KaskadskyjKozak

RUMR, you are pretty ignorant of what actually happens. Let me explain to you how the Seattle branch works a party of six for a basic rock climb consists of: 1 Climb Leader 2 Rope Leads 3 Basic Students A Basic Student has passed fieldtrips on knots and simple anchors, belaying, elementary climbing, ice axe / self-arrest, and escaping the belay. A Rope Lead has passed the Basic Course (done a minimum of three climbs plus fieldtrips), passed a 2-day fieldtrip on gear placement, and passed a 1-day fieldtrip of leading multipitch trad. Rope Leads are encouraged to practice on their own before going with students, but it cannot be enforced. A Climb Leader has done a large number of climbs (including climbs at the Intermediate level), acted as a Mentored Leader (where the real leader backs off and lets the Mentored Leader take charge) on several climbs, and has been approved by the climbing committee. The main problem with CLs is they are "for life," as I understand, so folks who get rusty are still in the system. This could be a problem. But the worse problem is if you make more stringent rules, you lose CLs. Exactly, Gary. All the Mounties "guarantee" about a rope lead or a climbing leader is that they have fulfilled the requirements enumerated above. There is no "guarantee" that CLs are "safer" than those who learn to climb elsewhere, or are "safe" at all. But you do know the minimum baseline that all CLs have met. It seems that the peanut gallery here loves to jump to conclusions and make claims on behalf of the Mounties and attribute those claims to the Mounties with no basis whatsoever. Prove me wrong and post a link to any literature published by the Mounties that proves otherwise. As I recall the Mounties explicitly tell new students that they are not a guide service, and can not guarantee anyone's safety because climbing is inherently dangerous, and you can get hurt and die, even on a field trip.

I like your new sig!!

There's the rub: the real reason you all hate the mounties and blast them non-stop. Hey, that's cool, but be honest about it.

Please explain to me how leading a pitch on Ingalls slowly with lots of pro is endangering the follower. Still waiting for an answer to this one. Since when is zipping up an easy route "dangerous" to the follower? The only way I could think of it is if you take so damn long that bad weather rolls in or you have to rappell in the dark.

open your mouth and say you are uncomfortable and want a rope.

that's total bullshit. and there's no difference between a noob deciding whether to climb behind a mountie he knows nothing about or hooking up with random CC-com people he knows nothing about either. it's up to anyone taking up this sport to do due diligence in picking climbing partners and as for the follower putting their life in the hands of the "inexperienced leader" - that cuts two ways - the leader is putting their life in the hands of the inexperienced follower - a much more dangerous proposition. and as for your typical asshole comments, go yourself, dickhead.

Yo dickhead, where in my response did I ever proclaim to be a stud? And as far as “designated” newbie climbs go…Exit 38? Exit 32 perhaps? No need to dumb down and deface easy climbs (or any climb for that matter) like YJT with “chicken” bolts. And as for this quote: I call bullshit. First of all, there is a big fucking difference between climb leaders and TAs. A TA’s failure of explanation/supervision results, generally, in less than the loss of his students’ lives. I was on a Mounties climb once where the “leader” placed no less than 20 pieces of protection on the second pitch of Ingalls Peak—took him over an hour to finish the pitch. The “experienced” leader of the group was already on top of the peak—how do you figure that Mr. “experienced” leader was supervising this poor excuse for a climber? This memory still pisses me off today as my wife was the basic student at the end of this “leaders” rope. As a basic student, you sign up for Mountaineers’ climbs believing you’re sharing a rope with a seasoned climber who has the wisdom and experience to keep you safe—many times nothing could be further from the truth. And please don’t start spraying again about what I stud I think I am; I don’t think less of the leader on Ingalls peak because he wasn’t yet a good climber, I’m just pissed that the Mountaineers dubbed him a “leader” when obviously he was not. I commend folks on their drives to become better climbers, but the time to hone those skills is not when my wife’s life is in your hands! maybe you should have done a little "due diligence" in advance of the climb and asked about the climb leaders - what their prior experience is and their reputation.

I read that now REI's flagship charges customers (paying or not) for parking more than 1 hour.

climbed rainier and applied sunscreen liberally to my face and neck and arms multiple times. BUT I forgot two places - the strip of skin between my gaiter and my shorts (when I took off the zip-off leg bottoms) and my lips (lip balm had no SPF rating). The next day I had a red-strip on my left leg that hurt like it had the skin ripped right off, and my lip swelled up to 3x its normal size, blistered, and was not back to normal for 2 weeks

I'm not widely respected or anything, and I agree with KK about the you can do everything right and still get the chop, but in the Sharksfin incident, the climbers had three folks fully weighing one slung block. At the time, that may have been the best option, but in general that is not the smartest thing to do. my comment was more about YJT. we knew little details and immediately everyone assumes the injured person made a bunch of bad decisions and caused his own accident regarding Sharkfin, someone recently made the comment to me about the idea that the climbers were in the "wrong gulley" and "off route" was total BS. According to him there is "no wrong gulley". Not to say that I agree totally with that, but there is a point to consider there. If you are "off route" it could mean that you just have different objective hazards to consider, different risks, and need to adapt, calling on your training and experience to do what you need to do to minimize risk. On a related note, I believe the mounties Whitehorse Mountain climbing route explicitly states that you should not even attempt the Whitehorse Glacier as it is simply too dangerous. you are supposed to ascent via the Lone Tree pass route. There was just a posting on this board about some folks going up the Whitehorse Glacier, and I know folks who have done it. Different route or "off route" can be subjective.

Sharkfin 7/05 They weren't on a rockclimb when that accident happened. They were off-route in a shitty gully. The Mounties did an extensive review of their practices following the accident and had several widely respected non-Mounties on the review board. The conclusions were that for the most part, the Mounties are doing most everything right. They did identify some areas for improvement and are in the process of implementing them, including smaller party sizes. Good point, Gary. You can do everything "right" and still die in the mountains. It's ridiculous to jump to conclusions about someone based on pure gossip as soon as an accident occurs and blame them for being a novice, or doing something wrong.

MOLODYETS'!

it's nice to make things accessible to people with real disabilities - caused by no fault of their own. but I always get a little pissed when I see some fat f*** park in a disabled spot (albeit with the correct license plate), whose only obvious disability is extreme obesity caused by sloth and lack of self-control. these are the same people who own 30+ foot RVs that they drive up to NPs, along with a loaded 'fridge and everything including the kitchen sink - to go "camping".

Has it? The "Euros" pay something like $5 / gallon: link And at least they have real mass transit systems so you don't have to buy the stuff.

This is a good point. Of course, I am usually not to happy to watch a bunch of fat fucks meandering around a good climb. But to each his own. sounds like a good segue to start another fat kid thread!

Nice sig, Dave.

not bad ,he's mine back in the day, my friend parked the wrong way on a one way street, one of the main streets going through port angeles, and we went in to a friends house came back down stairs and sure enough a cop was running the plates. my buddy didn't have a licence at the time, he said he was driving and the cop already ran his plates and knew he didn't have a licence, and told my frined that and so i said he wasn't driving it's his car but i was driving, this happened a few times then the cop asked for my licence so i gave it to him he went and sat in his car and started telling me what a bad person i was for parking backwards and probly lieing to him, so after he gave me my licence back as i was walking away i said, "well in my opion your an asshole and can suck my dick" he flew out of his car and statred screming in my face his face was beat red he was asking what i said, i just turned to leave and said" nothing man" he grabed my arm and scremed at me again this time we were practicaly touching noses. i calm but sharply said" i said in my opion your an ass hole and you can suck my dick" he grew even reder and just stood there shakeing with rage then said i wasn't allowed to say that to him, and that i was threating him, my reply was simply im alowed to express my opion and he can't keep me from doing so at this point in time there were about 6 or 7 people on the sidewalk and they all were laughting there asses off and saying in my opion your an ass hole and what not to the guy. i kinda felt bad but he finally just said if we didn't stop he'd press obstruction charges on us then he just left. probly helped that i was only 17 at the time on the ride to detox, the officers made a stop in Mission Beach to pick up some drunk guy who had been causing problems (disturbing the peace?). Anyway, this guy looked like a rich snobby white-bread type with designer slacks and shirt and obviously expensive hair cut. they threw him in the car, and the whole way to detox, he was screaming at the cops about how they could shove their handcuffs/night-sticks/mace/etc. straight up their asses. And the lady cop kept getting more and more pissed and answered "you're going to jail tonight!", which just got another round of "stick *** up your ass, bitch". I kept chuckling, and they asked me if I had anything to say. To which I said "no, sir". I guess they were full of crap, because they put him in detox not jail, where he immediately started talking about "making a jailbreak". About an hour later he ran for it... and got away. To which the cop on duty said, "it's ok, he'll probably get raped" (this was in a bad part of San Diego in the middle of the night).

I used to love her, then I had Te-qui-la

yeah, I wish. She stuck my butt with her big black stick Yeah, I could skip that part. The Chili Peppers are freaks.

yeah, I wish. I got stopped by a lady cop In my automobile She said get out and spead your legs And then she tried to cop a feel That cop she was all dressed in blue Was she pretty? Boy I'm tellin' you She stuck my butt with her big black stick I said "what's up?" now suck ...

is that why I got cuffed and thrown into a cruiser, followed by 4 hours in detox?

Add sloe gin and beer, get in a sleeping bag and vomit all over yourself in an unconcious state, along with peeing multiple times in your sleeping bag of course, and I got that one covered a couple of times. But those don't even barely make my top stupidist things I done list. How about grabbing my crotch and flipping off a female officer of the paramilitary San Diego Police Department... to her face...

Logan's Run?

something involving 17 shots of vodka in under two hours, some gange, resulting in a black-out and intermittient puking from about 2 am through noon the next day...

I work in software - hygiene is not high on the priority list.