nolanr

Yeah, the campers should be tranquilized and relocated. If they return to the same area and continue to be "problem" humans they'll have to be destroyed. Oh, maybe not, but that's the way it works for the bears.

A couple years ago I was up by the saddle between Pinnacle and Plummer, a pair of hikers asked me if I thought there were any snakes up there. Yeah, you gotta watch out for those alpine rattlers in areas that are buried by snow half of the year.

The skeeters were hellacious little bastards at Toketie Lake last weekend. I'm probably lucky to still be alive, they almost bled me to death.

What? I thought Unicorn was pretty solid, maybe I did a different route. In fact all of the Tatoosh peaks I've played on have been decent rock.

Ditto on the Mexican joint in L-worth. There's a Mexican place in Cle Elum that's pretty good, I think it's El Caporal. Ditto on Milano's in Glacier, too, plus there were some HOTTIES working there last time I ate there. The Backwoods Cafe or something like that in Darrington is decent. In Granite Falls Ike's Drive Inn and the Mexican place kitty corner from it are both good eats.

Right on Mike and Rick. The second guessing does get a little tiresome around here. You know, probably everybody that's ever got pinned down by weather or had an accident of whatever figured "it will never happen to me." Until it did. So the rest of us can keep pretending "it will never happen to us." But it might someday.

I ran into 2 guys today who said they were up there and saw the adult. Just once wouldn't you like to see them shoot the human when there is a bear/human encounter. Come on, who's fault is it most of the time?

Went up there a couple weeks ago. Started near the Gothic/Del Campo Col and did the traverse of the Castle Towers. The one nearest the summit of Gothic has it's own summit register, it was started by a party of Mazamas back in '68! And it's only about half full. Geez, not many people get up that thing. If you happen to be in the neighborhood already it's worth doing.

Hmmm, interesting. So does Larry the Tool hang out at the Snow Creek TH all day waiting to bust some ass so he can meet his quotas? Maybe I'll take a whole backpack full of snafflehounds w/ me so that I can have them attack me at any moment. They would probably double for bivi gear, too.

Okay, here's the deal. A buddy of mine got invited along w/ some acquantainces who won the lottery and have permits into the Enchantments for several days next week. I'm going to try to join them, get a day of permit at the Ranger Station. I called today, it sounds like it's pretty much of a crap shoot, especially as you get closer to the weekend. So I'm kinda curious ...if I don't have a permit and I head up there anyway and camp w/ the guys who do have permits, what's the likelihood any backcountry Forest Freddies are going to be prowling around up there looking at everyone's permits. Caveman, you've been up there quite a bit, have you ever had any problems w/ this sort of thing?

The road is open to Headlee Pass trailhead. Vesper looked pretty cool from Gothic Peak today. Go get it.

Spent about 3 1/2 days there last week, great conditions. Snow mostly melted out, patches here and there on trails, more snow higher up but I was able to scramble up Cathedral Peak from the upper Cathedral Lake skipping the snow entirely. A few sloppy, marshy sections of trails as well. Beautiful weather, awesome area. Never made it down into the Valley. After descending Cathedral crossed a plateau and ascended into the middle of the Echo Peaks (I think) and scrambled up 3 of those as well. Fun stuff. Also did a quick scramble up Lembert Dome a couple days earlier. Didn't have any rock gear, so scrambling was all I did. The Tuolumne River is at very high volume right now, the falls both above and below Glen Aulin are incredible. Waterwheel Falls was totally raging. A few hottie climbing babes were spotted in the Tuolumne area. Before arriving at Yos. did a one night trip up to 1000 Island Lake via Silver Lake. Banner Peak is pretty sweet looking. Didn't climb it, no axe and I was pretty well worn out by the time I reached camp. The first day on trail was the worst, I felt much better after that. Funny the rangers at Mammoth Lake were about as up to date on conditions as they are up here: we were told Sunday afternoon that 1000 Is. Lake was still iced over, lots of snow up higher. On Monday afternoon we found the lake completely melted out w/ only patches of snow around it, and several other lakes we saw in the 9,000' range were also thawed out. One of the rangers acted like he didn't even believe us when we gave him updated conditions on Tues. afternoon (had to return a rented bear can). Oh well. I love my Cascades, but the Sierras can spoil you w/ predictably good weather and melting out much earlier in the season. But the sometimes crappy weather, approaches, and rock we have up here are all character builders, right? Good to be back, I heard I missed the mini-heat wave up here.

Memory is a bit rusty now, but I saw a whole bunch of either winged termites or winged ants in early fall on top of Mt. Pugh several years ago.

Best calf work out ever: lots of frontpointing on crampons. My calves got bigger from doing lots of hiking and biking than they ever did grunting away in the weight room.

I think eating all those potato chips is more dangerous than climbing, just like the model train builder. Heart attack city. I heard some crap on TV the other day about class action law suits against McDonalds, etc. "Damn, I didn't know eating cheeseburgers and fries for dinner every night and sitting on my ass was going to make me obese and at high risk for heart disease. It's McDonalds fault. I want my $$$$ millions in reparations." Weird society we live in. With the recent series of accidents, deaths, and rescues on PNW volcanos, it would make sense for all of us to do a little soul searching and re-evaluating of why we climb. I suspect most of us are going to conclude, "Yup, I still love climbing, and I'm still going to do it. Maybe I'll be just a tad more conservative. But giving up climbing would cost too much in terms of satisfaction and contentment in my life." Or something like that. My buddies had a close call a couple weeks ago. I don't know if they've been back into the mountains since then, but neither of them was indicating they were retiring to "safer" recreational activities. I'm not going to quit. One of the guys is married, and his wife isn't even pressuring him to quit climbing. Maybe just no more light and fast one day pushes on big peaks. I think it's all been said, but nothing in life is really "safe" in absolute terms. People die every day doing just about every kind of activity imaginable. Climbing does involve objective dangers, but I believe the number of accidents in climbing compared to the number of people out there doing it and the number of climbing expeditions is relatively low.

Off topic, but I noticed a couple weeks ago several patches of blown down trees along the road out to Monte Cristo townsite. Never seen that before. Big snow pack, some pretty impressive avalanches this winter/spring apparently.

Crazybob, Well, we all have a turn being an asshole, maybe I took my turn tonight. I'm done name calling. That's cool you're trying to prevent possible accidents from happening, I can appreciate that. I was bothered by what seemed like a calloused attitude about the deaths on Hood and Rainier. Yes, people die in climbing, we all know that and accept it. Just doesn't seem like trashing the victims is necessary. When you referred to "the idiots on Baker" it really irked me. They're my friends, so of course I'm going to defend them. Also, you were basing your opinion off what you read in the paper? Yes the general public reads the paper and doesn't care to find out the rest of the facts. Are you the general public or someone who has 20 years of climbing experience and has seen some bad shit go down and been involved in some bad situations yourself? Which way are you going to play it? I do agree w/ you as far as people shouldn't go into the mountains expecting to get bailed out if something goes wrong. Just the same I'm pretty damn happy my friends are alive and that SAR was willing to go out and help them. I hope to never need rescuing myself and do what I can to avoid it, but if my time ever comes I'd also be glad to have SAR help my ass. I'd be glad if they helped your ass out of a bad situation too. I don't understand how or why the Hood accident happened, it was a horrible chain reaction. It's a damn good thing some of the climbers that got dragged into the crevasse were firefighters and were able to triage and help the injured and also start extricating people from the crevasse. Sorry, now I'm rambling. Like I said, it's cool you're trying to prevent accidents. I don't know if being calloused and pissing people off is going to accomplish that.

Lamebone, You're right, bad night. Let me say, I don't really have anything against Europeans, don't know that many but I've encountered a few. Nothing against Polish people either. But CrazyPolishBob went from being mildly irritating to pissing me off in a short amount of time, so I came over here to Spray to generally spout off. Got it out of my system. Sorry to any I've offended.

Heinrich, Sorry, my bad. I posted before I thought about it much. Congratulations on a good climb.

Okay, maybe I didn't need to call you an idiot. But if you knew about last week's incident, why the comment about thanks to whoever put in a boot track? Obviously, you climbing the route after the fact had nothing to do w/ them, but your post seemed somewhat disrespectful. Just my opinion. Glad you had good weather and had no problems as they did.

First we had the guy who questioned Colin on doing the N. Ridge of Stuart. Then this PolishBobAsshole guy is going off on everybody that had anything to do w/ Hood, Rainier and Baker the last week or so. The N. Ridge conspiracy guy eventually had to eat his words, but his argument was something along the lines of "It didn't look like I could do it, therefore I don't believe anyone did it." Oh, and he kept obsessing about boot tracks. "Since I didn't see boot tracks, it is impossible anyone was there and did the route." Or something like that. And Bob, I don't know what his deal is. "Everyone who dies in the mountains is stupid and deserved to die. Anyone who carries a cell phone deserves to die. I read the Bellingham Herald, therefore I know all the facts about the rescue on Baker." What, because they were born in Europe, where they invented mountain climbing, they are automatically superior climbers to all Americans and have better judgement and know everything that happens in the mountains here, even if they weren't there? "Yes, well I called a few friends, and they know everything, and they told me so." Whatever. Maybe it's the same guy, maybe it's something w/ Polish people (sorry joekania), but whatever it is, give it a rest already. This isn't Europe. You could always move right back over to the other side of the pond. I don't think we'd miss you too much.

I was wondering the same. Is this guy trolling, completely unaware of what happened last week, or just an idiot?

Hey Polish asshole! I'm getting pretty sick of you referencing the incident on Baker when you don't know shit about it. Shut up until you actually know what happened. If you never actually know what happened, then just shut up.

Bob, I didn't read any B-ham newspaper articles, but the two guys on Baker are my buddies, I've posted about it several times on this site, they did not call in a rescue, and when they did make contact w/ someone it wasn't using a cell phone. I noticed watching Seattle area news that the reporting wasn't particularly accurate, so I might take a guess that the B-ham paper was lacking some of the facts as well. I don't remember my friends saying anything about being interviewed by the B-ham Herald. So anyway, next time you bust out "the facts" from a podunk local paper, be prepared for someone trumping you w/ info from much closer to the source, or the source itself.

Unless it's snowed since then the bootpack on the Coleman/Deming may be from the rescue operation just over a week ago.