Jason_Martin

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

I think somebody asked her to write her GPA on her beauty pageant application and she lied. Jason

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

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

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

Her name is Holly Makayla Martin...and we just brought her home a couple hours ago. What a week...! Jason

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

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

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...?

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

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

For Red Rocks there's not a better site... Jason

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

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

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

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

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

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...

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?

Just musing...

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…

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: http://www.safeclimbing.org/ Jason

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

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

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