billcoe

Sorry Bryan but I think your cam had been bootied. Don't remember it. Didn't get to the out of control area or even get on Dark Shadows, which is a great climb. Plan a pub club, and come by if you're around, wife is doing the New Years day thing this year too.

Bet his kids do as well. Well, use to anyway. Thanks for sharing Rudy!

Oh theres still plenty left Sherri! Both money and fun! A couple of the more enjoyable things for me after the climbing with Ujahn was over this time was calling my son everyday for the rundown of the basketball games. I'd say, looking at the sheet full of scores and the days scheduled games: "OK, Denver is playing at Houston and is favored by 3." He'd reply something like: Well, Alan Iverson's playing good, Denver will beat the spread." Me: "Iverson is playing for Denver?" What happened to Philly?" "Dad PLEEAASSSE! ! Whatta, live in a cave? Iverson got traded 3 years ago! Besides, Iverson's hitting that 20' step back jumper and he's getting strong crossovers and a half step on even the new guys since his calf muscle healed! He'll probably get 20 points on drives alone, Denver for sure." Me: "Oh" (making frantic notes). "Uhh, Ok, what do you think on the over-under if I said 212?" Lad: "Over."..... Denvers also got Carmello Anthony dad, and Houston's healthy and will be takin it down court on the fly, over for sure". long pause..... OK, "How about the Lakers and Sonics?" And that's how that went. Lad was 32 wins, 18 losses. Some of the loses were when his team pick had their opponents drop a bucket in the last second to beat the spread. I was up on Blackjack too, but I bet low stakes and mostly just visited with folks: hanging with my brother at a blackjack table can run towards being a 3 ring circus where everyone is involved. Brother says to the card dealer: "How do you get comped for breakfast here"? Dealer " Oh that's Jacks call, he's the pit boss". Bro: "Oh, thanks - could you call Jack over here?" Jack gets to the table. Bro then starts what will prove to be a relentless running series of side negotiations with Jack for the next mornings breakfast as the cards continue to fly and the friendly Midwest couple at the table stare amazed at this display of unbridled Chutzpah unlike anything they've ever seen or perhaps ever will see. "Jack", says bro, waving his hands to show he's including everyone at the table "this table wants breakfast comped tomorrow". Jack: "I'm sorry, but complimentary breakfasts are for registered guests or players club members only blah blah blah". "Jack, please": starts in bro with his opening salvo of what will prove to be more than Jack ever has to deal with: "Millie and Don there came all the way from Topeka to be here," pauses for effect and gestures to the beaming couple, who appear enchanted to be involved in the discussion "and we've been sitting here having a great time giving your boss's money and supporting your casino so you can get a big paycheck and don't you think it's only fair that you give us a little something in return?" 10 min of this dialog and Jack leaves. No breakfast....yet. 5-10 min later...the card game continuing... Bro notices Jack on the other side of the pit again and within a few seconds has the whole table chanting and clapping in unison like the frikkan world series game is on the line "JACK JACK JACK JACK JACK. With at least 1/2 the casino looking at us, stopped dead in mid-card deal to watch this unusual interruption, Jack comes over to the table which is now at fever pitched laughter at having won this little drama and gotten Jacks attention, and Jack is torn because they don't like this raucous behavior in casinos, but this group is still playing, laughing and joking: obviously having a great time and to Jack they look prepared to give up their kids college funds and the title to their homes once the bank account gets depleted if it continues, so Jack tries to be cool and with a wry smile quietly and almost shyly asks everyone to keep it down a bit by saying "shhhh, guys, keep it down a little will ya, you don't want me to lose my job now do you"? Everyone gets quiet and then Bro starts in again: "Come on Jack, how much is breakfast really going to cost you guys?". You're buying the eggs wholesale, at a nickel and egg, why thats gonna cost you only" ..pause to do the math...."40 cents..thats if everyone here even has 2 eggs tomorrow morning.....blah blah etc etc", "why hell Jack, I'd think you'd want us wandering back in tomorrow for breakfast so we'd drop all our sports book money here...etc etc." This little drama plays out for about an hour until finally Jack relents and gives everyone at the table a complimentary breakfast, thus saving everyone the $2.99 they would have had to pay otherwise. We give our leave to Don and Millie, and everyone walks out with the breakfast coupons and are feeling like Ed McMahon just told them they'd won the Publishers Clearinghouse Sweepstakes. On the way over to breakfast, coupon in hand and still high from that winning feeling, Bro says: "What do you think about heading over to look at the new Bentleys in the Wynn?" When we get there, they want $10 to just walk in the door. People are paying it too. Bro has never paid to look at a car in his life and won't start now so he will have none of that of course...it's game on again! Culminating with bro getting us in the dealership and trying to suck a complimentary lunch out of them as well. And so it goes. My brother, he's so damn much fun. This kind of thing happens on and off the whole time he's there. Never a dull moment. Yeah, I'd better join you Sherri. I might be under that pile of money behind your drivers seat.

Found it Melissa: JH had linked all that stuff he suggests on his post. Link to Josephs post Said: I think he changed the shoe thing, but kept the socks. Hey, his links still work! Cool!

No: but I found this:

Uhhhh, OK. But remember this fact Dru, you only got credited with a single post for that one. It's gonna be a long haul to get to 30,000 again.

Sweet, proving persistence pays off as it looks like they are back to only #1's only again.

Work for me. But what happened to "Weather lookin perfect"? Hats off to you Ivan (and Tim too if he was on it). Maybe Billbob can check in with some thoughts as well once he warms up, changes his underwear on quits shaking in fear:-) as the bad memory of hangin with you wears off!

Thanks. Yeah it was good, and the climbing was only part of it. Saw my brother in law and his wife, was up some gambling too but only came back with $400+ more than I left with. My son estimated he made me $600 on basketball alone. I was up on cards too. Don't know where all the rest of the winnings went cause I wasn't really spending it (I count as I leave my house and then when I get back to determine the outcome), did the company work I went down to do, got to hang with my brother on my birthday too as he came down and also came back with a slight tan too. Sherri's going back down New Years, maybe we can all crowd into a corner of her car and she won't notice us.

well I want to go with Sherri! but: downhill with the lad one day. Hanging with family other times. Maybe heading up a remote closed road by myself with X-country skis and hope I don't turn into Cougar food another.

Holy crap! We cleaned them out except for the #1's! WTF? Guess who got some.... My Precccccioooooosssssss, yessssssssss ....before the vultures here all jumped in? OK, they'll be in my basement soon. People who know me can borrow them.

No worries. Ouch. What that post presents that shocks the shit out of me it that the amount of force can theoretically be infinite as the flare increases. With that in mind, it makes one wonder what kind of pressure can actually develop where the metal hits the rock. Furthermore, on that RC.com thread, Malcolm Daly, founder of Trango, says in researching Maxcams, that they had tested this very thing. OP's cams came out fine. BUT, he continues, some other FAMOUS gear mfg's stuff shockingly failed. Does that not make you wonder? It does me. If that poor bastard hadn't died in the Gunks with this exact kind of scenario: i.e., very short fall, (on a 5.5) when the Cassin cam failed, tied with Malcoms comments above, then it would be a different conversation for sure.

Or is you did read it - you didn't understand it

You didn't read Rgolds post

One of CC.coms sponsors is selling off Bigbros, great deal, all under $60 but they have no #5's. bigbro sale Go get em, they don't even usually sell this cheap on e-bay.

Thanks Ivan: Rich Goldstone has a 100 percent awesome post on that thread which every damn one of us should read. Link to full thread He says (I added the quote which he was referencing) otherwise everything below are his words copied verbatum: "Here is a picture of a Cassin Joss cam that broke in a short fall that resulted in a fatality in the Gunks. The relevant post is here. *Link* That post starts out thus "In early November, my best friend and climbing partner died after falling about 30 feet from the crux of Boston (5.4+ or 5.5, PG) at the Gunks. A cam placed two or three feet below the point from which he fell failed (broke). The next pro was at about 15 feet and was too low to keep him off the ground. He was wearing a helmet, but main injuries were below the helmet..... " It is possible that the accident may have been the result of an overly brittle construction, but of course in order to break a cam that isn't defective a lot of force is required, regardless of the alloy in question. My guess is that this was another case of the effect of flaring placements, perhaps additionally complicated by pebbly nubbins that could have restricted the cams ability to pivot, although remember that this was a horizontal placement. Cams are complicated devices whose security cannot be evaluated in the same way as a nut---consider, for example, the Metolius tests that suggested that one in twenty "well-placed" cams fail. Essentially, cams are faith-based protection, the faith in question being with the engineering principles that are supposed to be in effect. The fact that those same principles can engender arbitrarily large forces seems to be conveniently ignored---for example, no one paid the slightest attention to my post in this thread on that subject until k.l.k. resurrected it. As for gear-makers responsibility to ensure that the (nearly blind) faith we would like to place in their gear is justified, it is important to remember that climbing gear cannot be engineered to withstand industrial safety margins and still be carried up the hill. The nature of the endeavor forces engineering decisions that could prove catastrophic in the field, and climbers need to understand that. I am not trying to excuse shoddy quality control, but simply say that fond as we may be of the concept of bombproof gear; it isn't, never was, and never will be. Climbers' faith in cams has certainly been justified over the years by many successful performances, but on the other hand cams do fail on occasion in spite of being judged good. The fact that they don't break more often may simply be a reflection that the rock will usually give way first. It seems plausible that the link cam stayed in and broke while most other cams would have pulled out. If this is true, then what you have in all cases is a cam failure. Psychologically, people are far more likely to accept an extraction as part of the game than breakage, even if the breakage occurs, paradoxically, because of extra holding power. I don't know whether any of these assertions are true in the case at hand, but they are certainly true in general: the ability of cams to hold and not break is dependent on a host of conditions, only some of which are realistically under a climber's control. Any time a cam is placed suboptimally, the chances of failure go up, and honestly, we really have no idea how much. I think what is beginning to emerge from all this is a sense that cams are not at all the "no-brainer" protection they may have seemed to be at first, and perhaps a broad change of attitude is called for. People used to say that nuts required all kinds of thought and ingenuity and with cams you just fired in a unit. But cams are mechanically far more complicated and less predictable than nuts, and perhaps it is time to emphasize the respect and consideration their complexity demands. In both this case and the terribly sad Gunks tragedy, the cam that broke could have been backed up, in the case of the Gunks tragedy with good nuts. When faith-based protection leads us to skip readily available options for redundancy, I think it is time to rethink the entire approach. "

Ah bullshit, that stuff is great: you've been drinking again haven't ya?

Ivan, didn't they recall - or modify the early design to accommodate better trigger wires? I think they had an early issue. Do you know if your's were early models? So what was the resolution, did OP fix them? REI return? Inquiring minds want to know if you have you ever fallen on one of these?

Whoa pulled this from the site noted and put it on RC.n00b. Good stuff and very worthy of a read! Reardon also put some great soloing pics there as well. http://www.freesoloist.com/page15.html The Birth of the Anonymous Shameless Superhero "Hollywood is a wonderland of dreams, chaos and utter depravity. It’s the only place on this dustball where a hairdresser can become the head of a studio and a poor Irish kid can drink a music-video director into submission to get a job. As with me, a producer/director, when your box-office receipts surpass the gross national product of a small country, you get to fly around the world, lecturing on success. During a stopover in Los Angeles, a lithesome blonde with distracting attractions introduced herself during the post-speech Q & A reserved for those hungry for a break into the business. “Professor Reardon,” she started, sending blood rushing to various parts of my body as I waited to impart my entertainment wisdom, “is it true that you lied about soloing the Vampire?” She had obviously Googled me prior to me ogling her to which I could only think of getting back the topic at hand - convincing this fine feminine work that being breasts layered in red Jell-O on film is art and the casting call was my office. Jack Nicholson rang in my head as I cleared my throat to imitate the master from Five Easy Pieces: Bobby: I'd like an omelet, plain, and a chicken salad sandwich on wheat toast, no mayonnaise, no butter, no lettuce. And a cup of coffee. Waitress: A #2, chicken salad sandwich. Hold the butter, the lettuce, the mayonnaise, and a cup of coffee. Anything else? Bobby: Yeah, now all you have to do is hold the chicken, bring me the toast, give me a check for the chicken salad sandwich, and you haven't broken any rules. Waitress: You want me to hold the chicken, huh? Bobby: I want you to hold it between your knees. Hair sticking up and ready to go, I gazed into the vacuum of her eyes and collagen smile, She’ll make a great actress, I lustily envisioned. However, a lesson, or at least a spanking, was needed if my personal life was going to visit my professional. “Truth is a rare thing,” I instructed. “Climbers are like Hollywood actors in that they both avoid responsibility to the greatest degree. Only climbers could play chess using wine bottles on bark or reinvent the tightrope and call it a ‘sport.’” She seemed to understand, nodding as I riffed. “In both entertainment and climbing, there is truth, but there are also a jealous few that refuse to believe others are capable of doing what they can’t and could never do.” Sparkling eyelids blinked over the void, giving me no choice but to continue. When I discovered climbing, at Tahquitz, it was in high-gloss glam and zebra-striped pink lycra. Living in Hollywood, where 8-year-old millionaires and morally bankrupt superstars coexist in a silicone stew, the rock provided solace in its constant and honest form. And I reveled in the challenge of elevating myself to its strength and charm. Soloing without a net became my fascination, and in short order, I found that by climbing alone, I could escape the repetitive grind. Days turned to weeks, weeks to years, until one remarkable moment in the Spring of 2004, I traveled two vertical miles, untethered, at Joshua Tree, doing some of the hardest - and easiest - pitches of my life in a non-stop binge powered by family, friends, and more than a couple sips of caffeine. The day had started uneventful enough as I met the usual crew with no specific intentions set, but there were stress marks that my body had endured. Bruises where the cortisone was forced into the cysts in my feet and bleeding ulcers in my mouth implied a harsher training schedule than I believed performed, but this game is more mental than physical, and everything had aligned without my knowing. My hands touched the harsh chilly grains and from there everything became a blur. Circuits were linked as my partners came and went in shifts, unselfishly giving up their projects to help me with mine. The energy was unbelievable, yet perfectly reasonable at the time until it finally rested to a lazy halt. I sat there, appetite satiated, with a friend who had stuck with me for the entire ride, and together we watched the sunset turn the desert landscape into a golden paradise, giggling like school children at what just transpired. Inwardly, I was proud of conquering a long-term goal and had a private feeling of satisfaction. Outwardly, the world changed in an instant. The spotlight usually reserved for my heroes – Barber and Bachar - had suddenly shifted and turned on me. Those men, living legends that conquered the sport in ways still unfathomed by many, are the legends that deserve our recognition, but it was also then that I was blindsided with spite by a clique of climbing’s lowest common denominator: the Anonymous Shameless Superhero (ASS), modern-day toadies who have, again, risen to power thanks to the great equalizer of the Internet. “However, before I get too far ahead,” I told her, “know that ASSes are dedicated to rumors, lies and the eradication of truth.” She ran her fingers through her hair and pursed her lips; I knew I had to go on … for her sake. "They are climbing’s benchwarmers--never having performed themselves--and build their climbing careers by undermining the accomplishments of those on the field," I ranted. “Though difficult to trace, the origins of the ASS hearken back to the dawn of man,” I narrated. I began to scrawl a sort of family tree on the chalkboard behind us. She turned, and in doing so, revealed just a hint of whale tail: Her G-string was baby blue. I filed this info away in my mental Rolodex as the blood once again filled the nether regions. “Moog just sent Brontosaurus Heap,” grunted spam. “Okie-dokie,” said the tribal elders. “He fake and smells funny,” said the ASS. Trust gained by holding the rope soon became conflated with trust in the word and truth of fellow climbers, allowing distortions to arise. This created a game of “telephone,” where every telling and re-telling twisted the story until the end barely resembled the beginning. The ASS jumped at the chance to be a rumor-monger. However, people were not afraid to go to the source, and the ASS lost credibility: “Hillary conquered Everest!” shouted the British. “There’s no photos - he didn’t do it!” shouted the jealous ASS. “I spoke with him, so piss off and give him a medal!” shouted the Queen. Ironically, rumors spread by the ASS occasionally fueled positive, progressive inspiration: John Gill, legendary boulderer and training guru, had heard that Hermann Buhl could perform a one-arm, one-finger pull-up. Amazed at such gymnastic prowess, the ever-competitive Gill pushed himself until six months later, he could do the same with almost every digit on each hand. Years later, Gill found that the Buhl story was just that--a story. The simple-minded ASS uncomprehending of wonderful feats had unleashed a new mythical hero: John Gill! “So telling rumors about others is a good thing?” interrupted the inquisitive gal. “No, it was an example of how an ASS is still an ASS regardless of the intent, but at times it does a body good,” I replied. “Like my plastic surgeon,” she added, hands firmly grasping the obvious. “Yes, like your plastic surgeon.” In the 1960s through 1980s, climbing next found its center in Yosemite, where legends created climbs and vice-versa. Faced with such a concentration of notable achievements, the ASSes cried foul in a feeble attempt to diminish the greats: “Bachar soloed New Dimensions,” spoke the truth. “It’s not as hard when you don’t have to place gear,” spoke the ASS. “Whatever, dude,” spoke the rest of the climbing community. “Kauk sent Midnight Lightning,” spoke the truth. “It’s just a boulder problem,” spoke the ASS. “Then you do it, dumbass,” spoke the rest of the climbing community. “Croft soloed Astroman and the Rostrum before lunch,” spoke the truth. “But he’s not an American,” spoke the ASS. “Shut the fuck up!” spoke the rest of the climbing community. It was during this era that the average ASS shrank in size, and in turn, climbing flourished. 5.12 became common, and 5.13 (whoa Nellie! - even 5.14) was set as the world standard for climbing’s gods and generals. ASSes however, are ravenous beasts that understand their power comes only from holding others back. The ASSes needed a new plan of attack. Many of the legends left the battleground of Camp 4 for other, unsullied regions, leaving the ASSes to fend for themselves in the blackened ashtray they called, “camp”. With so much energy, a clean-up could begin, but instead these pitiless peons preferred to wallow in the abandoned remains of the finest boxed wines under a hazy cloud of bunkweed puffs. Nothing but needles separated them from their homeless counterparts in the city, as they continued to spray among themselves no matter the accomplishment of others. However, with the elite conquering fields afar, the ASSes began to gain weight with petty battles won. An ASS could wire a route and sandbag a visiting dignitary to which the other ASSes could then spray their victory amongst any willing to listen: “Messner conquered the peaks!” shouted the elite. “He can’t conquer El Cap in under eight hours!” shouted the ASS. Silence from the climbing community for such a trivial argument. With each petty battle won, the ASSes sprayed like dogs in heat and created a new coalition, establishing ground zero for the information battle that lay ahead. “Why Camp 4?” asked the starlet-in-training. “In the early days of climbing, ASSes were incapable of venturing out on their own, preferring to live vicariously by licking the boots of those who actually climbed,” I replied. “Like an actress getting a job from a producer?” “Yes, only I don’t wear boots.” Well, except for the knee-high rubber ones with the frilly leopard-lace around the rim, built specifically for their traction…. There are many theories as to the reasons behind the ASS, most of which trend towards a common belief that the ASSes tend to hate their lives, spouses, jobs … and selves. In the Aluminum Age, empowered by rotary-drill technology, these mental midgets discovered climbing didn’t have to be dangerous or worthy. Runouts could be limited to four inches or less; rose-scented glue and sand-colored chisels quickly plied previously ridiculed piles, to which the Weekend Armored Nintendo Kommando (WANK) was now master of this chossy terrain, an expert climber thanks not to hard work, but grade-puffery and grid-bolting. A quick visit to any of these areas prompts quick discovery that anyone is capable of sending a “testpiece.” WANKs returned to their lives, spouses and jobs as kings above the climbing-ignorant, lifting their egos to heights their climbing accomplishments would never match. Drunk on their own brand of poisonous, Jim Jonesian Kool-Aid, the coalition of ASSes united these WANKs to create a Haven Of Lightweight Egos (HOLE), from which issued a geyser of slanderous, gassy ruminations: “Sharma just bagged the hardest boulder problem in the world!” came the climbers’ shout. “When’s he going to do a real climb?” spewed the HOLE. “Hill just free’d The Nose!” came the climbers’ shout again. “It’s because she has tiny fingers.” spewed the HOLE again. “Josune sent 5.14c!” came the climbers’ shout one last time. “A man already did that.” to which the HOLE continued to spew its frothy refrain. Back in Camp 4, the coalition of ASSes grew older, fatter and weaker (others moved to Bishop), but continued to belay-bitch the handful of talented elders who had remained in the ashtray. Where most folks past their prime purchase a phallus-symbol sports car or play doctor with a waitress younger than their daughter, these Hallowed Aging Idiotic Resonators (HAIRs) resolved their midlife crises by adhering to the credo of the ASSes, and became wrapped in blindly repeating whatever the HOLE dispelled. With a powerful HOLE ringed by psychotically insistent HAIRs, the ASSes expanded in size and the climbing elite became stigmatized like never before. “Someone chipped Caldwell’s natural 5.14d?” asked the horrified climbing elite. “So what? Jaques LeCock just sent a 37-bolt, 20-foot, carved-out glued-up 5.14a at New Hack Shitty!” shouted the morally-bereft HAIRs. “Frederic Nicole’s beloved Hueco Tanks is closed?” asked the concerned climbers of legends past. “So what? A woman with hairy legs in yoga pants just sent V3 at the Happy Boulders with only 16 crashpads, three film crews and 46 spotters!” howled the HOLE. “There are no sponsored Americans at Arco?” came the cry from the community best. “So what? A mere $500 gets you entry to the third annual Wankfest in Tunafish, Wyoming--free Ecstasy, didgeridoo enema and tribal tattoos!” cackled the ASSes complete. On and on the exchange went, with both sides of the divide getting more outrageous. Then, the ASSes discovered the Internet and a dark cloud engulfed all the world. With a promise of free expression and an instant forum in which to flesh out the truth, the Internet held the ability to diminish the ASSes' power and release the pent-up discharge of the HOLE. The Internet gave direct access to the source of any rumor, by providing the ability to send a simple email to the originator of the accomplishment. Question whether Yujo Hirayama onsighted 5.14? Send an instant message. Wonder if Hans Florine gained another speed record? Visit his website. Wonder if The Vampire was soloed? Send an e-mail to one of six easy-to-find public accounts. The ASS, HOLE, and HAIRS, all flush with power, ignored this simple premise and went straight to the forums and bulletin boards to promote their slagfest agenda, feigning experience and knowledge, yet remaining anonymous so as not to be called into the ring for a much-merited bitchslap. “Huber soloed 5.14a,” came the photo report. “That edge he’s reaching for in the picture is a jug,” replied the HOLE. “Rodden did the first ascent of a 5.14 crack,” Caldwell reported. “She’s not qualified to rate it … plus she has small fingers,” stated the HAIRs. “Reardon soloed two miles worth of routes at Joshua Tree in a day,” 50 witnesses claimed. “Its impossible, and he’s gay,” from the ASS. Using the Internet to spread disinformation and recruit like-minded pessimists with equally mediocre lives and climbing resumes, the ASS grew to enormous proportions never before seen in the history of climbing. This newfound size also created a deeper divide between rumor and truth, and buried deep in the middle was the HOLE. The HOLE continued to spew its gassy froth, but with only the HAIRs (bred strictly to suck up to the HOLE) to assuage whether any comments went too far in a desperate claim for cyberspace, the HOLE started to get caught up in its fabrications, spraying forth a constant stream and became an uncontrolled mess the HAIRs could not keep clean. Prior to the Internet, the HAIRs could keep the HOLE dirt free from its lies because the ASS was smaller and easier to maintain. Now, however, they had access to immediately self publicate, on sites like ballesswonderbluffs.com and smellmychuffywetness.net, to which endless streams of spew was played. Completely disrespectful to anyone performing any feat beyond the pale, today’s HOLE has become resentful and foul, attacking anything and everything remotely touching a new level of achievement. This needs to change. Climbing offers kinship like no other sport. It is the chance to join a family of fellow misfits marooned in the arctic terrain of a conformist society. Unfortunately, the ASSes of this world have brought their hate-filled lives into our vagabond tidings. They weigh us down and limit our abilities until nothing in our dreams can be accomplished, no matter how trivial. We must by lying, right? An ASS said so. However, as with any infectious spew, there is a cure: Establish the time and place of the event; then Nullify the rumor by Endorsing the truth, and Make the A.S.S.(es) responsible, after which Answers will follow. If the climbing community can handle a simple ENEMA, maybe the HOLE will be flushed out and the ASSes will finally be brought to their knees, down with the WANKs, where they really belong. And then, our sport can continue to advance. “Fine, I understand that there are asses in this world, but what about the Vampire? Did you solo it or not?” asked the job huntress. Jesus, back to this again, I thought. “Does it matter? No one’s going to hire me to make a movie based on my climbing accomplishments,” I responded. “Right, but the way you handle your personal life dictates how you handle your professional life,” she said, as her personal body motions dictated another professional career opportunity involving pasties and dollars. She had me on that. I could only respond by placing my hands firmly on my water bottle and prepping to squeeze. I opened my briefcase and pulled out a photograph. There I was, ropeless a few hundred feet up, before, during, and after the main crux of the climb, to which she earned the right and I gave her a job. After all, she went to the source for her answers; the rest were merely a mob undeserving of recognition."

I see my suspicions that it will evolve into an anti-bolt tirade soon are coming to fruition with the arrival of Raindawg. Office pool anyone, or will the good fight continue unabated as is? I feel dirty and think I lost 15 IQ points after posting here. Hmmmm

You F*ing around again? BTW, Joseph called this the first time he saw a picture. I had reservations as well. I currently own 3. Planning on keeping them.

I would believe whatever you say Kevin. You have an uncanny ability which I don't share to remember every lil foothold, reach, placement and move of every route you do. I can't even remember the names, even if I named it. For instance: I didn't remember being on Lotta Balls till I started up it, I was thinking "hmmm, this looks familiar", then I finished the first Pitch and remembered the bolts on P2.

You know when everyone is talkin about clipping bolts to their shoes, it's time for a climbing pic or 2. I've put some words on the site earlier about this trip, so this will mostly be pics. Me topping out on Lotta Balls Me leading the Elephants trunk on Epinephrine. 9 hours 10 min car to car. Next day: rest day at the Pool, the temp was 76 degrees. Thats not a 6 pak, thats a pony keg:-) The crowd on Turkeys - this is the optional top pitches, like P 8 and 9 up there. We'd been waiting for @30 min at this point and bagged it there, figuring 1000 feet of varied 5.10 and interesting moves was good, why F* it up with a clusterF*. It was a good call. Start of Wild Turkeys Bill on P2 of Dream of Wild Turkeys after the traverse below: Ujahn P3 Wild Turkeys On Lotta Balls This may have been the last pair of tennis shoes made in the USA Ujahn following p2 Epinephrine Ujahns awesome wife Tara had seen fit to send down some medicine for his foot. This is what happens when new shoes converge with a long route. Fortunately - she sent 3 bottles of medicine. The other 2 were used as a toast to presage a quiet moment to commemorate Jim Anglins passing. Ujahn leading on P2 of Dream of Wild Turkeys: Dwayner will be happy to know that because of bolts, some of the most incredible routes in the world are now do-able, this being one of them, all bolts were clipped in the making of this picture. Ujhan leading upper Epi. These guys were on the route we wanted to get on, so we jumped on the route to the left: Lotta Balls. As I'm on route, I realize I'd done that one before many years ago. Thank the Lord the 1/4" bolts had been replaced! I don't climb as good now as then. The dudes yammered back and forth on walkie talkies , we did our route, then jumped on that one, this is a pic as we blew by them. Here's some more, mostly Epinephrine shots. We had that route to ourselves all day, which was nice as I hadn't climbed for 2 months letting my elbow heal and we both were out of shape, me more than Ujahn as he's always in pretty good condtion working as a contractor. (Side note, if you need a guy to work on your house, he's your dude-honest, hardworking and skilled). Note to anyone who wants to do this route, although I love the Metolius double big wall gear sling, especially since you can cram a water bottle in it and it is perfectly balanced, a single gear sling probably works better on this route. Ujahn in the chimney...somewhere. Ujahn after the last technical pitch, we simuclimbed the last 400-500 feet with pro. If you're doing this route for the first tie, as there is some real loose stuff up there, I'd definatly recommend staying roped up. I think it can be simul-soled with no rope relatively safely if you stay on the route, but the speed gain is negligible, so Ujahn just ran up dropping in pieces, and I followed tied in, a rope length back. Why not just be safe for the last bit? P6 Epi 2 pitches above the Elephants trunk

Tell Bryan if he doesn't quit smoking, he'll be back to only getting up 5.10's by the time he's 40....thats coming up in....like.....about 18 years or so? Nice! If you got more pics bring em all John! We can take it! Ujahn just gave me some pics of Red Rocks last night, I should post them to show Bryan what he missed. (nothing really as he's hit every climbing area in the US over the summer I think) Thanks for sharing! Good stuff!