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Jason_Martin

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Everything posted by Jason_Martin

  1. There's a steep roof with a crack splitting it just a few feet to the right that looks a lot harder than it is. The roof goes at 5.8. Jason
  2. I have life insurance that covers climbing and it seems reasonable. It breaks down something like this: Approximately $65 per month for $100,000, $75 per month for $125,000 and so on... I had to fill out a form with all kinds of crazy questions about my climbing. For awhile I thought they weren't going to cover me -- I'm a guide and log over 220 climbing days a year for work -- because my risk exposure was really high... If those rates seem reasonable to you, pm me and I'll give you the details. Jason
  3. The 5.12 variation is way left. It cuts up left of the widening crack that can be seen in Sherri's picture. When you rappel the route you can see the chains above the 12. That widening crack is 5.9 and the chimney is 5.7. Most people don't climb the chimney. The route is listed as 5.5 and so most people go the way that is 5.5 which traverses below the chimney. Peaches is currently open to climbing. But it may be "threatened". The rock art is close enough that when it gets damaged by people who like to damage rock art (i.e. dumb-asses with nothing better to do), it somehow comes back to haunt climbers. There are a number of routes to the right of Peaches which are closed... Re: Tunnel Vision If you go straight up from the Tunnel Pitch, you're on Stilgar's Wild Ride (5.8). It's a pretty good route! There is a new route on the Angel Food Wall -- which is in the new book and on Mountainproject.com -- called Purblind Pillar. It is by far the best route on the wall. And I would highly recommend it to everybody here! Jason
  4. Definately go out with a reputable guide or guide service. Some good places to look might be: Ouray, CO Lee Vining, CA Banff, Alberta These three locations are all popular venues for beginning level ice climbers. Jason
  5. Sometimes this is the case...other times there's ice in the shade...and even ice on parts of routes like Epi. It's pretty common for individuals to get a few really really good days in the shade during the winter and then to assume that it's always possible to climb in the shade during the winter. I've been on Solar Slab after a number of days in the seventies and still have been able to see ice up the canyon on north facing walls. The real clincher isn't the ambient temperature, it's actually the wind. We have windy conditions two or three times a month. In the winter, this can really take the temperature down in the shade. All that said, temperatures usually go down at the end of November to the point where it's hard to climb in the shade on most days. They begin to rise in March. You'll have to check it out for yourself and see how you feel... Jason
  6. The weather at the end of February is actually quite good. Last year we had a number of 70 degree days in both February and March. However, two of the three route suggestions made are in the shade. The shade holds the cold in RR throughout the day, summer or winter. As such, it usually needs to be in the upper seventies before it's comfortable in the shade. Pick up a guidebook to get psyched. There are thousands of routes here. There are also many pages on this website and others with route suggestions... Jason
  7. A couple of weeks ago we went camping with the new baby. We were in Vegas and needed to get out of the heat, so we headed over to Flagstaff. Krista and I usually sleep in the back of the Astrovan. With a carseat we had to keep the backseat in and take it out once we got to our campsite. Krista made a little campbed for the baby and a little sleeping bag. Here's Krista and the baby in the van on Holly's first night camping... The van seat made for a great couch in order to feed the baby. Here's Holly on her first camping trip! Shortly after we got home, I had to go to Washington to do a little work. Krista and the baby decided to come up for a little grandparent time. Krista can't help herself from staging pictures of the baby... And yes, that is a suitcase she's in... Last night we went to Radical Reels in Las Vegas. Holly -- at eight weeks old -- watched the introduction and the first two movies. She's seems to like Norwegion base jumpers... Jason
  8. Jason: I agree about much of what you have said, and I don't mean to nitpick, but its not accurate to state that "both political parties like No Child Left Behind." Watch any of the Democratic presidential candidates' debates and you'll see near-unanimity that NCLB needs at best an overhaul... if not totally scrapped. You're right...Dems don't all support it now...but a large number did back when it went into action. I should have worded my other post that way. Jason
  9. Who's talking about failing grades? There are too many A's and B's given out. That's why someone as dumb as Ms. Teen USA can have a 3.5 (if the claim above is actually true). I don't like the idea of a straight curve - some threshold for an A and B that is reasonable could result in more A's and B's, but we are nowhere near that threshold. As for your story about reading assignments - well, I met an undergrad at the UW, who had a 3.5 high school GPA and had NEVER FINISHED reading a novel cover to cover. Ever. Certainly getting a C instead of a B could have parent on the phone being just as angry... I want to make it clear that I whole-heartedly support raising the standard across the board...but to do this there has to be a will not only amongst teachers, but amongst parents. Parents need to demand the best education of their child as possible. They need to demand it from teachers and politicians and from their community. And they have to understand that by demanding the best education, the schools will always challenge their children to be better. This means that school won't be easy -- or always fun -- for any child. I'm not sure parents really want to demand that...because it would make them accountable too. Jason
  10. Unfortunately there is some truth to this. The last thing a prinicpal wants is a parent calling about their child... or about anything for that matter. So if a kid is failing and a parent is on the phone with the principal pressure is put on the teacher. In many cases a parent phone call bypasses the teacher because the student tells his Mom that the reason he's failing is because the teacher hates him. After hearing from the parent a couple of times the principal will use the code words to the teacher of "try something different." In other words make it easier or let something slide. I taught at a small town Washington school for awhile where I told the kids that they would not pass my Freshman English class if they didn't pass their book quizes. They had to read two short novels in a semester and I would test them on the content of those novels as many times as they wanted...but they had to pass the quizes to pass the class. If they didn't read the books, it didn't matter what else they did, they wouldn't pass. Now these weren't hard quiz questions. An example of one might be, "What was the real Lord of the Flies? Hint: it was impaled on the end of a stick." If you didn't read Lord of the Flies, you wouldn't get this. But if you read the book, it would be simple to answer such questions. My principal told me that if he were in high school he didn't think that he could pass my class because of the book reading requirement. He forced me to dumb down my class. As much as politicans and internet posters would like to make education a partisan issue, it really shouldn't be considered one. My principal at that school was a hard core conservative...but I don't think that had anything to do with his actions. My wife is an elementary school art teacher and they are not allowed to give prizes for quality. They can't have competitions because a child's ego might get hurt if he or she doesn't win. KaskadskyjKoak would like you to believe that those of us who are liberal are on board with such a policy. This is not at all the case. My wife -- who is liberal -- would love to give prizes for the best art in her classroom. Indeed, she sees competition as a way to increase quality. I think you could find many many many examples of things that don't align with one's idea of partisan politics in education...and it drives me nuts when education is bandied about by politicians the way it has over the last few years. Though both political parties like No Child Left Behind, teachers on both sides of the aisle see it as problematic because it doesn't address many of the root problems in education. It doesn't take quality educational models into account and put them into action. There are some simple ways to fix most of the problems in education and they don't lead down the path to standardized testing. How about lowering class sizes and raising parental accountablility? How about paying the best teachers the best wages for working in the most difficult educational environments? How about raising the bar on disruptive student behavior? Ultimately teachers ARE responsible for helping kids with their self-esteem. But they are also responsible for teaching the kids...and part of teaching kids is teaching them that they are not always going to come in first place, but also teaching them that if they work hard they have a shot at it. I think schools would be much better off if the teachers had more control over these types of things instead of less due to restricive policies, political wrangling, and half-assed educational administrators. Jason
  11. I think somebody asked her to write her GPA on her beauty pageant application and she lied. Jason
  12. 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
  13. 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
  14. 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
  15. Her name is Holly Makayla Martin...and we just brought her home a couple hours ago. What a week...! Jason
  16. 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
  17. 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
  18. 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...?
  19. 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
  20. 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
  21. For Red Rocks there's not a better site... Jason
  22. 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
  23. 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
  24. 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
  25. 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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