ivan

no, jim's MY boyfriend!!! i prefer to call it the "hobo camp"

i'm happy for you (read, w/ subtle under-text - fuck you!!!) watcha'll do?

thought it's been about a year for you now w/ your son, kev? new-ish then... getting good practice in for the alpine - did you do it w/ boots n' a pack while drinking water outta a nalgene w/ chunks of ramen floating in it too? i like linking all the climbs by asterik pass - sky ridge, sky chimney, white velvet/satin(?), wherever i may bolt, phoenix buttress, etc.

how was it ken? fucking beautiful day! luckily i get to double up both the wife and daughter's b-day, but why couldn't it have been pouring to keep my mind indoors!?

1 of the very, very few things i've figured out that i haven't noticed everyone else was already doing regards climbing w/ headlamps n' helmets - most headlamps can actually go UNDER your helmet, instead of around it - wearing it that way prevents such disastrous losses and resulting epics. check it out!

bummer - hope i get the rest of my issues - while i like the mag, and i'm sure the chicks were hard-core, the cover shot of mixed climbing on bolts seems less then, well, alpine...

ah yes, while spinning beacon yarns, we might as well throw out the cool monikers of beacon climbers - chris jensen the tweaker might be the best so far! old larry sketchy todd ...come to mind right off the bat...

another super-neglected route at the moment - the first pitch makes for super-fun A0 climbing and is a sane alternate to get to the top of fly'n swallow

get better soon dude - and fuck the tropics! stick to the arctic ice in the future! polar bears n' eskimoes don't have to worry about this kinda crap!

climbed jensen's ridge this fall, felt like the first person on the route in a long, long time. encountered a totally dead, blackened, shriveled plant in the crack below the "mind-bending off-width" - ripped the whole thing out w/ my bare hands, getting dust n' shit all over my face, only to notice the tiniest sprig of bright green poison oak growing out of its roots, way in the back - spent the next week on the 'roids, feel'n groovy, itch'n on the inside, that special soul-scratch ya can't make

That's funny coming from you, douche. what, he said he'd love you for ever but went off to live w/ some fat-chick in iowa? don't you quit him!

ha! is that old larry in the center in the glasses?!?

hip belays rock at beacon, at least on the low angle corner - makes ya feel like fawk'n clint eastwood, especially if ya do it w/ a smoke dangling off your lower lip while singing bruce springstein songs, wearing a big bright orange brain-bucket! 9 out of 10 folks' eyes get real big when they top out and see what they've been on though i've been burned on it once though - a very large mammal was following me on the last pitch of YW and fell at the crux, making my "eiger sanction" moment more real that i was expecting...

whaaaa? you say all the pbr and turned aroudn?!? i alwasy figured excessive alcohol consumption on the ledge was the whole reason that tree's been slung for rapping there, so you at least have a chance of surviving the trip off the rock i don't throw rocks, just my own feces - i'm 1/18 colubus monkey and kevbone, leave the damn tree alone! didn't you read - it caught me! go tree! actually, i'm amazed it's still alive given the extent to which i pull, step, push and fall on it.

i believe he used the all important "conditions" word

ran into jim one time at the base on a tuesday or something - i had a skinny rope for rapping after soloing and he had nothing but shoes, so we decided to climb the corner w/ me leading everything w/ no gear except 2 slings - i seem to recall doing the slab pitch w/ the rope tied around my neck for giggles

i fell once at the crux on dods on a long lead starting from down below the off-widthy section - anyway, w/ rope stretch and the run-out i'd built up by trying to lie back the crux i ended up getting caught in the upper branches of that brushy tree before the rope even went tight!

how about this past spring when you, me n' ken went to do dod's - i did that big single pitch to the perch, where you aided the crux. ken and i had a sweet safety meeting, at the conclusion of which you skillfully talked me out of using my belay device, which i actually understand how to use, and instead gave me your gri-gri, which even under the sober-ist of conditions i'm too stupid to operate. "so, i like, don't have to hold the rope or anythign then?" i said. an hour and a half pack of cigarettes later, you decided to start freeing the last bit, whereupon my grey matter totally failed and i couldn't feed more than a foot of slack a minute to you, ken howling w/ laugher and berating me the whole time - folks, dan's gotta be the sweetest guy alive - i don't think he called me a mother-fucker even once as i tried to drag him back down to his doom

the post-script is of-course that i fell in love w/ the idea of soloing that route that night, and for years now i've enjoyed being that mysterious stranger, dozens of times passing newbies cluster-fucking their way up the same classic pitch. i'm like a fucking buddhist or something!?

my second trip mighta been the first time i met pink - so, it turns out, todd remembered he had actually been to beacon before - so we decide to go do the se corner (i'd bought olson's guide in the meantime). i lead the first pitch. todd get's the fun slab pitch. an hour into his first lead, i can't see him, but he's not moving. a dude comes soloing up and over. mildly freaked, i nod and say who know's what - i'd never seen someone engaging in such tomfoolerly before, and it seemed an awfully scarey place for it. anyhow, 40 minutes later, todd still hasn't moved more than a few feet, evening's ending, and i'm definelty concerned, but every time i shriek up at him, i get no response. "jesus christ, why did i have to quit smoking cigarettes?" i idly wonder. then, out of nowhere, the SAME mysterious soloist comes up from the bottom againg. "WTF?" i ask him "what in the hell is going on w/ my boy up there?" "man, i don't know, he looks like maybe he's not having such a good time." we rapped off from grassy ledges that night in the dark. and that was, i think, the last time i climbed w/ sketchy todd at beacon

ok - so, my first trip to beacon, i went w/ sketchy todd (don't worry if you're reading out there, todd, i mean your moniker w/ much love) - he said he'd been to beacon b4 and i was fresh off the plane having just moved west - from the p-lot, the first thing i see is the north side of the rock, all dank and dark and shitacular - "dude, is THAT it? i thought this place was dope?" "yeah, that's it, let's go get it" - after he flailed on the first pitch of nasty mank, i took over and got us a rope length off the ground, climbing past his high-point, pasted in blood - the next pitch was even worse, and after watching him agonize over it, i didn't even offer to try to do it - carpets of 12 inch deep moss over smooth slabs w/ nothing but blank looking wall above - wtf? - so we rapped, basically strait down to the water-pump. he went first, and called "off" at a slight ledge w/ nothign but an old pin, only half beaten in to rap off next. i had done very little alpine at this point, and it looked stupid-sketch to rap on just that tiny piece of shit, but before i knew it or had the sense to think of trying to back it up, todd was off. as i watched, the pin his whole life was depending on slowly bent in half. i screamed "you're gonna fucking die!!!" and envisoned a night of watching the road and shivering, staring at his corpse. he managed to live though, and i miracled in a whole constellation of back-up nuts and got down to the ground safely wondering "what in the plu-perfect fuck is this place all about?!?" little did i know i had one more epic climb w/ sketchy-todd to go! now that was my intro to the big B

this one time, at band camp... i gotta cogitate on this one...

i forgot to mention my secret weapon - taking naps on the couch while watching "the eiger sanction" on endless repeat!

i might be able to get him, though not being a portlander i don't have a good sense of where he is in relation to da bar - i might be a hair late anyhow what w/ having to get kids ready for bed n' all - if'n bill could get 'em that would likely give him more hang-out time? let's figure it out by tuesday?