Alpine_Tom

quote: Originally posted by Alpine Tom: quote: Are they still doing Critical Mass? That's great[/QB] Oops. Didn't see your address. Never mind.

What about by location, the way the Route Reports are arranged?

It sounded to me like tg was asking whether there were specific criteria that the Superintendant applied before deciding whether to allow you to do a solo climb. Or, are they granted as long as they get the letter?

Sloan Peak corkscrew route fits the bill. It's a longish approach, a bit of uncomplicated glacier travel, and a fun scramble to the summit. Much less crowded than Pugh or Daniel.

quote: Originally posted by projecthex: and nolan...you can't count posts since our previous identities have all been kicked off by overzealous moderators We've been here all along beyotch!! Golly, I wonder why they'd do that? You seem so... inoffensive.

If I had several big, loud aggressive dogs, who hassled people, and left big dumps in the middle of the trail, and chased down wildlife and dug out marmot burrows and ripped down small trees, would anyone here defend my right to bring my dogs up Mt. St. Helens, or anywhere else? A snowmobile is no less obnoxious than those dogs, except that if I had the dogs, I’d still have to pay the $15 fee. Maybe I should be exempt from that fee too, since after all I have to buy dog food, and you don’t? This isn’t some moral judgement that people who hike up under their own power are somehow more pure than people who ride up. I wouldn’t particularly object to a teleferique up to the top of Mt. St. Helens. What bugs me is the noise, the pollution, and the unavoidable destruction they cause. And, the “get out of my way, I’m on a snowmobile” attitude they have doesn’t help matters any.

ncascades.org is The North Cascades institute, which is an educational organization. They have Mountain Stewards, Skagit River Stewards, and Eagle Watchers. It doesn't appear that they are particularly focused on collecting parking fees.

Also check out the issues/news section of http://www.i-world.net/oma/ (Oregon Mountaineering Assn) for discussions of "Notice of Exemption" and "Notice of Non-Compliance." Personally, I object less to the $$ than I do to the Forest Service's practice of representing my payment as approval. It'd be interesting to see if they had a check box labeled "paying under protest" or something, what percentage of people were paying the fee willingly. Not many, I'd expect.

Update -- I called down there today (Longmire) and the guy I spoke with said that there's been a foot of new snow at paradise the last week, so travel up to Muir w/o snowshoes or skiis would be pretty difficult. No information about the upper mountain; the chief climbing ranger, Steve Winslow, is out this week, and Mike G. isn't around either. The gate at Longmire is unlocked around 9:00 am, and is locked to uphill traffic by 6:30 PM, and to downhill traffic around 8:00.

They look a little bored. Maybe you need a cat or two as well, to liven things up.

oo! oo! I see him! He's on the couch! DOWN! DOWN!

quote: Originally posted by AlpineK: quote:Originally posted by Fairweather: Don't try to absolve the "researchers" of responsibility here. They knew EXACTLY what they were doing, and knew the cause/effect their research would have. I think a congressman made the analogy of bankrobbers getting caught and then claiming that they were only trying to test the bank's security. They got busted. Simple as that, Dru. F you aren't a judge and I'm not either. Seems to me that guilty or not the checks and ballances worked here, and even if they didn't there was a long way to go before use of the area would have been restricted. Did either of you actually READ the article as posted above? There was NO attempt to deceive, there was NO guilt involved. They did, apparently know "EXACTLY what they were doing" which was checking the lab. (The scandal ought to be that the guidelines didn't provide for control samples.) But they never presented the results as though it showed there were lynxes in the forest. That was a complete red herring, misreprsented by newspaper with a political agenda. It reminds me of that "ketchup is a vegetable" firestorm during the Reagan administration, where the FDA (or the dept. of education?) was accused of calling the ketchup in school lunches as a vegetable for nutritional purposes. In fact, they never did that, some muckraking newpaper reporter read the proposed guidelines, and guessed that the way they was written, it was conceivable that they could be interpreted this way. And naturally it was the guess that made the headlines, and is now received wisdom that "everybody knows."

That was cool! I didn't know half that stuff about caribou!

The most interesting (and internally consistant) part of this is that the story was broken by The Washington Times, which is owned by the Unification Church, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, presiding. The newspaper is far enough to the right fringe that they make the Cato institute sound pretty reasonable.

What doesn't destroy me only makes me whinier. The Onion

quote: Originally posted by Juneriver: When I talked to the local camera shops (I mentioned I'm not a camera expert), they all presented the Canon and the Nikon as the only two plausible options. Pentax, Minolta, etc. were not even taken seriously. Unfortunately, a lot of this sort of "brand preference" is due to the spiffs and incentives manufacturers give to retailers. It's the same in the stereo business, and probably in the larger volume segments of the outdoor gear industry too (backpacks, boots, etc.)

You don't really NEED the appendix, or gall bladder. Certainly two kidneys are redundant; you could remove one and have it stored in case you need it later. Look at the performance improvement Lance Armstrong got from removing superfluous body parts!

The basic problem is that exactly those features which make a good camera make it heavy, and bulky, and so make it a poor piece of climbing gear. One example is the prism. Inexpensive and lightweight cameras (like the Maxxum 5, Rebel 2000, etc) use mirror prisms, which are inexpensive and light. However, they’re not as bright, so the manufacturer compensates for that by restricting the field of view in the viewfinder, so your pictures end up with a lot more on them than you saw when you took it. And, of course, the smaller and lighter it is, the more plastic and less metal, and more likely it is to get damaged when you bang it on a rock. Smaller cameras use smaller batteries, which require changing more often, so you’ve got to carry extra spares and be prepared to change the batteries in mid-climb. And, there’s the whole world of medium-format cameras, which are bigger and bulkier yet. My own personal judgement is that, if 35mm is good enough for Galen Rowell it’s probably good enough for me. After all, the ASA 400 film you buy today has tighter grain than the ASA 50 that Ansel Adams used. I’ve been vacillating for a long while between the Rebel 2000, Elan 7, and Nikon N80, and as soon as I decide on one, I look back at the others, then the Maxxum 5 came out, and probably Canon will be releasing an updated Rebel soon and... In the mean time, I keep using my old, banged-up-but-still-works manual-focus Olympus with no pop-up flash, and haul along both a f 1.7 50mm lens and an old Tamron 28-200 lens.

quote: Originally posted by rbw1966:[QB]Does it work without batteries? Can you override all the auto settings, i.e. set everything manually? QB] It doesn't work w/o batteries; very few new SLRs do. No Canons or Minoltas, three Nikons, one Olympus. Here's Popular Photography's review of the Maxxum 5: http://www.popphoto.com/Camera/ArticleDisplay.asp?ArticleID=52 [ 04-09-2002: Message edited by: Alpine Tom ]

I got Galan Rowell's "Inner Game of Outdoor Photography" from the library this weekend. He talks about that graphite "Mountaineer" tripod from Gitzo, but he seemed even more apalled than me by the price (over $500.) Turns out his lightweight tripod of choice is a Gitzo 026. I don't know if it's still available, but the articles in this book are pretty recent.

quote: Originally posted by mtngrrrl: By the way, a pal of mine is taking the Boeing-Mountie course and an "instructor" said he carries a can of dog food as his extra-extra food to ensure that he only eats it in case of a true emergency. I have nothing more to add since that about sums things up, if you ask me. I think Harvey Manning recommended doing this in one of his older hike books, only it was dry dog food, not canned. The idea is, it's lightweight, won't spoil, nutritious, and, of course, you probably won't be tempted to snack on it.But these days, with mad-cow disease and all, I'd be pretty wary about eating food manufactured for animals. The cleanliness and content standards are way lower than human foods.

quote: Originally posted by specialed: I think its unrealistic to expect outdoor retail salespeople to know everything about every product and have experience with it. Why would you rely on someone who is getting paid to sell you something for unbiased advice on a product anyway? I worked retail for about five years (computer sales, back in the old days, when you HAD to know what you were talking about.) I am pretty torn about buying stuff on the Internet (or mail order) vs. locally, because I feel, rightly or wrongly, that you "need" to keep local retailers in business.Bricks-and-mortar retailers are always going to have higher costs, so the only way for them to compete is by providing useful information.If I'm willing to do the research and figure out what the right crampon is for my particular need, then why should I pay the 20% extra for the privledge of picking it up in person? I bought a helmet from the REI Flagship store a couple of weeks ago, with my dividend. I'd pretty much decided that I should go with the Petzl Ecrin Roc, based on feedback from here, but I asked the sales guy, because it was a quiet day and he'd asked me if I needed any help, and it was as though I'd asked him which color fleece to buy. "Well, they're all good. It just depends on what you want."Great, thanks. (I forgot to ask about helmet decals, tho -- did I screw up? Are the BD decals compatible?)So, I got the Ecrin Roc, because I had the dividend check (and the 10% off), even though I could have saved $15 or so going on the Internet.Moral: if I know the model/size/style I need, I'll order it on the Internet; if I don't, I'll go to PMS. As others on this thread have observed, REI is heading down the trail Eddie Bauer blazed. Look for the new REI home store, opening soon near you.It wouldn't bother me a bit if the chinos and loafers and baby backpacks subsidized the climbing gear, but it seems just the oposite.

According to their website, this is the tent that got the Backpacker Magazine's Editors' Choice Award for 2002. I got a "GearMail" today that gives you 20% off on REI brand gear, which brings it down to a reasonable $120.

This advice all strikes me as perfectly accurate, but not very practical. The problem with all these recommendations -- wet vs. dry, accumulation zones vs. ablation zones, “reading the snow," is that they're of little use to a "newbie." The dotted line that so clearly separates the ablation and accumulation zones in the illustrations in “Freedom of the Hills” is often less visible on the actual glacier. Being able to read the snow is exactly what a newbie is NOT going to be good at. In my personal experience, which includes several solo glacier crossings, the only time I’ve seen a crevasse fall was on the Interglacier, in September, close to the rocks, when it looked perfectly reasonable to travel unroped (The leader, who went in, had the rope safely tucked in his pack! We’ve still never told his wife about the incident.) From my days of reading about the exploits of the Himalayan masters, I read about how Messner fell into a crevasse at the outset of his solo ascent of Everest, and (that Italian who’s name escapes me) fell into a crevasse and died after his solo sprint up K2 in 1986, in sight of the base camps. So, experience isn’t entirely protection. I think the reality is that most people, roped or unroped, don’t experience crevasses falls. Those that do usually experience small enough crevasses that they don’t actually go in. So it’s a combination of statistics being in your favor, and some luck. And, occasionally, disaster. If you go up normal routes on Sulphide Glacier or Inspiration Glacier, or following the boot-track on DC, you’ll likely be pretty safe. If yours are the only footprints on the Challenger Glacier, you’re probably taking a fair risk, no matter how well you can read the snow.

at the Copa Copacabana music and passion are always in fashion...