tivoli_mike

Wednesday, must be Hanoi

hmm. no just a cam in the crack under the roof and then another one just before the lieback crux before the anchor bolts above the horizontal tree.

I think I ended up placing a piece there as well, before getting up on the face. Zig Zag was a blast as well, we bootied at least one cam off it, there's still another on it, but we didn't have the time to get it out.

combine it with a trip to the san juans and/or deception pass ( nearby camping). Also , if it is too hot, checkout refrigerator wall nearby ( overhanging in the shade ) at the entrance of Rosario Beach. I believe the Mt. Erie grocery store also has copies of Dallas Kloke's guide.

Well, given the abundance of solid climbing in the state as a whole, the routes at Erie are , for the most part, not that exciting. Most of them can, heck all of them, can be pitched in one rope length, if you don't mind drag. The routes tend to be towards the moderate end, although the sport routes on the snag buttress and the headwall are in the 5.11/5.12 range ( thin crimpy holds, w/ some overhang on a few routes ). I wouldn't drive cross country just for Erie, but if I am in the mood for some fun cliff climbing w/ great views of the San Juans and an abundance of eagles flying on the thermals, eh it can't be beat.

Perhaps if you combine it with a climbing gym and then get the birthday/kids traffic...

When I get some more, I'll post them, or perhaps scott might when he gets around to it. Yeah, the views are my favorite for any cragging area in the area. A bit hazy that day, but we still had great views of the islands and Olympics.

Didn't find the Mt. Erie section for Trip Reports but I thought I would least post something here. Had a chance to go cragging w/ scottp on Friday. We decided hit Mt. Erie and try out Dallas Kloke's new guide to the area. After a fun bushwack, and the establishment of a new trail to the Main Wall from above ( rose bushes really, really hurt) we did Zig Zag (5.7), Cowboy's Don't Cry (5.9), Springboard (5.8+), and Rejuvenator (5.10a). Springboard was my favorite with the sustained climbing , exposure, and the cool start: Thanks to scottp for taking the photo...

Well there is a via ferrata site : http://freespace.virgin.net/paul.benham/dolo/dolomites.htm and I know of some development in Northern Washington state as well... but it is pretty hush hush

remove mortgage interest deduction for second homes and watch what happens...

GIMME GIMME GIMME I NEED SOME MORE GIMME GIMME GIMME DON'T ASK WHAT FOR SITTING HERE I'M A LOADED GUN WAITING TO GO OFF I'VE GOT NOTHING TO DO BUT SHOOT MY MOUTH OFF GIMME GIMME GIMME I NEED SOME MORE GIMME GIMME GIMME DON'T ASK WHAT FOR YOU KNOW I'M GONNA GO OUT GET SOMETHING FOR MY HEAD IF I KEEP ON DOING THIS I'M GONNA END UP DEAD GIMME GIMME GIMME I NEED SOME MORE GIMME GIMME GIMME DON'T ASK WHAT FOR I KNOW THE WORLD'S GOT PROBLEMS I'VE GOT PROBLEMS OF MY OWN NOT THE KIND THAT CAN'T BE SOLVED WITH AN ATOM BOMB GIMME GIMME GIMME I NEED SOME MORE GIMME GIMME GIMME DON'T ASK WHAT FOR

off a blog commentary: Seattle will never be a World-Class City until it shits brand new sports stadiums out of its taxpayers' collective ass on cue.

"[T]he source indicated the new ownership group plans to keep the Sonics and Storm in the Seattle region." Bwahahahahah, if you believe that I have got some for yah

And you wonder why land values are so high...

geez, why don't you guys go climb or something. Bush isn't going to be impeached, the lawsuit will be thrown out or be bogged down in "national security" concerns, Novak will continue make million from punditry, and plame/wilson continue to be darlings of the left.

Well it serves to distract the world community from the nuclear technology standoff between the US, EU, and Iran. Throw in a little pakistan-grown terror in Mumbai and you've got yourself "distraction central"...

from Wikipedia "The effects of Galloping Gertie's fall lasted long after the catastrophe. Clark Eldridge, who accepted some of the blame for the bridge's failure, learned this first-hand. In late 1941 Eldridge was working for the U.S. Navy on Guam when the United States entered World War II. Soon, the Japanese captured Eldridge. He spent the remainder of the war (three years and nine months) in a prisoner of war camp in Japan. To his amazement, one day a Japanese officer, who had once been a student in America, recognized the bridge engineer. He walked up to Eldridge and said bluntly, 'Tacoma Bridge!'"

I would agree on that, simul climbing everything other than the 5.9 and 5.10 would be good. The 5.1 I would recommend just heading straight up and protect on flakes along the way ,rather than angling right to the anchors. Remember where the anchors for rapping, but they aren't too obvious on the way up.

Climb: Mt. Garfield -Infinite Bliss AKA Losing my nerve Date of Climb: 7/7/2006 Trip Report: Alright then, OlympicMtnBoy and I headed out Friday after work and after dealing with traffic from my house all the way to Taylor River Bridge ( stuck behind FIVE cars on the Middle Fork road for 12 miles! ), we hit the trailhead a little after seven. Of course, in the time of getting geared up, we realized that my partner's rear left tire was giving up the ghost, we decided to deal with that later. 50 minutes later we were at the base, roped up and headed up to our bivy ledge on top on pitch 6. Slabs are a little more difficult to climb with an overnight pack and diminishing sunlight ;-). Sacked in under a clear night with a good cigar ( pipe for the partner ) and a Guiness. Up at 7 and headed out at 8, made good progress up through the 5.4 ramp and the following 5.9 and 5.10+ pitches. Sun did catch up with us on the higher pitch , around 12 , and really started to heat things up. This is also where the climb changed. I found the 5.1 pitch slightly annoying in finding the anchors, I spent more time leading that pitch because of routefinding than I did the 5.9. The following two pitches, were truly annoying for that same reason. However it was up , halfway the fifteenth pitch that I froze. Yep, the fourth-class, chossy, traverse. Perhaps it was the heat, my diminishing water supply, or just plain nerves, but I was 100' up on the choss and I had worked my way into a low fifth class section and I just froze. I would move up a few feet and then stop for a minute. I didn't have problems with the previous pitches, but this scramble unnerved me. I downclimbed to the rap station on the fourteenth pitch, belayed my partner up and we chatted about it, decided to back off and spent the next four hours or so rapping down. We came across a party of three who were still working their way up the slabs. Thanks for offering us a ride ladies! Got back to the car around 5:30pm, dealt with the flat and after a surreal stop by a King County deputy, who mistaken me for mass murderer we dined in North Bend and headed home... This route takes some commitment and I probably underestimated the exposure up there. The 13th and 14th pitches are a bit sloppy and if you weren't forewarned you could spend a fair amount of time routefinding... We had some water on our bivy ledge and found more higher up, but I would believe that any later in the season, you would be hardpressed and the SW aspect of the route, be ready to be cooked if its hot out... Gear Notes: 24 draws, couple of TCUs, one rigid-stem friend, two 60m ropes Approach Notes: Steep trail

July 5, 2006 Memphis Journal Lady Liberty Trades In Some Trappings By SHAILA DEWAN http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/05/u...agewanted=print MEMPHIS, July 4 — On Independence Day, Lady Liberty was born again. As the congregation of the World Overcomers Outreach Ministries Church looked on and its pastor, Apostle Alton R. Williams, presided, a brown shroud much like a burqa was pulled away to reveal a giant statue of the Lady, but with the Ten Commandments under one arm and "Jehovah" inscribed on her crown. And in place of a torch, she held aloft a large gold cross, as if to ward off the pawnshops, the car dealerships and the discount furniture outlets at the busy corner of Kirby Parkway and Winchester that is her home. A single tear graced her cheek. It was not clear if she was crying because of her new home, her new identity as a symbol of religion or, as the pastor said, America's increasing godlessness. But although big cheers went up from the few hundred onlookers at the unveiling, and some people even wore foam Lady Liberty crowns bearing Christian slogans, she was not universally welcomed. Most of the customers at the Dixie Queen food counter near the church viewed the statue as a cheap attention grab, said Guardia Nelson, 27, who works there. "It's a big issue," Ms. Nelson said. "Liberty's supposed to have a fire, not a cross." Elena Martinez, a loan officer visiting Memphis from Houston, said her family was speechless at the sight. "The Statue of Liberty has a different meaning for the country," Ms. Martinez said. "It doesn't need to be used in a religious sense." At the pizza place next door, Amanda Houston pronounced the combination of the Statue of Liberty and Christianity "ridiculous," though her co-worker Landon Condit was far less critical: "I can't see anything wrong with it. This is the Bible Belt." The Statue of Liberation Through Christ, as she is called, stands 72 feet tall from the base of her pedestal to the tip of her cross. She was the idea of Mr. Williams, a very successful pastor whose church, World Overcomers, qualifies as mega: it has a school, a bowling alley, a roller rink, a bookstore and, he said, 12,000 members. The pastor is not shy. His church has bought full-page advertisements in The Commercial Appeal, the Memphis daily, condemning homosexuality. At the World Overcomers' previous location, neighbors complained that trees were felled unnecessarily; Mr. Williams said it had to be done so that people could see the church from the road. The statue, inspired by a Memphis church that has three giant crosses, strikes him as "a creative means of just really letting people know that God is the foundation of our nation," he said. Mr. Williams has written several books and pamphlets analyzing a variety of matters, among them patriotism and the original intent of the founding fathers. In "The Meaning of the Statue of Liberation Through Christ: Reconnecting Patriotism With Christianity," he explains that the teardrop on his Lady is God's response to what he calls the nation's ills, including legalized abortion, a lack of prayer in schools and the country's "promotion of expressions of New Age, Wicca, secularism and humanism." In another book, he said Hurricane Katrina was retribution for New Orleans's embrace of sin. Mr. Williams said his statue's essential point was that Christianity should be the guiding ethos of the nation. But because the church he leads is predominantly black, as is he, there is an added dimension to the message. In "From Slavery to Lady Liberty: Lady Liberty's African Connection: The Key to Black America's Liberation," he pointed out that the real Statue of Liberty wears a broken shackle around one ankle, and revisited evidence that the statue, a gift from France, was originally intended not to welcome immigrants but to celebrate the emancipation of slaves. "Many blacks are not patriotic, and they are not patriotic because of the history of our nation," Mr. Williams said in an interview at the church, in the richly appointed sitting room he uses to receive visitors. "It's good for our people to know that the nation has something for them as well." To critics who say there are better ways to spend $260,000, Mr. Williams responds that his church gives millions to the needy and says he views the statue as outreach: "I personally feel that the answer for the poor is Jesus Christ." To celebrate the Fourth of July, a good crowd gathered on the church grounds for free hamburgers and grape soda, carnival rides, a barbecue cook-off and entertainment. Children ate sno-cones, and a small army of volunteers and members of the staff darted around on bicycles and golf carts, dressed in white polo shirts. But the main event was the unveiling, preceded by speeches, prayers and consecrations. "I decree the spirit of conviction on this intersection," Mr. Williams boomed from a podium decorated with red, white and blue bunting. "This statue proves that Jesus Christ is Lord over America, he is Lord over Tennessee, he is Lord over Memphis."

A Sammamish climber missing for 12 days was found dead Sunday in a mine shaft near Blewett Pass. Photos found on the camera of Ronald Calder, 46, suggest he'd explored caves and mines in the area before attempting to descend into an abandoned gold mine, said Detective Mitch Matheson of the Chelan County's Sheriff's Office. Calder set out June 20. His car was found at a monument on the Old Blewett Highway about 8 miles north of the summit and 1.5 miles from the mine shaft. Calder appears to have tied a rope around a tree and descended about 100 feet into the shaft, which was about 4 feet by 4 feet wide, Matheson said. The detective believes that Calder then unhitched himself on a ledge to explore some horizontal shafts in the mine and was later unable to grab back onto his rope. Matheson said the temperature was about 55 degrees in the shaft and that Calder, an inexperienced climber, was wearing only light clothing, having left his pack at the top. A coroner's report indicates Calder died of hypothermia, Matheson said.

My condolences as well. Seeing her photo in the P-I, I realize I had seen several times down at SG. Sad times...

Further down in the article Sixty-eight different crimes — more than half non-violent offenses such as tax evasion and drug smuggling — are punishable by death in China. That means the death vans are likely to keep rolling.

article (June 15) -- Zhang Shiqiang, known as the Nine-Fingered Devil, first tasted justice at 13. His father caught him stealing and cut off one of Zhang's fingers. Twenty-five years later, in 2004, Zhang met retribution once more, after his conviction for double murder and rape. He was one of the first people put to death in China's new fleet of mobile execution chambers. The country that executed more than four times as many convicts as the rest of the world combined last year is slowly phasing out public executions by firing squad in favor of lethal injections. Unlike the United States and Singapore, the only two other countries where death is administered by injection, China metes out capital punishment from specially equipped "death vans" that shuttle from town to town. Makers of the death vans say the vehicles and injections are a civilized alternative to the firing squad, ending the life of the condemned more quickly, clinically and safely. The switch from gunshots to injections is a sign that China "promotes human rights now," says Kang Zhongwen, who designed the Jinguan Automobile death van in which "Devil" Zhang took his final ride. State Secret For years, foreign human rights groups have accused China of arbitrary executions and cruelty in its use of capital punishment. The exact number of convicts put to death is a state secret. Amnesty International estimates there were at least 1,770 executions in China in 2005 - vs. 60 in the United States, but the group says on its website that the toll could be as high as 8,000 prisoners. The "majority are still by gunshot," says Liu Renwen, death penalty researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a think tank in Beijing. "But the use of injections has grown in recent years, and may have reached 40%." China's critics contend that the transition from firing squads to injections in death vans facilitates an illegal trade in prisoners' organs. Injections leave the whole body intact and require participation of doctors. Organs can "be extracted in a speedier and more effective way than if the prisoner is shot," says Mark Allison, East Asia researcher at Amnesty International in Hong Kong. "We have gathered strong evidence suggesting the involvement of (Chinese) police, courts and hospitals in the organ trade." Executions in death vans are recorded on video and audio that is played live to local law enforcement authorities - a measure intended to ensure they are carried out legally. China's refusal to give outsiders access to the bodies of executed prisoners has added to suspicions about what happens afterward: Corpses are typically driven to a crematorium and burned before relatives or independent witnesses can view them. Chinese authorities are sensitive to allegations that they are complicit in the organ trade. In March, the Ministry of Health issued regulations explicitly banning the sale of organs and tightening approval standards for transplants. Even so, Amnesty International said in a report in April that huge profits from the sale of prisoners' organs might be part of why China refuses to consider doing away with the death penalty. "Given the high commercial value of organs, it is doubtful the new regulations will have an effect," Allison says.

Climbing nuts-to-butts