jon

Wow I was just thinking last night if they were still in business. I spent a lot of my teenage year lusting over gear. Very sad. I think their biggest problem was location. The traffic was tolerable 10 years ago. Now that is the busiest intersection on the Eastside.

[video:youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZExPoZGQ8gM

We've got a couple freshly posted gear reviews that you should check out. Arcteryx Nuclei Hoody Review by Dave Burdick http://cascadeclimbers.com/arcteryx-nuclei-hoody-review-by-dave-burdick/ Jetboil Sol Review by Blake Herrington http://cascadeclimbers.com/jetboil-sol-a-major-upgrade-gets-it-right-by-blake-herrington/ Big thanks to Dave and Blake for the reviews!

When doing your holiday shopping be sure to check out the price comparison tool we are working on over at CascadeOutside. The prices are updated daily. If you have any feedback on the interface we'd love to hear it

If you have an account on a forum that uses vBulletin (it usually says at the bottom), and your email and password are the same there as here, please change them immediately. vBulletin has been compromised pretty severely. Please change if you do. It's generally a good idea to change your passwords every 6 months and apps like 1Password and LastPass are great options to remember all your passwords.

This is going to get pretty crazy including murder plots.

Marc, where is your Cheam TR?

Tom, you want me to fix those links quickly for you?

I watching this on Netflix last night and I really encourage everyone to watch it. I know a few pretty smart people who do not believe in climate change and this movie pretty much hammers the message home how dire this situation is. There is another movie on Netflix called Petropolis made by Green Peace about the Alberta Oil Sands. It's a tad boring because it's mostly plane footage but again the visual of what is actually going on is important. I read a recent article stating that if the oil sands development continue at it's present rate it will push CO2 levels to the point of no return by 2050 and we will start seeing significant rises in oceanic levels. This is the most important issue to our civilization. You can't have a police state on a dead planet.

Isn't that one of the X-Men's special powers?

Actually, it is. You can call CBSA to your hearts content but when you are at inspection the process is subjective and up to the agent, as has been previously noted. They could ask you three questions and you are on your way or you could be picked for random inspection and have your car torn apart. DUI is a felony offense and that is why someone with one is inadmissible. Misdemeanors is not such a bit deal. Again, I think they are going to be more concerned about whether you car can make the trip, you have travel insurance, and that you have funds to do it.

The topic will likely not come up and shouldn't be a problem if it's not on your record. What I would do is bring your itinerary for Alaska, any reservations you have in Alaska, and a bank statement showing that you have the money to make the trip. What they are worried about is you staying. Be polite, be confident, look them straight in the eye, make sure you car isn't a mess.

Hey Graham, I completely agree with you. At some point the owner has to assume the responsibility of it's use, just like anything else. I'm not saying that manufacturers should offer lifetime warrantees. But I think part of REIs policy was born out of the fact that small shops likely received considerable resistance processing returns to manufacturers. Maybe I'm wrong.

See and this just sucks, because only a select few companies have the profitability to do this. What small shop could possibly do this? The retailers job is to have experienced sales people to help you make the proper buying decisions. Their return policy should be reflective of standing by the advice they give you. The manufacturers job is to stand by the product they made. This isn't the retailers job, with the exception that retailers should not carry brands that are not reliable. If you buy boots that leak, that should be on the manufacturer to rectify this not the retailer. REI was able to do this because of their huge buying power and being able to leverage that into making manufacturers take returned items back.

Of course they do this years after they run everyone out of business. How many great outdoor shops were in the greater Seattle area that went out of business because of competition with REI? In Issaquah there was High Mountain Rendezvous, there was that shop in Bellevue by Magnolia HiFi. But it's interesting to see how small of a profit margin they have considering their buying power now.

bump

Hey Guys, take your bullshit somewhere else like Facebook or MySpace.

Ok some feedback I got from someone. There are instances, and this happens most frequently with climbing gear, where the sale price and discount are not correct. This is due to the regular price being for the large size and the sale price being for the small, making the discount look big. I'm working on a way of fixing this.

A while back I introduced a project that I'm working on when time allows: CascadeOutside.com. CascadeOutside allows you to quickly find prices on not just specific pieces of gear but also product groups, allowing you to find deals on ropes, pack, biners, you name it. It's a site I built out of frustration trying to find good deals on gear. I feel the interface is fairly intuitive; if you are a user of Excel you will probably feel right at home. Anyways I'd love some feedback on it, either here or there is a link on the righthand side of the site you can use. If you like the tool please tell your friends about it, like it on Facebook, let me know what you'd like to see in it. I've got more planned for it including a daily deal notification system that is almost done. CascadeOutside.com Thanks!

New site looks awesome Bill, nice work!

I've been doing a lot of reading in my "spare" time recently about building and managing communities. One thing I have discovered in this that people have to have motivation for contributing, but those contributions need to in some form have the bettering of the community in mind and not just for your own entertainment. If everyone just posts strictly for themselves then the road we go down is that this place will no longer exist. Let me quote some of the reading, from the Discourse Blog.

We posted this on our Facebook as well, a number of awesome individuals have stepped up and started a fundraiser for Layton Kor's family to cover the expenses from his lengthy illness and funeral. If he was a hero of yours please take the time to read more about how you can help. http://www.youcaring.com/memorial-fundraiser/support-for-layton-kor/55319

Announcing the winners of the 2013 CascadeClimbers Almost Annual Photo Contest presented by American Alpine Institute. First, thanks to our wonderful sponsors who stepped up in a major way this year to offer the most prize value we have ever had. Sponsors are American Alpine Institute, Rab, Seattle Bouldering Project, and Mountain Gear. Big thanks also to BackcountryGear in Eugene. Second, thank you to all the entrants. This year did not disappoint and we again had some remarkable submissions. Hopefully next year we can offer a better system for display and voting which gives these photos justice. Third, we will be announcing some random winners in the coming days we just need to do some nerdy database stuff to select some winners. The Winners by Category! Rab Alpine Category -- Rab Xenon Jacket goes to JasonG AAI Cragging Category -- $330 AAI Gift Cert goes to bramski AAI Scenic Category -- $330 AAI Gift Cert goes to wfinley Mountain Gear Skiing & Boarding Category -- Mountain Gear Backcountry Essentials Avy Package goes to Alasdair Seattle Bouldering Project Bouldering Category -- 6 month pass to Seattle Bouldering Project goes to Winter Rab Ice Category -- Rab Infinity Jacket goes to lukeh Humor Category -- $120 BackcountryGear.com + (2) 1 Month SBP passes goes to scottwesh Lastly the new AAI Video Category -- $330 AAI Gift Cert goes to lukeh big pimpin sandbagger Winners. Drop me a PM to claim your prizes.

I'm working on that during my lunch break today Sorry for the slowness I've got a few things going on

Like toxic fracking fluids.