ivan

like dear leader kim, our duke of orange don't defecate

you need bad apples to make cider - i'm still ready to call folks cork-suckers, but there ain't much opportunity to sadly

props - hopefully you didn't tell your parents?

8/3 - day 13 (4 days in a row) - rainy at dawn, our plans seemed doomed - the doctors office and more nasty and needless pain inflicted on your friend and humble narrator - kyle in the thick weather at the bk parking lot, his enthusiasm ironically undamped - we bend space n' crawl up to the beacon way to the uprising railing - cut some brush to investigate a possible line that might take you from the top of hidden treats to top of riverside's exit by the norseman's head - find an obscure and old hardman's route - many smc hangers with non-stainless bolts that are all now brown as shit, plus a big beefy nail - doesn't seem to have seen much traffic in the past 20-some-odd years - latter geoff rolls in and we head up right gull, where i'm rudely reminded i'm half the shit climber i once was

#fuckfacebook?

8/2 - day 12 - kyle n' i went for a look see on something new that turned out not new at all - salvaged a corner crawl - homo gummi bears on the summit - topher n' company starting up stone soup - kevbone in the lot gearing up but i had to eschew conversation to roar back west for a salary bargain sesh that went straight to shit in short order...

wait, i thought the photo gallery was gone - how do i continue to host pictures here?

8/1 - day 11 - lap 7 - the first of august upon us and my beacon rock pass weren't no good no'mo, so i wrangled w/ the bastard machine - ate my credit card, required Strong Talking To to free it and complete my civilian transaction - a dude knows kenny saw i was a brother and need and succeeded where i failed, so goes the story of my life - still, made a new friend and he followed down to the corner to film my ascent while waiting for his girlfriend to finish hiking up the trail - lovely sight of a sealion zipping on down the river - against the strong cross-wind it cut up quite the bow wave, a big light brown torpedo sizzling on down the stream, heading towards adventures unheard of

abseil sounds cooler still

7/31 - day 10 - lap 6 - illish health, my survival routine of swimming everyday disrupted by a disgusting infected cyst requiring lancing and antibiotics and a stern admonition by learned doctors to avoid total immersion in the local lakes - figured the corner might be a salve for my sullen soul - kevbone n' andreu on little wing - light breezes n' languid views, the world alone n' listing heavily to port - topher on the descent, bound to rap stone soup, saying the whole damn thing has been desecrated of its iron

good lord, that's quite a few calories ye burnt off

that looks like real mountain climbing

helps rouse yer corpse out?

oleg, you're looking good - don't appear tired of winning yet at all - you going to get in on this mostly-russian j'berg climb?

7/28 - day 9 - a grand get together out at adam n' claire's - the plan was to frolic in the fair columbia, dine, then climb the corner by the light of the recently full moon - didn't quite work out that way, but the first part was spot on - kyle n' amber n' geoff n' steve n' jim appeared in short order and we guffawed n' marked time as the scorching sun keeled over and the breeze blew - eventually we were at the boat launch - some swum, some shot about the channel on the blue demon, geoff's latest deadly boy-toy, and some sat in the shade and took in the scene - not a soul on the rock, even after the sun left the face - beers on pierce island and under the corner on the sandy shore - my smokes quite scuppered by a shit dry-bag - lazing by the river later on, then most left, bailing on the wonder of the moonlight ascent - swallowed my betrayal with bitefulls of lovely steak n' waiting for ben to arrive while bantering w/ my beatific hosts - darkness came and the glowing orb rose and ben roared in - adam retired to his well earned bed as we rambled on over and had an uneventful ascent, returning near 3 a.m. to natter a bit about future plans, then for ben to drive back home, leaving me to sleep in the cool air under the haughty heavens

7/27 -day 8, lap 5 - built a boxing bag in the morning w/ the boy in the morning then heaved away out east -lovely swim out to pierce island and and a leisurely float back, no fish on the pylons - a bit of head medicine after drying off, ran into dave in the lot - meshed our malodorous ways and soon thereafter headed up the corner, simul-solo - good times n' guffaws along the way - on the way down our parkour boy done went'n parkoured the fuck outta of his face

the devil does not doze

never a dull moment at beacon my fav headlampless ascent happened after a bit of a quarrel w/ the wife n' figured it was best if i just wandered away - coasted out to beacon and arrived a tad before sunset - took a nap in the car and was awoken by the random passage of geoff and his buddy on their own midnight climb - brought a light too but wasn't needed at all and we partied our asses off up the shaded stone sounds like you need to drink some green tea n' do some jumping jacks

7/22 - day 6 - plan for a trans-columbia crossing skrewt - geoff had a grand new wave riding what-have-you and i eagerly wanted to swim the river and climb phoca rock under cape horn w/ some adult supervision, but a combination of great gusty winds and rather-big waves, plus a not-so-ready escape-driver scuppered that there plan - we settled for scuttling eastwards a bit more and nattered around the beacon-channel - geoff roared around on the the what-have-you while getting bruised n' concussed and i swum - great schools of river carp under the pilings - beer and big times - grand. 7/25 - day 7, lap 4 - 3 days of summer coding-camp concluded, i scurried out cautiously into the calamitous heat - 94 degrees at the skamania mart for the beer stop but settled on climbing first instead of swimming - unremarkable ascent, concluded w/ some high times and hearty yak-yaks w/ adam at the boat-launch - got a prime plan for a full moon ascent come saturday, should anyone by so motivated

been neglecting logging beacon days - guess the thrill is gone and i should just lay down in my grave already - still, in the spirit of defying obdurate death, some tardy observations: 7/14/2018 - day 1, solo lap 1 - wasted from 3 weeks in the sawtooths, olympics and alpine lakes wildernesses i laid about the house on opening day, not a tad ashamed of my torpor - on bastille day though honor demanded i rise and drunkenly wobble my way beacon-wards - heat was upon the rock, but i waited until after 3 when the sun sets and fuckers off west and then sauntered on up without event - the world keeps on turning and so must we 7/15 - day 2 - ben on a hall past - 97 degrees predicted so we foolished figured we could beat the heat by meeting at 7 - breathless heat dispatched the already sunny young warriors from our minds and we settled instead for the shade of cruising on up the corner - at grassy ledges we settled in the listless shadows of the trees as i sucked down beer - uprising was punishing in the baleful glare of the hated helios - afterwards we cooled ourselves in the columbia and nattered about nothing 7/18 - day 3, lap 2 - the family fetched from the old dominion, i settled for swimming for 2 delirious days, then it was nasty labor negotiations and sitting across a big table in a small room and trying to kill the killing thoughts that creep about the minds of even common men - for therapy i bent my way beacon-wise afterwards and sidled up the basalt sidewalk, finding of all things a fraternal brother at tree ledge - impromptu union issues expounded upon and my conscience clear, i crept my way upwards into the sky 7/19 - day 4 - the hms revenge, geoff at the helm, roars into the parking lot after 3 and soon thereafter we gun down the highway running east, eager w/ life's little leavings - i'm probably not built right for corvettes, though their curvaceous lines are not insensible to my dulled senses - helmet-less as from habit i suppose, i follow on crusing and wonder where the old me who used to solo this regularly went - good times and gut laughs follow - it's pretty much always the same old story, and its a grand one, so why gaze too deep into the meat? 7/20 - day 5, lap 3 - ushered 10 year old asher priestly and his addled papa up the corner after arriving a few hours earlier and wandering up the way alone, bumping into all kinds of familiar faces along the way - shared a beer w/ 2 union members on the ledge, than pink-himself appeared along w/ arndt - discourses about dramas and days gone by, the sun keeling over as an old man on fire, we fidget and fumble for something that already has found us but lies

the south side is the dog route - great camping at illumination rock

i think the current defense is "contractions r hard"

so much walking...

march 4, 2020, 10:17 am

if we can convince trump there's natural gas under all those peregrine nests, we can probably get those pesky regulations washed away before you can say MAGA