Trip: Beacon Rawk - The Bar
Date: 9/20/2008
Trip Report:
"a feller smarter than myself once said: sometimes you eat the bar, and sometimes the bar...well, sometimes it eats you."
"that supposed to be some kinda asian thing?"
guess i was due for a smack-down - i felt far too jazzed and excited going into the weekend - the plan was to climb takes fist and some other neglected beacon classics saturday, then bivy on portaledge - i wanted to hang the ledge somewhere other than ground zero, since i'd spent a night there already, and thought i could make the nice fat bolts on ground zero work (though, admittedly, they're only 20 feet to the right of the GZ anchor, they are smack-dab underneath the tremendously cool roofs, a plus given the potential for rain in the forecast)
anyway, the day started out well - met geoff at burger king where he scored some mediocre coffee - we headed out to beacon and packed up a shit-ton of gear and bivy goodies in our haulbags and walked on down - i took my friend mike's portaledge, having practiced enough w/ it in my garage the previous 2 days to realize i'm a mechanical retard and shouldn't be allowed to have children (too late )
the first pitch i did for takes fist has been seeing some cleanign lately and is certainly improved for it (that you joe?) - the crux for me is the very thin .9ish part down low, just to the right of the only fixed pin on the route - 00 metolious cams and very thin nuts are important, as well as a sense of balance and finesse, none of which i have
the takes fist moniker is apt - once you diverge from ground zero it gets awesome for fist jams! not easy to find at beacon so you gotta savor them when they arrive - buoyed by the joy of being in a real crack, i ignored the mist and light rain to finish up the first pitch which has several very cool sections where you dance out on face holds - the last 15 feet to the anchor is fuck-all hard and didn't seem 5.9 to me
my lack of intelligence screwed me once at the anchor - i figured i should go ahead and haul up the ledge and set it up, as the room was tight and it woulda been a pain to do w/ a second person at the anchor (it's just 2 big beefy bolts, but you can put in several more pieces of gear off to the right) - i hauled up the ledge but had difficulty getting it deployed, and once out, hanging right - basically the setup sucks, since there's enough of a dihedral there so that the ledge only makes contact w/ the rock at 2 corners and wants to go all crazy when the weight shifts around on it
in hindsight, i shoulda just brought geoff up, done the money pitch, then rapped ground zero, hauled to the GZ anchor, and camped there - ah well...instead, we all ended up on the ledge, it got wierd, and we broke the damn thing (but, oddly, not in a bad way, though we didn't know till we got to the ground - a knot that anchors one of the straps to the corner of frame blew, but geoff was able to retie it) - so we ended up having to reverse the whole damn process and ended up on the ground w/ the evening coming on
at least we had beer - and jim - and geoff's bro - to provide comic commentary and photography - we rallied, fixed the ledge, attached it to the giant tree that grows by the start of free for all, drank some more, then headed off for a corner climb in the dark - this was actually the first time i'd climbed out at beacon (intentionally) in the dark and i had a damn ball - i did it in boots too, to further the funk - having 2 headlamps made in very chill and we generally debauched our ways all the way up uprising, then rapped down only to camp in the rain - geoff eschewed the ledge though
sunday morning was dank and shitty and we were due home, so off we went - i can't wait to get back at TF though - with the cleanign joe's done on the upper pitch, it looks frig'n fantastic! and then there are all those roofs off to the right...
Gear Notes:
takes fist can use on pitch 1- a green alien-a 00 metolious-an assortment of other small cams- tinynuts-3 2camelots 2 3s 1 3.5 and 1 #4
