Well, we are embroiled in another huge land grab, this time in the Swan Valley, in western Montana, a magical place near and dear to my heart.  I lived in Swan Lake between 1977 and 1992 and enjoyed an “early retirement” at age 30 for several years, just to get a feel for what retirement meant.  I hiked, climbed, camped, boated, fished, hunted, and all the things one can possibly imagine in a valley with little private land, and even fewer local, year-round residents.  It’s all up for grabs now, and the prognosis does not look or feel good.

A while back POM discussed a land grab in the Crazy Mountains, located between Livingston and Big Timber, where an elite developer wants to heli-ski and trek and generally exploit the undeveloped forest and mountains for private profit, catering to the .01%.

Rather than write an article, per se, I’m just going to paste my comments to the U.S. Forest Service, who are facilitating this transfer of land and assets from a “mom and pop” lease/operator to a global, heli-ski/ski area/destination resort conglomerate who will mow down what’s there and put up a mini-Disneyland with all the glitz and glitter necessary to attract celebs and uber-rich jet-setters to play in the once-wild forest and mountain environment that has become super popular since the “lockdowns” of the past few years.  The Great Reset is moving at warp speed in Montana.  Fasten your chin straps if you intend to stay and fight (v. selling out and moving to Ecuador, or Costa Rico, like so many others have already done).

The U.S. Forest Service is accepting comments until September 21, 2022, so if you are so motivated, add your .02, and help make history.  Game on!

Use the following comments in any way you see fit.  Copy, cut and paste, paraphrase, whatever.  Just remember to file your comments before the 09/21 deadline.

Enjoy.

 

Continue reading “Another land grab” →

Thoreau is Full of Shit

By: DS Klausler

­­­­ Nah, he’s cool, mostly, I just liked that title. We’ll get to him later.

“The question is not what you look at, but what you see.”

Only relatively recently have I used this e-mail account for my private communication. Historically, I used the corporate account that I was linked with via employment. Because of that and being reduced-in-staff [because of my age] (I had no means to sue a billion-dollar company), I cannot locate my trip report from a family vacation over a dozen years ago. Strange, but I also cannot locate either my complete digital electronic images or photographs from the same trip. By memory alone, I think that the trip included Niagara Falls, Mount Marcy (NY highpoint), Mount Mansfield (VT) and Jerimoth Hill (RI) – which was a boulder on a trail (really). Missing is the highpoint of Maine – Mount Katahdin (5,269’).

My memory also says that #1 Son and I turned back high on Katahdin due to high winds and near zero visibility in the fog and rain. I recall being very concerned that he would have dangerous difficulty on the even more slippery exposed rock and sparse re-bar hand holds. I thought, back then, that he was a little kid. It was only after we had returned home that I dug a little deeper into maps, trails, images and trip reports that we had halted just a quarter-mile mile from the summit. In good visibility, we would have been able to see the summit. More on this later.

Wifey and I reviewed, and I found just seventeen images – NONE of the hike up. It turns out that #1 Son was almost FIFTEEN – but he was a very slight kid – very much like his father in his youth. Photos show his height just to my shoulder; so maybe five-one. Anyway, my thoughts remain clear about one thing: it would have been too dangerous for him on the worsening wet and very steep descent.

Continue reading “Klausler Chronicles once more” →

I did not know that when Ab asked me to be on his podcast last night that he wanted to talk about, of all things, 9/11. I really wasn’t prepared, and in fact, have not written much about that day over the years because others have it covered. It is so big, so much research has been done, and more yet to be done.

One guy who has done yeoman’s work on that day is Simon Shack. The podcast below is over two hours, pretty daunting, I know. If anything, listen to the first hour, which is Simon. It is really interesting.

Continue reading “Another chat with Ab (Fakeologist)” →

This post, as I envision it, will be a ramble about a number of topics not even related, but hopefully that generate interest and comments over the weekend. But first, I want to highlight a comment from yesterday, as I recall, on the Carl Sagan post:

Yeah, agreed on Sagan, and his successor in scientific fraud, Neal DeGrasse Tyson. I did not want this post to be a forum on Sagan, as he did say some useful things, as in “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”

As long as I am leading with my chin, I will lead with that, but the reason I want to highlight the comment is that in the history of this little blog, it is number 50,000. I did at one time eliminate a large number of posts as part of a general cleanup, and when a post is discarded all comments underneath it go too, but officially, that it #50K.

Continue reading “Some specious-osity” →

This subject came up in the post beneath (A Tale of Two Countries) about the 14th Amendment. Was the South legally justified in seceding from the United States? BMSeattle left a comment that summed up my attitude on the question, here. Of course it was justified! Voluntary going in, voluntary going out.

My only thought about the violent response was what we now call “Balkanization,” or the fragmentation of a large region or country into smaller countries, as happened with Yugoslavia after the death of Marshall Tito. While it may seem a normal and legitimate process, it is usually accompanied by warfare. I was once years ago listening to Larry King on radio late at night, not being a good sleeper. He had on a CIA analyst, and he commented on the United States. I paraphrase: “The remarkable thing about this country is that it has held together as long as it has, and not fragmented.”

Continue reading “Secession … Is it OK to just leave?” →

A couple of matters, and I need to do this quickly. Our Internet signal degrades as people awake and turn on their devices. I can already see things slowing down at 7AM MDT. Later in the day, as people turn on streaming services and little Johnny decides to do some gaming with his friends, our signal will be so intermittent as to be unusable.

This has always been the problem we face with Centurylink (CL) Internet service. We moved here in 2010, and at that time CL offered 1.5 mps, and oddly, that was all we needed. Our TV was supplied by DirectTV, and we did no streaming. For a brief period we switched to a company that beamed their signal from a nearby mountain. The installation technician said that day that signals could range as high as 7 mps, but he was lying. It was 1.5 mps. The company cut back all of its clients to that level to allow for more customers and to make a few more $$$. Since that was all that CL offered, no one up here in the foothills had choice. The dish on our front porch was ugly, so we gave it back to them and went back to CL.

Continue reading “Updates …” →

What Dave refers to as “highpointing” is known to me as “peak bagging.” The object is to reach the highest point in all fifty states. Some, like Florida or Delaware, you can drive to. Others, like Gannett (Wyoming) or Denali, formerly McKinley (Alaska) require great effort, skill, courage, and specialized equipment. My older brother Steve was a Peak Bagger, but he never got to Denali or Hawaii’s Mauna Kea, as he simply did not have time. Denali especially can be a challenge – think of being holed up in your tent for days at a time waiting for the weather to clear. He did manage to do the lower 48. He told me once of coming down from Ranier in Washington in a state of hallucination, dehydrated and physically exhausted. After that, the next day, he and his two companions decided – “What the hell. Let’s go do Elbert too!” That is the highest peak in Colorado, one that I have done. It is a “walk-up”, albeit a 4,000+ feet walk-up with two false summits. (I regard the words “false summit” as the two ugliest words in the English language.) So they drove from Seattle to Colorado the next day, and if I got the story right, jogged up Elbert.

I would say “I don’t get that”, but I do. I am just not motivated in that manner. But I do know that when we, all of us, set out to do something hard, even dangerous, and we accomplish the task, be it highpointing or rafting a dangerous river, what follows is a great sense of satisfaction. With peak bagging, it starts with an adrenaline rush, and ends with that sense of accomplishment. I do indeed get it.

Dave writes of climbing Mt. Borah, the highest point in Idaho. I warn you that he uses foul language, as real people do when in the wilderness. That does not fucking bother me.
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Chicken Out? Panda Mayor? What Gives?

By: DS Klausler

I was in the saloon a couple of weeks ago and had arrived “late” according to The Guys already present – uh huh, sure – it was just 3:50pm on a Friday. The usual rambling discussion of past events was ongoing. A relatively new User to the Tall Tale Club was present and they had meandered to hiking stories – he had never strapped on the big package, or ventured up high enough to challenge flatlander breathing. Specifically, they were speaking of a hike that had a lasting impact on me. Coincidentally, my dental hardware buddy[i] had recently commented out of the blue on the very same location; I didn’t even think to ask from whence the intrigue originated – ding for me. I probably had mentioned it offhanded in one of my [verbal] reports upon return from the trip – I do this following most outdoor adventures. However, I usually write up a brief trip report with as little as long bullet points; this trip generated vocal expansion of the story line. Even more so, this trip warranted this essay. Let me first assure you that no, I do not speak this way professionally, nor would I at your wedding… but certainly at my own funeral (I’ve got skills[ii]).

Continue reading “The Klausler Chronicles: Highpointing” →