Jason_Martin

I used to do fish habitat surveys on remote creeks in Alaska when the salmon were running. On an average day we saw anywhere from one to five bears. On our survey team we carried one gun and everybody carried bear spray. However, in the hundreds of bears we were around over the years not one attacked or charged. You got the feeling that both the gun and the bear spray were there simply to make you feel safer, the reality being that if one of those monsters came flying out of the woods and began to maul you, neither the gun nor the bear spray would do much. Over time we became comfortable in these animals environment. We weren't exactly pushing the limit like that bear researcher that recently got killed. Usually as soon as we saw a bear we would yell at it and inevitably it would jump out of the creek and run up into the woods until you passed by. Would I travel in that environment without a gun? Sure, but I probably wouldn't leave the bear spray at home. In the northwest, particularly in Oregon, Washington, and Southern B.C. it really is overkill to carry a gun. The amount of incidents listed in a previous post doesn't reinforce the case that one should worry about wild animals. Instead, because there were so few incidents it seems to indicate that carrying a firearm is nothing more than a nusiance in the northwest that could accidentially cause bodily harm to oneself or one's friends. A week or so ago I saw a guy hiking up above the coleman glacier on Mount Baker on Heliotrope ridge. The guy was shirtless and in cutoff shorts. On his hip he carried both a large hunting knife and a pistol of some sort. Instead of looking like a competent hiker, able to take care of himself in the extremely unlikely event of a wild animal attack, he looked like a lunatic... The places that most of us visit in the northwest have many many dangers aside from bears and cougars. The average guy who thinks he can tame nature with a firearm would probably do better leaving the gun at home and bringing a rain jacket or some other piece of real survival equipment. Jason

I've used snow flukes a lot. In conditions like those found in the cascades right now, snow flukes can be placed faster than a picket in a t-slot. However, flukes take practice. If you don't mess around with them enough to understand the how to place them well, then they're not worth carrying. The disadvantage to the snow fluke is that they are not the most comfortable piece of equipment to carry on a harness. And in late season -- when you essentially have to pound them into the snow -- they are not all that useful. I like pickets because they can easily be carried on a pack or on a sling over the shoulder... Both items have their uses. It's not a bad idea to try to understand how to place both pieces quickly and effectively. Jason

A good project which was mentioned in a previous post but not dealt with in depth is the idea of making a single pitch climb multi-pitch. The way to do this is to pick a low fifth class climb that is about a hundred feet or so. Climb up ten feet or so and build an anchor, then bring your partner up. Lead out again, placing a piece or two of gear between you and your last belay and then build another anchor. Do this over and over and over again, making your one pitch climb multi-pitch. There are a few rules of thumb for this kind of excercise: 1) The instructional books require three pieces for a trad anchor. My experience is that one out of every three pieces for a beginning leader is bad. As such you should build anchors with at least four pieces to start. 2) Be sure to place at least one piece between each of the belay stations, even if they are very close together. The last thing you want to do is to take a leader fall onto the previous belay station. 3) Be sure the route is well within your climbing ability. You do not want to be sketching out while worrying about gear and the like. 4) Doing all this with someone with a lot more experience or with a guide will likely keep you from making an unnecessary trip to the hospital. On the question of multi-pitch sport climbing... There are not that many multi-pitch sport climbs out there that are appropriate for a beginning leader. As such, it would be better to start on easy trad ground... In any case, good luck...! Jason

In theory companies will have to have a certain amount of certified guides in their given discipline to keep AMGA accrediation. You can read about the 2006 guidelines here. Jason

Lummox, Yes, you're right. The post was somewhat about me. However, most others who have taken courses discover that they know far less than they thought they knew. Having taken a couple of courses and having guided full time year round, I do think I have a pretty good feeling for what's up with the average climber who moves into guiding. Jason

You can take the beginning courses without being an individual member. Jason

AMGA Certification is slowly making its way into the land owner mindset. There will be a point some years down the road when this is the norm and not the exception. What's cool about the courses is that at about the time you usually start thinking about guiding, you have a gut instinct that you really know your stuff. Taking these courses forces you to see how much you don't know and how much more there is out there to the art of climbing. You learn an incredible amount... Jason

A lot of companies will hire you without major training. However, at the bare minimum you will have to have your Wilderness First Responder certificate to get a fair shake in the hiring process. An AMGA course puts you at the head of the pack when companies are looking to hire a guide. First, it means that they don't have to put as much time in training you and second, it may move you up the pay scale a bit at the start. For the cost I think an AMGA Rock Instructor Course or Beginning Alpine Guides Course is worth it. Even if you do not choose to continue guiding after a couple seasons, as a climber you will learn a tremendous amount from one of those courses. Jason

Apply for positions in late february and March. Article Jason

Just over a year ago, a friend and I were climbing a somewhat obscure route in Red Rock. We were in a rush and it was cold out. When my buddy leaned back on the rappel anchor and one of the three slings in the system broke, this sling was the only sling on one of the two bolts we were rapping off. The two slings on the other bolt held. After the "incident" we looked far more closely at the slings we were rapping off. One of the two remaining slings appeared somewhat degraded. We cut this off and replaced the whole system. In the parking lot we played tug a war with the slings and were able to break them! The sun was the primary problem in our near accident. The slings had been degraded horribly by UV rays. Since this happened I've been far more liberal with leaving gear behind. The question that you must ask when deciding what to leave is what is your life worth? Slings, biners, rap rings, whatever you need to leave...the moral of my story is not to rush and to check the anchors closely. Look carefully for damage on rap material that has been left by others. Jason

Seven or eight years ago, I fell into a moat unroped right below that rock. Both my feet punched through and as I was extracting myself I looked down in the hole. It was deep and some ways down I could see a ski lodged between the rock and the snow that somebody had lost... Jason

Torturing or humilating prisoners is a violation of the geneva convention. As somebody aruging anything about a secretary of defense, you should know this. I'm sorry. I wasn't aware that issuing a news release about the abuse 3 days after it was reported was considered "covering up". One of the cool things they taught me in GED class was how to use Google. I thought I might try this newfound skill to see if Rumsfeld was involved in any type of cover-up. First of all, we know that it is a violation of the Geneva convention to humilate prisoners. Rumsfeld himself pointed this out here. Secondly, there was an internal report made by the Red Cross which indicated that there were prison abuses going on months ago. You can read about that here. Thirdly, Rumsfeld knew about the abuses but did his best to keep them quiet. In fact, Bush was upset that he didn't know about the abuse prior to seeing it on television. You can read about this here. So the question is: Did Rumsfeld cover up the abuses? I think the answer is both yes and no. By not pursuing the reports vigorously and dealing with the issue immediately through his very position as secretary of defense, he became part of the scandal. He kept the information from the public, from congress, and from the president. The question becomes whether or not this was an active cover-up or whether he just didn't think it was that big a deal. To be perfectly honest, I feel like he was probably in the latter camp. He just didn't think that the issue would come out -- he certainly didn't believe pictures would be available to the public -- so he really didn't do anything about it. Was he actively lying...? Probably not. Was what he did wrong? Absolutely. I think Rumsfeld needs to be fired and that the prison needs to be torn down. These symbolic steps -- which are non-partison steps -- would help rebuild some of the ever slipping faith that the middle east has in the united states occupation. Jason

How do those moonbat liberals dream up this stuff? I think one of them did a year of junior college after he got his GED. Jason

Martlet, You don't appear to have a very good understanding of the word "lies." Most of us around here define this as when one intentionally misrepresents a given piece of information. Misrepresentation is what the Bush administration is all about. It's becoming harder and harder every day for me to understand how people can believe in a leader who leads based on his own best interest instead of on what's best for the nation. Chasing terrorists seems like a good idea. Inventing terrorists and alienating many of our former allies by invading Iraq seems like a bad idea. Providing contracts to a company you have ties to in order to rebuild the country you just attacked is about as immoral as you can get. Perhaps Martlet, once you catch up to the rest of us and get your GED maybe you'll start to see through all the lies. I heard a great joke the other day: -How do you find the Republican on the Pirate Ship? -He's the one wearing two eye patches. Jason

There's a lot more to these pictures than our friend on active duty appears to be seeing. Initally we went into Iraq under the assumption that there were weapons of mass destruction. In order to make the world a safer place we had to find and destroy these weapons. That didn't happen. There were no weapons to speak of. As a result, the spin doctors had to come up with another reason for Iraq. The back-up reason for going to Iraq was to liberate the people from Sadam. Don't get me wrong, though this wasn't the primary reason for going there, this was a bad guy who was worthy of being overthrown. However, the pictures which have surfaced paint U.S. forces as being just as bad as Sadam. Muslims in the Middle East have a hard time looking at pictures of a Muslim man in handcuffs at the feet of an American Soldier, pictures of Muslims forced into homosexual positions by U.S. forces are beyond shocking to these people... According to recent interviews with some prison detainees, many would have preferred death to what they were subject to. On top of all this, the Red Cross made a report in which it insinuated that this is the mere tip of the ice berg, that indeed there have been murders within the prison walls perpetrated by American troops. This of course is under investigation. In light of all this, it is important to remember that many of those in the prisons were taken there in mass raids, wherein they arrested everybody in hopes of figuring out who the bad guys were later. Due to this, it stands to reason that some of those who have been humiliated at the prison in Iraq were innocent. However, it doesn't matter -- innocent or guilty -- as was stated earlier, the U.S. forces need to be doing things in a way which paints them as liberators not as sadistic occupiers. Many have argued that the fall of the Soviet Union was due to policies. In part that was true. But in part, Russians liked the idea of an America that they were seeing in movies and hearing in music. They admired the culture. This won hearts and minds in that ideological battlefield. Photos of U.S. soldiers doing things that would be considered "cruel and unusual" punishment does exactly the opposite. The attitude of the United States government compounded by these types of things going on in Iraq has done little to eliminate the threat of terrorism. Instead, this type of action is exactly what men like Osama Bin Laden want to see. It gives them the fuel they need to pour on the fire of Jihad against the west. Since these pictures have come to light, I suspect that many who were moderates in Iraq, who wanted Saddam to fall, have slipped away from us. Instead of creating allies among these moderates we've created enemies. Ideology is far more important that millitary might and on that front, with the people in the Middle East we are losing. Jason

Unfortunately McCain is a bit confused on social issues...as are the vast majority of the marginally educated super right-wingers, and I agree this is a problem. But he's still the best Republican out there. And I'd take him over our current dictator in a second. Jason

Since his goal appears to be to undermine the constitution wherever he can, I would tend to agree... I don't feel too bad for truck drivers and other non-military people working in Iraq who come home to the U.S. with a huge amount of money tax free. Unlike the military personnel in Iraq these men and women have made a choice to be there and they have every right to make the choice not to be there. Jason

It's not a bad idea to pay attention to rap slings. Testing has showed that cyclic loading on water-knots tends to cause them to come untied. In other words, the more often a knot is rappelled on, the more likely it is to slowly work its way untied. I'm with Dylan. I find biners faster than I can leave them behind. I haven't carried rap rings or quick links for quite awhile. Jason

To those of you who have had questions about my comments... Like I said in the previous post, I've only had experience with five piece bolts. So when they got to the part of their lecture where they were talking about problems with glue-ins I was only half listening. It may be epoxy related problems and it may be glue related problems, but there was definately a contingent of people at the clinic who felt glue-ins pose some problems due to water entrapment. Take this post for what it is. A request for those who place bolts to know what they're doing. Whether glue in or not, bolts have to be good. And those placing them have to be good at what they're doing. People who are placing bolts who don't know the strengths and weaknesses of the fixed anchors they are building should simply not be placing bolts. I don't see anything wrong with researching the quality of glue-ins vs. the quality of five piece bolts or whatever else for a given type of rock in a given area. I would like to clarify that I'm not saying that all glue-ins are bad. I'm simply saying that I have heard questions about them and as such it would be good to find out more. Jason

Certain types of rock are not completely waterproof. Both sandstone and limestone come to mind immediately. Water may percolate through this type of rock. This may be what the people who presented the workshop were concerned about. Once again, I think it is well worth researching beyond the scope of the people who contribute to this board. Jason

Do what you like... Some things are better in some situations, but I have a feeling that if you try this, you'll find quite a few uses for it. Jason

Let me preface this by saying that I don't have any experience with glue-ins. However, I did attend a bolt replacement clinic where they recommended against glue-ins. Their reasoning was that if water gets into the bolt hole, it has a much more difficult time finding its way out past the glue... I have to admit, I didn't ask any questions about this issue at the time because I was more interested in five piece bolts. But it might warrant some research before committing to glue-ins on your project. Jason

The big difference being that the reverso will automatically lock you off, whereas most other devices don't have this option. This is particularly nice if you have to use both hands to deal with whatever problem has arisen. Tying off, using a autoblock, or whatever else you come up with, I still think the set-up I described above is the best option. Jason

To Get this back on track: I'm a big proponent of rappelling on an extension. In other words rappelling with a sling girth hitched through my harness, with the rap device about two feet away. The reason I like this is because of the diversity it offers. I'm not going to go into all the benefits, but I will go into the one that fits here. The following requires rappelling on a reverso. If I get to a problematic rope end or some other need to ascend the rope, I simply clip the fin of the reverso on my extension to my belay loop. I then automatically have a ratchet with which I can ascend the rope. If this takes place on in a hanging position, I have to add a prusik to do this and to ascend the rope. If there is a stance of any sort, I can create the ratchet by unweighting the rope. I can then quickly ascend the rope by pushing the ratchet up and standing on stances. Even on the tiniest of stances I can do this. The result is an extremly effective means of climbing back up the rope and fixing the snafu. Good stuff! Time to go climbing now. Jason

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