texplorer

Fear is the path to the dark side... fear leads to anger... anger leads to hate.. hate leads to suffering. "If once you start down the dark path, forever it will dominate your destiny" --Yoda

I have seen WW crank down some serious shit and then seen the "livin the life" guys spray about some "sick" 5.9's. I think that being a WW encompasses a great many people. There are those who climb 2-3 times per year, those who climb every weekend, and those who climb every weekend and workout in their garage in the evenings during the week. All fall into the def. of WW but can have vastly different skills. Having climbed for over 6 months last year and be relegated to the rolls of the weekend warriors I know that your passion doesn't wane - only your bank account. Thankfully student loans help me put off the enevitable four letter word of disdain but at some point we all become W. warriors. After all, would you want to be the 50 yr old single guy/girl that is a bad ass climber with alot of experiences. Before you answer remember all that you have is a few cool pics, memories, and alot of old gear. No family, no nest egg, no retirement plan. Unless your a trust-a-farian your destined to at least some time in the Weekend Warrior status. And even if you do have money most people want to have some life outside climbing. So there you have it. The reason why we are WWer's (in my humble opinion). PS screw FOTH.

Do you hear a faint "See I told you so."

That North Ridge looks like a bitch to get to but looks like the most fun route on the mountain..

AP-Press Team Snafflehound came out of nowhere to win the coveted PPP race this year. Says one contestant from the 3 time champion team , " I was about to start the race and then I felt a sharp pain in the back of knee. It seemed I had been clubbed by a large cylindrical piece of sausage. When I turned around I saw someone running away with the word SPRAY and a chipmunk logo or something on their shirt." Later in the race most of the front runners were dumbfounded by a bizarre event of which has never been seen before. After reporting hearing strange music thousands of cat size furry animals came from out of the forest and gnawed contestants clothes right off of them. One team, Team Snaffle, seemed to be oblivious to the onslaught used the moment to take the lead which they did not relinquish for the rest of the race. Upon victory they were observed toasting beer and summer sausage and taunted the other teams with vulgar uses of their 2 foot long summer sausage celebration dance.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .sketchy. . . . . . . . . . . .

Yea, but watch out if you fall. Some of them can be a cheese grater.

That looks like basalt. That cling on dude looks familiar. . . is that pebble hail I see.

Lay backing is poor form for crack climbing. tch tch

It's all about the feet FS. One foot in the crack and the other on the face to the right. Up higher I could see how being a shorter person might make it difficult to chimney up in certain sections but nothing a little good technique practice couldn't change.

My def of a testpiece: An asthetic classic line with hard but characteristic moves and protection for the grade. The route need not be incorrectly graded but should be stout and provide a good variety of moves and techniques necessary to be able to climb all other routes at that grade. Obviously there are few 5.9's, for instance, with .9 chimneys, ..9 friction, 9 OW, .9 face, and .9hand and finger cracks all in the same x amount of feet. Once you can lead a true test piece you are probably ready for the easiest climbs of the next grade that have similar type climbing on them. Some of my fav trad examples Yos- Steck Salathe 5.9 Beacon Rock- Free for Some .11a " "- Free for All 5.8 Leavenworth- Damnation Crack 5.9 Index- Godzilla 5.9+

I generally agree that good technique saves your hands. Of course when pushing your limits your form usually begins to wane. I guess the ultimate is to be able to climb hard enough so that your HANDS never get chewed up. Fingers on the otherhand are quite different. All climbers I know that climb the harder grades (5.12+) tape at least their fingers in some form or another at times. I even saw the rockstar Potter and his rockstar wife both taped up at the Creek this last spring. There is a macho thing on CC.com which I am a proponent member of, which will ridicule you for using tape but in reality I too tape in certain situations. If tape is aid then so are sticky rubber, chalk, compasses, watches, altimeters, and for that matter any kind of pro. Note: I will disavow any knowledge of this post if you try to bring it up again in this or any other post. -back to spraying.

Lynn maybe a sporto, but she can climb the nose in a day and there's not too much sport climbin on that bitch.

Greetings Caveman, Glad to see the original avatar back in action.

They always announce those falcon nesting closures but the falcons seem to always nest there despite the signs. I am with the falcons on this one though. Tell em to fight the man. PS those perigrine eggs are tasty.

So I was wondering how many mountains and crags have a "beckey route" on them. It's got to be alot.

The beckey route is at every crag and on every mountain in the cascades.

When can you reliably start climbing dry rock at the Menagerie?

Is flagstone dry yet. Just wondering if there was still snow up there?

Both Ian and Alex gave great beta. I think you can cross the Yokum via a narrow traverse at about 8600ft or descend 500-600ft lower and traverse a much easier ledge system. You will also probably deal with descending crevasses on the Reid when heading down next to the Yokum ridge. Once you cross over be aware, as Ian said, of the shrund and other large crevasses on the lower Sandy and don't be lured into going up too soon. Basically keeping traversing until you cant and then head up the obvious wide shoot. It's more of an endurance effort that technical however. Good luck and have fun. It makes for a long day of climbing.

The 11th essential - jar of vaseline Now all Mountaineer packs will be .5lb heavier (except Trask's, he always has vaseline)

yes, the lifestyle is killer being poor, seeing your friends go on trips to denali while you have tons of free time to read the climbing porn mags, but you do get alot more sex so I guess it all works out ok

If your feeling truly burly there's always -Separate Reality .11d I agree with the Spec. Ed. and the others here. Steck Salathe is my favorite climb ever but you really can't go wrong in the valley. Have fun and post a TR.

Ok rbw I was climbing with a sport climbing friend of mine who has done a handful of trad pitches in his whole life so I thought, "why do something easy like outerspace when I can make him lieback much harder stuff that will be fun for me." I had him lead the first shitty pitch of galaxy. From there I took over, which was fine with me since I would rather lead every pitch anyway. I took a good 15ft fall just above one tree ledge on some crack that started easy and closed up to nothing. I found the dihedrals up higher to exciting and spicy. I really wanted to continue up hyperspace but thought my tiring friend would do better on the bolted routes above library ledge. The pitch coming out of the dihedrals and onto the shield headwall has some spice to it too with some 40ft+ runnouts on the chickenheads. I was fully expecting him to lead the bolted pitches up high but he told me he wasn't up for it. So I pictured myself as the sharp witted DFA in pink/black striped lycra tights and lead out on the frictiony face. I was doing pretty good until I reached the crux of Edge of Space where I fell 4-5 times. Defeated by the strange ways of the boltclipping route I lowered to the belay. Another party came up from below and although they too fell at the crux, informed me that you basically lieback the arete. Leading the pitch for the second time I was able to lunge and grab a runner I had them put on the bolt. It was not the style I usually like to take but at that point I was getting pissed at the climb and I knew my partner wasn't going to try if I backed off. We topped out and had an uneventful hike out except for meeting the lovely Mrs. GregW and several other notable CC.comers. I topped off the weekend with Brass Balls over a castle rock. Nothing too spectacular about my ascent of the route. It is one of the best pitches of the grade I have ever done but I thought it was easier than other castle rock routes of the same rating. Overall a great time in the mountains.

. .. . and I got schooled on edge of space!