ivan

harder routes are generally steeper than easier routes and offer therefore cleaner falls - it doesn't excuse anyone for going sans-brain bucket, but it no doubt plays a part

x2 on living close to where you can crag - can't believe i had the good fortune to fall ass-backwards into my current school, just 20 minutes from the big beacon! teaching in general might be a good occupation for you - plenty of breaks, if nothing else

lemme know next time you're down and i'll give you the tour in the meantime, keeping yer thread above the masses of other meatballs selling their random debris does you a service!

"Anything so innocent and built like that just gotta be named Lucille"

if yer ever gonna climb in zion, you'll need a pink n' a red goddamn tri-cam

keeeeeeeeeen! bet my truck has more mold in it than yers gotta come down sometime soon and relish the new winter route!

naw - that mighta been better - as it was, i didn't cut left across the slab till i was much higher - let pat get a fun pendy kinda run across a slab right at the beginning

many's the free route you'll want 3 or more of a particuliar sized piece - just cuz you have a giant rack doesn't mean you have to lug it all off the ground w/ you

"finishing my rack" !?! wthell does that mean? a rack is never finished - old coots are perpetually adding something! the need is nebolous - once you are actually climbing all the time it becomes inherently obvious what you need more of everyone likes having a double set of c4s you climbed at seneca? where you should be going when back in va.

looks like day 3 of the red-neck olympics! "hold my beer!"

every fucker i ever met named gene turned out to be a real choade

this asshole appears to be having entirely too good a time

the new routes should all be variations on jumping the shark

ledges are best when begged, borrowed n' stoled i got by w/ just having my bivy sack n' no fly - less of an option on a true bigwall w/ continental type weather

i'm 6'7" and the fish ledge i've used is just fine - dood, you know the deal, when yer a freak you just gotta change yer expectations! my advice, only use single ledges (being also 250 lbs, i find i'm over the weight rating for X2 ledges if my partner is anything but a pixie)

guess if you have to trudge through snow on the ascent it stops qualifying as a wall?

word. was my boy's first bigwall though so thought we should do the famous moderate since i hadn't done it and it sure seeeeeemed off-season. i wanna do something on the capitan next time i go back - actually i just wanna live down there for a spring/summer

others may disagree, but i'll posit fairyweather sure is entertaining when he goes off his meds

vegas dudes ever look at a history book? catholics are world-famous w/ their ability to stick to a dipshit-line for centuries on end!

how many data-pts you relying on there, ole-boy? hardly more than a handful of us out there, and mostly just 'cuz we like big-walls.... driving to either of he 'zones for aid'n is reta'ded though cord - come aid out at beacon, much better there - siege tactics will be a fine start on the n side

Trip: yosylum - warshington’s harry coloumn – s farce Date: 4/2/2010 Trip Report: every frak’n year the same fawk’n thing – spring break and the storm gods walking the beat along the whole of the wet coast – what’s a latte-nigga 2 do? wing n’ a prayer planning – a meth-powered surge to the valley on a late friday night, a quick jaunt up royal arches n’ 2 days on the most popular wall-route in the valley ‘fore the frost-giants bring the smack-down and the whole damned 24 hr drive redeemed! man plans, dog laughs – no doubt why i’ve always been in the habit of kicking sleeping dogs the arches plan, tenous at best, by the wayside when the seattle-based member of the 2-man mind-show needed to actually rest after raping altar-boys all day – 5 a.m. launch from stump-towne still, and w/ the chances of sun in the ‘simite gone for that day, a decision to make the needed visit to sonoma that evening instead of at the end of the trip sweet jesus, if you’re a hater of the tvastarkatena life-form, swoon in sorrow as there sure are a fuck-ton of those fuckers in the greater bay-region – a nuetron bomb alone would be needed to stem that savage breed, it’s matriarch in particuliar! up at 3 a.m. in a time-stupor in sonoma, passed out cold in the back of tvash’s ride for a few hours after, then waked to bake in the glowing ember of soul-enhancing sun on sunday – the mtn stage to oaks flat pounded out at high speeds, we made our amends w/ the gate keepers n’ roared into the valley, pat playing the part of a google-eyed goddamn camera-equipped tourist as i lead-footed us up the road to get the Strange Tripe off the ground a refresher, perhaps – washington’s proud litho-tacular leering hardon from the shoulder of halfdome (last summer) – mideast crisis, my only other experience on this wall, the main route in the center, but the s side somewhere on the left (dinner ledge out of site though i reckon?) the walk up the base of the column just keeps getting easier – stay the fuck off the talus and make-ready for the tree-aid-step – did i mention the soul-joy that leeched into me as we managed this maligned approach in kalifornia-kit, white shorts, kap n’ t-shirt?! i did the 1st 2 pitches off the ground, after buzzing about the smallish step-off platform in an adrenaline frenzy, promptly leaving my aid-shoes n’ haul-straps behind, the appearance of another party below, predicatable on a girlfriend wall-route, no doubt a contributor depsite the warnings, i found hauling to p1 top not too bad, and an easy lugging of the pig across the small ledge to the base of 2 the artist as a young man on p2 – dmm offsets rawwwwk here! tvash needed to earn his keep, and for his sins he was given p3, which made him penitent enough once at dinner ledge our sleep-mates from the night turned out to be 2 valley-cops (fawwwwwwwwwwwwwwk!) – they were kewl enough for being haters of the high-life though – husband-cop was a valley hardman for sure, and as fast as he was, it made sense to let him pass – we’d planned on fixing to the top of 5, as had they, and i set out behind wife-cop as she cleaned – this was her 1st aid-wall sorta expereince though, and she had the predicatable epic at the lip of the kor roof as i sat perpetually a bolt below her, trying not to laugh at the oddity of having foreign booty at eye-level, many hundreds of feet above terra firma due to the understandable delay of a newbie’s nightmare, both our teams had to settle for fixing from the top of p4 - the scene at dinner ledge wasn’t quite what i was hoping as all the meat-puppets on the ledge were passed out by moon-up as i was just starting to tie the thing on tight, but what can ya do? i settled for swooning at the luna-brightened brilliance of glacier point by my lonesome, then later the seismic-snooring of tvash and the ring-tailed pole-cat ramblings over the sleeping rangers monday mornign and it was on, albeit more slowly for us as we needed to wait for the ranger-couple to reach the p4 anchor on our fixed line ‘fore we chased after them – tvash started early though as he still had to clean the fixed climb line and i searched for some privacy round the corner, where i was rewarded by the discovery of booty gear, a nut and a sky-hook soon enough it was time for me, and off i went – holy shit, my first trip w/ a 11 mil static line!!! better than sex!!! the sun was out and it was a joy to dangle in the still air in so alien a location and wait for the traffic to clear doesn’t this kinda shit make you feel like an astronaut? me waiting for the p4 anchor to clear while tvash takes pix of the far-off capitan eventually the ranger folk cleared out of p5 and i set out, sitting for a good long while at the pendy-point – pat followed [video:youtube] pat on the lower-out didn’t leave enough memory for the full lower off [video:youtube] at the end of the roof traverse on p6 p6 went smooth enough, though the 5.7 bit left me a bit ruffled at the end – tvash grumbled about our hammer-less cleaning plan as i short-fixed up p7 at the p7 top it was obvious the jig was up – we’d been slowed by the numerous issues attending a popular route and the wind had returned with a vengeance – every stitch of clothing i had was on, and the promised evening storm was clearly in the process of proving itself – we’d planned on rapping from dinner ledge, and the time had come to get back there, lest poor pat be once more forced to contend with a valley “awkward 5.8” that tears apart the timorous, given my own fatigue and desire to sit n’ chain-smoke for a spell nice view of the gloaming half-dome on the way down a comedy of errors on the ensuing retreat – avoid the temptation to double rap from dinner ledge to the top of p1 as a rope-thin crack eats the bottom rope and makes for a disastrous pull – luckily we could wait for the america-fuck-yeah team to fix our fuck-up while we marveled at a million ants and felt nervous about the upcoming brawl – we’d have had to jug the stuck line come night if they’ed dissappeared down on the ground the good lord made his light shine, shine, shine! – wine n’ laughs n’ lurching back to the ‘lot – the round-world rudely raped w/ burgundy n’ camels n’ catcalls at tourists bus-bound n’ blocking the way to dump the plastic-cased turds – tvash defers the women-folk calls to me – the shift to camp 4 (my first!) – the pass-out of pat on the stony ground – the midnight roar of rain and tumult and the end of our valley dreams for now packing in the pouring rain and the end, so sad, after only 2 days – in the grip of the grim nw again though, 2 days of triumph, of sun, of sweet life, who can complain? we salved our wounded souls w/ a trip to san francisco, w/ cathedral-climbing n’ petty larceny n’ family relations, n’ finally a clockwork-orange raging drive back home through the bay-area w/ its warm sunshine, glorious green mtn-sides n’ endless vistas of windmills! we shall return

sure if you have any left over pain pills at the end of this than clearly i'll have misread you

only ledge of note is the big one at p1 top - i hauled a single 'ledge up there this summer and enjoyed solo-aiding, linking up the 2 recommended routes while partying like a rock-star at night - you could sleep up there sans ledge but it'd be shittier - the top of p2 on town crier offers a better natural ledge for sleeping i reckon, but from there on its nothing to the summit

every fucking spring break rooooooooooound here!

disagree - it looks like climbing a mama-san's studded dildo!