selkirk

Outdoors everything is fair game

Both times i've been up I actually split the difference and mantle at about the 1/2 or 2/3 point. Worked hands to about the 1/2 way point and then hook a heel/knee to get in a piece of gear, then finish it out. The pro in the crack is really pretty good Sherri! Just make sure you have 2 blue TCU's when you start the traverse and you should be golden The second pitch is also a nice get

Besides, she likes to suffer. Why else would she have run the Seattle in the snow? Pneumonia sucks big time though, definitely don't want to go there. The one time I had it, one hard weekend migrated me from ambulatory but feeling OK except for a bad persistant cough to bed ridden.

So how's the pooch working out?

Anybody driving out tomorrow? I'd love to get out the but usual crew is busy or injured I come with my own rope and aluminum tutu of course!

Has any body else seen the juice-box sized wine boxes? Have become a new favorite for lots of skiing friends

Supposed to be Kevlar. I've got a Max Cam that uses the same cord (I think!) and after about 1/2 seasons worth of use show's no wear at all.

that's not true. I was a coach's kid. God did that suck. I had to work twice as hard for the same amount of playing time and still got looked at crosseyed . . . I suppose it was good for me though.

Actually after looking at Summit Post I think it might have been Criminally Insane. I always had the impression Suites was quite a bit further than whatever I was on. 6 clips, significantly overhanging at the top, with an interesting mantel where it goes from very overhanging to the flat pillar top. Two short chains set way back (10+ ft from the edge).

I went to the same school, and you could get out in 4 years with an engineering degree, but only if everything went to spec. Fail a class, decide you want a minor, decide to do something out of order, or an extended internship and it almost immediately added either a semester or year. On the flip side Mrs. Selkirk came out in 4 years with BA's in Poli. Sci. and Philosophy and a minor in French mostly because she'd damn smart, but partially because a great deal of her coursework did double duty.

Says the single girl (I'm not quite sure that dogs count )

i'm in a teacher's union and it isn't anathema to me to see higher pay for jobs that are actually harder to fill - that seems like straight market economics to me - if you wanna reduce my pay so you can pay a math teacher more though that will be pissing me off, as well as insinuating that what i teach (social studies) is less valuable that math/science in the grand scheme of things. Seems like that's what would have to happen eventually if supply and demand ever factored into teacher salaries. Maybe not straight off the bat, but when you are taking the funds out of the same pot - eventually someone with a BA in English is going to top out at a lower comp level, or get a smaller merit increase - and that money will be landing in the hands of the folks with the more valuable (in the strict economic sense) qualifications. Knowing what I do about the respective difficulties associated with securing a degree in the hard sciences, versus securing a degree in the humanities (did both), I think I'd be pissed off if the guy with the degree in English was making the same amount of money that I was. Is there even such a thing as a "weed-out" course in English programs? Seems like taking the money out of administrator pay, or cutting the number of administrator's would be a politically acceptable way to get beyond the "fairness" impasse.... All this "English Major" bashing is starting to piss me off...so of course you know now what I studied! There were PLENTY of "weed-out" courses...ever taken a course in Post-Modern American Poetry? A little Ezra Pound? Read much Thomas Pynchon or DeLillo? Writing critical theory abstracts?! Puh-lease! Though I will grant you that most of those were electives, not required, so I guess one could get an English degree without going taking courses like "Chaos Theory in Literature" like I did. My only point is, please stop bashing the English Majors! Some of them (like me) are really good at math/physics too!! I would agree with your point about administrators however... No bashing intended. However, the reality is that it'll take the average person far more time and effort to get a degree in the hard sciences or engineering than it will for them to get a degree in either the social sciences or the humanities. Getting out in 4 years with an engineering degree is getting harder and harder. When I went through (close to 10 years ago) I took 1 upper division humanities elective too early (sophomore year instead of senior) and that alone nearly screwed up my coursework schedule enough so that it could have taken me 5 years. Had to get special permission to ignore pre-requisites on a few classes I never remember hearing about issues like that outside of engineering/sciences. and by "not having weed out classes" I don't think he meant not having hard classes, but not having classes where 30% of the students fail every semester.

Was out at the Feathers over the weekend and made a run up a 5.10ish climb that wasn't in the guide book and was wondering if anyone had a name/grade for it? It felt 10a-ish, or maybe soft 10b, and was about 100ft uphill and to climbers left from the pillar with Satan's Wagon and Blood Blister on it. TIA

you sometimes spend a long time hanging from pins and hooks

1. You spend a lot of time alternating between adrenaline highs and wanting to wet yourself. 2...

Ever notice that the new small Zero cam's, or the Splitter Gear cam's from a couple of years ago, come from the factory without teeth? As I understand it teeth mostly make people feel warm and fuzzy, and I guess could concievable make them sit better around crystals, but the holding power has nothing to do with the teeth.

Is the wall going to be indoors or outdoors?

TMI Tipping dangerously close to spray, here, fellas... Please respect the OP's request. Thank you, and we now return to your regularly scheduled program. Rob's not too far off: at least the one is well worth mentioning. Wet wipes--moist towelettes--or better yet, Baby Wipes, are a high-demand commodity at populous base camps, such as on the Ruth, in Patagonia, and on Everest (only not this year on E ). Friend of mine brought several cases to Nepal and was able to trade them up for single malt, among other things. Fortunately, few climbers need body glide, and I don't think I'd want to climb with any that do. Good thread. Why haven't we yet seen any tips/tricks for removing stubborn booty? I thought that's what single malt was for? Only trick I have is patience, though small gentle circular motions seem to work. Hard pulls only serve to set it and change the orientation making it even tougher to get out. The only pieces I've lost (nuts) worked themselves into some where I couldn't get at them with a nut tool. Here's a pretty common one but I haven't heard it mentioned. When lowering and cleaning on an overhanging route clip quickdraw to your belay loop and the other line (running up through your gear). Makes it easier to clean on lower.

So Mrs. Selkirk and I just killed off the bottle of Dalwhinnie :) Very tasty stuff! Any suggestions for the next Whiskey? Contemplating the Black Bush Archie mentioned, but very open to suggestions

Stay the hell away from static ropes unless you really know what your doing! Short (3ft) falls on static rope can generate some really large force. Just a bad idea until your sure you need one. If you really want 1 rope, I'd say go 9.8mm, bi-color/pattern, 50 or 60m, dry. It'll hold up for top roping just fine, and won't be quite as heavy as 10.2 or 10.5 And no need to worry about a crevasse fall breaking the rope. Single Ropes are designed for leader falls onto carabiners which generate much higher forces than crevasse falls. That's why lots of people use 8mm ropes for glacier travel, you just don't need the strength of 9.5 or larger single rope to stop a crevasse fall or set up a pulley system.

We always had cats and dogs. When my dad got the Jack Russell's our old, fat, diabetic, grey cat used to sit on the coffee table with her paw cocked, waiting for them to go by and smack them for the fun of it. She was definitely the matriarch of the hosue. We also had a little tiny cat that used to chase dogs (she'd sit on the front porch and wait for them to come into range.) Though one of the funnier things was the sheepdog and the little calico we had. They'd actually sleep together. But when the cat got cabin fever in the winter she thought it was fun to run over the sleeping dogs nose a full speed to get the dog to chase her One thing to remember about cats, is that if you get the dog as a puppy, they learn pretty fast that cat's have sharp thing on the end of their feet. I think the danger is introducing high prey drive dogs (husky's, sounds like akita's) to cat's when the dogs are already adults. Also a lot of the herding dogs have the chase/heard instinct, but don't have the prey drive, so all they do is the chase part. Oh, and dog's love cat food!!

One way to think about it is that Your Falling Energy = Potential (PE: how high you are) + Kinetic ( KE: how fast your moving and how fat you are). Your total energy = constant while your falling. As you fall PE goes down and KE goes up. Energy = Force * Distance Once the screamers activates it keeps force constant at 500lbs (? or whatever) over the length of the extension. So the Energy Absorbed = 500 lbs * Extension (say 18 inches?) Your rope acts in a similar fashion by absorbing energy as a spring Energy = force * distance So long as things stay dynamic and the rope/screamer are extending while providing resistance the force transmitted to the gear isn't so bad (500lbs). Once you run out of extension, and your screamer goes static, and your stretch is eaten up, then you start to get big force as there is still energy to absorb, but it has to be absorbed by a very small extension. Screamers help for the same reason that static runner/static ropes generate high forces. (Static = little stretch = very little distance, so for a fixed amount of energy, this drives the force component up to disipate the same amount of energy.) In the limit of a pure static (no stretch at all) fall you'd theoretically generate infinite forces. Can anybody guess my profession now :p

I was roped up for the first time at 5, and started hoisting haul bags (my younger sister) with the bear pulley systems in the rain forest about 6. How I didn't become an aid climber I'll never know.

You'll make someone a good better half