Winter

The press is watching us. I'm sending out strong thoughts to everyone up on the mountain.

Sometime early Thursday morning, the men, who have not been identified by authorities, slipped a handwritten note in the mail slot of the office for the Hood River National Forest, said Doug Jones, permit specialist with the Mount Hood National Forest. “We don’t see these very often,” Jones said. All entry points into the wilderness have self-issue permit boxes where climbers and hikers are supposed to leave their permits to enter the forest, “but they are not really kept up during the winter,” Jones said. He said there is no climbing register where the men started their climb. He said there is a permit box, but since they are not from the area it is likely they did not spot it, Jones said. The climbers instead jotted a note and left it at the forest office on Oregon 35, south of Hood River. He said in the brief note they said they planned to take the route through the coulirs, or canyons, on the north face, “which tells me that they are probably going up to the right side of Elliot Glacier,” Jones said. “The Cooper Spur route goes left. There are no coulirs up there.” Uggghh.

Man, this sucks. I'm sure they've had a rough couple of days up there. Hopefully the PMR folks will get go get them and bring them all back safe.

Any chance anyone was on St. Helens today with a condition report?

Yo Doug, so how exactly was your case disposed of? Curious minds want to know. I thought there was a plea deal involved.

aw shit - serious work distraction. i've still never been to this place but have a week planned there sometime in the Jan-Feb timeframe.

yo can hook a brotha up with some beta for a ski traverse of the Mongolian Altai? BTW, congrats!!

Wes, there is a ton of places in NE Pdx. Alameda Brewing. Kennedy School woudl be a good choice for a work function. Newish place on Killingsworth and 43nd that serves TG. There's also this N Po hot spot. Good for a memorable work function.

Fav climbs? Yesterday's news. Always thinking about the next climb! Dream climbs? Oh yeah, there's so many! Beligerence and the South African Route on Paine currently keep me up at night. And that whole range of untouched granite splitters in an idyllic Shangri La untouched by western influence. I keep dreaming about that place. Oh yeah, and the 5.11a bullet holes at Rocky Butte.

Zara International - They were really good. Not super budget, but they hooked you up with a nice pool side hotel room on either side and they are reputable. Moshi is much nice than Arusha - go from Moshi.

If you're not going to do a technical route, then I would suggest the Arrow Glacier route. It saves you from having to traverse around the mountain and up the Baracno Wall, and its not nearly as heavily traveled. The 3-4th scrambling on summit morning is really fun at 17-18k, and then you get a 30-35 degree snow slope to the summit plateau. Way better than the scree slog from the other side. Whoops - didn't see that this route is supposedly still closed. That sux!

Cuban Rock Climbers Inspired by Foreigners Irk Castro Regime Youths Are Asked for Permits And Visited by Officials; No Fraternizing Allowed November 28, 2006; Page A1 VIÑALES, Cuba -- Seventy feet up a sheer limestone cliff known as La Cuchillita, or Little Blade, 17-year-old Roylandi González held onto a ledge by his fingertips. Then he glanced down to check the harness around his waist, grabbed hold of the rope that was tethered above him and started shimmying downward. Over the past several years, adventurous Cuban youths like Mr. González, schooled by an influx of foreign rock climbers, have turned this western town into an extreme-sport mecca. Climbers test their mettle on dramatic crags, barely touched by man, which soar above a green valley designated as a United Nations World Heritage Site. But climbers who have conquered Viñales's jagged peaks and imposing walls are now bumping up against a more formidable obstacle: the Communist political system. As Mr. González touched earth and removed his hard hat, he cast a wary eye for park rangers and police. "They threaten us and chase us off the hills," he said. "There's something about rock climbing that really seems to worry our government." As Cubans begin contemplating life after Fidel Castro, rock climbing has emerged as an improbable political battleground between the government and young Cubans eager to embrace the latest foreign fashions. In 2003, amid a broad crackdown on civil liberties and fraternizing between tourists and Cubans, the government announced that rock climbers henceforth would be required to obtain a special permit. But the government has never granted the required permit to the many climbers who have requested one. Many Cubans and foreigners have continued climbing. [Photo] Cuban climber Josué Millo in Viñales Valley, western Cuba Adrián Pérez Martínez, a 20-year-old art teacher with a joker tattooed on his shoulder, says that police showed up at his house recently to warn him against climbing, especially with foreigners. "Good Cubans don't do this," he says they told him. "Climbers use drugs. And you shouldn't take foreigners to militarily significant areas." Indeed, some caves in the climbing area are designated as civil-defense sites in the event of a U.S. invasion. Some of the official anxiety over climbing seems to be based on Cuba's revolutionary history. The revolution that brought Mr. Castro to power in 1959 was launched from a clandestine encampment in the Sierra Maestra Mountains on the eastern end of the island. Mr. Castro became intimately familiar with Cuba's highest mountain, 6,500-foot Pico Turquino. "The Revolution was the work of climbers and cavers," Mr. Castro once said, according to a history by Antonio Nuñez Jimenéz, a prominent revolutionary leader and naturalist. Now the Cuban government may be worried that history will repeat itself. "The system is paranoid about Cubans' private activities, but especially when those activities are occurring in hills away from sight and when foreigners are involved," says Vitalio Echazabal, one of the first Cubans to take up rock climbing in the 1990s. "The authorities would ask, 'Are they spies? What are they plotting up there?' " Mr. Echazabal got so fed up that he defected to Spain during a climbing expedition in 2001, one of three Cuban climbers who have escaped the island during international sporting events. About a half-dozen other Cuban climbers got off the island after marrying foreigners they met on the hills. The exodus of climbers has only served to intensify official suspicion of the sport. "Climbers are very independent people, and the Cuban government has a real hard time with anything it cannot control -- even a form of recreation," says Armando Menocal, a 65-year-old Wyoming lawyer who is the leading international proponent of Cuban climbing. Mr. Menocal, who runs the Cubaclimbing.com Web site, has been caught in the climbing backlash himself. Beginning in the late 1990s, Mr. Menocal, who has family ties to Cuba, started training Cuban climbers, mapping local routes and importing donated equipment. But after having made about 15 climbing trips to Cuba over the past eight years, Mr. Menocal has been turned back by immigration officers at the Havana airport the last two times he tried to get into the country, most recently earlier this month. The authorities, he says, offered no explanation. [photo] Roylandi González The 100 or so climbers remaining in Cuba would certainly welcome his return. Without official funding, Cuban climbers rely on equipment sent by Mr. Menocal or donated by tourists. José Luis Fuentes, a 20-year-old climber, says his shoes were given to him by an Italian, his rope by a Canadian and his harness by an American. "You speak a common language with other climbers no matter where they come from," he says. He isn't sure it's a language Cuba's leaders could understand. "Older people just think we're a bunch of crazy kids," says Mr. Fuentes. Climbing has attracted a special breed of Cuban youth since Mr. Menocal and some American friends used a slide show to recruit a core group of about half a dozen Cuban climbers in 1999. One Cuban went AWOL from his military unit to go on an outing with Mr. Menocal, subsequently earning two weeks in the brig. Official eyes were watching. "The Cubans were always being persecuted because it was not looked upon favorably to socialize with foreigners," says Craig Luebben, a rock-climbing guide and journalist from Colorado who has made several trips to Cuba. As the pressure increased, the Cubans and their American climbing partners would avoid appearing together publicly, arranging separate transportation to a rendezvous at the secluded climbing site, Mr. Luebben says. Climbers say official government climbing policy has been inconsistent. A few years ago, Hollywood, a cigarette brand partly owned by the government, launched an ad campaign featuring a Cuban climber. Yet at around the same time, Mr. Menocal on trips to Cuba was called before two different government authorities and told climbing wasn't permitted. The inconsistencies continue today. On a recent day at the park visitors center near the Viñales climbing site, there were large posters of climbers in action. Nevertheless, the park ranger on duty insisted that climbing without a permit wasn't allowed under the 2003 law. "It's not something one should even consider," he said, though he had no idea how one might go about getting a permit. The climbers are regrouping under the leadership of Alexei Suárez, a medical worker who sometimes reaches his second-story Havana apartment by scaling the wall. He has been talking with government officials, trying to better climbing's image, and he says the Cuban sports ministry has been very supportive. "We are loyal Cubans who want to make Cuba famous for climbing champions," Mr. Suárez says.

Talked to a non-climber that drove through the Gorge this morning and said there was no noticeable ice.

nice work!

I'll take 'em!! Vinyl kicks ass.

Rob, you have officially now spent far too much time around lawyers. Quit yer job and go skiing homey!

Try taping your fingers in between the joints. It helps quite a bit.

boobies to the rescue!!

This thread reminds me of the story of Chris Chandler dropping on a high carry on Everest. Or was it K2? I forget. Anyway, quite a story ... although his life story certainly didn't have a happy ending. In any event, its a good read but I forget what book its in.

Have patience. This current system should start to set thing up a bit better. Its not far away now.

Mark - if this is a photo of a FA, how did the chalk get on the crack above the climber? I'm only specumalating here, but perhaps the route was worked before it was sent.

I believe death in these circumstances is preceded by the imediate emptying of the intestines below the constriction in combination with a short-lived bout of Turrets Syndrome.

The risk of a hernia is that the intestine gets squeezed and cuts off blood flow, in which case there is a good chance of death. If that doesn't happen, you should be fine. Make your own choices.

Ok then Super Slab?

I thought that looked like either Moscow or Peking.