ivan

no fair climbing outside the usa for tr-competition month!

it took you a week to figure out photoshop kenny? why's terri gross being so mean?

goddamn you boys know how to live right! bad noises 'bout my nomenclature sir, how dare ye? well...in truth...the penis lunch just appeals to my juvenile nature, sounds like some snack you'd get in goddamn hong kong round rush-hour- the christmas tree ascent occured to me as a name while belaying ben - ropes of all colors everywhere like on an xmas tree - cold - impatient for my turn - chain-smoking - you know, the normal christmas shit? a bit more of the bright n' festive ropes - if you can figure out what the fuck's going on, yer a wise, wise man

woulda thought my ass big enough to recognize even from a mile away costco has already taken the savage burn back - not certain what my wife was more pissed about, the squashed tent (sum of all her summer aspirations!) or me getting in at 1 a.m.

Trip: Penis Lunch Wall - The Christmas Tree Ascent Date: 3/26/2011 Trip Report: fuksakes - rain and work and aggravation and more rain and poison oak and fucking rain for months w/o end it seems - needed a change of scenery, but what? - took a solid wack at the picmenoseforlunch route a year or two ago and damn near died - seemed like the potential solution to a # of current problems, 'specially the solid head of steroid-steam i'd built up in a blue funk in a desperate bid to stop scratching my ballz - christ, did i really nearly murder a crossing guard at 6:58 in the goddamn a.m. this week in a damn near religious frenzy? all attempts at a coherent plan failed in the days leading up to friday, but in the end geoff and i had something lashed together - meet his bro kyle n' big ben out at skull-fuck hollow on friday evening, then find something that wasn't covered in rain and snow to do got good n' drunk on the drive over so looked and felt my best as we neared the desert bowl of bullshit in a sudden blizzard - probelm was the boys were nowhere to be found - turned out they'd lollygagged the morning away, then done the 1st pitch of bubbas and fixed it, only to return to the lot in the gloaming to discover kyle's fine piece of swedish engineering was dead as a dickhead at 400k miles geoff launched on the rescue mission as i grappled w/ the wife's most recent purchase - a hanoi hilton of a giant goddamn family tent - the coleman weathermaster motherfucker - immediately tore it while pitching the bitch, but miracled the rest together enough to party like rockstars when the boys returned w/ taco bell and uncontrollable flatulence - an inspired locale it seemed, and cozy in the rain that poured all night kyle bailed saturday to find a rental car and mend his mangled life - the 3 of us figured, what w/ the total shit forecast, that we oughta take advantage of the rope hanging on bubbas and do a 3-some trip up the big, big wall - i had 2 fat static lines and a real burning desire to top the thing out this time, so figured we could just fix the first 3 pitches and we'd be guarenteed to make the top on sunday, w/ everybody getting a chance at the sharp end - more importantly that ought to leave plenty of time for drinking good beer and smoking really bad cigarettes hard not to want to do so striking a route by the time we were done, the route was strung up like a fucking xmas tree w/ red, orange, green and 2 white ropes variously hung all over the fucking place like a gypsy laundry - i started out jugging ben's line, then short-fixed and started the 2nd pitch while ben came up to give me a belay by mid-pitch ben was at the anchor and it was shitting sleet, the wombat looking like a cold sterile womb in the wayback [video:youtube] hitting the anchor at the top of bubbas, the sun burst out and all was groovy - noticed the anchor had been relocated since my last visit and beefed up w/ gigantic goddamn bolts, making the whole package much nice - i set geoff up on the static i'd tailed from the ground and he came on up while ben cleaned the pitch dangling white boys ben settled in for the sunshine as we watching geoff gear up for his pitch, his first in many months as he too has been consumed by professions and personal property and all the shit that truly doesn't matter when you have a sincere and faithful climbing problem all the new bolts replacing hte old mank are much appreciated, as are the relics left for posterity geoff on the attack, stick-clip enabled - this third pitch can be done sans iron, as can the whole route really, 'specially if you carry that suessian-contraption [video:youtube] where the rock turns to cheese i had plenty enough time to draw my breath in big and deep and achieve a truly glorious glowing feeling, impervious to the chill and hail and horseshit the unsettled sky kept throwing out the next hour or so - ultimatly geoff got up to a point ben wanted him at, and ben went on up to see if there were any bolts bearing replacement - i used the opportunity to scoot on down to the ground, and get a picture of the dazzling dipsticks - man, this route overhangs! where's the waldos? the rest of the evening is a bit hazy, but i recall mixing burgundy and beer and driving around in blizzards in search of food - there was a fun bit when we returned to the campsite to find the weathermaster crushed against the earth as if by the palm of a pissed off god - luckily the booze had survived the crash and i could spelunk in to recover it before heading off for burritoes sunday morning cold and dreary, but nothing to it but the doing - ben took off first - simply awesome jug, 50 meters of pure air, far, far from the wall the best part of the jug is climbing up a good 30 feet off the ground on the giant blocks, takign in all the slack, then launching! 2 years ago though of course this is what chopped the rope on me and damn near left me riding the range - the new anchor leaves the rope lying on a better edge, and a fat static coupled w/ a rope protector made the terrifying simply fun [video:youtube] eventually i ended up at the p3 anchor and put ben on as he tangled w/ the big roof - he tapped in a few sawed off angles i think, but in hindsight was pretty certain he could avoid their future use there when you have a hammer... one last pitch to go - ben under the 2nd roof, the compelling shiprock behidn him snow and sleet started to pour as i rounded the roof - 2 phat bolts and gear in the occasionally gross rock, then an easy bolt traverse to the end ben and geoff tucked under the roof atop p4 geoff coming up the last pitch - shame the route doesn't climb the final walls above the bowl, but the rock is total horseshit there so it's understandable as it would have to be bolts in pressed dust ben finishing into the upper basin - a cool place to be - no tracks or trail, and plenty of big loose rocks that you can't help but send for The Big Ride in the end, quite the lazy ascent of the route - looking forward to doing it sometime w/ just 1 partner and short-fixing it in 2 blocks - was tits cold but good adventure and laughed my balls off much of the time Gear Notes: pretty much a clean route now, even if you're not the hardman who freed it what i recall: - skyhook - single set of cams from blue alien to #4 camalot - 2nd #4, #3, .75, yellow alien - double set of offset nuts - couple small brassies - cheater stick means you don't need to worry about hammering at all

yeah, i could see a fella remembering those coupla days for a good long while

watchu n' tyler do? get any pictures?

honored to be the object of your affection, good sir, but sadly i left my camera in the back of geoff's ride, so it'll be a day i reckon before i can get my damn pictures and lash a few lewd remarks together to make them sing - there's several that are worth the wait i reckon though fuck, what a couple of days! incessantly alternating between driving sleet and warm, still sun - it's a fine route in shit weather though hey, someone's put a lot of work into replacing the bolts to support a free ascent - don't know if they've ticked it yet or not but you should be all over it!

that's the impression i got last fall as well - there are enough new bolts to keep you from taking a bad fall if one of the relics you're using chooses to fail, and certainly the funky old stuff serves as a vertical musuem

talking turd tr's

how is it that steve buscemi wasn't cast as gollum again?

sure sounds like warren harding to me

the flip side of church'n up and not going to muir on sundays

biiiig hanger for ben stein's knob 2 shitty pins in an old hole better than 1

- tauntauns - mlu's - infinite bitching - fucking housecats

viva! viva! viva pequeno arbol!!!

i need to climb w/ you more bill - mike and i tried our hardest to convicne ourselves to muck about on the rock sunday, but in the end settled for a storm-ridden, skull-adled sortie up mt hamilton

all of this is excalibur-equivalent gear compared to the goddamn tent stake on The Turkey! anythign w/ a wingnut is good too!

your value as debate moderator is appreciated

ok, i'm threatening to quit the thread now too unless more pillow fighting pictures make appearances

the next zombie apocalypse will mend that trend i'll wager

i hate snuff porn in the morning

back when people used to learn something practical in skewl!

seems to happen every winter to the big ceramic pots i have in my back yard - eventually i got rid of them all after my son scrapped against one and needed a half dozen stitches