sobo

Ah, but was it the mountain that killed them, or saved them? Read the original question...

Classic, ivan!

A research paper or morbid curiosity?

DOH! Zero points for reading comprehension! 10dance: It'll be fine. Trust me. Know your glacier navigation and crevasse extraction skills. Do you care if the weather sucks, or not?

What route? It does make a difference... Oh, BTW, have you seen this thread?

Mine cuz I have a really hard time stomaching stupid people. So I just want to whack some sense into them with a stick.

Martin is correct. Too many people cornfuze columnar basalt with andesite. Move upstream about a mile to The Bend, and you do start to see a more classic exhibition of what most peeps regard as columnar basalt. Still, it's andesite. Moon Rocks, still further upstream, is the same stuff. Now, if you want to see a really classic example of columnar basalt (and capped by entablature), go to Wildcat Wall, up the Wildcat Creek drainage. Now that is columnar basalt!

Seen on a bumper sticker: "No matter how hot she looks, some guy is tired of taking her shit!"

Naah, just finished a "lectures on tape" series from Great Courses about the Low Middle Ages (~700 AD to ~1000 AD). Just started the High Middle Ages course yesterday.

I'm not much of a bitter fan. I prefer the beefier brews, like BB Porter or Obsidian Stout. As my beermentor used to say, "A loaf of bread in every mug!"

Pffft! You have to answer in the form of a question. The correct question is: Who was crowned Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire on Christmas Day of what year?

Ya know, that was the same thing that interested me about this post, too.

If there is, I don't know about it. Go to Joe's site ^^ and navigate through the links to the topos for the given routes (RTL, S&A, CommandHo) on Goose Egg. The topos are good from what I can tell.

MtnHigh gave you the goods. I've been out in the field all day, up in Grand Coulee. Just got back in. Stopped by Northrup Canyon on the way home for a mini-boulderfest.

Does anyone really think the spotters and crash pad are going to matter in a fall from that height? What is that, like, five or six body lengths?

skyclimb, You win! And I offer a correction to my max rappel height from 974 feet to 876 feet, per this site.

never trust a fartWhat does that mean? Can you "lay that out" for us? I think it means that the "post-40" sphincter cannot distinquish between solids and gases "at the gate", and hence, cannot be trusted to hold back any unanticipated expulsions of deleterious substances.

There have been caving accidents attributed to this, where the sheath became so hot it liquified, leading to an out of control rappel and the victim in a pool of nylon at the base of the line. And this was with a brake rack. No doubt, iain. I was involved in a BR with the Va Tech Cave Club years ago that resulted from an OOC rappel with a brake rack. It still takes an operational brain to operate one of those thingies.

Glad to see that you made it home OK. As you predicted, I returned to the office, but no work was done (other than the TR!).

...about a thousand feet... How close to 1,000 feet is it to claim the record? The New River Gorge Bridge outside of Fayetteville, WV is 974 feet from deck to waves, and gets rappelled every year by hundreds of peeps on Bridge Day (one direction of the span is completely closed to vehicular traffic and opened to peds, rappellers, bungee jumpers, parapente pilots, etc., in honor of the people that helped fund the bridge construction - that's you, the Taxpayer!). I'd be curious to know more about the RG Bridge record...

pffft! Whadarya, new? El Pastor, in Yakivegas, on Walnut.

Climb: Bob's Keg & Cork Date of Climb: 5/25/2004 Trip Report: I arrived at work this Tuesday morning, after celebrating the 3rd anniversary of our blissful marriage the day before and what did I find? A PM from Ducknut, requesting a meeting and proposing the first recorded Yakima PC. Ducknut was going to be in The Palm Springs of Washington for a business meeting, and wanted to meet up with yet another brethren of this board. Having met only a scant handful of cc.com’ers in the past, and living so far from the highest concentration of same, I replied in the affirmative. Tackling pesky engineering problems all day, and tweaking scopes of work for future projects, left me thirsty by mid-afternoon. I was all atwitter with PC excitement when the phone call came at 3:30. Brad was done early, and was looking to hook up for cask-conditioned aleage immediately. Alas, I was far from able to depart the confines of the rectangle jungle at so early an hour, and I sorrowfully begged off the rendezvous. However, I provided Brad with explicit directions to allow him to locate Bob’s Keg & Cork, my favorite local watering hole, and wished him a fine trip back to the Portland environs after the imbibing of libations. My judgment clouded by what was truly unimportant, and unable to focus clearly on the task at hand, it was a full ten minutes later when I left the office, informing the receptionists that I had a “personal errand” that needed attention. I motored swiftly in the direction of my favorite drinking establishment, and dutifully parked the gas-guzzling Exploder behind a Dodge of questionable reliability (more about this later). Just before turning the entrance into Bob’s, my plan well in hand as to how I would identify someone I had no idea of what the person looked like, I heard my name, as if in a chorus of angelic voices from on high, call to me. Stopping dead in my tracks and turning around, there was Brad, the Ducknut, fresh from concluding his occupational duties and quite thirsty. There was to be a Yakima PC after all! After a few pints of Boundary Bay cask-conditioned ales (a Tightwad Tuesday special at Bob’s) and exchange of personal stories, some funny, some sad, it was time for Brad to hit the road. Brad indicated that I still had to get back to work, but that I probably wouldn’t accomplish much after our PC. He was right, so here I am, writing up the TR! Outside the pub, we were bidding our adieus when the owner of the unreliable Dodge was attempting to put some gas into the tank without a funnel. Massive spillage ensued. He went off somewhere, we don’t know where, and his female friend lights up in the front seat! Brad informs me of this, and noting that I parked behind this bomb, I sauntered over to let her know that she was lighting the fuse of a possible IED. Being the proud owner of a gas-guzzling Exploder (c’mon – it’s only the 2-door version!), I really didn’t want to see it live up to its name. Shrugged off by the white trash SO of the beater Dodge owner, Brad and I departed before things blew up, he to points south, and I back to work. Salute', Brad. I enjoyed it! Gear Notes: beer $$$ Approach Notes: roadway bare and dry, no cops

That's about the funniest thing I've ever read on this board. Righteous! Fredroglyphics and Helmyskrit...

Uhhh, ever see of one of these? Start out with a bar or two for those really long raps, stop periodically on the way down to add on more bars. Voila! It is kinda fun. I was in the Va Tech Cave Club before I became a climber. Rapped off Whitesides in NC, and off the New River Gorge Bridge in WV every year on Bridge Day (altho we cave clubbers were smarter than the averge dick and didn't speed rap ) Once I finally emerged from the mud, cold, and darkness and discovered climbing in the outdoors, I hung up my brake rack, wetsuit, and carbide lamp and joined the sunlovers. Never went back... And yup, rappelling in a climbing scenario scares the hell outta me every time. My mantra to my partner, just before every departure, is "I hate rappelling." That way peeps will know what to put on my headstone...

IIRC, the PCT does not go directly over Old Snowy. The trail to the summit is a side trail off the PCT, and the main PCT is in the meadow (Strawberry Meadows??) below and to the west. But it's been about 5 years or so since I've been up there, so what do I know?