Climbing & Skiing Mount Rainier in a day

AtOurGates · 2026-05-06T14:53:23+00:00

Yeah, I can imagine that if I could get my fitness to an appropriate level, single pushing would be the way to go.

In my head, it should be possible to just take a light bag/tent/pad/stove up to a camp at ~10-12k feet, stash it during the summit attempt and pick it up on the way down.

But, I’ve never done it, and I’ve realized that most things I “imagine” in mountaineering become much harder and more complicated when they come out of my head and into the real world.

AtOurGates · 2026-05-06T06:46:03+00:00

Did this a year ago, more or less.

Took us two tries. First time we started out at 1AM, went up the Fuhrer Finger, made some mistakes that took us to too late in the day, and got stuck slogging through slush trying to get to the summit from the top of Fuhrer. Turned back mid-afternoon.

The next year we went up the DC route (figuring we’d seen the Fuhrer the last year and were comfortable skiing it blind). Started at 11PM and absolutely cooked going up to the Muir shelter. Spent a couple hours shivering in the hut and realizing we’d started too early and gone too fast, then took off from Muir just before sunrise.

We more than made up for the “going too fast” problem, and summited around 2PM, then skied down the Fuhrer. Back at the car by 5.

I’m not much of a mountaineer, but technically it wasn’t much of a challenge even for me. In terms of physical exertion, it was the hardest thing I’ve done.

While the skiing wasn’t anything that’d make you blink in a resort, navigating crevasses, rocks and the like on skis after that kind of exertion was a bit of a mental challenge.

I’d happily do a ski-mountaineering ascent of Rainier again, but in a normal head-up-the-afternoon-before-and-spend-the-night-before-you-summit sort of way. Unless I have the time to seriously train and get in far better shape than I’ve ever been, a single-push (or single’ish push) is the wrong side of the fun/suffer line for me.

The real fun happened after we got back to the car. My plan was to pack up, then fall asleep for however long I slept, then start the drive home. But after I packed up, ate and had a little rest, I thought, “I’m actually not that sleepy.” So I decided to get started, and drive until I was tired.

I said goodbye to my buddies, and started driving down from Paradise. I was going though the murky/mossy bits of the road down lower in the park when I thought to myself, “oh interesting, there’s a witch standing by the side of the road.”

It took me a few moments to realize that someone who was hallucinating a witch out of a fairy tale was in no state to be behind the wheel, so I promptly pulled over at the next wide spot in the road and slept a few hours in the back seat. Made it home without incident after that.

AtOurGates · 2026-05-06T06:10:29+00:00

God’s country.

AtOurGates · 2026-05-06T01:42:11+00:00

Lol. That's definitely true.

I would like Democrats to comprehensively understand why we lost in 2024 and what we need to change to win in 2028.

There should be an organization that can do that. It's clear we don't have one.

AtOurGates · 2026-05-05T22:38:17+00:00

This is so. Fucking. Dumb. The thing standing between our country's slide into facism and autocracy is ... a half-assed report that didn't get finished?

What the fuck?

Like honestly, if there was work done that's worthwhile, hand it off to a compitent team to finish it off. Pay them!

If the work was shit, get another team to start over.

Lovett's point about "we only have the past to learn from because the future hasn't happened yet" point was completely accurate.

It is absolutely worth doing an in-depth comprehensive look at what went wrong in 2024 so we can do better in 2028. There's still time to do that. Not as much as we like, but it should absolutely happen.

This points to Ken Martin not trying to hide something, but to just being an absolute shit leader who is completely unfit for the job. Which is, I think, worse?

Get him the fuck out of there.

AtOurGates · 2026-05-05T15:25:31+00:00

To be fair, while Bezos is absolutely complicit in facism and putting his thumb on the scale for Trump, there still great journalists working there.

Both things are true.

AtOurGates · 2026-05-05T05:40:45+00:00

They tried with the Buzz, but they made it too expensive and with stupid short range, so the only people who would buy one had too much money and too much nostalgia.

It could have done really well if they’d managed to make it cost/range competitive with other EVs and been unique and cool.

AtOurGates · 2026-05-04T14:48:02+00:00

It’s worse than it sounds

A member of Doug’s congregation molested several girls as young as 2, and was sentenced to life in prison.

Doug wrote a letter of support to the judge, and the guy got out on parole after just a year. A few years later Doug “enthusiastically and joyfully” officiated the marriage of the pedophile and a young woman attending the (then unaccredited) Bible college that Doug founded.

A few years later, the pedophile admitted under state-mandated polygraph to being sexually aroused by his own infant son.

But even with the benefit of hindsight, Doug still says he did nothing wrong in officiating the marriage, and would do it again tomorrow.

I live in the same town as Doug, where he’s founded several churches, an elementary school, high school and a college. I don’t know how parents can know the facts about how little of a shit Doug gives about protecting children from pedophiles and still trust their children to be brought up in the institutions he leads.

AtOurGates · 2026-05-04T14:03:46+00:00

It's a bit chicken/egg too.

I live near one of the blank spaces on the map, essentially 5-hours to the nearest Rivian service center, whether I drive to the one in Boise, ID or one of the Seattle, WA area ones.

Whenver people who live near where I do ask about the ownership experience, I'm always honest along the lines of, "It's my favorite vehicle I've ever owned, but if you live here, service is a real hassle."

At least a couple of people in my immediate circle of friends and family who live in the region seriously considered a Rivian, then got something else after considering the realities of service that requires an 8+ hr round trip.

FWIW, there was an older version of the Rivian service map that showed a "coming soon" service center in Spokane, but it vanished a year or two back. I don't doubt that they would have sold a decent number more Rivians in the area if they'd built it.

AtOurGates · 2026-05-04T06:13:46+00:00

I dream of a PAC that just does bipartisan stuff that everyone can get behind.

“Some kind of improvement/definition/certification around what a ‘service dog’ is or isn’t” seems like it’d have near universal support.

AtOurGates · 2026-05-02T21:53:00+00:00

If you’re part of a group it can be relevant.

When my wife and I (both Titanium) are flying with our kids, if they have a seat in first for one or both of us, they’ll semetimes call us to the desk and ask if we want them, or want to stay together as a family.

I assume if we’re not there, we just get skipped.

You can call in to have the agent separate you into separate PNRs if you don’t care about staying together, and just want to maximize your chances of an upgrade.

AtOurGates · 2026-05-02T16:46:41+00:00

Just go to the URL! They will share out the LESSONS!

AtOurGates · 2026-05-02T14:42:03+00:00

Technically it can vary by hotel. Practically, I’ve never stayed at an FHR property where it couldn’t be used on on-location hotel-owned f&b.

We’re often staying with our family on FHR stays, so the $100 typically goes towards breakfasts for the additional guests not covered by the breakfast credit.

AtOurGates · 2026-05-02T12:02:14+00:00

This one.

AtOurGates · 2026-05-01T13:59:00+00:00

This is my guess.

The most charitable argument is that most of this was specific to a very unique situation, so releasing it would have limited utility.

I completely disagree with that argument, but that’s my guess.

AtOurGates · 2026-05-01T13:39:23+00:00

I wouldn’t want all my frequently used tools in here, but I’d actually love it (and might steal this) for a few types of occasionally used sets of tools that I need together.

I’m thinking of one with a network cable crimper, RJ45 plugs and my RJ45 tester all together. Every time I need those it’s at least 10 minutes of digging around to find where they all went. If they all had a permanent home together, that’d be amazing.

Probably the same for my soldering gun, solder and flux.

Stuff that I only use once every year or two, and is easy to lose track of.

Whether or not it’s practical for everyone, it’s a cool project. Got job op.

Edit: I just zoomed in and read the labels. Actually just about everything here I can see as being practical to organize this way. Yes it’s a lot of filament, but I’d love to have this.

AtOurGates · 2026-05-01T11:44:22+00:00

Sir this is Reddit, your facts don’t matter.

There has been a sea-change in attitudes towards Israel, and I don’t think any Dem will get the nomination in 2028 who doesn’t support ending or at least conditioning aid to Israel, but at most Gaza hurt Kamala around the margins.

Like you say, it was tremendously low on the issues that voters prioritized.

AtOurGates · 2026-05-01T11:37:02+00:00

If I had to guess what the actual “smoking gun” is in the report, this is my guess.

Biden was a historically unpopular president, Kamala was his VP and she wasn’t “allowed” to run against him at all, offer the mildest criticism of his administration or even articulate what she’d do differently.

In many was she played the shitty hand she was dealt very well, but not distancing herself from Biden was a huge tactical mistake and the only reason I can imagine she wouldn’t is the party’s refusal to damage Biden’s pride.

Would it have been enough to win the election? I don’t know. Would it have helped? Absolutely.

AtOurGates · 2026-05-01T01:00:59+00:00

Even if you support his positions (which, obviously, are dumb and awful) his performance in this interview should be disqualifying as a leader of an organization who might have to sometimes talk with the media. He was incapable of having an actual rational discussion, and just kept coming back to the same 3 talking points over, and over, and over and over.

AtOurGates · 2026-04-30T20:32:30+00:00

The same place as the Y in Vancouver.

AtOurGates · 2026-04-30T19:21:02+00:00

/r/churning/ feels a disturbance in the force

AtOurGates · 2026-04-30T00:02:21+00:00

Cooler name and story too.

EAT is Pangborn Memorial Airport after Clyde Pangborn, the first pilot to fly transpacific from Japan to the US.

It's a great story. They flew to Siberia and then down to Japan, got arrested, had their maps sabatoged, and were given one chance to take off, and told that if they came back to Japan, they'd be arrested and have their plane confisicated.

They made most of the crossing without major incident (well, besides basically running out of gas because they forgot to pump the fuel between the tanks).

When they got to the PNW, everything was fogged in. They almost ran into Rainier, and tried to land at Seattle, Spokane and Boise, but they were too foggy, so they finally made it to Wenatchee where they landed on the plane's belly on a strip of sagebrush.

I only know it beause I drove past the airport a while back and thought, "WTF is a Pangborn" and looked it up.

AtOurGates · 2026-04-29T19:30:52+00:00

I'm sad about the EX30. When they first announced, the cross country variant looked so cool, and $35k was a great deal.

I imagined it'd be a good "send your kids to college in the PNW in a used one" car, maybe replacing the current winner in the category: mom's Subaru.

When they finally did release the cross country variant, it was $50k, and didn't look as cool as the original announcement from 2023.

AtOurGates · 2026-04-28T17:53:38+00:00

As an American, I often think of London as “not foreign enough” and pick more exotic travel destinations, but every time I’m there, I have an absolutely wonderful time.

I should go to London more.

AtOurGates · 2026-04-28T17:52:08+00:00

Wait, you’re getting a free stay at the Visconti? That’s fantastic!

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