TarHeelEMT

I was just out there last week. Stone is always a fun, if scary, place to climb.

Are the fees that are frequently in controversy around here inclusive of the NW Forest Pass? I've only been up in yall's area of the country for climbing twice, and that and the entry fee to Olympic NP are the only fees I've ever had to pay. I've never had to pay a fee to climb down south, so I'm curious to know a bit more about the issue.

I suppose that would depend on whether or not you include public health programs, health and physical education, and others under the umbrella of what you consider health care.

Yes, but sensible policies are so 1950s. Get with the times, man!

For the first - American training for physicians is widely considered to be some of the best in the world, and those who can afford to receive comprehensive care from American physicians benefit. Here you are attempting to evaluate physician quality by public health outcomes, which is incorrect, as physician quality plays only a minor role when talking about infant mortality, average life span, people with chronic diseases, etc.. Those are measures of access to health care, health care education, nutrition, etc., at which our performance is woeful. For the second - Again, you're using public health measures to evaluate quality of care. That's all well and good, but those are not the measures with which Republicans typically would concern themselves when evaluating quality of care available. You were asking how they could possibly think our health care is the best, and I told you. If you have full access to it, it is the best, and that's the measure they're using to make their determination. Public health measures are of only secondary importance to this point of view. They're saying it's the best if you have access to it. You're saying it's not good unless everyone has access to it. It's a value judgment, not something you can argue by throwing public health statistics at them.

Aside from it being ugly, I don't really see what there is to complain about in the way of decency.

I suppose the argument would focus around the fact that we develop a hugely disproportionate share of medical advances and therapies. Our medical training also is considered to be the best in the world, and likewise our doctors. If you are unconcerned with health care distribution and consider only the quality of treatment available once you get to it, then the US is pretty solidly at the top. It all comes down to differing opinions on what constitutes good health care.

I'm not the most political person in the world, but I can't for the life of me figure what's wrong with the president extolling the virtues of education to our nation's schoolchildren.

Thankfully I've never dropped anything worse than a belay device or a biner full of tricams.

Appalachia is a craaaaaazy place. It's fun, though, and anything homogeneous in people and culture. Totally different breed from us Piedmont rednecks.

Interesting thought, genepires. Personally, I hope the culture of liability prevention doesn't ever extend so far as to keep rangers from doing their job. Lord knows we need them. Hopefully this ranger won't have any permanent injury.

Awesome. Closer to Asheville, I'd also recommend Linville Gorge. It has several climbing areas and some great classics. It's also some of the most dramatic terrain you'll find on the east coast. If you're looking for stuff that's technically difficult and long (10+ pitches), Whiteside Mountain southwest of Asheville has some of the most challenging and dangerous climbing in the south. The first pitch of the "standard" route is an entirely unprotected 5.7 or 5.8. I've never climbed there, but it's the goal I'm working towards.

I saw part of it at the traveling show for the Banff Film Festival. Awesome stuff.

It has very few features, but rock shoes stick to it surprisingly well.

Stone is a bit far from Asheville, but there is some awesome climbing close to town. Hope you like trad - we don't really do sport here. http://www.southeastclimbing.com/climbing_areas/north_carolina/gen_north_carolina.htm

I got a lot of good help here for my trip to Baker and Shuksan that I just did. I've been rock climbing and doing high-angle rope rescue for years but am still learning the ins and outs of glacier travel and alpine route finding and got some great tips. The only time I've only gotten spray was once for offering advice to someone on the Newbies forum shortly after asking an alpine-specific question on the same forum (note to folks: new to alpine does not mean new to climbing). Anyway, I can definitely understand the hesitation to respond to "hey, I want to climb Rainier, who wants to go?" posts. I had to back off Shuksan because I went with a partner who, although he had been through multiple guide-service mountaineering courses, didn't seem to understand that climbing with someone differed from having a guide walk you up a mountain. Some folks are just looking to use climbers as a cheaper alternative to guide services to bag peaks and get cool pictures of themselves.

Well done. I had hoped to climb that a couple weeks ago, but we ran out of time to attempt it.

I wish I could! It's quite an endeavor for me to get over there, though.

The former road section of the trail is completely free of snow.

Trip: Mt. Shuksan - Sulphide Glacier Date: 5/29/2009 Trip Report: Fresh after a rest day from our Baker climb, we decided to do Mt. Shuksan, which I had wanted to climb for a long time. The approach was clear until you got to the switchbacks, at which point it was entirely snow-covered (though melting fast). The approach was quick and easy, and we made good time up to the Sulphide, where we ran into an Alpine Ascents intro mountaineering course that had summitted that morning (the 28th). They said that conditions were good for them, but that the snow was getting slushy fast (which we also noticed). There was a lot of avalanche activity between 5800' and 6200', so we moved quickly. We saw the very recent remains of one large slab avalanche, as well as several other smaller slides. It was only 10 AM, but I kicked off several small slides beneath me. Large slab avalanche: We got to camp fairly early and were asleep by 7 PM, with alarms set for 3 AM, hoping to get firm snow in spite of the warm weather. Unfortunately, although the sky had been crystal clear the night before, I woke up sweating in my bag and sank to my knees in wet snow almost as soon as I left the tent. We headed out for the summit anyway, hoping for better snow higher up, but it just wasn't meant to be. The going was very slow, and I wasn't enthusiastic about leading a steep route on snow with the consistency of a warm slushie. My partner was not the most experienced climber and was uncertain about his ability to reliably manage the belay on a multi-pitch alpine route. I was willing to go for it in good snow, but I didn't feel good about climbing the pyramid with unstable snow and a questionable belay, so we turned around, happy to be going back through the avalanche area in the morning rather than the afternoon (though we still saw several slides). Pretty sunrise, though: In summary: Lots of avalanche activity near the toe of the glacier, and really soft, slushy snow because of the warm weather. Gear Notes: Snowshoes would've been nice Approach Notes: Snow on all switchbacks on ascent, but had melted significantly overnight. Road should be clear all the way to the trailhead by now - we got very close, with only a small patch of snow stopping us.

Trip: Mt. Baker - Squauk Glacier Date: 5/25/2009 Trip Report: Bear with me, this is both my first trip report and my first time leading an alpine climb, being a cragger from the land of no glaciers. We actually intended to climb the Easton Glacier, but between a lost map and the early-season snow throwing off the guidebook descriptions, we followed the wrong snowmobile track and ended up camped near 6,000' next to the Squauk glacier. We figured out where we were, set up camp, and pooled our (and Nelson's guidebook's) collective knowledge about the Squauk glacier: Nada. We decided we'd rather go cautiously up an unfamiliar glacier than spend an entire day getting over to the Easton. Fortunately, a party came through our camp on their descent from the Squauk, gave us some beta on the route (easy, save for a short ridge traverse out of camp) and conditions (great). Excited, we set our alarms for an alpine start and went to bed. Camp: Ridge traverse from camp: This was before the recent warm spell, so snow conditions were great and firm, and the cramponing was great. We had the previous party's deep afternoon footprints and glissade trails to follow up the mountain, so routefinding was a breeze. Me goofing off on the summit dome: We missed our tracks (or rather, the party from the previous day's deep afternoon tracks) diverging off to the left, even though we remembered the junction as being "obvious" while going up. Realizing a little too late that it hadn't been so obvious, we descended onto the the Easton Glacier, all the while growing increasingly concerned that we had gone too far down, but also unwilling to turn left and walk blindly into areas of icefall and large open crevasses. We actually got low enough to hit another party's camp on the Easton, which was very fortunate because around that time my partner ventured a little too close to heat stroke, and they were kind enough to provide some extra water and a tent to shelter him in while he recovered. Thanks guys! We descended to the level of our camp, and turned left to cross terrain that, while mushy, was predictable and modest. We got back to camp exhausted from the extra hours, but begrudgingly thankful to have learned a hard lesson about taking route-finding for granted. Thanks for all the help I got from you guys on the board. I had a great time and can't wait to get back there for more climbing. Gear Notes: SNOWSHOES for approach. Approach Notes: We post-holed the entire way up to our high camp. Took wrong snowmobile trail, as well.

Headed up there early tomorrow morning. What were you able to use for pro on the pyramid?

Climbed it this weekend and definitely wish we had brought them. We spent way too much time making post holes.

I took German for a few years in high school. Some brush up on vocabulary, and I can stumble through enough of it to make friends. What are CAI and UKC?

I just lucked into a free plane ticket to Italy this summer, although I have to decide if I'd like to be there for two weeks or three (I'd do two so that I can spend time climbing back in the States - don't get many chances with school). The thing is, if there's a reasonable chance that I could do some climbing in the Alps, well heck, I'll spend three weeks there. The problem is that I know no climbers who live in Italy, don't speak Italian, and have no idea how to go about looking for an alpine climbing partner in Italy. Anyone have ideas as to how to go about it, or thoughts on the feasibility of this?