ivan

perhaps if you can find an industrial supply of bacon-grease for me to first coat meself in before attempting the squeeze? i would really like to explore where that underground river went, you called it the maze or something like that?

Hardly. you engaging in puns these days 'bone?

Trip: Dynaaaamiiite Cave - A Baker's Eleven Date: 11/11/2011 Trip Report: fall, what season more fair for forsaking the forces of the Upper World by wriggling into a wondrous cavern? last fall was my first shot at playing the spelunker, and it only took a year to process the ptsd psychoses that plagued me for a good while after - coffin walls perspiring, clouds of death-frost hanging about my dark-dimmed head, alone in the halls of a demented Deep God - bastard birth through a cursed, stony cunt - this trip was to be different though, and a damned fine one it turned out to be 'twas rick's 48th bday, and as such he became captain and master of The Plan - we were to assemble a force of 11, on the day of 11/11/11, and commence our assault as near as to 11:11 in the a.m. as modern chronometers could manage - i'd be sure to bring powerful medicine, dangerous juju, my a-game for certain the phuzzy n' me met at dawn at the place most propitious for launching any loony bid, the portland ikea - i shivered n' paced the platform of the max red line, managing a fine pages of "pillars of the earth" while awaiting his car-less, hippy-ass arrival, then we heaved out, away w/ a will in the red devil which i fear might not have too many more of these grand adventures left in her feeble frame an hour later we had escaped the fog gloom of pdx to find hood river bathed in bright sunlight - adams and hood glowing most gloriously - rick's heathen directions proved help enough, though he left out the grandest bit of poetry they had possible - just past the intersection of dethman, mainwaring and gilbertson roads, the scene of an annual pear-a-poolza i've heard tell, a gleaming white farmhouse framed by orchards - pretty as a picture i tell you, 'til i saw the plaidman muffins n' sausage all around, a bit of tree-clambering, haggling over ropes n' drivers, then we were off to assemble the others members of our Crack Team - the final passenger the raucous time travel'n steve, my erstwhile new fellow yosylum inmate in a few months i fear - he climbed into the back amidst the detritus of my modern life, n' me n' him and the phuzzy had a few healthy gut-laughs as we managed the treacherous roads north to trout lake last year, right after dispatching the deadhorse, steve n' justin n' i had gotten balls-deep stuck in snow just shy of the dynamite - this time around though the road was far fairer, and we hit the parking lot at the precisely pre-appointed hour - 11:11, dig it beyooootch! the only bit of useful beta you might glean from this tale: North 45.96154 degrees West 121.69929 degress adam grappled his way into his favorite dominatrix get-up as the devil disgorged its contents onto the frosty ground only a hundred or so yard walk through a pleasant forest... ... find an innocuous pile of collapsed cobbles, pierced by a person-wide passage into the pit of Pluto Getting Unborn [video:youtube] a last look up how to notate a path through eternal night? the grand cave is a true train tunnel, albeit one whose floor is classic stumble-fuck terrain - iridescent rubble underfoot, tangerine streaked walls of some terrestrial mineral which besplatters much of the debris of millenia lying all about, but all quite cheery in the warm glow of a half-dozen propane lanterns and the bobbing bright lances of many more headlamps we went a ways through easy ground until reaching an old gate, long since battered into submission, which led to a sharp turn to the left and more Big Dark - a little way further and then a sudden drop in the floor required a pause to rig up a short rap, easy enough to climb back up on the way back if you don't want to leave anything fixed [video:youtube] more fun meandering, god knows how far, but all through fair country and wicked easy by deadhorse standards, until a short downclimb down a frozen tongue of lava into a chamber w/ an elaborate anchor rick went on down, then the Plaid followed ours was a big party, so plenty of time to sit about w/ the music and the wine [video:youtube] eventually it was my turn and i enjoyed immeasurably the spelunk, w/ its views of hanging side-passages, a warren of lava-worms having wended their ways through the bowels of the earth long ago, leaving these ghostly sites 20 meters or so down the wall went away and a few free hanging feet later left me standing in yet another train tunnel, which we wandered through like winsome wraiths, light hearted and happy [video:youtube] as our clock wound down, we thought of the big party to come - tacos and tequila and honkey-tonk motherfuckers screeching till half-past drunknight - there was No Time to Fuck Around - so yet another yawning gap to be contended with - here a less impressive anchor stood above a shaft that went down god knows how far, but above it a little shelf led to a respectable climbing maneuver above the aforementioned gaper - there a little pedestal had yet another lacklusterish anchor and a rap of about 50 feet into a mammothly cool drowned cathedral - rick led across the shelf, pulled the move, then fixed and rapped - it took a long time for the rest of the train to manage the traverse, red-rover, red-rover style. once i landed, i turned to watch The Phuzzy make the leap [video:youtube] it was here our voyage had to turnaround - we wolfed down lunch and made acid-games w/ the lazer-pointer that turned the horror-show walls into a playhouse - it's a cool room, vast and vaulted, w/ a grand staircase of steep talus to climb back up on the far side, where legend tells of many more raps and traverses before arriving in a Great Sump and Hero's End i looked back at the crew assembled at the foot of our final rap [video:youtube] so then there was nothing to it but the way back up - both jug sessions were annoying at the start, with difficulties in the transition from the free hanging bit - the 2nd one's a good deal easier though, and adam was up it in style ultimately the earth spewed us back out again, one at a time and stretched out - severe distaste to find the sunny skies of earlier had yielded to a slush-storm - we rag-tagged it back to the sodden cars and made our escape through the dusky cloud-murk, wing-n'prayering it where the potholed parts hid in puddles i could tell stories from that evening if only i could recollect it well - i remember endlessly arriving birthday guests - beer n' margaritas - nachos n' tacos n' apple pie - music and more music - rain coming and going and a big breezy cold - a toddler who like all smart chilluns quickly learned to fear me - his papa near the end collapsed in the bathroom having just had his conversation w/ the Great White Telephone saturday adam and i arose early and not too terribly hungover and bent space through many a snowy mile to arrive at smith, where we slummed our way up the monkey in the wintery cold so a year was too long a wait to tangle w/ this tale i've unfolded - what subterranean summit should i set for meself next i wonder? Gear Notes: i imagine if you really wanted to explore this puppy you want a 4-5 ropes - of the 3 raps we did, the first needs only 15 feet or so of cord and could just be pulled, then 2nd was something like 25 meters and needs to be fixed, and the 3rd something like 30 meters, preferably dynamic to protect the leader's traverse, but still needing to be fixed

arrived at the dynamite cave p-lot at 11:11 on 11/11/11 - all told, we had a baker's 11 in the hole that day excellent weather for mucking about underground this weekend!

nice - dang budget cuts nixed the fall semester of my history of war class so i'm not following my anniversaries so much these days again, wtf? doesn't it seem like awful bad luck to name yer ship the uss mt hood?

josh needs so little tempting to do the nasty

fucking nihilists.

love that place

shouldn't the pirates forum be revived and this thread put in it?

"i hate the sea, and everything in it!"

rick perry's chance to reverse his momentum? texan candidates really ought to have a yosemite-sam 'stache

i'm an excellent driver - slow on the driveway

recalling gov davis sure fixed all california's problems

come on now, at least give us a link to the theme song for your tr! [video:youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8iFholCpKo

meh. delegate and forget. the wife sures seems to enjoy the trip (is there a sex-toy aisle?) so i leave it in her capable hands. god knows we never waste a single one of the million or so kalamata olives we get from there w/ great regularity, and the daughter can eat her weight in ramen if need (and thus we form the basis of our zombie-apocalypse survival plan).

Now don't you be dissin' my man Clint, ya hear... "flags of our fathers" sucked. there, i said it! "letters from iwo jima" on the other hand...

'cuz looking at the typical costco customer and their tick-fat cracker clan accompanying them (and sweet jesus, there's no way not to be swarmed by them like a naked virgin mary in a zombie wedding fantasy) makes me feel like maybe i should go home and put a shotgun in my mouth? no fears on the costco front though - a casual 15 minute walk will now allow me to get much drunker much faster than before 1183 made the Bad Olde Days dissappear

ugghh. not this again. many places other than Costco will be selling liquor. i have no idea what a 10,000 sq ft store looks like - i wouldnt' be suprised if my local safeway isn't - is the standard fred meyer that big? i don't care particularily on the issue, i just fucking hate costco and would be pissed indeed to find that being my only option on the rare occasion i buy something other than cheap burgundy

anybody find it aggravating that you actually have to be a member of costco to shop there? seem like there'll be more than a few folks who will have to get a costco membership to get booze now, b/c there wont' be a big enough alternative nearby?

if he'd actually made it to the top of the eiger i'd be willing to follow his lead

reading jack london's "story of a typhoon off the coast of japan", from 1893, and just ran across this line: On the clouds in the sky the morning of a horrid storm: "The sun had an angry look, and a few light, fleecy 'niggerheads' in that quarter seemed abashed and frightened and soon disappeared." guess jack wasn't the least racist dood in the world either, but he did like animals

takes alotta if's to make this story gloomy, and you know what they say about your aunt...

has this been reprinted in the emunclaw daily yet?

boy did i not go to high school w/ you the main reason i'm for keeping shit the way it is w/ state run stores is we need to legalize weed - the public will need it's hand held during the transition process, and so state run liquor stores will be the most logical place to allow it - i'm fine w/ ditching state-run stores after that

leave it to russians to not be able to properly manage a 5 year plan