KaskadskyjKozak

the reason we got to where we are is people AND gov't spending beyond our means. now that we've hit a crisis of momentous proportions nobody wants to face this fact and change their lives one iota. instead we are trying to borrow ahead more from our future, let everyone go about business as usual, and change NOTHING I thought some of you progressives were the moral conscience behind this fact, but instead of pointing out how Obama is perpetuating this ruinous path, you are propping him up just because he is "not Bush". that's weak

You sound as ignorant as Choada_Boy. Maybe you are Choada_Boy. So...what do YOU do for a living that we can bring up in this topic and ridicule? Nothing very interesting, I imagine. Actually, let's get this back on track. There is nothing wrong with your profession, Dawg, and nothing to mock about it. What there is to mock is the fact that you dedicate your life to study an ancient people who RAPED the rock while SIMULATEOUSLY engaging in this anti-bolting crusade. Explain just how it is that these ancient peoples are worthy of dedicating your life energy and are seen by you as a positive influence (right?), while anyone who places a bolt is anathema to you? Surely the damage caused to the rock in say, the Valley of the Kings, or the quarries mined to get blocks for the ancient pyramids far exceeds the combined world-wide damage caused by bolts.

whatsup? he's an eager 16 year old kid, right? kinda cold, methinks. yeah, and Dariusiasiusias was cool too...

it's not a bad place to get some climbing in mid-week. kind of hard to make it out and do alpine trad after work... but if you got 3 hours to spare on a Wednesday evening...

Gotta side with Off on this one.

bark at the moon!

and Obama is continuing to prop up this house of cards and bullshit "we deserve more than we could possibly afford" attitude all for now, gotta go trade my clunker in for a new car with free $$$ from Obama!!!

Keep talking about "W" while B-HO drives us to complete bankruptcy.

BORING!

things far above and beyond your intellectual capacities. Go run and play now. I will go run and play as long as you go fuck yourself.

you r nutso joseph... i never really climbed anything that cool to even call myself a climber compared to most, i will say that you definitely (over) compensating for something. feel free to misinterpret that. BORING!

nice cock

Prole would be more interested in a plot correlating communism to butt pirates

FOAD, you little bitch

because population growth has been "explosive" since antiquity - nothing new today Please explain. looks exponential to me.

How then to account for the long periods of history in which these religions existed without explosive population growth? because population growth has been "explosive" since antiquity - nothing new today

better yet, move them into a halfway house next to Kevbone, and he can invite them over to his home for a bowl and a brew.

You're such a downer, man. Agreed. Bug's post is a sad reminder of a heretofore unnamed geriatric pathology: loss of mental faculty. I'm a bit worried about his diet: "outmeal"?

that's just wrong

lol

Hey, cool. We saw you guys simulclimbing just above us, I think. We had two leaders ropegunning two newbie climbers so we had to go slower and less efficiently.

Only in the first pitch. If I did this climb again, I would try to place the pro outside the crack and do it in a way to keep the rope out of the middle.

Trip: Thomson (Thompson) - West Ridge Date: 8/1/2009 Trip Report: Three climbing partners and I were originally planning on climbing Magic and Mixup this weekend but got scared off our plans due to Beta from a friend of a very close call with rockfall rappelling off of Mixup. So, we opted for an overnight of Thomson instead. We hit the TH at 7 am on Sat - it was already warm. The approach via the PCT was the shortest 6 miles I can remember and mostly pleasant. We arrived at Ridge Lake just before 10. After setting up camp and dropping some weight we proceeded to find Bumblebee Pass, which turned out to not be difficult at all. We then saw our objective clearly: Mount Thomson (sometimes spelled Thompson). W ridge is on the left skyline; east ridge is on the right skyline and through an obvious wide notch not visible from this photo (offscreen to the right): I had hoped to be at the base of the route by noon, but the going was slow up the blocky Talus. You drop around 300 feet from Bumblebee Pass, traverse flat ground, then ascend 900 feet of Talus, finishing off with some exciting, but solid, class 4 scrambling to get over the dog's teeth to the notch. I was the first to the notch, so I started to get my rack out and look for an anchor. There appears to have been a stout tree anchor here in the past, but it looked pretty dry and dead now, so I set up a gear anchor. By this time my partners arrived. We started up around 1:30 (I think). The first pitch (30m) is mostly low class 5 with a few 5.6 moves. It has the most loose rock of any pitch (excluding maybe the scrambling near the end). Pro is ample and the climbing is fun. When I pulled the rope to put my partner on belay I noticed the rope was about to knock a football-sized rock loose. I tried gingerly whipping the rope away, but it was no good. I warned my partners that a rock was going to come down, and, based on the way the gully angled didn't foresee an issue. When the rock came loose it took a bad hop and shot left and almost hit one of our party. Very scary start. Nobody was hurt, and the rope was not hit. So much for avoiding rockfall on Mixup, eh? The second pitch was much more solid and had much more sustained mid class 5 climbing with some 5.6 tops. A great pitch with great exposure. This pitch is about 40m. I stopped at a great belay ledge for pitch 2, but once I started up pitch 3 realized it would have been better to go up 10 feet more. Oh well. I continued up a few more feet, and pitch 3 turned into an easy scramble across an exposed slab. I used up the full rope length to set up my belay. I yelled "on belay". I yelled it again. I did rope tugs. Repeat for 30 minutes or so. Maybe 45. In the meantime the bugs that lived in the belay tree were eating me alive, and the sun was beating down on me. Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot! Finally after one of my most vociferous bouts of screaming, filled with profanity my follower started up. I had thought my follower just could not clean some pro and had yelled "leave the f***** piece for the next team to clean". Actually, she was helping try to pull rope up for the 2nd follower. The 2nd lead had only brought 2 double slings, and with zig-zagging zippered placements with single slings had totally locked the rope. I brought in my second, got my pro back, and quickly scrambled over to check out the situation. Looking back up to the belayer while investigating the cluster: I yelled down and found out the cluster had been resolved, I scrambled back to my belayer and continued on to the 4th pitch: This pitch was short and easier than the first 2+. It still had some mid-class moves and great exposure. I put in 3, maybe 4 pieces. Again, doubles are useful (I put a triple sling in with my omni-anchor). Looking down from the 4th pitch: Next "pitch" was a full-rope-length scramble ending in a trail headed down to a belay anchor. Pitch 6 was like pitch 4 but shorter, easier, and with only a couple mid-class 5 moves. Enjoying the summit: My partner and I summitted at around 6:45. The second team followed 30 minutes later. Time was short on the summit and we started down. We opted for 3 single rope rappels and leapfrogged with the ropes to speed things up. After the 3rd rappel, the trail down the east ridge was visible immediately to skiers left. There were no routefinding issues back to Bumblebee Pass. I found the trail across the talus and scree hard to follow in some places, but it was dusk. It was not very pleasant downclimbing/hiking. I was glad to have trekking poles. We got back to camp after 10 pm and were quite glad we were overnighting and not hiking 6 more miles back to the car. Bugs were only just then started to die down. I enjoyed the stars while I downed my flask of scotch. Gear Notes: Small alpine rack, lots of double runners, maybe even a triple. 60m rope, or running belay. Helmet. Approach Notes: Snow free. Buggy.

drink whisky