sobo

so true. I found "developing forearms" to be a tad stiff for 5.9 in places. You mean, like, the exit move? Locked armbar and can't move anything or ya peel? Yah, I know about that... Inverted a cam on a whipper from the exit move...

Drive time from Seattle (I-5/I-90 intersection) to RC is about 3 hours, doing teh speed limit. It's just under 2.5 hours to Yakivegas (in forgiving conditions), then about another 20 minutes or so to the parking pull-out.

It's looking as if we might be able to see the sky tonight. Cool! Clear as a bell out here in Yakivegas tonight... I'm heading out to the Tieton where it's dark!

Where do you get those gremlins? Is there a webpage of them somewhere? Put your mouse cursor over the graemlin, right click, select "Properties, then copy/paste to your browser. Unless your trying to get ahold of thelawgoddess's graemlins. They're "protected", and she's got the best stash of 'em I've seen.

I hardly think so...

So why the hell don't sailors finish a bowline? I learned it for a number of reasons and learned to tie it with one hand. But nobody EVER told me to finish a bowline when I was tying into a harness on deck. Sailors don't finish a bowline for one major reason: You don't need to. If it comes undone, you turn into the wind, grab the clew, and retie it. Yah, you lose time (if you're racing), but for whatever reason, you just don't back them up. It's not like you're going to die if it comes undone, unlike while climbing... And as far as tying in on deck, just use an SOSuspenders instead of roping in. No sense getting tea-bagged (non-sexual version) by being all wired into the boat. Just go over teh side, get wet, and POP! You're saved!

WARNING: Old skewl wanker weighing in... I have always used a doule bowline with the Yos finish, and *it has never come untied* in over 15 years of using it. The rewoven 8 gets too bound up to untie easily after climbing, so I don't intend ever to use it unless some credible info crops up which casts serious dispersions upon the DB. Secondly, I learned the DB while caving, before I started climbing and waaay long before I started sailing. The bowline is one knot which cavers learn can save their very ass cuz it's the one knot that can hold body weight in a raise and *can be tied with one hand*, as would an injured caver. Sailors experience the bowline coming undone *because you don't finish a bowline* as a matter of standard practice on a sailboat. SO you all are talking apples and oranges when comparing bowlines for use in sailing v. climbing. And lastly, a double looped 8 will take less tightening on the knot because teh force in a fall is applied more to teh double looping around teh harness. Remember your "wrap three, pull two" mantra from rigging for rescue techniques? QED.

Sorry, but I'm not for sale.

Just got my copy of "The Guide" yesterday. Schweeet! Bring on the bone-chillin'!!

There's only about 3 genres of music that I could really do without... rap, hip hop, and twangy country 'nuf sed.

OK, you make a good point. But you are talking about a minute quantity of water over a large span of time (relative to each other) to make this (salt deposit formation) happen. Nothing like the quantities of water that would be required to form climbable cryogenic formations. Let's say this: In Eastern WA, in general, the water that forms ice climbs in the Coulees is deposited and stored during the summer and fall as irrigation water that perks into the shallow soil horizon. It later emerges as "groundwater" seepage and freezes at the surface to form ice climbs. I think it is safe to say that it is not from any naturally occurring aquifer in the coulees.

Try Columbia. I hear Medien is still puttin' out some pretty good stuff...

Somebody on that other board has waaaaaaay too much time on their hands. I'm still here stuck at work tonight.

Lambone, Righteous avatar image.

"The operation timed out when attempting to contact www.wastateice.net/" Good one, Alex! Is Zlib compression available yet?

Don't you really mean the hydraulic grade line or the hydraulic gradient? If the hydraulic grade line is at the surface (or above) of the ground, then by definition you would have an artesian well. We don't see that much out here in the Eastern WA desert. QED. Class dismissed.

Only above the 1.2 Gigawatt range...

Ice climbing guide I know, it was too easy, but I just couldn't resist...

Right, but the Eastern WA desert is underlain by basalts of the Ellensburg and Grand Rhonde Formations that are over 10,000 feet thick. Yeah, there's water down there, but it isn't enough to well up and form icefalls. It's fahq'n deep!

Thanks for the background, Alex. We trust that answers your question, BigWave.

DPS is right on so far. The Columbia Basin Reclamation Project (of which Grand Coulee Dam is it's most visible and recognizable man-made landmark) is the most responsible agent for the ice climbs around Banks Lake, Moses Coulee, and Ancient Lakes. This is because without the Project, there would *be* no groundwater to speak of to form these climbs. Eastern WA is a desert, ya know. It is the late-season run-off and winter groundwater seepage (supplied by irrigation earlier in the year) that supplies at least one of the requirements for an ice climb - free water. And Paul detrick is correct on one of the other requirements - It's up to Mother Nature for the coooooolllllldddddd. She's already provided the third ingredient - the vertical environment!

From my earlier request of The Guide's status back in July: Alex notes the omission here. I got my advanced copy in the mail and it looks pretty good. It made me really jones for ice season to start. With the weather we've had lately, I'm getting pretty keen. You'll be able to buy the guidebooks direct off the Mountaineers Books website. Ironically, the route in the cover photo isnt in the guide!! Comment for BigWave, Alex? Inquiring minds want to know.

I have one, and IMO it's the best, most idiot-proof beacon I've ever owned or used. Takes me right to the target every time (except once, in a practice in a friend's field, when I kept following the signal up to the house - I took me a couple of tries to figure out I was following the underground telephone line) When my unit does practice searches, and even when I took avy awareness seminars, I was always the first to locate the "subject". Let it also be said that I practice with it at least 2x per year.

E-rock and others, Don't spank RuMR for what I brought up. I brought up the All-Around World Champion slugfest after I clicked on her site. As I said earlier in this thread, Sure, she may be a great sport climber and plastic jugger, but nothing she's done qualifies her to be called/call herself/allow herself to be called an "all-around" world champion, all-around being the key phrase here. I think her sponsors have some 'splaning to do.

My point exactly. Her x-games feat grants her all-around climbing champion status? WTF is up with that? I guess the part that really chaps my butt is the claim of "all-around" champion. My understanding of "all-around" means just that - you've got to the best, or at least mighty goddamn good, at every aspect of the game at hand. Speed-pulling plastic or jugging El Cap just doesn't cut it in my book.