nolanr

Had to put up w/ it for about 4 1/2 days. Couldn't get used to it. Everybody goes to bed too early and gets up too early. I had to stay up til about 1:00 their time to catch the end of ball games. No college football games started til noon on Saturday. Ridiculous. That's no way to live! Glad to be back home in the West where I belong. Not to mention they don't have mountains, for probably at least 1,000 miles after flying out of Cincy and looking at the ground there was nothing even remotely distinguishable geographically speaking. Ugh.

Democrats--haven't met an election yet that they could lose w/ grace or dignity. You'll get another chance in 4 years.

Flew out of SeaTac to Cincinnati early Wednesday morning. Couldn't get my bearings at first as we were flying over the foothills and getting into the Cascades. But it all made sense as we flew right past Ingalls Peak and Lake, Stuart, and the Enchantments. Stunning. WA is a pretty cool place to live.

The Dalles, one of my least favorite towns anywhere in the US. Don't know exactly what it is, but I always hated that place.

E-burg has the same Mexican joint but a different location. There's also Perkins on the west end of E-burg, right off the freeway. Big breakfasts served any time of day. Huge bread bowls that are really good. Plus your typical sandwhiches, burgers, etc. you get at a family restaurant. Used to eat there all the time in the college days.

Yeah but that's a long swim across the Columbia! Horsethief Butte is in the middle of nowhere, somewhere between White Salmon (where I grew up) and Goldendale.

I just got this one second hand: "I'm bored, who do we invade next?" Bush/Cheney '04. Eat your hearts out liberals!

Thanks for the info.

I camped just beyond Buck Creek Pass several years ago, continued on I believe most of the way to High Pass. The weather was crap so I didn't see much. I've always intended to go back again and just haven't gotten around to it. This year is flying by so I was thinking about heading out there this weekend. Weather report isn't totally encouraging. I mostly just want to get a look at the area. Sounds like there are several peaks around that can be climbed. I think I would be more inclined to head up Fortress than Buck. But the lake is what really intrigues me. You know how sometimes you see a picture and you think to yourself "I want to get there." This is one of those things.

There's probably more than one High Pass, to avoid confusion I'm talking about the area near Buck Creek Pass, east side of Glacier Peak Wilderness.

Seems like I've seen it mentioned before, but I didn't find anything searching just now. What's it like between High Pass and the lake. I've seen a picture of it in a hiking guide and the caption says something about you can't there from the pass, but I always take those w/ a grain of salt. Anyone done it? I looked at topozone and it looks like some small glaciers and some cliffs, you never know til you eyeball it whether something is good or not.

I agree reading the Bible would be important for a Christian to do but reading it from cover to cover has nothing to do w/ making you a Christian.

Did everyone in Oregon quit climbing for the last week and a half or what? No new posts. A bunch of super secret projects you guys working on or something? Hey just cuz St. Helen's keeps burping, you don't have to shut down the whole state.

I don't know about SLC, but Boise gets STINKY hot in the summer and everything around town turns lovely shades of brown. At least that's what it looked like from the freeway in August, and one of my buddies here grew up in Boise and seemed to verify that assessment. Just one factor to consider. I was in St. George, UT this spring, not really that close to SLC, but I have to say the women were pretty hot down that way.

I'll give you that Bremerton John. Surprise Basin is really cool. I've been up to Royal Basin several times and I really like that whole area. Deception Basin is nice, too.

That's the only climb in the Needles I've done, but I sure hope that wasn't the best. Maybe I was off route but it didn't seem like it. It was easy but not real aesthetically pleasing. On a previous attempt I headed up too soon, before the head of Surprise Basin, and did follow the ridgeline. That was fairly interesting. You definitely find yourself in 4th/low 5th class terrain.

I climbed Clark in June I think it was. I did I believe route 1 in the Olympics guide, class III scramble from Surprise Basin. It was more like class II I thought, mostly dirty rotten gullies and ledges. A little bit of steep snow to traverse on and then ascend. Only a little bit of what I would really consider scrambling at the top. Unless I got off route, but it seemed so obvious that it must've been the route. If you stayed on the ridge crest it would be quite a bit more sporting, some of the rock was solid and some was questionable. I didn't get the container w/ the summit register open so I can't tell you how many ascents it's seen lately.

That's some heavy irony at work there.

My buddy was at Ingalls Pass last weekend and said they looked about 2 weeks away.

Yeah I don't think the climbers ever called for help, I don't think they ever had contact w/ the outside world until they showed up at the TH. That's part of why the sheriff hadn't started a SAR op. yet--no idea where they were. They didn't really look like they were suffering so they probably didn't suffer thru anything too bad as far as epics go.

Hey speaking of Blodgett Canyon, is that some kind of geological anomaly that there is a well formed, mostly free standing arch on the ridgeline on the south side maybe 3 or 4 miles in? That just doesn't seem to happen w/ granitic type of rock, at least not in my experience. Any geologists out there want to explain how that happened.

Both the forks of Rosebud Creek looked cool to me w/ lots of potential. East Fork area reminded me a lot of Leavenworth/Icicle Creek/Alpine Lakes.

Unless there's more than one Trappers Peak it's a walk up w/ a well defined trail and no bushwacking. Although the ascent was pretty non-interesting it's a fantastic view from the top across a pretty good chunk of the range, looks like some country that rarely gets visited. I have friends that were looking for a retirement home a few years ago. They're fairly well to-do. They lived in Lolo 20 years or so ago and really wanted to return to the Bitterroot Valley. According to them it was just too pricey, and this was after living near Issaquah. So the Montana as the next Colorado thing might have some legitimacy to it.

Okay, sorry for the teaser. Here's what I know. 2 guys went up to do Stuart in a day, I didn't hear what route they intended to do. Left Sat. AM. Didn't come back in the evening, family called sheriff, then family went out to search. Sheriff hadn't iniated SAR operation. Now here's where I get sketchy on it, apparently some of the family members started having some problems while they were up there looking. The helicopter actually brought the mom down (I'm not sure if the 2 guys were brothers or not). Not a few minutes after the chopper landed I saw 2 guys w/ big packs and lots of gear coming up the road from downhill of the TH. I wondered if that was the guys. A few seconds later the mom spots them and takes off like a bolt of lightning for a happy reunion. I have no idea where they came from but somebody gave them a ride back up to Colchuck TH. We were extremely curious but figured quizzing them about what happened probably wasn't appropriate under the circumstances. So we spent a good chunk of the drive back across Stevens Pass speculating about what happened.

Yesterday a sheriff's helicopter landed at the Colchuck/Stuart Lk. TH. There's a whole story behind it, I don't have half the details. It wasn't even an SAR mission. Anyway, that was kinda crazy. I'll post what I know about it later, don't have time at the moment.