Lovetoclimb

You climbing these days Ryan? I climb trees all the time. Rocks? Rarely.

I thought that was a canister to pee in. Oops. My bad.

After working out at Rocky Butte those days I just kept wondering why this place is just such an under visited mossfest. If the pioneers of these lines would allow others to re-clean, retro when necessary, and add some convenience anchors I feel like this place could be a pretty appealing climbing area. As far as the ignorant climber plummeting problem of easily accessed bolts, I would just call that natural selection. As someone who has put up well over 100 climbs, I know that I want people to climb my routes. If that means changing some bolt placements or adding convenience anchors so be it. I know. I just kicked the hornets nest. So be it. Let the crying begin. Boo hoo. Waaaa. What makes sense to allow the most people to get out and enjoy the area? Not what makes sense to keep the cliffs mossy, ivy covered, and abandoned until some egocentric person goes and recleans it, redpoints after getting it dialed on tr because it is too scary to lead, and then it is abandoned for another 5 years until the next cleaning/ego stoking session.

You'll really love this part. We were getting paid to do it. I'm not an old guy on an ATV with a bunch of beer. I'm a 34 year old guy who just happens to be an arborist who works periodically with the tree service that got the contract to do the invasive species removal on the cliffs that the inmate work crews or city crews can't work on. We just get it on the ground and then it isn't our problem anymore. I feel sorry for the poor bastards that have to deal with it at that point. On the route by the cross at the Grotto there was a sling tied to a chockstone way back in the crack and also some bolts at the top so I think at some point someone did do that line.

My angle is this. People are free to do what they want at Smith and shouldn't have the "Climbing Community" of ya do it Ian folks deciding what they should or shouldn't do. If you are endangering someone else or ruining someone elses experience then obviously you shouldn't do it. Those two bolts out at the northeast corner of Monkey Face if used by a competent considerate person would put no one in danger except themselves. I would bet that if the climbing community as a whole made decisions on things instead of the "ya do it climbing community" things would look a bit different at most climbing areas Smith included.

No I'm not talking about little girls buried in the woods. I'm talking about cliffs that were covered in ivy and have been uncovered. Anybody seen it? What were your thoughts? It was a fun project. The best part was getting to rappel from behind the cross on the building at the edge of the cliff at the Grotto to clean ivy off of that cliff. That has to be the most classic looking line I've seen in Oregon. Too bad it isn't open for climbing. Now the inmate work crews get the fun job of going in there and packing all of that crap out. Better than hanging out in jail I guess. Sorry no pics. Guess all you PDX crag rats will have to go stomp around in the woods getting dirty condoms stuck to your shoes and broken glass in your hands when you slip on said condoms to see what I'm talking about.

If I want to do that swing I would not hesitate to go up there and slam in new bolts. Good bolts! Ones that can't be chopped without a hacksaw or a cordless grinder! Glue-ins! The best bolts in the world! Would I take out anyone with a rope? No. Would I monopolize the monkey for a day? No. Competence and technical skill seem to be lacking at the crags these days. Just a bunch of kids with strong fingers and no idea of how to do anything they can't get off of with one rope. I swing on ropes for a living. Do I take people out with my ropes? No. If I am worried about a rope snagging on something I put it in a bag and clip it to my harness. Problem solved. Was the person swinging a jackass? Yes. Misusing climbing gear? For swinging? What is harder on a rope and biners? A bunch of little falls onto a bolt while hangdogging up a hard route or one big swing with a ton of rope out? The latter would likely be easier on the equipment because of the amount of rope out and the fact that the swing would disapate a lot of the energy. I feel bad for the people who got hurt and if I were them I would be pissed. And I probably would find out who the swinger was and sue him or her. But that said I think that if you can do something competently and not endanger others then you should be free to do so. That is the beauty of Smith and the climbing there. It is somewhere that you can go, and do thrilling things in a beautiful place with no government agency looking over your shoulder. I'm looking forward to going out to Smith and pulling all of the fixed draws that I hate so much. That is some shit worth pulling.

Journey is going to be a bit harder than Picnic Lunch Wall. More mandatory thin nailing. Enchanted hooks high on the route with bad falls possible because it is kind of slabby on the upper two pitches. But you will always be caught by fatty bolts as most everything was replaced on the second ascent. FA party was kind of dicks and removed hardware or had special bat hooks that they used and then f'd the holes to make repeat ascents harder (hence the enchanted hooks). I wasn't trying to be passive agressive. But I could see how it could come off that way. I'm just saying do PLW clean. It can be done, it isn't unsafe. There are lots of fatty bolts up there, it is steep, and the falls that could happen will likely be clean.

So if everybody knows it went free, and everybody knows it goes hammerless then why are people still nailing it and saying in the TR that it would go hammerless? Probably the same reason people take how many days to climb 500 feet? I know Smith is just a muddy craphole that nobody cares about but I think that people could do better? Perhaps?

If climbers would use good bolts in this country (glue-in eye bolts)and get away from using crappy Rawls and standard hangers then they could lower off of any bolt and not leave any biners behind. Or you can use the retrieveable webbing loop trick and not leave anything on any type of hanger.

Did anybody see St Peters Dome a few weeks ago when it had the fat ice streak running down the northwest side? Has anybody climbed that when it was in condition?

A few years ago a friend and I were at Smith and we cleaned all of the crap off the east face of the Monkey. It looked great! Then we went and cleaned all of the crap off of The Big R and The Starvation Fruit. I also pulled old abandoned fixed lines off of a bunch of abandoned projects at Smith. No matter how much crap gets pulled off of the walls at Smith, more crap gets put up there. Bolts that I place or replace are crap, draws are crap, fixed lines are crap, chalk is crap. And it all seems like quite a waste of time to me these days. The hours you all spend bullshitting about it seems like even more of a waste of time than actually going out and putting more crap on the cliffs so people can go take it down when you lose interest in your hobby or you have kids and a wife and can't go climbing anymore. Don't let that happen. Get a fucking vascectomy. I hate seeing fixed draws everywhere at Smith. In my opinion they should all be pulled. But who am I. I'm just one climber who has spent way too many hours there.

Seems pretty lame to just close it to climbing but allow all other uses to continue including hunting, hiking, and grazing. I can understand avoiding and respecting important religious sites, but to just single out climbing just doesn't seem right.

I'm getting ready to do a big batch of bolt replacement from April 7-20. I have a pretty good idea of some routes that I want to work on but if people have stuff that they are seeing that needs work, please post it here, send me a pm, or send me an email. This work is supported through the American Safe Climbing Association and also now through Climbing Magazine and The North Face's Anchor Replacment Initiative who is also sending us a bunch of hardware to use for replacment at Smith. Please support the companies that support the ARI and for those of you with jobs who need tax deductions please make donations to the American Safe Climbing Association. Some things that help me when it comes time to do replacment is having people who are willing to climb and fix lines on routes that need replacement. When I'm in bolt replacement mode, all I want to do is jug up and work. I don't want to have to carry a lead rope, rock shoes and quickdraws and all of that nonsense. Especially when I'm carrying a huge pack of tools, bolts, and glue. Also, please stay off routes that have just had replacment work done because I will be using glue in bolts that need time to set. (Usually only a few hours depending on temperature.) One last thing. Please think about how much bolts and bolt maintenance make Smith the fun place that it is for all of us and don't just take it for granted. Our crag like so many all over this country is covered with crap bolts because climbers are too cheap to place good hardware, they don't hold themselves to a high standard when it comes to the bolts that they place or the placments that they are making, and if they make a mistake, they don't go back and fix it. A number of the routes that have gone up in the last ten years have been very poorly bolted. They have bolts in bad places, lead bolts and belays that are already loose, and inadequete hardware was used either when it comes to bolt size, bolt type, or anchor setups. Who's responsibility are these "gifts" to the climbing community? Personally I have a hard time going out and doing replacment on these new routes. I take pride in the work that I do whether it is at my job, putting up a new route, or doing bolt replacment. I take it very seriously and I wish other people would as well. It certainly isn't something to take lightly. If you have put up a route and it needs maintenance, please make sure that it gets done. If you don't have the experience to do as good of a job as you would like, please feel free to contact me and I can assist you or point you in the direction of someone who can. As someone who has put up over 100 routes at Smith I know some of my routes need maintenance and I will be doing some of that in the next few weeks with my own hardware not ASCA or ARI stuff. One of them has two bolts that need to be moved because they are in bad spots. Another needs a separate rappel anchor added because of the amount of traffic it receives. Both of those projects will take up a big chunk of a day, but I think since those are my routes, that I should take care of those issues. Thanks and I'll see you out at the crag.

it doesn't suprise me at all that a terrebonnian would need 2.5 hours to make it to smiff Actually I live in Hood River. But I agree that most tear a bone againians would probably take 2.5 hours to make it to Smith. They have to call their parole officer and make sure it is ok, drop off their wife/cousin at high school, and hit up the local meth house and then tweek their way down the trail.