ivan

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

soooooooome tiiiimes....

hey, a seeing the silver lining in the cloud kinda guy! hmm - the 1918 flu pandemic killed somethign liek 25 million - if it was even twice that today we'd still make good on the loss in just a couple of years, so it probably wouldn't be that much of a reprieve for our voracious appetites anyhow

several of my students were wearing masks today - didn't seem to interfere w/ them swigging down their mountain dew though

my favorite article of trash seen at skull hollow, assorted deer legs, were not likely left by climbers climbers or not though, the collective action of campers is what counts

there's gotta be somewhere else to dirtbag in the smiff area? paying to use public lands (especially w/ zero services) = lame

nooksack sure has a more gnarly getaway than GP!

it has the added virtue of being easier to execute in a fierce environment - i've never found using a compass or a gps easy on a slope in a blowing, snowy, shitty whiteout w/ my goggles all fogged up and my hands buried in mitts - w/ the altimeter you just stumble along as best you can, periodically stopping to check your wrist

fuck yeah bill! man, wish i could be on that flight...

everybody enjoys a good zombie-apocalypse story - its why jesus caught on so big, world wide, yes? the shadow of 1918 does stretch a long way though - and an eventual repeat of a disaster of that magnitude is as certain as another california earthquake or indonesian tsunami, so its more deserving of newspaper ink than the fucking octomom

fwiw, i think altimeters are much more useful navigation instruments on hood's s side then gps or compasses - take note of the top of the ski lift, then don't let yourself go more than a hundred feet below it on the descent in a whiteout before starting to traverse around (usually you'll need to traverse left to pick up the ski lift line - but be sure to stop if you come up on a giant canyon )

no shit about GP's ambience - what a wild cirque - the route could be pretty much dogshit climbing and it'd still have a shot at the vaunted big 5 list just b/c of how it feels to be in that little bowl of icy hell

the conditioning thing is largely irrelevant - if you haven't used an ice axe or practiced crevasse rescue, you have no business above 10k on rainer w/o a guide or having first practiced those skills for a few hours below that said, the first time i climbed rainier, it was just me and 2 similiarly inept buddies - we had a copy of freedom of the hills though, and warmed up w/ climbs of hood, where we practiced the groovy diagrams in the textbook - that oughta work for you too - its fun - just don't underestimate the weather or the crevasses out of a concern for physical conditioning - that part is easy - just go at whatever pace you can maintain for hour after hour, enjoy the views, and you'll be there before you know it

it doesn't really matter - the bottom line is you're contemplating a gigantic goddamn drive and wanna know if it'll be worth your time - the point is you wont' know till you're there, so unless the forecast really declines, go, but have a backup plan (if you've never practiced digging a snowcave (then crawled inside it and gotten good n' crunked), that's a fun thing to do on the mountain, for example, or like i said, go do something to the east where you know it'll be dry) regardless, if you're near the summit in the early mornign and don't have you head up your ass, you won't have much reason to be worried about avy's on the south side - your main concern is visibility - generally, if you've reached 10k and it hasn't cleared up, it's time to sit on your ass and wait for shit to get better, or go to plan b