nolanr

I'm half right anyway.

Go for it, have fun!

This has to be some kind of record for the slowest day for spray in this site's history. Come on spraylords, gapers, armchair climbers, get it together!

WAZZUP with California and Nevada they got no good AT ALL in the deli????? The Sierras don't have so much in the way of either, as far as I've seen. A few pikas, and scrawny little yellow marmots that won't even whistle at you. Our hoary marmots would beat the hell out of the Californians.

Heather Creek has a decent trail for several miles beyond Camp Handy (?), then it kinda disappears. You can scramble up a little talus and brush to the right, fairly easy going, nice heathery meadows, and eventually bingo you hit a little saddle above Deception Basin. Lovely spot. Fricaba and Hal Foss immediately on either side of you, and Mystery and Deception a little further beyond. I was up there last Labor Day, I never saw a soul, God only knows how many people were swarming Royal Basin. Following Deception Creek downstream a little bit you can then ascend to the moraine lake at the foot of Mystery, w/ a fairly significant glacier draining into it. Looked like minimal crevasses. I followed the glacier staying on the lefthand edge of it (nearest to Hal Foss Peak) for most of it's length. A potential schrund problem convinced me to head up on the rock towards a ridgecrest. That has to be the most rotten, loose, chossy, shitty, pick your negative descriptive term rock I've ever been on. I eventually hit the ridge, stopped just short of a saddle between Mystery and Hal Foss, looking back down the Heather Creek drainage. No real obvious route from there, figured it would be a bunch more of the same caliber of rock, but there was no snow at that time of the year. I have to assume snow would've made it a more pleasant ascent. So anyway, yes you can definitely access that area from Heather Creek, I'm not sure of exact distance. Very nice area to camp, looks like minimal traffic in that area.

Sweet pix, but it looks like you'd have to have a suitcase full of wire brushes to scrub all the moss off of them rocks. I thought it was bad around here, sheesh.

Not real brushed up on this stuff since college days, but I have to think your body doesn't start breaking down muscle tissue for energy usage until you're heading down the road to starvation. I don't think it will happen during a grueling day or even a tough weekend.

on the Wallowas, spent several days backpacking and peak bagging down there a couple years ago, gotta get back some time.

Yeah, I thought permit requirements were June 15 to October 15. Could be wrong, but I think we went up in early June a couple years ago to do W. Ridge of Prusik to avoid permit issues.

Just curious, friend or relative of yours? She can decorate herself however she wants, if she's content w/ the result it's all good. Just not my style.

See, now that's just sad, cuz she looks like a pretty girl underneath all that shit. It's like she went to great lengths to make herself look unattractive. Whatever. She should go all the way, get all tribal and have a huge animal bone piercing her nose, elongate her ear lobes by 6 inches or something, so on and so forth.

On the subject of population control and sci fi, you can't forget Logan's Run!

I've dinked around Oneonta Gorge many times as a lad, fun place, it's been years. I bet the Owyhee in the very SE corner of Oregon has some terrain more closely resembling the true slot canyons of the desert SW. Maybe there's some interesting canyons around Yakima?

Lunar colony, followed by a Martian colony. Let's start overpopulating somewhere else, too.

Yeah, I'm not sure how "unique" or "edgy" tatoos are anymore w/ so many people getting them. My body is not adorned w/ any tatoos, piercings, or jewelry. Just the same I kinda like a tat on the small of a woman's back. I like the small of a woman's back just fine w/out the tat, too, so it probably doesn't have so much to do w/ the tat as the woman.

Guns don't kill people. People kill people. Guns just make it a lot easier. And you can pick off more victims. From longer range. Long live the NRA and Charlton Heston (although they are going to be prying the gun from his cold dead fingers pretty soon, that codger is getting old).

The N. Cascades Mt. Ballard is pretty sweet looking and I bet it doesn't get much attention. Azurite Peak is cool too, in the same neighborhood.

Alien Soul, You ever hike around the Seven Devils range on the Idaho side of Hell's Canyon? Just a hop skip and a jump away from Eagle Cap area. Some interesting terrain, nice trail system for several day trips up there. I spent 2 nights, forget the name of the lake, it was near Sheep Lake, scrambled up several 9,000+' (He-Devil, She-Devil, Mt. Baal I think) peaks during the day. I second the eastern side of Glacier Peak Wilderness notion. Ice Lakes basin is nice, Spider Meadows up to Spider Gap and then down the other side into the Lyman Lakes area is really cool. Shortcut into the area w/out having to take a water taxi up Lake Chelan or a really long hike from near Darrington on the other side of Glacier Peak. There's some really nice open terrain towards the northern end of the PCT, I've done a couple of jaunts between Rainy Pass and Harts Pass.

I got buzzed (not really close) by a couple of F15's or something like that right after 9/11, up near Dutch Miller Gap.

I thought that wasn't ever supposed to happen. It did today. Pretty hard for 5 or 10 minutes, then off and on a bit more during the morning. The rock dried out pretty quick though, decent day overall. That ended up being the backup plan after conditions looked crappy for Snow Creek Wall this morning.

Bingen is the slums of White Salmon, where I grew up! Toll is like $.75 now, I think. I don't know, I steal little brige ticket "get out of jail free" thingies from my parents when I'm down there.

Balderdash. 46% of Americans describe themselves as fundamentalist or born again Christians, including our illustrious leader. This is not a discriminated against minority, but a large movement full of overweening pride and self-importance, who believe that everyone should believe what they do. Christians are discriminated against? I'll wager you'll see a woman, a black and a Jew elected president before an atheist comes anywhere close. Of course, I'm an atheist, so freedom from religion suits me perfectly. Christian culture and speech is all over this country, from the President's speeches to the parade I attended in Tacoma yesterday. Christians complaining about being locked out of the mainstream are like folks griping that there aren't enough white people in this country anymore. With regards to "in god we trust" on the money, I must reiterate: poppycock. The founders did not insert that phrase into anything, and the motto Thomas Jefferson came up with was E Pluribus Unum. In 1861, the Reverend M.R. Watkinson persuaded the secretary of the Treasury to try to introduce 'In God We Trust' as a motto on the coins of the land, arguing on the theological premise that in a Judeo-Christian nation, 'There is but one God.' Congress, then beginning to be responsive to the religious community and the votes that it was presumed to control, passed the Coinage Act of April 22, 1864, which designated that 'In God We Trust' be put on coins 'when and where sufficient space in the balance of the design' would permit it. The phrase first appeared on the short lived 1864 two cent coin, and didn't appear again until 1908. It was 1916 before it made it onto the dime. And while I'm at it I'd like to point out that "under god" was added to the pledge of allegience in the 50's as part of the whole McCarthy era fear of godless communists, not as some sacred intent from the founders of the United States. And now the President goes on television to spout off about god guiding us to victory. There is not enough separation of church and state for me, not by half. Well you know your history better than I do. I had heard "under God" got added to the pledge at a fairly late date. I wasn't aware of the history of our coinage. Interesting post. I'm not at all about shoving any kind of religious beliefs or doctrines down anyone's throat, unfortunately some people are and then you end up w/ people who are offended or turned off to the whole idea. I think there's a lot of ebb and flow and push and shove and what not in terms of how big of a role religion plays in the mainstream. There's a whole spectrum of different ideas and there's no way everyone is ever going to agree completely. Oh well, I guess we'll have to do the best we can.

Train them to wreak havoc w/ parties from the Mounties!

I saw on tv there's a kind of parrot in New Zealand called a kea (or kia? spelling?), it's the only alpine parrot in the world. They're very intelligent and very mischievous, tear the hell out of cars at ski areas, get into food and gear. I think we should introduce those to N. America, let them have turf wars w/ crows and ravens. Battle cage.

Well said. I think there's some kind of ironic thing going on in the US, people pay all kinds of lip service to religious freedom and tolerance and celebrating diversity and what not, but if you pipe up w/ anything resembling traditional Christian values or doctrine they wanna shut you up right quick. I also think "seperation of church and state" is probably the most misunderstood and misused part of the Constitution. People have interpreted it pretty liberally and run w/ it and basically tried to make it "complete removal of church from the state." I don't think that's what the founding fathers had in mind at all. Take a look at your money. Does it not say "In God We Trust?" I think most (although not all) of the founding fathers were devoutly religious and they would be rolling over in their graves to see what the whole seperation of church and state thing has turned into. Just my opinion though.