billcoe

Good to share that kind of info Shapp. Since Goran Kropp died, I always wondered if Air Guitar has that issue too, but maybe not so blatantly obvious.

Cool stuff Jason, thanks for the heads up!

HOLY CRAP WILL, GREAT READING! That looks familiar from over 20 years ago, but I don't think I did it. (before crash pads were used, a day bouldering alone it's easy to back off and do something else:-) Some of those early valley guys were crazy strong. Nice job sticking it!

Yeah thats right High: I almost forgot, Ujahn led that section, and I thought he ran it out further than normal: needlessly I was thinking, but it was his lead and thinking it was easy. Might have to change my recommendation Sherri! We'd already climbed Dream of Wild Turkeys and Epinphrine at a few other harder routes at this point of the trip, so this seemed easy, but if you're pushing 5.7-5.8, or are kicking ass anyway but just have a moment of inattention: might be dicy or ugly.

Hi Sherri: No that Tunnel Vision route is awesome, and not difficult at all, you'll like it. BUT, my bad ju-ju story is a fleshing out of that. Like many long routes that have multiple pitches, with a 60 meter rope you can miss the belaying points or "official" belay points anyway and wind up somewhere else. So Ujahn gets up there in the middle of the line, not a real good spot for him to be hanging out, but the pro is good and he gets 3 pieces in and equalized and brings me up. My lead next, I get up 40-50 feet of great climbing to the (what must be the obvious belay) ledge that starts the tunnel. I call down to Ujahn, "Hey dude: I think your pitch ends here, on this ledge. " I climb up off the ledge into the tunnel (not having a topo makes you come to grips which your eye-brain connection, something I often like to do, and that was the case here - no topo). It looks to me like the real route wusses out left soon from the tunnel, but that if you climb straight up, you'll get lots more, maybe 60-90 feet of relatively hard and good tunnel chimney climbing. So I eyeball it and think maybe I'll head up into the wild blue yonder instead of following the obvious line which has chalk on it that heads out left. There is no chalk or indication that any human has been here before and gone straight up like I'm doing, the pro is minimal or non-existent and also as I'm older now, my eyes aren't seeing particularly well either in the darkened tunnel. I can see that there is a spot the tunnel closes and touches @ 5 feet above me and left, and I decide I can make that and runner it for a piece of pro, and it may be good enough. Then I can crank the spot and try for the top and maybe get something else higher up. At this point, I have a single piece in: but may be looking at hitting the ledge after bouncing around in the chimney, not a pleasant prospect, so I do not want to boff it. I'm feeling a bit sketch too as the rock gets smooth and slippery as well, and my shoes are greasing around, and I'm mentally musing if belaying off the ledge wouldn't be better for Ujahn as he's most likely uncomfortable down there hanging on the belay. I'm also wondering what the effects on a fall would be if he belays me from there and I head straight up again instead of where he's currently belaying at.... Ruminating on all of this, I made the mistake and violated the cardinal rule of climbing: I pause and said (out loud) to Ujahn: "Hey, should I belay from the ledge or head up". I cannot see him, nor hear well as I'm in the tunnel, he's down and out of sight. The stupidity and enormity of my error comes to me soon as I make the first moves up after choosing to just go for it straight up into the wild unknown then: OFF BELAY wafts up from below..... "HOLY FU*K DUDE - HEY, WHAT THE FU*K ARE YOU DOING, PUT ME ON, CLIMBING.... CLIMBING..... PUT ME ON BELAY" I scream down. "Dohhh, sorry dude, ON Belay" I soon hear from below. Tail firmly between my legs, I quietly and quickly downclimbed and followed the obvious and easy path towards the light coming into the tunnel from climbers left where I should have gone to begin with. Ujahns was pretty embarrassed as he gets to to my anchor (which was on the correct line of the route), after sharing with him how insecure the position I was in as he yelled up "Off Belay", (trying to rationalize my earlier screams of terror) I'm letting him know: "Hey, no worries - this ones on me bra"... Sh*t, you think I'd know better too.....35 years climbing and just boff it like that on an easy route....DOHHH!

The owners of Climbmax are the best! They have shitloads of great gear and are all climbers themselves. site says: "Climb Max Mountaineering is an employee owned and operated business in Portland, Oregon. We have been providing Portland with life safety equipment for over 8 years! Come check out our shop at 928 NE 28th Ave (corner of 28th & Sandy). We're here Monday-Saturday 10-8pm PST. Call the retail store at 503.797.1991! Or call our websales department at 503.797.1996 or 1.800.895.0048!" Oregon Mt community is also nearby, and advertises on this site, and Portland Rock Gym has a selection of gear too.

Well thats a pleasant visual:-) Great Red Rocks pic too! I didn't do that one, but have a good story about Tunnel Vision last week I'll lay down later.

I should have time to dry out from all the alchohol I've consumed over this holiday to show up, but it might be closer to 7-7:30 PM as a better time for me.

Speaking only for myself, it was considered and acted on. I had summited Hood well over 30 times before my (now 21 year old) daughter was born. I have not been there to climb except once since, and that was only to fulfill a guide contract for a friend. We got off the summit 20 min before a major lightning storm hit. We stopped below the cloudcap and started back up when it passed to go help some highly skilled, highly experienced, very savvy Portland Mt. Rescue folks who were still going up as we were going down. They were fine as it turned out, but not by much. Proving you can be the very best Mt climber in the world and end up dead. I can name some names and circumstances if you would like. The loudness of a lighting strike near you is not something you can communicate on a computer. As far as answering your first question, I bumped my life insurance and stopped the high risk things. I don't do the mountains and ice. I do not ride a motorcycle now as well. Kids made a huge impact on me. I still rock climb, which is a lower risk activity. I do not make judgments for or about others who still climb ice or Mt's and have children, this is my choice. They make their own choices. I understand those parents still mountain climbing, I sometimes ache to run up Rainer or jump on the ice in the gorge when it hits, but I can easily get a quick pump in the rock gym, where it's warm and safe all winter, and spend the evening with my family, which makes it worth writing off the mts. As a family we do things together as well. A hike up dog mountain gets talked about for months, and your son would most likely love doing that with you as well. He doesn't give a shit about Mt Hood, he wants to be with you. You came on the board asking advice, and got good advice in my opinion. These guys have seen people come on this board asking advice whom later wound up dead in what some would say is a tragedy. It is something these cascadeclimber folks take seriously (generally). My dad died when I was 18 months old, due to no fault of his own, I take my responsibility as a parent pretty seriously, it is my prime job, and all else is secondary. But, I can see a time - where we kick the lil boy out soon as he's 17 now, where this will be changing. My son and I have gotten season passes the last 2 years, and it's pretty safe (and fun) to burn some fast runs at Meadows all winter. Great fun. So I'm ON the Mt, but not really ON the Mt. in a serious way. If the weather turns we head for the bar and a couple of hot buttered rums, and the lad has a hot chocolate and then drives me home while we discuss the highlight reel of the days events: prime jumps, runs where dad got left in the dust, major crashes, turns missed, etc etc :-) Sweet deal! Good luck with whatever you choose. I feel you have already taken a very responsible and intelligent path gathering as much info BEFORE you jumped in, something not everyone does. Your son is lucky to have such a committed and caring parent. Regards; Bill ps, read this trip report of Ivans day on the Mt. Keep in the back of your mind as your read this that it was great weather in PDX today. Click here to read it

Sorry, all gone now, but REI still has the sport anchor available. $8.83/ea is a great price. BTW, looks like the deal for the SS Fixe Chain anchors is now at Acme Climbing for $19.70 ea plus freight. Link I expect that to go up, reminding us only once again: if you snooze, you lose big nose.

Yes they are. I think I fell in love with em. On a long route you need to rap, like Crimson Chrysalis or Dream of Wild Turkeys in Vegas, it's the schizz. Even a route like Epinephrine it's cheap insurance, should something arise like a fall and an injury (ran into some fellas rapping as we were heading up the nose who had slammed into one of the Penjis trying to do it fast in a day and had a bum leg). It can get ugly doing half rope raps and leaving all the extra gear to do so. I've never had to do so yet, but as I age and get weak...... Sorry Hendershot, wasn't ignoring you, but I don't know the answer to your question so I was just gonna shut up and see what gets said by others by way of a reply to your inquiry. I can say I do not remember seeing anyone doing that, but don't know why not.

The solution: JxgjVVbHfVg&rel=1 ? Why be brisk and perchance miss helping out with the lessons for others?

like wise : have a great holiday all. Its a day for all of us to count all of the many blessings which we all have, living in one of the richest countries in the world, we all have so much to be Thankful for. I haven't seen my daughter in almost a year, and she'll be here in @ an hour. (Borat voice) VErrryy Nice!

Metolius Monster 7.8mm are the lightest double ropes on the market. I have a set and don't have a bad word to say about them. I especially love the little tufts that mark the middle and end distance, you can feel it in the dark, both the middle and like @30' from the end.

...and brought a rope?

I think there is room for both. Balance my friends, balance is best to achieve a long healthy fruitful life for us all. Matt, is Dwayner going to show up to talk about bolts?

Of course. BTW, Gorilla Tap seems to be the schizz to keep the glue in. I suppose you could use Orings as well, but any overrun glue would still be a visible mess, whereas you can rip the tape off when the glue dries and have a clean look on the rock. Link

Bingo. There has to 1000's of great things you can go do together which have less hazards. My son is 17 now and I never wanted him near some of the shit I get myself into. But that's me. Climbing has a big learning curve to get truely good at it, and you still have loose rocks here or there which might bonk you or your son. Good luck with the lil fella.

You can buy 9 for $11.93 at REI.com, apply this coupon, WMPRT7 and save $27 off the order so that you are getting these for $8.88/each. Link here Everyone else has them for in the upper $20 range. From my experience, when they are gone, they are gone. I bought some Wild Country Helium draws for $11.93 each a while ago for instance. You can't even get a single biner for that price anymore. They have the sport anchor for the same price.

Exactly right on the money. A double Kleenex sport biner for sure. However, I did buy some DMM mamba draws recently and they may even have an edge on the Petzls for gate smoothness. I'm pairing them with the Helium. I am eagerly anticipating finally breaking the 5.8 sport barrier with these better, high end draws. Not sure where you go from Dancer, but I aim to head there.

Wow! Got stung a few times at Beacon cleanup. Once brushed 5 of the critters off a ledge in the gorge. Nothing like this. link " By THOMAS WAGNER, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 20 minutes ago LONDON - This was a bug you couldn't swat and definitely couldn't step on. British scientists have stumbled across a fossilized claw, part of an ancient sea scorpion, that is of such large proportion it would make the entire creature the biggest bug ever. How big? Bigger than you, and at 8 feet long as big as some Smart cars. The discovery in 390-million-year-old rocks suggests that spiders, insects, crabs and similar creatures were far larger in the past than previously thought, said Simon Braddy, a University of Bristol paleontologist and one of the study's three authors. "This is an amazing discovery," he said Tuesday. "We have known for some time that the fossil record yields monster millipedes, super-sized scorpions, colossal cockroaches, and jumbo dragonflies. But we never realized until now just how big some of these ancient creepy-crawlies were," he said. The research found a type of sea scorpion that was almost half a yard longer than previous estimates and the largest one ever to have evolved. The study, published online Tuesday in the Royal Society's journal Biology Letters, means that before this sea scorpion became extinct it was much longer than today's average man is tall. Prof. Jeorg W. Schneider, a paleontologist at Freiberg Mining Academy in southeastern Germany, said the study provides valuable new information about "the last of the giant scorpions." Schneider, who was not involved in the study, said these scorpions "were dominant for millions of years because they didn't have natural enemies. Eventually they were wiped out by large fish with jaws and teeth." Braddy's partner paleontologist Markus Poschmann found the claw fossil several years ago in a quarry near Prum, Germany, that probably had once been an ancient estuary or swamp. "I was loosening pieces of rock with a hammer and chisel when I suddenly realized there was a dark patch of organic matter on a freshly removed slab. After some cleaning I could identify this as a small part of a large claw," said Poschmann, another author of the study. "Although I did not know if it was more complete or not, I decided to try and get it out. The pieces had to be cleaned separately, dried, and then glued back together. It was then put into a white plaster jacket to stabilize it," he said. Eurypterids, or ancient sea scorpions, are believed to be the extinct aquatic ancestors of today's scorpions and possibly all arachnids, a class of joint-legged, invertebrate animals, including spiders, scorpions, mites and ticks. Braddy said the fossil was from a Jaekelopterus Rhenaniae, a kind of scorpion that lived only in Germany for about 10 million years, about 400 million years ago. He said some geologists believe that gigantic sea scorpions evolved due to higher levels of oxygen in the atmosphere in the past. Others suspect they evolved in an "arms race" alongside their likely prey, fish that had armor on their outer bodies. Braddy said the sea scorpions also were cannibals that fought and ate one other, so it helped to be as big as they could be. "The competition between this scorpion and its prey was probably like a nuclear standoff, an effort to have the biggest weapon," he said. "Hundreds of millions of years ago, these sea scorpions had the upper hand over vertebrates — backboned animals like ourselves." That competition ended long ago. But the next time you swat a fly, or squish a spider at home, Braddy said, try to "think about the insects that lived long ago. You wouldn't want to swat one of those."

I thought this was going to be about the Zebra fish stem cell story to grow new eyeballs, a feat which may eliminate blindness (in humans, not fish) in our lifetime. Amazing. Same little fish you have in your home aquariums.

I want a girl with a short skirt, And a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong jacket

Well now we understand the avatar!

Surprised to see the Metolius ropes I was using are lighter than your twins, and are a double rope. specs: UIAA falls: twin 16, half 6 weight: 38 g/m sheath slippage: 0 max. impact force: twin 8.5 kN, half 5.7 kN elongation: twin 7%, half 8% certification: UIAA, CE, EN 892 Good luck with it!