billcoe

Family. Wuz hanging with them all weekend and missed the group effort of almost tagging the high point. Was grinding teeth thinking of you all. But the boat was running well, and would have missed this with my son (pulling pots), daughter, brother and Sadie May the elderly Terrier and trailer park floozy. In addition to being with a couple handfuls of other relatives I don't see much and my 93 year old mom who loves the coast but doesn't get out much these days. https://video-sea1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hvideo-xlf1/v/t42.1790-2/11965038_10204837135276819_794597375_n.mp4?efg=eyJybHIiOjEzMzIsInJsYSI6MTMxN30%3D&rl=1332&vabr=740&oh=8d946249f6e99fc4e6f1989b67531a30&oe=55EEFCCA 15 crab, 40 clams, 2 bottles of bourbon. Oh, and the whales were doing National Geographic poses and migrating plentiful right below the Cape Lookout point after a 2 mile hike in excellent weather. Rematch with the beast next weekend.

I got to climb (follow Chad) up Superstitions first pitch out a Broughtons before my surgery (so while back). It had been a long while since I'd been on it (years*cough*) At first I was annoyed to see that the fixed pins had been replaced with bolts. However, it climbs better now. Pins pretty much go where they have to go, bolts can go in for the best stance), and I remembered that they were blades, not Bugaboos. So short pins and not something you'd want to take a serious fall on. Figured someone fell and ripped one or more, and that's what caused the bolts to go in. It wasn't my route (I think it was Mark Cartier and Jeff Thomas's) and I don't climb much at Broughtons so no one mentioned it to me. Whoever did the bolting did a good job with it, and after climbing it I thought the route was better. I'm not advocating for a change from pins to bolts, but I do think folks need to keep an open mind and decide on a case by case basis. When checking the pins at Beacon, if the pin placement is good it should be placed back. If it's not or it pulled out in a short fall on someone, put in a bolt if you have too. Should be a fairly rare thing to occur.

My thoughts prayers and heart goes out to you, Tom and the many that she touched. I'm glad she got the many years of life that she did but sorry to see a fantastic person check out too early. My best to you all.

Proving that if you toss enough free beer around and even the bloods and the crips or Stalin and Hitler would be homies! How was the show?

Looks fun John. Ujahn and I have been getting a Beacon lap on Wednesday's after work. As we both are getting old and fat, out of necessity, I'm afraid we'll be missing the gig tonight. Thank you for putting it up here. If it was raining I'd be swilling and watching for sure. -Bill

Good point. The first amendment is overrated anyway. Wait, what? Bob, what just happened there........??!!

Nope, not Bernie. His talk scares the powers that be and his policies will scare off the plentiful votes of middle America. That and he has integrity. A bad combo for the powers that be. Figure Biden will announce he's running, run and then win. He's smart, experienced and acceptable to lots of folks that Bernie will put off. For R's, could be anyone of the other 12-15 running, but it won't be Trump despite his big lead in the polls, I'd lay money on that. Sad to say it, but it's likely Bush as the R candidate. He's been quietly working on building the kind of machine that wins these elections. Both Bush and Kash (sic) have worked for Lehmen Bros, so they'd be acceptable to the 1 percenters.

Sick? Art or porn? Meh, "climbing pron"? heh heh. From back when there was nobody there. Adam on the Right Cheek FA Which led to the first ascent of the Left Cheek being even more minimalist. No shoes no shirt no service...no chalkbag. At least, it might not be a chalkbag. Letting one's freak flag fly so to speak.

You might not be thanking me after my next post.

Nice to hear Micah!!!!! I still get out there too, but only when Beacon is closed or I'm in a total time crunch. It's a nice little hike and/and bouldering traverseand/or cleaning the loose shit off the lower parts combo-platter with the pup too when the day is too wet for Beacon. The name thing and sticking to it being called Farside is pretty much from Jim Opdycke as he was the one who found it. There's plenty of discourse about the name online from a lot of folks if anyone want's or needs to catch up on all of that (Jim is not on the computer so they'd have to call him for his view). I go with Farside out of respect towards Jim. I'd like to see others either do the same, or convince him to change his mind and get him to revert to "Dropzone". I like Dropzone as a name. And I like Ivans "Bonezone" wordsmithing effort even more that that. The man has the soul of a poet. It turns out that not only was it the Skamania country dump for many years, but until this day, the Washington Dept of Transportation (WDOT) is still using the old nearside trail to toss roadkill deer and other ruminants off the road. Of course, this attracts a regular cleanup crew of working cougars. Haha! Good times, especially in the fall when hunters will gut shot one: or there is a herd trying to run from a hunter and one or 2 gets pegged by a car. The deer tossing comes almost daily at that point. Sometimes the Wdot crew get an old stinky bloated one. It starts to fall apart when they grab it, so they slide it onto a tarp, then they toss the tarp it's on, along with their fucking rubber gloves, down the hill to let us deal with. There, I just outed them. It pisses me off to pick up others trash. Of course, the cougars do all the heavy lifting and it's just like Thanksgiving to them. Hard to complain about that. But that all explains Ivans choice of Bonezone and others choice of Dropzone as names. As far as an anchor goes, put it in if you have multiple folks who think it should be there. I climbed with Adam in Yosemite earlier this year, and noted that someone had bolted up his route we called "Adam's Crack". It was poorly bolted job too. Bolts put in so you had to clip them after you made the move etc. Anyway, Adam was sad about it, but what can a mother do? Do what you and others think is right, ask around first of course:-) Adam tried to put it up as pure as possible. No shoes, no chalk, no bolts, no clothes. Yeah. Not even a harness for one of those damned routes. Bowline on a coil -rope wrapped around his waist. ...Of course he took his nuts.... Wait. No he did. Climbed it close to buck ass naked he did. There was snow on the ground and I had my best Feathered Friends down coat on to belay. Thus the name of the Buttress: the "Bare BUTTress". And of the 2 other climbs that are on either side of Adam's Crack. The Left Cheek, and the Right Cheek, pretty much the same deal. Naked! Suppose to let your freak flag fly when you climb those. Unless you are old. Wife said to me (and we use to do the nude beach thing back when): "don't you peel it off, no one wants to see an old flabby pasty white dude." That lone sounded bad enough that I stayed clothed. LOL!!! Anyway, if you know who changed my text from Farside to Dropzone on Mountainproject, maybe touch base with them. It would be nice if they changed it back. Kind of like Bacher would feel (if he was still alive) and if someone were to go retro-bolt up the Bacher-Yerian. Not the end of the world but it would be nice if Jims voice was heard on it first. Take care all!

I only used the name Farside when I wrote that up. Strange that someone would replace every word "Farside" with "Dropzone" in my text. That seems somewhat disingenuous. Did they not see the Copyright symbol?

Gene answered it for me. I already made $100 on a similar bet on Hillary when an unknown upstart that neither the other bettee nor I had heard of at the time named Barack Obama step into the ring crushed her. As far as the loyal opposition goes, there are @ 15 solid candidates at this time and I will refer you to a few years ago when Pat Buchanan was crushing it pre-Iowa. Pat who?

I'll tie in anytime with you Timtravelr!!!

I believe that the A team is heading up today ... .....to evaluate and either slam a new pin or re-put (I made that word up) the old one back in. All you backsliders can finally relax with all of the internet wailing and the nashing of the teeth:-).

Thanks Oly! Much better summer than last year stuck in the arm immobilizer thingy. Hope yours is well as well. Is that proper english? Anyhow, good tidings to you and yours man.

Wow -so sad, condolences to her loved ones.

Ivan is right Steve, you guys would dig it. The rock is killer solid. Route is easy. Crap, Plaidman drug me out to a pile of mud Tower by Crooked River earlier this year you could almost kick steps in, he'd be so happy with this. Couple close ups of the 4th pitch. As a belayer, I got real concerned here. Ivan goes around the corner and disappeared from view. You can see a fully detached block FROM THE GROUND! that I knew would be there someplace, and was fearful Ivan would get on it without recognizing what it was from up close. Ujahn and I have both had that happen to us at differing times elsewhere. The rope was inching up but I couldn't see Ivan althoguh I could hear him muttering about loose rock. I yelled up 3 times "YOU'RE NOT ON THAT BLOCK ARE YOU". He was off of it by @ 3 feet. Rock close up. Below: The roof system visible zoomed in. That's Geoff and Kyle up there and it's their high point for the day. Geoff is dark clothing higher, Kyle near invisible at the belay in the lighter colors. We're taking the day off and lollygagging ...getting some photos. Just to the right of the belay is that monster unattached block you can see in P1 right over Ivans head. I was musing to Ivan, how much do you think that weights? I'm sure it would be in the tons, and there is no apparent way that is help up there other than friction. It would be the trundle of the century:-) Same photo as above not cropped. Here's the overview of Tower Rock from the Tower Rock RV campground. Say hi to Peter and Pam who run the place, good folks. Pretty cool thing, while we were there, a goodly chunk of the Nisqually tribe was there. Doing day trips Huckleberry picking and fishing. For part of the day they were picking right where the short easy trail goes to the top of the Tower. They'd seen my red shirt up on the wall from below so when the red shirt guy came back, instant recognition and they wanted to talk climbing. Good folks. The roof is visible in the pic not far above the tree branches. Gotta go. My boys is in town and just woke up. We're off to Beacon for the day. C YA

LOL. Hola George!!!! I'll call you later. Here's my thoughts on things like this. Having been talked out of putting a bolt in a spot where I thought it needed one (still think that way) by George on a FA elsewhere just this spring, and having seen G singlehandedly put up the longest route at Jimmies (respect), I know George isn't the type to wantonly bolt. If he said it needed a bolt, I'd pretty much believe it. However, that said, I haven't been on Dutchman for years. In fact, although I thought my shoulder would be healed enough by now that I could be on the steeper routes like that and my fav, Blownout, again - it ain't happening. So I don't think I have a say in the discourse. Until I can get on it and cleanly lead it with nuts, it's not my place to decide. If it was further afield with bad cell coverage and scant climbers like Chimney or Jimmies, I'd be "go for it". But this is Beacon. I'd want to hear what the regulars who can get up a route like that say after they hop on it. I'm not anti-bolt enough to want someone to auger into the dirt and die before a bolt got put in, but it's worth looking at, talking over and maybe (I said maybe) just slamming in a new pin before that happened. Timetraveler, did you rap off after climbing Jills or the Corner or did you climb it? Or has anyone else done The Flying Dutchman this year and can weight in with their thoughts? ps, thought a bolt picture might be appropo. Ivan on Tower Rock P4 couple weeks back traversing left under the roof. Check that loose block out above him. Don't think I even noticed that when we were there.

Whoh, that "Of Mice and Men" shot pretty much shut down the discourse Pink. Reminds me of when the dog had to wipe with sandpaper. Know what he said? "Ruff"

Man, given the size of your hammer George, I don't doubt you'll set those suckers and they'll stay set this time! BTW, I have some replacements I'll donate if those have rusted out.

Heres one (it's summer and all): [video:youtube]

Dennis, didn't post. Good one, dude is flyin'!: [video:youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ccodc6pZPxk

Holy fuck I suspect it would be spicy. I only have experience on it iced over, and it seemed spicy then (ie, no pro and people tied together). Timberline is always open for skiing now and I saw they closed for lack of snow, so only someone who's been on it recently in it's dry state could give a solid comment (heh heh, "solid" comment) I couldn't imagine it with out the ice. I don't think it's a high likelihood that you'd get beaned by rocks although it's still low probability, and that would be my biggest fear. Bet a nice trip up jeff park glacier and it wouldn't be too committing if you chose to turn around cause the rock was crap (I suspect it is). The crevasse must be wide open, so you'd have no surprises there although it might be work getting around it. Might be a good day of hanging on the Mt and some ice climbing on the schrund even if you chose not to go for it. Have fun and let us know how it goes.

Ujahn and I did a corner lap after work. We had gone up to the butte to get a toprope workout but these long days and with Tara covering at home with the lil guy he pitched it to me that we should be doing a quick beacon rock lap. Didn't take any convincing for me and off we went totally unprepared with our smallish toprope rack of old trashy gear, lack of slings, and me in my work clothes. It measured 100 degrees on the car thermometer on the way out. Highlight was 2 kindly climbers, Jesse and Phil let us pass. While waiting for the moment I reflected that I'd bought the #6 Chouinard Hex on the rack brand new some 43 years earlier (Oregon Mountain Community in 1973). Ujahn noted that it was older than he was. It fit perfect in the Uprising finish crack though, and the long sling on it paired well with our lack of slings. When we got down we were shocked and angered to see the "classic gorge trailhead broken car window" of one of the few cars left in the parking lot. Some SOB thief smashed and grabbed right in the Beacon Rock lot. I didn't have the parking pass with me (dohh- these impulsive spur of the moment things) so had parked down the road isolated and was relived to not see my window broken as we approached the car, but still it's so sad to see another get that kind of treatment. Just a reminder that even Beacon isn't asshole proof, and to keep your valuables and packages out of sight. Got an uplift to run into Kenny afterwards who's always a joy to visit with. He'd been parked right next to the broken car window car, but he hadn't seen anything. I'm sure I came off as a pissed off Debbie Downer on the window breakage. Ujahn gets p1 I ran the slab and the ramp together, which Ujahn commented later that I stolen the best pitches:-) Did Uprising and topped out and took a much needed drink of water. Headed to Skamaina Lodge for beer and nachos. Still over 90 degrees at 7:30pm. Good stuff!

See if this works. Sitting in a camp chair in our site. [video:vimeo]134624574