KaskadskyjKozak

your point on fitness is well-made. I researched some of these guide services, and found a lot of stuff on the web from people complaining about the physical challenges, and having a miserable time.

a qualification which you obviously do not meet

shoo, fly

since when does a 17-year-old male have common sense?

it's just KK - Kaskadskyj Kozak. The registration page would not accept blank spaces. Those reports do not go into whether someone took a course or not, in general. However, there is that phrase "exceeding abilities" that appears over and over, and there are certain kinds of mistakes that are mentioned over and over again, which make one wonder where the victim learned to do what they are doing... there are... who said otherwise? Self-taught in this sport just strikes me as potentially very dangerous. Well, that all depends on the individual, and the climb. More conservative - sometimes. More safe... very subjective.

well, yes, that's what I said - find someone you trust who has more experience. but you described a scenario where two beginners just teach themselves trial-and-error

Exactly. Have you done this? Care to fill us in on how this went? My question about these courses is how much you can get out of a class in such a short period of time, and whether it is worth the cost.

wow. that would scare the crap out of me. I've read one too many S&R report on line or in Accidents in Mountaineering.

book knowledge is not enough... you have to at least hook up with some people who have experience that you can trust and who can impart it to you.

Gas prices suck. But we've brought it all on ourselves.

Anybody been up there recently? What are the conditions like?

why not just put everything inside a plastic bag inside of your pack?

It's in John Long's book. The kind of thing you learn by heart when you are beginning and then forget and do naturally. :-)

seems climbing is down in general... see other threads on Rainier attempts, etc.

As I said before, no rock anchors. It doesn't take a genius to girth-hitch a tree. A basic student isn't going to have a clue what SRENE means. bullshit. they teach more than girth hitching a tree. and they teach SRENE

They teach belay anchors, and from there you could graduate and take the crags course or the intermediate course, or just buy John Long's book, and learn with other, more experienced climbers

I just moved to shorten my commute, and plan to start biking soon myself. No more driving to and from work and then the gym. kill two birds with one stone. I'll just bring deodorant to mask the sweat. Maybe people will bother me less if I stink?

Remember people talking about Clinton Fatigue? Well, I've already got Bush Fatigue and Iraq Fatigue. Guess that's another thread though.

You could take the mountie's basic course and then just go off an climb whatever you want w/o worrying about "graduating". Graduation is geared towards continued participation - in advanced courses, becoming a volunteer/leader, etc. But many people just take a class to learn what they can and move on.

Which is the most glaring example of this that you see in the anti-invasion/war camp? monomaniac

software people have poor hygiene anyways, so who cares about the sweat?

nice troll there are people on both sides of the Iraq debate who are clueless with their oversimplified positions based on ignorance.

another back-seat driver with no kids, talking out of his butt

I mean it's easier to kill them, ignore suffering and injustices in their countries, and be just indifferent to it all, if you know nothing about them. It's also easy to oversimplify relations with those countries and solutions to their problems.

it's easier to care less about people and countries that you know nothing about