Laughingman

True I know several dudes who died climbing and climbing is indeed a dangerous pursuit. However I know far more people who have been maimed or killed in auto crashes. I feel climbing makes one confront risk in a more upfront way then driving a nice air conditioned car. This upfront risk and the management of that risk is what makes climbing such a cool sport.

Sorry to be the person to break the bad news... According to Dane Burns blog Cold Thistle A sad day for the alpine climbing world indeed more can be found here... Link and in norwegian Link RIP to both men they will be missed.

A nonprofit in seattle called BOLD mountain school is always looking for gear. They take inner city youth out on backpacking/ climbing trips in Washington. Good group look them up...

Personally I think Americans bitch way to much about taxes. You don't live in Sweden with has an effective tax rate of 50+% of your income.... The question should be how much money Romney has stuffed away in Lichtenstein and Cayman Islands?

I found this documentary very intriguing. Instead of taking the usual approach to talking about terrorism. Phil Rees styled the documentary to ask a central question... "When does a man have the right to fight, without being called a terrorist?" and Comments....

Found a link to a case in which a VHF radio by two climbers to arrange a rescue on Mt. Hood... Use of VHF radios in the backcountry

I know a dude who has a VHF handheld radio programed with his states SAR frequency when winter climbing. Much cheaper then a sat phone by all accounts. Several states allow you to use state SAR channels for "search and rescue operations" Washington state info on SAR channel is found here... SAR authorization

Can anyone else confirm this? I'm tempted to shoot a email to my former school "acquaintance" ( who spends his winters climbing in patagonia) and ask him if the famous "compressor" on the route was chopped as well...

It's embarrassingly easy to crash a car on just plain old wet roads... Result of losing control on wet roads right before the I90 to I405 interchange, going westbound... Put the car into a spin and hit the wall going 55+MPH... No one was hurt...

This thread is going to get very nasty overnight. I knew the compressor route would in time be chopped in the name of good ethics. It might have been a good idea to ask the locals if chopping the route was ok, given the history and controversy behind the route. Anyone know if they cut the 50 year old, 300lb gas-powered compressor drill off the top of the bolt ladder?

They won't be smiling when they spend the next several years in the brig doing hard labor... (edit) Gotta love courts-martials.

bump

Might be worth taking a course From the mountaineers or so on. I learned crevasse rescue on a NOLS trip I took when I first got into climbing. I feel the program made my more marketable to other climbers as a partner because I had lot of moderate glacier travel experience ( we got to lead rather independently at times). I also had a descent set of outdoor skills that came out of it.

Looked to be 185cm I believe.

They were slightly beat up but not in super horrible shape. They were going for 50 bucks.