Looking for beta on Olympics

nwhikers.net ?

Good idea, thanks! There must be some packrafters there.

Enough water won't be a problem. These rivers flow big all year. The Hoh would an awesome trip. About 20 miles up the valley. Check out the glacier. Take a couple days and enjoy it. Put in below the bridge I imagine. From there you could float all the way to the ocean, which would be much further than you hiked in as the trail starts inland from the salt water (15-20 miles?).

Concerns (besides the strainers you mentioned) would be having a good warm-up plan if you flip. That's very cold water as it's glacier fed and if you got soaked during a wet & rainy period hypothermia would be a real possibility even in July or August. Most of the rivers you mentioned are pretty fast flowing, so even with pretty long miles it could go pretty quick.

Would LOVE to read a trip report of this! Good luck!

Ok, maybe I'm a crank or a language nazi, but I really dislike it when people use the word "beta" when "information" is what they are after. And it doesn't help that Backpacker and climbing magazines use it constantly.

Rumored origin and incomplete history: climbers in California somewhere asked each other for route details by asking for the "Betamax", in reference to the failed (i.e. commercially) video competitor to VHS. Then one guy started asking "What's the beta, Max?" and the in-crowd loved it. Then Backpacker and others picked up on it, I guess everyone thought it was cool to have their own special word.

Rant over, but I really do not like that word! ;-)

I have a different view of the history and use of the term "beta" in outdoor sports.

"Information" is too general a term; it does not get the right idea across. Software goes through a release cycle, with beta still a test stage. See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_release_life_cycle

So alpha in packrafting would be a first descent, where a little information might be available afterwards, but generalizing to other conditions would be hard to do. Beta reflects a request for the voice of experience with the hopeful end of being saved unnecessary inconvenience or agony in a technically demanding sport. Many more words would be needed to modify "information" to get the same focused message across, so beta is probably here to stay.

I have no beta on Olympic NP rivers to share, so I apologize to the OP for adding to the thread drift.

Hi Steve,

I got my information from:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_(climbing)

As a semi-professional in the programming world I know about alpha and beta testing. According to Wikipedia this is not the origin of the use of "beta" as discussed here.

"Beta reflects a request for the voice of experience with the hopeful end of being saved unnecessary inconvenience or agony …"

Well said.

All to often a request for information here yields countless opinions, assumptions, and suggestions by those who have never been there, or in that situation, or even in that part of the country.

"Beta" cuts to the chase.

Elliot,

The Wikipedia article you cited is a stub lacking references. A single person was mentioned as the originator with no substantiation. To me the article reads like an urban myth. Just how somebody — the author of that stub — could be so sure of a first use is beyond me, when the engineering/nerd/computer science community (all familiar with beta versions of products) is so over-represented in climbing, packrafting, etc.

I respect your cringing at hearing the term "beta" for I cringe at the thought of humans tweeting. Language evolves when terms meet needs and both terms do.

This thread has really been hijacked!

The origin of beta is much discussed on the web and there is much disagreement. But see Curt's post on (you have to wade through a number of jokes):

http://www.rockclimbing.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?t=18072&postdays=0&postorder=asc&topic_view=&start=0

He claims to have been there when the word was coined and that he knew the people who coined it (Gunks, not California, he says).

I'll never forgive Jack Mileski… ;-)

Elliot, your account of the term is what I've always heard. Quite sure it has little/nothing to do with computers/IT. I do agree with Steve that the term has a useful specificity and isn't just a synonym for information.

so by invoking "beta" I can be sure that all of the information I receive thereafter is absolutely accurate. Whereas by leaving out the term 'beta', all responses are suspect. Good to know.

I'd suspect magical thinking, but everyone here is giving beta info.

Searched for hard to find Olympic packrafting info but instead got the scoop on 'beta'. Hoping the thread killer at least had roots in the climbing community I read on for original opinion, but the crank merely cut and pasted from the net.

There is some basic info on the Queets and Hoh over at packrafting.org, in the northwest regional forum.

I did a backpacking/packrafting trip in the Olympics last summer on the Hoh river.  You can find the trip report below in case anyone is interested:

https://backpackinglight.com/forums/topic/olympic-national-park-packrafting-trip-august/