Planing a trip with Bernard
Klooch Man
cheese specialist, and very organic farmer. Last September I visited
his Whomping Willow outpost on Vancouver Island. He and his wife and
two children were doing well, busy with the year-end crops and the
ducks, rabbits, and chickens.
The air must have done me good because after the visit my climbing
ability had increased a letter grade.
In recent years Bernard banked the fires of his own desire to climb in
order to devote more attention to his family. Now he feels that his
family can manage with a week less of his attention. The ashes have
been brushed away and we are in discussion over the proper stacking of
kindling around the ember.
Most lately I told him that a couple of recent visitors to the area of
interest had lost the faint trail out in the dark but GPS saved them
from a night out. Should I look into getting such a gadget?
Over to you, Bernard.
Hey!
I do have a compass and I do know how to use it. It does not have any
"find me" feature on it though. On the other hand, I would not mind
taking the time to "adapt" for the first few days and what I mean is
to get back into the spirit of long routes and become comfortable
again. There are classics you might have done that are mentioned on
the XXXXXXXXXX Climbing website in the 5.7, 5.8 range. Nevertheless,
the area seems to have quite spectacular scenery. So I will bring
stove and cooking
gearttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt6uy766yt566666666666. Trying
to clean grub that fell on the keyboard. And some extra climbing gear
in case the rocks steals a rope as it happened to Rob. Since we are
traveling by car, I think we can holiday in comfort. So I do have a
14" TV and a small dvd player, a battery pack and a portable shower, a
bbq with electronic ignition and a rotisserie, a train set we could
set up around the campsite, tennis racquets and fishing rods. Ho! and
an inflatable dingy.
I inquire with Island Link and there is only one schedule trip on the
3rd. So I will probably have to Greyhound. I'll let you know.
Cheers
Michael A. Riches
>So I will bring
>stove and cooking
>gearttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt6uy766yt566666666666. Trying
>to clean grub that fell on the keyboard. And some extra climbing gear
>in case the rocks steals a rope as it happened to Rob. Since we are
>traveling by car, I think we can holiday in comfort. So I do have a
>14" TV and a small dvd player, a battery pack and a portable shower, a
>bbq with electronic ignition and a rotisserie, a train set we could
>set up around the campsite, tennis racquets and fishing rods. Ho! and
>an inflatable dingy
Dhuuude... with all that, what is another small gadget. Anyway, as an
ex-search and rescue dhuude, I can tell you that exact co-ordinates are
great when you get in trouble...
Don't know where you're going and how far out of the civilized world you'll
be, but of all the things that I'd bring, a gps would be high on the list...
Enjoy your trip... you know that we'll expect a good trip report when ya get
back...(and hopefully you won't need that gps, but my vote says take it
anyway).
Ratzzz...
Simon Isbister
"Klooch Man" <lek...@intergate.ca> wrote in message
news:fc5fb584-ba24-4f82...@b38g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
> In recent years Bernard banked the fires of his own desire to climb in
> order to devote more attention to his family. Now he feels that his
> family can manage with a week less of his attention. The ashes have
> been brushed away and we are in discussion over the proper stacking of
> kindling around the ember.
>
> Most lately I told him that a couple of recent visitors to the area of
> interest had lost the faint trail out in the dark but GPS saved them
> from a night out. Should I look into getting such a gadget?
Well, Andy- as someone else who has been banking some climbing time lately,
I would be happy to lend you mine. Let me know where you are going, and I
will pre-load the maps!
Did I mention I broke my arm? Since Aaden was born, I haven't been on my
bike much, but figured I would start riding to work again in the new year.
So, I figured I should take it out last Sunday of the Christmas break, for a
quick spin, just to make sure everything still worked. Just 30 ft from the
driveway, I had to stop for something... but I couldn't quite get my toe
clip off, and I suffered a classic straight-arm radial fracture. Rehab is
going quite well, though.
Hope you are all getting out more than I am!
-s-
^,,^
fortunate guy. i figure as long as there is still room for you to fit
in the vehicle, go for it. if you see a skinny buttless guy on the
side of the road, perhaps you might pick me up.
i dig people from vancouver island, as a group. my buddy stephen k.
was one such soul. originally from mississauga, he ended up north of
nanaimo. i met him at squamish and later ran into him in the valley
and did all manner of climbs in yosemite/tuolumne. a couple years
later i ran into him at j-tree at new years. i lost track of him
years ago when he went back east to toronto. but i suspect that yet
again i will trip over him, and we will climb again.
the reason stephen came to mind is thinking about all of those gewgaws
in a car. brother stephen bought this 40 or so year old sewing
machine for CN$15 at a yard sale. he promptly put the needle through
his fingernail (been there, done that). eventually he figured the
machine out and while (like me) lacked any native talent for the art,
he went figured out how to sew stuff sacks. and he became famous for
his stuff sacks. for he had, truly, at least 200 stuff sacks in
innumerable colors and innumerable sizes in his aging corolla wagon.
unlike every other dirtbag climber i have known (hundreds, surely)
living out of their car, stephen could find absolutely anything in his
rig in a heartbeat. that and he had everything. i suspect that the
rest of us had pretty much everything too -- it's just that we could
never find it. eventually our rigs would blow a crankshaft or the
like on the side of, i dunno, Hwy 50 midway between tuolumne and
boulder and we'd just wipe the fingerprints off, grab the core gear,
and wander off. i suspect that there are housewives in Ely who, after
the car was rebuilt, went through it and wondered who in the world had
owned it previously -- this as they found 600 yards of dental floss
under the dashboard, a complete wire swaging kit under the spare tire,
and 27 flavors of herb tea under the back seat.
but stephen, he could actually find this stuff when you needed it.
and that was the miracle. could you? we were forever goofing on
stephen about his hundreds of little stuff sacks, but when the poop
hit the prop he was the go to guy. that and he was just fun to climb
with. he wasn't technically a god, and i had opportunity to climb
with much better climbers. but i always had fun with stephen. in the
inlikely event that you're reading this brother stephen, email me at
this address. 5.2 with you would be just fine.
and oh yeah, stephen was a cordon bleu chef trained in paris. he had
studd sacks for his cutlery and spices too.
what else... well, i have spent the last week or 10 days with my
uncle in the mountains of southwestern pennsylvania as he died. he
has since slipped into a coma and will soon be gone. it was not sad,
and no condolances are required. rather, it was one of the great
experiences of my life. an outstanding guy, an outstanding life. and
a long one, he is well into his 80's and has found a magic peace. i
hope to find a fraction of the same when my day comes. spending time
with him made this unlikely event more likely. we mostly we stared
out his picture window at his beloved sugar maples, on a landscape out
of a Russell Chatham watercolor. i learned a lot about climbing --
from a guy whose idea of climbing is the rappelling he did in the
marine corps. perhaps i will write on this, if i survive the plague.
my uncle is pertinent to this coversation as, for the first time, i
rented a GPS with my ford widget. i did so after the pert young
fellow tried to give me directions to his tiny town from PIT.
actually the entire staff of the rental agency was involved in giving
me directions. i was beat, and after the eigth "kinda bear left" i
chose to abandon my religious committment to fugality (so i can go
THERE!) and went for the GPS. once i had the thing figured out (with
much help from a long suffering "Customer Assistance Associate" -
amen) i was amazed by it.
i'm old school and had never used a GPS before, in a vehicle or
otherwhise. never so much as been in someone else's car with someone
else's GPS. what a remarkable machine. i certainl never would have
found uncle joe's house in the dark without one -- likely wouldn't
have found even the right county.
my geeky friends much recommend GPS, especially for my (way way) off
road trips. yet i've always been astounded that they fail to realize
that when walking up, oh, say the dudh khosi valley there is
absolutely no way you will get lost unless you accidently climb over a
20k' peak or doggy paddle accross class (what do they call whitewater
that no one has yet survived) class 7, 8? sheesh. though on my trips
to the pickets (and environs -- i need to do more of those) i can
begin to understand why one might want a GPS.
i mentioned the plague above because i've got it. sheesh. i am the
vector, baby. feels like someone has rammed sweat socks into my lungs
and steel wool into my bronchia (sp?) and larynx (ditto). 101'F fever
and i feel like they've sliced 40 points off of my IQ (which would
leave a net of what? 32?). i called the hospice nurse to assure that
my uncle didn;t catch this beast. thankfully, not. i almost
certainly got it on the plane out of pittsburgh. a friend who is a
retired airline pilot explained to me that the airlines put an end to
the smoking section in planes before the feds demanded it not out of
concern for the health of their passengers, but because fuel costs
were going up (even back then) and some MBA figured out out how much
they could save by not changing the air in planes as often. my pilot
friend tells me it is a lot of fuel. and the MBA realized (i suspect
after experimenting on passengers) that if they cut back on pumping in
fresh air by a factor of like 10 (pilot pal's estimate) that allowing
a smoking section would quick make any plane look like a scene in a
Cheech and Chong movie. i saw a great public service advertisement at
a no-tel the other day. the crux of it went "Having a smoking section
in a restaraunt is like having a peeing section in a pool." exactly.
so, i've written all of this is my dazed plague misery just to explain
why i planned to wait until i could breath again before i posted here.
ooops... typical.
enjoy your cimb with Benard. i recommend you get a copy of "Withnail
And I" for the DVD machine. that and of course a copy of "Dr.
Strangelove" -- for as you surely know, no climbing trip is complete
without a recent team viewing of Strangelove. as it gives you all of
the code words required to deal with any climbing situation, no matter
how joyous or how miserable.
-"There I was Jack, feeding you, feeding you!"
-"Do you realize that flouridation of water is the most fiendiesh
commie plot the ruskies have ever come up with?"
-"Uhm, ngative function, uh, sir, uhm, negative function..." (did you
recognize a very very young james earl jones)
-"Shoot! With The Gun! That's what it's for, you prit, Seargant Bat
Guano - if that really is your name..."
& etc endless and perfect fodder.
Hal Murray
5.2s can be fun even without a special partner, especially if you
are, say, 5.4 climber so you can still have fun when you can't
find the route.
I remember a trip back to the Gunks. A friend had come down
from Boston. We did something, oh 5.2 ish. When we got to the
top, she smiled. She had never done an easy climb without
dragging along a herd of beginners.
> for the first time, i rented a GPS with my ford widget.
Did you get the kind with audio? They are run in a perverse
sort of way when you either know the way and deliberately
miss a turn or if you are totally lost and miss it even
when you are trying...
I'd go batty if I was locked in a car with that voice for
very long. About 10 minutes is enough for me. Maybe 10
minutes or 3 missed turns, whichever comes first.
--
These are my opinions, not necessarily my employer's. I hate spam.
Klooch Man
^,,^ wrote:
<...>
> i mentioned the plague above because i've got it.
<...>
Bernard is a good soul. We'd pick you up, anyway.
Our manager had sniffles one day and was in the ICU the next. She's
recovered. We have a record 9 residents out of 88 on antibiotics. I
only know of one that was tested for anything and he showed a
respiratory syncytial virus. Just a common cold but he was put on
isolation precautions. As though you can hide from a virus. The
antibiotics are of course directed against bacteria, bacteria which we
don't know are there because we didn't do sputum cultures or get chest
x-rays to look for pneumonia. Don't blame me when the next nasty
resistant strain shows up. I only work nights. I only decide whether
or not to send a person to hospital. But I can do a rough calculation.
Say 10% of all people over 80 years old and in a nursing home are on
antibiotics. That's quite a few. We haven't had anyone come close to
dying just lately. And even then, death for people the age of our
residents is expected. At least that is the box we always tick on the
Report of Death at a Licensed Care Facility.
I worried about the gent with RSV for a while. He had a temperature
and his hemoglobin Oh-Two saturation sank into the 70s when off the
tank. He resides in the dementia unit. Even through the illness he
muttered almost continuously, "I just got out of the Arctic," and
such. Some questions he answered appropriately. After being called at
2 am to see him because he was restless, and after helping him get to
the toilet to pee, and after doing a few other checks and small
mercies, I fell back on a question that often lets me know if I've
missed anything.
me (hoping he wants to sleep): "What would you like to do, now,
Bill?"
him (in a loud clear voice): "I want to die!"
And why not? He's 96.
Bernard is a good soul but I never thought of his humor as too subtle,
before. We will be travelling by plane then rental car and will be
lucky if Bernard brings a spare shirt.
The line I am hoping to find use for is: "What is most of modern music
telling us?"
The plan is to ask that question if I get scared on lead, a likely
enough bet.
Bernard being the Zappa fan he is may know the answer: "That we are
chickenshit!"
Withnail and I
Dr. Strangelove
great movies
About movies, in case our friend kellie happens along, I have now seen
The Fall. The opening sequence is great. It could stand alone. You
don't know what is happening until the last scene ties it together. I
don't remember anything quite like it in movies. Then the early part
of Once Upon a Time in Los Angeles is good. I kinda got bumped out of
the groove when the young cowboy starts balling his eyes out toward
the end. If I ran the world he would be emotionally dead at that point
and his storytelling, in the mind of the young girl, would lose all
the fabulous color, lose track of the characters, and fade into
senselessness. That should be upsetting enough for her (a very
endearing actor). No further violence. Especially the fist-fight and
other mano a mano that ends 9 of 10 movies. The black-and-white
sequence near the end is again great movie-making. We've seen those
stunts before but feel differently about them, now.
^,,^
> Our manager had sniffles one day and was in the ICU the next.
thanks for the confidence builder. sheesh.
makes me think of my fave SNL moment of all time. from back in the
day when they were smart enough to recognize that if they had 27
seconds of truly funny schtick, they'd do a 27 second piece then move
on to the next. this was the early days. these days they take 8
seconds of truly funny and run it out to, well, whatever the time
frame is between selling you stuff you don't need. as such, i haven't
watched it in years.
i digress [yeesh]. so anyway, in my fave gig Garret Morris(sp?) plays
a small boy of perhaps 8 or 9. he is lying in a hospital bed holding
his baseball mitt and listening to the radio. whoever designed and
built the props was smart enough to oversize everything so that the
adult sized Morris truly looks kid sized.
so you hear on the radio:
"the count is now 3 and 2 and the Babe [Ruth] has pointed to the left
bleachers and says that he is going to hit the next pitch there for
little Billy who is dying in the hospital"
at which Morris [little Billy] sits bolt upright in his oversized bed
and shouts in obvious shock
"I'm dying? !!!"
with this they immediately move on to the next gig. even as a distant
memory, recalling that scene still makes me laugh out loud.
~~~
a cheap hotel is not the ideal place to have the plague. i've done it
before (and of course survived, something i keep reminding myself).
you slither to the front desk and say "can i get some sheets and a
blanket, i've got this wicked fever and i've soaked the ones i've
got" the response you get (i pretty much anticipated) from behind
the bullet proof glass is "check out time is 11am, no exceptions". at
which point big earl (or equivelent) switches off the intercom used
and returns to his crossword puzzle. that and no-tels this cheap are
either in neighborhoods where most everbody has the sweats (and are
scratching incessantly at their forearms) or are way out on the
interstate miles from anything. i'm at present in the latter. i can
order a pizza delivery, but good luck getting some soup or tea or
something useful when you have the plague. perhaps next time i look
for a hotel to sweat out the plague, i'll get smart and drop the cash
for something uptown like a Hilton. i like the idea of calling a
concierge for soup, aspirin, a diaper change, and someone to whine
to. though i kinda suspect the response will be "checkout time is
11am, no exceptions".
in the meantime, this time, it's what i can find in the vending
machines. there is of course no reason for concern here, i am not a
complete moron (i'm an incomplete moron). in any case, i know how to
dial 9-1-1 if the poop really hits the prop. and i know enough to
know when that is appropriate. i'm just miserable and want my mommy.
~~~
i do have a question for you, brother Andy. you clearly have tons of
real world experience with such things. my layperson understanding of
such things is such that i'm figuring my plague is likely bacterial --
as i have a fever (101.7'F at last check) and my understanding is that
viral stuff (flu) cause sub-grade (sp? term?) fevers -- ie, something
below 98.6. both feel the same but look different on the
thermometer. is this thought process on target?
i have a full course of doxyxylin in my "middle of nowhere" kit bag.
i am considering taking it, but -- for precisely the reasons you
defined quite clearly i am not especially anxious to do so. i'm not
big on pharmacueticals, especially when miles from an MD i trust. so
at present i keep chanting to myself 'give it a few more hours, you'll
be fine'.
the other thing i often wonder about (and have heard a true bell curve
of conflicting opinions on from MD pals) is fever. my theory is that
fever is part of the immune response and should be left to do it's
thing. dangerous fever (in my infinite wisdom i've chosen the
threshold of 103'F to dial 911) is of course something else. but i'm
thinking i should let my current 101'F run. i'm interested in what
protocol you use for your patients; even more interested in what
protocol you use for yourself.
for the record, i am not dumb enough to rely on internet based medical
advice. and back in the day i trained as an EMT-I this odd middle
ground between EMT-B (taxi driver) and EMT-P (Paramedic, a course of
training far more intense and detailed then what i did). my cert
expired years ago. which is fine by me as i never intended it as a
career. i was just interested and an outfit i once guided for
actually paid for me to get the EMT-I (Intermediate, we could do
intervenous stuff, airways, and the like) cert. as i understand it,
their insurance company offered them a significant discount if even
one of their guides had a EMT cert. so the head banana said 'ok, who
wants to do this?' and i was amazed that the answer from my seniors
(everybody) was 'classes? forget it' i was by far the most junior
of the crew, and jazzed that i got to take these classes on their
dime. this is of course pretty stupid as having just one guide
trained makes functional difference among a bunch of guides. my
clients might have had a bit of an actuarial advantage, but no net
change for the rest.
oops, another digression. bottom line is that i recognize that as a
pro clinician you are smart enough not to do virtual medicine. no
worry, i'm not dumb enough to rely solely on virtual medicine. but i
am interested in your experience, for from what little i know you have
a lot of hands on in this arena. if not for this bout of (whatever?
-- hence my use of he term plague, i dunno if it is bacterial or viral
and surely don't know what strain of either) then for the next one.
for their will be another, eventually. especially as i spend a lot of
time on those flying petri dishes they call airliners. sheesh.
^,,^
^,,^
> 5.2s can be fun even without a special partner
absolutely Hal. i am quite certain that i've made my opinion of
"climbing by numbers" (regardless of whether those numbers are
altitude or preceded by 5.x) quite clear in this forum. a great climb
is a great climb, numbers be damned. the only time i pay any
attention to numbers is when i see one for the climb that is beyond
what i have done before, or am comfortable with today.
to give my pal stephen k. his due, he was an absolutely solid 10b
climber back in the day. though, given our topic here, i was struck
by the fact that while stephen was bombproof at or under 10b -- he
collapsed and crashed on everything harder. this was most striking,
to me, on 10c's. for he failed on every 10c he ever tried (in my
presence); and yet was solid on most every 10b. now all of us know
that the difference between a 10b and 10c is teeny. it is not only
teeny, but is meaningless as one travels from one climbing area to
another. grades are surely not consistant from one major climbing
area to another -- though they are getting there. but back in the day
(stephen and i climbed in the late 80s and early 90s) grades varied
wildly between areas. they were very different between, oh, say,
tuolumne vertical and j-tree. i won't say which was harder, then, as
i am not so dumb as to start a tedious ascii war on the issue.
my point here is that my pal stephen was, clearly, intimidated by the
number (ok, adjective) alone rather than by difficulty of the actual
climbing at hand. i remember talking to him about this. for whatever
reason, stephen had convinced himself that 10b was entirely do-able
and he had to wiff on 10c. further evidence, at least to my mind, of
the silliness of climbing by numbers. yet a reminder of how powerful
this can be, as stephen was a really smart guy with a good cool head
when way off the deck.
i of course tried to cure stephen of this mental road block by taking
him on 10c's and elling him they were 10a's. but here that thing that
stephen was famous for -- his ability to immediately find anything in
his great wad of multi colored stuff sacks -- was, i suspect, his
downfall. that and his remarkable sharps and memory. for while i
could rarely find the local climbing guide in my mess of a volvo, at
least for the first couple days surely, stephen found his in a
heartbeat and committed it to memory in a second heartbeat. as such i
could never successfully fool him onto a 10c -- as he knew exactly
what every line was rated. sheesh. me, the most i could remember was
something on the order of 'i think this line goes at 10something-
ish'. perhaps my poor memory for numbers saved me from numbers, if
you catch my drift.
as for 5.2, i invited my lost stephen to do something at that grade
simply because i have no idea if he has climbed anything in the now 10
years since i saw him last. for all i know he's blown through his 10c
barrier and is now cranking 12s. i dunno. i do recall that when i
last saw him he had met this remarkable woman, they were expecting a
child, and he was heading to toronto to "grow up." i was struck by
how adamant he was that he was retiring from climbing, forever." i
remember how clearly he put it when he explained to me that he had had
his years of nonstop dirtbag climbing, that it had been great and he
wouldn't trade it for the world, but that now it was time for him to
"move on". he saw climbing as an all or nothing proposition. i've
learned from watching posts here that one can have "a life" and still
have climbing as a big part of their, er, lifes.
me, i've yet to do that. soon i will, or at least i suspect i
should. i frankly am not sure how to be an adult outside of the
dirtbag climbing scene. stephen was the first of my dirtbag pals to
say "ok, that's it, it was great but time to move on". since then i
have heard many dirtbag pals say the same. my long time climbing
partner B said this when he and his beloved adopted a child some years
ago. but then, B can still climb the doors off of most anyone. he's
a great natural athlete and does a lot to stay fit. that said, he
very rarely climbs these days. yet when he does, yeowsa! i have
this clear mental image of him schooling my pal lupo and i on what
ended up being a 12b. a reminder that one can grow up an still
crank. that and a reminder that being a full time dirtbag doesn't
necessarily mean you are the best climber in the neighborhood.
huhhhh....
~~~
the other side of climbing by numbers that comes to mind (pardon me
Hal, i've been coughing up golf balls for hours and it is this or
simply sitting and focusing on how much my throat hurts) is the
altitude numbers game. what has come to strike me is that all of the
"Seven Summits" i've been on frankly suck as climbs. i certainly
haven't summited everest (don't want to) but i have bribed a LO what
translates to 120 bucks to slither up to, well, a good view. the
climbing (once out of the icefall -- which the sherpas have pre-
laddered for gringos -- is tedious. truly boring. schlumping up wads
of fixed lines up terrain that is the equivelent of schlepping up
under the lift at your local ski area.
and here's the real irony of this silliness: within clear view are
dozens of outstanding climbs on other peaks. peaks with excellent
lines and affordable permits. but ah, back at the boardroom or
country club people don't recognize the names of those peaks. so rich
morons continue to pay way into six figures to schlump up this boring
route. and skilled actual climbers succomb to guiding them -- all in
the hope of stashing away enough cash to do climbs on those dozens of
excellent routes on other peaks within clear view (the ones i
mentioned above). the word 'irony' doesn't seem a big enough basket
to hold the extent of this silliness.
~~~
Denali is the same story. i suspect i'll get pummeled for saying this
out loud, but Denali is a shitty peak. i've gone up the west rib and
down the west buttress. both were frankly, tedious, boring lines.
the rock (which you only actually climb on the rib) is absolute FSB
(FossilizedBirdShit). the snice is the shits. and yet, as with
everest, within clear view are dozens of outstanding rock climbs on
excellent (for alpine) granite and equally excellent ice climbs on
actual quality ice. think Ruth Gorge (i could mention dozens of
others).
So too for Aconcagua which i spent way too much to climb because i
read in some book that it was a required step before climbing in the
himalaya. absolute hooey. there are all manner of appropriate
training climbs all over the himalaya. aconcagua wins my prize for
the absolute worst route on the absolute worst rock anywhere. like
everest and denali, it is simply a big boring pile of crap. and yet,
like the others, there are excellent routes on little known peaks a
few miles away (i didn't stay long, and have never been back, so my
specific knowledge of the other stuff is limited. but pals who have
been there repeatedly assure me there is world class climbing nearby,
just none on aconcagua).
What else? Kiliminjaro is another absolutely boring heap of crap.
even the most technical routes are tedious (they are just dangerous as
the rock is so shitty). this one is the exception to my rule that
there are quality routes nearby, as (to my knowledge) there are no
quality routes nearby. i did it simply because it was in the
neighborhood and it was "a name" yes, i of course fell for the
numbers/names scam in my youth. sheesh. volcanos in general suck, in
my experience. i've used shasta and ranier for training, and for that
they serve. but, frankly, they suck too. there are a couple short
stretches on ranier that are interesting, but as a whole it kinda
sucks. and there are loads of way better alpine rock not all that far
away; that and better ice in season. (ooh, i will surely get a tongue
lashing for dis'ing ranier, but that has been my experience and if
nothing else i am not shy).
i've never climbed Elbrus, but why anyone would travel past the Mont
Blanc massif and its endless outstanding climbs is beyond me. as for
the rest of the seven summits, i know nothing of them and plan to die
knowing nothing of them.
my, that was rather a rant. mia culpa. if i don't stop coughing i'm
going to shoot my fool self. been hacking nonstop for hours and my
throat and lungs are howling. i'm being such a whiner, bet you all
wish you were here to hear me whine. is phlegm a lung lubricant/
cleaner or is it something your lymphatic system dumps out when your
immune system lights up. or is it some extraterrestrial alien
scooge? i plan to look this up in just a minute. i can tell you that
i have hacked up more of it then i would have dreamed a single skinny
body could hold. ran out of toilet paper and filled the ice bucket
with it (literally). you are welcome for that pleasant mental image.
sheesh
~~~
> Did you get the kind with audio?
yeah. i can't imagine how i could drive with one that used an
interface other than audio. if i were staring at the thing i surely
would have driven into a ditch.
i kinda got attached to the feminine voice it used. authoritative,
yet calming. "in 200 feet turn left... no, the other left..." i
kinda wish "she" were here with me now. "it will be ok, dogboy...
now blow your nose before it drains into your throat and makes you
hack even harder... honey, stay hydrated... yes, i know you want
juice but water will do..."
^,,^
kelli...@gmail.com
> ^,,^ wrote:
>
> <...>> i mentioned the plague above because i've got it.
>
>
> Bill?"
>
> him (in a loud clear voice): "I want to die!"
>
> And why not? He's 96.
>
> About movies, in case our friend kellie happens along, I have now seen
> The Fall. The opening sequence is great. It could stand alone. You
> don't know what is happening until the last scene ties it together. I
> don't remember anything quite like it in movies. Then the early part
> of Once Upon a Time in Los Angeles is good. I kinda got bumped out of
> the groove when the young cowboy starts balling his eyes out toward
> the end. If I ran the world he would be emotionally dead at that point
> and his storytelling, in the mind of the young girl, would lose all
> the fabulous color, lose track of the characters, and fade into
> senselessness. That should be upsetting enough for her (a very
> endearing actor). No further violence. Especially the fist-fight and
> other mano a mano that ends 9 of 10 movies. The black-and-white
> sequence near the end is again great movie-making. We've seen those
> stunts before but feel differently about them, now.
I'm here, I'm here! Working on a Saturday, how delightful. And hey,
I've got the plague as well. Not bad enough to contempate calling 911
however, or to make me wish I were actually dead. My voice however is
currently all husky and soooo sexy.
Glad you liked The Fall. It is certainly unlike any other movie I
have ever seen or am likely to see. I read in a review that it had
*no* CGI. That boggles my mind. How'd they do all that then? The
slave/ice man lying on the bed of arrows embedded into his back for
instance, or the Labyrinth of Despair. I did very much like how you
didn't really know what was going on until the very end.
Also allow me to say that I want to live somewhere named Whomping
Willow with some chickens and ducks, maybe a tomato plant or two.
Maybe in a climate where tomatoes actually ripen. I am crushed that
my little farmhouse from which I bought eggs on my way back and forth
to my sweetie's place in Leavenworth is no longer selling. I have to
find a new supplier. I used to stop all the time and take my eggs
from the little red cooler out on the porch and leave my $3 in the
coffee tin and every once in a while chat with the farmer, wearing a
"New York London Paris Sultan" sweatshirt, but the last few times I
stopped there was no cooler and the tiny little sign by the road that
said "Eggs" was gone, so they appear to have given it up. It's very
sad.
kelli...@gmail.com
>
> as for 5.2, i invited my lost stephen to do something at that grade
> simply because i have no idea if he has climbed anything in the now 10
> years since i saw him last. for all i know he's blown through his 10c
> barrier and is now cranking 12s. i dunno. i do recall that when i
> last saw him he had met this remarkable woman, they were expecting a
> child, and he was heading to toronto to "grow up." i was struck by
> how adamant he was that he was retiring from climbing, forever." i
> remember how clearly he put it when he explained to me that he had had
> his years of nonstop dirtbag climbing, that it had been great and he
> wouldn't trade it for the world, but that now it was time for him to
> "move on". he saw climbing as an all or nothing proposition. i've
> learned from watching posts here that one can have "a life" and still
> have climbing as a big part of their, er, lifes.
Yeah, how do you do that exactly? I was one of the great unwashed who
started climbing after the advent of climbing gyms, when I was in my
30s. It took over my life very quickly and I managed to dirtbag for a
couple of years and thens till get ridiculous amounts of climbing in
the first few years after I returned to part-time work, but I am
having trouble working it all in lately. In the past year my dad,
always very healthy, has had two major surgeries, including brain
surgery, plus radiation, and now requires 30 to 40 grand in dental
work. I find that all this leaves me with very little psychic and
often also physical energy to devote to climbing. Unlike our donut-
pushing friend Al (now i'm hungery), I'm looking for less commitment
right now rather than more.
>
>
> What else? Kiliminjaro is another absolutely boring heap of crap.
I had a great time on Kili; I climbed it kind of by accident. I had
emailed my friend Limey Scott that some people I knew were thinking
about it and he instantly emailed me back: "We should do it. That
can be our fifth continent together. July works for me; I'll start
looking at tickets." So I thought, well, sure, what the hell. Limey
Scott is one of the best travel partners I have ever had, if you are
stuck in an airport for four hours you will inevitably find yourself
introduced to the rules of "mullet and moustache cricket" which is
inevitably a drinking game. On the second day on Kili Scott turned
to me out of the blue and said, "Right. Benjamin Britton, Benjamin
Franklin, Benjamin Netanyahu. Who's the Jew?" We played Jewhoo for
the next five days whilst I tried to reciprocate by coming up with
"Who's Canadian?" questions. He was also fond of "Who would win in a
fight? -- Margaret Thatcher or Golda Meir? --- you or a badger?"
etc.
> there are a couple short stretches on ranier that are interesting, but as a whole it > kinda sucks.
I've com to believe that the reason to climb Rainier is to ski it.
and there are loads of way better alpine rock not all that far
> away; that and better ice in season.
The north Cascades aren't really know for the high quality of the rock
but they sure are pretty. And most of it is at least higher quality
than volcanic choss.
Okay, back to the socioeconomic impacts of proposed wind energy
Project X.
^,,^
> I am having trouble working it all in lately. In the past year my
> dad, always very healthy, has had two major surgeries, including
> brain surgery, plus radiation, and now requires 30 to 40 grand in
> dental work. I find that all this leaves me with very little psychic
> and often also physical energy to devote to climbing.
i'm saddened to hear of your father's travails, and by extension
yours. i've been a care giver for loved ones, but not yet for a
member of my immediate family. i suspect that is a whole other order
of magnitude. my thoughts are with you and i wish you and your dad
all the best on that front.
~~~
> I had a great time on Kili;
&
> Limey Scott is one of the best travel partners I have ever had
sure. much if not most of what is great on expedition trips has
little to do wih the climb itself. and a great climbing partner is
much of the magic. me, i'm notorious for spending 4 months to do a
climb that takes maybe 5 days. i like to wander around and hang with
the locals.
and while i stand by my personal opinion that kiliminjaro above the
tree line is yet another great mound of choss, i much enjoyed all of
the rest of that trip. the masai and samburu tribal people are
remarkable, especially those far from the roads and tourists. east
africa in general is a beautiful and intriguing place.
i also much liked the other worldly flora and fauna on the approach.
it seems like you are climbing through geological eras, from jurassic
to pleistocene to, well, some other planet. i especially liked the
local variant on the fiddlehead ferns i grew up with -- only the ones
in my back yard were like 8 inches high and these were like 8 feet
high. remarkable. had a t rex stepped out i wouldn't have been
surprised. i would have of course promptly wet myself and had a heart
attack -- but i wouldn't have been surprised.
in general i am coming to regret my feverish rant. i stand by my
hypothesis, but lost focus in the details. that and i was just dazed
and pissed. i needed something to do, but should have shot the end
product into the rug as static electricity.
and, of course, i am already doing better. i knew i would, but i was
amazed at the ferocity of that... plague. new to me. went from
skipping and singing show tunes one minute to soaked and wheezing the
next. are the flu strains getting more virulent or am i getting
weaker in my dotage. i suspect the answer is both. no matter, i am
confident that in a couple days i'll be out for a run and forget about
it.
~~~
> I've com to believe that the reason to climb Rainier is to ski it.
sure, if you're stuck on the coast. there are of course places with
far better snow as a reward for altitude gained, but i recognize they
would be a grinding drive for you. out my way, not so far.
> The north Cascades aren't really know for the high quality of the rock
> but they sure are pretty. And most of it is at least higher quality
> than volcanic choss.
the latter was my point. i grant you that north cascades granite is
surely not yosemite quality, but compared to that wretched volcanic
shatter it is at least worthy of the effort. and the snow/ice
conditions on the big PNW volcanoes is also rather damp and sloppy
(most of the time). goes with the weather and their locations. in
the case of ranier i was more liberal in my definition of "nearby
peaks" as that is car country and a 2 hour commute to washington pass,
the pickets, or shuksan is trivial. this is not so near denali or
everest, so there my definition of "nearby peaks" truly means within
clear view of the routes. i've felt like a moron sitting on a tedious
hump of a climb eyeballing nearby routes on nearby peaks that i had
done and knew first hand were far superior.
> Okay, back to the socioeconomic impacts of proposed wind energy
> Project X.
sounds like you too need a viewing of Dr Strangelove. "Mr President,
we must prevent the mine shaft gap!"
be well, hope you too are feeling better on the plague front
canis fidelis est
^,,^
kelli...@gmail.com
>
> i'm saddened to hear of your father's travails, and by extension
> yours. i've been a care giver for loved ones, but not yet for a
> member of my immediate family. i suspect that is a whole other order
> of magnitude. my thoughts are with you and i wish you and your dad
> all the best on that front.
>
Thank you. I'm not even actually a caregiver; they live six hours
away. I just worry. And spend more time than I used to on the
phone. Dad is doing great actually; he got a stationary bike for
Christmas so he could exercise again and within a week or so decided
he could do TWO half-hour sessions in a day. He subsequently decided
maybe it would be better to do only one for a while. Gee, Dad, you
think? I hope i'm that tough at 80. It's mostly now that the cost of
those new teeth is an awfully daunting number.
>
>
>
>
> sure. much if not most of what is great on expedition trips has
> little to do wih the climb itself. and a great climbing partner is
> much of the magic. me, i'm notorious for spending 4 months to do a
> climb that takes maybe 5 days. i like to wander around and hang with
> the locals.
>
> and while i stand by my personal opinion that kiliminjaro above the
> tree line is yet another great mound of choss,
oh, i weren't arguing with you, I was just reminiscing. I remember a
lovely woman at work gushing to me before I left, "Oh, you're going to
have such an adventure!" as I thought to myself, "erm, I'm going to
climb the most boring mountain in the world with a *guide.*" But I
knew it would be fun because it was with Limey Scott. And it is very
true that the flora and fauna were pretty cool. And watching the
world cup final with the restaurant staff in arusha was great fun, as
was watching zacheria, our adorable 17-year-old cook, shake his head
mournfully every evening at our failure to consume the feast for six
that he'd prepared for our two scrawny selves.
>
>
>
> > I've com to believe that the reason to climb Rainier is to ski it.
>
> sure, if you're stuck on the coast. there are of course places with
> far better snow as a reward for altitude gained, but i recognize they
> would be a grinding drive for you. out my way, not so far.
>
> > The north Cascades aren't really know for the high quality of the rock
> > but they sure are pretty. And most of it is at least higher quality
> > than volcanic choss.
>
> the latter was my point. i grant you that north cascades granite is
> surely not yosemite quality, but compared to that wretched volcanic
> shatter it is at least worthy of the effort. and the snow/ice
> conditions on the big PNW volcanoes is also rather damp and sloppy
> (most of the time). goes with the weather and their locations. in
> the case of ranier i was more liberal in my definition of "nearby
> peaks" as that is car country and a 2 hour commute to washington pass,
> the pickets, or shuksan is trivial. this is not so near denali or
> everest, so there my definition of "nearby peaks" truly means within
> clear view of the routes. i've felt like a moron sitting on a tedious
> hump of a climb eyeballing nearby routes on nearby peaks that i had
> done and knew first hand were far superior.
>
hmmm, I've spent a winter skiing in Utah and honestly it left me with
a big "so what" about its much-ballyhooed snow. Praps I'm just an
eejit. But I've skied snow in Washington every bit as good and
better, and I didn't have to swim through hordes to get to it either.
To be fair, I wasn't skiing backcountry in OOtah as I didn't have the
gear or the friends and I certainly wasn't going to solo backcountry
ski in the Wasatch; I'm chikcen. I'll do it here in areas with which
I am familiar and a Maritime snowpack, but there? huh-uh
And I think the hardcore out here are more interested in terrain than
perfect snow:
http://skisickness.com/StuartRange/ColchuckNEC/ (I am not even
remotely hardcore. I only drink with the hardcore.)
Still, I'd go for groovy terrain and nobody as far as I can see over
"great snow conditions" any day. well, most days.
On the other hand, I sometimes find it a bit trying that my boyfriend
considers fat blue stonker plastic ice five minutes from the road to
be "boring...why bother?" as I still find that plenty challenging
enough.
Please excuse any incoherency; I'm not at my best.
^,,^
> I'm not even actually a caregiver; they live six hours away.
> I just worry.
yeah, in my experience that can be more grinding than actually being
there and actually doing something - no matter how minor that
something is.
> Dad is doing great actually; he got a stationary bike
outstanding news. like Bernard, my kinda guy.
> It's mostly now that the cost of those new teeth is an
> awfully daunting number.
amen. why is it that the insurance companies have decided that teeth
and eyes are apparently not body parts and hence not covered? if my
teeth and eyes are not body parts, what the hell are they? as i work
for myself i pay a small fortune for health insurance. and as i
mentioned in this venue some time ago i ended up getting blown through
a plate glass window by a taxi with bad ball joints. one of the
results was damage to my penultimate molar on the upper right side.
most of it was cracked away. but what i ended up with, if you can
picture this, is all four roots intact and a thin band of tooth
connecting them like a ring. net result, the perfect funnel to wedge
anything i eat down into the nerves still extant at the core of the
tooth. the pisser is that this food that inevitably gets wedgied down
in this perfect funnel gets infected. and soon the left side of my
face swells up and it hurts like hell. 3 times now i have ended up at
an ER where they stuck a needle and a tube in my sinus and my root
canal (? the space between my teeth and jaw) and left me there to
watch the yellow pus and gore drip out. (again, you're all welcome
for that lovely mental image).
pisser is, local dental schools (cheapest and quality) want $600 to
remove what's left of the tooth (Moe, Curly, and Larry did this for
free), then $1200 for an oral surgeon (MD) to put a titanium screw in
my jaw, then another $800 to attach a new ceramic toothette to where
my tooth used to be. in all, US$2600 to get to the point where i
won;t end up getting the pus drained and IV antibiotics every 3 months
or so. sheesh. me, i am trying to find someone to just pull it. but
the dental schools "won;t do destructive surgery unless you pre-pa for
reconstructive surgery". and i've yet to find a private dentist
willing to just pull the thing. if they did, i'd no longer have the
funnel effect, the exposed nerve would be covered with flesh, and the
infection problems would end. all just like wht happened when they
pulled my ajacent wisdom teeth. and this is a back molar hardly
essential to my eating habits. it amazes me that i just can't find
some private practice guy to just pull the thing and be done with it.
i went into some detail here to establish what curiculum vitae i have
on the subject. this so i can offer one piece of advice that has been
useful to me (a friend turned me on to it). having dental work done
at a dental school is a great way to fly. their prices are typically
half of what private practices charge, and the medicine they practice
is superb. for you always get more talent then required. 3rd year
students oversee 1st year students doing simple cleaning. post docs
oversee simple surgery. and the professors oversee anything serious.
so, great care at half the price of private practices. and unlike
private practices, they don;t try to sell you procedures you don;t
need. in all, much recommended. the one downside i've encountered is
the rule (at UCSF, Case Western, and Johns Hopkins) is their
insistance that they won;t do "destructive: surgery (ie, take my
bacteria funnel of a tooth-ette out) unless i commit (read: pre-pay)
for all rewuired reconstructive work.
you likely already know this. if not, check it out. it is a great
way to go. fwiw, UofW's dental school is rated #7 in the nation; and
Oregon Health and Science University is rated #32.
~~~
> hmmm, I've spent a winter skiing in Utah and honestly it left me with
> a big "so what" about its much-ballyhooed snow. Praps I'm just an
> eejit. But I've skied snow in Washington every bit as good and
> better, and I didn't have to swim through hordes to get to it either.
> To be fair, I wasn't skiing backcountry in OOtah as I didn't have the
> gear or the friends and I certainly wasn't going to solo backcountry
> ski in the Wasatch; I'm chikcen. I'll do it here in areas with which
> I am familiar and a Maritime snowpack, but there? huh-uh
sure. utah/the wasatch is the excption to the rule. i spent a winter
there. people who had no business skiing in the backcountry (ie, no
avi training or skills) were flocking up avi chutes in droves. and
the wasatch topology and snow makes it avi heaven. the number of avi
deaths every year in the wasatch stands as testament to this. what
kinda got to me was the reason all these lemmings were heading out
into avi turf in droves -- for word was that backcountry was "cool"
and gravity slave areas was "uncool". this led (and still leads)
legions of the clueless into reknowned avi territory. with the
inevitable results. backcountry skiing is, as you know well,
outstanding. but you got to do your homework and work up the skills
required. SLC is packed with kids going for "cool" without paying
their dues. the result is the crowds you mention and dozens of
corpsicles each season. stupid. especially stupid because these kids
had no idea what they were getting into, other than the current cool
trend. sheesh.
i think the boulder/front range culture has maintained a better group
think on this front, there, the backcountry is considered great but
word is out to even the kiddies that it is a skill that takes years to
learn. hence less corpsicles. that and there is so much excellent
turf that crowds are unheard of (unlike the SLC kiddies all packed
into the 2 or 3 avaiable canyons).
that and in the end, i've noticed that peoples preferences are much
informed by the experiences of their youth. if you grow up on new
hampshire ice at ski areas (where most everyone gets their skiis
resharpened at lunch) then glare ice seems the norm and desireable to
you. those who grew uo on PNW wet corn tend to make that their
reference standard. so too with rock. my personal rock infancy was
spent on cathedral and whitehorse, so that remains to this day my idea
of what the best rock is like. when i moved to boulder and ended up
in eldorado canyon it never seemed quite right. hence my frequent
forays up boulder canyon, to lumpy ridge, and up to RMNP. my local
pals who cut their teeth on eldorado sandstone couldn't understand why
i'd commute from their valhalla to these other spots. my personal
reference standard was granite, and that is where i felt comfortable.
> http://skisickness.com/StuartRange/ColchuckNEC/
i checked this out. yeesh. made me recall watching steve pope ski
the notch couloir on the diamond in old school telly boards.
maddness. one blown turn in that tight slot and he would have tumbled
a very long way. one of the craziest things i have ever witnessed.
me, i walked down.
> On the other hand, I sometimes find it a bit trying that my boyfriend
> considers fat blue stonker plastic ice five minutes from the road to
> be "boring...why bother?" as I still find that plenty challenging
> enough.
as a sellf taught relationship counselor, i'd suggest that you should
consider that you are both right. fat ice belayed off a bumper has
its advantages and proper times. so too do back country couloirs.
hence you are both right. now admit that to each other and kiss and
make up. ok, that will be $120, payable to DogBoy Relationship
Counseling Intergalactic, LLC.
> Please excuse any incoherency; I'm not at my best.
as a recent plague victem, i understand entirely. that and you must
remember to never forget that as long as this dog posts in this venue,
there is absolutely no chance that you (or anyone else) will ever
stand out as incoherent. for i've got that title all locked up. not
that i tried for this ignomy. but, i yam what i yam.
be weller,
^,,^
^,,^
tongue lashing for my whining. it is coming, and deserveded so. this
is why brother cairns has always been about my fave soul here. that
and he is as wicked smart as he is wicked funny. that and simply
wicked.
my "plague" is of course fading. the fever has dropped below 100'F
and i can actually sleep for hours at a time. amen.
i do still wonder whether the flus/cold are getting more virulent or i
am getting lamer in my dotage. i suspect a combination of the
above.
having sensed an incoming brief but accurate bitch slap, i asked
myself if i were in fact a whiner when it came to physical travails.
my first thought was no. when i demolished my tib/fib on a highball
as an ungrad i did, in fact, still do my dining hall shifts. mostly
because they were my sole source of meals. but also, i'd like to
think, out of some sense of pride and duty. i remember bungee cording
myself to a pole at the feeding end of the dishwasher so i could load
the racks and push them in. this brings to mind two digressions. the
first is a rare moment when two younger brothers and i all worked at
the same restaraunt. the youngest of us (who now has a license to
kill, an MD) worked the dishwasher. same setup as the one at my
college. the design of these anyone who has worked in an industrial
kitchen knows. if not, it would take me pages to describe.
so, anyway, the youngest of our trio worked the dishwasher. and he
realized that this unit had a mighty exhaust fan. so he used to crawl
inside it and smoke a joint of whatever mindbending weed he had access
to -- stuff strong enough that he ended up dazed and quite intrigued
by the intricacies of scraping scooge off of plates and loading them
into racks and then loading the racking into deus ex machina. now
here is the funny part. the guy who owned this restaraunt was a
reknowned mafia hit man. he had been arrained for murder 12 times,
but never convicted -- as the witnesses either got disappeared or
simply chose not to show up. his name was Larry "Mako" XXXXXX. so
anyway, larry mako noticed that my brother was forever entirely inside
of the dishwasher. my brother explained that he was "fixing it".
after a couple of months of this, larry mako gave my brother a crisp
$100 bill and expressed his appreciation for all the money my brother
had saved him by forever "fixing" the dishwasher. larry mako was a
moron, but not an unappreciative moron. sheesh.
the other digression that comes to mind is when i got fired from my
fancy college dining hall (this during my pegleg experience). the
schwank dining hall i worked in had a small hole in the mahogany wall
for people to put their trays in, onto a conveyor belt that led to,
er, me. now for 7 of my 8 semesters i did not have (could not begin
to afford) a meal plan. those who did have a meal plan had access to
rather uptown food (hardly gourmet, but the quality protiens i
craved). and they had access to endless refills. people were forever
going for that thrid pork chop, or whatever. so anyway, aparrently,
this one legacy student (centuries of inbreeding) young lady went for
yet another pork chop and from what i coulf see didn't so much as
stare at it. so she sticks her tray through the hole in the cathedral
and onto the conveyor belt to me. i see it coming and of course
swallow it whole.
the bad news (as i later learned) is that lady crumpton the 7th saw me
do it. according to the thin lipped management guy who lloked like
central casting for a nazi film, she called this in and reported
"emotional distress" at having witnessed this outrage. no really,
this actually happened as stated. so i was canned on the spot by Herr
Lipless. that and much berated for this "outrage". sheesh. at this
point i had already taken my first trip to nepal and india. after
that, i was hardly shy on the cleaning the plates with mine own tongue
front. sheesh.
yeah, hoping that if i tie up the bandwidth with prattle my well
deserved comeuppance might be delayed, or even avoided...
~~~
i already mentioned in my post to kellie that i have come to regret my
rant on the "Seven Summits" now that my body temp is dropping back
down to two digits (F). i claim the maddness of fever; as i was
hovering just shy of 102F at the time. that said, i do, still, stand
behind my core premise. but i made surely made a mess of the details.
casein point, Denali. i still stand behind my assertion that it is a
tedious hulk (though i haven't done the most technical routes, such as
the cassin). but on this one i want to go public with an exception
to my rant. for, listen, if you want to take a first shot at
20k' (6km), silly cold, and in all the expedition experience -- this
is a coherent place to do so. for the trade route is well marked,
you'll have plenty of souls around you nearby to show you the ropes,
and there are the rangers and the skilled med volunteers at about the
halfway point.
i stated earlier that there are zillions of training climbs in the
himal, climbs like mera and island peaks. but i've since
reconsidered this. for if you get HAPE on island peak, you don;t have
nearly the resources you have on denali. and you don;t have the
crowds to learn stuff from; young sherpas handle all of that for you
and few are smart enough to ask how they do it. and even those who do
might well not nderstand the answer. so, yeah, Denali has it's
place. i still say it is a boring heap frustratingly close to
actually outstanding climbs. but it is a good place to learn. i
didn't allow for that, and should have. fwiw, there is another peak
called rather Mera close to the popular walk up peak that is
technically stout and much recommended -- once you have learned the
basic drill on a peak like Denali, or that other better known Mera.
~~~
have i befuddled you yet, brother andrew, in shear volume of words?
i suspect not. and that is why i look foward to your posts.
fwiw, this "plague" is on the wain and so any NOW NOW questions are
rendered mute. but i am still interested in your answers to those
longer term questions i asked of you. given the time i spend on
flying petri dishes, i will surely get the next bug. so i am
interested in the protocols you use for your own self. i plan to
commit them to memory for the next "plague" endured at some big earl
variant. i did, finally, figure out how to get dry sheets at a big
earl variant. this morning at 10 minutes to 11am, i went to check
out. i waited (sweat dripping off my neanderthal brows) for about 15
minutes, then checked back in -- insisting on a different room. not
even the local big earl could weasel out of that one. eureka.
genius. well, ok, dry sheets. which is close, in this goofy
environment.
i did warn the cleaning ladies that i had the plague and that they
should wash vigorously after cleaning my (last night's)room. they
almost appreciated this. the conversation soon turned to the oddball
stuff they encounter cleaning these rooms. and i thought i had seen
it all (once found a stilleto pump that was big on me under my pillow
at a big earl variant. that and once had a knock at the door, at
which point this seemingly coherent guy blew by me, popped a ceiling
tile, and retrieved his colt 45. "thanks" he said as he left "these
are expensive". well, pah. the stuff these (in this case) ladies
told me have me convinced that i should sleep in a tent, or my car.
i'll leave it to your imaginations -- though unless your imaginations
far excede my own, you could never image the shite these church ladies
find on a regular basis here at the local variant of big earls.
befuddled you yet, bother cairns? yeah, not a prayer.
let me leave the 4 of us still extant (purveyors of CHEAP CIGARETTES
not withstanding). my forevor references to "the plague" brought to
mind Barbara Tuchman's remarkable chapter in "A Distant Mirror" on how
the locals responded to the plague ripping through europe during the
1300's perhaps the most jawdropping and memorable 50 pages i have
ever read. the other 600 pages are of similar quality. i dig Tuchman
as she eschewed academia (tough to do if you are writing history) --
that and unlike her academic peers (?), when she wrote of the 14th
century she did the amazing and endless legwork required to give us a
sense of what a day was like for, well, like my ancestors. serfs up!
that is what makes "A Distant Mirror" exceptional.
given the texts at your fingertips, i suspect you have read this one.
but if not, much recommended. the fact that Tuchman gave the finger
to academic historians yet still won two Pulitzers may say a lot. "A
Distant Mirror" put it at your bedside. but be warned, you might
read through the night. did you know that in the 1300s there was a
female pope? yup. a child, and one raised such that she never
understood gender. for in that day, access to the papacy was
effectively permission to print money. so small wonder. see Tuchman,
i forget which chapter....
~~~
well, i'm feeling better -- but still running on at most 3 brain cells
(Manny, Moe, & Jack) so that's the best i can do. at least i can
sleep for a couple hours at a time.
be gentle, brother cairns. i surely deserve it, but am limping at
present.
i will say this: your pal Bernard is genuinely funny. me, i'm just
occassionly funny. yeah, pump out enough word and some might stick.
what do they say? an infinite number of monkeys will eventually type
all of shakespeare. it's the "infinite' part that is the trick.
hell, one monkey will eventually type all of shakespeare, given an
infinite amount of time.
i rely on this to save my soul. one dogboy given an infinite number
of words will eventually...
you all be well
canis fidelis est,
^,,^
Klooch Man
> ... I want to live somewhere named Whomping Willow with some chickens and
> ducks, maybe a tomato plant or two.
But would you miss city excitements?
other voices, other rooms
> yeah, just sitting here waiting for my brother cairns to give me a
> tongue lashing for my whining.
I am not about to criticize. I value every thought from Dogboy.
I cracked up at the image of the rescued pork chop even before ms.
blueblood added stupidity to the Charlie Chaplin moment.
We nursing home nurses don't have a lot to say about colds. During our
outbreak, if that's what it was, the infection control specialist came
and went without a ripple and left me none the wiser.
However, it is quite usual to get a fever with a cold or flu virus. A
flu tends to come on more quickly, knock you flatter, and is more
likely to cause a fever than a cold. Either can make you feel bad and
I don't know but presume that it is the lying down in bed for a day or
two that slows down the normal clearing of crud from the lungs and
allows bacteria to prosper. I don't think bacteria are the culprit,
really, just opportunists. The bacteria were probably there all
along.
There are cells with cilia that rim your airways and gently waft the
mucous that is produced in the bronchi/bronchioles up towards your
epiglotis where you get rid of it . When dust, cigarette smoke,
airborne bacteria, and God knows what other small particles are
inhaled, as they are carried down down to the small bubbly air
exchange surfaces of your lungs, they often don't make the turns. The
crud slams into the mucous, sticks, and gets returned by the cilia.
Lying around in bed slows this down.
During recovery the lungs have to clear the backlog.
Also, when you get really sick your immune system may have a way of
comandeering your energy production. It is a war. Non-essential
services may be short-changed or shut down. A part of the misery of a
cold is from friendly fire as the lymphocytes let go their chemical
weapons.
We give tylenol(TM) to reduce fever. I've not heard any advice not to
do that. Temperature is an unreliable indication of cold or flu in old
folks.
A higher than usual temperature is definitely one of the ways the body
fights cold and flu viruses. Many of those viruses do best at slightly
below body temperature. After all they are specialised for raids on
the upper airways (the sore throat and runny nose) which are cooler
than the rest of you because of the air flow.
A CBC radio host (Setsuro ...ah I don't dare try the last name) said
he wrapped himself up in every blanket in the house, drank hot tea,
and turned up the thermostat when he felt a cold coming, and that that
nipped it. The sauna may be another way to discourage cold/flu
viruses. One study claimed that regular sauna users had colds only
half as often as other people.
Wash your hands often during flu season and never travel by plane
unless willing to suffer the consequences. I think it was one of Sir
Francis Crick's wilder ideas that flu viruses come from space, drift
earthwards, and airplanes get them first. For whatever reason, air
travel really sets people up for a cold or flu.
Antibiotics should be used on a doctor's advice, if at all practical.
A doctor should take a sputum specimen, listen to the lungs, and maybe
get a chest x-ray. But who am I to say? At the nursing home we don't
bother with that. We may be handing out antibiotics during the initial
virus phase of a cold and that treatment may finish before the
bacteria take root in the lungs. The bottom line for now is that we
don't see a lot of mortality associated with colds or flu-like
illnesses.
If another Spanish flu comes along it won't matter what you do. Often
enough viruses have started producing infective particles in a person
before that person shows any cold symptoms. It is very hard to
effectively quarantine against that kind of infection. As David
Quammen once put it, even if you live in Antarctica, it's only a
matter of time.
The truly weird thing to me, what I would dearly love to understand,
is that when for experimental purposes they innoculate folks with cold
virus, meaning they put billions of infective particles right up their
noses, ten percent or so DON'T get sick. What happened? Possibly
immune from previous exposure, but I know at least one person who
never gets a cold. Why not?
Getting back to teeth. Strange coincidences, here. Bernard recently
cracked a tooth and worried it might endanger our trip finances. The
dentist has to wait for a gold shipment so we are good to go, but
Bernard says it will take $900 later. Sounds like a bargain after
hearing this other stuff.
We had a good dentist once in Seattle. David Maguda. All my other
dentists have been sadists or old guys about to retire to a yacht, so
what do they care if the bridge they put in only lasts a few years?
The last old guy jabbed my lingual nerve (I think) as he was trying to
numb a tooth. That and the failed bridge put me off dentists, even now
that I have a good plan. I feel that you are damned if you do and I'd
rather be damned that I didn't. I haven't seen a dentist in at least
10 years. I hope to cheat them by having a heart attack or similar
early exit.
I am flabbergasted that any kind of dental work could run into the 10s
of 1000s of dollars. Must mean full-on surgery under anesthesia.
I remember a Chicago friend who made use of the Loyola University
dentistry students. It was a charity service and the students'
clientele were a long way from the upper crust. My friend said that
the young dentist looked in his mouth and then told him, "This is the
first time I've seen someone with more than 3 teeth."
I want to declare a liking for 5.2, also. My own twig was inclined by
the Gunks and so the tree is bent, and many of the best climbs
anywhere (in the 2-3 pitch rock variety) are 5.2s at the Gunks.
Must be a slow couple weeks for physical activity, but that will
change. I'll see you or your kin out [b]there[/b].
^,,^
> I am not about to criticize. I value every thought from Dogboy.
as for the first sentance, our loss as your wit is at its razor
sharpest when you address stupidity in one of its various forms.
as for the second sentance, say it ain't so! sheesh, not even dogboy
values every thought from dogboy. though i do have a penchant for
typing so many of them out, only to regret them moments after my
keyboard cools down. dogboy his own self dismisses at least half of
the stream of consciousness ripping through his pointy head as
pointless static. i'm coninced that there is at least one circuit in
my noggin that has short circuited and hence produces nothing but
crackles and buzzes, static that nearby axions attempt to debug by
associating them with whatever images from my past seem to to almost
fit. whatever. it is a one hell of a show that never ends. this is
likely why i have never had the slightest interest in things like an X
Box or cable tv. neither can compete with radio free dogboy. it's
likely a pathology, but i enjoy it.
> I cracked up at the image of the rescued pork chop even before ms.
> blueblood added stupidity to the Charlie Chaplin moment.
i later learned that the family of miss Chimpden Earwicker the 7th
actually sued the university for the cost of the many months of
cognitive therapy they claimed she required solely due to the trauma
of witnessing me eat that pork chop. hell, had she seen me swamp
diving on my way out of khumbu she would have needed ECT. while then
(and now) i was quite fastidious in what i ate on the way in (so i
wouldn't be sick for my intended climbs), on the way out i tend to
eschew all manner of coherent food hygiene. i eat stuff like the
water buff yogurt the locals make and sell on the trail; as they have
no access to disposable packaging (amen) they use these bowls they
make out of clay (mostly mud) pulled from the local river bank then
let dry (almost). they add the water buff yogurt and set it out on a
cloth on the side of the trail for sail. it sits in the sun and soon
gets a creme brulee like hard shell atop, almost always included
embedded flies. i remember recoiling from the very idea of this on
the walk in (as we are talking water buffs, it is obviously well below
the khumbu/solu arena -- where a water buff wouldn't last long. hell,
chickens can't survive at those altitudes. just yaks. anyway, while
i walked a wide circle around this delicacy on the way in, on the way
out i was in a mindset in which i said "sure!" and ate a couple mud
bowls of this delicacy.
the salamanela and compto bactus (sp?) didn't kick in until i was on a
british airways flight home. man, you talk about fever. i vaguely
recall the flight attendants filling all the odd empty seats in order
to clear a couple rows to put me in. kinda ad hoc in flight
quarantine. once back at JFK i remember rattling on about how the
gokyo valley would be ideal for old school (think scotland in the 19th
century) golf courses. i recall being quite intent about this and
taking notes -- and wondering why the flight attendants who put me in
a wheelchair i didn't need failed to share my enthusiasm on this
obviously brilliant idea. i also vaguely recall the guy at customs
leaning back and waving me right through. no questions, and he was
adamant he didn't want to search my bags which i politely offered up.
this was rather amazing as, well, i had traded all of my western garb
for local stuff (not so much because i wanted to local stuff, but i
recognized that my friends there would much rather have my gringo duds
(like pile and down jackets) then what little cash i had left to offer
them (this they politely refused). that and my hair, which ran 4 or 5
inches below my shoulders at the time, was rather resplendant as i had
taken advantage of having an elderly magar woman give me a their
traditional old school triball 'doo on one of my last days on the
trail. this included rolling in various colors of clay (replete with
the sparkle of colorful local crystals) as well as weaving in bits of
broken glass (i suspect a modern alternative to the semi precious
tibetan stones they no longer had access to). so in all, i was quite
a sight. i wasn't trying to look like sideshow bob, it just all
seemed to make sense back "there" in my post climb elation and general
joy at the whole trip.
i offer some detail here for two reasons. first, if anyone was the
poster child for carrying in a 4 kilo brick of nepali hash, it was
me. but the customs guy was so rattled by the fever sweat dripping
off my nose and my corpse like palour that he just waved me on.
jumped back behind his chair as he did so. sheesh, had i known i
would have brought a 4 kilo brick of hash (i rather hate using the
stuff, makes me even more pinball goofy -- but the resale value would
have gone a long way towards my towring debt back at the university of
insanely expensive. though on that front, a tractor trailer load of
cocaine would have hardly made a dent in the bursar's bill. sheesh.
more to the point, with this image of the dazed and obviously (to
everyone but me, i just felt like i had done a lot of acid) very sick
dogboy before you, i wish to pay homage to a truly remarkable woman
who did an act of profound bravery. not the kind of thing that would
make even a small town paper, but huge if you think about it. i had
made arrangements to get picked up at JFK by a classmate who lived
nearby. i could then get a ride up to our college with him. i didn't
know this guy well, but he was a good fellow. i knew that he came
from a very conservative and very devout jewish household. his father
was a respected rabbi -- of a very conservative congregation.
so he picks me up and says "dude, do you want to go to the hospital?
and whats up with your hair?" and i say "nah, it's just some bug i
picked up, it will pass in a day or two, no biggie" so he takes me to
his home. i will never forget the look on his mother's face as i
stepped in the door. and i will never forget how generous -- and
brave -- she was in caring for me through the night. for within a
minute or two of arriving i just collapsed. and they wanted to take
me to the hospital. but i reminded them (in perhaps my last gasp of
almost coherence) that i had absolutely no insurance, but as a student
i had full use of my university's outstanding hospital. and we were
going there in the morning. so i would go directly to the university
hospital. any local variant would bankrupt me (even more).
i looked like a cross between the most feral of dead heads and an
aghori sadhu. that and i had come from what for her was a very
foreign place dripping with god only knows what infection. i will
forever remember the look on her face as she sat at my bedside the
entire night. she was forever caught in this push me/pull you battle
between the fact that i looked like everything her simple and
traditional background informed her was out of wack if not downright
dangerous on the one hand; and on the other hand her strong and deep
motherly compassion and caring. she battled this and mopped my brow
endlessly, changed the sheets i soaked faster than she could change
them, and gave me endless cups of some sweet tea mixture her tradition
believe had healing (or at least soothing) powers. this out her own
china cups. which is a difference that makes a difference as they
kept a strictly kosher household and that meant that every cup and
bowl she handed me (plenty) had to be broken and tossed.
the original plan was to take a tour of the neighborhood and have a
leisurely lunch at one of the acclaimed local deli's (divided of
course into 'milk' or 'meat' in adherence to that great and ancient
tradtion. they forever have to deal with turistas coming in and
asking for a bagel with lox and cream cheese. wrong. never both at
the same deli. pick one or the other). but as i grew sicker they
wanted to put me into the car and drive me up to the university and
its hospital in the middle of the night. but i was adamant that they
not trouble themselves. this was of course stupid as mom never left
my bedside, dad prayed through the night for my recovery, and my
classmate wandered around wondering what to do. but i was adamant we
wait until morning (i didn't realize how rude this was, i in fact
thought at the time i was being polite).
in the end we left "in the morning" -- at about 4:30am in the dark.
the entire family went. and rabbi dad drove at speeds he normally
wouldn't consider. we went straight to the university hospital, where
upon taking my temp i was placed in a bath of ice water (replete with
ice cubes). i never knew her first name, i only knew her as Mrs.
Stopfer. i saw her only once again, when her son and i graduated. i
had a chance to thank her. i wept, and she hugged me (another moment
in which i saw that push me/pull you in her eyes, as hugging someone
outside of immediate family was foreign to her world. but here again,
the saint and mom in her won that battle. in the words of the great
writers of her tradition "Mrs Stopfer, may her name be remembered"
as a small appendix to this tale, i was seen by this doc who, i was
told, was the world's leading authority on infectious diseases of the
third world. i was repeatedly told how fortunate i was that he was
there. yeah, right. well, this genius spent no more than 45 seconds
at the foot of my bed flipping through my charts and pronounced to the
phalynx of residents and interns hanging on his every word that i had
this type of viral infection seen in the indian subcontinent. with
that he left. it wasn't until days later that some doc actually
looked at the results of my blood work and realized i had both
salamanela and compto bactus -- both bacterial, not viral. with this
i was finally given antibiotics (by IV) and with that i pinked up fast
and was in class a day or two later. sure glad i was at one of the
top five teaching hospitals in the country... sheesh. moron. i
should have breathed on him.
well, there are other comments in Klooch's post that i wanted to
follow up on, but i have (as always) digressed massively and suspect
that any bigger a pig than this has zero chance of getting through the
python that is the newsgroup pipe.
be well (and avoid the water buff yogurt in the mud bowls with the
flies in it)
^,,^
bead...@yahoo.com
> > a big "so what" about its much-ballyhooed snow.
Ahhh, thanks. Please spread the word!
> sure. utah/the wasatch is the excption to the rule. i spent a winter
> there. people who had no business skiing in the backcountry (ie, no
> avi training or skills) were flocking up avi chutes in droves. and
> the wasatch topology and snow makes it avi heaven. the number of avi
> deaths every year in the wasatch stands as testament to this. what
> kinda got to me was the reason all these lemmings were heading out
> into avi turf in droves -- for word was that backcountry was "cool"
> and gravity slave areas was "uncool". this led (and still leads)
> legions of the clueless into reknowned avi territory. with the
> inevitable results. backcountry skiing is, as you know well,
> outstanding. but you got to do your homework and work up the skills
> required. SLC is packed with kids going for "cool" without paying
> their dues. the result is the crowds you mention and dozens of
> corpsicles each season. stupid. especially stupid because these kids
> had no idea what they were getting into, other than the current cool
> trend. sheesh.
>
> i think the boulder/front range culture has maintained a better group
> think on this front, there, the backcountry is considered great but
> word is out to even the kiddies that it is a skill that takes years to
> learn. hence less corpsicles. that and there is so much excellent
> turf that crowds are unheard of (unlike the SLC kiddies all packed
> into the 2 or 3 avaiable canyons).
Dozens each season? I don't think so. Data posted below would
suggest otherwise. The group think here has been pretty remarkable
this season, one of the worst snowpacks in recent memory. No
backcountry skier fatalities. I think between the forecast centers
efforts, and, the old timers (and last seasoners) mentoring the new
kids, the group think thing isn't that bad. Ok, at least not on the
higher hazard days. Not that there isn't bad behavior out there
still...
And, really, most fatalities here aren't inexperienced "kiddies", but,
the folks who should know better.
Cheers,
-Brian in SLC
(snowin' like a sumbitch right now...)
Avalanche Incidents and Accidents 2008-09
12-30-08, Uintas, Yamaha Hill, 1 snowmobiler, caught, carried, killed
12-26-08, SLC, Little Water Peak, 4 foot burial and miraculous
recovery
12-24-08, SLC, Logan Peak, Two snowmobilers, caught, carried, killed
12-16-08, SLC, Claytons Peak, Snowmobiler, caught, carried, buried to
waist, OK
12-14-08, SLC, Square Top, Skier, caught, carried, badly injured
12-14-08, SLC, Snowbird, Inbounds skier, caught, carried, killed
Avalanche Incidents and Accidents 2007-08
04-28-08, Logan, Tony Grove, Snowboarder, caught, carried, injured
12-31-07, Uintas, Near Co-op Creek, Snowmobiler, caught, buried,
killed
12-25-07, Uintas, Superbowl near Windy Ridge, Snowmobiler, caught,
buried, killed
12-24-07, SLC, Canyons-Red Pine Chutes, Inbounds avalanche accident
12-13-07, SLC, Pioneer Ridge, One Snowboarder caught, carried,
partially buried
12-13-07, SLC, Hidden Canyon, Two Snowboarders caught and carried –
one sustaining facial trauma
Avalanche Incidents and Accidents 2006-07
02-27-2007, Ogden, Hell's Canyon - north of Snowbasin , One out of
bounds skier caught, carried, buried, OK
02-21-2007, SLC, Gobblers Knob, One backcountry skier killed
02-18-2007, Ogden, Hell's Canyon - north of Snowbasin , One out of
bounds skier killed
02-17-2007, Near Richfield, Utah, One snowmobiler killed
02-17-2007, Uinta, Tower Mountain - Strawberry area , One snowmobiler
killed
02-03-2007, SLC, Pfeifferhorn, Two snowshoers/climbers caught, one
critically injured
11-14-2006, SLC, Silverfork, Three skiers caught, one partially
buried, one fully buried, all OK
Avalanche Incidents and Accidents 2005-06
04-03-2006, SLC, Pioneer Peak, One snowboarder caught, carried, killed
03-11-2006, Ogden, Taylor Canyon, One out of bounds snowboarder
caught, carried, killed
12-31-2005, Provo, Timpanogos/Emerald Lake, Two snowshoers caught-one
killed
12-03-2005, SLC, No Name Bowl/Park City Ridgeline, Four Skiers Caught
in large slide. All OK
Avalanche Incidents and Accidents 2004-05
04-30-2005, SLC, Brighton, Roof Avalanche - Close Call
03-31-2005, Ogden, Whiskey Hill (Eccles Pk), One Snowmobiler Fatality
01-14-2005, SLC, Dutch Draw near Canyons Resort, Snowboarder Fatality
01-08-2005, Manti Skyline, Ephriam Canyon , Snowboarder Fatality
01-01-2005, Ogden, Hell's Canyon - north of Snowbasin, Close Call near
Snowbasin
12-11-2004, Uintas, Trout Creek - Strawberry Area, One Snowmobiler
Fatality
12-11-2004, SLC, Mineral Fork, Two Snowshoers Killed
12-11-2004, Ogden, Bountiful Peak, Snowmobiler completely buried and
recoverd alive with injuries
12-10-2004, SLC , Twin Lakes Pass, Skier buried and killed
kelli...@gmail.com
>
> i did warn the cleaning ladies that i had the plague and that they
> should wash vigorously after cleaning my (last night's)room. they
> almost appreciated this. the conversation soon turned to the oddball
> stuff they encounter cleaning these rooms. and i thought i had seen
> it all (once found a stilleto pump that was big on me under my pillow
> at a big earl variant. that and once had a knock at the door, at
> which point this seemingly coherent guy blew by me, popped a ceiling
> tile, and retrieved his colt 45. "thanks" he said as he left "these
> are expensive".
A professional gambler I briefly dated once told me a great story
about the by-the-hour hotels in the Seoul airport. He and the guy he
sat next to on the flight in grabbed a room for four hours' nap
between flights. A half hour later he was awakened by the phone, and
a Korean receptionist lady telling him that someone was coming up to
retrieve something he left in the mini fridge. He looked and there
was a half-drunk bottle of water. wtf? he thought, but took it out
and when there was a loud pounding on the door opened it in his boxers
and tshirt to behold a hulking Russian guy who looked like the Mafia
killer your employer was. He handed him the bottle, saying, "Um,
here's your water," and the guy said, "That's not what I left."
"That's all that was in there."
"Look again."
He closed (and locked) the door, checked the fridge again, and in the
itsy bitsy "freezer" compartment found a large brick wrapped in brown
paper that was unmistakably hash. He woke up his roommate, saying,
"Smell this!" The guy was quite surprised and said, "Where the hell
did you get that?"
"It was in the fridge! There's a huge Russian guy outside that wants
it back!"
"Well give it to him!"
He did, the Russian gentleman snatched it and stalked off, and my
gambler pal got no sleep for the rest of his layover.
kelli...@gmail.com
>
> I am flabbergasted that any kind of dental work could run into the 10s
> of 1000s of dollars. Must mean full-on surgery under anesthesia.
>
The thing is Dad's entire left maxilla was removed last december
(cancer, sucks since he never smoked a day in his life), and then they
took half his radius out and reconstructed the hard palate from it.
Super rad surgery but they wouldn't let me watch: "NO family members
can observe!!" It was 12 hours anyway, which exceeds my attention
span by a fair bit I'm sure.
So anyhoo, he doesn't really have much of anything to attach teeth to,
that's the problem. They gotta do that thing where they insert teeny
little rods made of diamonds and platinum and then attach teeth made
of solid gold or something. so yeah it's expensive and several people
just looked inside his mouth and declared they had no idea how they
would go about making any kind of denture or even doing implants. It
is indeed a lot of dough but as he said, "Twenty years is a long time
to go without a piece of fried chicken."
kelli...@gmail.com
>
> that and in the end, i've noticed that peoples preferences are much
> informed by the experiences of their youth. if you grow up on new
> hampshire ice at ski areas (where most everyone gets their skiis
> resharpened at lunch) then glare ice seems the norm and desireable to
> you. those who grew uo on PNW wet corn tend to make that their
> reference standard. so too with rock. my personal rock infancy was
> spent on cathedral and whitehorse, so that remains to this day my idea
> of what the best rock is like. when i moved to boulder and ended up
> in eldorado canyon it never seemed quite right. hence my frequent
> forays up boulder canyon, to lumpy ridge, and up to RMNP. my local
> pals who cut their teeth on eldorado sandstone couldn't understand why
> i'd commute from their valhalla to these other spots. my personal
> reference standard was granite, and that is where i felt comfortable.
>
> > http://skisickness.com/StuartRange/ColchuckNEC/
>
> i checked this out. yeesh. made me recall watching steve pope ski
> the notch couloir on the diamond in old school telly boards.
> maddness. one blown turn in that tight slot and he would have tumbled
> a very long way. one of the craziest things i have ever witnessed.
> me, i walked down.
>
yep. You sould browse around on his site; it's a great way to spend
time.
Re. people being imprinted, as it were, by their initial experiences
(be they in their youth or at a later date), I remember my first trip
to the Sierra and my partner and I kept looking at each other and
saying, "Doesn't it feel like we're cheating?" Perfect weather,
perfect rock, 'bushwacking' consists of sauntering along through open
woods on a nice bed of pine needles.....The same guy on a ski trip
down to the Tahoe area said to me, "This is really fun but you
wouldn't want to live here; you'd get soft."
I started to try to address this in my previous post; there's
something a little wrong in the head with most of us PNWers, I think.
There's very much a sense that perfect conditions and weather and all
just somehow equates to cheating. Some people I know recently skied
Rainier and while they all love perfect powder I think the TR
expresses the "fun" that these people get from being able to deal with
all types of conditions in one run:
> > On the other hand, I sometimes find it a bit trying that my boyfriend
> > considers fat blue stonker plastic ice five minutes from the road to
> > be "boring...why bother?" as I still find that plenty challenging
> > enough.
>
> as a sellf taught relationship counselor, i'd suggest that you should
> consider that you are both right. fat ice belayed off a bumper has
> its advantages and proper times. so too do back country couloirs.
> hence you are both right. now admit that to each other and kiss and
> make up. ok, that will be $120, payable to DogBoy Relationship
> Counseling Intergalactic, LLC.
>
oh, it's not a fight, it's just my personal ongoing battle with
feelings of inadequacy. I will never ever be even close to hardcore.
Melissa years ago posted a tr with a line that perfectly sums up
pretty much my entire climbing career: " I feel weak
and cowardly but long to be bad-ass." I love that line.
kelli...@gmail.com
>
> - Show quoted text -
Briiiiiiiaaaaan! How you doing? I am contemplating that Corsica gig
you mentioned, that would be ridiculously fun. Finance this year (see
the rest of the thread, plus I now require a new car) may not allow
it, but it's definitely on the list of options requiring serious
thought.
k
bead...@yahoo.com
> Briiiiiiiaaaaan! How you doing? I am contemplating that Corsica gig
> you mentioned, that would be ridiculously fun. Finance this year (see
> the rest of the thread, plus I now require a new car) may not allow
> it, but it's definitely on the list of options requiring serious
> thought.
>
Its pretty much a done deal. Still welcome to join us!
Our dates are SLC to AJA 29 April (arrive 30 April at 10am). Fly back
from MRS to SLC 17 May. Plan is to fly from AJA (Ajaccio Corsica) to
Marseille on 11 May. 30 April to 5 May in Corte. 5 May to 11 May in
Col de Bavella. We'll spend 11 May 'til 17 May probably in Gemenos
(striking distance to the Calanques, St. Baume and St. Victoire).
So far its just me and my harem (me and two friends). Bring it, we
need more rope gunnage! Hey, that's what credit cards are for...
Cheers,
-Brian in SLC
(Ice season here has been kinda dismal. Did get a couple days a month
ago in the 'Daks with Julie. Super fun!)
^,,^
> Dozens each season? I don't think so. Data posted below would
> suggest otherwise.
absolutely, brian. as i've mentioned before on this NG, when it comes
to [me] you can count on the basic nouns and verbs, but when it comes
to adjectives and the like, sheesh.
which is to say you are right, and i accept your point and the figures
that support them.
i do stand behind the fact that during the winter i spent in SLC (it
took me a minute, but i was able to determine it was fall of 98 into
the spring of 99) two things were true: [1] the fabled wasatch
champagne pretty much never came. here again i need to watch my
adjectives -- for there were a few days of delicious powder. but
otherwhise, especially early in the season, it was ugly ice. my then
sweetie got a job at alta. i tried but failed. i wasn't nearly as
cute. i once posted on this, so won't restate it. given that she was
a remarkable cutie, she worked out a deal in which i was able to ski
certain lifts w/o a tickie. in short, i got a season pass without
ever having so much as a day ticket. perhaps i will burn for this in
hell, but as i am already all but assured a front row seat there, i'm
not loosing much sleep over it.
i had been to alta before, on days when the snow was outstanding.
what i learned during this lean fall and well into the rest of the
winter is that the topology of alta is ideal when they have many feet
of that excellent stuff so dry you need to spit on it to make a
snowball. but, when they don;t have that deep dreamy stuff, when all
they have is glare ice (i recall seeing pine fronds through a few
inches of ice on diamond routes) that same topology is brutal. its
scary and a knee blower. as i mentioned in my previous post, i
arrived with a pair of leather merrills and a soft set of tuas. in a
typicaly season, this rig would have been sweet. on that near
vertical hockey rink i was out of control and beat the shite out of
myself. in the end, i went for a pair of garage sale alpine boards
and race stiff alpine boots. and i still was frightened on routes i
once cruised 3 pin (back when they actually had powder on them) -- and
i still beat the crap out of myself. as i often whined to my then
sweetie, "hell, i could be one ice like this back in new hampshire.
and the rents are far lower there. sheesh"
~~~
on the 'group think' front -- ie, all the kiddies suddenly deciding
that backcountry routes were "kewl" and that anything at the many lift
areas was "un-kewl" well, i accept your point that this is no
longer the case, that the big kids successfully convinced the teeny
boppers that the backcountry demands discipline and specific skills.
i say kudos to the local big kids (of whom i know you are surely one)
for getting this message out.
that said, i stand behind my personal experience DURING THE ONE WINTER
I WAS THERE (98/99). in those daze, i personally encountered way too
many people (most of them college kids from out of state) who decided
to be 'kewl' and ski backcountry routes. only they didn;t do the
homework required. rather, they simply drove up little cottonwood (or
one of the other canyons open in winter) and looked for what they
understood (given their years in lift lines) as "ski slopes". and as
you know far better than me (given your local skills), what looks like
a "ski slope" to a kid who has only known lift areas, is, in the
"backcountry" visible from any of those few winter roads up into the
wasatch canyons is a...
an avi chute, of course. "look at that slope, Biff, it looks great,
all wide and no trees in the way. lets park the BMW here and
'backcountry ski'"
i saw this countless times. as for how many paid with their lives, i
don't know for sure. in that lean snow year perhaps not many. and
perhaps my subjective clause of "dozens" is all wrong. but did i see
this stuff, like every other day as i drove my sweetie to work, yes.
sometimes i would stand on top of our car and simply shout "Hey,
Idiots, Do you realize that you are smack in the middle of an obvious
(and locally famous) avi chute?" sometimes i'd have to charge up the
far edge (treeline) of said chutes to run them down in order to say
effectively the same thing. were i the darwinist i claim to be, i
guess i should have just driven on, saying 'good thing the morons get
flushed out of the gene pool'. but i am the elsest of 7, and to this
day there is this big brother thing in me that drives me to interfere
with Darwin. sheesh, in my 'ute i was forever pulling my little
brothers and sister out of snow drifts and jumping in to say shite
like "don;t stick your head in the blender, moron".
~~~
so yeah, bottom line: i meant no disrespect to SLC and environs. i
am certain that when the whole "backcountry skiing is kewl, lift lines
are for toads" it was happeneing throughout the nation. i just
happened to be parked in SLC, just then. and i have noticed that the
big kids have gotten the word out that while backcountry ("off piste")
skiing is in fact an excellent way to go, doing so demands being
informed and understanding what can and cannot hurt you out there.
which is to repeat the line i started with: yeah brother Brian, i
have no doubt you are right. as of today, as of even recently.
be well,
^,,^
bead...@yahoo.com
> i do stand behind the fact that during the winter i spent in SLC (it
> took me a minute, but i was able to determine it was fall of 98 into
> the spring of 99) two things were true: [1] the fabled wasatch
> champagne pretty much never came.
Had to check the archives (one ski season blurs into the
next...)...but, yeah, 98/99 was a very poor year.
> that said, i stand behind my personal experience DURING THE ONE WINTER
> I WAS THERE (98/99). in those daze, i personally encountered way too
> many people (most of them college kids from out of state) who decided
> to be 'kewl' and ski backcountry routes.
No skier avalanche fatalities during the 98/99 season, or the prior
two seasons.
You may be remembering snowmobilers? I seem to dimly recall that the
forecast center really started to try to figure out how to get the
work to those folks, and the snowboarders.
One thing I do remember about the 98/99 season (refreshed memory from
a stroll through the archives) is how incredible, after Alta was
closed, Alta was in May. Over 100 inches that month. Phenominal
spring powder.
Seem to also recall I gave up riding lifts around '90 or so...so, my
ski memories are sorta biased by being backcountry specific.
And, no disrespect takin'. We got plenty of clueless folks in these
parts. Some of them very experienced backcountry skiers from time to
time (situational dumbassness?).
Head of the forecast center a couple of weekends ago, upon seeing the
masses of apparently clueless folks in a popular backcountry bowl,
exclaimed it was, "no country for old men". Too funny.
FYI, best current (and past) local conditions is the "wow" generated
Wasatch conditions thread on the teletips website.
Cheers,
-Brian in SLC
From 2 Feb SLC avy forecast:
This past weekend, the backcountry was packed to the brim with smiling
faces on vehicles of every kind known and then some—snowmobiles, skis,
split boards, snowshoes, saucers and tennis shoes. It seems like just
yesterday…(clue the harps and wavy screen)…when we wore wool knickers
and traveled on skinny skis and leather boots like tennis shoes. You
would know anyone you might run into in the backcountry and you would
share your gorp. My but times have changed. I have to admit, I’m
deeply frightened and overwhelmed by the new hoards, many of which
have to ask which drainage they are in, many without beacons and many
have never even heard about the Utah Avalanche Center. Next time it
storms, will 30 people be standing in the bottom of Days Fork, with 30
more people putting in up tracks all over the steep slopes above them—
like this past weekend? It’s no country for old men. But what do you
expect with delightful, powder-like snow of soft, recrystallized snow
and surface hoar on a supportable, stable base, sunny skies and warm
temperatures and a million and a half people just 15 minutes down the
road? Today—and the rest of the week-- will be more of the same.
^,,^
> Had to check the archives (one ski season blurs into the
> next...)...but, yeah, 98/99 was a very poor year.
glad to hear that my memories line up with the science. makes me
think of what a pal of mine -- a guy who got arrested at bezerkley
during the riots, still has ticket stubs from seeing gigs like hendrix
and joplin at the filmore, and of course lived in a hippy commune at
asbury & cole streets (a block from haight/asbury) -- so often says:
"if you remember the sixties, dude, you weren't there..."
he's got a couple decades on me. my memories of the sixties run more
towards big bird and pampers.
> No skier avalanche fatalities during the 98/99 season, or the prior
> two seasons.
sure. i've done SAR in other locals, but surely not there (UT).
hell, i couldn't even find the supermarket half the time and never
found a state store (booze) -- at least not one open at the time. it
seemed to me that the local powers decided that while they had to
offer hootcheries, they didn't have to make it easy. so the state
store hours were forever changing; real oddball stuff like "open
wednesdays from 11:20 to 2:10 and 4:40 to 7:05 // thursdays from 9:35
to 11:20 and 3:10 to 6:20 // hours subject to change" and change they
did, like every week. well, added years to the lifespan of my liver.
as for avi fatalaties -- here again i am certain you would know the
correct numbers. what i was writing about was more my personal sense
of the risks these hipster kiddies i saw were taking -- most all of
them unaware that sking the backcountry was different that skiing the
local lift line gig. i mean it just gave me the heebies to see kids
(most of them were college aged, some not) schlepping directly up the
prime crack and dump line of obvious avi chutes. avi chutes so
obvious that anyone with some actual backcountry experience would
recognize them from 2 miles away. sheesh. as such, i just assumed
that if i saw that many, there were many more and a bunch of them got
hammered. glad to hear none of them did (i suspect this had much to
do with the thin snowfall). but you know what i mean. it's like
sitting there watching toddlers stick their wet fingers in every AC
outlet they can find. some, perhaps most, get away with it. but it
gives one, well me at least, the heebies to watch. the big brother in
me is compelled to jump in and say "hey! stop! do you realize how
dangerous that is?"
> You may be remembering snowmobilers?
as above, i suspect that i am remembering what i assumed would be the
outcome of the uninformed risktaking i saw. and as i wrote in an
earlier post, i am sure this was not SLC specific -- i'm sure the same
mistakes were being made accross the country as the "backcountry is
cool/lift lines are for loosers" movement swept the nation. in my
experience, this happened at about the time i was in SLC. i'm kind of
suspecting you have data to check this against. something like the
"college kids in from kansas index". well, i cling to my the concept
that my personal memories have at least some small basis in reality.
> Head of the forecast center a couple of weekends ago, upon seeing the
> masses of apparently clueless folks in a popular backcountry bowl,
> exclaimed it was, "no country for old men". Too funny.
>
> FYI, best current (and past) local conditions is the "wow" generated
> Wasatch conditions thread on the teletips website.
yeah, whoever wrote that has both an excellent sense of history and an
excellent sense of humor. funny stuff, made me laugh -- then cough
like an end stage TB patient for a good 40 minutes. sheesh.
seems that you kids have yet another objective danger to worry about
-- getting bowled down by an avalanche of backcountry enthusiasts (on,
apparently, all manner of boards).
cheers back at you,
^,,^
Al Black
> oh, it's not a fight, it's just my personal ongoing battle with feelings
> of inadequacy. I will never ever be even close to hardcore. Melissa
> years ago posted a tr with a line that perfectly sums up pretty much my
> entire climbing career: "I feel weak and cowardly but long to be
> bad-ass." I love that line.
Ah now this this is interesting. I'm not saying you are or aren't
hardcore, but I'm curious to what you mean by hard core.
al
Al Black
> the bad news (as i later learned) is that lady crumpton the 7th saw me
> do it. according to the thin lipped management guy who lloked like
> central casting for a nazi film, she called this in and reported
> "emotional distress" at having witnessed this outrage. no really, this
> actually happened as stated. so i was canned on the spot by Herr
> Lipless.
<thunk> That's my head hitting the desk. <sigh><sigh>
> casein point, Denali. i still stand behind my assertion that it is a
> tedious hulk (though i haven't done the most technical routes, such as
> the cassin).
I've always fancied, although not enough to put any effort into it, the
west rib. Looks like a neat enough line.
But not to worry about the rant Brother Dog. We all have them, gawd, you
could say I'm in the middle of a year long one. More importantly, take
it into context of the usual r.c. ADD mindset. On reading it, my mind
drifted off into a much more interesting area -- have you been to little
switzerland? Almost went there a couple of years ago, as a tag onto
going to a wedding, but couldn't work the logistics... Worth the effort?
al
Al Black
> I want to declare a liking for 5.2, also. My own twig was inclined by
> the Gunks and so the tree is bent, and many of the best climbs anywhere
> (in the 2-3 pitch rock variety) are 5.2s at the Gunks.
5.2 may be my natural habitat. And yes Gunks 5.2 are totally fun.
al
kelli...@gmail.com
On reading it, my mind
> drifted off into a much more interesting area -- have you been to little
> switzerland? Almost went there a couple of years ago, as a tag onto
> going to a wedding, but couldn't work the logistics... Worth the effort?
>
> al
I went there in 2004 and had a blast. I even wrote a TR, kind of.
search for Little Switzerland and it'll come up. It will be of no use
to you in planning, but the thread where I ask for info might have had
some. I would recommed it highly. We were there when 300,000+ acres
of Alaska was on fire so the smoke obscured the views for a couple of
days but it was glorious.
kelli...@gmail.com
>
> Ah now this this is interesting. I'm not saying you are or aren't
> hardcore, but I'm curious to what you mean by hard core.
>
> al
That’s a good question Al. There are tons of people around here (the
PNW) that I consider to be hardcore: Dylan Johnson and Chad Kellog’s
ascent of the SW Ridge of Siguniang comes to mind, along with many of
Colin Haley’s exploits in the past few years. I run into Steve
Swenson at the gym fairly regularly and I’d call him hardcore for
sure. Plus all those reticent nameless PNW hardmen who get out and
put up FAs in the Cascades with long-ass approaches and heinous
depraoches.
I know a bunch of ski mountaineers that I consider to be hardcore:
Sky and the Hummels and their whole crew, for instance. You certainly
aren’t going to see me skiing the NE Face of Mt Fury or the Central
Mowich Face, ever. All their wacky “hike from 8 pm to 11 am to ski a
5,000-foot face in the middle of nowhere” 24+ hour push outings strike
me as pretty hardcore.
(check skisickness.com and cascadecrusades.org for some pretty pretty
pictures: omg, http://cascadecrusades.org/SkiMountaineering/whitehorse/whitehorseglcier2008/wh2008.htm
are some of the most beyootiful ski pics I’ve ever seen)
In other ways I consider all those folks who maintain their enthusiasm
for getting out constantly to be hardcore, as well as folks like Stim
Bullitt who are still cranking in their 80s and guys like my friend T.
from Cape Town who despite having a withered arm (his mom had German
measles when he was in utero) climbs hard 5.11 sport, hard 5.10/easy
5.11 trad, solo aids walls, climbs water ice with an ice tool he
modified to strap onto his arm, etc. etc.
Also my buddy K. who has come back from a massive head injury to ski
Baker in a day just a couple of years later.
So, um, that’s some of what I call hardcore. I’m sure there’s lots of
other stuff I would call hardcore, but that’s what comes to mind right
away.
How about you?
Klooch Man
kelliemc...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> I’m sure there’s lots of
> other stuff I would call hardcore,
> but that’s what comes to mind right
> away.
>
> How about you?
Hello Sir,
I will be on the 12h30 PM ferry on Tuesday arriving in horseshoe bay
at around 2 P.M.. Will you pick me up? So I will bring my tent, the
propane stove considering we are traveling by car and some cooking
accessories. I will not bring ropes but some gear just in case...I am
looking forward to get to the sun. And to climb of course. I think the
weather is going to be good. Can't wait to be outside again. I do
spend too much time inside and get frustrated when the weather is
good. So all is good I think. I will try to book our seats on the
plane before I leave on Monday. See you soon.
Bernard
**************************************
All is good, yes.
I will meet you on Tuesday. Not sure whether I will try to get near
the terminal with the car or just come by bus and take the bus back to
our place. Can you remind me when our flight leaves?
Our nursing home is having an outbreak of the Norwalk virus. My last
shift was Friday night. There is a chance that I have caught the bug
and will have severe vomiting and diarrhea for a few hours. Hope you
did not get us seats next to each other.
Andy
kellie...@urscorp.com
Now THAT is some first-class planning. Do tell us how it all went.