Ivan, you are welcome. Take Nolse with ya if you can hook up, he asked for the info too.
Jim likes nailing. Which might be why he borrowed my Beautiful Forest Molinar for a quick trip to Yos and I didn't get it back for 8 years. This leads to, and helps explain, the rest of the story and the other questions on the bolt chopping.
I broke my back up hammer, a “cheap-assed Cassin lightweight for the Alps POS job” retro-bolting Rhythm Method (called thus if the full 80' pitch done on moss with only 1 sloppy micro nut and 1 LA pin in the expanding flake) Kelly Warden and I renamed it Raindance if you clip any of the 7 bolts leading only 70' to the new chains and beautiful 3/8 bolts).
Whoever told Jim Robinson that the dude tossing the bolts in out there needs his assed kicked: you know who did it now. Yup. Me. Except I don't really need my ass kicked. I was, however, that dude.
See, I did the FA of Rhythm Method with Jim Opdyke and plain forgot about it. For @15 years. Till I started telling Jim the story about how Kelly Warden and I went and did this Schweeet little slab, 7 solid bolts, broke my Cassin on it. I asked Jim if someone else had jumped on it before, cause @ 1/2 way up was an old f*ed manky rusty LA, driven to the eye, but not too solid. I told Jim I had thought 2nd ascent must be the best name, cause of the pin – someone must have climbed it previously, and I wondered if someone retied (threaded through the pin) and down climbed, perhaps only climbing ½ the way to where our new pretty anchors were? Then he reminded me that I was the person who drove that steel. The whole story of how I pounded the LA in and screaming, SCREAMING at Jim and the other spectators that they were about be killed and crushed as I saw this huge massive block, my best pro off the deck and @30 some+ feet up, bigger than 2 VW busses, as I saw the widening of the crack and the physical movement of this monster block from hell as I pounded the pin in, SCREAMING, GET THE HELL AWAY FROM THE BASE, MOVE BACK THIS BLOCKS COMING OFF....MOOOOOVVVEEEETHEFUCKBAAACCCCKKKK MOTHERFUCKERS OR YOU'RE DEAD!!! I couldn't lower off the piece, pro too weak and fearing that weight might at any time pop the block, so I gritted my teeth, backed up the pin 5 feet up the crack which defined the block with a small nut, and continued up, looking for near non-existent pro. Fortunately, now the base was clear - including J.O., my belayer, who although there was a rope which went down toward the ground, he was well back, and wisely giving plenty of slack so that:
A) He wouldn't accidentally pull me off, and/or
B) Should the block pull: which looked imminent as the movement was so rapid: it wouldn't hit the rope and pull me off. So this being the Pacific NW, and being a ground up FA, it was very mossy, dirty, with lots of loose rock, the no pro thing was just another nail in the coffin so to speak which when added to the 20+ feet of slack made it look a little dicey. OK I've had worse, but this was bad. Well, some of you might know that feeling: you just sack up and hope ya live. It's too hard and loose to down-climb, you sure as hell don't want a multi-ton block balancing above your head: and you have hope for a piece above and the moves look like they will go..... you know the pro below is shit, so just do your best. It why FAs can be so hard, even when later thay are so easy. (The route immediatly left, Boardway, at 5.6-5.7 was a similar story).
I suspect that like when a train hits a car or some sort of severe accident, no one who lives in the accident will remember the immediate events, and perhaps I forgot the route for that very reason. I needed to blank it out to move on. Most likely I forgot for the same reason I forgotten other climbs, but that’s a real long and involved story. If you look at my right side forehead and see a bump and a Harry Potter looking scar that used to have 8 stitches, well, that's my excuse for forgetting things.
But I'm trying to answer the question and that scar is a real long story so lets skip that.
I've heard people call that Raindance climb 5.10A now, cleaned off, with the 7 bolts in. That's not accurate: way over IMO. In fact Kelly and I cleaned it and bolted it on a day where we had to stop and lower off 4 times it rained so hard, we lowered off and ran to the Arena of Terror to try and unsuccesfully stay dry (the real Arena of Terror, the overhanging blocks so named by Steve Strauch is right uphill from Raindance, not the guidebook call out around to the South side) When I finally led it was sopping wet, with such slippery wet mud moss and choss that a banana slug would have cheered for it. With the bolts in it was easy. Now, with bolts, it might be an 8, maybe 5.7. But then, well then, before the bolts: venturing into the unknown and staring death in the face - with loose manky partner-pancake-flattening blocks about to kill my friends and crush my belay and peeling out on dirty wet moss and sloppy loose rock with minimal pro, with bananna slugs gleefully cheering me on.... well, well it must have easily been harder than 10++, maybe 11. But that was a long time ago.
Where was I? Oh, broke my hammer.
So years later, when my old time climbing partner Bob McMahon called and said he and Dave English had spied a line which needed bolts for sure, which straightened out the fugly 2nd pitch of Young Warriors: the same 2nd pitch, named the butthole pitch by Jim O, the one which I'd backed off of doing the FA with Jim years before for being chicken and having small testicals: I just didn't have a real hammer. Jim had my Forrest hammer.
But I had a cordless Milwaukie roto-hammer!
Yes, Jim O had invited me out years before to take a shot at the FA lead of what would later be a relatively easy pitch, the Butthole pitch. At like @ 10a/b is the range I hear now, and that’s about right I think, I do it all the time…...easy. Knowing it will go. Clean traverse, having a bolt and tcu's for pro, makes a huge difference. Then I'd traversed out there into no mans land, land of the Banana slug and choss and moss, it just seemed so F*ed. Now you simply clip and step. Then.....well, I went out there on that loose traverse.... starred that Butthole square in the face and thought long and hard to myself: this stinks I thought. I’m scared and I wish these f*en Banana slugs would shut the f up.
To answer one question. Yes, there was shrinkage. No question. No need to look or check. If you don’t know what shrinkage is and you are male, you can induce shrinkage easily by jumping naked into freezing water on a hot day. We’re talking Severe Shrinkage and it should be capitalized and is not to trivalized in any way. But I'm about to tell you the part which might save your life, so please stick with me for a moment if you're bored.
Now listen to this part cause it is important. Later Kenny did the FA, Kenny climbed hard, solid. Bigger stones than most of us, no question. Kenny walks the easy banana slug traverse, clips the bolt Jim had put in, pros the crack, makes the moves…… and falls........ then................T..H..E.. R.O.P.E. P..E..E..L..S.. S..O.. Y..O..U.. C..A..N.. S..E..E.. T..H..E.. W..H..I..T..E.. I..N..N..E..R.. C..O..R..E....
Almost turning 1 long rope into 2 short pieces. You see, Jim was belaying off the 2 rappel bolts at the end of P1. The rope went around that sharp projection of rock you don't notice and just separated, blew apart, when Kenny fell and the line became taut. Then Kenny climbs that pitch anyway, just finishes it with the white inner core showing and everything since the Kern had stripped off. So the 2 main points here are: don't belay that pitch from the rap bolts, step up and left @12 feet to a bolt at your knee, and back it up with some nuts. You will avoid the edge on the rope. Oh, point #2, Kenny had big stones. And Severe Shrinkage I'm fairly certain. That's 3 points though.
So Dave Bob and I show up a long time after the Butthole pitch is a fact of life and Kennys stones have returned from his Adams Apple region. I still don’t like that pitch. Never have since a long time before Kenny almost died on it. I tolerate it cause the YW route is so spectacular. But that’s me personally, I dislike it, others do not feel such as I. Looking up, I remembered the more direct line I had origonlly seen with Jim. It had been my first choice to be the 2nd pitch of YW when Jim and I were out trying the butthole FA. Jim blew the line off but I thought it would go. Go it did, 10 years after the Butthole. We did the bolting: on rappel, with a power drill. Yes, you guessed it, my Milwaukee Cordless. Dave Drilled, Bob popped the bolts in and I led the route. (they were tired and I'd just been standing around cheering them on.) Nice to have friends who do the heavy lifting and allow you to have your way with them afterwards. It was a great pitch. The climbing was easy till the crux, 40' above the 2 rap bolts on p1. The short 10b/c traverse left crux was pro'ed by a single bolt which was placed so that the leader and the follower were both protected.
Hey, never lacking for excuses, my drift pin was missing on the hand drill too, and the bit I’d put in didn’t reach the key-hole, and was now both dull and stuck. What’s a mother to do? Choosy mothers chose Milwaukiee. At least this mother F* did anyway.
So, turned out there was really a "Bolting Committee" with a few people who wouldn't have a bad word to say to me or about me on it. I not making that up. But I learned about that later, after I drilled ‘em and filled ‘em (apologies to the kind and late Mike Puddy, who should have been awarded “best route named by a dentist” for that one at Smith). I also learned, later, well, I knew this one in advance really, that many of the Beacon old-timers were fearful of sport climbers coming out and turning the place into a rock gym. That once one show up, like cockroaches when allowed to multiply, then there would be bolted lines and hot and cold running dickheads everywhere. That whole crappy attitude often found on beginners, who coincidentally seem to be bolting at the Butte and should cease and desist IMO. Well the regulars were fearful that the authorities would see a bunch of dickheads out there running around doing stupid things and getting injured (like the 4 humans who pitched off of the Butte this Spring) and that said authorities would see this scene: not support it and close Beacon to climbing.
I understand that attitude. So the idea was no roto-hammers, no bolting on rappel, no dickheads. Well that had been the plan till I showed up looking much like a rat turd in the sugar bowl.
Where was I – oh, so I walked up and see Jim out there one day. I tell him about my “new” route, 2nd ascent now called Raindance. Then he tells me I was the dumb Son of a B who had pounded that pin and tells the whole story till he gets to the part of the loose block and then I remember it all. etc etc
In the course of the conversation I say “hey, we fixed your route”. Huh? Says Jim. Well, Bob, Dave and I rap bolted an addition to YW with rotohammers blah blah. I’m sure all he heard was “rap bolted” and “rotohammers”, not best pitch out here and a great addition to the best line etc etc. Well, he tells a few people etc etc and it gets the chop. Of course – the pitch, named “The Old Fart Variation” on Young Warriors got repeated and stories told about how awesome it was, and it was getting popular. So was YW. Then it got chopped. Can’t reward bad behavior evidently!
Since then, there has been some solid clean pretty FA’s done (ask Mark Deffenbach above as he’s out there doing a lot of it with his friends) and the feared rangers/sport climber clash never happened as well. Maybe the old-timers just figured that being a dickhead was part of the human condition which we all share, every one of us, not exclusive rap-bolting sporto’s.
So, Hanger, T and I happened by, just walking around the base of Beacon and we see Jim just the other day. I asked him about it. Times change: now, it looks like having a few bolts in a pitch, even if roto-hammered by a tired older fella (me) might not be the end of the world after all. So I'm asking others, Jim's OK with it now.
PS, this was the short version.
What was the question again? Well, please re-read my post, I must have answered something in it?
Oh, the moral(s) of the story.
1) Don't rap bolt with a roto-hammer in no mans land.
@) Support your local bolting committee.
