ivan

reckon that's one way to fix the poison oak problem might not want to assume there's tat on the anchors anymore... absolutely surreal - it's snowing on the first day of school - snowdrifts of ash everywhere...

i slept like a hobo in the mountains last week - just a pillow n' a blankie n' a pad n' a tarp - i might have been defying death - several times mice crawled across my poor sleeping face - the buboes could sprout at any moment now

dancing through the bric a brac of death

8/31 - day 16, lap 10 last day till it gets real work - blissfully simple end to the warm-up week - pale ale and an easy ambulation out - crowds on the corner - jim n' shit - blitzed up n' then back to family bidness heat wave coming - thinking the pierce island swim'n'circumnav is the order of the day

8/29 - day 15 horrible news last week - the powderhund bryan is busting loose from pdx n' heading south to san franny to get his ghey on - setting up a permanent residence down there w/ his special lady-friend in the land of the cork-soakers - sigh... one last climb i suppose before i start hitting him up to drive us to yosemite for spring break crazy hazy w/ gaudy fire-smoke in the gorge - couldn't hardly see across the columbia did the middle-aged warriors route, scooting around the other folk clogging up the lower 3 pitches - good times n' bad beer - couldn't help but notice the new bolt for the route off grassy ledges is sucking all kinds of suckers off the 4th pitch into a place of pain... shit n' shinola, seems like school is back in full effect in six faqh'n days

i still like cc.com n' i'd be fine for bringing back "cork-soaker" in casual communications here

not quite enough for a magnificent 7 - a malingering 4 at least though? shit, i need to get a hat that don't make my ass look quite so fat...

8/24 - day 14 crazy day meeting new hires at work - 2 former students now teachers themselves - unsettling news of another one now in jail for a decade for shit that just ain't right adam n' steve fucking around on a recently much renovated local access/reasonable richard - jugged a lap to warm up, then top-roped them both while chit-chatting w/ jim n' sal n' generally enjoying a lovely, breezy, cool, late-summer day a little bird on the way home zigged, then zagged, n' in the end splatted itself on my wind-shield - i suppose even the very wise cannot always find the right way

i'd be happy to see the one i saw gone - there's a pin 6 inches away from it, plus a good cam placement 6 feet further away, not to mention 2 trees (plus it's protecting a 4th class pitch that no one should be falling on anyway)... replacing the button head bolt just before the notch where young warriors merges below the se ridge isn't an awful idea, but that one too ain't all that necessay

the warmth of your radiant personality is all you need to melt snow, devushka ben and i are going to infinite bliss saturday if you want to round up a 4th - slesse's hella better of course...

8/23 - day 13, lap 9 the first dying gasp of summer, clouds about and occasional rain drops, temps in the 70s - an easy climb of the corner, past a crew that probably woulda been happier if'n i weren't there - someone seemed to think we needed a bolt at the very top of the se corner but left the pin - can't say i totally agree but whateva cool temps n' breezy by the dockside so just had a quick splash out to the island n' back fork - the summer's dead in a few days

adventure

8/18 - day 12 beacon w/ the brother-in-law, he in town for the great eciltopcalypse of 2017 - he's never climbed shit so i thought have him play around on rhythm method to suss it out, then maybe shove him on to the corner had a ball n' some beers n' enjoyed the capital sun - the corner didn't totally work out but jim was there to gavreet w/ for a bit n' i at least got meself a half-chubbie - afterwards it was the lake w/ the clan n' some pizza n' early 2 bed to be in redmond in time for the world to go away

8/16 - day XI, lap VIII 3 days of negotiations n' seemingly endless nattering in the midst of dogdamned summer and still no salami? firfuksakes, a man needs to blow off some steam... the lot near 3 - rumors of alex honnold in the neighborhood but preferring bulo's pt for reasons beyond reason - ran into steve n' adam n' levi instead on grassy ledges and had a chuckle-chuckle at the duckblind - they tucked down tourist attraction soon thereafter and i wandered over to the river for a lonesome swim - nearly a good mile circuit in the channel there, and almost all in water w/ great visibility and interesting things to stare at while doing the endless stroke-stroke - arrived at home to find my wet drawers n' shirt still on the top of the ride, miraculously still present after a near-hour drive

if you'd taken 3 chicks instead it woulda been perfect

good time of year to not have to deal w/ crowds

8/12 - day the tenth, lap the seventh - a week on the olympic coast w/ the homefolk, frolicking around lake quinalt - i swam the near 2 mile width and felt like a space traveler for a good long while - back in time saturday for adam's shindig in the shadow of beacon - w/ rain on the way after 2 months w/o, i figured to get my lap in before the festivities as there was fuck-all chance of getting another in the morning bbq n' mojitos, taco dogs n' pretty girls, the gusts of fall upon our faces in the darkness - climber films n' classic bullshitting, nattering w/ the olde guard - guitar picking n' gut-sides splitting

hootenanny in the hills!

8/5 not quite so hot nor the water so high as it twas near 2 years ago today - not nearly so many naked nipples neither, n' that was the biggest shame of all still, a decent descent w/ the ever-bickering silverman boys, poor kyle i'm afeared mighta thought he was sold a bill of goods, but there were some good laughs too to go w/ all the half-assed lurching 'n crocodile stumbling that this sort of canyoneering seems to consist of one of them white boys left his last can of beer up the crick there, should you wanna wander back up it to work on your hawkeye drunk, maybe talk about your aquatic heritage?

it kiiiiiiinda sounds fun...

8/3 - day 9, lap 6 STEM camp w/ kiddos n' at closing time it was 101 in the shade and i questioned my decisions as i headed beacon-ways, w/ heavy smoke in the skies and the suddenly thick-scene steadily growing ever thicker under the high gorge walls a lovely sea-lap to start as i waited for the heat to break - paddled out to the island n' up n' over to just below the base, where i sucked on a brew n' watched a gang of fools frolicking all over the hazy stone back at the dock bantering w/ the fisher-folk when adam sauntered down w/ his lovely wife and a new beacon belle - the ladies lazed in the water while we nattered about fuck-all over rolling rock n' i gained a certain respect for New Things then it was the lot itself and denali-dave done appeared out of the canadian cloud-smoke to cackle and crow about his crazy-thing - ole'boy's looking as shredded as a julienne salad these days - guess all that clean living n' anabolic steroids, sunflower sprouts n' beatard-parkour really is putting the zap on his head, i should cut meself off a slice started up the corner as a crew were rapping down from tree ledge n' the evening air started to seep in, the shadows growing ever longer - after two flawless ascents in a row, this one wasn't so much but i lived, so that's right - lolled around w/ andreu n' justin as they finished up uprising n' bumped again into dave soling up, n' adam n' the beacon-belle rapping down - a damned donnybrook down by the riverside n' revelry is everything, ain't it? life could get a lot worse than this lazy day, n' it likely will before too long

at this rate we won't be able to see it no-where-any-how w/ all this fuk'n canuckistani fire-smoke coming our way n' clouding our sweet cascade sky

it took several repetitions before i got that trail right, and even then it gets fuzzy in places sounds like you started about in the right place - past the colchuck turnoff - past the open, marshy area, the trail begins to climb uphill - at the first big switchback to the right, you head left into the woods (i recall a cairn being at the switchback) it's been a few years, but the trick i recall is staying by the creek and not getting sucked uphill until it's time to make the big climb up towards stuart - you don't leave the creek until you're pretty much at it's head below argonaut done properly, this is definitely the better approach for stuart's n side, but in later summer, after the sherpa descent is melted out, the deproach is a pain in the ass

jefferson park at the base of mt jefferson would probably be awesome, though there's a fire burning there at the moment i think mt washington area would be good too, and 7-fingered jack the best would be the top of monkey face

8/1 - day 8, lap 5 95 degrees fahrenheit at the skamania mart n' just 4:20 - seemed a moral necessity to stop n' splash in the blissful cool of the columbia for a long bit so that's what i did, after a capital shit in the class-a crappers down by the launch - cast across the channel w/ a pbr stuck in my pocket, n' after just a few short minutes i was across n' basking in the curious conditions, captivated by the sight of beatards abounding all over the recently shade-clouded column soon enough the other side again n' it was up n' over - kevbone maybe on jills? some mike-dude solo n' on a cool creep w/ a rope - i'd seen him alone toproping above big ledge from the island, n' by the time i was on grassy ledges he was down soling the corner to the top of warriors, intent on fixing a line n' going swimming too the fading light in the torrid heat - home only a sanctuary of sorts - how do these pale things persist in seeming perpetuity?