ivan

another way of saying it would be that it f@cking sux!

4 esteemed gentlemen (iain, rob, pat, n' meself) climbed the right gully of the north face of hood saturday a day that produced delirum...left portland at midnight after hitting the halloween parties, walked out of the cloud cap parking lot at 230. light powdery snow covering all the talus below the elliot made for a royal pain in the ass, but eventually we were up on the glacier and slogged over to the base of the north face. some of the cracks filled over, but still a lot of places to get screwed in. the gullies of the north face looked inviting enough, but the incessant spindrift pouring down made it look like a frozen waterfall, set in motion. freezing stop to gear up...my hands are still cold. rob n' pat led off & the fun began. seemed like we climbed up and up forever, not takinga break until we were about 400 feet below the summit. the climbing wasn't too hard, a good constant 60 degrees with several invigorating steps...sure glad nobody fell as protection was placed few and far between. everything was covered in good ice and the climb passed w/o incident. the first party moved a good deal faster than my slow ass, and elected to skip the last steep ice step, going around on the rock. beating us to the summit, they got too cold sitting around and descended the sunshine route. by the time iain and i were up, the weather had changed and visibility was dissapearing. with dark not too far away, we were unenthused at descending a route unknown to us in bad weather, so we elected to go downt he south side, which was great fun in it's super icy state (great picks in the frozen mud though) made it down to timberline and caught a ride back round to the north by 7 p.m., making it a very long day. hopefully some of them camera-having fools can add some pictures and say something more interesting than i

as of sunday there was light snow on the road all the way to cloud cap, but it was ungated.

if i was a chick, i'd be a total milosh groupie

i always approve of skipping work in pursuit of meaningless thrills on the fleeting edge of babylon

anyone wanna go on just sunday & carpool?

i think rob and steve are the resident experts on closing dates for beacon still looking for folks who wanna climb there after 3 on weekdays...

thanx steve for the keg (damn shame the alcoholics killed it before you arrived...) nothing got broken, i didn't see anyone puke, the cops didn't arrest anyone, and there wasn't a fight... ...shit, it wasn't even really a party, eh?

tally-ho, biyatches!

challenge: one hand washes the other correct reply: i fear nothing!

it's open house monday...at work from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. feeling extra shitty...my 2 cents says its supported, though not enough to degrade the effort as anything less than superhuman

does it makea difference? who gives a shit? if you're into that kinda suffering, you shouldn't give a crap wether a guy ran the whole way w/ 30 measly packs of gu or deposited them here and there beforehand...a herioc task regardless. - know's what i'm talking 'bout, right, danny-boy?

when are you going to ak? i got by just fine w/ a cheap -20 bag from rei and down pants would have been needless overkill (i did go a bit later than some though). overboots were good to have no doubt...i have a pair, if interested.

pete's pile out by hood (at the cooper spur turnoff) was fun the one time i went there...seem to recall there was a bunch more to explore

my favorite is the huge coil of hemp rope on the cooper spur...must be 100 yards long and 2 inches in diameter...several fools appear to have slung it's rotting coils and rapped off it

ya, it was good times in the upper part of the glacier...someone needs to put a sidewalk through to the glacier though...i'm tired of busting my ass stumbling through all that choss bulllllshit...where's your pic, tim?

since we're sponsored, does this mean puffing down at the tables is encouraged?

hurt it? you fucking crazy? the krauts didn't march into french-fry land w/ machines that dent when struck by furry mammals...christ, there wasn't even a drop of blood or a puff of sweet spotted fur on the car...the nazi force field did all the work on another note, i found the east ridge descent route better than the west one. the traverse on the ledges was a bit wearing, mostly just b/c i didn't want to get stuck out after dark twice on the same damn mountain, but it did seem faster than rapping/downclimbing the 4th class gully on the west side. figured out the left hand style, all is well

shit, it 's just so much more fun to climb north of here this time of year

for once i beat josh to the punch on the t.r. did this car to car on wednesday in 15 hours (so many flowers to stop and smell along the way) started up the trail at 7 a.m. passing the avy debris was far easier this time compared to last year. saw 3 other folks headed towards sahale. much less snow in the basin compared to the same time last year. annoying sliding around in the scree getting up to the east ridge, but fun climb from there. didn't feel like we were going slow, but didn't make the top until 5. did my first 5.8 alpine lead on the last gendarme...only took a minute after spending 5 trying to find my balls. descended the east side route. back to the packs at 620 (420 in hawaii). didn't want to waste time w/ crampons for the brief snowfield above the bedrock and paid the price. slipped, arresting only slowed the slide, and went down the whole 200 feet or so before smashing into the rocks. erased all the skin from the top of my right hand (jerking off now signicantly more painful) and made my parka rather bloody. made it below timberline as the sun was setting. headlamp developed a loose contact and blinked off and on incessantly. tired and stumbling the whole way out. christ that last part of the trail is steep as shit. on the drive home the old adage "the most dangerous part of any climb is the drive there" was reinforced. josh, hardman of the mountain that he is, turns into a wee lass when large bugs fly around his head. found this out while he was barreling down the top part of the cascade river road in a fine piece of german precision engineering...as he swats and thrashs at the air in anger, my balls leap into my throat as the car makes a beeline for the cliff and a sweet, rapid 500 foot descent. he recovers with 6 inches to spare. then, back on the paved byways of babylon, whilst checking his messages like the consumate ubber-yuppie he plays on television, we run down a fawn that zigs when it oughtava zagged. at this point, badly shaken by two big winks from the Big Bastard in the Sky, josh relinquishes the helm to me, a potentially fatal mistake as my brillantly stoned mind can't quite comprehend the intricacies of a manual shift w/ 6 forward gears. wanna put some of those pix up, amigo? in summary: a great day, a sweet climb & an excellent conclusion to a fine summer, just watch your ass on the way home

yer right....i just recently saw the brand spanking new bridge above the treeline and assumed that was it...seemed odd at the time that making such a small structure would require closing the road... now back to killing my brain w/

naw, i'm saying they were southern boys (late teens, early 20s), like meself...from georgia and north carolina, still country as fuck, and in god's great icebox teaching a skill i couldn't grasp how they'd aquired in Dixie....tickled my heart to smoke down w/ a fellow victim of the War of Northern Aggression...think we were all a bit homesick for grits and oppressive heat i'm 8 feet tall and bullet proof...i ain't dying till i run out of whiskey

that bridge is done now (ruins the fun of crossing the elliot too)

great pix....hope to do the face this fall before my life is invaded by a screaming hellion...the conditions you encountered looked just fine...at the moment there are just a few gullies w/ snow, and a lot of shitty open rock

don't have any digital pix yet, but will after the film is developed...none of the north face routes go all the way up to the top, and few have much snow on them at all...also, rocks the size of refrigators are falling down them at frighteningly frequent intervals...i'll put up a pic when i get one, until then, i'd repeat that the face looks thinner than last fall (and there are several pix on this site of the face then)