TR's

[gyselinck]

I am guilty and don't often do it, but somebody should post a TR of what they did over the weekend. I am bored and need to see somthing cool. Make sure to include pictures. I like to read about and see pictures of what others do, it keeps me excited through the boring week.

[catbirdseat]

I wish I had a TR to post! It was the weekend to do garden chores, unfortunately.

[L0ngpause]

Gyselinck, why don't you post your TR, it is a good TR, worthy of posting.

[kurthicks]

maybe DPS or Juan will write one for our trip. Lots of others out in the area. Saw some people on Colchuck, CBR (i think), Stuart, etc.

[Lyger]

hey longpause, sorry fancy pants, but the next time you fuck with my business will be the last. think about that.

[Chad_A]

hey longpause, sorry fancy pants, but the next time you fuck with my business will be the last. think about that.

Whoa! Take it outside boys...the infamous "that's it, meet me at the bike rack" quote.

 

[gyselinck]

Maybe Lyger and Longpause will fight and post a TR with pictures. Post some more TR's people..

[L0ngpause]

Trip Report: The day I killed Lyger

 

We had now reached the summit of the loftiest crag. For some minutes the old man seemed too much exhausted to speak.

"Not long ago," said he at length, "and I could have guided you on this route as well as the youngest of my sons; but, about three years past, there happened to me an event such as never happened before to mortal man --or at least such as no man ever survived to tell of --and the six hours of deadly terror which I then endured have broken me up body and soul. You suppose me a very old man --but I am not. It took less than a single day to change these hairs from a jetty black to white, to weaken my limbs, and to unstring my nerves, so that I tremble at the least exertion, and am frightened at a shadow. Do you know I can scarcely look over this little cliff without getting giddy?"

The "little cliff," upon whose edge he had so carelessly thrown himself down to rest that the weightier portion of his body hung over it, while he was only kept from falling by the tenure of his elbow on its extreme and slippery edge --this "little cliff" arose, a sheer unobstructed precipice of black shining rock, some fifteen or sixteen hundred feet from the world of crags beneath us. Nothing would have tempted me to within half a dozen yards of its brink. In truth so deeply was I excited by the perilous position of my companion, that I fell at full length upon the ground, clung to the shrubs around me, and dared not even glance upward at the sky --while I struggled in vain to divest myself of the idea that the very foundations of the mountain were in danger from the fury of the winds. It was long before I could reason myself into sufficient courage to sit up and look out into the distance.

"You must get over these fancy pants," said the guide, "for I have brought you here that you might have the best possible view of the scene of that event I mentioned."

"We are now," he continued, in that particularizing manner which distinguished him --"we are now close upon the Norwegian coast --in the sixty-eighth degree of latitude --in the great province of Nordland --and in the dreary district of Lofoden. The mountain upon whose top we sit is Helseggen, the Cloudy. Now raise yourself up a little higher --hold on to the grass if you feel giddy --so --and look out beyond the belt of vapor beneath us, into the sea."

 

I looked dizzily, and beheld a wide expanse of ocean, whose waters wore so inky a hue as to bring at once to my mind the Nubian geographer's account of the Mare Tenebrarum. A panorama more deplorably desolate no human imagination can conceive. To the right and left, as far as the eye could reach, there lay outstretched, like ramparts of the world, lines of horridly black and beetling cliff, whose character of gloom was but the more forcibly illustrated by the surf which reared high up against it its white and ghastly crest, howling and shrieking for ever. Just opposite the promontory upon whose apex we were placed, and at a distance of some five or six miles out at sea, there was visible a small, bleak-looking island; or, more properly, its position was discernible through the wilderness of surge in which it was enveloped. About two miles nearer the land, arose another of smaller size, hideously craggy and barren, and encompassed at various intervals by a cluster of dark rocks.

The appearance of the ocean, in the space between the more distant island and the shore, had something very unusual about it. Although, at the time, so strong a gale was blowing landward that a brig in the remote offing lay to under a double-reefed trysail, and constantly plunged her whole hull out of sight, still there was here nothing like a regular swell, but only a short, quick, angry cross dashing of water in every direction --as well in the teeth of the wind as otherwise. Of foam there was little except in the immediate vicinity of the rocks.

We had now been about ten minutes upon the top of Helseggen, to which we had ascended from the interior of Lofoden, so that we had caught no glimpse of the sea until it had burst upon us from the summit. As the old man spoke, I became aware of a loud and gradually increasing sound, like the moaning of a vast herd of buffaloes upon an American prairie; and at the same moment I perceived that what seamen term the chopping character of the ocean beneath us, was rapidly changing into a current which set to the eastward. Even while I gazed, this current acquired a monstrous velocity. Each moment added to its speed --to its headlong impetuosity. In five minutes the whole sea, as far as Vurrgh, was lashed into ungovernable fury; but it was between Moskoe and the coast that the main uproar held its sway. Here the vast bed of the waters, seamed and scarred into a thousand conflicting channels, burst suddenly into phrensied convulsion --heaving, boiling, hissing --gyrating in gigantic and innumerable vortices, and all whirling and plunging on to the eastward with a rapidity which water never elsewhere assumes except in precipitous descents.

In a few minutes more, there came over the scene another radical alteration. The general surface grew somewhat more smooth, and the whirlpools, one by one, disappeared, while prodigious streaks of foam became apparent where none had been seen before. These streaks, at length, spreading out to a great distance, and entering into combination, took unto themselves the gyratory motion of the subsided vortices, and seemed to form the germ of another more vast. Suddenly --very suddenly --this assumed a distinct and definite existence, in a circle of more than half a mile in diameter. The edge of the whirl was represented by a broad belt of gleaming spray; but no particle of this slipped into the mouth of the terrific funnel, whose interior, as far as the eye could fathom it, was a smooth, shining, and jet-black wall of water, inclined to the horizon at an angle of some forty-five degrees, speeding dizzily round and round with a swaying and sweltering motion, and sending forth to the winds an appalling voice, half shriek, half roar, such as not even the mighty cataract of Niagara ever lifts up in its agony to Heaven.

The mountain trembled to its very base, and the rock rocked. I threw myself upon my face, and clung to the scant herbage in an excess of nervous agitation.

"This," said I at length, to the old man --"this can be nothing else than the loathsome and cowardly Lion-Tigress."

"So she is sometimes termed," said he. "We Norwegians call it the Lyger, from the island of Moskoe in the midway."

The ordinary accounts of this vortex had by no means prepared me for what I saw. That of Jonas Ramus, which is perhaps the most circumstantial of any, cannot impart the faintest conception either of the magnificence, or of the horror of the scene --or of the wild bewildering sense of the novel which confounds the beholder. I am not sure from what point of view the writer in question surveyed it, nor at what time; but it could neither have been from the summit of Helseggen, nor during a storm. There are some passages of his description, nevertheless, which may be quoted for their details, although their effect is exceedingly feeble in conveying an impression of the spectacle.

"But what have we here? Heavens! The sea is swarming with wild beasts! How terrible a spectacle!- how dangerous a peculiarity!" The Old man replied to my eyes wide of terror, “Terrible, if you please; but not in the least degree dangerous. Each animal if you will take the pains to observe, is following, very quietly, in the wake of its master. Some few, to be sure, are led with a rope about the neck, but these are chiefly the lesser or timid species. The lion, the tiger, and the leopard are entirely without restraint. They have been trained without difficulty to their present profession, and attend upon their respective owners in the capacity of valets-de-chambre. It is true, there are occasions when Nature asserts her violated dominions;- but then the devouring of a man-at-arms, or the throttling of a consecrated bull”

 

"I now arose hurriedly, and in a state of fearful agitation- for the fancy that I dreamed would serve me no longer. I saw- I felt that I had perfect command of my senses- and these senses now brought to my soul a world of novel and singular sensation. The sight of this monster rather relieved than heightened my terrors- for I now made sure that I dreamed, and endeavored to arouse myself to waking consciousness. Tis the dreaded Lygers of doom. And now a new object took possession of my soul. I spoke a few hurried but energetic words to my companion, and, having succeeded in gaining over a few Lygers to my purpose made a frantic sally. We rushed amid the crowd that surrounded it. They retreated, at first, before us. They rallied, fought madly, and retreated again.

 

One of them struck me upon the right temple. I reeled and fell. An instantaneous and dreadful sickness seized me. I struggled- I gasped- I died."

"You will hardly persist now," said I smiling, "that the whole of your adventure was not a dream. You are not prepared to maintain that you are dead?"

When I said these words, I of course expected some lively sally from Bedloe in reply, but, to my astonishment, he hesitated, trembled, became fearfully pallid, and remained silent. I looked toward the old man. He sat erect and rigid on the cliff- his teeth chattered, and his eyes were starting from their sockets. "Proceed!" he at length said hoarsely.

"For many minutes," continued the latter, "my sole sentiment- my sole feeling- was that of darkness and nonentity, with the consciousness of death. At length there seemed to pass a violent and sudden shock through my soul, as if of electricity. With it came the sense of elasticity and of light. This latter I felt- not saw. In an instant I seemed to rise from the ground. But I had no bodily, no visible, audible, or palpable presence. The crowd had departed. The tumult had ceased.

Lyger was dead.

[olyclimber]

Holy appropriation, Batman!

[ScottP]

[ivan]

i feel like i missed something here and just don't have the time to figure out what...what the fuck 'xactly are your boys talking 'bout?

[Dru]

[Ireneo_Funes]

Is that a Lyger?

[gyselinck]

First you ditch out on me, then you mess up my thread.

 

Don't you guys ever mess with my thread again and get it moved. Lyger, Longpause . Crazy bastards .

[Blake]

 

My weekend was spent in sunny Sacramento racing at the WIRA regatta. I'm on WWU's Crew team, and we had a good couple days of races. For any Seattle-ites, I'll be racing through the Montlake Cut this Saturday at the Windermere Cup, so give a yell if you are one of the thousands in attendance.

 

[thelawgoddess]

My weekend was spent in sunny Sacramento racing at the WIRA regatta. I'm on WWU's Crew team, and we had a good couple days of races. For any Seattle-ites, I'll be racing through the Montlake Cut this Saturday at the Windermere Cup, so give a yell if you are one of the thousands in attendance.

saw a bunch of crews out practicing this morning in my backyard. i'm surprised there aren't more boats rafted up and anchored out there yet.

[Lyger]

my god, what a fantastic way to die. I hope all my future deaths will be as poetic and lituraturely sound. I feel honored that I have been killed so dramtically and with such care to accuracy. My hat goes off to you good sir.