Alpine_Tom

I did it about this time of year a couple of years ago, with dogs. It's kind of a long slog through trees and about a hundred switchbacks before you get out into the open, but it's pretty up there. I posted a trip report with some photos at: http://home.attbi.com/~tbreit/pugh3.htm (Please ignore the somewhat overwrought prose. There's a lot of editing in my future.)

quote: Originally posted by sk: I am several chapters into The Poisenwood Bible. So far it seems realy dry. are you saying it gets better cause if you can tell me that, I would be more likely to pick it back up. I read The Poisonwood Bible (okay, I books-on-taped it, I don't know the right verb) this spring, and it did start a bit slow, but it got better and better. In the end, I quite liked it. After that I read "Prodigal Summer" which was even better, and went ahead and finished out the rest of her novel output. I think "Prodigal Summer" is her best, but the rest (The Bean Trees, Pigs in Heaven, and Animal Dreams) are all worth reading, particularly with the rainy season approaching.

quote: Originally posted by rbw1966: I'm reading Don Delillo's Underworld right now. That first chapter really sucks you in, doesn't it?

Timothy Egans' "The Good Rain" is an interesting historical book about the NW, including a chapter called "Looking for Beckey." He wrote another book along the same lines called "Lasso the Wind", which encompasses more of the west generally. Both highly recommended.

Guess I stepped on Cletus’ bunion. Sorry about that. My point was principally that, if I tell my wife (who worries, with some justification, about my safety) that I have the cell phone, so I’ll call, and it’s 8:00 PM on the second day and she hasn’t heard a word, when does she start to worry? Since she’s gotten calls from Stuart, and Glacier Peak, and other remote spots, (as well as from the summit of Rainier in the past) it may seem reasonable to her, especially given the well-publicized accidents on Rainier this year, that not hearing from me for two days (when she knows I have her precious new fone that AT&T assured her works much better than the old one) it’s maybe time to worry. At this point I have enough data to say “I’ll call if I can, but don’t expect it.” Frankly, I’d just as soon leave the electronic leash at home, and I may from here on out. I can’t imagine relying on it for rescue in a dire situation; I’d trust our Westie to play Lassie and go for help first. OTOH, I have been out climbing on a workday where my boss said I had to bring my pager and cell phone in case of emergency. Beats not getting out. Thanks turn_one, that’s an explanation that makes sense.

quote: Originally posted by Norman Clyde: The five miles to Austin Pass from Lake Ann will feel mighty long to you. I haven't done the Sulphide but I bet it's easier to stay on route descending the Chimneys. Finding the start is probably the only tricky part. Finding the start of the chimneys is indeed the tricky part. Even with Becky's book, and someone up there to point it out, I had a hard time finding it. I have a photo with the line drawn in I can e-mail you if you want. Can't say how much it'll help, though. And on the descent, you can indeed get "off route." (There actually several trails winding up through there.) I managed heading to somehow end up on a blank (to me) rock face, looking at a bolt at eye level, with a beautiful trail 20 feet below me. I managed to squirm across the face in my boots and scramble down, but I sure would have liked having a short rappel rope in my pack. Whether you attempt it in a day (I did, but in June) or overnight, don't try to descend the chimneys in the dark.

quote: Originally posted by Edgar: Can you please do the research before you bitch. b. Many dogs have a natural tendency to "hunt" or "chase" things, therefore scarring wildlife whis is native to the park. An animal that lives in the park who is stressed out is not going to live a very normal live. Not reproducing the way it should, becoming either timid or aggressive when it is exposed to this non-native animal (or human) again. Far be it from me to fan the flames *heh* but it's my vague understanding that most of the animals in the park, as well as elsewhere, evolved in a predator-prey relationship. We killed off the wolves, the grizzlys, most of the other predators, and then banned hunting, so the animals end up being UNNATURALLY courious and unafraid. Of course that's good if, like me, you're interested in photographing them, or just seeing the big herd of mtn. goats around Summerland. And it infuriates me as much as it probably does you to see dogs running around chasing wildlife, dumping on the trail, getting into my food, intimidating people... But to imply that the park was this beautific Eden where the lion and lamb lay down together up until the white man brought his pet dogs along, is just silly.

It seems like over the last few years cellular service in the mountains has gotten worse and worse. When I climbed Stuart a few years back, I got perfect reception on the summit. On Glacier Peak (1997), Sloan Peak, Baker, etc, never a problem. On The Brothers('96) I called my wife at my inlaws', and got her father, and the reception was so clear, he thought I was calling from home. But this summer, there was NO reception on Thompson Peak, and last weekend both at Muir and the summit of Rainier, just dead. I’m not someone who thinks a cell phone can replace self-reliance, but my wife has gotten used to me checking in to let her know I’m okay (so when I don’t call, she worries.) We’re not using a bargain service, it’s been AT&T all along. And the phone does analog, I checked. It’s a brand-new Nokia phone, about two weeks old. Works fine on the I-5 corridor. Has anyone else noticed a decline in service on summits? Or is there a cellular service that works better in the backcountry?

quote: Originally posted by Johnny Rebel: Mitch my chestbeating brotha, congratulations on your hard man accomplishment. But why do you feel it necessary to publicly boast? Just curious. Every once in a while, people post something called “Trip Reports” on this part of the site. (In fact, that's what the forum is called.) I expect that’s what Mitch thought he was doing. One hopes next time he’ll restrict himself to discussions of HC or retro-bolting or forest passes, or better yet, ridiculing someone else’s posts.

quote: Originally posted by Off White: ...Your only hope is to come out of the closet and start posting in your own name, to abandon your childish dissembling and learn to speak in your own voice. Cmon dude, one avatar at a time. Yeah, look how well it works for Dan Larson.

There's always the venerable bartender jokes. To wit: A priest, a rabbi, and a horse walk into a bar. Bartender looks up and says "what is this, some kind of joke?" That's kind of short though. This is better anyhow: Three women are sitting at the bar talking about their husbands. One says, “My husband is a professional football player, and he’s so strong and muscular, when we go to bed he just takes me by storm, and I just love it.” The second one says, “My husband is a violinist, and he’s so sensitive and tender with me, and I just love it.” The third one just stares into her drink for a while. Finally she says, “My husband is a Microsoft salesman. He just sits at the end of the bed and tells me how great it’s going to be when I finally get it.” [ 09-13-2002, 04:23 PM: Message edited by: Alpine Tom ]

Not to change the subject from the ever-useful discussions of racial supremacy, but I was looking at that NWHikers.net site, and I came across a transcript of a forest pass trial. And here's an excerpt of what a judge in the case said: "But the difficulty here is this: there is nothing in that regulation that requires anybody to post anything on their automobile. And if the Forest Service wants to prove that somebody hasn't paid the fee, they're going to have to prove that there was no daily payment made, that there was no weekly payment made, and there was no season payment made. And if they fail to do that, they have not proved their case. And during the State's case they really haven't done that, so you sort of filled in the gaps." The implication (http://www.nepfa.org/TTcase.html ) is that if they take it to trial, just refuse to testify (which is what the judge told the defendant he had a right to do and should have done) and point out this aspect of 36 CFR 261.15

If by "imposition" is supposed to mean "impersonate" then he's certainly not, he's impersonating a dog trainer. Very few people, even disabled advocates, would find that offensive.

quote: Originally posted by JoshK: Stupid question here...but I've always wondered if it would be possible to have horses wear some sort of "crap collector" behind them? Then when it gets filled up, then owner can at least dump it in the bushes somewhere that people probably won't be walking. It seems like it wouldn't be that hard to do something like this so at least the trails aren't covered in crap... The horses that they use in downtown Seattle to pull those tourist carriages are equipped with a sort of a diaper. But I bet you'd have more luck getting your average Marlboro Man horseman to wear a dress, than to use one of those things. FWIW, our dog Max always pokes his south end off the trail discreetly when making a deposit. I don't know where he learned that, I certainly didn't teach him. (he does chase marmots and other vermin, so he's not a perfect backcountry citizen, but at least people don't have to step over his droppings the way you do horse apples.) [ 09-05-2002, 11:59 AM: Message edited by: Alpine Tom ]

I think the issue is that dogs chase wildlife, but horses generally don't. (I think dogs go for horsecock too, come to think of it.) You also can't take dogs to Colchuck lake, for similar reasons.

Did it with JoshK Saturday. Fine conditions, but a crummy descent. Hit the trail at around 8:00, summited around 4:00 PM, and were back to the car about 9:00. I had beta on a shortcut for the PCT approach from MVS, but we decided not to take it, reasoning that we could easily waste more time trying to find the shortcut than the shortcut would save. (Probably 45 minutes of the time was taken up by messing with cameras over the course of the day.) The Saturday of Labor Day weekend, on the PCT in Snoqualmie, we saw about half a dozen people on the trail the entire day. There were a couple of parties camped in the basin below Thompson, looks like a great place to hang out, but saw no one else on the route, either going up or down. As Nelson says, the crux is indeed correctly identifying bumblebee pass. I was up here a few years ago, trying to do the east ridge, and took the wrong “pass” too far east on the PCT, and ended up getting cliffed out descending the other side. The pass is a very short gap in the two ridge above the trail, and the trail makes a sharp turn, about 40 degrees, there. There is actually a trail that you can find once you’re scrambling up, but it’s not really obvious from the trail. We avoided rappeling on the descent. My attitude is normally: if God didn’t want me to rappel, He wouldn’t have put these rap slings here. But downclimbing is a good confidence builder, and there were just two short spots that I found scary. The descent down the scree, though, is truly nasty, worse than descending Cascadia Couloir. Too bad there’s not a way to rappel down and avoid that stuff! I can't imagine it's much fun climbing this side. No summit book either, but nice views. There’s a really cool looking lake to the NE that has a beautiful long waterfall coming from it, anyone know what that is?

I find myself with a free day Saturday, and the guy I was going to go climbing with had a change of plans. Anyone up for a one-day shot up the N. Face of Mt. Buckner? Leave the trailhead at 0-dark-30, and be back down in time for burgers at Buffalo Run. E-mail me at tbreit99@yahoo.com

and featuring Jake Lloyd (Anakin in The Phantom Menace) as Colin. -- ooh! ooh! top of the page! [ 08-30-2002, 01:23 PM: Message edited by: Alpine Tom ]

FWIW, I got a pair of neoprene (I think) sox a while back, mail order from Early Winters or somewhere. They were pretty effective at keeping my feet warm, but of course not dry at all. I didn't have plastic boots in those days, I was trying to get by slogging around in the snow in HiTek lightweight hiking boots. Seems like if your feet are getting cold it's a matter of 1)the boot fitting too tightly so there's not enough circulation, 2) they're getting soaked, in which case a vapor barrier wouldn't do much good at all, or 3) it's f***ing cold (like ice climbing in that -20 weather you get back there,) so cold that sweat isn't an issue, in which case a vapor barrier might work. But I'm such a cheapskate, I'd try the breadbags first too.

I have to confess that I liked Dru's account far better than scot'teryx. It was much more entertaining, though lacking the sheer dramatic force of Beck's account of his epic with Teddy Ruxpin, which will remain the pinnacle of alpine writing on this site. Um... horsecock.

At the risk of betraying myself as someone who just doesn’t get the joke, I don’t see why you're busting his chops. The WTA site is for hiker types, not climbers, and his trip report reads as though it was addressing that audience. There’s no chest-banging that I detected. I guess if you want to flip someone shit for not smoking pot in the Muir Hut, or worrying about cougars, or for not climbing stuff as difficult as you do, but still, unaccountably, enjoying himself and wanting to share his experiences, well, I guess that’s part of what this website is for. As regards those "warning flags", when you submit a trip report on the WTA page, there are a bunch of buttons you can click on if they apply to your experience, including bugs, snow on trail, and water on trail.

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I bought a day pass this year, and scanned it, and so I can print as many copies as I need. I was going to edit the numerals on the pass, but I figure Larry isn't recording them to enter in some database, so haven't bothered. E-mail me if you want a copy of the scans. It seems like the first year they started doing it, I noticed a some access roads that looked noticably better. But lately it seems like just the opposite. The road up to Mt. Pilchuck, which must be netting hundreds of $$ every weekend, is just horrible.

I'm with Alex. I travered it (up Boston Basin, down Sahale Arm), to see what the arm was like. It was tedious. Kind of pretty in spots, I guess, that lake (doubtful lake?) is sort of pretty. But the trail goes on for bloody ever. At the risk of sounding like a snob, it's also really crowded with casual hiker types. It's as busy as the Snow Lake trail at Alpental. The Boston Basin trail is a little bit of a challenge with the blowdowns, but it's not bad, and Boston Basin is just gorgeous. I was up there two weeks back, and the crevasses didn't seem serious. (BTW, I solo'd it, about this time of the year, in 2000.) Re the summit: I'm a complete coward on rock, and I would have preferred a rope to descend from the summit of Sahale, but I got down okay without one, in heavy leather boots.

quote: Originally posted by krazy 1: yeah but, if you put holes in your thermarest you're screwed for a sleepin pad. or is that something else... i have a z-rest so that wouln't work... next! I used to roll my crampons in an old t-shirt with a couple of heavy-duty rubber bands, but I finally broke down and got an OR crampon bag. I've been pretty happy with it.