ScottP

A few years ago, I loaned my portaledge to some friends for an ascent of Uncle Ben's at Squamish. On the second pitch the friend I will call Winky is hooking through some expando flakes while the other friend I will call Dinky belays him from the comfort of my ledge. Not surprisingly, Eric, I mean Winky rips a snow saucer sized flake that passes between Susan's, I mean Dinky's legs on it's way to the ground, punching a hole through the floor of my ledge and cutting two of the suspension straps. Deciding it is time to bail, the two begin to rap. At the top of the last rap, the ledge, now stuffed in it's sack, becomes unclipped from the bottom of the haulbag and hits the ground end-first, bending two of the aircraft aluminum frame tubes. So, I get my ledge back totally knackered. Eric and Susan offer to replace it, but considering I only spent 165.00 US on the materials to make the thing, I couldn't rightly stick my friends with the price of a new commercial ledge. They did purchase and deliver all of the materials needed to repair the ledge, but in the end, I had to completely rebuild it.

This might be for another thread, but this one got me thinking about the most run-out of the friction routes I have done. Without a doubt that would have to be Grack Marginal on the Apron in the Valley. I remember counting 9 bolts (including belays) in three long pitches. We managed to place two or three cams as well, but it was pretty grippy being that far out.

quote: Originally posted by KeithKSchultz: (snip) I have a 7mm 60m half rope for soloing on less technical routes such as North Index Spire.(snip) Just where is this spire?

“How many times have I been up this trail?”, I ask myself as I stumble up the rutted spur road. I think back through my past ill-fated trips into this basin in search of the elusive twentieth classic. “Well, there was the first time...” Two days of cold, misty fog. Drinking vodka, smoking hash. Wandering around in a cloud-induced funk, taking pictures of wildflowers, my ice axe, Kevin’s bivi tent with him warm, dry, and fast asleep inside. Two long nights of misty fog, cowering in a leaky bivi sack, dreaming half-awake dreams of deserts while soundless lightning flashes Out There somewhere. We eventually end this masochistic endeavour and retreat to drier climes in the Enchantments. Round two: The sun does arrive, after two days of snow. Phil and Mike and I get on the route early carrying what could aptly be described as a sunny-day-in-cut-offs-on-a-5.5 rock rack and two short, ancient nine mils to find that; a) our hands and feet are quite numb and b) the north side traverses are coated with rime. We retreat, with me making ample excuses. At the base of the Coulior , I am beaned in the forehead by a fist-sized chunk of ice that comes out of Nowhere. But the sun is out, and we spend the rest of the trip lounging around, ignorantly traversing dangerous wet slab snow slopes, acquiring hellacious sun burns, almost climbing Sahale. “Third time’s a charm.”, it's been said. Kevin and I bail from the top of the technical root pitch on the approach trail after an hour of testing our positive mental attitudes against the torrential flushing the slate gray sky is bestowing on the entire state. “Never again.” I mutter as my soaked boots simultaneously cut loose from the wet clay beneath my feet.

A fairly work-friendly little article: http://www.theonion.com/onion3734/hijackers_surprised.html

quote: Originally posted by Stefan: Did you guys know that the average human head weighs 8 and half pounds? yeah, and the largest organ in the human body is skin.

quote: Originally posted by texplorer: remember Matt PP:There are climbers and then people who climb. What are you gonna be? A) Climber: no job, no girlfriend, 10,000 dollars of gear in the back of his nissan, and stoned. B) Person who climbs: decked out in newest Prana gear, reads R&I on weekend trip to Smith to pull pockets on Heinous cling while his hottie girlfriend belays him with her pink painted grigri. Person who climbs II: decked out in raggedy early 90's Rock Bottoms and stinky, holey fleece with shoegooed approach shoes, can't afford R&I and wouldn't buy it anyway. Climbs solo on class 4/low 5th routes because he can't get out often enough to have a regular partner.

Brody, I feel your pain... However, this is a public forum and since that is the case, you get what you pay for. Your request is likened to writing a letter to the editor of a newspaper asking everyone to drive a certain speed on the freeway or vote a certain way. You can certainly make the request, but it is a futile one for sure.

When climbing, I make a point of not focusing on what is below my feet. I focus on the current placement, movement and the next placement. Like Chuck says, know what your limits are. Know when to back off, and know how to downclimb, Like specialed says, mileage will provide you with these things.

quote: Originally posted by RURP: This is RURP:Schlangensmecker is a fool whose German is so poor that I suspect that he is an aging burned-out writer for Hogan's Heroes. If Mr. Happy likes this guy, he needs to visit Mr. Counseling. Pope: I am not a "meat inspector" in Leavenworth but I suspect that you should inspect your own "meat" for signs of disease as you seem obsessed with male strippers. Trask: I called one of your "girlfriends" and she told me that "Mr. Happy" is better known as "Limpy the Clown."RURP has spoken. This is one of the funnier posts I have seen in quite a while.

quote: Originally posted by crazyjz: Painfull spelling.Graduated from what? painful only has one "L"

quote: Originally posted by Dru: I get most of my rap slings thanks to guys like Norman Clyde, who leave extra bomber webbing in perfectly good anchors. My best score was a full set up of locking biners and sewn webbing somene had left on the anchors atop Orchard Rock when they rapped off. wait, you say - Orchard Rock has rap ring anchors. exactly BOOTY The south Face of the Tooth has huge bundles of rap slings by summers end. Overkill? I think so.

quote: Originally posted by Lambone: I think most ratty old slings are pretty bomber. I've seen a few horendous fixed pieces (like ancient rurps and shit)in Yosemite with mystery sling that you wouldn't wanna walk your dog with...but it held fine. I go by the theory that if you leave a sling you should take a sling as well, or two. Preparing to rap off of the Chopping Block in the southern Picketts, I backed up an old sling with a couple others and threaded the rope through all three. My two were a bit longer and so when I weighted the anchor, the old sling was the first to take the weight. It crackled, split and then fell apart. I used to trust ratty slings before then. Never since. Back them up. Slings are cheap.

quote: Originally posted by mattp: I sort of agree with you except that it I believe that it is slightly the other way around: the irregular nature of granite cracks is precisely what makes them hex-frieindly whereas the smooth and parallel nature of the basalt at a place like Vantage causes difficulty for hexes. Interestingly, I find that the Andesite at Tieton is often quite hex-friendly and indeed, the cracks there are often irregular inside and narrower at the rock surface than the inside of the crack, so hexes work very well and do not walk like a cam. From John Middendorf's excellent treatise The Mechanical Advantage "...Chouinard and Frost redesigned their tooling for the new clean equipment. Their major contribution to the clean-climbing revolution was the invaluable Hexcentric, co-patented in 1971, which made protection available even in parallel-sided cracks." (http://www.primenet.com/~midds/mechanical.html) The excentric nature of the hex shape was designed specifically to to give a camming action of sorts in the smooth parallel-sided cracks that are found in the Valley.

The DNB on Middle Cathedral (long and varied) Robert Cobb (longtime climbing partner) Thin Red Line (DAMN the rain!)

quote: Originally posted by trask: Right. Isn't that like the female voice in a fighter jock's cockpit (Yappin' Betty, or something) that hollers, "No Bingo, or pull up-pull up?" Uh...yeah... (Actually, it's more like my 3 year old son asking "Daddy, do you want to pway wif me?")

quote: Originally posted by mattp: Icegirl -Smith has some very good, if not excellent, moderate climbs. Many are "trad" but there are plenty of them and they tend to be less crowded than the sport climbs. Don't let your "friends" fool you. -Matt Zebra/Zion is a must do...And don't forget to check out the gorge while you are there.

Listen to that little voice that is telling you it's time to turn back/put in another piece/double check your knot, etc. Also, focus on one thing at a time, especially when tired/hungry/thirsty/cold, etc.

quote: Originally posted by Matt Anderson: Friend-0-Mine was camping on the Olympic Peninsula when a couple of local dogs came over. Friendly and Kissy as can be. He and his wife hung out with the animals all evening. Next morning he got up for the morning constitutional, walked to the woods, dropped Trau and bent over. Quickly noticed that nothing that left his rear was hitting the ground. He hates those dogs now. Used to have a dog named Gracie. Good, smart dog.On a hike up to the Upper Wall at Index, I took a detour to do some logging. Being a good boy scout, I buried the slash. Back on the trail Gracie did her usual bush-wacking. Stopping for a drink of water, I called Gracie. She came bounding up the trail and gave me her customary lick on the hand as a greeting. Bringing the water bottle up to my lips, I got a hefty whiff of the scrunch I had just left in a hole a couple hundred yards back.I lost some respect for the bitch that day.

.)Just wondering what you geeks have hanging on your cubicle/office/whereveryouwork wall That black and white poster of Peter Croft doing a straightarmhang/heelhook rest while leading the roof on the Rostrum. A pic of me hanging from the lip of the roof on the Zipper. The mechanical pig races that my students won by cheating when we gutted the motor and gears from the pig and strapped a high pressure water rocket to it's back. (We graciously declined the first place award.)

A six pack of Winter Hook in the trees to the right of Lower International at Alpental one warm spring day.

quote: Originally posted by mtngrrrl: (snip) Beyond the stitching, we ordinary consumers wouldn't have easy access to high tech fabrics and for that matter, fabric is also pretty pricey. So are industrial sewing machines. I've made my own ski bags from felt and nylon, but I wouldn't venture into anything more technical. I sewed all of the clothand webbing parts for a portaledge using my wife's regular sewing machine (with heavy duty needles) and fabric I got from Seattle Fabrics. The ledge has endured having a hundred pound flake come off of Uncle Ben's at Squamish and punch a hole though the floor. I patched it with my wife's regular sewing machine, and it's ready for more.

On the bright side, there was that owner of Malden Mills(the Polartec manufacturer)who continued to pay his employees even after a devastating fire nearly destroyed the plant. The gesture cost him millions, but his response to why was, "...I consider my workers an asset, not a liability." They were so appreciative that after production resumed, they nearly doubled the output of yardage per week, working 25 hour days to do so.

quote: Originally posted by David Parker: (snip)Once light enough, they continue over and begin to pick up moisure from the Hood Canal and Puget Sound. Now laden with moisture again, they slam into the Cascades and back up until they dump enough to lighten up and pass over.(snip) Your saying that the clouds reload with enough moisture evaporating from Hood Canal and Puget Sound to dump the precip that falls on the WA Cascades? I don't think so. Moist clouds and rain come off the Pacific from the southwest. As the saturated air rises over the Olympic Mountains it cools and rainfall is very heavy. In some areas more than 200 inches a year. As that air descends the lee side of the Olympics toward Sequim and the San Juan Islands. It has been exhausted of moisture. The air will become clear. Few clouds and little if any rain. The rain that hits the Cascades is a result of the moisture that doesn't dump on the Olympics, but rather flows around it to the north and south and in cases of more extreme systems, continues over the top.

quote: Originally posted by Dan Harris: I heard a radio ad today that used strange place names of real places, like Deadhorse, AK. It got me to thinking about other strange names. Here in CA some do not seem strange until you translate to english, like Manteca (Lard) and Maricopa (Moth). Any others out there? I live in Exit. If Maricopa is Moth, what then is Ventucopa?