Wallstein

One I haven't repeated but would love to is Edge of Space on Snow Creek. Probably the best bolted route I have done in the state. Amazing position and exciting climbing. Thin Red Line is one I will probably do again for the 3rd time. I think this route is better than Liberty Crack and far less crowded. Northern lights on the Chief is definitely on the list to repeat again and again. A couple of the pitches were sandstone like climbing but on GRANITE! Steep, clean and hard. It can't get much better.

Nelly- Haulbags are heavy and I am small... There is actually a little more to it than that. There is just something about walking up to el cap with your bros, a rack, two ropes, a really small bag, and a shit load of GU and then just climbing....and climbing.... and climbing. I really enjoy testing my body and using it to its fullest capabilities. Climbing 3000ft without stopping has made me aware of what is possible. Next year I hope to go back to Patagonia and try and do something on Fitzroy or Cerro Torre in a push. Light and lucky. One day, once I grow up and mentally mature, I would also like to start alpine climbing and I believe climbing in this style is one of the safest methods possible. Objective dangers scare me a lot and the less time I am at risk due to these objective dangers the better.

I have quite a bit of experience with the single push method of climbing bigwalls in Yosemite. I have never done any alpine climbing this way but I am sure it is very similar. Probably the most important thing that will help you be sucessfull is the correct energy source. I am a huge fan of GU and Balance Bars. I stay away from Cliff Bars and PowerBars because after 24+ hours of only eating them my stomach gets upset. This doesn't happen with GU and BalanceBars. Attitude is also very important to be sucessfull and most importantly to have a good time. Many of my partners start to freak out around the 24 hour mark. It is all mental though, it has nothing to do with how they are climbing our how the ascent is going. These partners start thinking we are moving to slow and everything seems to get under their skin. I just don't let shit get to me, its that simple. If something goes wrong I just deal with it, don't bitch. and don't argue with my partner about it. Arguing when shit is going wrong and you have been up of 30 hours can really be demotivating. I try and understand why things are going wrong and if they are actually wrong or it just seems like everything just sucks. During pushes my goal isn't to sprint for 50 hours but to climb at the most efficent pace for my body and mind. If I move to fast my mind will get worn out before my block is finished and I will end up bonking during one of my pitches. Not to say this hasn't happened though. I have fallen asleep a couple of times on lead, my partners were asleep at the belay too, this is the fastest way to get nowhere. Muscle and general body endurance is also very important. I think somepeople's body just can't handle moving and being awake for 24+ hours. Practice staying awake on a friday night and then go climb Town Crier or even Liberty crack, or just go cragging all day. Don't eat any food you wouldn't have on an actuall push ascent to get your body use to surving on hollow calories. Don't just toprope shit if you were to go cragging, this won't help at all. The goal of this practice is to fatigue your brain not just your body. Or don't practice at all and just go send something, that is the best practice. Chocolate covered espresso beans also help!

Erik how convient for you to use the same color nail polish as me!

Neutrinos rock. After using all neutrinos on a wall rack I went and sold almost all of my ovals. (well actually I tried to sell them but bro who bought them returned them...) I don't ever have a problem with biner shift when using neutrinos. The only thing that causes biner shift is incorrect technique. It happened to me all of the time until I stopped using extra caribiners in the aid process, now that I clip directly to the piece with my aider there isn't a problem. And heck I get a few inches higher with every piece. Not only are they littler and lighter than ovals they are way stronger. Some people think ovals and d's are plenty strong, but I have heard enough stories of people breaking them to know they aren't. I think most of the carbiners I have heard about breaking were due to gate chatter, well this just isn't a problem with any wire gate caribiner like a neutrino. I think gate chatter happens a lot more during an aid fall than normal free climbing due to the nature of aid pitches wondering so much and having so many pieces close to each other. I don't only use neutrinos because they are lighter but because I can rack more of them on my harness at a time. They have slightly thinner profile than most caribiners. I am a wacky trad climber that racks all of my gear on my harness so it is important that it all fits. In regards to them unclipping I have never heard of this problem to be specific to a neutrino more than any other caribiner. The only problem I have found with them is they disappear faster than any other caribiner on my rack! Would you know anything about that ERIK?

Tonsai Beach Party, ThailandWho's game?

What do you know Erik! You can't even pass a belay test.

Fuck the Cube Farm!!!!

I would highly recommend the climbing bum lifestyle. After almost 4 years of on and off bumming (mostly on)I am a much healthier person. Not to mention a much stronger climber. If you need any pointers on how to live like a king but look like a bum locate me when you are in yosemite. I head down there the middle of April and will be there till October. I can introduce you to the "Malt Liquor makes you climb way sicker" way of thinking. I believe Charlie also knows all about this.

quote: Originally posted by Yos: I usually clip a figure 8 as a backup. By just using a stopper knot you are only backed-up if the grigri merely slips. If the 'biner is cross-loaded and fails you are no longer connected to the rope! Sorry but that is incorrect. I clip the the slip knot into my harness and it will catch a fall. And I always tie into the end of the rope.

quote: Originally posted by Lambone: RE:-Crossloading the biner issue... I bet that DMM biner that has the funky plastic part to prevent the biner from spinning around would work well for this. This caribiner does work well except the possibility of fumbling the plastic part when putting the grigri on.

I have used a gri-gri to solo a few walls and I have had very good luck with it. I am yet to fall on it though. I have heard a few stories of the gri-gri not locking up due to a slight pressure being applied to the handle from an arm or another part of the body. If it is real easy aid I will usually clip in a back up knot every 50ft or so. If its hard aid I keep the backup every 25 ft. I use a slip knot as the backup knot because I can tie it one handed and release it one handed. This knot is never weighted because it is used as a stopper knot to lock up the gri-gri. I have never used a rope bag and feeding seems to work fine. I let the rope hang from my harness unless it gets windy out. Then I just coil it and clip it to my harness. I have used a chest harness with the gri-gri and it doesn't seem to make a difference in how it feeds. The reason I use the chest harness is to keep the gri-gri oriented the right way. One of the concerns people have when soloing with this device is it can slide down the spine of the caribiner and in the event of a fall while the gri-gri is in the position it would be loading the biner a weird way and the clip in point of the gri-gri would be loaded improperly. Many people drill a small hole trough the plastic part of the gri-gri and then swage a small loop through it. This loop is then clipped into a chest harness keeping the gri-gri in a vertical position and keeping it from sliding down the spine of the biner. I know people that also cut off the plastic handle to decrease the chance of the handle being depreased which casuses the gri-gri to not luck up. There is a website with pictures that describes all of these modifications. I don't have a link to it but a little searching with google should find it. The lack of a dynamic belay can be a problem while soloing with a gri-gri but there are a couple of methods to make the belay more dynamic. The easiest way is to incorporate a screamer or two into the belay anchor. I have never used this method but i have talked to people that have and they said it has worked. The other method is to incorporate your haul bags into the belay system. What i have done is fix the belay anchor directly into the haulbag and then backup this up directly to the main anchor. What would happen in the event of a fall is the haulbag would be lifted up a few feet just like a live belayer. Hope this helps.

Will, how the hell did you brake a BD hammer. You are the first person i have ever heard of breaking one. I have had my BD hammer for 7 years now and it has gotten alot of use by valley standards and it is in good condition still. I would highly recommend getting a BD one as opposed to using a carpentry hammer. Using a pience of webbing around the head to clean pins just doens't work if you have to clean more than a few pins on a pitch. Your arms will be so tired if you don't use a funkness and have a clip in hole for it you won't be able to put in a pin on your lead. I have broken my funkness part way through a route and had to clean with a piece of webbing and it sucked. Matt, the whole clean climbing thing is great and if that is what you wan't to do don't buy a hammer right now. But if you really get into wallin you will be puttin in pins and cleaning pins and you will need a real hammer.

Well if that was the mold you were talking about I was actually kinda looking forward to it. I am ready to be home and just lounge around for a week or so. But I am in still in Santiago chile so it will be another couple of days until I will be home. 4 more airline meals. Yum

quote: Originally posted by Lambone: Right on dude! Way to break the mold! [ 01-26-2002: Message edited by: Lambone ] What mold are you talking about? If its the one that turns all young kids into die-hard sport climbers, I broke that thing when I was 17 and went to Yosemite for my first time. Mike

We had to cut our trip short because of the good weather. It was so nice I only got 3 rest days during my two weeks there. And those rest days still consisted of hiking two hours. (That actually wasn´t the reason I cut my trip short.) The weather was absolutely amazing from the time we showed up to the time we left. When I left El Chalten in was perfect blue skies and the pressure was still very high. We were able to complete 3 routes. The first being the Guilliamet via the Fonrouge route (I call it the FunRoute) It was reminisent of something like the royal arches in yosemite, 14 pitches the hardest being 5.10+. The next route we did was the Aguja Pollone. This formation is absolutely amazing. It is a giant fin jetting up through the glaicer. It had some the most spectacular climbing and exposure of any route I have done. At numerous points on the route I was actually liebacking the arete of the fin. When the climbing wasn´t on the arete it was perfect fingers, hands or fists. The topo showed the route as 8 pitches but we did it in 5 long pitches. The next route we did was a new route on the SE pillar of Cerro Pollone. The route had been attempted earlier in the season by some italtian guys but they were shut down by ice in the cracks and possibly a 60 foot 7" offwidth. This pitch went at 5.10a (like all good yosemite offwidths). The climbing on the route was once again amazing. There were three full pitches of almost perfect hands and a couple pitches of offwidths and squeze chimneys. We completed the route in 9 long 60m pitches. I think I was possibly the first person to ever stand on the summit of this pillar. My partner and I were amazed that classic moderate lines like this were still waiting first ascents. We scoped a few other lines on the wall that looked like thay would be a little more challenging (maybe for next year.) The trip was an absolute success in my eyes though we were only there for 2 weeks of our planned 7. I figure we got more climbing in during those two weeks than most people get in a whole season or even two seasons. In another few days I will be back in the states probably sitting at my desk job again. Oh how I can´t wait..... -Mike

As many of you know I had been planning on going to Patagonia for a while now. Well I am finally almost there. Right now I am in Calafate. We are just a couple of hours away from El Chalten which is the closest town to the National Park were Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre are. Tomorrow we should reach the Rio Blanco base camp and then shuttle loads to the Marconi Glacier. We hope to try new routes on Cerro Pollone and Pier Georgio. I will be happy just as long as we stand on the summit of something. I heard there were 13 days of good weather in December so hopefully this is a good sign. Well I must go, we are still missing on important supply that we must get in Calafate. Multa. I bet everyone can figure out what that is. Hopefully El Chalten has internet access and I will be ablt to write again. If not I will post again in 6 weeks or so. LaterMike

quote: Originally posted by Juneriver: Sometimes that screaming in my head gets a little too loud. If anyone has the cure-all for that, I'd sure like to know. I have a cure that works for me. Don't keep the screeming inside your head. Let it out. There is nothing wrong with a little external communication with yourself. I find that if I tell myself outload to com down, relax or just to fucking send it works a lot better than just thinking it.

h. MONEY!

We are bringing guns and lots of money! My partner was also a gold glove boxer at one point so I am not to concerned about it. We will probably be buying all of our food in punta areneas chile, I don't think there is a problem with rioting down there.

Last year during this week on was on Native Son on El Cap. I think almost this exact moment last year I was leading the crux of the Coral Sea. I get the willys just thinking about the 8 hours I spent on that lead. I talked to my partner for Native Son just this morning and he also knew exactly where we were last year. He was more scared than me just sitting at the belay. It was his first big wall and he was to scared to clean the pitch. He made it up half way and then rapped down. We both sat there and had a little heart to heart about how absolutely stupid big wall climbing was. Is it weird that I would rather be leading that pitch again than sitting in front of this computer in my little cubicle? A5 is way easier than having a job!

Erik- Why don't we move the location of the Pub Club to Jazzbones? They serve some mighty fine brews and it's a nice location.

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Bizzerik, We better be going climbing on Sunday! Don't pull non of that "I got a girlfriend" shit on me. The "I got a job" thing is understandable because it isn't a choice but you choose the chick. [ 12-13-2001: Message edited by: Wallstein ]

No pub club for me tonight. The and are being provided by the employer tonight.