lylabob

It didn't really. We decided to go car to car in a day because we getting to the TH so late, and when we woke up in the wee hours it had already started raining. We went back to sleep for an hour and woke to even harder rain, so we ditched the technical gear and hiked to Lena Lake, then to the massive blowdown covering the trail to Upper Lena Lake. Note to anyone who tries the Brothers this spring: If you run across signs from October saying the trail is closed, ignore them. The rangers have not gotten around to removing them after the October 2006 fires. Thanks for following up, trumpetsailor.

Has anyone been on the Brothers recently? Any beta on conditions? I am planning to try the traverse on Saturday and wonder how the route is looking.

So now I'll be a two-time poster... You did keep up appearances pretty well, Ken, but I could tell you were jealous of my dry clothes. (Rain pants are useless--ha!)

Um, make that "expendable." Heh!

Lots of ideas at play in this thread, but I'll start by saying that seeing "Fahrenheit 9/11" and "The Control Room" (documentary on Al Jazeera) in the space of three days was intense; whatever your politics, I recommend both. And while I have a beef with Moore and how cavalier he is with facts, context, chronology, etc., I value his viewpoint. I also believe that people who don't question his perspective—or question, for example, the commercial on georgebush.com of a few days back that juxtaposed images of Kerry and Hitler—are condemned to their own ignorance. Re: Hitchens as faux liberal, part of the reason I admire him is that he resists those sorts of categories. He wasn't opposing liberals for opposition's sake when he came out for the war in Iraq, but was making a decision where other liberals were hamstrung by the facts that Saddam is bad but war is bad (and, to knee-jerking liberals, Bush's foreign policy should always be considered suspect or, simply, bad). Hitchens doesn't like war, he doesn't like Bush, he doesn't buy the administration's motives, but he thought the ends could be good and supporting the war expedient. Hitchens lays out his personal politics (or philosophies about personal politics in general) in his book "Letters to a Young Contrarian." Below are a couple defining points, summing to idea that our decisions should not be defined by complacency, party lines, single media sources, etc. He doesn't pretend this is easy or that mistakes won't be made, but also doesn't allow that as an excuse for inactivity. Engagement is key. From "Letters to a Young Contrarian": We are an adaptable species and this adaptability has enabled us to survive. However, adaptability can also constitute a threat; we may become habituated to certain dangers and fail to recognize them until it's too late. Nuclear armaments are the most conspicuous example; as you read this you are in effect wearing a military uniform and sitting in a very exposed trench. You exist at the whim of people whose power does not derive from your consent, and who regard you as expandable, disposable. You merely failed to notice the moment at which you were conscripted. A "normal" life consists in living as if this most salient of facts was not a fact at all. ... What I propose to you is a permanent engagement with those who think they possess what cannot be possessed. Time spent in arguing with the faithful is, oddly enough, almost never wasted. Wouldn't it be pointless if he didn't?