Bosterson

Especially if you work at a Nike factory, because if you start at the bottom, there's nowhere to go but up?

Thanks for all the input. I ended up getting the Momentum AL. Oregon Mountain Community (great shop here in Portland, also have a great web store - lots of stuff is on sale) also had the Momentum SA, which is apparently the newer version. The difference? The SA ("speed adjust") has buckles that you don't have to double back - they thread that way automatically but can be quickly loosened and tightened. Much faster and easier than normal double backing. That said, the AL was maybe $10 less than the SA, and since I am fine doing my own double backing, and since I actually prefer to unthread the waist buckle completely while putting the harness on, I decided to save the money and get the AL. It was a steal at only $45!

Update: I think I'm going to have to do boots locally, and the pants have been taken care of. Still looking for a lightweight used rainshell (eg, Patagonia Rain Shadow, Mont Bell Versatile Jacket, etc.). I could also use a pair of gaiters if anyone has one they don't need. Just something for walking on glaciers, not for technical climbing. Thanks!

I've been searching REI Outlet, Sierra Trading Post, etc. and have been watching CL and Ebay, but so far haven't found what I'm looking for. I'll check out that coupon though - BC outlet generally doesn't have anything in men's medium, but maybe I'll get lucky. Thanks for the tip.

Muffy, since I am apparently the "new guy," I don't know about your saga. What's the deal? Your spine is fusing? (Yikes!)

For the record, Pinnacles is not near San Jose. It's down by Soledad, south of Salinas (Monterey, etc.). I had no idea people regularly went down there from the Bay Area - it'd take you at least a few hours, especially depending on whether you were going to the East or West side. No one has yet mentioned Castle Rock, which is a little south of Saratoga on Hwy. 9. The roped climbing isn't much, but it was always one of my favorite places for bouldering. Expect not to pay much mind to grades and instead to enjoy interesting movement on short sandstone blobs. It's very tranquil.

Haha - I was wondering the same thing. It's over 10 hours, I think, even if you go through Yosemite. Speaking of which, the Valley is only 3-4 hrs from the Bay Area. I would guess JTree is somewhere between 7-9 hours.

How did you manage to walk away from it?

Next time I'll use footnotes.

I lack experience at being familiar with the term "spray?" Look, I defined it one way, you say I was flat wrong, Muffy said it originated with the internet, so aside from me conceding to your obvious prowess as a spraylord, how exactly do you propose anyone back up what they're saying if we can't try to find some accepted community definition? (Unless you want to use Porter's gorilla definition, and then I'm totally with you.) Re: R&I - My point was that the term "spray" exists (and originated) outside the internet. I read the magazine as a teenager. I guess that means I'll never be a real hardman? You know, since you've basically turned this into an issue of who is better and has more experience and all that BS, this actually has devolved into real spray! Hopefully the original guy asking the question has been paying attention.

Haha you guys are hilarious. I'm sorry it wasn't clear - I was quoting Mick Ryan as an example. (And G-Spotter - what's all this about him pirating guidebooks? I haven't paid much attention to him in years - it seems he's moved out of Bishop and back to Britain?) I was not Googling "spray" to figure out what it meant - I was trying to find some sort of online climbing dictionary that would have a definition for the term that I could use to back my definition up (but I couldn't find spray listed in any of the online dictionaries, so I ended up in the RC.com forums). If you guys know of some sort of climbing lingo dictionary that defines spray the way you're defining it, feel free to show me up. And Muffy - WTF - spraying has nothing to do with the internet. (Can people not do it in person? Does it only exist through text?) Though your assertion that "had I slightly more computer experience" is a GREAT example of spray! (Are we doing nerd-upmanship now?) Allow me to spray back about how I've been familiar with the term since getting a subscription to Rock & Ice like a dozen years ago. I can understand how G-Spotter, being Canadian, would have trouble with the translation of subculture lingo into his native language, but what's your excuse?

So, you were wrong. Now you know better. "Spray is incessant broadcasting about your achievements." - Mick Ryan (writes Bishop guides) Like I said, maybe there's some sort of sport climbing vs alpine distinction. Clearly, for the purposes of this forum (and all the blowhards in it), any kind of political commentary/trash talking counts as spray. I was trying to answer the first guy's question about how it pertained to climbing.

I never said it had anything to do with climbing ability. If "spray" has been generalized to refer to any kind of BSing, that's fine, but I've always understood it to be climbing-specific, about spouting off on grades and sendage in blowhard fashion. And while I appreciate your charming attempt to "explain" to me what a wanker is, if I'd been unfamiliar with the term, I would have figured it out from that self-portrait you use as an avatar.

Since it's common knowledge that everything you hear on the internet is true... At least his immediately confirmed autism isn't "that bad." Come on.

Original short story from 1987

Neon tights went out with the 90s. I'm not sure your hypothetical Frenchman is spraying - he just sounds like an asshole. Maybe picture a ripped meathead with one of those stupid fratboy shell necklaces who climbs in "pre worn" designer jeans. He's pantomiming every move on his 5.13a limestone roof proj (with fixed draws), waxing poetic about how the opening moves are a 5.12b cakewalk, how he definitely would've sent it earlier but it was too hot (friction was bad), how Sharma first climbed this route and three next to it but when he did it, he went from the undercling to the gaston dyno. The fratboy prattles on about how he's ticked off the other 5.12d routes immediately adjacent to this one, how easy they were and how hard this one is (the third one to the right felt more like 5.12b/c), and how he's definitely going to do it next go, when the temps are just a smidge lower, his pump just slightly less, his clipping just slightly faster, and if his belayer doesn't short rope him on the dyno or give him too much slack in the crux. Does alpine or mountaineering have spray? I'm sure it must (probably something about "nearly epicing"), but I can only picture spraying about sport or bouldering.

And you've learned how to spell "technical" since you started this thread! Oh, did you get one of those creams that keeps the rash in check?

Internet sales are failing me, so I'm looking for some gear for trips this summer. Hoping to buy used and cheap! (Battered is definitely ok as long as it still works.) Softshell pants - men's medium (and reg length) - something simple and lightweight that would be good for Mt. Adams and other easy peaks, like the Patagonia Simple Guide pant or Mountain Hardwear Navigation pants (no internal gaiters or full side zips or any of that stuff needed) Rain jacket - men's medium - simple and as light as possible - just something to throw in the pack just in case Boots - men's 10-10.5, medium volume - something for the aforementioned Mt. Adams snow slog (I never, ever hike in anything over the ankle, so I have nothing to use) - I'd prefer something on the lighter end (synthetic, waterproof lined, etc.) just because any boot is going to feel super heavy to me, but I'd be happy to take someone's beaters if that makes them cheap, as I'm not sure how often I'd wear them That might be it for now, unless people have unused wool baselayers lying around...

Is "dirtbag" a common term for referring to the homeless? I don't think I've ever used/heard it in a non-climbing context. ("Inner dirtbag" is, I think, a direct quote from the Verm essay (which is like two pages long). Conceivably it's titled "Finding Your Inner Dirtbag" or something like that. Basically, Verm finds himself with a job and a house and a car and decides he should work less and climb more.) Anyway, to fix the confusion: a dirtbag [img:center]http://www.chesslerbooks.com/eCart/catalog/s/Sherman_Drinking_Climber.jpg[/img] Prole [img:center]http://www.clker.com/cliparts/d/c/1/a/11971190802048057250kubble_Wrench.svg.med.png[/img]

I'm sorry, do I need to write a disclaimer when I stray off topic? Do you think I think that people in tent hovels in Michigan are climbers who would be amused/inspired by reading Verm? Do you really think I think that the homeless are the overconsuming bloodsuckers of our society? Now stop being a tool.

Only if you've been a cop less than 25 times in the past 10 years.

"Moral values" have a 25 infraction buffer zone. Duh. Haven't you been reading the posts about philandering politicians?

Anyone have a copy of John Sherman's essay about finding your "inner dirtbag," published in an old Patagonia catalog? (I have a photocopy of it at home somewhere, but I'm monkeying in my cube, busy reading drivel while pretending to work on crap I don't care about.) It's good to keep around as a reminder, along the lines of "the things you own own you."

Spray is climbing talk - endless, obnxious blabbering about routes climbed; their grades; your opinions on their grades; your friends' opinions on their grades; your opinions on the first ascentionists' opinions of their grades; routes nearly climbed but for the wrong shoes, lack of chalk, or high gravity; your local climbing scene being overrun by "n00bs;" routes you climbed in the gym; intricate, unnecessary details about fancy new gear that will help you send your proj (in fact, I think any sentence with the word "proj" in it automatically counts as spray); endless streams of beta on every single move of the one route you have ever climbed outside; etc. Not being a snowboarder, I have no idea what a "gaper" is (sort of "all talk, no action?"), but you're probably right that it's basically the same idea. It's definitely a universal climbing term (not just PNW), but I have no idea where it originated. Considering that I have never, ever heard "n00bs" at the crag or in the gym "spray" about contemporary world politics, and considering that climbing is strictly off-topic in the CC "spray" forum, this place is clearly devoid of any actual spray.