forrest_m

Lambone - I am not an expert.. I was introduced to the system when we got a warning for a pass we didn't know we needed. Mildly irate, I began doing my own research and reading everything I could about the issue, and became more and more outraged by what I learned. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of doing your own research and coming to your own conclusions about this and not accepting at face value that the USFS says about it. I understand your position - I just don't agree. I have made an effort to send letters to everyone I can think of regarding this issue. Following is the text of one of those letters which summarizes my position. If you would like, I can email you a very good essay by David Dittrich that provides a lot of the statistical backup and sources for this information. (It's a bit long to post in a thread.) <begin letter> Dear Sir, I am writing to express my strong opposition to the Forest Service “Demonstration Fee Program,” and to voice support for a significant increase in Forest Service (USFS) recreation budgets. Please include this letter in the record for Public Witness Testimony on April 16, 2001. The current fee program is misguided, both in the details of its current implementation and in the underlying idea that one cannot use public lands – in any form – without paying some sort of fee. I believe that there is a place for user fees: I have purchased “Sno-park” passes annually for ten years and I regularly pay the fee to use Forest Service campgrounds. However, the most basic right to walk on public lands should be available to all citizens free of charge. The finances of the USFS are widely recognized as being in bad shape. The agency is under great pressure to become less wasteful – and to do so in a visible way. However, rather than undertake serious reform in its finances – such as the hundreds of millions of dollars the USFS has lost and continues to lose on timber sales – they have instead focused on such minor income streams such as Recreational Use Fees to try to demonstrate to Congress that they are cleaning up their act. Since it is the only action they are taking, they are eager to show that it is a success, even if this means stifling public outcry through deceptive statements and outright untruths. The Forest Service’s conduct has been disingenuous at best. In dealing with Congress, the USFS has used revenues from the fee demo program as evidence that they are saving money by passing costs directly to the user. But in their marketing campaign to attract public support for the program, the USFS claims that fees will result in increased funding for maintenance and construction of trails and parking facilities. The truth is closer to the former. Money from the fee program goes into the General Fund, and no overall increase in recreation funds has materialized since the initiation of the program. Yet the USFS knows that they must prevent a public outcry if the “demonstration” program is to be considered a success. Thus signs claiming that “fees pay for this trail” continue to appear at trailheads throughout the country. Particularly grievous is the process by which the fee demo program was introduced: USFS literature claims that the “demonstration” in “fee demonstration program” is to determine the level of public support for the concept of direct user fees. The existence of a hefty fine for non-payment of the fee makes this data highly suspect. Nevertheless, the USFS continues to use these statistics as “evidence” of widespread public acceptance of the program. Please defend the rights of all Americans to make the simplest uses of public lands without additional fees. We already own these lands, and the maintenance of basic access to them is a legitimate priority for government spending; in fact, such spending is essential to the goal of good stewardship. <end letter>

lambone - all i can say is that if you believe that the money is going to trail improvement just because that's what the forest service tells you, then you probably also believe that mcdonalds food is healthy because they put "grilled" in the name of the sandwich. i will try to find the link to the discussion we had about this a few months back. the tip of the iceberg is that the money goes directly into the general fund and is NOT earmarked specifically for trail maintainance or anything. essentially, by buying the pass, you are subsidizing the vast amounts of money that the FS loses on timber sales. try this, there are also a bunch of links to sources outside CC.com for more info: http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/000288.html [This message has been edited by forrest_m (edited 08-10-2001).]

burgundy col is way faster. i like to get the suffering over quick. by this time of year, there is no water between the river and the col, but past the col you are on snow. someone gave some detailed beta on the approach not long ago: http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/ubb/Forum2/HTML/000152.html [This message has been edited by forrest_m (edited 08-10-2001).]

So I just picked up the new Mclane SW BC guidebook, and it struck me (not for the first time) how much better canadian climbing guides are. Across the board - the SW BC guide, Dougherty's Rockies guide, the various recent Squamish guides, even the Skaha guidebook for chrissake, have better photos (more readable 'cause they're on glossy paper), better approach info, handy pocket size, rounded corners for stickin' the thing in your pack. What gives?

some descent notes: from the far end of the short summit block (from where you come up), there is an obvious rap station. In sept. there was still a little block of stubborn snow here, the last water until the road at the bottom! Make 1 single rope rap to another station. The second rap is for convenience, you could scramble down if you wanted. From there, follow the gully down several hundred feet. As you go down, look for small cairn on the upper rim of the gully, skier's right. Traverse out to the cairn, once you get out of the gully, the trail is obvious. If you hit more rap slings, you have gone too far - climb back up and find the cairn. The rap slings are there to sucker you into repeating the descent epic of those who have come before you. The trail crosses several steep scree basins with a little bit of easy downclimbing and eventually leads you to some meadows where you can pick up the real trail. It is marked with orange diamonds nailed to trees, and is steep, dusty and dry, but easy to follow. Good luck.

You're asking about a climber going back and climbing a hard route a second time, not making a repeat of a difficult route established by someone else, right? I would say that the answer is yes and no... for routes that were at the time and still are at my limit, I have no desire to go back and climb them again. It's hard enough to become psychologically ready to do these things once, I'd rather save my stress for something new. However, there is something to be said for going back to a route that challenged you in the past with the perspective of greater experience. (Assuming of course, that the route is good enough to be worth climbing again.) I did the full north ridge of stuart pretty early in my climbing career, my first grade IV alpine route, and my memory of it was always colored by the anxiety I felt at the time. I remember wondering if we would be able to do it at all. Not long ago, I climbed it in a day car to car. Tiring, but hardly the mini-epic I remembered. An related question might be: how many times are you willing to go back up on a hard route that you have retreated from? It can be mentally harder to get back on the horse that threw you...

Here's a story with some more details. http://www.adn.com/alaska/story/643572p-687210c.html and some more details on the rescue: http://www.couloirgraphics.com/AMM/index.cfm?fa=postings&cat1=yes&MainCatID=1&cat14=yes&SubCatID=14&ContentID=116&viewpost=2 [This message has been edited by forrest_m (edited 08-03-2001).]

So I finally got down to the msr factory store to update my old whisperlite with a shakerjet (yeah, that's me, right on the cutting edge of technology). They did a very nice job, $25 for a new fuel rod, generator, jet and flame spreading rings. What's really cool, though, is that they somehow cleaned the whole rig so that it looks brand spankin' new. They only had it behind the counter for maybe 5 minutes, but it is shiny and clean like it hasn't been since it first came out of the box. I clean my stoves regularly, but I've never been able to achieve anything like this level of factory-freshness. What I want to know is WHAT DID THEY USE TO CLEAN IT AND WHERE CAN I GET SOME? Any ideas? (they also gave it back to me in a new stuff sack with new windscreen/reflector. not really necessary but i thought it was a classy touch)

"always look around the corner" one of my regular partners is fond of making up variations on the "if we only had some ham we could have some ham and eggs if we had any eggs" quote at cold bivys

Office Space - I know you consider yourself the aggrieved party here, but I hope you will read this with an open mind. You seem to have a sense of entitlement that is not really merited. What do you mean when you say it is *your* thread? Who are you speaking for when you say that someone's comments "aren't welcome here?" How can you berate lambone for sarcasm *after* you tell him to "have fun climbing with bivy gear," a sarcastic comment if I've ever heard one? How can you seriously solicit additional beta after threatening to sue someone for what they've posted? My point is that you have contributed as much to the pissing match that led "your" thread astray as lambone. I'm not trying to chase you away, I just think you will get a lot less frustrated by the site if you recognize what it is and what it is not. The truth is that *none* of us have any rights here. Jon & Tim have taken a very hands off approach to moderating the board, and a certain kind of community has grown up here that has different social standards from a face to face conversation. Irreverance is highly valued and a hair-trigger temper is not.

http://www.tradgirl.com/rc/faq3.htm#middle

cm - i have used a pair of pulsars for many years (8 i think). last fall, i got 1 new axar, so for the last season i've been able to use it side by side with a bent-shaft pulsar. likes: swing is much more natural, no "flick of the wrist" required, therefore less tiring on long climbs. i much prefer the shape of the curve to either old-style pulsars or to a "continuous" curve like a dmm predator. extra clearance at the head makes pulling over bulges easier. hooking is more secure for the same reason. very durable. dislikes: the head is uncomfortable to use (compared to a pulsar or any black diamond tool) in "cane" or "dagger" position because the bulge of back of the pick jams into your palm. there is no good way to grab the head (except using the adze in "self belay" grip)this is annoying on alpine routes that vary in angle, less so on waterfalls. i like to grab the heads of both tools for motoring up moderate angled alpine snow or ice. it's harder to hammer pitons and stuff because the hammerhead is angled away from the shaft. this is minor. kind of a nitpick, the picks of pulsars and axars are not really interchangeable, even though they are essentially identical, because the holes are at different angles. so if you don't upgrade both tools at once, you have to carry two spares or accept that when you put the axar pick on the pulsar that the angle will be wrong.

I know it's last minute, but anyone want to do an alpine route this weekend? W. Ridge of Eldorado or something similar? email me at: forrest_m@hotmail.com

i was just talking to bryan in the gym the other night about this, there are in fact 2 bolted lines, 'northwest passage', which shares some belays with the old doorish aid route, and 'vanishing point', which is newer. bryan said he was still working on trying to do VP in a single push (he had done all the moves, but hadn't led the whole thing free in one go). NP has several .12 pitches, VP sounds like is significantly harder. bryan has been working the route by hiking up to the top of baring with 1500 feet of rope, rapping down and solo-tr'ing the moves because the "approach" pitches are still (as of last week) very wet. he said the hard pitches are "sport bolted" but there are many pitches that require some or all gear placement.

i've heard that "most dangerous part of a climb is the drive" statistic since i started climbing (i've used it to reassure people, too), but i'm pretty suspicious of it now. i mean, what are we comparing here? total hours of each activity? climber/days vs. driver days? rock climbing, ice climbing, alpine climbing, top roping, kids rappelling with clothesline, what? the example of the squamish road just emphasizes this: obviously it is much more dangerous than the "average" piece of highway. regarding the SO issue, my wife (who climbs but doesn't consider herself a "climber") was pretty casual about me going out until the first time i came back from a climb wrecked (after a 30 hour continuous-push winter climb). now she wants to know how what i'm planning to do compares to that climb. if i say it's easier, she doesn't worry too much, if i say "well...", then she gets nervous.

so here's a conversation starter... what's do you guys/gals do about reassuring worried significant others? when i first started climbing as a teenager, i used to assure my mom that climbing was "perfectly safe." now, i try to be more honest with my wife, you know "well, it is dangerous, but we do everything we can to make it safer", but sometimes i can tell she'd rather have me tell her that it was safe as golf. i also have come to an agreement that she is not supposed to worry until noon on the day after we are due back. any thoughts?

did this route in, whoa, must be '86 or so when I was green like lettuce... even then, the torment basin trail was considered overgrown, i can't imagine what state it must be in now. we came in from boston basin, which made for a long-ish traverse in the morning, but was convenient on the descent, since we did about 4 raps directly back in to boston basin from the notch below the summit. <warning, newbie epic story follows/> we were so slow and made so many route finding errors that we ended up rapping in the dark. the last rap is actually overhanging for the last 60 feet or so, and when our ropes got stuck when pulling, we finally just gave up and left them there.(hell, they could still be there for all i know) we spent an extra night in the basin and hiked down in the morning. i was 15 at the time, and it was the first time i'd ever been overdue from a climbing trip. by 7 am, my mom had alerted the rangers, the sheriff, the national guard, etc. so embarassing... <end newbie epic>

hey "W" - what are you doing posting on CC? does this mean that it's raining in the kichatnas? or are you guys all quokka-enabled and shit?

yossarian - cavers are in general a lot more secretive and clannish than climbers. part of it is that their resources are very limited and they have serious access issues. it is also very easy for non-technically trained folk to end up in situations over their head, so they try to keep a low profile. a lot of them also just get off on being one of the few people "in the know." who knows, maybe it's something to do with being underground, all those tunnels make people secretive... grottos are loosely organized clubs whose main purpose seems to be being a repository of accurate cave surveys. (caving still is in some ways like climbing was a century ago, "recreational" caving is not considered respectable without some quasi-scientific agenda such as surveying... besides, it's the only way to know whether you're setting new records and for cavers, "opening" new passage is like putting up a first ascent) anyway, as of last fall there are no gates on the 3 caves I mentioned in my earlier post, they are protected by being difficult to find... btw, i'd agree with dwayner that being a long-time climber, i expected caving to be no big deal, and found it to be really fuckin' scary. it can be very cool, but take it seriously.

a friend of mine asked mike gauthier (head climbing ranger at MRNP) about conditions on the route last thursday or friday, mike said he thought the route was probably out of condition now, that the couloir above the high camp was more rock than ice and the liberty cap glacier was very broken up. (i'm not saying don't go, just be prepared for less-than-ideal conditions... taking into account the "rangers lie" thread :-)

from what i understand, the newton cave has only been "pushed" to its lowest point relatively recently, and only by a few people. from what i've been told, it entails 4 fairly long raps (with all the attendant hauling in of ropes to fix) and several more "nuisance rappels". the "hell hole" cave is not very extensive, but involves rapping in through a squeeze slot in through the roof of a bell shaped cavern. "cascade cave" is quite deep and has at least one *very* narrow squeeze but no required rope work. there's a lot of sinkholes and slots up there, but you'll know you're in a hole that goes somewhere if at or near the entrance you run into one of those national speological society signs. (if you go exploring, remember a) it's cold and wet down there regardless of the weather b)bring 3 sources of light and c) your body is narrowest with one hand over your head and the other along your side...)

Peter P - I have some of your kind of aliens (retired) a set of new-style. To answer your questions: the new nylon sleeve really does seem to protect the trigger cables (I assume when you say "cables about to break" you're referring to the trigger cables and not the main stem...), I think what happens is that since the trigger cables are so close to the stem, they get rubbed against the rock a lot (compared to the "outrigger" trigger cables on most cams), and therefore the nylon sleeve helps out a lot. The springs that fit inside the cams are half the reason to have aliens - it's the feature that makes them fit into smaller placements. So I'd say, yeah, the new ones are a huge improvement. Before I became an alien convert, I had managed to acquire a double set of metolius small cams, but now they are strictly for multiples - I'll always grab the Alien first...

sorry, no snow at all left, only hateful talus and scree. (as of last weekend)

aliens! aliens! aliens!

i.e. pushing pencils, perhaps...? i'm an architect... fairly flexible hours 'cause there's only 8 people in my office and i did manage to talk my boss into letting me take 3 months off earlier this year to go climbing...