RJRiha

I can agree with that.

Does anyone know if this has anything to do with how the Index climb "Deal With it Ranger" got it's name?

Try using some other grains in there in addition to sorghum. Maybe some oats would help out. Sorghum beer seems to have a very strange flavor. My co-worker brewed this due to a gluten problem, but it tasted very watered down and thin. Some oats would guarantee a little more body and probably consolidate the flavor (but this is just speculation). You could also consider using buckwheat, millet, or quinoa (sp?) as part of the grain bill, or as a steeping grain if you go partial mash. So I assume you're making this from extract? I understand it is quite difficult to find malted sorghum and even to brew with it. You should definitely use steeping grains in the recipe.

I went to J-tree for the first time this year, and was extremely intimidated on the climbs there. So much so that I only ended up leading 3 routes. I'm pretty solid on L-worth 5.7/5.8, with only 1 5.9 gear lead before J-tree. My second lead there was a 5.10d (Hobbit Roof), and there is no way on God's green Earth that I could sack up and lead a 10d in L-worth. Third lead was Super Roof (5.9)....my gosh, what a downright FUN route (had to do it twice) I didn't feel that the grades were any harder than Leavenworth, but the gear did feel more tricky. For "sport" climbing, you MUST do the 5.6 route on Headstone rock, just across from Ryan campground. The group I was with called it the "scariest 5.6 in the world"...total 5 star climb even considering how short it is.

Hexes, stoppers, and offsets... you don't need no stinkin cams! those are tasty meatballs You should go get on the UTW... its cool! Those are pretty big cracks up to the obvious chockstone. I didn't see where any stoppers or offsets would plug...maybe deep within the crack up against one of the many chockstones. I plan on getting on the UTW after I finish the obvious aid lines on the LTW like City Park, Iron Horse, Shirley, TPMV, and Stern Farmer. So far I've only aided one route and that was Steel Monkey in the Quarry.

Trip: Index - Date: 11/8/2009 Trip Report: Less than 2 days until I'm in SoCal sampling the Joshua Tree goodness. What better way to spend a day than a trip to the best granite crag in the world. I can't let rock season end yet. My girlfriend Tiffany has never led on gear, but yet some reason she agreed to come along to a trip to Index for some aid. I'm an aid newbie and wanted to get on City Park, but wanted something that we could all climb, so I thought Toxic Shock would be a good idea. I'm thinking, the 5.8 double cracks have really straight forward gear placements, and Even Steven would probably be a good clean aid route for me, so we head up to that area. The Skykomish valley was drenched and more rain was coming down, so we set up a tent at the base of the double cracks, and start aiding. Belaying out of a tent is the way to go. It turns out that that tons of #2/3 BD Camalots would make the pitch up to the rappel flake go very easy, but I don't have enough cams....my buddy Bounder fills in the gaps with my hexes, and an hour later he's down at the base with a top rope set up. At this point our late start, and Bounder's hour long lead don't inspire Tiffany to want to give this alien style of climbing with gadgets a go, so I strap on some rock shoes over socks and clean the pitch. We should have done it free in the first place; the water running down the rock doesn't create the problems that I envisioned in the first place. Tiffany sees the fun that I'm having and decides to sample to goods herself. For someone with such disdain for pure crack climbing (she completely tore a ligament in her hand on Classic Crack on her first crack climb ever), she did pretty well. At this point we've satisfied the climbing bug (although I didn't get any aid in, much less City Park), so we head back to the car. I roasted some Costco chicken meatballs over a camping stove, and called it a day. Gear Notes: Rain gear/tent to belay Approach Notes: Wet

"Going Rogue".... Do you think she took the 5 seconds to query Merriam Webster on what that word means? Or did it just sound good....? http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rogue

"Going Rogue".... Do you think she took the 5 seconds to query Merriam Webster on what that word means? Or did it just sound good....? http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rogue

Leavenworth is probably the best location around Washington to learn multipitch trad. Just off the top of my head, there are great moderates on Castle Rock (Midway, Saber, Canary, Fault/Catapult, maybe Saints, but I haven't personally done it), and on Icicle Buttress there is R&D, which is just about perfect to learn multipitch trad on. A trip up R&D followed by Midway would be a great day. In terms of gas, it doesn't cost much more to head over Steven's Pass and into L-worth. And in terms of driving time, 4 hours isn't that much for a day of good climbing....it's 3 hours each way for me, and I do it quite often.

http://www.ibanez.com/ElectricGuitars/Series-jem http://www.bcrich.com/warlock_kk_signature_wartribe.html http://www.fender.com/blackie/blackie_home.html I could go on and on....

If consumed in large enough quantities, of course Amanita Muscaria can be fatal, but the problem is inconsistency of toxin concentrations among samples. Some on the fringe of the psychedelic culture actively seek out the effect provided by these mushrooms. Mostly though, it's kids that see them and know that they're psychoactive (they're pretty easy to identify as far as mushrooms go), and end up eating them. From wikipedia: "The North American Mycological Association has stated there are no reliably documented fatalities in the past 100 years." I would take that with a grain of salt, as should anyone who goes out picking wild mushrooms with the intent of a psychedelic experience is really gambling with their skills of identification as well as concentration of active ingredients. That is not even mentioning that the reports of people who have eaten them are generally not positive. But to say that you'd be dead if you ate one is certainly making large assumptions.

Amanita Muscaria, correct? Unless I am misidentifying that one, it's not deadly.

Oh yeah....forgot to mention this: I'm a home winemaker (and quite talented). If you like wine, bottles can be yours...

Accidentally left a rope in the parking lot of Castle Rock today (10/11) while leaving at dusk. I didn't realize it wasn't in my car until I was almost home. If anyone has or can snag it and get a hold of me, there is alcohol in your future...or dinner if you don't drink. It's a PMI Arete 9.7 Starry Night (blue with yellow accents). It was left at the far left end of the parking lot on top of the downed tree. Contact: 360-782-6840 malcolm777b@hotmail.com

After I discovered what it was like to be scared on 5.3 (Tran Spire...dunno what was to be scared of, if you didn't like a hold, just throw it off the spire and dig until you find one you like), a buddy and I went back to that area and tried our hands at some of the "unclimbed" spires (per the guidebook). We climbed one short one, and thought we had a first ascent until we found a class 3/4 downclimb (but we probably did have a first ascent on the line). It was utterly scary, and the gear was probably worthless. We went to the next spire and found a nice low fifth class dihedral with a short handcrack that was surprisingly solid with great exposure. We congratulated each other on our "first ascent"....until we found some old tattered webbing.... Moral of the story: there is much unrecorded about the Olympics. A lot of stuff that you would think has not seen human feet in fact have. Some of the more difficult to reach spires most certainly have not been climbed. There are some potential unclimbed spires even near roads, but they're painful to get to and certain to contain shitty rock. There are even still potentially unclimbed spires in the Hamma Hamma valley. Post it if you climb some of them, because there are guidebook committee members that check this site.

I think if you climb the third pitch of GNS, you can walk off on the Winkie Dinkie Cliff trail...

French free/batman/lever off bolts/free climb easy parts as necessary to get a top rope up.

We saw the offwidth on the thumb. I didn't jump on it because I was too focused on how nice the picture of Arselips and Elbows looked in the guidebook. The book refers to the climb being several minutes past the established crags up there, and we went far enough to think that we had somehow passed it, either too high, or being tucked up in one of the indistinct gulleys. We COULD have kept going, but it was looking less and less promising as there was no evidence of human travel that we could find. Next time I'm up there, I'll keep looking. Have you found A&E? Is it obvious?

Yesterday I was up by Retardant Rock/Special Spot, and looked long and hard for "Arselips and Elbows" to work on honing my offwidth technique. After much traversing around on loose soil, I found a few large cracks, but nothing that looks like the picture in the book, and nothing with a reasonable walkoff/TR setup. Anyone found this one? While I was looking, I did stumble upon a gem that surprised the hell out of me. It was an absolutely stunning corner crack that looked to be hand, or slightly larger size that went up out of a broken corner, made a perfectly arching 90 degree turn to absolutely horizontal, went about 6 feet like that, then made a sharp 90 degree turn and straight up to a little ledge/slabby dome topout. I'd be surprised if this thing hasn't piqued someone's curiosity in the past, but appears as though it hasn't been climbed (at least in years) due to the presence of at least one death flake lower down, questionable rock in the broken corner, and a bunch of plants growing out of the corner, not to mention no evidence at all of a trail going to it. I didn't spend the time assessing whether you could reasonably do it all on gear (there was a gully on the left hand side that might serve as a walkoff), or whether it needs a bolt up high for the slabby dome topout (might be difficult), or whether it needs anchor bolts for rappel. If anyone's interested in plucking this gem, start at Special Spot, and traverse just under the various rock faces, through a notch that you can chimney through (or go through a tight tunnel), and keep going until you reach a prominent gulley. At this point you will see the crack; it's hard to miss....

"It ruins potential for new clean lines and therefore having a destructive nature on the traditional aspect of climbing. It is worth mentioning that no other protection practice has such a destructive effect on the enjoyment of other aspects of the sport." This is one of the stupidest things I've ever heard. What about placing pins? That physically destroys part of the crack system (which may or may not make it more climbable or more protectable).

The big problem that I see, though, is that health insurance companies don't profit by providing you a service. They profit by not providing the service that you've already paid for.

Really? How does that work, Gary? I had to bring a $13,000+/- check to closing when I sold my first house. When tax time came around, H&R Block told me "tough titties" on seeing any of that scratch coming back to me. However, if I had made money on the sale, they told me, I would have had to pay CG taxes on that, unless I re-invested it. Yeah, capital loss rules exclude primary residences. We wouldn't want the peons of the country using the tax deductions that allow the ultra-rich to escape without a tax bill.

Wow....you are dedicated. I just looked at the weather report, and it's supposed to be 100 the whole week.

Well, it looks like you need to go back to Adams to get the true summit and add that one to your resume. By the way, it's the summer and you're 16. Shouldn't you be out chasing poon?

So you can arrest in all 4 possible fall scenarios (head up facing in, head up facing out, head down facing in, head down facing out)? How about with a huge pack? If so, sounds like Mt. Adams South Route is completely within your ability. I think you would get much better responses if you were asking about that route than something like Stuart or Rainier. People here have a keen ability to know when someone is inquiring about a climb way above their skill level (and you haven't made that very difficult).