billcoe

3 weeks and not a single other poster responded. CC.com must have a don't-ask-don't-tell policy.

I have some pictures I can contribute, maybe someone can type the Ivanesque style literary masterpiece which such doings deserve? I'll start...."It was the best of times...it was the worst of times....

Buying you a map for Christmas Bryan...we were concerned that you had an accident and were in a ditch needing our help.....like perhaps you and Kevbone were carpooling over to help out.....

PROGRESS! THIS IS GREAT! "Access Fund and Washington Climbers Coalition Secure an Option to Purchase Lower Index Town Wall in Washington Submitted By: Nick Wilder on May 26, 2009 The Access Fund announced today that an option agreement to purchase the 20-acre private inholding at the Lower Index Town Walls of Snohomish County, Washington has been secured. This popular rock climbing area boasts several hundred quality granite climbing routes and is only an hour drive from Seattle. Its proximity to a major metropolitan area and its short 5-minute approach from the trailhead make this cliff line a popular after work or after school climbing destination for the Seattle-Everett area. The Lower Index Town Wall was closed earlier this year when local climbers saw No Trespassing signs suddenly posted around the cliff. The private landowner revoked access to the property after quarrying companies began displaying renewed interest in quarrying and granite removal. The structure of ownership for the property changed to a limited liability corporation, and the landowner began negotiations for sale of the property to two interested quarrying companies. Upon news of this from the landowner, climbers quickly turned this threat into an opportunity. The Access Fund and Washington Climbers Coalition rallied together to research quarry regulations, comparable sales, and title history to determine the best path forward. Negotiations soon began to determine a fair market price and terms for a potential acquisition of the property by the climbing community. Jonah Harrison, member of the Washington Climbers Coalition and volunteer regional coordinator for the Access Fund led negotiations with the landowner, with support from Joe Sambataro, Access Director at the Access Fund. Matt Perkins, Darryl Cramer, and Andy Fitz of Washington Climbers Coalition also played critical support roles. After weeks of negotiations, the landowner agreed to an initial payment of $10,000 for an Option Agreement to purchase the property within 18 months. This agreement gives the Washington Climbers Coalition the sole right to purchase the property for long-term management, or assign the property to Washington State Parks. This option payment is made possible by a loan from the Access Fund, giving the Washington Climbers Coalition and the local climbing community the time and ability to fundraise toward a set goal. The American Alpine Club, as well as countless others, have offered their fundraising expertise to help complete the purchase. The Access Fund will continue to play a lead role with the Washington Climbers Coalition in transaction management, title work, and fundraising. While the Option Agreement is secured and purchase price is set, there are other longer term issues that need to be addressed at this popular cliff. “Project Index” will address proper sanitation and parking. A preliminary wetland study is already underway to determine if a new parking area and vault toilet can be located on State Park land in a central area for access to both the Lower Wall and Upper Wall. Announcements of the final fundraising goal are expected to be released by August of this year. In the meantime, the private landowner has agreed to reinstate public access during the 18-month option period, a privilege the climbing community can appreciate as summer in the Pacific Northwest unfolds. For more information, contact Jonah Harrison at jonahv10@gmail.com or Joe Sambataro at joe@accessfund.org. Visit http://www.washingtonclimbers.org for new updates. History of the area The Lower Index Town Wall and surrounding cliffs have a climbing history going back nearly 50 years. The cliffs are beloved by sport climbers, traditional climbers, aid climbers and boulderers alike. Throughout the early part of the 20th century, the landowner’s family quarried parts of the Lower Town Wall for granite until the Burlington Northern railroad moved closer to the wall in the 1960s. Quarrying was put on hold, but ownership was maintained by the family heirs. Initial attempts were made by Washington State Parks and the Access Fund in 1999 to transfer the property to state park ownership, yet its high potential mineral value impeded any action at the time. About the Access Fund Since 1991, the Access Fund has been the only national advocacy organization that keeps climbing areas open and conserves the climbing environment. The Access Fund supports and represents over 1.6 million climbers nationwide in all forms of climbing: rock climbing, ice climbing, mountaineering, and bouldering. Five core programs support the mission on national and local levels: climbing management policy, stewardship and conservation, local support and mobilization, land acquisition and protection, and education. For more information visit http://www.accessfund.org."

Blame Ujahn. I can't help it if I was crawling on all 4s like a dawg and he all shakin' like..... I have hair in that pic too, and I'm not going to photo shop it out to provide some realism or anything:-)

LOL!

I keep seeing this thread and don't have an answer. Are you thinking of grabbing the FA of Lizard Locks because I did a one arm pullup on the tree? If so, someone already got it, maybe Kelton. I watched the kid cruise it and he didn't even use the crack for the upper part. I told him the "Tree growing out of the crack was on" but he just plugged a cam and started grabbing invisible face holds, and passed the crux and didn't even stay in the crack at all. That kid is scary strong. The next kid dogged the lower part on toprope and never even made the crux before giving up. I don't have any pics of yarding the tree, but here's one of the route. PS, I can't do a one armed pullup. I can (he proudly says) do 3 in a row *cough* 2 cough * with both arms though. Well, since I don't have any more of the route, here's one of Hank the Dog. Hank trys to climb trees if there is squirrels up there. Don't try and splain to Hank that squirrels are aid or he'll go all Mike Tyson on yer ass. Jes' sayin' is all.

Sweet, got any pictures of that?

See you all there tonight. Bryan, sent you his (old) address. Don't know the new one yet.

http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_12446770 "Sometimes we can all get along By W. Bruce Cameron Posted: 05/26/2009 01:00:00 AM MDT This is the second column in a thought-provoking series about how my dog and I are dumber than a squirrel. Last week, I explained that despite the fact that I had poured (plainly labeled) birdseed into a (universally recognizable) bird feeder in order to feed (well, duh) birds, a lawless squirrel had invaded. This so intimidated the local birds that they weren't landing in the feeder, though I suppose they might also have been put off by the way my dog and I kept noisily charging out the door to curse at the squirrel. In the face of this injustice, I felt I had no choice but to deploy advanced human weaponry, using my son's squirt gun to hose down the squirrel and send it scampering. I settled into a chair on the porch, water gun in my lap, a study in vigilance. And then I got hit with a pine cone. That's right, a pine cone smacked me on the crown of my head. I thought the tree itself had just dealt an improbable blow — pine cones do fall on their own accord, after all. But when the second one stung my scalp, I looked up and there was the squirrel, eyes glinting, hauling himself up the evolutionary ladder from nut-gatherer to projectile- thrower in one afternoon. Here's something they should teach you in Special Forces: If you fire a squirt gun straight up at a squirrel that is trying to concuss you, most of the water will cascade back on your face. The squirrel nearly fell out of the tree, it was laughing so hard. I stomped into the house, yelling at my dog, who was napping in the living room, despite the battle raging in the front yard. He seemed offended to be so rudely awakened, but that's what happens in the military: You always pick on someone of lower rank. "Go out there, and scare the squirrel away!" I instructed. He raced outside, his fur an angry ridge on his back but apparently thought my orders had been, "Go to the garage, knock over the trash can, and eat something from it!" Then I was struck with a brilliant thought: Hey, I was at least as advanced a creature as my rodent adversary, even if it was some sort of ninja squirrel. I went out into the yard and looked up at my enemy, who was now on the flat part of my roof, watching coldly. I picked up a pine cone and tossed it at the squirrel, who immediately withdrew. "He didn't know I could throw back," I explained to the dog, who gazed at me worshipfully. My pooch might not be good at executing orders, but he's great at sucking up to the boss. Then the squirrel reappeared at the edge of the roof, the pine cone in its jaws. With a flick of its head, it pitched the pine cone back down at me. My dog snapped into retriever mode, pouncing on the pine cone, racing over to me and dropping it at my feet. "You have got to be kidding me," I said to the squirrel. I took aim and fired another shot, though I have to say that as weapons go, pine cones lack a certain ferocity, even though they do sting when they crack you on the head. "You are so lucky I don't have a hand grenade," I told the squirrel, which was probably true for me, as well. I tried over and over to hit my target, always missing, and every time it would disappear for a moment, bringing back the pine cone and pitching it down to my dog. And then it struck me how extraordinary this inter-species game of catch and fetch truly was, and how I had gotten caught up in trying to toss the pine cone softly and accurately enough for the squirrel to snare it midair, as it had learned to do for the dog. Truth be told, I sort of liked the little critter now. The three of us were having fun together. A few days later, when I picked up more birdseed, I also bought some peanuts for the squirrel. What the heck — we were on the same team. Contact W. Bruce Cameron at w.brucecameron.com. For his previous columns visit denverpost.com/. brucecameron"

Well, I got up over one yesterday at a low crux that had it failed, would have resulted in a groundfall. However, as it was behind a loose flake I wasn't too worried about ruining the piece as it should have pulled before it fell apart. LOL! Here's the table JH.

No way: I haven't been banned for posting 2 sets of a naked dude climbing. http://cascadeclimbers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/875734/NSW_naked_pics_Let_your_freak_#Post875734 In fact you were just out climbing with Adam last week in Colorado before he went to meet us in Yosemite. You check this out? Now bring on these saggy breasts and stop draggin yer feet.

IF they get some that fail prematurely, and that's IF they fail, then it may have the added unhappy consequence of making the gear shop owners liable in a court of law.

The problem I have with not doing it is that very few are interested in totaling up the actual costs of not changing. They are hidden and they are huge. Right wingers think that they should be able to continue to squander this valuable resource and that supply and demand rule it, but they essentially get Gobment subsidized pricing. Does anyone think that it is a co-incidence that the very first western project in Afghanistan after we had power played regime change and tossed out the Taliban was a huge Chevron consortium pipeline that the Taliban (when they were in power) had rejected? http://www.thedebate.org/thedebate/afghanistan.asp This is a start --- http://costofwar.com/ Condoliza Rice, Secretary of State at the time of the invasion was a former Chevron Board member. She took George Schultz's seat on the Chevron board (he was former Sec. of State under Ronald Reagan). Chevron loved her so much they had named a tanker after her when she was just the national security adviser. This kind of thing goes on all the time, our country spending money to power play a private companies move. In this instance we wind up subsidizeing people with Suburbans and your Expeditions (or all of us for that matter) and various other petroleum squandering habits. These people seem to ignore the blood, too much of it our American sons and daughters, which was spilled to achieve this. We just saw this kind of government move in Asscrackistan and Iraq. You hear people like Rush Limbaugh decrying government assistance to various poor and immigrants and yet they don't say a peeping thing about this massive and stupid subsidy THEY are continually the recipients of. The Chinese are financing this today and our children will be both paying for it and the recipients of these investments. I'm not argueing that our countries resources and treasure shouldn't be spent cranking foreign markets for commercial power plays, but I feel that it's a damned expensive hidden cost that we don't see at the pump and could be somewhat avoided if we had to pay full price at the pump. Tabulate the price of the Iraq war in there and see what that adds up to as I can't because my calculator doesn't go that far out. It stops in the billions and can't conceive of anything higher I suppose. It reminds me of the old sarcastic Everette Dirkson (former senator) saw that went something like this: "A Billion Dollars here.....a Billion Dollars there, pretty soon it adds up to real money." A quick perusal of info on the net will demo to you that war was clearly a war of petroleum liberation, you'll find that Dick Cheney has links to Chevron as well as Bechtel. http://books.google.com/books?id=i5cpBcUVeJoC&pg=PA260&lpg=PA260&dq=george+schultz+chevron&source=bl&ots=ohL52rAODt&sig=W4MP7wDLyTsgWQfdqUVBiwpDasw&hl=en&ei=pBEcStyFA5qytAP8jJTdCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3 We have a massive infrastructure in place overseas to enable these kinds of things without going to war. These various foreign service folks do huge yeomans work day in and day out, no doubt, we all owe these invisible patriots a huge collective thank you. Talkin about CIA, foreign service, diplomats, commercial agents attached to Gov't etc etc serving in rowdy rat holes like Nigeria and Balukistan for instance....but these costs throughout the world add up too. Conservation should be on the top of the pile of things we as a country should value, not squandering as has been the case for the last 20 years or more. Oh yeah, revised MPG rules were long long overdue. Our kids and their kids will be the big beneficiaries. Thanks Barak. regards to all my brothers and countrymen

Mt. Rainier is climbed less than hood and it has its own forum..... Mt Hood is the second most climbed mountain in the world after Mt Fuji they say. I second that, all in favor say aye...?

Aric, thanks for this. Add $50 from me to your running total, forgot to make a note on the paypal to adatesman@yahoo.com. Hopefully you get a nice representative sampling for this test. I suspect it's just going to make me even more mental on all of this. I've been watching your other tests destruction of shit with interest and enjoyment. Thank you Bill Coe

Got on rock again, did an easier 2 pitch route and the pain in the knees didn't start till I got down and tried to hike out! Been 4 weeks since I could climb almost pain free. Noice day, noice people, Noice route! Adam, his girlfriend Sharon and I hiked in over the boulder field at Jimmies to go do the second ascent of Conga Line, which goes up Rumba Ridge on the far side of Jimmies. Ending the day with some nice Ibuprofen and ice. Small memory, Sharon slips on one of the boulders and gets a goober. Being a fully operational Mazama she has plenty of Neosporin and I wouldn't have noticed at all except Adam was fussing over it. These are like the boulders from hell. They have the feel of a board on a pipe, no matter which part you stop on, they want to rock with you on it, usually at the most inopportune time. We cruised the route, dropped a rope on a line I had barely spied from the boulders, hit the 2nd pitch and rapped. It was super noice. Hope you all had it as good! _________________________________________________________________ Next week (May 30 and May 31st), I thought I'd go back out to Jimmies and jug up and check out the line we'd dropped the rope on when out on Conga Line with Adam and Sharon. Ujahn got busy with his Uncle so I went solo Sat and Ujahn came up on Sunday. I drive up the logging road and turn and drive to a small clearing in the woods that doubles as a parking lot. This pile of Bear Scat - fly encrusted, wet looking and still almost steaming greeted me in the parking space. The fresh aroma was a pungent smell, not one that must have had much meat in it, but closer to a horses. This must have been a sizable bear, and I must have just missed it. The flys had lost interest by the time I got back to the car in the afternoon. I was happy that it wasn't the cougar who frequents the area and whom I believe to have stalked me on the hike in during an earlier solo trip. I cross the boulder field and 4th class up to the base after a quick stop at the pure water spring that runs year round at Jimmies. Turns out I didn't camel up enough, and it came back to haunt me at the end of the day. This is the view of the start of the line. Loose flakes eh? The rope I have on it is a 50 meter and it has 15' left on the bottom, the top of the route is not visible here, and it overhangs at the start -must have tilted the camera as it looks low angle. I spend some time looking for a spot I can see the full line to the top with the binocs I brought along for that reason so that I have reasonable loose boulder/rock awareness and find the perfect spot against an old growth fir. I have done 2 routes on Rumba Ridge ground up. Both dirty, extremely loose and dangerous affairs, but the view of the many loose flakes and possibly no pro from the ground here has dissuaded me of doing this route that way. These are 3-8 feet across and loose as hell. If this turns into a climbing route, it will intersect with the end of the first pitches of the other 2 lines. Then it can finish with the same line as the others. I jug up, taking care to visualize where the shit was so as to not conk myself with a block. Flakes await. Topping out is a joy as I'm still alive and the view is fantastic. I spend some time, then stuff my rope into my Big Wally which has had the straps tucked and is in haulbag mode clipped to my belay loop so that the rope feeds out as I rappel and it's not hanging below easy to be chopped. Huge boulders and loose rocks get trundled in a major way. Soon the sun has dehydrated me and I start getting muscle cramps and a headache. Time to back out and boogie down to the spring and the shade. Being solo in the woods is no place to be debilitated. Getting back down to the spring after 3th class downclimbing the approach unroped with a heavy pack sucked and was dangerous no doubt, but the spring is running full on with cold clear water, and is a welcome sight. The obligatory view of the North Face of Mt Hood as I hike out. Sunday I'm back and had company as Ujahn came along. He tossed off a few more large rocks that somehow I had missed but stopped early so as not to kill his dog tied off to the side below. I had dropped a line off Conga Line and started knocking off loose rocks and put in a bolt low at the crux so the next climbers doesn't have to worry about biting dirt if they boff the move. It would be a terrible place to be injured. I've led it twice and both times my followers commented on the poor nature of the pro. Here's Ujahn coming up. He'd spotted a couple of other variations on the backside I'd looked at and rejected earlier which need to be explored later. I'd gotten some good climbing in solo toproping the moves of Conga Line in my hiking shoes to verify that it needed a bolt, and the location. Good stuff. Ujahn and Bandit hiked around and greeted me at the base to help ease the carry weight of all that drilling crap so my bad knees wouldn't complain too much. We back out via the Spring and the Mt Hood view and are back home early. Knowing I am still recovering form both knees being shit (you can search for "bloody knee" and that story should pop up with some sweet gore pictures. Ujahn takes pity on me and offers to trade his little Lowe daypack for my Big Wally that has both sets of jugs, the bolt gun and metal stuffed in it, for the death march across the boulder field. The knees make me feel like an old man. __________________________________________________________ edited next week, 6 8 2009. This weekend sucked. Went to Jimmies to start the trail to Conga Line and it was raining. No rain in the lowlands all day. Rain at elevation all day. Hank and I went for a hike into the cliff and got wet. As I'd face planted last year solo, and my knees are hurting right now, I pass on the wet boulder field death march. Didn't do a damn thing otherwise. Right knee hurt too much to want to do anything Sunday. Monday today and I'm having thoughts of Gothic Rocks and Cathedral. This is last year. Oh yes, she will be mine.....oh yes....

On long routes where I know the leader has many good pieces in between us and where I know both of us won't fall, I'm pulling out 2 pieces and loosening my knot to the 3rd before dudes even stopped. Same situation with bolts and I'm unclipped from one and ready to fire. Some of the assholes folks I climb with will just keep climbing past the next belay expecting me to be fired up and ready every time they do this. You can get a lot more pitches in. On hard pitches or short routes or where I think my leader might fall, of course I don't do this.

If this is true, I suspect that this is but the start of what I was discussing earlier. Basically what you are (or will be) getting here in my view is more empire building by the federal government. You will see new rules and regulations coming towards you now that are justified by this. The conflict resolution gives the federal workers job security as they need to create more hires to adjudicate and manage YOU. I meant 2nd and in some places 3rd growth forests, which are so abundant and in fact planted and managed to be cut for our use as lumber being taken out of rotation and "protected" whatever that means. Meantime, the tools will have another reason to restrict your usage and access due to the closeness of and use by a large amount of people who are otherwise doing minimal harm to the area. (see Fairweathers note above) It will come about in a matter of years, mark my words, you will be in the unfortunate position to see this happen if it passes. So they do have some major roads and developments through and throughout it and exempt the wilderness from that a few feet away: more bullshit. I'm tired of always getting MORE laws, MORE restrictions, MORE bureaucrats which end in LESS freedom. Especially if when there is no reason for it like in this instance. They tried to sell this by telling us "Oh, Mt Hood is a crown jewel and we should protect it". From what and why? It's doing fine as is, there are already numerous laws and restrictions in place and the area is essentially the same as it's always been. I understand some folks wanting to not have their drinking water trashed, you cannot travel into the Bull Run watershed at all. Understandable. However, there is watersheds protected all over the place and you don't need an act of congress to get there. No one will be putting in MORE roads in this area, so why do this wilderness thing at all? Pointless. If they would put the last few strands of old growth in the PNW out of rotation I at least can get behind that in a big way due to the science and biology and need for preservation of a diversity that is disappearing fast and near gone except where it is preserved. It's typical make believe do-gooder and weak-sauce feel-good politician crap Ivan that will serve no effective cause but to restrict your freedom and decrease the amount of timber available to cut, thus raising the cost to build a new home etc etc. It's stupidity that should be opposed and I hope it stays down. Others feel differently for sure. Madrone is a a worthy cause IMO to spend ones time writing letters about. Not this. Go re-read the thread and decide who you choose to believe now.

Here is the link for the California budget and income summary charts. It doesn't break things out exactly like it's being discussed here. Health and human services is 28% but they don't mention how much of that goes towards illegal immigrants for instance. The prison cost is broken out pretty clear at 7.3%. (raw expense) $9,858,000.00 Wishing them well down there. You all know what they say: as California goes, so goes the nation. http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/pdf/BudgetSummary/SummaryCharts.pdf

Is it me or does that not read correctly....maybe they need a few more words..... OK, I read the link and think I understand now. Wow!

BTW, I once helped retrobolt a line I'd done a ground up FA 20 years earlier with nothing but gear: thinking I was doing a new route. Forgot all about the first time. The guy who belayed me the first go round clued us (me and the new belayer) in to both the correct name of the route and who the FA party was to my deep embarrassment @a week later. So I don't have room to talk shit about anyone. I still chuckle over it though!

Are you suggesting that California lets the top tier taxpayers off the hook and hit the poor? I didn't know this. What are the California tax rates JB?

She He looks like a present needing to be unwrapped...

I remember when you were young Larry. If he does knees maybe we can get a 2 for 1 deal! Good luck with the back!