pope

Ignorant climbers would do well to abandon the ridiculous and insulting jargon they've developed and to invest a little time learning more about the English language (instead of degrading it). I'm sorry, but when I need to hang from the rope (say, to retrieve a nut), I refuse to demand my belayer to "take". I will be requesting tension. I won't be "sending the sickness" out at the crags; I'll simply be scaling difficult walls competently. Not that a little jargon is so terrible, but traditional belay signals have facilitated safe climbing for decades.

Bill, I also heard the good news about this boy. A report I heard this morning at 1 a.m. said that he had made it out on his own, finding help at a local home. That's one tough kid! Sorry about your cousin. Eric.

With little slack in the schedule and a comprehensive "to-do" list from the Frau, Pope employed the help of Hemlock to secure a noble fir tree for Christmas. Certainly not as sexy as a trip to Smith Rock, it was nevertheless a chance to sneak out of town for a morning, see the hills, drink a little beer. From a logging road high over Greenwater, they could see that Mt. Rainier had put on her winter coat, and that her flanks would soon be within the tenacious grip of snow and cold. After a quick exchange of greetings and a ticket check from a ranger, Pope and Hemlock stowed the chainsaw and empties, then settled in for the drive back to Enumclaw. High on Mt. Petey, trouble was brewing. A four-year-old boy had "skipped ahead of his parents." As Petey is a smallish mountain (Manning claims the trail gains 1000 feet), the boys parents didn't think he could be too lost, and they searched for two hours before contacting help. Saturday morning, the boy hadn't been found. If he was still on Petey, that meant that he'd spent the night out in a dry but chilly night. A terrible thought, but somehow it seemed infinitely better than thinking of the alternatives. Pope drove out to Petey, where he encountered a news crew and a roped-off Mt. Pete trailhead. Around the corner, two rescuers with spendy rain-slickers seemed to be looking for the boy. One of them stood on the road's shoulder, beating the brush with a stick. The other appeared to be taking a compass reading on her position. Pope inquired about how he might be of assistance, and he was directed to base camp for rescue operations, where he talked to a rescue official. "No, we can't have any volunteers. If you slip and fall, suddenly we've got another rescue to worry about." Pope thought he understood, but he persisted, explaining that he had been trained in the basics of mountain rescue. Pope even dropped a few names, names of big-shots he knew from Tacoma Mountain Rescue, but his help wasn't wanted/needed. Pope promised he could take orders and that he wouldn't be a liability. A dejected Pope drove away, trying to understand how it could be so difficult to find the boy, wishing that he could help search, on a mountain that he knew like the back of his hand. Later he learned that as darkness fell Saturday night, the boy still hadn't been found. A report said that fifty rescuers were searching for the boy, and that rescue efforts would continue into the night. As the boy faced his second night on the mountain, the rescuers were going to bring in dogs to sniff him out. Pope reflected on how he had once hiked this hill twice round-trip in a period of fifty minutes, how it was completely surrounded by roads and even new homes on its south flank. It seemed that with a few more people searching, maybe the boy could be reached before it was too late.

Just checked the NWS site. The wind is up and the glass is falling. Might be a good day to get blown.

You'll always be "Ima" to me!

I feel so violated, like Cocoa Nympho is watching me. Oooh, it makes my spine crawl. Creepy.

I suppose this one kind of lands in the "biggest whipper" category. Anyway, a guy I know who works as an architect in Seattle should probably be dead. One day at the office, he scrambled out of a window, onto a wet pitched roof in order to retrieve a floppy disk. As soon as he weighted his feet, he began to slide down toward the gutter, the gutter that prevented water from spilling to the street five stories below! Sliding feet first, he sensed that he was accelerating and that there was no way of preventing his imminent launch. As he slid over the edge, a nail snagged his trousers, perhaps retarding his progress just enough so that his feet met with the fourth-floor balcony's rail, after which he toppled back onto the balcony. In another episode, he climbed the Hollow Flake pitch on the Salathe Wall, and after scaling many feet beyond the last place in the widening crack where he could find protection, he looked down to see his "big bro" and his over-sized Friend both rattle out. Having already puked from the August heat on Free Blast, he was now at the end of his physical abilities and faced with a very demanding situation: retreat was impossible, and the way ahead involved slippery, exhausting, unprotectable climbing. According to my buddy, flopping onto the belay at the top of that pitch induced a cathartic experience, the details of which are too graphic to disclose on this website!

Hey Jens, Is that a #00 TCU in your shorts, or are you just glad to see me?

Now that I'm away from the office, here's a couple of other things which I think distinguish me as an example of mountaineering excellence: I hiked to Camp Muir with a sock stuffed in my shorts. Just trying to be like Lou. I've followed Hemlock on about thirty trips from Squamish to Whistler as he attempted to meat...ooops, I mean meet..young women. In fact on our last such adventure, I can remember feeling conspicuously old as we bounced around these teeny-bopper night clubs. I've bivied high on Shuksan with a busty babe and her wolf. Man, she was hot! The busty babe was cute too. I witnessed three Norwegian girls running naked through the sprinklers at the Lake Wenatchee rest stop. I have heard first-hand the story of how Dwayner nearly drowned in an irrigation ditch near Peshastin, when he decided to go for a dip in the buff.

Dubious distinctions? I've been sun-burned bad enough to puke. I took a class from Fred Beckey. My dad got Chouinard's autograph for me at the airport. I've also got Big Lou's autograph. I've down-soloed Canary, and I watched Todd Skinner "free" City Park. Well, it wasn't all that free. I've also bailed off Liberty Crack at least three times.

When I first became interested in climbing, back in the early 1980's, I attended a slide presentation featuring Big Jim "DeWeeWee" and another local clown. Big Jim, not to be confused with Big Brother Jim (Whitaker), put on a superb show detailing what were obvious accomplishments in Patagonia. The other guest, Larry Nielson, presented the story of how he became the first American to climb Mt. Everest without oxygen, and while his presentation certainly entertained, even then something seemed a little artificial. To be the first to ascend a peak or a major route is without question the epitome of the mountaineering experience. But the first American to climb Everst without oxygen? Unless Americans qualify under some kind of handicap status, why all the fuss? If people can generate commercial success out of such "accomplishments", more power to them, although I suppose in the end guys like Hornbein get overlooked. When thinking about this question, I eventually turn my attention back to the Cascades. I know a guy who claims to hold the speed record for the Tooth (that's not just car-to-car, that's Seattle-to-Seattle....apparently the clock starts when you leave the UW rock). I know a guy who can climb Classic Crack with one hand. I know a guy who fell off the crux of Clean Crack...while trying to solo it, and then jumped right back on for the free-solo ascent. I know a guy who claims to have been blown on more summits than any other climber (how he'd know this I'm not sure). I know a guy who claims to have completed the slowest ascent of the R&D route in Leavenworth. Not that the exploits of these guys should receive the same attention as Jim Nelson and Kit Lewis for their winter ascent of Mt. Slesse. If you've secured a spot in the Cascade Hall of Fame, either through a bold display of mountaineering excellence, or perhaps by pursuing an end so ridiculous that nobody else would dare follow, it might be fun to hear about it. [ 11-18-2001: Message edited by: pope ]

My confession? For a brief moment, I doubted that my Dawgs would beat the Cougs. Silly me.

Woof!

How do you get a WSU graduate to leave your porch? Pay for the pizza.

Why did the Cougar cross the road? Two semester credits.

I once climbed Guye Peak's NW Ramp with a Dwayner and another old timer. We had a swell time with wet-snow avalanches cascading over the rope, and I remember an exit pitch consisting of a steep dihedral laced with a ribbon of ice in the back. Felt like 5.10 in crampons, but it had horizontal cracks for pro (LA's) and a tree half-way up. A great pitch. Anyway, our third was roasting up at the belays (unbeknownst to Dwayner), and as we descended a steep gully off the back, we decided to continue belaying. Our third was working down to a belay we'd established when he decided to face out and heel it down. I could see snow balling on his crampons. Suddenly, the shit hit the fan, and from fifty or sixty feet above our belay, he began to fall. I'm not shitting you when I say he had a THC-INDUCED GRIN ON HIS FACE AS HE ZINGED PAST US, ALL THE WHILE GIGGLING "TAKE IN THE SLACK, TAKE IN THE SLACK, DUDE!" His fall was more than 120 feet, but I caught him with a hip belay, short of launching over a major cliff. We had a good laugh and more than a couple of beers that night retelling the story at Wirklich-Wirklich's "Kiss-the-wee-wee" party. HOOK ME UP!

Aidin', I applaude the choice you've made. Remember that your average dope smoker will put a doobie in his mouth as a substitute for what he'd really like to be lippin'. It all starts with the first doob. Next thing you know, you're chuggin' cock. Beware the evils of the devil's weed.

How can I put this delicately....do whatever you want, whenever you want, so long as you're not snoopin' round my piece of the pie.... Ah, screw that. Beer be good. Smokin' pot? In the opinion of this old redneck, smokin' pot makes you kind of ...kind of girly, know what I mean? It all starts with your first doob. Pretty soon you're ridin' the bus, wearing sandals and stinky beatnik oil. Just a matter of time and your protestin' the WTO and eatin' veggie burgers. Next thing you know, you're chuggin' cock. All starts with a doob. NEVER MAKE A HABBIT OUT OF STICKIN' ANYTHING IN YOUR MOUTH ('cept beer and food). ----------------------------------------------- Shove that mug up your ass, Charlie.

I's about 22 or 23 when I made my first trip out to the City of Rocks. My buddy and I stopped in to a joint in Burley called the Sidetrack Saloon. The patrons essentially wore one of two uniforms, either studded leather, or a greasy T-shirt and STIHL chainsaw hat. We occupied a table that seemed isolated from the action; nevertheless, a heavy local woman approached and asked us to play pool. For whatever reason, we declined. She insisted that we put our quarters on the table, and we again declined. Soon, a big, grizzly biker dude with more toes than teeth confronted us by stating, "Pussies don't play." We did our best to shrug it off, but we were both peeing our pants. I naievely glanced in the direction of the crew and every single one of these goons was giving us stink eye. We finished our beer and basically ran for the door.

On a grim November weekend, when the canyons of Leavenworth seem hauntingly empty, as the last oak leaves fall to blanket the town's Uber Strassen, Dwayner, Pope and Big Lou wrestle with steep cracks and impending darkness, on a lonely tower standing guard over the Wenatchee River. What has emboldened us to scale these licheny precipices while lesser climbers (like that "Zee" character) sit waiting for ski season, ice climbing and Easter Egg hunts? I'll tell you...it's the presence of Him. When darkness falls and we're facing the possibility of bivouac, I know we'll be OK cause He's there. When icy winds blow down from the north end of Tumwater canyon, I wrap myself in the blanket of His warmth and security. With Big Lou along for the climb....did I say Big Lou? Hey, I meant Big Blue. BIG BLUE.....yeah, that's the nickname I've given to my big, blue down parka.

Discussions exploring the question of why no NW legends post at CC.com seem to point to the abundance of spray on the site. In fact, one NW fixture (hardly a legend, but the author of an obscure guide book) recently snuck onto this site, posted information/opinions, then reminded us that by doing so he had jeopardized his credibility with the wider spectrum of NW climbers. If this is really keeping NW legends away, then this is one poster who is incredibly disappointed. I can't imagine a NW "legend" who takes himself so seriously that he'd resist the temptation to join in and contribute to the hilarious shit that gets heaved around CC.com. And to those who think "serious" discourse would attract a higher caliber of climber, do you really think a seasoned veteran needs to turn to a website for hot tips? Can you imagine Big Lou posting a question about appropriate ways to load a pack? Do you think Fred Beckey is going to post the contents of his secret black book? Again, if you consider yourself a NW legend, and if you've been sneaking around this site without contributing to the spray in an attempt to maintain your dignity, let's just say your asshole's so tight you could sit on a lump of coal and make a diamond. In my opinion, there are only two NW legends: Big Lou and Fred Beckey. Now, eventually, one of these guys is going to contribute. Won't you feel silly for having been too hip to post to CC.com when one of those guys comes to play. [ 11-10-2001: Message edited by: pope ]

Looks like Chris Sharma's got a little problem with the devil's weed. I sincerely doubt he inhaled or anything..probably just has traces of THC from keeping his greenbacks in a hemp wallet.

Jens, I was giving a slide show to the kids today and...what du fuh? I'd forgotten those cheetah-skin stretch pants I used to wear! I knew that with such bright lycra I'd get spotted by a rescue chopper in the murkiest fog.

Just noticed that Mike Adam has one of the lowest CC.com membership numbers I've yet seen. Ever hear a bunch of old timers comparing REI membership numbers to see who's got the smallest? I'm sure mine is absurdly large....my REI membership number, I mean. Larger than 1.3 million. Maybe we should all stand around the camp fire and reveal what it is we've been dying to show everybody! Smallest guy wins.

Hey Jens, I missed that one! See, now that's some good shit! The Brass Plum's got Peter Pan lycra? I know a guy (posts here regularly using a handle that rhymes with "stainer") who has a closet fetish for Scandinavian boys in green leotards!