sobo

Nice!

Welcome to the PNW, Michelle and Derek. Enjoy the beginning of the rest of your lives.

Righteous in the Xtreme! :tup:

Don't know what's happened on your end, but when you finally able to add them again, you'll be so icono©lastic...

I like her "house"... so apropos...

Very similar move to Alex's for me. From VA Tech, fall of 1988, a 1970 2-door Volvo, no roof rack. Climbing and camping gear stowed in the trunk (out of sight and under lock and key) and clothes, cooking shit, and other essentials in the back seat. Eight weeks and $1,000 of the best road trip evuh! Glad you're finally going to make it out this way, Michelle!

:lmao: PS: How's that set hangin', Sandy? You find the support you need? PPS: 'skuze me, cuz I just put down a bottle of cab...

I'm back in town and sobered up, Mel. Check your PMs.

I'll bite. What's in the bucket? Is that panning for gold...??

OK, I winced thru the first minute - felt sorry for the fucker, actually. But the last 20 seconds had me busting a gut on the floor! Nice find, rob!

Ahhhh, if only it were that easy.

Kevin, LD can "open" as early as late March or April, but it's a crap shoot cuz it's likely to still be dripping that early in the year. I never show up before Memorial Day. Then you have to beat feet by the end of June cuz it's getting too damned hot. July is right out! Then come back around mid to late August and climb clear thru to Halloween, and quite possibly mid to late November. Yes, I've been climbering at Spring Mountain many times. It's relatively close to home and good value for the drive from TC.

Soooooooooooo... what did you end doing in the state's Sunshine Capitol? I'm understandably curious.

:lmao: You know me too well...

PM sent.

I'm interested. Check the PM thread you started. I no longer partake of da kine herb. I am, however, regarded by many to be able to consume and hold more than my fair share of liquor, beer, and wine. Just ask around... :hic:

To answer your question, Kev, yes, the Indian Monkey Boy is legit. He's been covered by several reputable worldwide news services for a couple of years now. Don't know about the Orange Diaper Boys, but their organization (Indian Marial Arts) is legit.

:tup: I concure. I wanna climb with Nastia...

So who the hell did you piss off to get yourself sent back to Ohio?

Pat, There're a few hikes around town that won't take more than a couple hours. You could lengthen them, of course, by bringing your trusty camera. Some suggestions: 1. Badger Mountain: The most popular hike in the TC, it's a little hill that the local climbing/hiking club has spent a ton of money on acquiring access and improving the trails to the top. Two different trails to the top (one from the east side and one from the west) can be linked to do an up-and-over-and-back for a 8-mile round trip from one side of the hill to the other and then reverse it back to the car. Elevation gain for one way trip ~830VF. Be prepared for crowds any time of year. See here. 2. Tapteal Greenway: 7-mile round trip walk along the Yakima River outside of Richland. Lots of riverfront/lowland vegetation and wildlife, and a fair amount of solitude... lots more than Badger Mountain. Essentially no elevation gain or loss. 3. Wallula Gap: A 8-mile loop trip to an overlook of the Wallula Gap of the Columbia River. Really pretty, but be prepared for a windy outing. Elevation gain ~850VF. 3. Juniper Dunes Wilderness Area. Check out the last of the native sand dunes in Washington before they're blown away. There's no trails, so you can make this as short or as long as you want. Just park at the trailhead and start wandering through the dunes and the sagebrush. Up to 8 miles out and back. Mebbe 300VF of gain. More info for local (and not so local) hikes here. If you've got a boat, you can put in below Horn Rapids Dam and float the Yakima into the delta with the Columbia. That would be a fun float, nothing serious. About 17 miles, so that would be a full winter's day of paddling. I've never done it, but it's on the list as a beer-drinking summer float. One that I have done, and if you've got lots of time, is a float of the Hanford Reach, the last free-flowing stretch of the Columbia River in the US. Put in at Vernita Bridge, float past the Hanford reactors (now deactivated) and the White Bluffs, and take out at the Ringold Fish Hatchery. This will take a while. It's a 34-mile float with a current of about 5 mph. It's a long day when you consider the put-in/take-out logistics, unless you've got someone who can drop you off at Vernita Bridge and pick you up at the fish hatchery, so you can avoid the car shuttle. I did this trip under a full moon and clear skies last August, and it was freaking amazing. Deer, coyotes, elk, etc. are superbly abundant through the Reach, because of the prohibition against hunting on the Hanford site and access restrictions across the river for the site's security buffer. The bald eagles are "in town" right now at the site. There's a nesting area on the site that you'll float right by. The trees next to the river are lousy with them right now. I saw about two dozen of the buggers on a site visit just last week. Lemme know if you need directions to any THs.

I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that was Billy Finley (below), and he "discovered" that trick from me almost 15 years ago while we were ice climbing in the Eklutna Canyon one evening in 1997. I had just finished relating to him my Stuart unplanned bivy story (just up-thread ^^). I think we watched the Hale-Bopp Comet that evening after topping out on Ripple. That sound familiar, Billy? I've been stashing a space blanket above my helmet suspension for decades. It could have been me that you're remembering, but I'm pretty sure it's Billy telling the story that you remember, Mel.

Now *that* is a really sweet story. Nice, Gene!

You can buy gear on this site...??

Spent an unplanned bivy on Stuart on my first trip up there 20-odd years ago. Went through 7, count 'em, 7 weather patterns that day (in order: sunny/clear, wind/overcast, fog/white-out, rain, lightning strike, hail, snow), only to be benighted on the way down. Like rob, we spent the night in our harnesses on a narrow sloping ledge with our feet hanging over the edge, and roped to a scraggly little bush. We were out of food, forced to drink meltwater, and neither of us slept a wink, shivering and slapping ourselves to keep warm. We didn't bring long pants or a sturdy jacket, thinking this was "just a July day climb." Ended up stuffing my feet and lower legs into my daypack and fighting over a space blanket. It got down to just above freezing, and it looked like it was going to rain/snow again. About 3:00 a.m. or so, I turned to Phil and opined, "Ya know, if it rains, we're dead men." Phil's classic response resonates to this day: "Thanks for the fucking weather report." Afterwards, I thought it was kind of a fun night, but Phil was most unimpressed with the evening. He had just gotten married a couple months earlier and would much rather have been with his hottie of a wife than stuck on a ledge with a bear like me.