billcoe

Nope, we're all much better at spraying than climbing and it's damned disappointing when we get out there any more. Dudes like Mikey and Blake and them types don't have our spray power. Sure, they're kick ass climbers and that but they have to sacrifice their lip flapping skillz which we are not interested in at all. We are going to 40 pages here. Good day sir....... I SAID GOOD DAY SIR!!!!

I've been putting a tag that I've marked the pertinent info on with a felt tip pen (date bought, diameter and length and the rope brand). BIG BLOCK LETTERS cause I'm old and the eyes are going. The tag is clipped onto the rope bag with a removable cable tie. If I'm going someplace knarly, I usually leave the bag at home, but I have put clear tape over some tags, which are paper, to keep them together. Something like this except the color The tags have been really good for may reasons: * That rope some unfortunate rockfall chopped the end of but you love the rope so you keep it now has the 60M crossed out and it says 47M in big block letters. * The 200M roll of static that you got a great deal on and then chopped up into a 70m 70m and a 60m WHICH ALL LOOK ALIKE, you will NEVER fuck up and grab the 60m when you really wanted to grab the 70m. * Your (My) favorite skinny rope (which did a FA last month), that Beal 9.1 joker that you have been getting good mileage on cause you love it so much: you will start to realize you don't want to fall on it everytime you grab it to go out when you look and see the date on the tag: 2007! Which truthfully, still seems like @2 years ago so it's your new rope in your mind. The math, however, shows it to be purchased 8 years ago. This passage of time is confusing to me. So I've felt tipped the year onto my slings as well. One of the guys at BD had a good blog on how much weaker his skinny rope was than he thought it would be when tested. If you swap out rope bags, the rope identifier tags get swapped as well. Takes seconds. One more thing, I use Blue tags for Dynamic ropes and Yellow for Static. Then I have 3 piles: one static, one dynamic, and a pile of new ropes that you bought on sale still in plastic. Grabbing the right rope as you hit the door is simplified, or if your kid shows up hinting that he needs a 70M for long routes at a new place. Bamm, rummage the pile and toss him the one you think is best. On the tubing idea. That sounds interesting. Hadn't thought of it. Heat shrink tubing can come with adhesive on the inside, I'd suggest that. I tried felt tip marking the ends: not too successful at that.

I'm so sad, I was going to go for "clownpunchers" but the internet says no. Clownpunching is something else. So I'm at a loss.

I played hookey from work and hiked the Hamilton Mountain loop just uphill from Beacon yesterday and noticed that as well. WTF? It seemed that the upper forest looked perfectly fine, but the lower sections had some issues. Never seen that look before. There might be some damned serious wildfires this year. The warm and wet spring will leave a lot of dry underbrush by fall. Anyway, of interest was that they had the road up to Hamilton trailhead parking closed for "work", that might have been a simple license plate camera installation job, although I was unable to confirm that. I read your work here (excellent stuff BTW) but I must have missed that accident missive. Should I do a search or can I just ask: what happened?

Not sure exactly what occurred as there are 2 differing news stories. It was clearly at the Butte, and just a few days back last Friday. I hadn't heard anything about it and then stumbled on the story. Does anyone have any knowledge of this accident? 1st version: Rock climber suffers fatal fall. http://www.katu.com/news/local/Rock-climber-suffers-fatal-fall-at-Rocky-Butte-302254791.html 2nd version: Man looking at view falls. Story says: "The man walked beyond the fence before he fell." Wonder if that's the Bluebird/Toothpick area. http://www.kgw.com/story/news/2015/05/01/man-dies-in-fall-rocky-butte/26745859/ In either case, RIP Jacob Bradley, at 30 years old you left us much too young.

Ok, I looked it up. http://www.treasury.gov/initiatives/financial-stability/reports/Pages/TARP-Tracker.aspx Bottom line today: Percent Recovered: 99.2%. Not that I agreed with it, but there it is. Maybe I'm not as lazy as I think.

Uhhh, where did you get your stats Bob? He's an article from 2012 titled : "AIG Bailout Leads to $17.7 Billion Government Profit After TARP" http://abcnews.go.com/Business/government-makes-177-billion-profit-aig-bailout/story?id=17074275 Memory says that the headline said GM had paid it back. I'm too lazy to look it up cause I don't give a rats ass either. ...and there is that bad memory thing I gots. Carry on.

LOL, ya got Maturin down cold man, but you really start hitting your stride at the bottom of it. Still laughing at this: Finish it, finish it! Good lord, probably a good thing to don't show up to those staff meetings armed:-)

GZACK IN DA HOUSE!!! WOOT! HOLA G! PS, on another unrelated note: I've sent you a couple emails Tim. PM me with your current one so I can communicate and update you on some things.

That seemed easy

Here's some recent shots of couple of other places while we wait for yours. I'm starting to get out again. Still some pain but what's a mother to do? 2nd pitch Bennie!!!!

Reasons: 1st) Beacon is closed. (not) 2nd) It seems cold, dark, damp, and foreboding. 3rd) Kenny breaking his back on P1. Agree with the rest of your words Steve, great job Ivan. (on fixing Pinks old route?) Impressive line. Any pictures?

I'm going to give the wrong answer here Ian. I just had a year off, getting back feels like it has all been muscle work. Tendons seem fine. I know. Wrong answer, but I still hurt from the last surgery and haven't been going even 80% yet, so there is that. Good luck!

Speaking of Tards (libtard or conservatards), did you see this one Fair(andbalanced) weather? http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/aaron-schock-resigns-116153.html http://news.yahoo.com/congressman-aaron-schock-to-resign--report-183223696.html

Just saw this: the gear shop is open and rolling full steam upstairs in the Stoneworks climbing gym! Right on!

Damn, times have changed. I'm no longer middle aged. --->

This recent one from Pat should be nestled between some Twain and Churchill'isms and cracked me up: Haha, good stuff Pat. 'Fraid to ask about the "Bofa" as I already have a strong visual. Must stand for "Boyfriends Sofa" or "Bitches Sofa"?

That's hilarious AlpineK. So your dad supplied the skis. Haha! Strong work sir!

The table for the WIN! Woot! Till you slide sideways into a tree and crash it of course. Love it. You make that Alpine?

Wow! World class badass. Astounding, thanks for the find Rad and congrats Marc.

I did that finish once. It was the last time, never wanted to go back. Once you get though the shit, the last pitch ended as an excellent sweet fingercrack. Unfortunately, ends right under a big fir, so there was like sweeping shovelfuls of pine needles off as you climb.

This started last month. I didn't realize the expense they were putting into it. They have crews all over the tracks, it would have been nice to have coordinated with the RR for climbers to be prying any loose rocks off now when the trains aren't running. No mo Slow Trains A Comin' until they finish, when ever that is.

Its may be that the West Face also had significant rockfall and as it wound up landing on the big scree at the base it looks the same as the other loose boulders and rocks piled up there so no one noticed it. The trail has been taken out twice by loose rock - no climbing routes anywhere near the location the crap is coming from, and if you look above the trail, there is still a big chunk of crap hanging up there waiting for the next stiff breeze or wayward puff of wind to push it off..... ...you can almost hear the ticking if you pause and look right at it. I understand that climbers offered to get up there and pry off any loose stuff when they all but closed the park when the trail was taken out by boulders last time, but were rebuffed. Too bad. Next time we need to press our case harder on that. We can get that loose stuff @ 100 feet above the trail off and increase the safety margin for hikers and tourists. Just like the per-opening assists the railroad and increases their safety margin in a huge way: by getting the loose stuff that's accumulated over the winter off at a time of everyone's choosing so that a train isn't accidentally derailed by a stray boulder (or group of them) rolling off naturally on it's (their) own.

Yup. The recent stuff off the North face was pretty sizable and scary close to the cars. Just feet from the water fountain. That might be some of that Barney Rubble. Crap is falling off on it's own everywhere recently. Was not that long ago @2 dump trucks of rock fell off from the top on the SE side when the wind blew over the largest fir tree on that side and the huge root system lifted everything up and then gravity took over. Did it during the closure so there was no humans anywhere near. Course, they would have been blown off in the wind if they'd been there, must have been one of those 100 MPH East winds that nuke the gorge on occasion. The scar after. In retrospect, looking at the picture, that's much more than 2 dump trucks full.

That's awesome Rudy. Congrats to Drew. Onsighting Dawn Wall in a year or 2? Stoke!