Mountaineers

[imorris]

Pissed at the mazamas? Hey there's nothing wrong with piton aid climbing in plastics on the student wall. Or a pack of 10 on the Early Morning Couloir (who seemed to have a summit of Hood S'side as their previous climb).

Keeps things interesting out there!

[imorris]

The goal is to have the "This topic is comprised of pages...." thing collide with the "All times are PT" at the bottom of this page. I've got enough Mazamas stories to do some damage. Bring it!

[Heinouscling]

Lets keep Dru baby's thread going folks. One more for the gipper.

-Heinous

[Wopper]

I heard the Gipper used to do slide shows.

[Alpine_Tom]

Certainly I don’t like having hordes of Mounties out there any more than anyone else does – I’m entirely comfortable with the idea of locking the door to the outdoors, now that I’m here. Okay, no one who has an REI number over six digits can use any route that appears in Beckey or the first volume of Nelson and Potterfield. Sounds fair to me.

But it's not like they go recruiting people to take their classes; in fact, a few years back I got the idea of joining the Mounties and taking the Basic climbing course, but gave it up because next year's class was already full. They're a big organization with big classes because there's a huge demand -- there are lots of folks looking for the freedom of the hills .

I'm guessing that part of their rigidity (you can only tie in with a bowline on a bight, not a butterfly knot) is due to a desire for consistency in training, as well as a fear of liability. After all, if someone climbing with me gets injured, their attorney probably won't come after me (after all, I'm basically judgement-proof!), but if I'm representing the Mountaineers, it's probably a different story. I wonder how often they've gotten sued because some moron wasn't paying attention, fell and got hurt, and went crying to mama.

I agree it's kind of irresponsible to make a new Basic grad a Basic teacher, but that's what they do in college. How many freshman or sophomore level classes at UW aren't taught by grad students? The best way to learn is to teach, y'know. (Of course, a bad Econ TA isn't going to get you killed... )

There's no excuse, of course, for mounties to act so self-righteous and critical of others; I guess that's an unfortunate consequence of making novices into leaders, making them think they know more than they do.

But the basic issue is that the crowded routes are crowded because there's lots of people who want to get out and climb. (Does anyone REALLY expect solitude on The Tooth?) The mouties are just the easiest target because they're big and clumped together. Even if they restricted their basic class to a dozen people a year, and required years of experience to be an instructor, that wouldn't reduce the number of people you'd run into in the hills.

[ 01-16-2002: Message edited by: Alpine Tom ]

[Rodchester]

Apline Tom is right...thyere would just be some other club formed and they would take the place of the Mounties.

Yes they suck, but may actually help the situation by keeping the herd together and predictable. So we know how to avoid them.

[fleblebleb]

[ 01-16-2002: Message edited by: fleblebleb ]

[mr.radon]

Last year me and JDog did the easy route on Ingles. Waiting impatently for the Mountaineers to finish. NO!

We simo-climbed past them as their leader shouted, "Don't ever do what those F___er's are doing." Kiss my ass. At the top they were all too scared to unrope and walk to the actual summit.

Laughed my ass off.

JDog was trained by'em, I think I've got'em deprogramed by now.