Jason_Martin
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Posts posted by Jason_Martin
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There's a small creek just north of the flat camping area. This is a spring and supposedly it always runs. If you camp at the col, you can usually drop down and get snow from just below.
Jason
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Well, it's been a crazy week...but we got our daughter up into the mountains for a picnic at one week old. Very exciting!
She's not exactly sending the gnar yet...but I suppose the first trip outside is the first step.
Jason
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Her name is Holly Makayla Martin...and we just brought her home a couple hours ago.
What a week...!
Jason
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On Monday, I indicated that my baby was due on Tuesday the 7th.
Sometimes good things come early. The stork brought this cute little gift on Tuesday!
Jason
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Hi Jason. We took our daughter car camping around 3 months and backpacking at 11 months. It's fun but you gotta be on it 100% of the time. The backpacking is tough, no one sleeps that well, car camping better...because they can sleep in a porta-crib. Honestly day hikes seem to keep everyone the happiest. Are you joining the crowd?
Yep...in a week...
The baby is breech so we have a c-section scheduled for next tuesday. Obviously if my wife goes into labor before then we have to have a c-section right away.
I have to go to a training in Yosemite in late October. We rented one of those canvas platform tents with a heater and the like in it and plan on taking the baby... Hopefully that will work out. I guess we'll see.
Jason
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My family and I are going to Breitenbush this weekend to camp with Miles for the first time. We are attending a natural parenting program......how neet.
Anyone been there? This will be my first trip there.
We have taken Simone camping 5 times already (4 times in the Akagera game park and once on Lake Kivu), she like's it alot. The only thing is that we are realizing our two person tent is too small for three of us.
She is a little jet setter too. She flew back to Rwanda from the states, has flown to Ethiopia and Tanzania in her first 6 months. Next it will be back home for a month, Mexico to visit relatives and hopefully we'll spend Christmas in Mozambique.
What's the youngest you guys took your kids camping...?
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I have a pair and I wore them a lot last year. From early July through the end of the summer I wore them on a lot. I brought them to Bolivia and wore them on some of the lower peaks. In the Cascades they worked really well when it wasn't too sloppy. They're light and cheap. In other words I like them a lot when the snow isn't too deep.
Jason
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The AMGA unofficially defines alpine climbing as a route that attempts to attain a summit. I say this because if you look at their fill-in-the blanks resume for the alpine course, it asks if you summitted.
In my opinion it all depends. It's almost more of a gut feeling than a hard and fast definition. I would not define Snow Creek Wall as alpine, but I would define Liberty Bell as Alpine.
Twight and others have climbed routes where one could summit. They elected not to do so for a variety of reasons. Perhaps this makes the routes alpine. Indeed, it would be hard to argue that flying out to some glacier in Alaska and climbing three pitches after a glacier approach on the side of some giant peak is cragging because you bailed after the third pitch... On the same note, no one is going to go out and bolt a nice sixty foot sport climb on that same peak...
Jason
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For Red Rocks there's not a better site...
Jason
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Peru has way better rock climbing than Bolivia. Bolivia has a lot of steep snow and ice routes and very few true walk-ups. Peru has a little bit more rock. I have climbed rock in Zona Sur in La Paz, but it's just roadside sport climbing.
The Sphynx in Peru has a number of long (IV-V) routes on it. Check out Brad Johnson's book for more info... There are a lot of long cool rock routes in Peru, but the info in the U.S. is limited. There is a lot of beta in Huarez at the Cafe Andino and at one of the hostals...but unfortunately I can't remember which one.
Good luck!
Jason
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I climbed it back in 1994. The "hut" is large and well furnished. It's not quite as nice as the refugio at Huayna Potosi.
I think the upper Chimbo hut is much nicer than the one on Huayna. It's also supposed to be haunted. There are all kinds of crazy stories about the ghosts of dead climbers haunting the locals and visiting climbers alike there.
The refugio at the base of Huayna is pretty cool though. I suspect thats what meagle was reffering to.
That said, Chimbo is dangerous. It has melted out a lot and there are huge boulders teetering above the route barely attached to the ice. Other mountains in Ecuador are a bit safer, but of course not as high.
I'd second the idea of going to Bolivia instead...but the seasons are opposite. Most people go to Bolivia and Peru during our summer. Most people go to Ecuador, Argentina and Patagonia during our winter...
Good luck!
Jason
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If at all possible when removing and replacing bolts, try NOT to use a tuning fork. That's the piton with the center cut out. In softer rock, tuning forks create scars that are hard to cover up with epoxy.
If there is any concern about the rock being scared try to remove the bolt by tightening it until it breaks first. Then if this doesn't work, resort to the tuning fork. Afterwards, be sure to do your best to cover up the scars adequately.
If you're stripping a wall of 5-piece Rawl bolts because of some type of ethical dilema, check out the article on these at:
http://www.safeclimbing.com/education/removingrawlbolts.htm
Jason
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Never having been up with a guide, I gotta wonder about ever wanting to do so in the future. Is it standard practice to park non-performing clients or someone asking to bail w/o shelter or a bag, even In conditions so shitty you wouldn't let your dog out in? Today there's this old guy driving home to Everett thinking how he's gonna sell his gear and quit climbing. There's also a Guide out there who (IMO) made a poor judgement call, but then maybe I'm the one who is wrong. Please tell me I'm not.
This is NOT standard procedure amongst professionals. A guide's job is to take care of his or her participants, not to leave them behind...
Jason
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An AAI guide almost did this link-up last year. He climbed Shuksan in the morning and then climbed up to the saddle on the North Side of Baker then bonked. I think he was planning on trying again this year...
Jason
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I think that is a gross overgeneralization. And anyone who is driving by and assuming that they understand the impact that a scene like this has on a person surely can give just a little room to allow for the possibility that their take on folks may be wrong.
Certainly I could be wrong. Do you think I am? People rushing to look at a dead body, fighting to get around each other to see it... You decide...
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I was thinking about G-Spotter's response...and indeed you could say that I'm part of the problem. I wanted to share my thoughts with this community to hear how people might respond. I was disgusted by the people flocking to the accident. That is the point of my initial post and I was curious what kind of responses might appear to that.
But the people flocking to the accident were flocking to see this person's body. By reporting this incident, perhaps I too am exploiting this person's death.
If it appears that way, I'm sorry...that definately wasn't the intent.
Instead maybe the intent was to ask the question, are people more desenstized today than they were in the past? Have people always flocked to car accidents to see? Or is this really something that has begun to occur in the last fifty years?
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Just musing...
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Tonight we went out to look at baby stuff. We’re having a baby which – as many of you know – makes you think about things in a different light. Tonight we went to a restaurant and watched families eat with their toddlers beside them. And tonight we passed a police line.
It wasn’t clear what was going on at first. We were driving. There were lights. There were patrol cops directing traffic. And there were a lot of people. A lot of people…
As we were directed by, it became clear that there was a terrible accident. A motorcycle lay crumpled on the side of the road and a plastic tarp was placed carefully over a broken body. Clearly this isn’t something that one likes to see after baby shopping. It’s not something I like to see at all.
But apparently I’m in the minority.
As we were directed through a parking lot to go around the accident, more people arrived. Rubber-neckers they’re called; people who can’t help but look at the blood. Indeed, some of these appear to be people who relish at the sight of it.
We moved slowly through the lot. People were flooding out of a nearby neighborhood to look and were blocking traffic. It was about nine o’clock at night in a suburb so some were wearing robes. There was even a woman wearing some kind of white skin cream all over her face. These people made a special trip out to see what was going on. These people made a special trip to see a dead person.
There is something warped about this. Those driving by and looking are one thing, but people who decide to leave their houses in order to see a dead body are another. There is clearly some kind of disconnect. A person lost his life. Others found this event to be an exciting diversion a little bit more interesting than the normal Monday night line-up on television.
In the film Stand by Me, a group of young boys go on a journey to see a dead body. And when they finally reach the body, they encounter something they did not expect. They encounter their own mortality and they come away from the experience more sober. They come away as better people and somehow more grown-up.
I don’t think that’s what was going on tonight. Instead, people were going away to text their friends about what they saw. Instead, people were making cell phone calls to tell others where the action was. Instead, people were going away excited…excited that they got to see a dead person. Excited because they didn’t know the person, so he had no bearing on their lives. Just plain excited…
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Great TR!
One minor correction to your post...the organization at the RRR was the American Safe Climbing Association. They've been doing a tremendous amount of work replacing old sketchy bolts all over the west. If anybody is looking for another place to donate a little money for a good cause, check them out at:
Jason
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Hotfeet,
Go with a company that practices Leave No Trace and actually sticks to it.
All AAI guides practice leave no trace techniques. This is very important to us. It is at the very core of what we teach. I suspect that anything this individual heard about a lack of leave no trace ethics was in jest. If anybody broke this set of rules, I doubt they would be brazen enough to brag about it to other guides. And indeed, I would be amazed if other guides didn't knock the individual for pulling something that puts our permit and our very livlihood in jeporady.
If anyone wants to email me or discuss AAI in any way you're welcome to PM me. I'll send you my phone number and we can talk. I will openly and honestly tell you whatever you'd like to know from a senior guide's perspective. I won't B.S. you.
I'm very proud to work for AAI. It's a good company filled with good people who honestly want to educate people on how to be climbers. We want people to learn how to be self-sufficient so that they can go out and do their own thing safely and effectively...
Jason
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Ok, is it ' Par For The Course ' - when taking a Mountaineering/Climbing course to be going nuts?
I never dreamed there would be so much technical information, having to be done in an exact way, under some time pressure..and - just when you think you may have one little itty-bitty-thing mastered - you get introduced to 8 more things which are added on top (and have to be intergrated with) of what you just learned !!!
Good Gosh ! I cannot imagine having someone's life in my hands feeling like I'm feeling now....
Whew...Thanks for letting me vent...
Is this normal - or am I a 'Special-Ed Climber Wanna Be' ?
Totally normal.
Think about it like you're learning a language. As you learn more words it becomes easier to make sentences. And it becomes easier to learn more words. It's the same with climbing instruction. As you start to retain things, the next step will be easier to comprehend.
Jason
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I asked my vet about this, since our now-deceased dog used to love getting out on the glaciers. The vet checked with a doggie ophthalmologist who said that dogs don't get snowblindness the way people do. If they did, wolves, coyotes, etc would have a tough time.
Those animals spend all of their time below treeline. In addition to this they're outdoor animals. They never spend any time inside at all. My suspician is that some breeds do okay, while others do not. It appears that your dogs never had a problem, but that doesn't mean that no dog will have a problem.
The incidents I refferred to in my initial post were definately snowblindness. The dogs were whining and placing their heads on the ground while putting their paws over their eyes. They wouldn't move in either case. And in both cases the owner had to drag them down the mountain on a piece of plastic or a tarp.
I have to wonder about the idea that your dogs loved to get out on the glacier. I suspect your dogs just loved to get outside, but you loved to be outside on a glacier so that's where they got to go...
Jason
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I don't know if we have any vets who read this board...but I am personally aware of at least two incidents where large dogs went completely snowblind and had to be carried out. Both incidents took place on Mount Baker within a week or so of each other.
I know that some dogs are bred for the snow -- think sled dogs -- but my gut instinct is that if we have to wear sunglasses in order to avoid serious eye damage, then what type of damage does the average dog recieve in a bright snowy environment? Especially a dog that is used to the dark cloudy days of the northwest?
I've got to think that dragging dogs up above treeline in a bright and steep environment isn't very humane...
Jason
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The Red Rock Rendezvous is from March 23rd through March 25th. If you're not interested in the instructional elements of the climber's festival, then you should still sign up for the parties and slide shows at night. It's pretty fun.
http://www.mountaingear.com/rr07/index.aspx
The hot springs on the Nevada side of the river are closed due to construction. The hot springs on the Arizona side aren't too hard to find. Cross the dam. Drive to the first trailhead on the righthand side of the road (10 to 15 min from dam). Hike the trail for about four miles. Once you reach the river look for a stream coming out of the rocks. Follow the stream back uphill into a little slot canyon. You'll note that the water in the creek will get warmer and warmer. Eventually you'll find the hot springs with the inevitable old fat naked guy who seems to live at every hot spring in america.
Jason
Ms. Teen USA - South Carolina
in Spray
Posted
This has nothing to do with schools. I doubt this girl has spent much time in a classroom. Teachers have little control over the education of kids who don't show up for school.
I used to work as a high school teacher and the dumbest kids were those who never showed up. They were the ones whose parents didn't care when you called them to find out why their kid didn't show up. Or they were the ones who were disruptive and caused other kids to have a less than a satisfactory experience. Families who don't support their children in their educational endeavors are likely to have kids that have the level of critical thinking that Miss South Carolina appears to have.
You'd be suprised at how big a deal attendance is at the average school. Should teachers be penalized for the grades of students who only show up every once in awhile and don't even pretend to try when they do show up?
Jason