I strongly second Bob's opinion on Anton's posts. I've been holding fire on commenting, but this is not the first time that I've noticed that Anton sometimes comes across as a condescending know-it-all. The most knowledgable and experienced outdoorsmen/women tend to be cautious with their words and slow to criticize... (see Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin...) which is a good policy in general. We were all young and dumb once.
I was initially reluctant to reply to this comment because the whole thread is already sidelined, but the label is too serious to ignore. My posts in this forum by and large fall into two categories: 1) Asking questions about routes, conditions and logistics (quite inconsistent with the "condescending know-it-all" name tag) and 2) Answering mostly basic questions about gear, trails, routes ect. by folks who appear to be new to the area and/or mountaineering in general. I view the latter as a small service to the community, which I certainly do not expect to receive any reward for in any form. Perhaps the only exceptions include this thread (for the reasons that have been explicitly stated above) and a couple of responses to Ace and Hobbs on highly controversial issues that you and several other regular members seem to have similar views as myself. Since there are not many posts in total and all of these posts are accessible, my claims can be easily verified. Care to support yours by specific examples? In regards to attitudes of professional athletes who represent big corporations, let's not compare apples and oranges unless you know exactly what is going on besides the public eye. I have been fortunate to have several terrific, albeit not nearly as famous, mentors in two different sports that most consider extreme. Virtually all of them tended to be blunt when it comes to offering advice that keeps people alive with all the bones intact. Swallowing such advice is not always easy but when the time goes by you realize that substance has much more weight than form. Take care.
