Alex

AJ, the only time I have thought the long pickets would be required was Alaska, where the snow is so cold and fluffy at certain elevations that you need to dig in and bury a picket pretty damn deep to make a decent anchor. We brought only 2 foot MSR pickets there in 98 and realized that for the ridges they were not going to work. Solo central. In the Cascades, the 2 footers work in almost all situations. Maybe on Rainier up high in the winter they might not? In the Canadian Rockies, the 2 footers work because its a dry range and there is seldom more than a foot or two of fresh snow to deal with, so you can always dig a little for consolidated snow. I personally prefer flukes to pickets, though outside of Alaska.

Hi Tim, 1) you may not agree but I think you should have registered all 3 domain names when you put up the site, .com, .org and .net. This is a common practice and reduces confusion when other sites go up using the same domain prefix. So one of the things on my agenda was to reduce any possible confusion by taking at least the .org out of the running, and reserving should CascadeClimbers indeed be the venue to host the whole concept. I was going to grab .net too, but thats why I told you and Jon to do it...it only costs 25$ for a 2 year lease, just take it off the market and park the name. Thats all I am doing with .org, reserving it and parking it. It does not have a DNS server associated with it, so unless I turn it on through InterNic, the name will never resolve. If you want to, I can go get .net too, and park it as well. 2) I believe very strongly that this type of thing be public domain, not private domain. Your site, as open as you are about it, is private domain. There is nothing wrong with private domains hosting this kind of thing in general, or mirroring another site, but I don't like the idea of private domains hosting what should be public data in principle because they have private funding, people running the site who are unknown to me, of unknonwn skill (no offense!) and are not answerable to the general public (and rightly so!). So I believe very strongly that you and Jon should be allowed to do whatever you want with the internet. But I also believe that unless you are a public servant, answerable to the public, then the public should be careful with entrusting its information to you. Now, you provide a valuable service to the climbing community. I just think that this particular thing is different than a BBS. so, for example: you and jon host the site. 5 years from now, which is a LONG LONG time from now, you are both older and wiser and dont want to do web crap anymore. Who then takes the responsibility for the info? What if no one comes forward? for example: the site gets hacked and you guys loose the database. Who is reponsible for the loss? Who is responsible for nightly or weekly backups? high availablity? You should not be, because your server is doing charitable work for free. But you would be. I want to avoid those kinds of "front end" issues for example: copyright issues arise. Who is then responsible? You would be. I don't want to subjugate anyone to a lawsuit. 2) I am not planning on building a seperate site. I am not planning anything really, I already have a website and don't care to build and maintain another one. domain names are just that, names that resolve to IP numbers. so, to explain further, *should* cascadeclimbers.com host this concept site, you can do so simply by pointing a domain name, any name, at your static IP. the DNS entry itself is pretty meaningless. So I believe that hosting this concept idea should not be done in the private domain. For one because I am a little paranoid, and also because I do this professionally and think there are too many issues in private hosting. Now, the actual behind the scenes role that CC.com plays may be pretty great, those are things we can talk about. For example, we could point the x.org name (whatever its called, just about the last thing I want is to use cc.org!) at a server mapped behind your firewall, that people other than just you and jon have access to. Maybe host it at a public isp and distribute the FTP and root passwords over PGP. Whatever. I guess my long story short is I am trying to protect everyones interests, and believe that is accomplished through public domain hosting. Thoughts? Alex more.. Sorry I am in the middle of a build so this is short. things that worry me: You guys are using pre-packaged BBS software. Makes me nervous. You use CGI. Makes me very nervous as it has huge security holes and scales like shit. No idea what your firewall is. Do you have one? No idea what dB you are using. Hope its not Access. No idea how your site will scale, what its uptime is, or who fixes broken things. I am guessing you are on UNIX. Good uptime, harder to administer and patch security holes. You have no true incentive to be nice to other climbers except that you are nice guys. You are not paid by me. This type of data collection requires alot of work. I think people are sitting around right now going hey, thats a cool idea, but I would be very curious as to how many stick around and actually work through tough times. I am a pessimist so I would wager alot would rather go climbing than deal with a dead harddrive that hosted your reserved dB memory. Alex A final note: I asked that people come up with other possible domain names that could be used to relay the intent of the site, and not step on Jon and Tims toes as far as domain names are concerned. Sorry if I did not make this more clear: I do not want to use CascadeClimbers.org in particular, but I do not want to use CascadeClimbers.com for the above reasons. As always, only an opinion.... ------------------ Wimp Climber http://www.mountainwerks.com/alexk/

As a result of this discussion, I have reserved the www.cascadeclimbers.org domain name, as a starting point. The .net name is still open, and I did not reserve it because I do not think .net accurately indicates that an organization is at heart. Jon and Tim, you might want to reserve .net and PARK it, so that there is no confusion in the future about what site is what... I would like some suggestions from the members of this discussion what other possible names we could register, to make the intent of the site clear(er) as well as not infringe too much on jon and tim's very apt choice of domain name(s). If I receive a good number of suggestions and consensus from a number of people who are interested in contributing (Lowell, others), I will then register more names. Thanks for your thoguht and time, Alex

Oh for Gods sake! Seems I've pulled a Dan. Everyone sit back, take a breath and get silly notions out of your heads. Hosting a web site, publishing, admin, dealing with legal issues and doing what we are proposing to do will take a bit more planning than just having Tim and Jon set up a "private room" on a chat BBS. If you think that is sufficient, then Godspeed. As I mentioned to Tim, I also strongly believe this is a public domain issue...something like freeware. This requires a little bit of preparation. The last thing I really want to do is explain everything here, as it would take way too much time. I would suggest, as was mentioned previously a while ago, that the interested parties meet and we come up with a plan for how to go about doing all this. This included Tim and Jon, Mike Stanton, Jim Nelson, Lowell Skoog, hopefully J Fisher, hopefully Darin, and a whole host of other people who have been doing legal, publishing, web, and software/hardware for a long time. I am free tonight and Sat night and Sun night late. Let me know where we should be drinking... Alex

Sorry, one more thing. I think there is another very large issue when contemplating something like this, and that is that what we are proposing works fine for new routes, but that updated routes and existing routes found in many volumes on the Cascades will not be initially represented. Multiple sources of information, especially out-of-synch information, only makes things confusing in the long run, so one thing that might be discussed is how to incorporate existing, copyrighted information into the proposal, if at all. This may require some level of cooperation from the authors, such as Jim (who does visit this site), and Jeff, but also Mr Beckey himself and a whole host of other people. I guess I just want to be a bit careful before we go bashing off into the proverbial Devil's Club. [This message has been edited by Alex (edited 02-01-2001).]

Tim, on 4) Publishing, I think it could be easily said that after a review process is completed by the panel, the "route" and any updated data on it could be published in the public domain on the web, either through CC.com or a new domain set up by "Pacific Northwest" climbing community and managed on behalf of that community. I think there are alot of potential contributors to this effort, not just in the review process. There are several lawyers lurking around the woods, and many other web/desktop publishing savvy people as well, whose free services would doubtless be approeciated by the greater community once a clear process is established. Like all such sites (and yours) the real publishing work comes down to a few web-savvy geeks, but I feel strongly that the publishing, ownership and any copyright issues be kept by the community, not a privately controlled site. That said, I think it would be very appropriate for CC.com to mirror the master publishing site, as well as other sites like Jeff's.

My sometimes partner Jeff Mau was a sport climber first, did that for 2 years 'til he got to the 12's. Then immediately started leading gear Index 10. Then moved to gear alpine 10 (I did Beckey Leen with him in 3 hours). Then went alpine snow and ice. That was at the start of his third year of climbing. Then moved to rope solo aiding. Took a few falls, got married, doesnt climb anymore. But he had it going, so I would say... if you have the head and drive for it, sport climbing provides a solid launch platform. if you are a cautious person by nature or learn slower, starting trad in the low grades is likely much safer in the long run. Alex

I have some slides, what dates are people thinking? Doesnt have to be a big party to be a good party, I could even host it at my sparsely furnished but capable house. I should mention that if people really expect me to host the party, then I won't be able to do it before end of Feb earliest, quite possibly March sometime, sorry. If its just me showing up somewhere, I can attend any weekend except Feb 16-17 weekend. Alex [This message has been edited by Alex (edited 01-31-2001).]

Drury Falls: ------------ Climbed Drury with Scott B. and Dan E. on Saturday in baking sunshine and a sea of clouds. The route is fat and blue, with some funky surface crud in places but decent pro overall. Jens is right (see previous post on Drury), you can cross the river easily right below the drainage, just upstream of a little, longish island. There is a beaten track all the way up, enjoy!

You cannot ask for a better forcast or better mountain conditions than what you will have on Saturday. There. I said it. If you don't do it this weekend, you arent going to do it this year.... (sits back and watches the cars queue up...)

Just some clarifications, You were not on the Cable, that line doesnt have room for 2 parties and if you were leading it in its current conditions, people would be grovelling on the road at your greatness. You were likely on H202. In ice climbing, leading always has precendence over TR'ing, and soloing always has precendence over leading; but this is STANDING ON THE GROUND at the same time. Once you are on a route, all normal forms of etiquette apply, and that includes that a second party who wants to lead either wait of go find something else. One of the largest lapses of judgement I ever witnessed was a soloist on Weeping Wall left as he climbed under us for 2 pitches. We literally were forced to stop climbing, as anything we sent down was going to free fall 50m and smack right into him. We had right of way and he was an idiot, simple as that. It cannot be overemphasized that in ice climbing, unlike rock climbing, when you climb above someone you put them in serious danger. We all know what its like to be almost dislodged by our own dinnerplates. Its something else again when that dinnerplate has had 100 feet of falling to accelerate. If you are the cause of an accident, legal precendence is that you are responsible to effect their rescue. In ice climbing, whether its at Banks, Lillooet or the Rockies, should you ever encounter another party on the route, the only three acceptable means of climbing the route safely are to lead and second side-by-side (only possible on a wider flow), or wait til they top out, or find something else.

Its a welsh word for "valley"

There is alot of it under the "Local Ice" thread, and others. Hunt around a little, you'll see it.... Alex

Just wanted to let everyone know that Barrabes in Spain sent my Prophets to me within a week of ordering, very fast service. The tools came complete, leash, stinger pick, and head, for 168$ american. Thats a screaming deal for a brand new quality tool. Thumbs up!! Alex

You can rent general mountaineering equipment through REI in Seattle when you arrive, but their store hours will make for a late arrival at the mountain the day you pick up the goods....

The feeling I get from you is that you think that it my be the climbing community's responsibility to protect the information, and would like to set up some infrastructure to make that possible. I actually raised this very issue, as my first ever post on CascadeClimbers.com, and got some good responses, so it is on a few people's minds. I would also be willing to help, though I also have a project in the works that will require at least another year or two of research and time. I think, though, that those people interested in this issue should meet here in the Pacific Northwest sometime soon, and hash out some of the problems and concerns that might be encountered. Public BBS tends to get a little tedious to read for details... Alex

I am not answering the question, only building it. This is my take: The Web is not a good place to post new routes because 1) It is not a public forum, controlled by an organization 2) There is no incentive to edit, revise and publish records at a given point in the future. Fred Beckey is a prolific updater of his own work, and I believe this is a very viable option. The Cascade Alpine Guide is a still the last word when it comes to references on the Cascades. The American Alpine Journal is unfortunately too broad in scope to really tackle this issue. Nor does it get published or people really read it with any regularity to make it a good way to ditribute route info. The local organizations here have no real inceentive to do the (very hard) work required to keep information up to date, though the Moutaineers would always be a likely candidate if the organization were a little more driven to do this kind of thing. Finally, the climbing rags have little incentive to publish route information either: not very marketable, really. So what does that leave? Individual authors who have the passion, drive, energy, contacts, and support to compile, edit and revise, and finally publish printed guidebooks. These individuals are few and far between. Cheers, Alex [This message has been edited by Alex (edited 01-23-2001).]

I always wanted to do a roadtrip that long until I realized I would be so sick of climbing after 3 weeks I would want to just go back to work... Oh well, cha'que a son gout Alex

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since none of these posts have anything to do with Banks Lake other than say "Banks Lake sucks", I'd like to refute that. Banks Lake currently has the best ice around, except Drury. I have no idea what others are accustomed to climbing in Washinton, but there were plenty of technical full pitch things to climb at Banks. From the Cable to the boat launch past the State Park, there are up to 20 lines formed. Routes on the other side of the lake may be in, but the lake is not frozen. Also Miller Time and Kickapoo Joy Juice look in, and that lake *is* frozen. Locals have said this is a very strange year, with some things not in and some uncommon lines formed. We are feeling the affects of a dry fall, dry winter, and not enough cold, but Banks Lake will keep you busy even beyond Devils Punchbowl. Worth the drive in my opinion. Alex

I do, I was there Sunday (yesterday) See my post under the "local ice" thread, or contact me directly at recompense@hotmail.com

I am backing up my vote for the Prophets by buying a pair. Since no one in the US has the "old" BRS Prophet in stock anymore, I went to Barrabes. They made it worth my while, since 2 BRS Prophets cost the same as a single CF Prophet - 320$. As soon as I get them I will be selling at least 1 of my venerable X-15s. Alex

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Paul who sells boots, do (did you) work at Bellevue/Redmond REI?