[pct-l] Jack Fair's house

[CMountainDave@aol.com (CMountainDave@aol.com)]

Jack may not have lucked out at the end of his life, but it looks like he 
sure has now with the new trail angel owning his old house. And the PCT thru 
hikers luck out, too

Carbon 14 dating assumes that the decay rate of long lived isotopes is 
lineal. Maybe. Maybe not. Since we won't be around in 5700 years, isn't that 
figure taken on faith?

   Went to Camp Muir on Rainier today to get in shape for next weeks summit 
attempt and test out the rented plastic boots. Pia, a 35 year old woman from 
Finland, kicked everybody's butt. And I do mean EVERYBODY. She even beat the 
RMI guide who was trying his damnedest to be the fastest person on the 
mountain. She came down 4500 feet in an hour and ten minutes. Gonna be tough 
for her to be held back by a rope team. Lots of sunshine but, as usual, 
intermittent bitter winds at 10000 feet. About 4 - 6 feet of snow at the 5500 
foot level. Its melting about 3 inches a day now, so the flowers should be 
out about mid July. Even though it was an above average snowpack, there shou
ld be no snow problems for early thru hikers this year, unlike the mother of 
all snowpacks year of '99 (Mt. Baker sets world record) A dry and clear 
September was the only thing that prevented the entire snowpack above 6000 
feet from making it to the next winter for the first time in recorded 
history. I'm sure many permanent snowfields have expanded because of that 
event and many new ones created. Will they be permanent? Stay tuned and get 
that carbon 14 ready!