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MTucker
Ice climber
Arizona
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Sep 15, 2010 - 12:35am PT
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Yeah, I probably am. People tend to not like hearing the truth.
Second that!!!
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MTucker
Ice climber
Arizona
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Sep 15, 2010 - 12:36am PT
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Yeah, I probably am. People tend to not like hearing the truth.
I ment "Me Too"!!
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graniteclimber
Trad climber
Nowhere
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Sep 15, 2010 - 04:05am PT
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Ammon made mistakes and he will have to face the consequences, but the maximum sentence Ammon might receive is 6 months.
MTucker is stuck being MTucker for the rest of his life. If that isn't a life sentence to a punishment worse than prison, I don't know what is. Long after Ammon has put this behind him and is enjoying life, MTucker will still the same upset and unhappy person that he is today.
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BASE104
climber
An Oil Field
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Sep 15, 2010 - 05:17am PT
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WARNING THIS MAY GET A LITTLE LONG
I have posted on this thread before, but when even PTPP chimed in to stop it, I nuked them. So this will not really be about Ammon. I have heard from some of his friends, who I trust, that he is a great guy. So was Walt Shipley, but he caused his share of legendary trouble.
I pretty much said that I don't hold anything against rangers, but tasing sounds a little over the top. I don't know what went down. Only Ammon and the officers know, and there will be a huge rumor mill over it. Maybe it was justified or not. I am not taking an issue here on that matter.
Yosemite developed a huge hard on for hunting down BASE jumpers which began in the early eighties, continues to this day (perhaps..I can't read minds)..and spread to any unit of the NPS, including National Monuments and National Recreation Areas.
The only exception is that the landing area at the base of the New River Gorge is on NRA land, and the NPS issues a permit for one day a year. On that day, the bridge can have way over 50,000 people lining the rails, and they pretty much come to watch the jumping. The locals would revolt if the NPS tried to stop it. They have to eat crow on that one. And that is a shame.
I have been thinking a lot about the whole thing today and would like to revise a few earlier comments.
The NPS gave skydivers (there were no real BASE jumpers back then) independence to jump legally for a short period of time. The jumpers behaved very badly, and I do not blame the NPS for banning it however they could, even though they had to find an obscure law written long before, to enforce it. There were no real BASE jumpers. Only skydivers, and they were an incredibly unruly lot.
So, as happens even in countries, they can gain independence before they are able to rule themselves. There are many examples of this from after WWII, the most famous example being India. If it were not for Gandhi being so revered, the violence between Hindus and Muslims would have been much worse. So the British, although pretty much milking the poor in India, had kept violence relatively under control. Gandhi even recognized this, and held little ill will towards the British, other than the poverty that they often inflicted.
My point is: It is blatantaly obvious that jumpers had their moment of independence long before they were responsible enough to shoulder the responsibility. The stories handed down to me were a series of serious flaunting of rules that were really pretty simple. Some of the worst offendors were totally reviled.
That was thirty years ago. Jumping has pretty much detached itself from the skydiving crowd and developed a strict set of ethics to follow. I was around when those were first popping up, but the 20 hardcore jumpers in the world could not control some bozo from a dropzone coming in and screwing things up over and over. And it happened. We just shook our heads. There may have been a favorite building going up..when roof access is easy. It gets jumped every night that the wind isn't howling. Then some person calls all of the TV stations and does it in the daytime. Man, that did not go down well back in the day. A building can be done hundreds of times without anyone but perhaps a friendly security guard and the local police who come to watch at 3:00am. You always look for any approaching traffic or anyone walking even near the building. Actually landing on someone is darn near impossible in the middle of the night, but we always made sure nobody was even close enough to see. We didn't want to be seen. AT ALL. It is happening like this all over the world as I write this.
This is pretty touchy feely for me, but all of us have a little devil in our hearts. The trick is to ignore it. Everyone has it. Some more than others, but it is not the property of any broad group. It is individual character. I have realized way too late in life that the little devil is what leads to all sorts of inexcusable behaviour. Wars and stuff. My being such a little snot. Trying to develop what is good in your heart is the best path. Not holding a grudge or trying to "get even."
There have been in the past, abuses of BASE jumpers by rangers, and to this day, the punishment is huge compared to other misdemeanors of this class. Jumping is a misdemeanor, but it is in a class of serious misdemeanors. That is only for your education, because I see a lot of bad info posted by climbers who couldn't find a riser or pick a bridle length. There have been some big names post on this thread, and I just shake my head at their ignorance.
What I see this as, and always have since my first days, was that it is an act of civil disobediance against an unjust interpretation of an old law. I am not aware of any violence, but it probably has happened in at least some minor way. One act of violence against a peace officer would set things back a zillion years. It must never happen. If you are getting beaten or tasered, you should not fight back. Now everyone hits the ground running whether there is a ranger around or not, but when you are caught, you should just allow them to do their job and not cause them problems. Being a cop is a risky job. I understand that. But I implore them to not become emotional about this and allow any venom from previous policies and incidents to invade their thought. And venom does invade the thoughts of all too many human beings. Usually totally justified in their own minds. Just scroll through the posts and try to pick out people who could use a lesson from Werner. Ridding yourself of venom actually feels pretty good, but I have a long way to go.
However, jumpers have long crossed the line where they can regulate themselves. It happens at Bridge Day every year. There have been a couple of fatalities there in the far past, but most of this was just due to really bad gear and not being what we call "current." Current is where you may do 20 jumps a month, instead of doing two or three over a ten year period. All BASE jumpers are in no way equal. The legal Malaysian jumps from the Kuala Lampur tower are more or less by invitation to weed out the riff raff, and they loved it over there. It goes on fairly freely in Europe, where the absolute edges of what is currently possible are being explored. Yosemite is sort of a backwater now to the real goings on. What began as an American invention is now taken to the edge by people from other countries, along with those who travel to jump with them.
But jumping goes on in the valley and always will. It will not end, but it probably happens less as time goes by. It is normally a discrete activity with no victims. And I am perfectly willing to argue the victimless part. It isn't like doing 60 in a 35. You kill people that way. Driving drunk also is famous for killing people. I have no sympathy for that type of behaviour anymore. Many here have certainly done it, but in my old age I see the real wisdom against a crime that is truly without excuse. I am lucky that I quit drinking beer years ago, because I drove myself home from more than a few parties. I could have easily killed someone due to my actions.
There is something about the hearts of men in general. There is that little demon that all of us must learn to ignore. This applies to the entire human race. My only referrence to Ammon here is that the time of day that he jumped was really unusual and certainly not very discrete.
But I have never wavered against a law that I consider unjust. There is a way to address it. Do not be violent and do not resist if you are caught and imprisoned. Not only that, do not hold ill will towards those who do the capture, no matter how out of line you may think they get. If you take it and not resist, they will eventually see that they are behaving like dangerous fools. It is the whole notion of passive resistance. Simply do not give the NPS a reason to hate jumpers. Let them see that the hatred simply comes from the little devil in their own hearts.
It has often appeared as great sport hunting humans who will not shoot back, and I know of a couple of instances where huge amounts of LEO resources were wasted trying to catch someone who hadn't even jumped. Geez. After a couple of hours they are gone. Go set up a DUI roadblock. Seriously. I am probably the only jumper who listened in on the old SAR pagers during a jumper dragnet. I didn't even have a pager. I just stood next to someone who did. It was great entertainment for the climbers, but scouring the valley most of the day with 8 or so on duty rangers is a little over the top. This isn't catching killers here.
To those who have never played the game as a way of life, I am sorry that so many of you have very little understanding how it really works. Not much I can do about that but to show through action. That the NPS has really nothing to fear from jumpers. They come from every walk of life that you can imagine, and from day one, women were highly involved. I have jumped with drug addicts, doctors, lawyers, special forces and other military, hey, you name it. The full spectrum other than race.
The only thing it takes is a certain type of mind. It is serious and stressful, but some minds become hyper aware during a jump. Others will just shut down from sensory overload. You find out who fits the bill at the skydiving dropzone. It is not best to do it at a jump site. That is how people get killed doing things that seem on the surface to be totally boneheaded. Their brains were not working. You wouldn't believe how many first jump students come down with absolutely no memory of their jump.
I can understand that it looks like some sort of stunt, but it is not at all for a jumper. Perhaps it was thirty years ago, but something like El Cap is now a very safe jump for anyone with experience with the equipment, which is now highly evolved. You could take an old fart like me, and I would do a wager that I could jump El Cap 1000 times without incident.
I spent time not only being a dirtbag climber whose life was spent at the Cookie all day flailing, occasionally on El Cap or Half Dome, and deeply loved Yosemite long before I ever jumped there. The climber/jumper hybrid was very new at the time, and I became immersed in jumping. All of my close friends were climbers, but I skydived a lot as well, and was good enough at it to be on competition teams. So I was very competent. But any idiot should be able to do even a weak track and end up 200 or 300 feet from the wall at opening. You would have to actually try to hit El Cap with modern gear and technique.
It is a wonderful experience. I don't know if I can explain it, but if you have ever done something that gave you a total feeling of clarity, free from thought, then that is what a long, terminal velocity jump is like. I always think that Werner is seeking this same experience. Free from thought. You do not need to think. You DO. The thinking takes place when you are not jumping. It is almost like religion. With that, you see people all over the world trying to connect with God. And I tell ya, lots of people have been treated far worse over their religious beliefs than what happens to a jumper when caught. It is silly even to compare jumping with real persecution.
Unfortunately, since it is not considered legal at this time, anyone can go do it, and that lead to some problems and accidents in the past and probably will in the future. I know of several rescues (the ones I know of were fairly easy ones), but you have SAR having to shoot bean bags to climbers on the annual rescues, where climbing accidents put people at risk on a regular basis. I really covet that job, though. That last one that Lober zipped over to the injured climber on the Nose was just too cool. How do you even GET that job? People's feelings for Lober aside, that was a brave act that saved a life. I would be chomping at the bit to be able to do that. Somehow I doubt he will give it up willingly.
But the real jumper crowd is much like climbing was. To keep things under control, which they were not able to do back in the eighties, and not just in Yosemite, a system of ethics had to be developed in jumping. People were always getting out of control and burning sites. I have been reading The Great Book of Base, and it has now really evolved, much like climbing, but without as much bickering. About the worst thing you can do for a site is to die. Then next comes get hurt, then the next comes in the realm of attracting attention. Getting busted, for example. Then pile on a bunch of other charges and you get another nightmare.
The only way that this will ever turn out in the jumpers favor is to do it safely, and discreetly, and often, which has never been much of a problem, other than the often part, which I feel is waning. Ammon was practically begging to get busted. That, along with the other charges just make the whole thing look bad, while at the same time, it has long been going on all over the valley in relative peace. And if you do it right, nobody even knows.
El Cap is the most beautiful jump in the valley, but by no means the only one. It is beautiful, but there are better ones with a super low bust factor.
I will try to describe it. If you are experienced, it may be no big deal. Certainly jumping the same antenna got a little old after 25 times. First, the conditions. If it is windy, you turn around and walk down. I have backed off of more jumps than I did, simply because I didn't think the conditions were right, or for no reason at all. This happens all of the time, and trust me, after climbing a 1500 foot antenna only to see a wind switch has taken place, you just climb back down and do it another day. There is a real science behind jumping, and it has grown incredibly since my days. Even then, the risks were being identified and fixed. Now it has gone totally space age.
So I always got this little tremble. Not really fear, but more like a race horse sitting in the blocks. You sit and ponder, all of the normal things. Then you jump. Instantly the entire face of El Cap explodes into view and your mind achieves total clarity. You begin a track, and by the time you dump around El Cap tower, you are hundreds of feet from the wall. Tracking is how skydivers seperate in the air from each other, and at terminal it is around 60 mph or so without a wingsuit, which throws it into an entirely different realm. But just tracking takes place on virtually every skydive. It is easy to learn. Just turn your body position into a ski jumper. Skydiving is a blast. Flying your body is fun, but it is also extremely hard to become really good at. Good being relative. Just learning how to get stable and track is easy. Competition skydivers can do just about anything it seems.
So, the SECOND that the valley opens up in the darkness, you see the incredible chiseled wall totally visible even in relative darkness. El Cap may be the most beautiful cliff on Earth. To the climber onlooker it seems as if you are going a zillion miles per hour. To you, it seems incredibly slow. There is this headspace where time dilates and everything slows down. El Cap tower is a monster landmark, and it comes up very slowly. The entire experience isn't like some stunt. It is incredibly beautiful and peaceful. I can still remember actual smells on my first El Cap jump. It is such an otherworldly experience that it is burned into my brain.
Werner probably has no problem with clarity of the mind, but I tell ya, from my jumping experience I would have to say that the Hindus are on to something. It is an experience that is searingly beautiful, and far less dangerous than speeding on the loop road. And far more responsible.
When you get open, you go into security mode and there are a number of things you can do which are always changing and adapting.
This was all before the days of cell phones and climbers with radios, of course. Now I would be half afraid that they would call you in, something that was unthinkable for a climber to do back in the day. Guys like Leavitt and Slater and Oxx and Cosgriff had all dabbled in it a little bit. When Will Oxx got out of the service, I believe, that was when he went on a true rampage, and opened up some of the best sites in the United States.
However, the deep venom of the NPS really all got started in that first trial period when the jumpers were in no way cohesive, were roudy, and not ready or even capable of controlling themselves. Skydivers in that day were the bikers of the sky, and even took pride in violating rules at the Drop Zone, and then unfortunately in the Valley. It was a nightmare to watch for the skydivers. I believe several were even booted out of the USPA. So the NPS attitude has not changed much, if at all, while the jumpers have changed tremendously. But that NPS attitude has followed the jumpers for almost thirty years, while BASE has utterly changed.
There are now plenty of places to jump legally, but most are small cliffs and you can only take a very short free fall. It takes a few seconds to get enough airspeed to fly around..which you can do if you have ever seen 300 skydivers jump out of a whole series of airplanes in formation and go directly to their slot in a formation. Like the people who have to dock backwards to build a 64 way jewel. Getting stable, turning if needed, and tracking are such trivial acts of skill that those alone would make you a baby at a DZ. Yosemite has some really big cliffs that you can reach terminal velocity on and really cover some ground. 14 seconds used to be a big deal (don't go that long on El Cap!), but now with wingsuits, flights can last minutes.
My only plea here is for the NPS to stop carrying around that venom. It eats common sense alive. Realize it for what it has become. It isn't a stunt. It isn't for recognition. It is just people doing something that is in no way violent, and incredibly intense. I compare the big terminal velocity jumps to surfing or something. You can get really sucked into it, the experience is so amazing. You don't feel like you are falling. You are flying your body. End of story, there.
I have already stated that I myself consider it probably inappropriate in Yosemite. That place has enough problems, what with several million visitors a year who need to have liquor and hotels to stay in. Just look around. The real crime in Yosemite is what we have done to it. Every jumper added up has done less harm to Yosemite than the building of a single foot of asphalt road. Some day there will be a bar with a deck full of telescopes to oogle the climbers in El Cap meadow. Lots of money to be made there. I say tear it all down and give it back to Lucy and her kin.
I even checked with a guy on the peregrine project to see if we were bothering the nest over on the Ranch. Nope.
I should get my ass back into the game after all this time. If caught, I would refuse to pay the fine and ask for the maximum sentence in jail. If enough people did that, it would become readily apparent that the punishment does not fit the crime. But hey, why bother with Yosemite these days? It is a wonderful place to jump, but there are better spots in europe now. BASE jumpers come from everywhere now. It is big in Russia for god's sake.
And the worst thing that came out of the whole Connelly child molestor era is that it bled into the other lands underneath the NPS. Lake Powell for instance. Nobody even knew about that until someone died way back in the day. I opened that place up, and we didn't even know we were doing anything wrong. We weren't creating a spectacle or even straining Lake resources. It took place up a side canyon with little traffic. And when we saw a boat around, we waited until it left. Discretion, you know. Then jumpers got greedy, lazy, and burned it.
The world is filled with foolish people and foolish laws. Perhaps the fools will only realize that they are being foolish when they start throwing jumpers into prison.
And to make this clear for the powers that be who read this. The statute of limitations on me ran out almost twenty years ago. I am not advocating breaking the law. I am thinking out loud, and I do believe that it is still legal to think and share my thoughts.
And really. I don't hold the rangers in a bad light. There are always situations where it is easy to point fingers without knowing the facts. Unfortunately, the jumpers have had their share of bad apples spoil the pot over the years. I am sure that LEO has had their share as well. They are better at keeping it quiet, though.
I would be interested to hear the point of view of law enforcement on this topic. Not that guy who posts twenty times a day on this thread who seems full of hate. I would enjoy sitting down and asking WTF?
Why export this culture of hatred and manhunting to a place like Canon de Chelly, where they loved us and we were free for years with the full knowledge of the park service?
Why Lake Powell? Don't you guys have better things to do than to pull off all active duty officers for a full day just to try to catch a jumper? I saw that happen twice. And they were the wrong guys. It was like the opening day of deer season.
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ElCapPirate
Big Wall climber
California
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Sep 15, 2010 - 05:50am PT
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MTucker, I send you all the best. I am not full of myself, but full of LIFE. You should try and search for one… it’s amazing.
Nice post 104
Court went well, they offered me a reasonable deal, dropping most of the charges, (of course) but had to hold out on one issue, so I obviously plead not guilty. The new magistrate seems like a fair judge and good character.
Oh, and my attorney said it was ok to post here because it’s only the internet and it doesn’t count, haa haa
Good will towards supertopians/us, cheers
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enjoimx
Trad climber
SLO Cal
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Sep 15, 2010 - 07:07am PT
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Good to hear. Base104, your post was great!
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Delhi Dog
climber
Good Question...
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Sep 15, 2010 - 07:33am PT
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Base, thanks for taking the time to share your experience and perspective.
Cheers,
DD
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Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
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Sep 15, 2010 - 08:34am PT
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just a little advice, pirate. if this gal decided she liked you better, just be happy about it--if you really are happy about it, that is. the poopiest thing anyone can do in your situation is to try to give advice to the former boyfriend based on her pillow whisperings about what she didn't like about him. and i do hope the ranger was nice to her after you hightailed it on outa there.
having been through all that a couple times, mtucker, i can only say that you may look back one day and figure that ammon did you a favor here. those lost girlfriends don't look nearly as good after a few years' retrospective.
that said, thanks to 104 for a thoughtful post, worth every word. a little reminder: this is a climber's site, despite uncle mcnamara's obvious interest in BASE. me, i like to think. i don't need to clear my mind artificially. thinking is one of the best things humans can do. a lot of us try to escape it. if you're trying to do that, you probably should learn to think differently. and c'mon back to climbing if BASE starts to get boring.
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MisterE
Social climber
Bouncy Tiggerville
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Sep 15, 2010 - 08:57am PT
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Great post, Base! Thanks for taking the time to write down your thoughts and share them.
i don't need to clear my mind artificially.
Tony - not sure how jumping is clearing your mind artificially. From Miriam Webster:
a : lacking in natural or spontaneous quality
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Klimmer
Mountain climber
San Diego
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Sep 15, 2010 - 09:35am PT
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Long live BASE. I'll probably never do it, but I sure get a rush out of reading your stories and watching the squirrel flyers. Too cool. You guys are like Superman.
Personally, I think the LEOs like the chase. It is the only thrill in their lives. Go figure. Maybe they should start jumping and flying rather than tasing people?
I will stick to flying my wing fully open and generating lift before my feet leave the ground.
Paragliding regards, blue skies, and happy landings,
Klimmer
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MisterE
Social climber
Bouncy Tiggerville
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Sep 15, 2010 - 09:58am PT
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there are many definitions of artificial, misterE, and i think you're choosing to miss my point.
No, I was asking for clarification. I stated: Tony - not sure how jumping is clearing your mind artificially.
Now, who is choosing to miss the point?
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Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
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Sep 15, 2010 - 10:21am PT
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i'm not sure either, erik, since i've never done it. i'm just taking 104's word for it.
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Sep 15, 2010 - 01:54pm PT
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Jeff cuts to the heart of the problem.
They are cops that don't get many criminals to practice on.
Sooooooooo,..........
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rlf
Trad climber
Josh, CA
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Sep 15, 2010 - 02:08pm PT
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Hmmmm, I've never felt that fatty was full of hate.
Interesting. Inaccurate in my opinion, but interesting none the less...
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Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
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Sep 15, 2010 - 02:18pm PT
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i think we need to work fatty over a little. seems like a mellow fellow, perhaps a little too mellow for what he promises. for example, he's promised to get williamson rock reopened to climbers singlehandedly through his connections to republican big-shots.
(drumming my fingers on the table here ... continuing to drum them ...)
oh, sorry. wasn't sure if that was going to happen before facelift, after facelift, or when we get a republican majority in congress and/or a republican president again. perhaps he could clear that up.
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Gene
Social climber
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Sep 15, 2010 - 02:33pm PT
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Best wishes Ammon! Hoping for the best possible outcome for you.
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John Moosie
climber
Beautiful California
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Sep 15, 2010 - 03:04pm PT
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Base104..
Spiritual gurus could learn some lessons from you. Awesome post.
...
I think Base is talking about Tucker, not Fatty. Though I could be wrong.
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BASE104
climber
An Oil Field
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Sep 15, 2010 - 03:33pm PT
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No...fatty. You have been pretty reasonable on this whole thing.
Just that one guy. I don't know what his deal is. I hope he can open his eyes if he feels like it.
And I was specifically not talking about LEO in Yosemite. That will do no good, and I have to believe that they are professionals. Even though you know and I know and everyone who ever spent a few years sleeping in the dirt has had some hassles with them.
Example: I hear a lot of Lober hating, but then you read the JesseM post on that Nose Rescue. Lober was the man on that one. So people are never black and white.
Good luck, Ammon. Out of this entire thing that you are going through, and so many others have as well, it is the gear seizure that seems so unfair.
The aerial delivery law has been taken to a court of appeals once. I can't remember the entire details it was such a mess.
But where does the judge come off taking away thousands of dollars worth of gear? They sure don't take away someone's car in a DUI, which I consider far more serious.
But hey, I will at least buy you a new pilot chute. I have given pretty freely to both Layton Kor and Jim Bridwell. All connected together through the brotherhood of the rope, ya know.
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graniteclimber
Trad climber
Nowhere
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Sep 15, 2010 - 04:16pm PT
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"Can you tell us what was the offer they made and what they told you were the expected outcomes in terms of penalties if you did/didn't take the first offer? That can't affect your case,"
The hell it can't! Take Fattrad's advice and keep quiet.
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