billcoe

The new Trango Vergo's are coming out. Guy on Mt Project called it the Cinch 2. But it looks pretty darned good on the early independent reviews. Maybe it is, but I like the way it appears to operate. Anyone want to try mine lets get out on rock, it should be here in a week. Here's the Trango vid. http://www.trango.com/p-337-vergo.aspx

The freesoloing Sasquatch seemed to have startled the new guys. Wasn't much of a clusterF after all, new guys first tied in with and then let the old guys play through and 2 new friends (Ryan and Alex) were made who happen to know good beer as well.

As an aside, it may go without saying but I'll say it anyway. Let us get up and knock off some lose blocks and rocks one more time and finish her before anyone decides to run up and jump on the route. Close, so close. ps, working on getting a photo or 2 up. Ivan played superman this weekend. Damned impressive doing yeomans work like a galley slave he was. EDITED - Here's the man @ 50 meters below me. Squint, he's down there I'll swear to it. Ben and Geoff rocking the start. "Deceptive Scale" is more than a just a potential silly route name. Up here it's a way of life. You can see it in both these shots.

Stone Soup pretty much accurately describes it. It was like an open source project where Ivan kept inviting in various folks to work on his project. I had a pretty good time till we got to the loose block pitch and I wanted to free it following (didn't). But we all know what they say about opinions? "They're like assholes, everyone has one and they all stink" or some such. Anyway, maybe that should be on the Beacon thread. Here's some Rapunzel stuff from last weekend. I have a short vid to show the looseness of the blocks. Pause it right at the start and look over my shoulder at the stuff we are trying to avoid or clear off for instance. Off the belay below I'd used @ a 3 foot tall rock to step up and get some height off the ledge and was bolting up pitch 7 or 8ish when Ivan says that the block is loose and he's gonna push it off. So I whipped out my cell phone. We'd been tossing rocks all day and there was no way anyone was below us. The ground is @ 700-800 feet below us here. Pause it at 5 seconds and you can see Ivans shoulder. He's in a real sweet cubby hole. The pitch below us was the "Dances with Death" pitch I reference -where about everything looks loose. The highlight of that was Ivan riding a big block (just like Slim Pickens in Dr Strangelove) which chose to pop off from his body weight alone. Except he was clipped to a bolt and I had him on belay. We seem to spend a inordinate amount of time working on trying to figure how not to get kilt on this SOB (and have been successful so far), and engineering a fix so the next folks up don't die because we missed something of importance or lazily left something behind like a sharp edge or loose block. It's hard, brutal, frightening at times, confusing and thankless work. There may be 8 people in the world who care, and that is you, gentle reader. Even non sharp edges seem to trash ropes. I caught that Ivans static has a huge core shot on it.... AFTER we rapped it, and it was on a softer/rounder edge too. Last Saturday 9/10/16: [video:youtube] Here's Ivan near the top of Rapunzel. The trail rope there overhangs @ 8-10 feet out, it's steeper than it looks. Note the lead line trying to follow solid rock and avoiding the stuff on the right. @ 90 percent of the bolts have been placed after tapping rock with a hammer to determine how solid it is and moving the bolt to the most solid sounding location. I was going to go for it and head up there this weekend, but the weather last Sunday was near brutal cold up there at @ 40 degrees with wet windy mist, and it was 75 degrees and warm down here, and figure with the chance or rain going up to 70 percent up there tomorrow, pretty much would be crazy to get on the monster in those conditions. Hope you like the vid! Any complaints (Kevin:-)can be done at the complaint dept here: https://www.dol.gov/wecanhelp/howtofilecomplaint.htm

Hmm, pic with excessive lines drawn on it didn't appear. Nevermind.

AS AN ASIDE, I HAVE DRAWN LINES UP WHAT ARE CLEARLY FINE FINE CRACK ON THE PHOTO AND THERE SHOULD BE 4 OR 5 FREE EASY ROUTES UP THIS THING. Thats all I have.

EDIT, FIRST POST ACTUALLY SAID THIS, TYPED IT AND POSTED BUT IT SHOWS UP AS BLANK. I have trouble believing that it's a month'ish shy of the 4 year mark since the debauched conceptualization (a rework of the calendar need to be rolled into play as much more than the glorious and anticipated 9 months which is normal http://www.calculator.net/conception-calculator.html. It was exclaimed and it's still not finished despite best efforts. (insert swear words with religious words or some kind of pig shit to indicate extreme disbelief here). 3 words for the graduate.....crap, forgot all 3 of them. Anyway, moving on, AS A SIDE NOTE, THIS IS WHAT OCCURS WHEN YOU RELY AN AN OLD AS FUCK, INJURED SHOULDER GUY to assist. See? You wind up having to do the heavy lifting (thanks for that BTW - no sarcasm, genuine this time) STILL. NOT. DONE. You've done a great job, unlike moi, no complaints, but we need to go for the happy finish: then give a polite bow, and ride off into the sunset. Still working on getting some shots up of the weekend, but ... old people and technology they say, most accurately as it turns out as it concerns cameras and computers. I'm blaming my kids for not having grandkids yet to help out on this issue:-). Tomorrow, for a Kodak moment perhaps? 2 points. 1st) it rained at 1:47 am. You slept through it, I, however, had to get up and pee with a cold wet face....again. Then it stopped. The rain, not the snoring. 2nd) I called the fact that you would step up and get the "Dances with Death" pitch established. This would have fully occurred and been done discussing had we a "TRUE" 60meter, and not some rag tag piece of crap I'd bought on sale that didn't stretch to the ledge. Sorry- my bad. Although in my defense, instead of the rope being too short, it could be that in fact, the ledge was too long. This is my suspicion and I have seen this on other occasions but I don't want to pitch it to full on public, tar and feather ridicule, so we can keep that between us for now. Lucille, anyway, is looking for rematch. ...and in case this was not discussed this weekend, why you should go to Jerusalem to get a tattoo. - http://aleteia.org/2016/09/12/getting-a-medieval-tattoo-in-jerusalem/ GD, good times.

hmmm, time to fill in some blanks.

I have trouble believing that it's a month'ish shy of the 4 year mark since the debauched conceptualization (a rework of the calendar need to be rolled into play as much more than the glorious and anticipated 9 months which is normal http://www.calculator.net/conception-calculator.html. It was exclaimed and it's still not finished despite best efforts. (insert swear words with religious words or some kind of pig shit to indicate extreme disbelief here). 3 words for the graduate.....crap, forgot all 3 of them. Anyway, moving on, AS A SIDE NOTE, THIS IS WHAT OCCURS WHEN YOU RELY AN AN OLD AS FUCK, INJURED SHOULDER GUY to assist. See? You wind up having to do the heavy lifting (thanks for that BTW - no sarcasm, genuine this time) STILL. NOT. DONE. You've done a great job, unlike moi, no complaints, but we need to go for the happy finish: then give a polite bow, and ride off into the sunset. Still working on getting some shots up of the weekend, but ... old people and technology they say, most accurately as it turns out as it concerns cameras and computers. I'm blaming my kids for not having grandkids yet to help out on this issue:-). Tomorrow, for a Kodak moment perhaps? 2 points. 1st) it rained at 1:47 am. You slept through it, I, however, had to get up and pee with a cold wet face....again. Then it stopped. The rain, not the snoring. 2nd) I called the fact that you would step up and get the "Dances with Death" pitch established. This would have fully occurred and been done discussing had we a "TRUE" 60meter, and not some rag tag piece of crap I'd bought on sale that didn't stretch to the ledge. Sorry- my bad. Although in my defense, instead of the rope being too short, it could be that in fact, the ledge was too long. This is my suspicion and I have seen this on other occasions but I don't want to pitch it to full on public, tar and feather ridicule, so we can keep that between us for now. Lucille, anyway, is looking for rematch. ...and in case this was not discussed this weekend, why you should go to Jerusalem to get a tattoo. - http://aleteia.org/2016/09/12/getting-a-medieval-tattoo-in-jerusalem/ GD, good times.

Nice Ivan! These kinds of days are so precious. Warm, but tart. Leaves falling. What was - will soon be no more. I need to call Ujahn and play hooky for a lap tomorrow afternoon. Anyone feel like joining in for a Warriors lap? @4pm at the base or so.

Although I'm sure that the family has a sense of relief on the true outcome and that their loved one can be placed to rest, that just sucks. "There, but for the grace of God go i in 4 or 5 days" My best to all - B

As an aside, there is no prohibition on the use of my name in posts Ivan. Such as "We rode up in Lucille", Bill's POS truck...or "Bill put in an easy pitch and I put in the hard one:-)", or "Bill took this fine photo of me on the traverse"..... Btw, I got dibs on naming the next pitch. I have in fact already named it: it's the "Dances with Death" pitch. I'll let you have that one:-)

Holy smokes. That could have been bad.....err, worse.

Was there Monday for a Young Warriors lap and that picnic bench was gone then. I assumed that the rangers had taken it away as it seemed to be getting longer in the tooth than Jim and I. Crap, some dikmuch stole it ya say? Damned good thing the restroom is bolted down. BTW, looking at the water and your dripping visage, one can't help but reflect on some similarity of what the Creature From the Black lagoon must have looked like crawling out of the Stinking Primordial Swamp. Perhaps you were wetter of course:-) Nice to see the mayor, if anyone is thinking of calling and saying hi to the man, do so.

Ivan doesn't even have a smart phone. The first naked ascent awaits for you Oly. UP PERISCOPE!

Congrats Kev! Any photos? Ivan, protect yer feet man. Big fluffy Nike type of shoes. Did an afterwork lap with Ujahn (bowed out of work early). @1:40 car to car via Jims finish. Ujahns been off for a while raising a great lil kid, so I passed on Warriors (maybe the shoulder pain helped there:-), but he wanted the Crusin pitch instead of the staid corner and flew up it faster and smoother than anyone I've ever seen climb it. Christ I wish I could climb like that. Bonus was seeing the Gnome (looking good too) on the hike down and Jim as well. I'd stuffed the Vulgarian digest #1 in his open car window in the parking lot while back and it was nice to laugh about it. Cover is Dick Williams leading Shockley's Ceiling naked. About 1959 or so I believe. JT would know is someone could give him a shake. Anyway, waved to Denaili Dave and Adam from the base. Too many folks on it to grab a 2nd lap.

There's also a story going around of a guy who did 2 first ascents of the same route out at Beacon. First go round, it was a boltless ground up moss and pants filled X rated ascent, then forgetting about it. Totally. Climbed it: done. Survived it, finished. Lets go climb Dods etc etc. Forgotten. It would have been lost to prosperity for all of time except that 15 years later he spys a potential line and thinking it unclimbed, comes back with a buddy, drill and bolts. Sticks in 4 of the 7 eventual bolts total before the anchors and there almost 1/2 way up this "unclimbed route" hidden in the back of a crack mostly covered by moss is an old Chouinard Lost Arrow Piton driven to the eye in a huge expanding flake. Crap. He's both astounded and stumped at anyone's audacity at having wandered up here in no mans land. Upon further reflection on "how the heck did the guy get back down". There are no rap slings, bolts or other pro visible anywhere logical. There is, however, another route @ 25 feet over that has an anchor @ 20-30 feet higher than the new routes anchor. The mystery is definitely bothersome. As some bolts were in, might as well go full retard and finish the route. Blam, in go the rest of the bolts and an anchor. The partner, Kelly Warden, wants to name it "Raindance" as it was raining on and off when it was being led, but still danced. The other guy was thinking the most approximate name would be just call it "Second Ascent" to reference the route, but with the piton still stuck in there @1/2 way up sure as hell can't call that a First Ascent. It's all very confusing until the guy is later comparing notes with Jim. Jim explains that he had belayed the FA leader and that the guy who did the 2nd Ascent also did the FA and Jim says that person is standing right there in front of him. More confusion ensues. The question, how did the person get to the ground is asked. Basically just a free solo with one shit pin the entire route was a ground fall as even the pin would have pulled. Jim explains that it went up about to the new anchor location and then turned left and with still no pro but lots of moss continued up and over to the anchor on the next route. Jim knows who did this, I don't want to out such stupidity on the internet, you can ask Jim who that was if you are interested. Jim named the route the first time, his choice was "Rythem Method". A reflection on the need for perfect timing so as to not have a huge accident while getting F**cked. Excellent choice for a name. The guy who did the 2 first ascents now quietly chuckles to himself when told now or upon hearing a casual comment (repeatedly in fact) that there are not enough bolts or the bolts are too far apart. True story, happened just that way (I think). This example is another illustration of how first ascents use to get lost in time.

^^^JAY KERR^^^^. Dohh. Still a good dude.

Yes, that's today's ideal. Back when, the joy was going up, sticking a route, coming back and MAYBE telling a worthy buddy or 2 about it, but otherwise, the DOING was the goal. Do it, done. Bragging AKA "sharing" it via facebook and Mt Project, had not arrived. Lots of routes were done at Beacon this way. Was out with JT for Jim's 70th (80th???!) birthday, and ...damn, forgot the name, lives on the sailboat near st Helens, showed us a route he did. Pointed right at this "line" (NOT a line) and said that they'd climbed it. We both just shook our heads. Lots of moss, never would have believed it was a route or EVEN COULD BE ONE except that the man is 100 % honest. That's the way it use to be. Climb it. The end. Guys like Jeff Walker and Avery did it that way, and they are sadly no longer here to point them out for us. Jeff's rope is still up there visibly waving in the breach though, saying "THIS WAY - THIS WAY" LOL, even if Jeff can't be here. Good on Andrew/Pink for quietly bagging a fine line. Or 10...or more than that. Maybe we'll never hear it all, maybe that's OK too. I think he'd like this version better now, not the least of which he's older and wiser:-) and it gets climbed as indicated by lots of posts about it. The world changed but it's still all good. HOLA TIMETRAVER!!!!

Thanks again Ivan! Its gonna go Boyz! Sooner or later. It's damned near all I can think about and I'm heading to Toulemne Meadows in a day or 2. TOW...ER TOW...ER!! TOW...ER !!! TOW...ER!! !!! THIS IS GOING TO BE SUCH A KICK ASS ROUTE WHEN WE GET IT DONE!!!!!!!!!!

...another great trip report, thanks!

Holy crap. That's a lot of scratch for a book. Hope recover every bit of the missing material, sorry to see crap like this happen.

As far as other places to climb with crampons close to town, the left (west) side of Farside cliff has no routes, so no one will be bothered. It can be accessed easily from the trail and also easily TR'ed off one of the several trees. Location: if you drive just past the 2nd Ozone parking lot while heading east (about a city block past, Ozone and Farside are RIGHT next to each other @ 100 yards or so with Ozone on the west and Farside the to East) and pull over before the guardrail above the Farside (not after). There is a visible trail right off the road that starts heading out back towards Ozone. Starts maybe 2 steps from your car. If you walk 3 steps from your car and don't see a trail you need to look around where you are. At the 2nd switchback (memory here, which may not be reliable, you'll be right below a perfect little cave/shelter in the rocks if you look up, the road and your car is just uphill @ 40 feet or so), where the trail switchbacks back west towards Ozone just keep heading east no more than probably @15-20 steps into the woods and right there, BAM. Don't trip or you'll be a statistic cause you're above some real steep but vegetated ground. If you need a better orientation just walk to the base and look up. There's some nettles at the base, but you can stomp them down or pull them up if they are disagreeable. (please don't spray them as they are edible if you briefly blanch them and folks do eat them) No poison oak here. The lower part of the trail can use some work if you are looking for a workout and some community service so as you walk by practice chopping steps with the adze of your axes:-) It could get ugly if someone were to be caught drytooling a rock route at the Butte. The use of tools at the butte was always predicated on the fact that they would not be used on existing older/established routes. If you are parking at the last parking area by Video Bluff, the Drytool area is just past Silver Bullet Bluff to the East on what is noted as "Trivial Wall" in Tim Olsens PDX guidebook and the map below. I never see anyone climbing Garys the Poodle with a Mohawk (Poodle Pinnacle area) a tad further down and higher up (as you hike down the trail going east to the base just look up towards where the road would be) and suspect no one would complain if you were clumping through the English Ivy that's overtaken that area. Link to Tims site where I linked the map photo from. http://www.portlandrockclimbs.com/metro-area/rocky-butte-quarry.htm It's a unique and special place as this quote from 2012 below shows. Not much has changed as last time I was there some homeless camper had a campfire get out of control and started in on the trees (below Blueberry Jam). Don't know if it was wet, he got lucky, or the fire dept put it out: but you can clearly see they all but burned their campsite down and had to move. from: http://www.parkscanpdx.org/observation?id=1059 I make no judgement on homeless eating the neighborhood pets, there but the grace of the good lord go I. I'm just saying....it's a "SPECIAL" place.

Bob's back! Who won the office pool? http://cascadeclimbers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/1149991/gonew/1/Rock_Climbing_Belay_Glasses_35#UNREAD The ad's drove him away and the ad's brought him back. There's a circle story.

Right on Rad! They have the Beal Booster 111 9.7 Non-dry BUT WITH AN INCLUDED ROPE BAG in 70 Meter at Sierra Trading Post for $99 now. Both the butt-ugly Orange and the Butt-ugly Green/White/Blue combo. The 60 meter is $89and change. Note that they look great in the store and out of the bag but start looking butt ugly immediately once that first particle of dirt touches it:-) http://www.sierratradingpost.com/beal-booster-iii-97mm-classic-standard-climbing-rope-70m~p~9678m/?filterString=clearance~1%2Fsports-and-outdoors~d~4868%2F&colorFamily=04&merch=prod-rec-prod-prod9678M and a few other deals on ropes http://www.sierratradingpost.com/s~climbing-rope/?perPage=24