ivan

kev's right - a tr w/o pictures is like a day w/o killing - so in honor of you, magic bone, here are some shots i just find from the other day at the ratt cave: the grueling, ugly approach (note 6 pack in hand to cushion the blow) dope on a rope loooooks like solid rock, no? portrait of the artist as a young man

requiem for a rock

you labor under the illusion that drunken teenagers, seeing such a sign, would throw LESS off the edge

clearly you didn't see the chix she set out w/

she's not the wordsmith needed to craft a fine-spun tale, though the lesbian beach-weekend she had the other week did indeed have fine source material

yesterday my boy mike thanked the good people of goldbar by disposing of his sack of human shit there - now if more folks did this we'd have a more powerful effect than some g'damn letter writing campaign!

shoes make you not naked naked hijinx in the land of poison oak is madness indeed!

Trip: Index TW - Waking The Dragon From Her Winter Slumber Date: 4/4/2009 Trip Report: this past weekend miker and i brought in the spring to upper wall - we arrived in crisp, cold air but under glorious bluebird skies - the wall was dripping like mad, but with the prospect of fine weather to continue, we decided to thole a soggy portaledge experience saturday night and finished up the green dragon on sunday, even as the last of the snow melted off up top and the wall dried out the beast in question, center frame nothing so cool as to be able to belay on a wall while looking across at a fine traverse you've already done! the main waterfall pouring off the wall made life continuously interesting - sudden strong gusts of wind would send squalls shooting through us, on the ground or up high no difference i used my mad short-fixing skills to reach the belay under the green roof in one push - the 5.9 start was mandatory aid for me as it was a small waterfall, the 4th class bit on the ledge hardly better! the next long bit took nuts beautifully and soared up to the anchor for our portaledge - though it was blazing hot i was cold and damp the entire time as the crack pulsed w/ water - that night i realized i burned the bejesus out of the back of my neck and yet my face had not an ounce of sun on it below the green dragon's namesake roof we decided to set up the portaledge (only my 3rd time attempting this most exotic manoveure, one that went very poorly last time) - when we first arrived the drip and funk was not so bad there, but sadly it grew worse later - a fun moment when a knot in of the stays failed - camp established, mike set off to lead and fix the next pitch to under the final roof the drip and wind-borne mist grew worse as i sat and shivered, chain-smoking - eventually i rigged up my z-rest as a big-wall awning to keep the worst off my head, then worked my way into the haul bag to get my extra layers on and my sleeping bag and bivy sack over my legs mike returned, and w/ the better part of my liter of wine dispensed, i took care of the serious business disinterested in figuring out how to make a pocket-rocket work w/o a hanging system, we subsisted on cold ravioli and chowder and took in the evening ambiance as it grew cold - the moon came out, bright enough to read by the night proved interesting - we couldn't really pimp too well w/ the infernal shower that, unlike a true rain-storm, held no hope of ever ceasing, so soon enough we crawled deep into our bivies and set to sleep, not much of a problem since we'd left vancouver at 430 in the morning - still, my dreams were troubled, and i woke to find my feet 20 degrees above my head, the ledge dangerously out of balance - i'm simply too retarded to ever comprehend these most inconcievable contraptions! the day broke bright and warm to the sight of the fixed pitch that would quickly warm me up time to get down to bidness off i shot up the fixed line, intending to short-fix above while mike broke down camp and followed me - mike also won the hero-award for the weekend when he used my preoccupation as his opportunity to have a nice BM on the ledge - i've yet to try this delicate operation meself! our humble camp the rest of the climb was uneventful - the aiding out from under the roof was wild fun, very like takes fist or the crack w/ no name at beacon - my main complaint being the bit just below the next anchor where, inexplicably, the bolt ladder ends, leaving the typical fat-ass aider such as myself most of the rope out facing a very long fall - happily, the vermin-hook i was carrying fit a small pocket-hole perfectly, enough for me to clip the next bolt w/ my cheater stick at full reach mike used the opportunity under his belay roof to catch one of the many banes of our existence the night before - by the time we'd finished on the route though the drip was almost entirely gone and all the approach pitches bone dry a number of double-rope raps got us down to our bags and off the wall - i recovered the many butts i pitched down the wall and mike his sack of shit and we made our goodbyes to the upper wall, where we'd seen no one the whole time, only to encounter a veritable goddamn zoo at the lower wall a long tiring drive back to the 'couve and my spring break was over - dammit! Gear Notes: my newly purchased dmm offsets have proved quite nice in the 2 trips i've made w/ them Approach Notes: index might have taller and more numerous routes than beacon rock, but god damn that hike up to the upper wall, together w/ the long drive, sure brings the balance back!

these problems will all get better after obama invents the teleporter

falling 3 1/2 stories and landing on your head is a perfectly speedy way to die - i seem to recall much of the ground around horsethief is very broken too and conducive to icky landings

yes, save the tears...for the endless slow walk up the hill w/ a giant haulbag to even reach town crier thanx for the recommendations - we woke up the green dragon from its winter slumber this weekend, overnighting on a ledge under the big green roof, but unfortunately not out of the continous drizzle - by noon yesterday the upper wall was dry, except for the large waterfall and davis-holland, green dragon and town crier were in fine climbing form!

nah, that level of dap ya only get after ya catch a fly w/ a pair'a forking chopsticks

uh..all the men in the other hemisphere of the earth? dude, did you not see the mof'n karate kid mutherfawker?

i went rock clambering in oregon once i think...once.

you can climb the reid and top out further left near the queens chair, so don't have to mess w/ the w crater rim - there's plenty of opportunity to get slid going down the back of illuminiation and back up the reid though of course

the best place to camp above the lifts is illumination gap - very scenic and relatively protected in case of storm - just fix the alititude and bearing you'd need back to the top of the lift - refinding illumination gap from the summit is also remarkably easy in white-out, provided you remembered the alitude from that camp, the route to the summit is brainless - follow the masses - or, for a much cooler but still easy climb, go down the backside of the gap onto the reid glacier, then climb luethold's coulior, for which there are at least a dozen tr's w/ pix on this site if you search the tr section

would you forgive them if they built a giant mountie-worthy privy?

you probably won't die, but leave your spidey-sense on, eh?

it will be so

when in may moof (such wonderful alliteration)? i might well be able to make it work and, from reading your text, i'm woefully stupid in most respects and could stand just to see some superfly skillz in action

actually, the big JC had more than 12 disciplines, including at least 1 chick, mary magdelene, who was so disliked by the initial set of gospel writers (perhaps b/c of her personal connection to the Annoitted, Sandaled One) that her gospel was suppressed and she, in theirs, rendered a harlot so i'm not so certian he was a homo, but sure as hell everyone who really gets worked up over him must be!

makes sense - i didn't do it this trip mostly b/c, when it was windy, i was out of my head enough to figure clove-hitching certainly wasn't a problem for the haul line, but potentially wierd for the lead - i settled for pulling up a good 5 meters or so of rope at a time and clipping it to my harness - at any rate, being on a bolt ladder in that situation is at least very comforting, and pretty much exactly why i figured doing this route as my first solo wall kinda thing made sense - it does certainly make for some good mental images - being 30 feet above your last piece and w/ god knows how much slack in the system , but totally stoked on the bolts feelz kewl sounds like 2 such prusik connection points for a long lead would be about right? that's usually the # i carry for emergencies on the back of my harness already...

would clove-hitching the lead line into a good piece in route work just as well? or would it be somehow more difficult to clean the pitch later on?

well, check out the moby dick videos if nothing else - you like music at any rate... i like the pic bill! at that distance you can't tell i'm frenching the gear too bad