Dru

Carolyn, i nearly died last fall, fell of a ledge 800' up and caught myself on a bush by one hand as i was going over. was scared of exposure for a while after that, almost stopped climbing for 3 months but didnt really realize i was doing it (stopping) until later. i would say, focus on what you like about climbing and seek out situations that maximize that and minimize fear. oh yeah, and dont climb 2 at a time on ice cause stuff comes off ... and it will be rock season soon anyways!

quote: Originally posted by W: Don't you take your Pocket Pussy along too? Or is that only on longer climbs? what do you think the extra pee bottle is for?

[ 03-14-2002: Message edited by: Dru ]

Helmy is still alive. I heard he was an underwear model for years! The two bros do not get along anymore and never climbed since the 50's. i guess we are gonna have to see the film to find out why. any guesses? maybe helmy peed in freds bong? I know vaguely the guy making this film and I know they did interview Helmy but dont know if it (film) is finished yet. Maybe they will interview Ray now? [ 03-14-2002: Message edited by: Dru ]

i usually take 3 rurps, a cliff hanger, duct tape, blowtorch, Lovetron and 6 pack of maudite, plus an extra pee bottle and a dozen #3 RPs.

quote: Originally posted by scot'teryx: ""Rat? I'll never eat the filthy thing, I dont care if it tastes like pumpkin pie" Don't you mean "Sewer rat might taste like pumpkin pie but I'll never know cause I'll never eat the filthy motherfucker?"

quote: Originally posted by willstrickland: So Dru, since you're alpine climbing all the time, I guess you won't be needing those heavy LAs right? Wanna make some of your loot back? The "memorial" route name is an excellent idea IMO. I will sell you the two Universals for $20 each I take LAs alpine climbing.

GU did not kill Twight when he ate 50 packets of it. figure you burn a lot of that fat that the E solubled into. everybody knows GU, Clif Shot etc were invented by sick perverts to teach heterosexual men what swallowing jism is like.

Two Words and a grade: GRIT ROOF 10c

Shouldnt this thread be called "Oops i did it again?" Salal Creek Walls on Athelstan (5x now and 5 routes)Northeast ridge of Needle Peak (4x?)Squamish Buttress via Snake or Rock On (4x)Old Settler via any route (5x and 6 routes)Angels Crest (3x)Silvertip (3x and 4 of the 6 routes on the mtn.) In general I prefer to go somewhere new than repeat stuff in the alpine. but Needle, Athelstan and Old Settler just keep sucking me back. Silvertip was just an isolated case but the east side is prety good for general alpine climbing.

I will name the first wall route I put up with the gear after him. I feel bad too but apparently guy lived a long and happy life. Oh - I forgot to mention - I got a bunch of these Stubai limestone things too like a ground down square piton, where you drill a 1/4" hole and then hammer the pin into the hole for a "bolt placement" I mean the eye is bigger than the "piton" part

You know, they make GU out of ground up cockroaches, but they never do Fear Factor with somebody having to eat GU.

A guy died that a friend coached the daughter of once at a swim meet or something. Anyways friend calls up and says "They are getting rid of his climbing gear do you want me to grab you some stuff?" "Yup". So I drop by yesterday and get for $20, 4 BOXES OF PINS AND BOLTS!!! Yup I got about 60 pitons (KB to Bong sized) , 7 heads, 7 crack n ups, 4 rigid Friends, 3 biners, 2 hooks, 3 RURPS, about 50 3/8 inch bolts w/ hangers and about 200 1/4" bolts w/ hangers plus a hand drill and a dozen or so drill bits. OOOH YEAH BABY!!

peder ourom and friends climbed a 4 pitch WI 6 on super thin ice up the bluffs across the creek from sunblessed. you heard it here first. lots of people did the 9-pitch 3+ barley/wyvill route aka "Scottish Tale" on the same bluff. dont all rush up there now or anything.

The new route is now called "The Medusa" due to the bizarre snake like frozen dreadlocks of ice pointing every which way but down.

Look in the 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 AAJ. also the 1969 and 1966 CAJ and AAJ. nothing on bivouac.com yet, be sure to post something after your trip.

When you coil up the rope over your shoulder for a shortroped section on a long climb, you can throw a bowline on a coil on that to keep it tied together and compact instead of using a Kiwi hitch or a butterfly knot.

Twight claims in "extreme GU climbing" triplepoint is better than gore under wet conditions?

Why not build 2 huts at Muir, one "smokefree" (for Scott'didas and Larson) and the other with a huge glass bong in the middle for PineyK et al.?

quote: Originally posted by Crackhead: I've got a bong hidden in the smoke bluffs... Not anymore you don't, thanks for the bong bro!

The best thing about Belingham is that it is close to Chilliwack, which is the center of the Universe.

(AUTHORS NOTE: This is my first entry for Jon and Tim's "Superstars of the Cascades" feature. I will improve it with pictures when I get them developed, and the name of the new route when the 3 of us can agree on one. ) Two weeks of cold nights and (eventually) cold days too, with unseasonal lows down to -7C at night, had the lower Fraser Valley in highly unusual but prime conditions for ice climbing. Even rarely formed low-elevation stuff like Bridal Veil Falls was actually "in" and climbable, if not fat. With a forecast of warming temperatures and a day off work it was time to swing tools and kick frontpoints while conditions allowed. After a flurry of emails I got both days organized. Friday would see me and Yanik Berube attempt something unspecified while Saturday, Don Serl and possibly Cam Campbell would come out and we would try do do a new route (also unspecified in advance). So Friday morning Yanik showed up at a civilized time (8:30 AM) after he stopped off in Port Moody to pick up my bibs and harness from the back of a friend's truck where I had left them the previous weekend. We headed out to Hope with ice detectors engaged and annoyed many on Highway 1 by driving slowly along with both heads craned up to look at ice above the road. Pulling into Hope we both elected to go for "The Mousetrap" which was as fat as I had ever seen it, and rarely for the 'Trap, not covered over and hidden by snowfall. Making the quick hike in from the Husky station exit to the ice we found hard avvy debris mixed with rocks and trees indicating that the rains of January had catastrophically detached an earlier formation of the same route. We scrambled by a little pool reminiscent of the one outside the gates of Moria in Lord of the Rings, and racked up at the base of the ice. Just about then it started to snow. I took the first lead and ran out 50m of WI2 up a granite step to a broad, flat terrace and frozen pool. There had once been a 2-piton station here but the recent dirt/ice avalanche had ripped one pin out and bent the other. I ended up belaying on some Tricams in a good crack. Unlike many ice climbs in SW BC the Moustrap forms over solid granite rock and rock pro is easy to find for many of the belays. Yanik got the next lead and the snow came down in earnest. He led a long pitch (over 55m) of WI3 and vanished out of sight above. Eventually I had to move the belay, and then simulclimb a few meters up the ice... finally he called down that he was secure and I was able to start seconding the pitch. It turned out he had climbed the pitch and at its top, passed through a narrow opening to a broad basin. Looking for solid cracks to belay from he had unexpectedly broken through ice and found himself waist deep in a pool of icy water. After extricating himself he had had to creep around the pool by drytooling on avalanche debris to a sheltered ledge where he could belay. Although quite wet, he was keen to continue, so I grabbed the rack and headed off. The next 3 pitches featured more of the same, rope-length steps of WI2+ with flat belays on frozen pools or rock ledges. After I led the fifth pitch I found myself below a large cliff with a narrow, thin mushroomed sheet hanging down it. It was Yanik's lead but he had just broken through another pool, was feeling soaked and delegated lead duties to me. This pitch was a 50m WI3+ on funky ice. The longest vertical section was only a bodylength, and there were lots of mushrooms, but the pro was really bad. I sunk a few screws into ice bulges and ignored the hollow feeling of a screw punching through into an air pocket several times. At the crux I tied off a "mushroom bollard" with a long sling and ran it out 10m to a stance, glad that I was on my 18th day of ice climbing for the season and feeling confident. I probably would have backed off it if this pitch was one of my first leads of the winter. Above this pitch we decided to turn back, although the ice continued up two more WI2 steps above. The blizzard was hiding the ice under snow (about 2 inches of huge, wet flakes had fallen in 4 hours) and we were both pretty damp. The descent was not the greatest. The ropes were soaked and heavy. We rapped the crux pitch, then hiked down through forest on the right hand side for a while, then rapped off a tree back down to the top of the 3rd pitch. The ropes then stuck and I had to solo up a pitch to reach a higher ledge I could pull cross-ways from to free them. Eventually we made it down, soaked but happy to have done such a long and rarely formed route. We drove back to Chilliwack and sorted out the gear. One of my ice screws was missing and Yanik realized I must have forgotten to remove it from where he had placed it backing up a shallow Abalakov atop the second pitch. Yanik headed back to Vancouver and I threw my equipment into the dryer and had a few beers. Don and Cam called and after my report on conditions we came up with a plan for Saturday. Saturday saw them arriving at my place at a much earlier 6 AM. We headed out to Hope again and pulled off the highway about 1.3 km west of the Mousetrap exit with the destination in mind of an intruiging unclimbed curtain which is visible from certain places on the highway, hanging high up on the wall of a huge scree gully. I had been watching this curtain form and collapse for the past 2 winters, while Don had been watching it for over 20 years! We began the bushwack to the gully and passed two interesting and little-known routes, Jet Lag and The Cure, which Don had put up in 96 with Greg Foweraker. From their base we crossed a thick belt of mossy rocks and slide alder before hitting bigger boulders and finally entering the scree gully, an impressive place with mostly clean, and unclimbed, granite walls rising high overhead. After slogging and sliding up a frozen creekbed and boulders we arrived at the base of the curtain after about one hour or so's hike, and racked up. The air was not too cold but high winds were howling and the previous day's snow was swirling around the gully in gusts of spindrift. It was pretty cold and miserable and we all wondered why the hell we we stupid enough to be ice climbers? As I had had 4 leads the previous day I decided not to be greedy and told Don and Cam they could split the task of leading the two pitches of the curtain. Don took the first pitch which looked like the crux. He headed out and led out 57 meters of sustained off-vertical 3+/4- ice to a small sheltered cave belay. To left and right of the cave rock walls and high winds had created bizarre, overhanging ice roofs with twisted icicles looking like Medusa's bad hair day. These dripped incessantly but the belay cave was somewhat sheltered and mostly dry. After we all reached the cave and sorted out gear Cam headed off up the next pitch which began with a short, steep dihedral and then appeared to turn into ramps above. After climbing the dihedral Cam found that the ramps were covered with rotten, crusted snow, so he went right and up a series of short vertical walls separated by good stances. This pitch ended up being slightly harder than the first although less sustained, and gave 55m of WI4 to a large ledge atop the route. On the ledge we sorted gear and prepared to rap. Cam was not impressed with the chunks of frozen lip skin I had adorned his screws with while attempting to blow out the ice cores. I got to rap first and made it back to the cave, then spent a frustrating period attempting to force a chunk of weebbing through two ice screw holes which actually did not connect into an Abalakov. This was solved through vigorous application of an Abalakov hook to the holes in question by the time Don and Cam had rapped, and the second rap went without incident. We packed up and began to descend. We decided to head straight down the scree gully to the highway instead of traversing back thrugh the forest. This would have been pretty funny for a detached observer to witness as all three of us, on occasion, skidded out on ice hidden under snow and took some spectacular tumbles. Fortunately no one broke anything and only our egos got bruised. After several (intentional and unintentional) bum schusses down and over more icy boulders we reached the highway and slogged back to the car. Don and Cam now dropped me off at the Mousetrap before heading into Hope for burgers and beer. I wanted my screw back and so ended up soloing the first two pitches of Mousetrap to get it. Familiar with the route from the previous day, I found it to be much wetter and slushier second time around. Obviously the snow and warming trend were having their effects. In fact I punched through to mid-thigh in an icy pool that had held my weight uncomplainingly the previous day. By the time I got my screw and draw and rappelled I was soaked to the skin, cold and tired. Don and Cam came back from beer and burger, picked me up, laughed at my bedraggled appearance and took me home. Once more the gear went in the dryer, boots in front of the fireplace and out came the last remnants of the 6-pack of brown ale to toast a successful weekend. The unexpected cold weather had let me climb 11 pitches of ice, including a good and much-anticipated new route, in a two-day period in early March. A most welcome but unexpected way to finish off a great ice climbing season.

Just pack trask with a few cans of beans.

i would only support such a plant if we could set a tyrolean from the stack to monkey face.

think global, buy local. support your local growers...