same situation as that woman. It was the second time I'd ever gone rock climbing, and for some reason I decided to follow Karate Crack. All I knew was that I'd climbed one 5.7 crack and that this 10a was 'kinda hard'. Man did I get my ass kicked on that climb. I slowly flailed my way up it, with numerous takes and falls. Still a ways below the hand traverse, I looked down and saw another party coming up below me. I'd never encountered this before, but I thought, "Well I suppose they know what they're doing.". Before this turns into a TR I'll shorten things up: They suddenly realized that people were already on the route. The leader lowered off from where she was, and when we finally rapped down they apologized for crowding us. It was no big deal; I certainly didn't blame them for my lovely showing of gaperosity and all turned out fine.

LMAO

hot Wow, Scott, I didn't know you fantasized about crazypolishbob that way .

Sweet, d00d! It might be tough to get a weather window long enough to do it, and you'll need to leave a car at Paradise or hitch a ride back to the trailhead. Success Cleaver looks like a lovely winter route, and with a name like that, how could you help but give it a go?!