matt_warfield

I carried a watermelon into the Enchantments once, plus wine, camping, and climbing gear. Gotta have a pack big enough to do shit like that when you feel like it.

Nice work. While flash and onsight are admirable, thoroughly sussing a route, especially a runout one, on TR is a great tactic. And the enjoyment you got from your lead is the reason we climb

Very nice TR and well documented with pictures. I thoroughly enjoyed the picture of the car. But you forgot to mention the Kodiak brown bear which is distinct from mainland grizzlies. The pocket glacier gets more attention than Kim Kardashian.

Well my first aid climb with a fellow newbie was one pitch and took nearly all day. Of course that was in the day of bongs (not that kind Ivan) and pins but the point is El Cap would take weeks at that rate.

Boulderers and sportos climbing at their limit don't want to lose energy getting to their goal. A 10 mile approach for a 2% body fat high end climber is draining when their goal is 5.14. A 10 mile approach for an endurance athlete to do 5.10/5.11 is invigorating. As I have said before, it like a swimmer who chooses 100m vs. 400 m. or track athletes choosing 100m. vs. 10,000K. We as climbers do what makes us happy and that is usually what we are best at. And in the PNW, we do have the Chief in BC and Liberty Bell, but don't have the Diamond, Chiefshead, Incredible Hulk, or other incredible walls with good weather and no bushwacking. There is a reason why Peter Croft moved to Bishop CA from Canada and Eli Helmuth moved to Estes Park from Bellingham.

Everybody needs to be christened to social media. If not us, who? In the midst of the bullshit, we collectively have extensive climbing knowledge and there is wheat among the chaff.

Yes, many a party has underestimated the time required for ascent and descent or been held up by slow parties ahead and spent a glorious night at the top in an unplanned bivy with the goats for company.

Doing a wall with an experienced aid climber is worth a thousand books or a thousand hours of screwing around on anything other than rock or with another newbie. Reinventing the wheel is time consuming and dangerous.

If you ever want to get schooled on "5.7" go do Kor's Flake at Estes Park CO. Take your gonads. If you are married your may have to locate them.

My opinion is that a well placed bolt is better than a fixed piton on popular routes. Hardly anbody sees them but climbers apprecieate them and the rock likes a hole better than getting a piton hammered up its crack.

Must be a canadian thing, eh? Drew practices for "canadian redpoint". Give'r hoser, eh? Your mom got a couple pinkpoints in quick succession. better than a redpoint.

In the end the person that has fun wins, whether they do A0, french free, a bolt ladder, hang dog, do redpoint, flash, or onsight. As long as they don't brag about it in the media with any deception . Then it is game on. And ground up just muddies the waters so you can't see 2".

A couple of additions from my trips up "Space": The traverse is good 5.9 and technical with footwork important as you noted. Last time I did it, two dudes free solo'd right past us, which is a psych out. The knobs are there as the sirens of climbing: they are easier but ever more dangerous than the crack where protection is plentiful. Belays are not always convenient. The descent is keep left, be careful, and don't wear your rockshoes.

The mind is incredible, but the camera never fails. I'm glad you got the lingerie image, mine was sans lingerie. but not in person so we are even.

The loose blocks are what build the cairns. What irony.

I'll go back to City Park. No bolts, mostly nuts (not plug and go), steep, clean, and relatively local to Seattle. And at every placement you can imagine what it would be like to free climb it.

I could be arrested or embarrass some folks. Of course granite is more solid but how can thousands of climbers and hundreds of routes be wrong? To each your own but hundreds will be at Vantage this weekend having an absolute ball.

It usually takes a jack like has happened before at Vantage. Yes towers fall and God forbid if there was any loose rock doing alpine rock.

I lost my camera, posted a notice on the bulletin board next to the crapper, got a response, recovered the camera, and got soft porn as a benefit. Apparently, if you have a lost camera, women who are tired of climbing are available for voyeur. Canadians were involved I am told. I also did some climbing. I hope you will see this as a TR because sometimes things happen on climbing trips that transcend climbing.

Well Dru pops off and so do you and so do I but rocks and mountains and ethics know no boundaries.

I have climbed around 100 days at Vantage without pulling off a hold. There is an advantage to having 1000 people do it before you. I have only seen one rattlesnake. A 60 deg. day basking in the sun at Vantage on a wall not occupied by the hordes (e.g. Sunshine Wall) is to be treasured. I agree that it is good to avoid concert weekends and I have had may car broken into when the lot was vacant but that rarely happens. Do a day trip or camp elsewhere. I also lost my camera once, recovered it and found pictures of topless and mooning women on it so I have a soft spot for the place. It is more solid than is complained about and has many areas with solitude. Check the book and don't follow the sheep. And support efforts to put a permanent crapper at the parking lot.

I'm with Bob on this one. Ethics are ethics. And what the hell is a "legit UK onsight" anyway. An onsight is an onsight all around the world unless there is a bar and copious amounts of alcohol involved. And women.

You can learn to not be around bad people, land on your back or head bouldering, not drop people or be dropped, and climb until you fail in a safe environment. Shit like that.

What he said. Go to the gym or the boulders or the crag and interact in person.

Gallatin Canyon (trad), Hyalite canyon (trad), Bozeman Pass (sport) are good options. A few people like Lowe and Anker and Callis have climbed around here.