ivan

would love to come by friday bill but gotta go to colorado thursday and not climb for a whole week naw, ben didn't tag along 2day, but on sunday we did local access/flighttime/flying swallow and i think he freed most of the latter after i led it, francophillicly saw jim sunday afterwards (we also tr'ed fly'n'swallow direct, which i vote as -2 stars retarded) but as ben and i played tour guide for jeff thomas up jim's young warriors route, we ended up in a big gaggle (ben's bro and pink chalk also accretted in our max danger dalliance atop the rubble-pile) at the top of the se corner all jabbering and gibbering sick-spray at each other and someone managed to miss any tale of saturday and now it's time for a walk w/ the kiddoes

ah yes, and i forgot to pay all proper homage to the big bill coe, who according to legend and myth, was in on the fa w/ jimbo back in 1885 or something like that - you been back on this route since the reagan era, dude?

wish i could be there - will be in colorado w/ the folks instead and NOT climbing

Trip: Beacon Rawk - - Pimpfest onna Portaledge (Getting Ground Zeroed) Date: 7/29/2008 Trip Report: you must forgive the ecstatic jabbering that follows, especially given that we fucked up and failed to bring a proper camera to capture the magic, a fault i shall seek to mitigate w/ the copious use of many fine swearwords - a fine, fine local creep was just completed by your friend and humble narrator - being a creature of the north cascades i've never sampled the great walls of the golden fruity-cali-booy south, but curious i've been to see what that whole scene was like - lately my friend miker had come by a pimped out double portaledge and was looking for someplace to make mischief w/ it - years ago i remember tooling along w/ joeH on his anchor swapping shindig and rapping down through ground zero - he pointed out the sweet setup for practicing the big wall hanging bivy as there is an excellent 4 bolts anchor about 160 feet off the ground so the plan went into action - mike's set to have his second gimp-child born tomorow or soon, soon thereafter, so equipped w/ a new cell phone (see our sordid stuart debacle for the backstory), he and i zoomed outta camas aroudn 4 y-day and were on the scene and ready to roll about 530 - we circumvented the parks newfangled fuckall scheme to charge 10$ for overnighting on the rock by parking 50 yards down the road in the old-school misanthrope p-lot - humped our ledge and a huge party supply down to the south side and set to work the start to ground zero is damned confusing if you're just reading the prg and i dont' know that i can do much to improve on it other than to say that, after commiting a great hate-crime against the myriad of luscious ferns, trees, shrubs and purty, purty flowers that were encamped in the 300 some odd feet of cracks for likely the past 2 years or more, the line is much more obvious now when standing at the base then it was previously- the bluebook line on the route reads .11d, grade III, which i reckon is right on - i regretably am damn far from having that in my free-dar, but armed w/ many small wires and a pair of etriers and a daring do to free what i could and aid-fuck the rest, i managed both pitches in the fine style all who have had the misfortune to meet me have come to expect the first pitch is the blue-collar fright-fest - crazy lichen-ated, thiiiiiiin cracks w/ only a few thousand year pins along the way, unstrait-forward route finding, blah, blah, blah, 2 hours later i was at the sweet hanging belay and attempting to transform the image of the pig-hauling setup so androgously illustrated in FOTH into reality but without the high-speed jumars that the jet-set crowd is all equipped with - using a pulley and 2 prusiks and my etriers i was able to figure out how to hoist the 60 some odd pound pig up to my perch -being a phat-ass phuck has its advantages - i can see how doing a true big wall expedition would be epic to the extreme after mike arrived at our lofty crib, we deployed our wonder of aluminium science and set into the 120 ozs of whiskey and fosters ("it's australian for budweiser!") and other assorted party-favorites we dragged along and quickly became rudely deranged whilst sorting out our strange situation - ropes everywhere - gear everywhere - biner on biner on biner! brought a z-rest for some obscure reason and had zero use for it - the 'ledge was the coziest bivy i've had all summer scenes of the night - shooting stars - satellites - boats on the river - the sperm-spluge of the milky way - a wailing set of mp3 speakers blaring out the tunes that meter my mercurial soul - "navigator, navigator, awake and be strong - the mornign is here and there's work to be done!" - "she's addicted to nicotein patches, she's afraid of a light in the dark" - "by landslide and rockblast they were buried so deep, that in death if not life they'll have peace when they sleep" - arcing lines of piss cascading down the rock - spotlights - like climbing into a sedate aviary - swallows all aroudn swooping and swirling, bug-bound and playful - bats - owls - moths - camel after camel after camel and then the whiskey's gone! light at 430 - the crescent moon glows in the east - mike is forced to rap to the ground and settle a certain gastro-intestinal necessity while i unfuck the ropes and sort gear - i try to hide my glee at getting to lead the money, money pitch - goddam, how did this only get 1 fucking olson star? - in the state it was in, covering in powder-green lichen and completly vegetable infested my puny man-boy free skills kept me from freeing more than maybe 10% of the pitch - steeeeep! i was the proverbial pimp on xmas morning, unwrapping a present every 3 feet, covering my eyes w/ my elbows while tearing out whole ecosystems of ferns and other fragile things - found an acorn lodged in a crack, awaiting the Great Leveling - "thanks santa, just what i wanted, a nut placement!" and then of course the song that just wouldn't go away, the one i belted out endlessly like some loon - starstruck - "i wanna be a rawkstar!" RBH3TFCKVok "'cuz we all just wanna be big rockstars, live in l.a. mansions, driving 15 cars, the girls come easy and the drugs come cheap, we'll all stay skinny 'cuz we just won't eat!" mike's wife was all set to get her bun out of the oven by watchign some fancy chic-flic at noon 2day, and so we had to high-tail it outta there w/o climbing riverside like i woulda liked, but no worries as the rain began very shortly after we broke down the ledge and rapped down - a big hearty "fuck you" to the jackasses who brought the meth-addled pitbull to the base of the crag and left him to growl and bark and chase us down the trail - luckily i had a portledge in hand to plunge into his skull had he come 4 feet closer to my happy bubble -totally harshed on my buzz - do you fucknuts who bring your dogs to the crag understand that mean assholes like me will kill them? yeah, so your puppy might be real sweet when you're around, but when you leave them to blockade the sole exit from the crag, freaked out at the rockfall and isolation, you create a situation where something is gonna get hurt, and it sure ain't gonna be me - if i had had a gun, little fido would probably be dead now, and you too if you had pitched a fit over it - anyway, back to the light and frothy tale i'm laying down so subtle hmm, fuck, well, that was that - all you so called portlandia hardmen now have had a neglected classic cleaned for you to go free and chest-beat over and its everybit as damned good as driving 6 hrs to go do CBR - the placements are all clean and the flowers all fucked - i'd be happy to belay you while you freelead it and i'll see what i can do on tr! Gear Notes: a set of tiny nuts 00 metolious cam a must X2 blue, green and yellow aliens X2 sets of small, medium and large nuts X2 .5 to 2 inch cams 1 3 inch cam 16 or so draws and for the pimped out portaledge experience you will need: 1 can of bbq pringles 2 giant subway gut-bomb sammies 1 sack of cheetos X4 fosters oil cans .5 liters of makers mark 1 pack of crumpled camels a whole headful of to make the shooting stars seem more personal Approach Notes: park in the olde spot to escape the warden's ticket

? i suspect you don't understand what i was saying earlier, but it really doesn't matter condolences for certain, not that those empty words mean a goddamn thing when it's your dad/son/brother dead - this is why folks oughta be climbing rock this time of year or alpining further north and not mucking around on the sides of sloughing slag-heaps w/ scads of fools in godforsaken oregon

ever notice how conservatives are such literalists?

cool - well, that said, anyone gonna be out at the big B 'round 10 2morrow and wanting a pardner? and someone tell opdyck his damn phone's been off the hook for 24 hours now!

gonna be out sunday morning and ben's leaving around 10 a.m. - could use a partner after that or its the usual...

what happened to mike? holy fuck i'd be there if i could escape the cycle of family vacations i've wired meself into...

woooooord! and i only have another week and a half of family vacations left to endure!

meow!

i forgot to add the color element of the day - a whole army of boy scouts marching to the summit on the trail in harnesses and helmets looking for something to climb - the adults seemed more clueless then the kids - i don't see meself ever soloing all of dod's there kev as i've yet to be able to free the crux b/c i'm such a suckass rock climber

the bone at castle rock found me on my one climb on it doing a most bizarre and enjoyable face-out from the rock giant jug-grab combined w/ a wierdo side-ways manouevre

forgot to mention, the best part of the day was saving the 60'some odd bucks i was planning on spending on a new blue alien when i found one some gumby had abandoned on cruising - 15 seconds and no nut tool landed a fine metollius cam in the same range! if the owner has a blue alien they'd like to swap out for this orange-spray-painted model i'd be fine to make the trade

Trip: Beacon Rawk - The Olde Goode Classic solos Date: 7/19/2008 Trip Report: no reason for posting this 'sides i'm drunk and captivated here at seaside w/ the grim glowing horizon outside the glass - feeling like some happy go lucky fucked up apostle w/ the house so quite and the drunks and children asleep - my morning y-day was glorious and everything that it is that words fail to communicate - out at the lot at 6 a.m. - was back home by 11, but in the scant space between did the classics alone - the corner, young warriors, cruising and the first pitch of dods - buzzards by the dozen, rising in frustration when the trains passed - half sun on the event horizon of cloudiness - if only the world could feel in those few hours the grandness i felt then, i can't imagine our globe's little troubles being so godawful - a slight breeze, the solid nubbins of young warriors top pitch, the bit where the feet let go and it's just hanging by your hands and cursing and hauling and whooping when its done - the smoke at the base of the last scramble - the tourons on the trail - the dew on the trees on the hike down to the base in rubber clogs - the sense that this all will be over very soon - i like that the slab pitch on the corner has changed - now a slight handjam adds to the reportoire of skills one can practice on route - finally, dods at the end of the day - jam after jam, and the whole thing up and back to the ground in 10 minutes! can't wait to be done w/ this beach trip in the orbit of the patriarchs

Trip: Mt Goode (,dude) - - The Olde Goode One Date: 7/13/2008 Trip Report: rare olde times w/ the honorable and odd joshk on the north fork of bridge creek in recent days zombie land tour to make it to the pct 15 miles - rumor-mongering and ruminating - binge and purging on tori amos - 30 degrees at the parking lot at 6 a.m. - drifting, drifting, drifting through darrington and the Big Beyond ah, trail! ah, more trail - why was i ever tempted to wade through unwacked hell-swamps? a bucholic beaten path over turbulent waters - no shortage of opportunities for the suicidial to scratch that itch along the way - bridge creek would be an awfully loud damn place to spend eternity though proceeding up the north fork - meadows of all the flowers i know - the ones that are queen anne's lace and the ones that aren't - mamloose (sp?) ridge leads toward goode all my partners are obsessed w/ fucking flowers bivouac on a great big boulder at 3800 feet - bear signs everywhere - a defensible position if only i could keep my eyes open - the parkland and alpine defenses of goode's ne buttress lie above us no sleep in days - the Big Poo grips poore josh - i sleep serenely while he spends hours in hell - black bears dance through my dreams and i know such lovely things day 2 - a black day for the pimp squad's californicated member - his bowels mend - heat, upon heat, upon heat as the sun glowers upon us - logan forsaken - resolution to put a camp at 5900 on goode instead - we set off to wade the creek at 3800 feet - an expensive lesson is learned - i am sworn to a terrible and humorous secret we ascend a snow finger to a creek that rises to the buttress soaring down from stormking - we hop a deadly moat onto rock - nervous memories and bad flashbacks of jo'burg turn to delight when we only have to do the vertical-'swack-boogie for a mere 5 minutes - we contour, sometimes playfully, sometimes petulantly, across snowfields - i do an alpine rendition of all along the watchtower before logan, who could clearly give a shit we pull into the motel 6 at 5900 feet - the hour passes that sweet stroke just a few minutes past 4 as we undertake a take-no-prisoners deforestation campaign in establishing newe pimpe towne - sitting on a rock, catching our breath, we grow oddly affixed on the summit-shadows of stormking on the glacier - days later, i will have to erase a half gig of pictures of all the same thing newe pimpe towne on the only flat piece of real estate in sight the whiskey-a-goode-goode hour, brought to you by your goode friends up in canadia and available at the reasonable rate of 5 bucks a hip-flask day 3 and the morning comes and we're off and traversing across the goode glacier just 500 feet or so to the buttress - the soft snow works well w/ josh's tennis shoes - did we mention why josh is in such a brazenly hare-brained bare setup? the actual toe of the buttress from the western side - beta said to go all the way around but they're welcome to a cold frosty glass of shut the fuck up as that's oh-so-more-contorted - a slight moat is easily turned to climbing at the actual base of the butt just below a steep snow finger a long, relatively disinteresting rock-fest begins - the easiest part of the whole experience for sure - heard some shit like skye skiied this shit over here? the cooler section... precise footwork is imperative on such highly technical 4th class pimpe-grounde fear n' loathing on the summit - jo'burger and buckner and forbidden and a hundred hard-on fantasies harken beyond do you have any hand-lotion, dude? meow the easiest part of the descent done w/, we enter into helle as we must traverse all the way back to the storm-king/goode col via steeeepe side-hilling - storm king looks fucking stupid from this side, but i dared not breathe such insolence until we'd finished having our way w/ his daughter into the rap down to the 'frigarator on the north side - my helmet says "FAH Q" - how about yours? josh just kept losing shit but getting stronger for it - here he shows off how totally chill he is w/ descending steep ass glacier sans gloves n' boots n' steel 'pons after 12 hours on the assault bivying on the north side then returning after the summit makes this mountain much more of the full meal deal - half-desperate w/ the coming of devil-dusk, forlorne at the prospects of finding a way across the tortous upper glacier, i spot our Last Best Hope - steping delicately over the Quick Good(e)bye i use my alumininium axe to hack in some footsteps and humpe me way over the barrier between here and my last 2 pall malls - i hoop and holler in the crepescular gloaming as josh yards on the rope to follow and in 5 minutes all the heart-ache is gone and its whiskey n' smokes n' lasagna n' the beatific-glow day 4 and 'fore noon we return to the north forke - the goodtimes gone lay out before us - we accessed the bivy via the snowfinger/creek on right, then up and left to the slanting snowfield below snow-king at top right - we bivied at the top of the buttress in the center of the picture and so now, we say so fondly to you home and hearth and hill, fuck off, we have other things to do

congrats - a virtual goddam orgasm of tr's lately!

not to far from what josh n' i were lovingly referring to mt benazir butto!

beastie boy's - "mark on the bus" from check your head tv36hODaolM

wise sir, do not grieve it is always better to avenge dear ones then indulge in mourning for every one of us living in this world means waiting for our end let he who can achieve glory before death when a warrior is gone that will be his best and only bulwark

i thought pissing contests like these just happened during the rainy months when we CAN'T climb at beacon?

ah yes, and for the record, the amazing hail-resistant, mostly wind/water proof, studded-for-his-n-her-pleasure, neo-colonial alpine cape w/ dyneema ass-floss cinch!

you wouldn't been able to handle it, mikey - dude, it got so wet after a while my cigs wouldn't stay lit!

let's see, that oughta match well w/ the orange alien already fixed to that pitch - and it's remorse it's stuck on, not os.

what ryhmes w/ the word "orange?" what is the averge air speed velocity of an unladen swallow? what have i got in my pocket?