ivan

stories where you don't die, but almost die = entertaining

2 pics of me n' my buddies - we did some of our first climbs on the CD, and taught ourselves crevasse rescue in the sweet-jesus-almighty big cracks to be found there - enjoy! my mother's favorite

I have descended it but I wouldn't say it's "so good". In fact I'd give it about 2 out of 5 stars. wow, so cynical! fisher chimneys was the climb that convinced me to a) move to the northwest from back east b) stop climbing volcanoes and c) actually learn to trad climb i met a guy on our hike out at lake ann - probably in his 80s - carrying an ancient ice axe - it was the 65 anniversary of his ascent of the chimneys - we offered to take him back up if FC gets only 2 stars, then the sulphide has to get -2 stars

word. i've even learned how to press the button.

congrats, esse. don't know how i missed the er in talkeetna either - i don't recall anything of the last 2 days i spent in that town - i vaguely recall nearly urking on jim bridwell's dog in the park though while desperately trying to hold my west rib burger down after a morphine chaser! that 2nd pic is b'dass!

i certainly agree w/ you on not pulling fixed gear, and my tr could have been taken to mean i was intending on keeping the pin - i'd actually intended on putting it back in after we did HT but the hour had grown very late and both mike and i were busy w/ family all weekend - and now that it's wet this week my suck-ass skillz would make freeing back to it haaaard! still - i wanna do die in the gym, so we'll be there soon on the side though, how on earth do people skip all the gear placements before that pin? jesus, the fall there would indeed be a ruinious pendulum back into the wall! i grunt and suffer even in aiders there

i don't think there's any way to keep it loved - it just runs so much w/ dirt - you pretty much would have to take a power-washer to it at the start of the dry season? how was this done originally? there's a bolted line on the far left side that goes through the same muck - vertical talcum-powder coated glass!

i haven't actually been down past the bat wall - is muji in the olson book? details/story? i havne't noticed it, but then i haven't spent much time at broughtons at all.

uh, scott, it's spray dude? what else did you expect? i did note w/ irony the prole observation right off the bat though as harry pi would say: congrats on your #1 capitalist experience! thanks for allow sprayer to post!

yeah - come to think of it, i remember cursing layton at one very exposed belay where he couldn't help but send a lot of scary shit my way - just that 1 belay though - oh yeah, and that one where i had to set up a belay w/ essentially no gear at all... the descent down the interminable 4th class gutter system was much crappier and looser though

oh i meant it in the best sense - i am eternally jealous - it is as if you have cast off your mortal skins, become beings of pure enlightened energy, opened the pod bay doors and achieved star child status!

me, in near catatonic nap-state on HT

ahhh - looks like boarders n' skiers - not REALLY people, in the strictest sense of the word

jefe, the route history in the olson guide shows superstition as originally done, aid style, in 1977 (same year as hanging tree) - it is not therefore really a sport climb (especially the top pitch) - i was just boldly reclaiming it from the lycra-clad horde mike and i are planning on returning to the bat wall in the next week or two, and i'll reset the pin then if time allows or soon thereafter - you'd probably need a blue or green alien at the moment, and i wouldn't be surprised if a lot of folks didn't even clip that pin, seeing as how they appear capable of levitation anyhow as for doing a real aid climb, i'd like to see anybody do hanging tree in its current state even remotely free!

why not post here for all to enjoy?

why does this picture make me feel mildy uncomfortable? were i traveling in the aboriginal world i would be tempted to lean into this guy and whisper in my best hushed voice "psssst...dude...your ballz are almost showing!"

i should also mention that the tree(s?) mentioned in both descriptions for "go back to the gym" and "hanging tree" probably fell down and rotted out sometime back during the wild and heady days of the (first) clinton administration

i know where the queens chair is theoritically located, but i've never understood the appelation - what exactly looks like a chair there?

Trip: B-Tons - Hanging Tree III A2, Superstition III C1 Date: 5/1/2009 Trip Report: sticking it to the swine flu - miker and i hid out from ill winds and women - geoff made a guest appearance as well hey, 2 grade III's in a day, that's the same as climbing a grade VI, right? i got to do superstition - 1 push to the second anchor, then short-fixed above while mike cleaned and geoff got to do a wildly free-hanging jug on the tag line - wore climbing shoes this time and actually managed to clamber a bit on the first part of the route - jeebus, you fucking sport monkeys! broughton rock is nightmarish for a hack like me - totally devoid of thank-fuck holds - everything greasy and glassy and rounded - above the second anchor i wandered a bit - didn't like the brambles and loose blocks on the original finish, so stepped over a razor-blade block, aided on a couple of close spaced bolts, then did a wild overhanging traverse on great gear into the upper crotch of superstition, where a crappy old bolt and a precariously placed, ancient pin offers the only protection to be had before reaching the final anchor - a thoroughly enjoyable double rope rap gets you back down, even more enjoyable when just lowering off a gri-gri on a single strand (and you weigh 21 goddamn stones!) some gems i've bootied in the past few months between beacon and b-tons and index a signature day for pilfering memorabilia from the crag - when mike was jugging superstition somehow the stress blew out the critical pin that protects the wallow onto the ledge that has the first anchor at its end (just below "snap, crackle, pop" - mike says a small cam will fit the hole (it was a medium angle, placed in a horizontal crack), so bring one on your next trip sporto-boyz, or better yet bring a nail and a hammer to go w/ your spandex then, when i was jugging hanging tree, the ancient, mauled and bashed in wired hex that had been fixed below the pin also blew out speaking of hanging tree, holy shit! great times - the first crux was converting the gaint forest of hateful stinging nettles into a suitable belay spot - then dealing w/ the thorns and brambles of the start - this would be a cool route if someone could just turn the faucet off at the top - by faucet, i mean the raging waterfall that owns the wall during the wet season - it leaves a 1/4 inch layer of powder brown turd dust all over everything - real proud of mike on this lead - the first bit is scary looking, but he dealt w/ it well, placing a spade near the bottom - the hex that blew out will take a hook or a pin now probably - the old pin above that is reliable - the thin, loose section above is deeeelicate - and the great kick in the balls, the transition out of the elegant, blank scoop onto a sloping ledge that is grassy, muddy and owned by earthworms - a knifeblade was needed in a slight horizontal crack for the exit - above this the route improves dramitically and is excellent - bring yer big gear! a handful of 3, 3.5, and 4's - try to figure out a way not to scare the living shit out of your jugging second at the end of the roof, where the razor-blade rock threatens to part the rope no matter how you rig it - i like the ingeniuty of the FA party near the exit, where they obviously beat on the rock w/ hammers to smooth the death edge that lies between the crack's end and the anchor - actually the end to the anchor is very problematic for the second - it's 10 feet sideways from your last piece at the top of the crack, and only 1 micronut placment inbetween to take a dickload of stress, and even then it still leaves the second havng to do some fucked-up voodoo shit to clean the #2 all while wimpering about the rope twanging a funeral-dirge over the hammered edge nailing from a giant hook just a wee bit off the groudn, below the old fixed hex - that shit-eating grin on mike's face is from popping his pin-place'n cherry mike on hanging tree, geoff on dracula just below the cool roof traverse, on the grassy, sloping ledge the crux of mike climb for me was not falling asleep - it was naptime bigtime for me, and i drifted, drifted, drifted - latter that night, having crushed a big bottle of merlot in an orgy of alcholism brought about by a week of abstaining, i finally realized the nap i wanted, right in the middle of a co-op session of resident evil 5 - my wife defending me from a savage zombie-on slaught as i snored over my controler did i mention geoff was in the house? his homemade aid cheat stick got a good workout, taking all the fun out of most of dracula - bastard didn't get me back my fixed aid nut, still there after 2 weeks - he managed to lead, clean and chill for an hour by the time mike concluding his drama the great find of the day - hidden beneath the thick powder, the perfect aid-crack of "go back to the gym" - looked invisible and therefore impossible from the ground, but on rap i detected, under its enigmatic coating, the continous beautiful knife-blade wide crack, complete w/ slight scars that just goes and goes and goes - next! don't know so much about the anchor at the top of it though - very scary looking, especially given the a4 "7 consecutive hook moves on the overhang above" write up in the book! mike just to ther right of the spicy part of "die in the gym" - bullshitous looking anchor at the top of p1 below him - he's pointing at the recetn bolt line that got chopped in the great "thread of the week" back a few months ago Approach Notes: avoid the many terrible leopard slugs n' fuck-all nettles!

maybe, but the old school "epoynomous" is excellent though

hey, i can see where i almost died on the sandy! cool view of upper cathedral ridge

Good one! The thing IS a piece of junk as far as rock climbing goes although in fact I thought there were quite a few very enjoyable pitches. Where Nooksack stomps, though, is in the location, the summit, and the whole package. Above, Girth Pillar is praised for the coolness of that awesome cirque and the fact that it involves a glacier and a variety of alpine skills. The Price Glacier cirque is at least as cool, the mix of alpine skills is at least as broad, and the top of the tower as compared to the top-out of the Girth Pillar route? A different league. You get to the top of the GP route and you can walk down. You get to the top of Nooksack Tower and you have a long way to go to get down. After this discussion, Girth Pillar got a few more points in the plus column on my checklist, though. not certain if you did it matt, but the rock on the bertulis route on nooksack is much more solid - just 1 scary bit that i can rememmber, as opposed to the interminably raps down the standard route, where i always went first, then immediately turned my pack into a shield above my head and cowered as my partner rained blocks down on me

how about just concluding the original one? hot red head in the backseat who'd predicted our rem-inspired disaster ends up in my lap in the crash b/c she wasn't wearing a seat belt - i think i'm gonna get lucky (i had already managed the incredible feat of catching my glasses as they flew off my face towards the windshield) - we kick the doors open and examine the carnage - rob's new car is catastrophically fucked (for the rest of its life, the front of his car will be the white half he salvaged from a junkyard, married to a red-ass end) - rob lies down in the oncoming lane of traffic, screaming for god to kill him - then he bums a kool from a negro we take in the scene - a long line of cars has built up behind our wreck, all of which contain our asshole classmates, laughing their asses off - every car except the one immediately behind us - that one has our driver's ed teacher from the year before (a man who in 3 years will lose his teaching license after his 3rd DUI ) - he was a mean looking motherfucker, shaved head, red stubbly beard, his whole face transected by an angry scar from when a coke-head slashed him w/ a strait-edge in college (he said) - the chicks flocked to him, which was easy, since he was at every high-school party - rob and i watched in dismay as, bored with our plight, our two hotties said "bummer, rob!" and hitched a ride home w/ coach mo

life can be meaningful? given the size of current raging hangover, the most meaningful thing i can contemplate is throwing myself in an incinerator right about now

but dude...he's wearing ducktaped nuthuggers! the first, and really only, serious car accident i was in - junior year of high school - just leaving school in a driving rainstorm - 2 chicks in the back seat - my friend rob driving his new car - "shiny happy people" comes on the radio - one of the girls in the back "god, i hate this song, everytime i hear it something terrible happens" - 30 seconds later we plow into the back of a volvo at 35 mph while rob and i are fighting over the radio dial to find something better