Alpine_Tom

my ugly toes submission:

From "Cascade Voices" by Malcolm Bates, p. 138: "In 1985 ... Peter Croft, alone and unroped, climbed every peak from the north ridge of Stuart to Prusick Peak's west ridge in one day." There you go. Not exactly a "ridge traverse" but a worthy one-day traverse outing.

Hey, Thermogenesis in August? An afternoon climb? That's pretty much guaranteed to be a "last lead."

Actually, to my mind, it's more like buying the book, reading it, then returning it. (I know a guy who does that.) What a local retailer offers is the ability to look at the merchandise, try it out, see if it works for you, plus the advice on whether it's right for what you want to use it for. The retailer bundles that service into the (higher) price for the product than you'd pay from some e-tailer. For you to deliberately take that service without the intention to pay for it is, in fact, theft. Perhaps theft of a service (or an implied service) isn't technically shoplifting (my attorney wife is out of town, and these sorts of discussions annoy her anyhow) and couldn't (and shouldn't) be prosecuted, but it certainly is morally wrong.

Let's see: California got F*#ked by Enron, by deliberately manipulating the energy market and lying about it, draining something like $8 billion from the state. Bush's response: "drop dead." Californians have been busily passing initiatives limiting the ability of the state government to function (starting with Prop 13) and now it's the governor's fault that things aren't as good as they used to be. Yeah, sounds like the feds' fault to me. 'course, Pat Buchannan ("Hitler wasn't such a bad guy, no really! It was the Jews!") is probably the political comentator I'd most trust to give an accurate evaluation of a political situation.

When I worked in computer retail (10-15 years ago) we saw that sort of thing regularly: we'd spend an hour with someone figuring out what exactly they needed (software, printer, PC, whatever) they'd leave with the quote and not come back, and later they'd come in for printer ribbons or diskettes or something, and you'd find out they bought the system someplace else because it was cheaper there. (And, inevidably, the guy would say "but you guys sure know a lot more about it, I really appreciated your help" as though the generous compliment made up for the lost comission.) My favorite was the "consultant" who came in asking me to tell him all about the various modems we had in stock so he could go to his client and advise them which one to buy mail order. If you want to buy something on the Internet, that's great, I do it regularly. But to go in to a retail shop and ask for their help and advice, then leave and buy it from someplace else that doesn't provide the service, then you're shoplifting. The store will go out of business (or they'll be forced to pay bottom dollar for sales help, and you'll get exactly the kind of incompetence you see at REI.) Another retailer down the drain, and another thread here about how "another great climbing shop is going out of business -- golly, why does this keep happening?" I bought a pack this week from PMS, even though I could have gotten it cheaper elsewhere (and saved sales tax) because I wanted to try out the pack, see how it fit, compare the medium and large (Jim said I needed a medium, I said no, I need a long; he was right.) I suppose I should have spent half an hour of his time, then left and ordered it from MEC. Guess that makes me a chump.

There's the Roosevelt-Kaleetan traverse.

Thanks to all. I have a copy of "Kissing the trail" coming from the library. I haven't been on the Wallace Falls trail in ten years, but I do remember it being fairly wide. It does have the advantage of being a "destination;" for a five-year-old, the trip is generally NOT its own reward. And the Exit 38 railroad grade has several attractions (to me, anyhow.)

I recently got a mountain bike, mostly so I can ride with my five-year-old, Peter (we have a Burley Piccolo, which is a sort of trailer that allows him to pedal along with me.) So, now I'm wondering where we'd go for interesting, moderate mountain bike trails. Besides the obvious -- Monte Cristo and the Iron Horse Trail -- I've managed to maintain an almost perfect ignorance of where you can mountain bike. Any suggestions appreciated, ideally within an hour of Seattle. (graemlins added by Peter - he thinks the devils has two thumbs up, and it seemed prudent to encourage that.)

I think he's talking about this: http://www.ansible.demon.co.uk/writing/banks.html

Whiskey is basically dehydrated beer.

As JoshK would say, "that's the whole point of posting!"

Well, the state can't use volunteer labor, amateur designs, etc. It costs a lot to get a backhoe out there to excavate trenches for plumbing. Maybe the state plumbers shouldn't get paid union wages? (Just be glad the military didn't build it!) What do you suppose this site would cost to run if Jon, Timm@y, and all the moderators were getting paid Microsoft wages for the time they put into it? That said, it'd be great if there was a way that those of us in the climbing community could contribute effort rather than just $$ to building a climbing rock there. It'd be cool to have one protected from rain.

I can't support anything that allows climbers to be off-leash. Actually, I think it's the mountain bikers that are going to be off-leash. I have a serious problem with that.

Yeah, it was great fun. I trashed a boot on the hike out, and we got a bit lost in one of the tree avalanche on the way out, but other than that it was pure fun! A great climb, lots of exposure but not terribly technical. A funny bit: I saw a marmot up on the ridge at about 8600'. I can't imagine what he was doing there. The idea of sleeping in the parking area was mine, I had no idea it'd be that busy in the middle of the night. Sorry, Lee.

I was up there yesterday. There is plenty of corn snow up beneath Forbidden. It does seem like a lot of work to drag skiis up that far (over the windfalls and all) but then, I'm not a skier.

So what happens to them when you fall, and by a fluke you land wrong and you're paralized from the neck down, and sue them? A few months of legal wrangling and the college decides it's safer to shut down the gym, and everyone looses. If you don't want rules, build your own wall.

Anyone been up there lately? Is the couloir still in?

Descending it (after climbing Adams Glacier about this time two years ago) there are a number of bivvy sites actually up on the North Ridge itself. That might save you some time in the AM. I'm with the others, though, I thought it was a pretty crumbly and scary descent. Re. the approach -- at our tent, we ran into John Burroughs, the president of Cascade Designs. He said that the Divide Creek trail is shorter and starts higher, so it might be preferable over Killen Creek. The map seems to bear this out, but I haven't done it.

Very sad news. It sounds like a great loss to society as well as the climbing community. (We were travelling through Oregon when I saw the story in the Prineville newspaper on Monday.) It's scary because that's exactly the sort of risky-but-non-technical terrain that people like me figure we can negotiate safely. We can't blame him for being inexperienced, or a mountie, or poorly equipped... it should be a warning to all that it can happen to anyone, if you're not careful. So, it sounds like he slipped on a steep scree slope. He was separated from his partner, but that shouldn't have contributed to the accident: if she had been right next to him, she couldn't have stopped the fall unless they were roped and had protection in. And no one ropes and protects a scree slope. (CAN you protect a scree slope?) I'm not familiar with the mountain, but am curious what he could have done differently. Was he off the preferred descent route? Was he tired/dehydrated/in a hurry to descend before dark?

Whew! it makes me tired just to look at them. Where's my beer?

'course, now you have an epic tale you can tell for years. My story about Liberty Ridge is basically "it wasn't so tough as everyone says..."

Sounds like mtnsos and I had a much easier time of it. We got off the Carbon by climbing up onto the snowfield to the right of the ridge proper, the 1955 route, (which involved some awkward amateur ice-climbing) and ended up well above Thumb Rock, so we carved out bivvies at about 12,000 feet and slept like babies. No rockfall problems at all up there. We headed up the hill about 6:30 AM. Ours were the footprints you saw heading off to the right. Compared to your epic, we had very little problem meandering around the several crevasses that make up the bergschrund on the right. At one point we did have to scramble up over a 8' high wall of hard snow, but no ice. (This is where we used our second tools, but we could have got up without them.) We never felt the need to rope up, let alone use any of the pro we brought. We were on Liberty Cap by 8:00, and down to Schurman by about 10:20. Some folks we met on the Emmonds near the summit said they'd recorded 60 mph winds at Camp Schurman in the night, and so most of the folks there had bailed. We had some very gentle breezes, just enough to ripple our bivvy sacks. FWIW, Feathered Friends Hummingbird bags rock!

As of last week (Friday) two tools were helpful, but probably not necessary. Conditions change, of course.