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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - May 2, 2016 - 02:22am PT
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The Spirituality Hour or, Dead Time in the Universe
"I'm bored and on dope."
Muktananda Paramahansa, guru.
http://www.ebdir.net/enlighten/muktananda.html
Meaning in life? Smartie-pantz has the anzer.
Wearing undies on his head Mook assures me when I'm dead
It's back to life that I will head As a effin' barrel of Watney's Red
I'll get pissed as I always dew whenever it comes to swilling brew
You can drink me yes please do But flush me down when you're all through
Be sure to wiggle it don't you stop Relieve yourself of every drop
In case you get stopped by a sheriff or cop This is advice from your pal Flip Flop
MFM
today
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Short Story about a guru with big chi chis
Dream vacation to SF with Cowboy Larry to see Pete the older bro of Matt Donahoe
Shotgunning is sweet in the left seat
No beer so queer no weed watch the speed
We'll arrive alive
We'll go and jive
With the hive
At the Ashram on Dolores
Mook lays it out
There is zero doubt
Each his own guru
He's not looking for a handout
The chant begins
Om etc.
Nothing special
Aversion to TM on my part
But then I felt something in my heart
Herb Alpert's doppleganger
BAGA MAM DOSS
The Climbing Guru
Comes thru the door
With a entourage and a whore
He smiles galore
He TOUCHED ME
I ended up five bucks lighter.
We ate at Wong's Chinese
Atop Half Dome that evening
Chanting and ranting
And had a Tsing Toe to seal our experience.
MFM
today but about 1970
[Click to View YouTube Video]We went back to our ghetto and our dope very much unburdened.
Somehow.
All RIGHT!!!!
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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Older than some, most would not use
Why ? Why knott
Red Swami
I'm sure I've still got
(mine)
What about the blue
(one)
I used the green
(1/2 of 1)
for my 1st leg loops
Used at hanging belays
Although I had already switched
Gone to the 'seatbelt' type webbing
Tie-On Swami made by Forrest,
And the matching leg loops.
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Flip Flop
climber
Earth Planet, Universe
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Thanks Mouse,
for hosting me in Merced and the tour on the river.
Most of all, thanks for the righteous tribute to Raja.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - May 2, 2016 - 07:10pm PT
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Flirty miss.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - May 2, 2016 - 07:23pm PT
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Coffeed up and read-ay to ride.
Purty girls performing twirls.
A couple of grinning churls.
Shotgun guard and stage driver at the coffee shop.
Thanks for the good time, Mr. Flip Flop
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zBrown
Ice climber
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Nice photos Brian, what a trip it's been.
Long (maybe)
Strange
Noway
Always keep an home-made Da Brim around, the sun may shine in your back door someday.
Something to make us all happy?
[Click to View YouTube Video]
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - May 2, 2016 - 08:06pm PT
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Mike's bass pond.
TRONA - Wildrose Road & Ballarat Rd. sign scarfed by Mike long ago.
Mike, my big bro.
He tells me he's going to Montana to fish for one week next.
For a guy to tell you that when he is blessed to have what brother Tim calls "Montana in the back yard," there must be something extra special about the real thing, or maybe he really wants a change of scenery, which is reasonable.
And then there's WBrain, who seems NEVER, well almost never, to leave the Ditch. Some places cannot be improved upon, I guess. Or bettered because they are already the top of the line. Of course, your opinion may vary, while I admit my Yosentricity.`
Speaking of lines, the Yosemite Valley RR, until 1946, ran right through Mike's twenty or so acres at Merced Falls. The rail grade is like our buddy in the Olympic peninsula, hardly visible, buried under tons of cobbles from dredging ops in the first half of the twentiest century.
The small lake that fronts Mike's is formed by the Merced Irrigation District's diversion dam, the Crocker-Huffman. Then there is the lake formed by the dam at Merced Falls that formed the log-storage pond for the Yosemite Sugar Pine Lumber Company mill.
Above that is the holding lake for the MID, behind McSwain dam, an earth-fill with boulders as the outer facing. Pretty substantial, but dwarfed by the New Exchequer Dam further on up.
Today we only went to McSwain Dam and then we drove downriver to Mike's place.
His feisty dog was real happy to see us.
Shut the front door, you angry little tire-biter! Actually, the dog is just like Raja, protective, but he's just playing his role. No bears out there, just the odd coyote and probably lots of coons and OHPOSSUMAS, the giant cats known to...never mind, you won't believe me if I tell you.
I said TRONA, guys.
I know a gal out of Trona who was married to Richard Munson of The North Face. She had no kind words about the place except her dad still lived there. I've no idea how Mike acquired that road sign. It's been there since he first settled in and began digging ponds and building the house.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - May 2, 2016 - 08:23pm PT
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Flip Flop doing an Ansel.
Looking the opposite way, downstream.
Two Canada geese honking on by.
Honk y Honk.
They don't look Canadian...
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - May 2, 2016 - 08:41pm PT
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zBrown
Ice climber
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Dancing girl cameos @ :56 2:36
Why did Jerry switch from black to purple? I know but I can't tell.
Look at his face.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
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zBrown
Ice climber
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Always had a soft spot in my heart for Taj, Flip and my Baby
Notice how they cut "throw your big leg over me mama" - it was TV after all
I swear I thought I knew all his hatz, but ..
[Click to View YouTube Video]
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - May 3, 2016 - 06:24am PT
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Why did JG switch from black to purple?
He was TARD of it, Vern. Nawmean?
What do I win?
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - May 3, 2016 - 10:34am PT
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The Flames Bewk Newk
Today our guest reviewer is St. Gaien Rowell on St. Bradford Washburn.
"Go Saints!" & "Whodat?"
Bradford Washburn: Mountain Photography.
Edited and compiled by Anthony Decaneas; Introduction by Clifford S. Ackley.
Seattle: Mountaineers Books, 1999.
144 pages.
Original price $29.95
IF GOD is in the details, Brad Washburn’s first book based entirely on his own mountain photography is sacred art. Why he waited until his 90th year to publish it is also in the details. H. Bradford Washburn is without a doubt the most singularly exacting human being I have ever known.
More than 75 years ago, Brad began writing books. Just after he climbed Mont Blanc, Monte Rosa, and the Matterhorn at 16, Travels with Bradford was commissioned by G.P. Putnam, who later married Amelia Earhart. By the time this book was published the following year, Brad’s guidebook, Trails and Peaks of the Presidential Range, was already in print.
At 20, Brad lectured for the National Geographic Society and embarked on making a feature film about the Alps. He soon graduated c#m laude from Harvard and entered the college’s Institute for Geographical Exploration, where Alaska caught his lifelong fancy. He made first ascents of some of North America’s highest peaks while engaged in exploring, photographing, and mapping. Many decades later, he produced the most exquisitely detailed map of Mount McKinley ever made, based on his aerial photography.
At 24, Brad got his pilot’s license and soon interviewed to be Amelia Earhart’s navigator on her attempt to fly around the world. After carefully considering the radio navigation situation over the Pacific Ocean, he withdrew. Within the year after Amelia vanished over the Pacific, Brad became the first director of the Boston Museum of Science, a position he held for nearly 40 years. His close relationship with top figures in both science and industry got him into aerial field testing of films for both Eastman Kodak and Agfa, often in flights over remote parts of the Alaska Range.
At an early age, Brad was inspired by the images of the great Italian photographer/mountaineer Vittorio Sella, who accompanied the Duke of Abruzzi to K2, the Ruwenzori, and Alaska’s Mount St. Elias, perhaps accounting for Brad’s urge to make the first winter crossing of the St. Elias Range, which he photographed for a National Geographic story when he was 25. Brad began shooting with a Brownie box camera at 14, but followed his mother’s advice in spades when she said he needed to use larger format cameras to obtain the optimum image quality that he desired. Brad first graduated to the same Vest Pocket Kodak that Mallory had on Everest in 1924, moved up to a four-by-six-, and then to seven-by-nine- and eight-by-ten-inch formats for serious aerial photography.
The hallmarks of Brad’s imagery are bold compositions in the style of Sella, combined with a clarity not coincidentally reminiscent of Ansel Adams’, a friend who coached him in darkroom techniques. By themselves, the 100 full-page, large-format mountain photographs in this book would have a limited audience, despite their exquisite quality, were it not for the addition of a visual narrative of smaller images of people, activities, and Brad at different ages in the field. This is what gives the book a personal, biographical flavor, fully justifying an open-ended prophecy Ansel Adams made before his death in 1984: “One never knows what next to expect from this roving genius of mind and mountain, but whatever it is, we know that it will be excellent and effective.”
The Mountaineers have impeccably reproduced the flawless visual power of Brad’s work in a stunning book that exceeds the quality of many of Ansel Adams’ books—but why shouldn’t it, given modern advances in printing and Brad’s perfectionism? Like some of the retrospective books of Adams’ works, this one displays a lifetime commitment and enduring dedication to photography. The two Alaskan images juxtaposed on pages 51-52 show wonderfully aesthetic banding patterns of two different glaciers, yet one is dated 1938 and the other is 1994 (taken at ages 28 and 84). To my trained eye, the quality looks similar, though Brad might well debate that and mail me two original prints to prove his point, along with a cordial, but directly worded, cover letter.
Throughout his career, Brad has generously shared all he knows with other photographers and mountaineers. As a young climber in the early 1960s, I voraciously devoured Brad’s heavily illustrated articles in this journal, which often included stunning aerial photographs of remote peaks that were unclimbed or had unclimbed faces. When young climbers such as myself wrote for more information, we often received original prints to contemplate before embarking on our own expeditions. When we succeeded, a congratulatory note from Brad was sure to arrive soon after.
In 1974, David Roberts brought a Washburn original print of the southeast face of Mount Dickey on our attempt to climb the virgin 4,500-foot wall. I thought I had the route scoped out well enough in my head until a blizzard hit us a thousand feet from the top. David pulled out the folded eight-by-ten print and navigated us up the final pitches by reference to its fine detail.
Sometime in the mid-1970s, Brad had an exasperating experience that many a mountain photographer has shared. He saw the perfect vision for a mountain photograph appear through a horribly dirty airplane window. Mount McKinley emerged between two parting cloud banks in fantastic light. Instead of cursing his luck, Brad thought up a brilliant solution. The dirty window happened to be in the emergency exit of a British executive jet, on which he had hitched a flight back from the North Slope of the Brooks Range. He thought, “Why not make a special emergency exit window of optical glass?” And while he was at it, why not make it fit a personal jet more commonly found in the United States? (Got a Lear Jet? I’ve got a window for it.…) And why not ask his old Boston friend, Edwin Land of Polaroid, to procure the perfect optical glass? Yes, three-quarter-inch fused quartz of optical quality would do just fine. Now he wouldn’t have to fly over McKinley in a bush plane with the door off in -70°F temperatures ever again.
Brad arranged a Lear Jet to fly over Mount Everest with his camera and door, producing incredible images on nine-inch film shot from 39,000 feet as the basis for creating the finest-ever map of Mount Everest. Brad was 78 when National Geographic published 10.6 million copies of the map to insert in every copy of a special Himalayan issue. The project was a tour de force of diplomacy for permissions to overfly the border between Tibet and Nepal, as well as of cartography involving the best Swiss mapping experts interpreting information from his stereo photographs. Though none of those incredible photos appear in this book, one hangs in a special place in my office, signed by Brad and the late Barry Bishop, who assisted with the project.
At the 1980 AAC annual dinner, Brad motioned me over to his table and asked what I was up to the following year. I mentioned that I had a National Geographic assignment to climb and trek around Amne Machin, once thought to be higher than Everest. Brad’s eyes lit up as brightly as the lasers he later used to pinpoint the exact height of Everest. He grabbed a napkin and sketched the area around the peaks in eastern Tibet, marking each summit’s height in meters. He talked about his aerial reconnaissance there in 1948 as if it were yesterday.
When I returned from Tibet, I noted that Brad’s sketch did not conform well with the features on the classified U.S. Defense Department map that I had been permitted to view by special permission from Secretary Caspar Weinberger, who served with me on an environmental board. Cap had stressed that no copies were to go to Tibet with me, because national security would be compromised if the map got into the wrong hands and the Chinese found out just how much ground information we really had from those U2 overflights. Thank God they never confiscated the napkin I took to Tibet with Brad’s sketch. It held far more accurate information than the best official map.
Though some of Brad’s photographs have been exhibited in prominent art galleries, he clearly states that he never took them for art’s sake. He was merely making images of aspects of the natural world that fascinated him, such as mountains, glaciers, and rock formations. That Brad was able to complete and guide the production of this beautiful book in his 90th year is yet another addition to the voluminous chronology of his accomplishments that appears on the final pages.
Galen Rowell
Appeared in AAJ - V43/#75 - 2001
http://publications.americanalpineclub.org/articles/13201213112/Barbara-Washburn-19142014
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zBrown
Ice climber
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wachew haven't been smokin' man?
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - May 3, 2016 - 05:49pm PT
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SERIOUSER and SERIOUSER, WTF happened?
That Wolfe photo got modified and I'm not responsibubble.
I went lookin' for Blue Dream and found roses instead.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - May 3, 2016 - 07:02pm PT
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"...the much feared and coveted Blue Route. You know the one: steep crimpers, dyno to the little pinchy thing, figure four off the squirrel, bump to the pelvic bone, left foot flags off the plywood thingie, then campus through the blobs… sounds simple right? Fifty feet to glory!"
--Steve Seats
"...entertaining story - moth worthy."--zBrown
RJ and I were waiting for Mike to ring up a customer in the Cigar Monkey.
In steps this guy with a vaguely PURPLE SCARF on his neck.
He co-opts Mike's attention and wants three real expensive cigars AND a lighter. This one, not that one. Forty-one bucks.
But during this whole episode, the dude NEVER SHUT UP! He kept calling Mike "Boss," too. Virtually every time he said something, and he said plenty, and it took over-long, because Mike's blind as a bat and things can be slow enough in most transactions, but this guy's chatter was a bit more than the situation needed.
Of course he was off of his medication. I can't imagine what else could cause this type of behavior. And Porky Pig is Jewish.
What was funny as heck, somehow, was that just when he left (the first time) he said something and it was addressed to a "Captain." I figured it was RJ, because I was never an officer of any kind.
After the guy had left (the second time--he came back in to get matches in case the expensive lighter failed) I made sure to salute RJ as I was leaving.
It was really entertaining for both RJ and myself and another patron sitting at a table and taking it all in as well. I saluted him, too.
Mike, I can't say.
Has anyone seen, CAN'T SAY?
What say?
"Moth to a Flame"
poem on the spot
You are my one burning desire
Let me fly into your fire
True love is my thing
Please baby won't you singe my wing
And if you won't do that for me
Won't you please come sit on my knee
And if you still don't wanna
Please say you'll be my Flames mamma
And if you won't commit like that
Drip some wax on that pesky cat
MFM just now
[Click to View YouTube Video]"I talk in tongues, mamma."
Edit: As to the coincidental nature of zBrown's posting a shot of a large rolled object that looks like a cigar but I bet is not, and my running into the Running Mouth Man this afternoon, let me say that it must be The Synch. Once again the ley lines twixt CV and the Central Valley are showing their power. Lei lines in the case of Hawaii. Lay lines in the case of Mound House, NV, home of the Bunny Ranch.
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