AlpineK

Lummox's point went way over your head there pal.

I made some chili last night. It sure didn't smell as good the second time around.

I would say that making comments like the one you did while someone is lost and possibly dead is in poor taste. Making a rapid judgement with limited facts is wrongheaded. This is why many people here hate it when the news media take a story involving a climbing accident and put their uninformed spin on it.

I find it funny that the two least experienced skiers Catbirdseat and Scot'teryx are the ones being the most judgemental. Accidents happen to everyone that is human. The very nature of most accidents is that the victim did at least one wrong thing coupled with bad luck. I suggest the two of you (CBS and Scotty) think long and hard about your own lives before you jump all over someone else.

Viva la revolution!

Until I get me a gimp the crawl space is free.

We can work a deal

Hey I've got a room to rent. $500/month. You get the main bathroom, share kitchen and large living room. For Feb 1. Send me a PM

Yeah you southerners are great. Slavery Lynching KKK I sure wish I was from the south.

Southerner are stupid.

Quit fucking whining.

Well Dave, some of us partied till 3AM and still got to ski light fluffy pow.

Fairweather While I share your distaste for the extreme elements in the environmental movement, Without organized advocacy for protecting land things would be different around here. In fact before the North Cascades National Park was established a mining company had plans for an open pit copper mine within the park boundaries that, at the time, would have been the largest open pit mine in the world. As to wilderness areas in parks, I highly doubt that Camp Muir is in the wilderness area in Rainier Park. Having the west side road closed to driving may in fact be a good deal considering how many people access stuff off the road to Paradise. At Denali National Park the whole north side of the mountain is a wilderness area yet you can land a plane on the SE fork of the Kahiltna. I think if you look long and hard at your true beliefs you'll find that the political party you love does not have your best interest at stake. If there was oil under Mt Rainier I bet your buddy GW would be pushing to drill for it. I know there are plenty of radical enviro types that don't have your best interest at stake either...I'm with you on the middle fork road.

Yep a fun New Years eve and some excellent powder to ski on New Years Day. Happy day

Actually astronomers now believe that interstellar space is made up of dark energy. In fact the vast majorty of the universe is dark energy.

Choke on a chicken bone...

Not so Ken, Back about 6 years ago two friends and I managed to get up to Fairy Meadows when some other group backed out. We drove to Golden via the Idaho panhandle. At some point I managed to come down with a bad case of diarea, so I mostly remember having to stop the car every half hour or so to deal with the situation. The next day we met up with the helicopter pilot and the other group that was headed into the hut. Everyone in the other group was from the Seattle area and they all had PhD's in microbiology. Since we were all tree guys there was this undercurrent of smart guys vs the blue collar dipshits. Also there was this French Canadian guy on the trip; he doesn't figure into the story other than we all wanted to throttle him after the first 2 sentences out of his mouth, and I still wouldn't mind doing so. Anyway the first day in to the hut we did some short runs around the hut, but on the second day we headed up above Freindship Col looking for rad shit to ski. There was about 8" of nice light powder on top of a slick surface of spring snow. At the col we saw this cool face on Sentinel Peak. The face looked pretty cool; 50 degree slope above a shrund. We headed up to the top of the peak. I was still feeling a little under the weather, so I was dogging it up the peak. The group of microbiologists were about 15 minutes behind us following our tracks. At the summit I decided to go first to check out the slope. I made a couple turns through a rocky area at the top of the slope, and then I thought I would try and cut the slope to see what happened. I made a cut and everything looked cool, so I started to make turns. On my second turn I heard this loud crack and saw the slope start to slide. I tried to head down and to the side to get off the slab, but as I skied I could see the fracture line opening up really fast in front of me. Eventually I got pushed over by the snow so I was riding the slab head first down the slope. Instinct took over and I proceded to try and self arest. I managed to get my feet below me and then I could shove my hands through the slab and arest on the solid layer under the slab. I came to a stop and the slab took off. Since I had safety straps on my skis, I didn't loose any of my gear, so I just sat there with my feet dug in to the hill. Everything got real quiet after the slide stopped then I heard my friend John yell at me from the top of the peak. He said, "Hey Kurt did you just shit your pants?" Anyway I managed to get my skis on and then we skied the stabilized slope. The microbiologists wouldn't ski the slope even though it was clearly safe. I think they viewed us a potentially dangerous for the rest of the trip. We had a great time without any incidents for the rest of the trip, and we skied the face on Sentinal one more time near the end of our stay at Fairy Meadows. That's my only encounter with a slide.

I want you to give me 20 push ups... now soldier!

You guys can justify it however you want, but you're carrying one more thing than you need to. A shovel works good enough as a cooking platform. How much other useless crap do you guys carry? Light is right.

I told you not to touch that voodoo doll you found.

Good times, damn good times

There's nothing wrong with this approach if you're going a short distance to a base camp, however for longer trips it's good to have each piece of equipment you carry perform multipul tasks.

I did it in five, and scored higher than you! All those self help classes and the high paid personal trainer are really paying off for you.

Metal shovels make a good place to set your stove; plastic shovels don't.