Drederek

Top 4: East face Liberty Bell - Huge lines Upper Town Wall - Can't stay away The Cave at Tieton - Haven't done all 6 11's in a day yet The Quarry at Tenino - Best sandstone in the state middle 4: Snow Creek wall - Alpine ambience Middle East wall at Vantage - very solid Royal Columns - great mix of trad and sport Green Giant buttress - skills required a couple more: Off duty at Leavenworth - slabs, cracks & face WW1 at Lil Si - you must be strong!

I've done my share of sportclimbing at RR and its not what I fly down there for every spring. The main attraction is long multipitch Trad lines. Plenty of adventure getting into the climbs and back out again too.

I heard a story about that visitor center, that it was designed for a park on a volcano in Hawaii! Scoop Jackson, the story goes, did some kind of senatorial maneuvering and got it for MRNP. I always did wonder about those basically flat roofs

What I get out of this is that cleaning cracks and ledges probably does more ecological damage than a bolted slab or to a somewhat lesser degree face. Both sport and trad will crush the lichen, who hasn't driven up Icicle creek, looking up at the scrubbed lines. There's not a lot of foliage growing in the middle of a slab but there certainly is in any crack that hasn't seen much traffic for a couple of years. Also many sport climbs have rap anchors below the top (probably for ease of TRing rather than eco-considerations) while many trad climbs continue on thru to a tree anchor, going thru the area of the cliff with the most vegetation and not doing the tree much good either. I'm not going to quit climbing cracks anytime soon but I may pass up one thats reverting to its original state.

Rode around cap forest quite a bit in the early 90's. Don't recall a single cliff but do remember riding over some large rocks embedded in the abandoned road/trail up the Big Rock Candy Mtn. You'll find something if you look hard enuf I'm sure. GL

Think of your fingers as fishing poles with the main tendon between the end of your finger and the muscle in your forearm as the line and the little tendons that wrap around your fingers (one per joint) as the eyes that the line goes thru. These are the pulleys that usually blow out or get torn. You're just reinforcing the pulleys by wrapping tape around them.

So the thing you have not yet learned is how much pain you can endure before you are seriously injured. In my experience if it keeps hurting about like you describe I will eventually tear a pulley. Last time I did that was last winter when I was only 46 However I seem to just partially tear them to where I can wear a tape "ring" for a month or two (all the time) and it will heal. Someone suggested preemptive taping and i would second that advice. There have been a few threads in here on taping fingers that have helped me do a better job. Basically just keeping the tendon from stretching far enough to break. Hopefully you can send this thing before it sends you or gets torn down. GL

Make sure Pope signs a waiver cause he'll be pulling that shitstone band right off! If he makes it thru that he can cruise up the "solid' pillar above (that I popped a nice little boulder off last year). It should take a few nuts, then maybe a cam or two on the traverse before the last 20 feet of unprotectable crux. Hmm maybe have him bring an ambulance as well

The Sword pitch of the Grand wall, so easy to get sucked up that shallow dihedral.

yea the novelty of framing in the rain wore off about 2:30 on friday for me. But I still wouldn't take a desk job!

Wa crack P1 of Lovin Arms or Orange Sunshine Wa face Manly Wham (Tenino) or Aboriginal Design (Tieton) Or crack Last pitch Zebra-Zion Or face Hemp Liberation or oot and aboot (Spring mtn) But I have to add that the Split Pillar is number one by far IMAO

And thats what makes a sporto a sporto! Placing gear is a different kind of challenge, no better or worse. My vote for least fave climbing is Volcano slogging.

Well not being one to follow good advice I headed up towards Piros on saturday. Almost turned around at Shelton because the steady misting was threatening to change to rain. But it slowed as I headed north and once I got a few miles up the Dose from the Canal there was nuthin but blue sky! Got started on the bike leg about 8:30 and had my second breakfast at the ranger station an hour later. Quite a bit friendlier trail towards Anderson Pass than the one up to Constance. Found the jumping off spot pretty easily and headed upslope, gaining the ridge proper by noon, still without sight of my objective. I kind of liked cruising along up the ridge and after a while was rewarded with views of a rapidly approaching peak. After a bit of chocolate and another reading of the route description I hiked to the point where "the ridge becomes jagged" Only an hour left to my turnaround time and 1k in elev to go so I thought I'd better get a move on. I traversed down the frozen north side a bit then up to the ridge and then back down and finally found likely looking gully towards the west end of the main (?) massif. A bit tricky due to the frost but passable at 5.0 J2. Regained the ridge and promptly ran into some of the worst rock I've seen in the Olympics. Frankly I don't understand how it can be that loose and that steep at the same time. Yikes! I went up about thirty feet and decided to bail. It just didn't look like it got better to me, altho on the way down it looked a lot less steep on the s side. I was just about out of time and could not smell the summit so it was an easy call to head down the sunny southern slopes to the trail and back down to my truck. I'm thinking I should have traversed a lot further and lower on the north side before heading up. Plenty of solitude on this one, saw two peeps on my way out and that was it.

You're right, Constance is a good hike, did it back in September. I'd like to get another one in that general area before the snows set in. Stone was very nice as well but over too fast. I'm looking for something somewhere between Stone and Constance timewise to do. I thought maybe Piro's would fill the bill as it appeared to me that the approach was not so bad but the guide is a tad ambiguous. Thx for the help.

Sounds like a great trip to me. Have you done Constance as well? I was wondering how they compared, timewise, to do. If its similar I may give it go this weekend or next year.

So is it better to be paid to promote products because you have demonstrated great skill or simply because you look good? I've had sex on company time (long, long ago with my wife) does that make me a porn star? There's no end to the questions here!

Hey Off, guess we missed you on saturday Rock was in great shape and we'd like to get out wednesday if possible. I'm sure if it does rain much at all tomorrow we're doomed so please post the good (or bad ) news. I'm thinkin the time change will kill any more after work climbing after this week.

I think that once you start getting paid for doing something you can't help but start doing it for different reasons. We all climb for own reasons but for most of us getting paid or free shoes is not one of them, we're going to have a little less in common with those who do. We can climb to please ourselves instead of our sponsors. We don't have to keep doing harder and harder stuff to maintain our marketability. I really hope those peeps can keep climbing fresh and not become a job but I doubt they can in the long run.

I use my retired ropes in construction applications from time to time and can confirm that some welding of the sheath can occur. Once was pulling sheets of plywood out of the ground with a backhoe and the other trying to square up some ironwork with a cumalong. In both cases some (not even close to all) of the sheath actually melted together and made the knots even more difficult to untie. The backhoe weld was created dynamically by repeatedly jerking on the rope (while raising the back of the machine off the ground) while the cumalong was probably more static as once the rope was as long as it was gonna get it became a static line. I wonder if the guy pulling stuff apart with the tank did any "welding"? And lets not get started with the flying monkeys please.

They must have Disco Bars somewhere down there in Cali !!!!

Sorry to be unclear. My points : UW rock sucks. Make them replace it with something worth an occasional 60 minute drive to. Like your idea LG

Some of us tried it once long ago and never found a reason to go back. Its possibly as good as spire rock but I think its value is more sentimental or historical than as a place to climb unless you live near the U District. Build the damn bridge and make them put up something better - a lot better! PNW Icon - Bah!

I'd tend to agree that this has been a good discussion. The fact that it was started as a troll is ironic. Many good points on both sides of the issue. I hope neither ever wins out - I'm for diversity. Its nice to have something safe to warm up on and also to push your physical limits. Running it out and solving intricate gear placing problems are rewarding as well. With modern guidebooks and lots of experience its not that hard to see what you're getting into. The FA'er has somewhat of a fixed slate, that he or she can shape to some extent as they see fit. I'm sure they all do what they think best. If their vision conflicts with too many others' they'll catch a lot of grief. Can the FA'er make a mistake? Sure they can. I've led routes where the crux was making the clips, ones where runouts on crappy rock was just "stoopid" and some that had bolts next to protectable cracks. However the vast majority of routes have been equipped (or not) just fine. I think that if you come away from the climb thinking about the moves,position and the day and not the pro or the stupid belay spots etc the FA'er did his or her job well. And others may do the same climb and feel differently.

The path on climbers left is almost 4th class and very close to where the top of connies is. The other side is fairly obvious but quite a bit further away, at the far side of domestic dome.