tvashtarkatena

"Get it while you can" - Janis Joplin

THE FUTURE!!!!!!!!!!!

THE FUTURE, RUDY!!!!

A bridge... ...to the FUTURE!!!!

I didn't forget them; I left them at the road end and switched to snowshoes. I'd just picked them up (Craigslist) that morning; a pair of 120 cm x 120 mm approach skis with bizarro generic backcountry bindings, and I was unfamiliar with their strange ways, so I limited their use to the road. I also didn't have a pair of full climbing skins for them yet (they come with funky permanent kicker skins, which are definitely going bye bye), so they would have been useless for ascending the steeps anyway. Next trip in to that area, I'll have full skins and some heel lifters for these puppies, because they're pretty well suited for deep snow climbing approaches that involves tight, pain in the ass terrain like Mountaineer's Creek.

I'm comin' for ya, Rudy. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

I just starting using a Hirundos. Me? Aggro?

While you're stuck in your cube getting weaker, Tvashie's out there in the jungle, getting stronger.

You think that photo is shopped? Considering that your brain 'shops' everything you see, it doesn't really matter much. There is no objective visual reality. It's all in your head.

It's nice to see employment increasing in some sectors.

Nothing a fifth of Jack and an AK can't fix.

For infrequent use, plus I'm gonna cut em down for AT ski boards, so the tip/tail attachments, glue, etc can be pretty shot.

Dude, you're mellowing my harsh.

You can only drive to 29 Pines Campground on the Teanaway, so it would be a LOOONGGG approach from that side. Ivan and I were just in the area. I would avoid such a route right now due to very high avi danger on sunlit slopes. Sherpa Glacier, taken yesterday

We don't think in terms of 'failure' or 'success'. We prefer 'shortened agenda', or 'performing service work'.

Trip: Stuart's North Basin - Sherpa West Ridge (part way, anyway) Date: 4/2/2008 Trip Report: TR: Sherpa West Ridge Mar 31-April 3, 2008 Ascending the Sherpa Glacier “We just made a big Smiley Face” My usual autonomic response to Ivan’s background radiation of non-sequiturs is to stare back, cow eyed, hoping he’ll assume that the filament within has long since gone dark, but instead I looked down, and sure enough, our 700 foot end run around an impasse on the Stuart/Sherpa ridge looked exactly like the Shit Eating Grin of the Mountain Gods. We had certainly eaten a lot of shit to create it. You move sixteen tons of snow and whaddaya get? Four days with a Beowulf spouting mutant giant from a broken future. Four days stuck on snow shoes plowing through mile after mile of perfect, knee deep pow pow like some forlorn, underpowered river tug straining the haul The Colossus of Rhodes up the Amazon at full flood stage without the benefit of a barge. Four days thinking about all my hip friends spending their well earned, well turned après-ski time plying bored board bunnies with Belgian barley wine, a vaporizer decaled with Grenade stickers, and a feigned appreciation for the genius of Radiohead. Sure, we knew there’d be fresh snow when we decided to go into Stuart basin to climb the Ice Cliff, or Stuart Glacier couloir, or, well, actually, we hadn’t really discussed it much. We thought that the Stuart Range might scintillate with a delightful dusting. We didn’t know we’d have to plow the equivalent of I 90 in both directions. Moving through thigh deep snow: 1) Lean forward and make an impression with your knee. 2) High step into the depression, shift weight to high stepped leg, extend leg 3) Wait until sinking ceases 4) Yell “Motherfucker!” 5) Repeat with opposite leg Our first morning in Stuart Basin began with two ignored alarms. It was 10 degrees out. After hammering our feet into our frozen boots we settled into a trail breaking excursion up the Sherpa Glacier, in preparation for an expedition style assault on the West Ridge. We were immediately greeted by a steady current of moth ball sized rolly pollies flowing down gravity’s river, courtesy of the sunlit slopes above the glacier. Keeping to the glacier’s center as much as possible, we continued punching until we reached the bergschrund beneath the Sherpa Glacier couloir (the one on climber’s right), turned around, and slogged back to camp. Rolly Pollies (Sherpa Glacier) 82oGFKzknXQ The Film, soundtrack by Ivan Human snow plow (Sherpa Glacier) Stuart from camp The following day we awoke early and in earnest, pre-packed for Sherpa’s West Ridge. The ascent up our previous day’s steps went quickly. Wading up the couloir not so quickly. Trying the run the ridge over to Sherpa not quickly at all, due to an impassable step. We descended 700 feet and re-ascended in the bright, windless spring sunshine through increasingly heavy glop to the Sherpa’s west notch, giving birth to our Smiley Face in the process. Ascending the Sherpa Glacier couloir Mmmmmm…Cliff Shot (Sherpa Glacier couloir) “I’d rather be skiing” After climbing a few pitches, we did the math, and began rapping back down. Our detour had cost us too much time. I blamed Ivan. He blamed me. Eventually, we agreed to blame the Baby Jebus. Rapping Sherpa’s West Ridge Rather than retrace our Smiley Face (which by then was streaked with more wet slides than Britney has mascara runs), or run the ridge back to the top of the Sherpa Glacier couloir via a hidden snow gulley we spied from our new vantage point, we decided to rap into Sherpa’s west ridge couloir (the one on climber’s left) and make a quick descent, hopefully before several overhanging cornices decided to tag along. Rapping past a foppish pompadour of snow and into the West Ridge couloir Ivan photographing me watching Ivan photographing me watching…. Descending the West Ridge couloir The couloir was so much deeper and less consolidated than our ascent couloir that it would have been almost impossible to climb, so I suppose our day’s fate was as it should have been. The pleasant current of rolly pollies from the day before had become a flood sometime during the afternoon; two large wet slides had obliterated our tracks down half the Sherpa Glacier's length. Sherpa-Stuart ridge from the Sherpa Glacier The following morning Ivan had mysteriously sprouted a second degree burn blister on the knuckle of his right hand. I had heard incessant rubbing in the night, but tried to put it out of my mind. Emergency field surgery was called for. Emergency field surgery: Spyderco meets mysterious knuckle blister The patient’s recovery was swift, so we trudged a couple of hundred yards to the South and spent our last morning cragging on a 15 meter ice fall the color of an AM/PM toilet seat that Ivan referred to as the Champagne Flow before heading home. Effervescing up the Champagne Flow Ice fangs On our way out we ran into an AT skier and a snowboarder. "How was the skiing?" Ivan asked. "Oh man, I probably had the best powder runs of my life." Oh yeah? Well fuck you and the Smiley Face you rode in on, buddy.

I recently did a Conconi test on myself to find out my AT for running on an inclined treadmill. I did it in two sessions, the first to establish a rough AT, the second to establish an exact AT. Both went quickly, and the results were very accurate (within a BPM). Test 1: Warm up at 3 mph, 15 degree incline for 10 minutes. At T = 10 minutes, record HR, then increase speed +.3 mph for 2 minutes, then record HR again. Plot speed versus HR on graph paper. The line should abruptly decrease in slope (but remain linear) at some point; the HR at that point is your rough AT. Take note of the last recorded treadmill speed just before you reached your AT. Test 2: Warm up at 3 mph, 15 degree incline for 10 minutes. Use whatever settings will get you into the low end of your target heart rate, generally 60% or so of your MHR. At T = 10 minutes, increase speed to your last recorded treadmill speed just before you reached your AT from test 1. After 3 minutes at that speed, record your HR, then keep increasing speed +.1 mph for 2 minutes, recording your HR at the end of each interval until you can't go anymore. Plot the results on your graph as before. This more fine tuned test should give you your current AT (for running on a treadmill) to within a BPM.

Semantics. He was right to go, and right to get the message out to the American people that the justification for war was bullshit.

REI is like a giant drain filter. The only stuff left on the shelfs is the detritus no one needs or wants. Anyone need to dig a cathole while sporting a pair of magenta Keens a half size too small? No problem. They are continually out of stock of anything useful. Except the Basement. That used to rock. Now it's empty too. And they doubled the prices. Fuck it. Spending your dividend at REI does not constitute a discount, BTW. It's redeemable for cash.

Apparently the State Department felt differently. They approved the trip. A Congressman's job includes fact finding trips like this, particularly one aimed and preventing a war based on lies. McDermott's assertions that Saddam had no WMDs (something I, and practically everyone I knew already knew before the invasion) have been proven 100% correct since this trip. Your assertion that McDermott's trip was somehow 'shameful' because it didn't toe the the administration's bullshit campaign to get this country into a disastrous conflict seems to suggest that what's actually good for this country doesn't matter, as long as fealty to the Commander in Chief, even if he's a lying shitbag, is observed. Um, I call bullshit on that.

Email sent.

Anyone have her number?

What blog shat out this Farmer's Alamanac of bullshit economics? Global oil production is peaking while worldwide demand, lead by China, is growing rapidly. Prices will continue to rise. They may continue to dip slightly from their all time high, but not much. It's just not that complicated. Piracy in the Straight of Malacca? Might make for an action packed Wesley Snipes blockbuster, but such events hardly have much of an effect on world oil prices. Oh, and if you don't like the kinds of things people post on this board, um, don't log on. Or try posting less patently stupid shit.

First of all you're acting like an ass. Secondly, I previously stated: A government fix will institutionalize subsidies for bad behavior. It would constitute a terrible precedent that would bring us closer to a collapse of our financial system. After all, who's going to believe in a system where rule breakers not only get away with it, but are rewarded? No one has stated that anyone's bail out plan would lead to collapse. The type of bailout I believe would do the most widespread damage would be anything that aids private individuals with mortgage issues, and thus supports bad behavior on a nationwide scale. I don't buy the 'predatory lending' story. Consumers actively sought cheap debt, and lots of it, to fund lifestyles beyond their means. The market happily supplied what they wanted. This does not mean, as some morons here have suggested, that I approve of corporate bailouts either. Having said that, Bear Stearns hardly constitutes a 'bail out'.

Yours was a non-question with supplied answers, so why would anyone bother to take it seriously enough to answer it?