ivan

nothing that wearing a clown-suit and maybe taking a hammer to yer choppers couldn't fix

hmmm - actually i took jim's word for it - i ran into him at the bottom of the corner and he said he'd gone over and looked and it was all gone

"the boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave" - thomas jefferson sometimes them waves can build up into a damn tsunami, no?

yeah, i really chock it up to starting on amphitheatre then moving over to cathedral - however poor or good cathedral rock might be, the rock on amphitheatre is much, much better that said, the se butt route on cathedral is a fine climb - we started it in poor style though w/ 2 false starts too far up the gulley, which irked me as i was belaying in the chilly-willy shade the whole time - starting low on the buttress from the start woulda been much more copacetic and improved me overall humors

it was all out as of this evening - who got it? what's the verdict - which was the piece that caught you? jim has an arch-nuts'n'hexes snobbery theory to blame it all on, of course love the carcass situation on the corner route currently - desicated fish heads on the traverse - two seagull wings connected by a wishbone at the slab belay - assorted blue-jay debris from the tree ledge on up - aerial-grendels at work, no doubt - would be a whole different climb if i had to contend w/ man-eating deranged fucking avians the whole way firsure saw that big block on the traverse was cut loose - wish i coulda seen it!

a very fun trip - i'd recommend climbing the monk and cathedral first, then going to amphitheatre, that way you don't feel as pissed as we did at the dramatic decrease in rock quality - what an awesome place to chill out for 4 nights! if only i'd had more whiskey and more smokes.... kat - we didn't climb on the monk, but it's right next to cathedral and the rock looks exactly the same - i didn't care for it - very large grains in the granite which tended to crumble under pressure - lots of huge boulders and flakes which were very loose - the pro frequently was very unreliable. amphitheatre on the other hand was diviiiiiine regretably all of the goodstuff on amphitheatre near the upper cathedral lake, including the kabba buttress, is north facing - the sun hits it a little bit in the morning and a little bit in the afternoon, but mostly it was shady and damn cold for august - definitely recommend cold-weather belay accutrements! for the kabba buttress route, don't be a dumbass like me on the last pitch - after the short, hard, wide crack, step left of the big old offwidth (or better yet, bring the #6 and hit it! looks tasty...) and then proceed strait up a kinda dirty looking crack - i tried to be all smart and follow an easy low angled ramp which got hard towards the end - hard enough that once on top of it i discovered i couldn't really downclimb it and i'd screwed meself good n' proper - the rock suddenly turned to orange kitty-litter and the only way to climb the last few feet to the top was by liebacking a 2000 lb boulder that was adhered to the wall by a 1 inch ledge - the thought of pulling on it made me want to retch as it surely would come out, crushing me or cutting the rope or both so anyway, get out there and do it folks! fantastic place to spend a bunch of days and don't skimp on the recreational substances! with a spectular high-tundra-like camp only 10 minutes from several dozen routes, there's plenty of time to both climb and party like a champion!

what? that old rusty ring-pin not good enough for ya? there used to be bolts right at the top of the perch, which i miss - the stuff above the tree is wierd b/c you have to climb up to clip into them before coming back down to the perch (guess you could just hang up there, but that's even wierder)- there is gear on the perch of course, but it's kinda funky and as newbies often fumble w/ the .9 below i want something damn solid to hold them in case - i usually end up using tree bolt setup for a top rope and build a gear anchor for myself at the perch

just got out there for the first time last friday - had the whole place to ourselves for the whole day - woulda been nice to have had a guidebook 'sides nelsons as we mostly ended up climbing godknowswhat - wierd shit to walk away w/ totally fresh muscles in the arms and back, yet completly pumped out calves

seems to be raining too hard here in camas right now to think about climbing at beacon - guess i'll have to wait till 2morrow to get my fix in and see what's what

jeebus! where was he on the route when he fell? gear failure? as hard as blownout is, i've always thought "well, at least there's lots of gear on it"... raining alot today - i might head over after school today and see if i can't rap the route and clean it all out for you

eunuchs are scarey

you could bivy in style at the notch below the fin, though it would ruin the style of the climb to haul much weight up it - there's usually a snow-field at the notch too you can leave the cramps and axe - if it's too icy to descend the backside, take the rap stations just below the summit down to the flat glacier

hell no! we here at the FOTPI (Friends Of The Poison Ivy) are daily burning effigies of your insensitive ass now!!!!

was that an underhanded slam on Jens & Loren? nah - sounded like one of the only legitimate answers to the original question

you mean the stupidest place to climb in washington is the one having the least fun?

not yet 3 - probably playing w/ my own poo

i vote for squamish 3 times b/c it's so hard to climb a place in washington that's OUTSIDE washington - the dynos become much more critical the stupidest place to climb in washington is a cornfield in washougal

the state's interest in public justice is to keep folks (families/clans/neighborhoods/etc) from seeking it privately which results in general chaos (like romeo n' juliet) - if some jackass killed my daughter by doing some stupid shit like chucking blocks off a cliff i'd be bent on wrecking him if the state didn't do it for me - i spent a bunch of time trundling shit in the cathedral range recently, which is damn remote, and i still made sure there was no one in the firing line when i threw shit and if i'd messed up and had killed someone anyway i could hardly bitch about getting nailed for it, no?

funny - took my daughter up to the visitor center when she was 2 - she made it about 20 seconds into the film when she became completly unhinged - "the trees! the trees! the trees! why?!?!?" damn near shitting meself w/ laughter while trying to get her out of the darkened theater...

milosh?!? josh?!?

greyhound racing in troutdale!

lots of places up a godforsaken fire-road that turns off east around the peshastin park area too - the road just winds up a mtn and seems mostly just popular w/ folks who like to shoot shit - pat n' i partied like rock stars up there one saturday night and didn't see a soul the whole night...

now that's funny, oleg! think i got a candidate lined up for friday now - will be looking for partners early next week through weekend now...

you gotta at least get charge w/ manslaughter for some shit like this, no? big suck

i need to help my future sis-in-law in seatttle drive her uhaul and car down to the 'couve on saturday - i was hoping to find someone 'round here who might want to go cragging somewhere near there (index or darrington) on friday and could dump me off in seattle on the way back - anyone interested? i assure you, the volume of conversation i can put out while going north will more than tide you over for the lonely drive back south