ivan

i suspect, a few months from now, your interest in jberg will return - now that you've got the descent all figured out, it's time to climb the north east buttress!

MP 147 to 157. Wa pass remains accessible from the E.

It means they don't know how long it will take to fix it yet, cuz it just happened. Either that, or SR 20 promises to be JUST LIKE GREECE AND DETROIT!!!!!

Closed indefinitely due to 8 impressive mud/rock slides near Swamp Creek that have completely buried the road.

Fake Ivan here. Moving to a smaller dia rope may affect your emergency ascension system. Tiblocs are rated for 8 - 11mm, for example. I've gotten them to work on a 7.8, but never actually used them for real on one. Best to test this at home. I can tell you that a 5.5mm prusik doesn't work at all on a doubled 7mm rap rope. It's nearly impossible to move the knot up once tightened. This was testing trying to get out of a schrund. I finally just had to free the damn thing.

Well you have to have someone hold the line back while you swing. only took one swipe to figure that

the fixed line is a sad obstacle for the greater glory of Reaching the Columbia nice n' rumbly and some big splashes coming down as we were leaving this afternoon...

8/10 - XX pro anno diem - whiskey-sick at 7 a.m. - rough roll out of bed, down the steps and out the door - pat snoring on the couch - did i really smoke my fist-full of smokes in 30 minutes last night? geoff @ the b.k. - cruis'n n' warriors n' right gull - choppers landing on the wildlife reserve, ferrying in fucking wind-boarders - dick synonym for the day: "snatch-ratchet" - long drives off the land of the little people, thank you mysterious stranger - old larry for fucks sake rapping in for an evening alone - pbr's n' passing showers on the way back

Tvash's rope is still dangling from a flake on the bottom pitch of that route.

no border probs, da, i grant ye - my wife, on the other hand.... where is that old girl n' oleg, anyhow? been more than a week since them fools went off to dragontail...

nice - fits the "bacon-wand" most perfectly

i know you do though, 'cuz you're just 2 kewt a cuddly-bear to threaten to cave a negro's face in just 'cuz a brother's renamed your route

dunno - that might be a pm, but sure sounds a lot like what was out in the public forums already...violent threats are bullshit no matter where you post'em, i hope you'd agree? party ledge round noon 2morrow for those who want to puff at the peace pipe and focus on the better things in life

no 40 of OE to go w/ the sammy?!?

my second trip was sadly waylaid by canadian customs gotta wait until some of my more jolly climbing partners get street-legal again

all the kewl people klamber in darrigonastan

anyone sampling the bacon tomorrow? got a couple hours before headign off to the beach again w/ the chilluns...

'dat whole depot creek area =>

you gonna lead all the a3 slab pitches pat or do i get some too? the entrance into the rock gully leading up to dreamer sure could use a chainsaw treatment to help your friendly out'o'town stoners not go astray

don't know 'bout retrieving yer piece o'shit, but i've several old cords equally fucked lying 'round my garage i'll gladly trade you for a half-rack of newcastle

the debate between the volcano and the wet-bushwack was a short one i assure you how's the approach for squire creek compare?

Trip: Daring-A-Ton - Half Dreaming Date: 8/3/2013 Trip Report: the augors of august started poorly - hammer-knocks on the front door in the early morning hours - a neighbor, perhaps rightly, awful annoyed that the wife had neglected the parking brake of the Red Devil, resulting in its nightime ambulation into her ride at a heady 3 miles n' hour - my sad mitsubishi beached on her bumper like a kamikaze short on sake - 7 a.m. holler'n'n'lawya threats, dogs howling in the grey mist, sleep scuppered - a non-plussed insurance adjuster - jesus, w/ the weasels all out of their warrens and zeroing in, i must escape this suburban somali so, as fate had felt vouch-safed to fend me, i'd the powderhound all primed up on the launching pad for a short trip North - all i had to do was make it through a few hours w/o committing a capital crime, get packed, then put this sordid scene behind me garden raiding - fresh basil n' oregano pizza w/ cloves of garlic - a greasy calzone for the weekend rations - chicken-tv when bryan arrives - introductions all around and a spot of dinner done, we cast off for the Emerald City, our plan to party w/ an assembly of demi-gods: tvash, joshk, n' that wonder of the west, mr. wayne wallace rain on the road - rush-hour traffic - smokes make the time smolder on by - seattle in the evenign - lenin late for lunch in fremont - we arrive to find josh's demesne much deranged since last i'd left it - the seed of a traffic ticket is set an evening of gut-laughs ensue - 250 cc.retard tr's represented in one room - josh's tv not unlike the HAL 9000, on the cusp of consciousness - w/ the wonder of a weed volcano, we toast the wisdom of our fair republic and its ballot initiative process we lay plans for the morrow n' wayne bows out early for some damn-fool thing in the way-back of the pickets, as he is wont to... 7 a.m. comes quick, n' bryan and i are out the door for the fred meyer to find fresh booze for the long weekend, then we're off for darrington, the first time for the both of us - we ramble up half-ruined roads, eventually reaching a big bend w/ bruising boulders that signal its time to stop sure, dreamer's a long route, the topo says it right there, but come on, this powderhound kid's a goddamn rope ninja, all raring to go, so who's to say we can't do this whole thing w/ a 11 a.m. start? we pack up whilst puffing on whatever, then saunter on down the rapidly diminishing track to see what mischief we can find for ourselves a fine walk through the woods, reminiscent at times for me, for likely no real reason, of downey creek - huge stumps given succor to preceding generations - shade n' moss n' needle thick about us - lengths of miner's metal pipes haphazard all about in defiance of the local swarms of meth-heads our misfortune was soon to follow - despite decent descriptions, niether of us saw fit to pay much heed, and having reached the waterfall, we wandered off the proper path - i'd tell you the right thing to do, but chance's are, if you're reading this, you don't give a shit about such things at any rate, should you be looking to glean a gem of beta from this rapidly bloating text, the idea is this: when you reach the big pool at the base of the waterfall, go right into the jungle on a trail w/ flagging, passing eventually back left to the top of a big boulder above the falls where a big cairn is - from there, though the trail goes left, look carefully for a vegetated tunnel w/ rocky debris strewn on its floor to the right and uphill - this is the begining of a stony gully n' slab system that will eventually take you to the base of dreamer, from whence you'll scramble up a ways to reach the route's start as it turned out, in our zeal to ascend slabs, we stuck to the waterfall which heads to a pass, and too tragically late realized we were far, far away from our route - an hour plus of hateful swacking ensued, which i've engaged a professional therapist to expunge from my memory: side-hilling over broken ground - a grim mix of slide alder, slide cedar, devil's club n' alpine rose - sweating like a whore in church, beads of perspiration raining down like a horse pissing on a flat rock, eventually we make it out of north cascadianistan after some scrambling we found what we were supposed to holy shit, is it really 2 o'clock? and did some dickhead really shit his pants here? realizing that climbing the totality of dreamer was just that, we figured we'd at least settle for climbing as much as we could before dark - i relished the excuse of tardiness to relinquish all leads to the 'hound bryan on dreamer direkt (i think - frankly, i was mostly confused whenever i looked at the topo ) pitch 2 i think, though maybe we'd wandered onto something else here? then our last of the day 3 pitches up, and approaching 5, we took pause - the next pitch was rattling the nerves of the usually staid hound, and for good reason - seemed an awwwwwful long way to the first bolt and a fall would be right onto the anchor, after bonking off a bit of a ledge - seemed an easy decision to rap off, n' so we did - eventually reaching our packs, it then seemed proper to just leave all the shit up there and head back sunday for a spot of redemption? a ramble off, bryan insisting on downclmimbing the approach slabs w/ pbr in hand, spilling only a few drops - we found the proper approach far less of a ball-buster than our misguided cross-country clusterfuck, complete w/a few fun sections of fixed dental-floss for a hand-line back at the pool where we began our wayward path, we bumbled into josh n' pat, out for an evenign stroll - high-jinks ensued, and soon we sat like stone gargoyles glowering at the alpine scenery all about us - dragonflies flitting, black flies buzzing - the roar n' rustle of snowfields peacefully finding their way to the pacific a gallivant through the alpen-glow in the forest - camp at the cars in the gathering dusk - a grand bonfire built by our resident pyromaniac - tunes blaring out the high-tech box: kanye west, peter gabriel, perry farrell n' tom waits of course a diversity of menus feasted upon as the bugs bombed about us - me w/ michner's "alaska," too foot-fucked to hop-around much, apathy hussied up as virtue - talk and talk and talk, i forget every word of it but treasure it all they retreat to their netted heavens as the night grew thin but me i settle down to battle it out w/ the biting ones - awoken in the wee hours w/ a throbbing pain in my big toe, it the victim of repeated injuries resulting in some quasi-arthritic state - i worried at how it might fare in the morning shouts n' shrieks n' gunfire in the distance at dawn - pat and josh off to westward ho, us back to dreamer the plan - a couple passes through us as i start percolating the coffee, they too dreamward-drawn our approach the second day much appreciated in its relative brevity, we bespeak the couple, a pair of seattlites, who've lost the 2 hour head-start they had on us on god know's what - we start climbing just ahead of them, and they keep good formation just below of us for the rest of the day up until our decision to bail we decided to climb another line to our high point of the day before - safe sex maybe? this was the first pitch at least... heady climbing to be sure, my trap's sore as shit the proof a day after - the quadricep of the upper arm! gravity. by pitch 6 we were feeling proper scorched - the sun shit its golden arrows on us as we singed n' slowed - my feet heaped hatred upon me - i had no hope of leading, and found little joy in sitting on slight ledges, waiting to share them w/ strangers - my fault entirely, rank suckers like me could ruin even a blow-job bryan just past the undercling on p6 a polish lass leading up p5 - humble apologies for my poor persona and general stink of an orangutan in heat atop p6, our pink skins sizzling, bryan looking at an unavoidable day of work on the morrow and a long drive afore us, we settled on bailing - perhaps if my feet didn't pulsate w/ hate-fuck i would have volunteered to aid-fuck my way up 7? ah well, whatever, down we go... a lively little deproach - the pool in the late afternoon sun - swimming n' smoking - bryan makes a #3 after aspirating some tobacco then it was that long orbit back to oregon for us - hours passing by w/ the roar of time pissed away - we set to deep discussions, like the wisdom of our First Peoples - piners - 3/4 bottles - getting hawk-eye drunk - donut-holes - cousins - phone calls not returned, pow-wows, atv's, etc. do yourself a favor and listen to 30 seconds of such genius [video:youtube] by the time the day had died and midnight neared, i realized this whole trip had made me thankful for at least one thing: i no longer need to freebase cocaine - my sponsor in this quixotic quest: [video:youtube] gotta get back to darrington some day, that is assuming the damned bean-counters don't clobber the approach road - the tragedy of the golden-age of north cascade mountaineering behind us...hopefully i'll have some rebuilt robot-feet by then to take the pain? Gear Notes: gear to #4 Approach Notes: don't miss that first rock gully at the waterfall, hidden as it is in a tunnel of bracken bullshit

reckon that's right

agreed, i'm a lame free-climber but got through the gendarme okay w/o hauling - if you were gonna haul, you'd need a second line, and that's just dead weight for the rest of the climb