AlpineK

Climbing, fishing, mountain biking, kayaking, bird watching, hiking, backpacking, and coming up to rent a cabin in the woods are some of the activities that will benefit the locals by bringing money to the area. Money ends up creating jobs and thus paychecks for locals. I'm sure a lot of long time locals view logging as the only money maker, but if you look around the west you can find a lot of towns that benefit financially from having parks or wilderness nearby. Estes Park CO comes to mind as does Mazama and Winthrop WA.

All I get when I try that is a map of North America centered on the Midwest????

Why can't you just say "the late Larry Kemp"? he is just messing with you Mark. don't let him get to your head like that. I find the online interaction between matt and mark entertaining. As for Spring Picnic Maybe matt and mark can do a live entertainment event.

It was nice at Index today.

A friend and I were talking to one of the owners of the Index Town Store today. She was pretty happy about the Wild Sky bill passing. In the end stuff like this will help out small towns like Index a lot.

The US shares some of the same issues that China does, but here you're a lot less likely to be executed or imprisoned for voicing descent. I voiced descent on a climb once. Everyone called me a pussy for turning around and threatened to imprison me in the nearest crevasse for a slow execution. Well I'm guessing you aren't posting from inside a crevasse.

The US shares some of the same issues that China does, but here you're a lot less likely to be executed or imprisoned for voicing descent. Earlier in this thread the subject of Native Americans came up. Sure even today some folks don't respect them, but there have been a lot of folks both native and nonnative that have gone up against the US government. Guess what...they didn't get thrown in prison for making public stands against the government. Try that in China and you'll see a gun pointed at you.

I can't believe that I actually agree 100% with something you wrote! Very well put! That was a good post.

Carbon Neutral Hey you want to climb Denali It's a cool place to go successful or not. Good luck. As for the whole Carbon Neutral thing well it's an interesting motivation. I shake my head a bit looking at your sponsors. As far as planting new trees to offset your carbon footprint all I can say is preserving large old trees does a lot more to reduce the footprint than planting new trees. I'm really disgusted when I keep hearing about the rain forests in Brazil that are cut to plant crops for ethanol or biodiesel production. But anyway have a good trip.

Dude those pictures look great I'd like to go there, but the Ski In works best at a convenient location for everybody that has great skiing and a cool place to camp. In the past everybody who participated came from WA, BC, or OR. Washington Pass is pretty convenient for folks from BC and WA. People in OR have to drive further, but the pass is worth it. I know from living there that it's a pain to drive from ID to Washington Pass, so I don't blame you for picking a cool spot closer to home. It's too bad there isn't any good skiing in the Scab Lands. That would be a central spot for everybody.

I've heard that elsewhere. I'd like to go there.

CH was in a number of movies I liked a lot. I don't think I've ever seen Omega Man. I'll have to put that on the list. As far as politics I don't agree with his views, but he was good at expressing a point of view.

My experience with the Chinese in Tibet was a bad one in regards to the treatment they gave to the Tibetans. I also hear the Chinese behave quite badly to the folks in Xinjiang. The Chinese government deserves the protests they've been getting over the Olympics. It probably won't change anything, but it's good that folks do stuff like that.

Shhhh... Rudy's trying to hide his love of skiing.

There are some good snowboarders out there. I don't have a problem with snowboards as long as snowboarders follow the rule: [font:Century Gothic]Sideslipping is not snowboarding [/font]

Did somebody say skiing. I had to rock climb last year , but this year will be different. We'll have to keep up with the pass conditions and DP.

That's super bad ass. Way to go guys.

Hmmm math teacher. I was just a teaching certificate away from that gig back in '89. I'm not sure if they'd let me back after a long time off. Right now I'm having enough troubles getting back to my chosen career after a sort of short time off. All I know is I really like what I do and it's worth fighting through some times of BS to keep at it. Bummer Rudy.

Thanks for posting that. I hadn't seen it. That's some rad climbing.

I've soloed Sir Donald a couple times, but then again maybe I didn't solo since each time I did it with buddies and we didn't tie in to a rope. It's fun to have people to talk about the climb with while you're climbing.

The route is a fun one. You'll have a good time. It's been a while since I was there, so I don't remember some details. We led on a single 11 and carried a 9 for the rap, but like I said it was quite some time ago. I'd agree with the 4-5 hr round trip time frame. I wouldn't carry much on the route unless you plan to signal space aliens. That's a new one to me about the pillar shifting.

That was a great show. Lots of good pictures including stuff on South Howser Tower.

I've spent summers in the Rockies and did a lot of free form camping while in the valley. That was a while ago and Canmore was different then, but with a little hunting and looking you should be able to find places for temporary parking/living. You can take your time, but you probably want a house to live in come winter. Well unless you're out to prove a point.

Sorry the shit is going down sooner than August May 2008

Actually I believe there's a few Russian folks hunkering down in caves right now. They claim the end of the world is this month and god wants them to pass judgement on all of us. Don't make any big plans for next month