tvashtarkatena

Ha! You don't know SHEEIT, suckah!

i know a few people whose bong scars will never fade... That is so sad. I know a few too many. Here we are at fifty and they are still suckin down a bong first thing in the morning. Dood, yer harshing my mellow

I have more trouble with wombats, personally.

My friend Max and I went up to check out the Craggies Rock Glacier 2 days ago: TR linky

My friend Max and I went up to explore the Craggies rock glacier, up close and personal like, 2 days ago: TR linky

Trip: Torture Memo #3: Embracing the Schwack - Craggies Rock Glacier Exporation, No Dice Basin Date: 9/16/2009 Trip Report: TR: Craggies Rock Glacier Exploration 9/16/09 Sphagnum moss, No Dice Creek If you’ve waded through the first two chapters of this 3 part series, perhaps because you’ve lost use of your arms and legs or Netflix is late shipping the Temptation Island series, you’ll recall that Max (a friend’s 21 year old and ‘student’, of sorts) and I had one more double plus secret bonus mission to complete on our six day alpine short course before heading home. I climbed the Craggies, bordering the Pasayten Wilderness, several weeks back. From West Craggy’s summit I could see that the basin to the north, above No Dice Lake, was filled with what appeared to be a rock glacier. Was there ice under there? Apparently, an informal survey team several years ago had found ice under a very similar rock glacier on Bigelow Peak’s (Sawtooth Wilderness) north side at about the same longitude and elevation. Max and I had to go in and try to find out. Craggies Rock Glacier, from West Craggy’s summit ridge Max hadn’t had a chance to enjoy any bushwhacking yet; this would be a perfect opportunity to do so. Max embraces The Schwack, No Dice Creek We got going just before 7:00, passing the Pickwickian, Tre-Bark clad predator who’d helpfully reminded us that very morning of the wilderness area prohibition on bikes (and hang gliders) even though we were neither taking our bikes nor going into the wilderness area, as he stealthily patrolled the quarter mile apogee from his camper’s strong gravitation. He was after deer. I couldn’t help thinking; why not just walk onto someone’s lawn in Winthrop, close your eyes, point any direction, and let fly? Or just drive Hwy 20 at night? Mind you, hunting for an animal that tastes like freezer burned goat’s ass is not a sport I pretend to understand. After the two quick miles of trail to Eightmile Pass we dropped onto a game trail and traversed to No Dice Creek. I instructed Max to avoid Creek bottoms whenever possible, so started to do just that. We stayed in or near the creek bottom nearly the entire two miles to the lake. No Dice Basin, from near Eightmile Pass After 3 hours or so we emerged from the jungle to spectacular No Dice Lake, where pan sized trout leapt out of the sun warmed shallows onto dry lakebed, they were so happy to see us. We should have duct taped frying pans to our shoes. A strong, chill wind roared through the larches. Beneath the Craggies dark precipices, the Rock Glacier snaked towards, guarding its secrets. No Dice Lake Craggies Rock Glacier, from No Dice Lake I discovered a camp site. “Why do yahoos always leave a half burned Jiffypop packages in their fire pits?” “What’s Jiffypop? Is it some kind of soda?” It was then I realized that Max and I, from a relativistic standpoint, were borne of two entirely different universes in space time. To be sure, the digital age is a form of time machine that compresses past and present; I caught Max humming Jim Croce’s “Car Wash Blues” on the hike in, but still, the planet that forged his experience is an alien one. It has twice the population as the one I came from, for starters. It also has World of Warcraft and Oxycontin addicts, no privacy, a collapsing environment, a collapsing economy, a fully militarized, humorless, police state mentality, corporate supremacy, a record number of Americans living in the streets or in prison…thank God it still has the Dick’s Deluxe. That, and you no longer have to gap your points. And you can still rant and rave, but now you can have a much larger audience. I just hope some new technology never compresses future and present: the parking would be horrific. Larches Larix occidentalis, No Dice Lake The rock glacier itself consisted of ‘flowing’ rills, the top of which were covered with heavily lichened rock, indicating that the rock was relatively stationary. Between the rills were ravines of fresher, non-lichened rock. At about 6860’ elevation, we came upon what appeared to be a sink hole in one of the ravines. It’s bottom was filled with ice and silt. It was multi season ice, for sure, but we couldn’t determine the depth, of course. Frozen snowmelt from last year? Exposed glacial remnant? We certainly couldn’t tell, but the cause of the sink hole remains an interesting mystery. Max descends into a sink hole, Craggies Rock Glacier Ice at the bottom of the sink hole Other than the sink hole and a few more pieces of sculpted ice at the bottom of a couple of caves, the rock glacier was dry. Larch snag and Big Craggy, Craggies Rock Glacier On the way out, I remembered one of the reasons I love to hike in the fall so much Puffball Lycoperdon perlatum, No Dice Creek Eyelash pixie cup Scutellinia Scutellata, No Dice Creek Hygrophorus sp., No Dice Creek Elfin saddle Helvella sp., No Dice Creek Waxy caps (hygrocybe), lichen, and moss, No Dice Creek Alien fungus, No Dice Creek [video:youtube]mWa9hMrEq8Q Gear Notes: B52s, Agent Orange

Wait...those things are MANNED?

Another dollar. Dude....are you getting the point yet? He reads every word. the phrase 'laps up' comes to mind

Trip: Torture Memo #2, The Beatings Continue - Liberty Bell and the Gardners Date: 9/13/2009 Trip Report: TR: Torture Memo #2: The Beatings Continue Liberty Bell and the Gardners 9/13-15/2009 Parapentification over the Liberty Bell Group “Hey, um, can you get our rack for us?” “You left your rack up there?” “Yeah. Oh, and watch out for the Underwear Men”. Just another day on Liberty Bell. Taking the party on Concord Tower’s warning under advisement, I started up the crumbling chimney in my fly new Asolo trail tennies, size M 10.5, color ‘Chernobyl’. I don’t understand the whole ‘torture debate’. “How can we, or why do we torture people” is often asked by the deeply concerned. Why? Because it’s fun, that’s why. And no torture method is more fun, save perhaps putting the victim in coffin with a live insect (one of the more imaginative officially sanctioned methods, at least according to former Justice Department legal counsel), than taking a newbie out into the mountains. There are two basic ways to learn a language. One is to study the syntax, grammar, pronunciation, slowly, deliberately, piece by piece, until you finally decide to stay only in hotels where English is spoken. The other is to swagger up to the counter, recite your carefully memorized “I’ll need a woman about twice my weight and that bottle of clear liquid with the wolverine penis floating in it”, and let the magic begin. Having taught climbing both ways, I’ve become a firm believer in immersion. It’s quicker, and a whole lot more sadistic. If your schedule is so desolate that you actually read my last TR, you will recall that I was charged with giving, the 21 year old son of a friend of mine, an introduction to alpinism. I decided to focus on 3 necessary backcountry skills: Dirtbagging, scree skiing, and bushwhacking. We would cover less important topics, such as belaying, rapping, etc, as time allowed. To this end, our objectives would include the Beckey Route on Liberty Bell, the Gardners in the Sawtooth Wilderness, and a super double plus dot com secret bonus mission, which I’ll address in the next and final TR of this series. I picked Max up at 4:00 a.m. on Sunday and we were already faced our first crisis: Is Krispy Kreme open 24 hours? Cutthroat Peak Is there a more iconic piece of rock in Washington than Liberty Bell? A short approach, 4 quick pitches, OK rock, one long rap, a petting zoo, and lots of free gear. You just can’t beat it. Plus, we were able to join forces and ropes with another party for the descent. Free soloist Hugs and mugs, pitch 2 Smile of relief, pitch 3 If only I could remember how I did the final friction pitch last time…or any of the route, for that matter. I blamed my tennies, but after about a year of Zenning it out, I finally pirouetted up on a shimmering cloud, arms outstretched, eyes heavenward, trailed by my Safety Vest DayGlo footwear…to find…as ridge turned into sky…the Underwear Men. “Want some whiskey?” The Underwear Men The Rap With our booty (a pair of Bolles, a wired stopper (Max couldn’t pry the other one out), and brand new rack of cams), we bid the Underwear Men farewell and headed down for the backcountry phase of the program: the Gardners. A flock of parapenters floated like 80’s angels far above our descent. Careful to check our packs for illegal hang gliders, we rode two perfectly legal polled herefords about 3 miles into the Wolf Creek Trail before night fell. After finishing off the 12 miles or so of trail, we decided to camp a couple of hundred feet above the duck pond quality water supply of Gardner Meadows, in a burn, next to a clear running stream. A visitor this time of year might opt to either sport a Teflon jumpsuit or allow an extra hour a day for picking the burrs off. Seed pods of sumthin hellifiknowii Upper Wolf Creek The burn, from our camp at Upper Wolf Creek Upper Wolf Creek Upper Wolf Creek The following morning we hiked the dry, open meadow to the basin below Gardner, got some water, and headed up the far left side of the scree basin (not bad: just a few hundred feet of actual scree) to the saddle between the Gardners. 5:15 a.m., Upper Wolf Creek Gardner Meadows, from Gardner’s lower slopes Max’s legs were still a bit hammered from the day before, and Gardner’s summit was whited out, so I ran over and tagged North Gardner while he fueled and rested up. After a little more than an hour of down time he was itching to go for Gardner, which had cast off its misty shroud, so up we went. Ninja with Gendarme Once on the summit, we looked east and, hey, what’s that pinnacle over there? It looks higher. The Gardners, from Gardner’s East Summit Conglomerate, Mount Gardner Next time (there won’t be one), I’d descend the scree basin just to the East of Gardner directly back to camp rather than retrace our steps back down to the saddle, but we’d left our packs there. [video:youtube]irxh6D4hHyk Warren Miller ain’t got nothin’ on this Bee assassin apiomerus sp., Wolf Creek We got back to the car around six, packed up, and drove to the Billy Goat trailhead to dine on 3 can chili with chips and share some fine parking lot camping with the Tre-bark crowd. The following morning we would embark on our fourth and final bonus mission of this six day program, but your eyes can glaze over that topic next time. Gear Notes: small hammer for stuck booty

plus their bark means even blind people can plink

I think ole Stubbs might disagree with that

I flash solo 3rd in boots sans helmet like, all the time. Any f'in...Mountie...tries to tell me whatz up, I cut him in half with a samurai sword.

If only someone would determine why Bob Marley recommended fucking chihuahuas in the song Jammin'....

'f any of you... ...homos... touch my shit... ...I'll ninja star ya.

Is the guy on the right packin a hack saw?

Can I get my rop back, please?

flip flopper.

I usually approach climbs by wafting in on a shimmering cloud, arms outstretched, eyes skyward, in a slow pirouette.

I love you, too, Sherri!

STFU and send me a phat check for our fall fundraising drive. Marital equality this year, too. We're on a roll.

Jebus, Prole, are you actually getting FUNNY these days?

Remember, the first step in solving a problem is to admit you've got one. The second, at least in FW's case, involves secanol and whiskey.

Oh, and Americans are assholes. Jebus, ebbybody knows that.

BTW, it would seem that our marijuana decriminalization bill is going to pass this year. Finally.

b/c the right to privacy is a joke? EXACTLY! I said that it was unreasonable search to have my piss tested. And then I brought them my medical records to show them that it was possible I'd have painkillers show up in my test (broken bone). HR (I fucking hate HR douchebags) were all, "Oh, we don't need your private medical records". I'm all, "Oh, but searching my bodily fluids is no problem. Please, don't worry about showing any compunction at this point". They were at a loss. I still hope they die. Soon. How much cash have you given to the ACLU lately? If none, keep peein'.