willstrickland

Uhhh, well uhhh I'm a stalker? No, I mean she gave it to me?(the picture you dirty bastards). Uhhh it wasn't me that posted that? I know the photographers at Maxim? Yeah all of the above.... And where the hell is Rachael anyway Maxim? Steph is rad, but most accomplished female rock climber? Does the name Lynn Hill ring a bell...

quote: Originally posted by Terminal Gravity: I have not purchased a Freind since I found out that Jardine was a hold chopping muther fucker. Pope have you? Not trying to antagonize here TG, but Jardine sold the rights to the design a long long time ago, I think your sentiment is a little misplaced. Jardine is a asshole for chipping that...but what about Lynn using the chipped holds on her "free" ascent of the Nose (I think Lynn is awesome, but shouldn't that be The Nose VI 5.13+ A0?)

quote: Originally posted by Cpt.Caveman: Holly, Lets get one of you up there too!

quote: Originally posted by lambone: What a sellout I thought she climbed for Sterling anyway. get overyourself Steph. Uhh 'Bone, that'd be Maxim the magazine, not Maxim the rope maker (which is actually New England Ropes btw)

quote: Originally posted by Cpt.Caveman: When caching gear "Danimal" discovered that bug juice is a good lubricator for cams that have been sitting in the wilderness Just remember this...DEET, the active ingredient in most repellants, will slowly degrade synthetic fabrics like the slings on those cams...think twice before using this strategy. I'm not saying not to do it, just know all the issues beforehand. For me the best way to lighten up is to just go continuous push. Aside from that particularly in the winter, use snow shelters, and climb with a female...one bag, spoon-up. For alot of the mellow alpine climbs where it's just easy ice and steep snow with not much rock a 30m piece of 8.8 in place of a regular rope can cut a good 5 lbs off the weight...but again know that they are not designed for use as a single rope.

While many people will tell you that placing gear is "not rocket science" there are many mistakes beginning trad climbers make. Nuts flipping out of placements or zippering, cams walking out of place and becoming useless or placed behind features they might pry off, the American death triangle anchor slinging, ludicrous rope drag, and more fun bungles await the uninstructed newbie. Qualified instruction, either from a guide, a university program, a club, or a mentor will greatly increase your learning curve and safety margin. Read the books: Freedom of the Hills (Graydon Ed.), Climbing Anchors (Long), More Climbing Anchors (Long), Self Rescue (Faustalo sp?). Practice placing top-rope anchors with nothing but gear. Clean-aiding with a top-rope belay is very useful for learning to place gear. Finally, lead ALOT at grades that do not challenge your climbing ability, adhere to the adage "Never challege yourself in climbing ability and protection ability at the same time", and understand that trad climbs of a given grade are generally much harder than sport climbs of the same grade (start a good four NUMBER grades below what you can onsight on sport routes...i.e you flash 5.8 at Smith, start on 5.4 trad). You may feel silly on the 5.4's but you'll have solid protection skills by the time you work up to grades that challenge your climbing skills.

I think I share alot of your sentiment. While some of my most memorable climbs have been hard (for me), even more have been easy. Is concern over numbers always an ego issue? I personally don't think so. One of my goals in climbing is to climb Astroman clean. To me that means I need to be solid at a certain grade to be able to pull it off and not be sketching all over the place. Astroman is certainly a respected climb, but it's not like I'm cranking Love Supreme, Phoenix, etc. Not many people are impressed by a "mere .11c". Same deal with the Salathe...you don't need to climb that hard to get up it, but you damn well better not blow it on the 5.9R chimney sections (unless you wanna carry some #5's camalots and #4 big bros). To get the most out of a route I like to feel solid but challenged. To just scrape by is cool sometimes, maybe while finally firing that boulder problem you've been working, or if you're a sport monkey finally finishing that project that's a couple of grades above your personal best. My preferred MO is onsighting long free routes and scraping by sometimes means not quite scraping by...easy for me on crag routes, whatever...lower and try again or get on something else, but eight pitches off the ground you might NEED to fire that awkward slot or flaring crack to enjoy the rest of the route. I guess what I'm saying is I don't care how hard you climb, the only bearing it has on anything is whether we can partner on a particular route and/or who might lead which pitches. I care about how hard I climb only in relation to being able to climb cool routes that require climbing at a certain level. I look at what I see as the coolest routes in the country, things like Astroman, the Primrose Dihedrals,Monkeyfinger, the Rostrum, Fine Jade, and plenty on the Diamond and Tetons, and they require a certain ability...not world class ability or bragging rights ability but you get the point.

quote: Originally posted by Rafael H: OK, now list them. Seriously. Only please leave the Vantage Choss alone. List the costs or list the bolted cracks? Costs: 4ft Crowbar $40 Wall Hammer $70 60m Static $100 Epoxy $10 per route MiniHacksaw $15 Saw blades $10 Labor(minwage)$15

Holly, I doubt your feet are this big but, US Outdoor Store in Portland has Mirages in: 39, 39.5, 40, 40.5, 41, 41.5, 42 e-me if you need contact info.

Holly, Try this: http://www.climbnorthwall.com/web/LAmirage.htm

What a clusterf#$&*.....might as well add to it: Mysticfishtaco: If you really want to get some good hands-on pro placement practice then get on a pitch you can clean aid that starts a pitch or two off the ground. Be certain you have a bomber anchor and aid the pitch. Repeat ad infinitum. An ideal pitch would be slightly overhanging and on a clean (no mid-pitch ledges or protruding horns,flakes,etc) wall. You'll place five times more gear on each pitch than you would place while leading it free. You'll be forced to deal with weird pro situations, you'll learn the limitations or particular types of gear. And, you'll eventually become a fast aid climber which will be the ticket when you want to do a mellow wall route like the Nose or the Reg route on Half Dome. You'd be amazed at the amount of long routes you can do leading at no higher than 5.10 and aiding two or three pitches or parts of pitches. As for the question of what makes a sport route? Kinda one of those "I can't explain it, but I know it when I see it deals" And the Bachar-Yerian a sport-route? Oh, I get it..a joke

quote: Originally posted by lambone: Will, Are you suggesting that cam hooks would be a viable alternative as pro for a runout free route? Sounds pretty sketchy to me...you ever whip onto a cam hook before? Aliens don't fit in blade seems. Ball-nuts might though. B] Ay 'bone indeed I have whipped onto a camhook, in Zion's Navajo sandstone no less and...it HELD...much to my suprise I must say No, aliens don't fit blade seams, but I don't take it for granted that a self-proclaimed sport climber (the guy's buddy)would know the difference between a blade and an LA. Also, maybe there's a pod or shallow placement somewhere adjacent to the blade placements that is not conducive to taking a pin, but would take a black alien or 00 TCU. I've got the smallest two ballnut sizes and they're more like small LA sizes. Another possibility is to use hand placed Pika Toucan cam blades (I'm not suggesting this as a long term solution, just trying to stir the mental juices for those who have the balls to go clean)In a beat out blade crack you can take two of them, one with a left-bend and one a right-bend, stack them, equalize them and eureka...pro that inspires you not to fall.

Nah Dude, as the weather gets colder your odds go up, to a point anyway...Just think increased friction from low temps and get on something slopey/smeary

quote: Originally posted by Bronco: ...the Robots don't have cam stops which means you can't use them for passive pro. I dont know why you would haul cams around only to use them as passive pro... Because when you run across that pod that flares inward and you know that cam will walk into it and eventually tip out,you'll be damn glad that you can umbrella that cam and use it for pro. I've placed alot of cams in exactly this scenario when there wasn't another option.

Inexpensive, quality cams? I got a deal for ya: Metolius #3-10 (8 cams) #3-8 fatties, #9,10 stds, barely used, no lead falls: $280 WS

I think you gotta ask yourself a few questions: 1. Is the route a 3-star with memorable moves, or just another line? (If it's not a GREAT route, just abandon it and leave well enough alone) 2. Have you checked out the route, preferably on rappell where you can hang out and survey the line, to see if there are alternate gear placement? (Maybe those pins were placed before there were 0.33 aliens, or maybe you could "protect" the moves with a crafty cam-hook placement). 3. What is the nature of the area (sport, trad, mixed?) and what is your skill level with respect to placing a bolt properly? (The last thing we need is more time-bomb bolts littering the crag and needing replacement or removal a few years later if they even last that long). YMMV, WS

Since it looks like I won't be making it up to the fest, anybody interested in climbing in the PDX area this weekend? I'm open to about anything...call me at 503-234-4047 tonight.

Well kids, I had a ride lined up to the festivities and...my ride just bailed on me a few minutes ago. I am sitting at work with a haul bag packed full of crap, ready to go (bus and rail were a blast this morning as you can imagine). If anybody is passing through PDX or it's western burbs (Hillsboro/Beaverton)on the way, please give me a ring at work 503-846-7839. Maybe I'll just drink a load of porter tonight and entertain myself with a drunken slide show...

Whether you are making this up or it really happened is irrelevant to me, but leaving fixed ropes on El Cap for two years is BS. I've ranted about this before, but... Last summer I asked Chongo when he was finally going to blast-off (his bags and ropes had been on the Sea for the entire season, maybe longer). His reply was that he was looking for someone to go up with him to cook and deal with food/water/etc so he wouldn't have to. Judging by the amount of shit he had up there (three pigs if I remember correctly) he could have fed an army. When I left the valley that October the stuff was still there. Apparently, it is still there. If it were Mt Hooker, or some middle of nowhere spot where only other climbers would see it, I'd say "who cares". But the fact is, the valley is already enough of a pain in the ass between the rangers and restrictions. I support civil disobedience, but this was not planned as such and without alot of other climbers doing it concurrently to stage an actual "protest" the only thing this is getting us is more problems. Now say this leads to strict enforcement of the 24hr rule...would you be pissed if you fixed ropes, it stormed the next day so you sat it out in camp, went up the next day and were promptly ticketed and forced to remove your lines. This is the kind of thing that results from such behavior. The ranger/climber conflict is already bad enough (I stayed out of the John Muir hotel aka the jail, one night last year only because someone drove off the loop road into the ditch while I was being read my rights..."You stay here, we'll be right back" yeah, right!) So while it might have seemed cool at the time, it don't seem so cool to me. And I don't doubt it was better than Snake Hike, 16 miles is a long way to walk for a bunch of 5.4 slab pitches and a trillion tourons (I did have fun on SD though) Just my opinion, WS

Just getting this baby to the top. still seeking ride from PDX, my schedule is flexible, I can take off work whenever need be.

Do an archive search on this site, we had an extensive discussion on this topic a couple of months ago. WS

quote: Originally posted by Matt Anderson: How much does Washington Rock miss? Should we check out a different guide and if so, which one? Not much, check out Tim Olson's Portland Area Rock Climbs (available at Portland Rock Gym, Oregon Mt Comm., The Mountain Shop, and probably any other gear shop in PDX) I heard about this really steep section (past vertical?) with a few cracks, but don't really see that in the guide. Does it exist? Couple of areas like that. The east face is big, overhanging, and has lots of potential, unfortunately it's off-limits...illegal and enforced. Another is the "Arena of Terror" at the west end of the south face adjacent to the route Pipeline. It's roofy with potential for some hard (and I mean really hard) free lines, if you're game have at it. Are there any areas that are still closed for falcons? No. Falcon closures ended 7/15 Has the face that WR talks about that was closed, but may open sometime, (the Northeast face, I think?) opened for climbing. See my note above. Where's the best camping? You can camp at the state park across the street from the rock itself. There's also plenty of forest service land and camping on the Oregon side, check out a camping or Hiking oregon guide, call the local USFS Ranger district, or get a 7.5 topo. Any recomendations that aren't in the book? We're mainly hoping for .11's and low .12's. well that depends on whether you mean a bolt every six feet 11's and 12's, or trad 11's and 12's. There aren't alot of entirely bolted lines there, and those don't look too good, squeeze jobs and such. If you want to check out what the climbing there is really about, do one of the pure stemming lines like Seagull or Tennessee Walker (aka Ten-a-Cee Stem) that check in at mid .10 trad. Steppenwolf was recently cleaned (a few weeks ago) and should be a good time in the .11 trad range. Dod's Jam to Dastardly is a fun outing with four varied pitches, crux being .10c thin hands. For sport stuff you'd probably be better off at Carver or Broughton. I may be in town this weekend drop me an e-mail if you want and I'll send you my phone # -Will

Metolius cams, #5-8 fat cams and 9,10 regular. These have taken no lead falls, are about two years old, and are in immaculate shape. I prefer the heavier camalots because I'm used to the sizing and mixing brands only creates confusion on the rack for me. $210 for the set or make an offer on individual units. willstrickland@hotmail.com

Anyone from PDX headed up to the shindig this weekend? Me and my bike-commuter carless ass is lookin' for a transport. If you're headed that way post here or e-mail me. Of course I can supply gas money, libations, etc Thanks in advance, Will