Wallstein

Wes is down in the valley right now. I just saw him a couple of hours ago.

Rudy, Its a dogs life is an alternative to the second pitch of jap gardens. From the anchors on top of p1 step left onto a small ledge and climb the crack on the far left. It is shown in darryls book. He recommends bringing pins if you want to lead it but it can be protected with grey tcu's and 3 and 4 hb's. Its short but it packs a punch. its kinda a test in gear placing skills. It just got a super scrub down so its pretty clean. Have you done Stiff kittens. Thats also a good one to do up there. also just scrubbed. I think you heard wrong rudy. I did do the second pitch of stern farmer though. One big mega pitch through the corner and exit right out the roof. One of the best pitches I have ever done. 165 ft of varied strenous climbin. It can also be done exiting left at the roof and climbing to the jap garden anchors, easier this way. You and tim should get out there and tell me what ya think.

Shirley to Narrow arrow direct!!! Full value, varied, and hard traditional climbing. One of the best crag routes in WA. 11c, 10b, 10d, 10. The first 5.10 at index. Classic. You could bring a 4.5 for the last pitch but just bring a 4 camalot and run it out. Thats what the old dads did. Jap gardens to 10%. excellent climbing. Some steep crack, a little thin fingers, and some awesome slab. pitches of 11c, 11b ,9+ 11b/c. You can toporope a Its a Dogs Life, (11c) on the way back down. If ya tick both in a day its kinda like the rostrum of WA. Although both climbs are horribly neglected they are managing to stay pretty clean.

I have feed a few lines before. I unfold a coat hanger and duct tape the 11/6 to the hanger. Then just push the hanger through the 1".

Bob, I think you are generaly right but I think there is a greater variance in the ratings of traditional pitches. Also the amount of time needed to become of strong traditional climber is much longer. I know alot of people that have been climbing for less than 3 years that can climb 5.12 sport. I can't say I know anyone who has only climbed for 3 years that can climb 5.12 trad. To me that says trad climbing is more difficult even if the ratings are the same. Lets take the Narrow arrow direct for example. (the last pitch was the first 5.10 at index) That thing is pretty dam burly. Compare it to any 5.10 at Exit 38. There is no way these routes are the same difictulty. I am pretty certain I know how to climb OW pretty well and I was huffin and puffin to send it. However I can get up any 5.10 at E38 with ease. Another example. The first few pitches of Flying buttress direct on the sentinel in Yosemite. They are rated 5.7. I have onsight soloed plenty of 5.7's in my life but if I had chosen to solo the first few pitches on the Flying buttress I would be DEAD! They are full Fucking value. Steep slick squeze chimneys. My partner who has climbed 5.12 in squamish couldn't even do the moves on this 5.7. He had to batman through them. I thought the moves were somewhere closer to 5.10+. I never seem to find 5.7 bolted routes that i think are 5.10+ How about comparing the Phoenix in yosemite to Darkness at Noon at smith, both 5.13a. The skill required to send the phoenix is much greater than that of the skill required to do Darkness, thus making the phoenix harder. When leading Darnkness you don't have to worry about placing gear in your hand holds ever. Not so on the phoenix. I think these routes are of very similar dificulty when on top rope but when dragging the rope the phoenix is way harder. Hanging out on overhanging ring locks and having to fire in gear that isn't going to get in the way is much more time consuming and pumpy that clipping some pre-placed draw. Fuck, whada I know, I am a weak ass punter for just arguing about it. I never was good at football.....

if you are looking for info on patagonia you should check this site out. http://www.climbinginpatagonia.freeservers.com/main_i.htm Its mostly in spanish but google can traslate it for you.

*****REDPOINT BOT VER 6.9 NEED PARTNER******* *****WILL MALFUNCTION IF PARTNER NOT FOUND***

Yesterday I went through my small nuts and found half (10+) of them to have broken cables. The worst I have found is my yellow alien with broken wires where it attaches to the head of the cam. Last year I broke the head of a green alien right off. It was 10 years old though. I have probably broken around 5 biners using them for various things. I saw a brand new BD wiregate break in half while hauling loads on el cap. I have broken numerous BD light d's while funking out pins. I started using Kong keylocks with really stiff gate action and I haven't been able to break anymore. I dropped a heavy load onto a rock exotica wall hauler during a minor epic and fucted it up pretty good, it didn't fail but cut the rope a little bit. I had to beat on the thing with a hammer to get it to work again. I inverted the cam on a petzl basic while hauling. Once again a little hammering and I got it working again. It was retired after the wall. I have never broken anyting thing in a fall though. (I am knocking on my desk right now.)

Looking for a partner for some climbing at index lower wall tomorrow, mostly 5.11 and up. Call 253-905-7076. I will be there regardless if I find a partner or not. Mike

I am on my way to index right now. Looking to maybe do 10% to the top or maybe crag at the blues cliff. Or all of Narrow Arrow if ya got some big gear. Call if yer interested my cell is 253-905-7076. I'll be at the base of lower wall by myself. Mike

If you need those cams this year I wouldn't bother sending them in to CCH. I think their turn around time is around 8-10 months if they haven't already lost your unit. If you just need the triggers repaired, Bernie who works in the mountain shop in yosemite will fix them for you. Give the mountain shop a call 209-372-1001. Thats the yosemite switchboard but they can direct you to the Mountain shop. I have heard that someone in squamish also fixes aliens. Maybe Dru would know.

So BD and Metolius must not trust devices like gri-gris and reverso's since they don't make anything that performs the same function....Metolius must think all ice screws are bunk because they don't make any. It seems to me that i see alot more recalls from BD than I have from petzl/charlet moser. I wonder who has better testing? I am a huge fan of BD but if Charlet moser is still making them they are ok with me. I have used screamers and fallin on them and never have the the pieces pulled. I would really like to see some test results though. But saying they are unsafe because of company doesn't manufacture them isn't a great argument.

I second the West face of el cap being a better route. The posistion isn't as good as the reg though. But the rock can't get any better on the west face.

I don't think this is really good advice. Pretensioning the knot is fine but saying that it is done and you never have to worry about it again is incorrect. Water knots in webbing will continue to slip with continual loading and unloading. BD or someone else has done tests on this and have proven that webbing will keep slipping until failure. I don't really care to find the report as I have seen slipping in webbing first hand. As for tied vs. sewn. It totally depends on what you are doing. Climbing at smiffy for the weekend or 2 months of climbing in Patagonia. I have sewn draws and I have tied slings. Anytime I think I might have to retreat off of a climb I always make sure to bring a few it not all tied slings. If I am trying to send Chain reaction (well I guess the draws are already there but) I would use less bulky better handling sewn-euro-sporto-draws. I never leave the ground without at least one tied sling though. It doesn't matter what I am doing it might save my ass one day. my 2 cents to the penny jar.

Are you guys talking about Check Mark..aka scetch mark? crazy kid with blonde hair and the coke bottle glasses. Probably not a great recommendation to hook up with that guy.

Index sounds nice.

Ya i don't know about any OW on the reg. I didn't bring anything bigger than a #2 camalot last time I did it. The chimneys are very straight forward for Yosemite. There are some short fist crack sections but nothing longer than a couple of bondy lengths. As for the slabs. The supertopo beta is pretty good. I think the approach took around 1.5 hours. But we had to stop and have numerous safety meetings.

I've been up in banff for a little over a week and it has been pretty warm. Things have been falling down. Ice Nine fell down the day after we did it. SCARRY. But everything that is still standing is in pretty easy conditions.

I am not the one to judge WI grades but I could see pilsner being 4+ up the pick holes. We climbed it on the right side, not many pick holes.

Climbed Carlsberg Column, Cascade Cronenberg and Pilsner pillar under perfect blue skies and warm weather. Ice is fat in the rockies right now.

I wouldn't do it yet. It has been very active since the first major slide. I saw it slide in late october of this year. But I know someone who did it the day after the major slide. They kept wondering what all of the dust and fresh white rock was from. Hmmm maybe a rockslide.

Nope no kiddies, but its the fastest home-on-wheels i have seen. It gets me outside 300+ days a year.

145 sounds perfect..... I need another 15 pounds of muscle to pull that thing off. Have you actually tried to lead that thing?

Mike I don't think you are going to be able to find a decked out van like my mine.... You are going to have to get crafty... The best place to find plain cargo vans is at Parknsell.net And whoever says astros don't have enough power hasn't been in a new one. I have a v6 4.3 liter all wheel drive astro that rallys. If you need any beta on the building process drop me line.

I saw someone aid steel monkey on wednesday. Two pins were placed within 10 ft of the ground. It was a pretty sad sight. The climber didn't even try to get a small brass offset in. His said there was no way to do it clean (while standing in his third steps placing a LA that was way to big). I don't understand why aid climbers insist on "practicing" placing pins. Its not like its hard. Nor is it required for any trade routes these days. I was pretty disapointed and couldn't understand why the climber wasn't trying to learn to be a better aid climber. Pins are a thing of the past and newbie aid climbers should realize this.