They begin by claiming:
First, Marc starts off his post with an epic amount of bullshit, making this relatively easy hike sound like some epic Himalayan trek. He even throws in gratuitous lies about having a lot of experience hiking "off-trail" in the North Cascades (laughter).The M.A.L.adies provide a link to this thread, as have I. I strongly recommend you read it, as the actual thread bears absolutely no resemblance to the M.A.L.ady account above. Adamus gives a straightforward account of the taking of the photograph, another member (Tomas Kaspar, by the looks of it) calls it a "beautiful shot," but qualifies that it's not really "wilderness," whereupon Adamus replies that, although a popular hike, it is technically in the Mt. Baker Wilderness area. Then the conversation moves on to other matters. Only in M.A.L.adyland could this civil, mutually-supportive discussion be retold as a near-apocalyptic battle between the forces of light and darkness. But, wait, the best is yet to come!
Then a concerned Photosig member calls out some of his shit, and Marc goes into the familiar defensive pattern we're all familiar with (ie, I don't remember what I've said in the past, I do what I want, etc etc). You can clearly tell that Marc is bristling at having been exposed, and he's stomping all over this fellow.
More importantly, he added another LIE in his little "tirade". He stated that the hike was "about 5 miles in". This is a RIDICULOUSLY transparent lie! The official hike distance is 4.1 miles (USFS, Lake Ann trail).Yep, you've got that right: In M.A.L.adyland, calling a 4.1-mile hike "about 5 miles" is a grave and unforgivable lie. Most people, of course, would recognize the "about" as meaning it was an approximation, and figure "about 5 miles" was to distinguish between it and, say, a one-mile hike on one hand, and a ten-miler on the other. But not the M.A.L.adies!
Of course, this could be held up as yet another example of the M.A.L.adies making a mountain out of a molehill (except, in this case, it's more like Mt. Everest out of a grain of sand), but I think I've figured out their "logic." You see, you need to ask the question: what sort of person would think the difference between 4.1 and "about 5" miles a huge discrepancy? The only answer I can come up with is "an 'outdoorsman' for whom a 4.1-mile hike is just barely doable, but a 5-mile hike utterly impossible." In other words, someone pretty seriously out of shape, unable to get to locations where much of the best photography can be found. Hmmmm...do you get the feeling we just found out something new about the M.A.L.adies?
I like the responses to the 8x10 post too, where MAL swears up and down Marc could NEVER have won anything at EPI with a film image, when in fact he won in 2006 with his film image "Ocean's Fury". Check out where MAL gets caught in their own lie about Marc here and has nothing to say when someone sets them strait about it. Marc won Art's personal pick for best in show that year with...gasp!....film...and still no response from the queen of lies.
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