billcoe

Dooh! You got it right Larry! Can I at least get some credit for being older than Old Larry? I'm claiming brain slippage cause I must have been thinking of "between 2 mountains" of a picture of 2 Mt's I'd climbed as a youth I'd been emailed. Before the Storm it was, is, and will be. Great name. Moving on - wheres this sex sheep everyone is talking about?

LOL! I have pictures !!!!! Here's the old guy in a pic Jim took as we're gearing up to fire off the FA of the route Jim named Between the Storm. Kevbone had wandered by and is telling us some move by move beta on another route there. On this day he's old, and slow. I finally get up on top and feeling the rain that had been threatening all day start up I fire in an anchor and get set up stat and yell "Off Belay". "Belay off" Larry yells. I pull up slack with the urgency of a man with diarrhea looking at a pay toilet and in moments yell back "BELAY IS ON"... ...CUE ELEVATOR MUSIC (with some rain).... "UHH, HEY THERE....I SAID ....BELAAAAYYYY ON"... more elevator tunes in my head....more silence from below....I can see a massive storm heading right towards us across the water, the rain is starting, as if to say " hellooo!", and I'm pondering and reflecting on the coat I'd left below in the pack. ....nothing from below...."HELLO DOWN THERE....BELAAAAYYYY IS ON" ... fianally: HEY, LARRY,...ITS STARTING TO RAIN UP HERE..." Finally from below I hear Oldlarry, who in my state of mind of wanting to avoid the cold rain I feel is probably putting his shoes on at the speed of oldwoman: "Yeah?, it's raining down here too"...... I burst out laughing.......totally cracked me up.

A lot of us here deal with it. I went to the Dr just 4 weeks ago thinking I had cancer and he tells me osteoarthritis. Once I got over my happiness at not having cancer, I say: "no way dude, I have a little arthritis in my fingers and it doesn't feel that bad." That gets him to looking at my fingers: "Yeah, he says feeling my fingers up, "you have significant arthritis in your fingers"...with a twinkle I'm all like, "hey buddy, no one said "significant", you introduced a new word here and it's unneeded and unwanted - we are talkin minor"...LOL. He smiled. Later I get to looking at them myself, they've been hurting bad in little finger cracks, the things I use to have loved the most, sure enough, it was like I was seeing them for the first time. They're not so good. The discouraging thing for me was looking it up on the Mayo clinic site and seeing stuff like: "use larger handled utensils that are easier to grab" as the only remedy for it....what shit. They don't even talk about what caused it. The encouraging part is that I just need to drop 30 lbs and get my shit together again. I was out recently with a real good guy to hang with who's not a spring chicken yet who is still plugging 5.12, and as he munched some Ibuprofen to start the day (looking over at my scowl:-) he said he'd had surgery that had totally removed his meniscus, and he's like 44 years old. Yet he's also in great shape, works out a lot and eats right. An inspiration for sure. So at only 23, you seem too young for this.....and yet you've appeared to have the medical thing checked and rechecked so it's hard to say. -so here's the important part: - I do know one person, the late Roger Smith, who was a bit of a strange duck in many respects, who fell off the top of a pinnacle (Rooster Rock). He bounded to a near unconscious state and landed far enough out into the Columbia River that he hit head first into the water which was luckily at 100 year flood stage or so. An amorous couple picnicking on the banks saw this horror show and rushed out and gently floated him to shore, saving his life. About everything he had was broken. Neck, arms, leg, etc etc. He survived this mess, yet his recovery was very, very long. Finally he was healed up and eventually started climbing again. Yet the pain persisted for years and in time became worse. He was in extreme pain by the time he was at your age (he was 16-17 when he fell into the river) which they then finally diagnosed, re-diagnosed and confirmed as arthritis. (it was knees, arms, everywhere). The Dr's told him there was No hope. None. That he was bound for a life of pain with no hope and a wheelchair by the time he was 35. In a bookstore he saw a book by an old black man about raw foods. He became enchanted and he turned to an all natural diet that was no cooked foods or animal. Not even milk. His health came back and he became uber fit and finally even pain free. It was an amazing miracle. Yet there was a price to pay. Nothing in life is free. His bones became extremely brittle as well. Once he even broke a rib just shimming over a chain link fence from the pressure of his body weight alone. Yet he keep with it. He started the mornings out swimming, and could almost run up Mt Hood with a 50 lb pack. No on could keep up with him, even us guides who were up there all the time. He liked it solitary anyway and was convinced that speed was safety. I was on Hood once soloing in January, as was Roger. He and I saw each other across the slope at a distance, the only 2 idiots stupid enough to get out during a respite between ice storms in early January, yet he didn't respond to my wave. Later, I bumped into him and asked about the diss. He said he had no gear, figured I didn't have any either, and that he wanted to see what he could do alone, without the encumbrance of another. Uhhh, OK...that was Smitty but like I said Roger was just a strange guy. We'd climbed before and we'd climbed together after. He headed up Castle Crags route. He said that where it got steep, he kept on, but was not able to get his points to penetrate at all in the steep, cold verglas we were faced with that day. The crampons were skittering off. A hard stopm was getting them to stay put....barely. He continued Piolet Plant, flat footed, as his front points were not penetrating - and unable to climb higher: finally forced to downclimb the steep ice he had barely been able to climb up. He said that he chanted the mantra of what Chouinard would do and believed himself to be Chouinard that day, and that is what got him down alive. We did some nice climbs together, and had some screwed up moments as well like the summer we sat immobile for 10 hours next to the F^%Xing freeway trying to hitchhike up to do the Pickets traverse and all we got was sunburned and no rides, but Roger had courage. Yet he later went a tad crazy and killed himself with a shotgun. Can't say if it was related to the diet or the LSD. I suspect the latter and not the former. In high school, he was an early adopter of LSD, and took more that any head would call prudent. He smoked pot for most of his life too, but the lsd at an early age I do not believe was a good thing. Sorry if I went off too long, but it seemed germaine to the issue at hand. Just pointing out that perhaps diet is your issue?

To say nothing of taking pictures of an old man and a sex sheep in the tent. Indeed.

At least someone is making a buck off of all this. http://rt.com/usa/news/naked-body-scanners-usa/ ".........As it turns out, former Secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, now runs a security and risk management firm and one of his clients is Rapiscan, one of the biggest manufacturers of body scanning machines in the country. While the media continues to interview Chertoff about the value of body scanning machines, they fail to point out that he will benefit financially from the implementation of the machines. "He’s abusing his relationship with the public by pretending to be a public servant and talking about how these body scanners are going to make us safer… He stands to benefit because he's getting paid by the manufacturing companies to go all over the television networks saying that these scanners are the solution to security," said Kate Hanni, the director of Flyersrights.org, a non-profit dedicated to passengers rights. Talk about body scanners became increasingly popular after the failed Christmas Day bombing last year. After that incident, two major contractors with powerful lobbying groups in Washington, DC recieved contracts for about $160 million dollars each to build body scanners for airports across the country. One of those contractors was Rapiscan. "Americans should be angry because the $25 million in stimulus funds that were used to order the first 150 of these body scanners could have been used to create jobs. The taxpayers could have avoided what’s akin to martial law being implemented in the airport," Hanni said."

I don't know. I hear a proposal to do away with income tax. They said a national sales tax, 22% on everything, was the way to go. I'm like: what kind of fucked up rich dude thinking is that bullshit? Rich dude miser gets to pay the same as a poor person. In fact, as a percentage, the poor folks will be taking it in the ass. They still need to buy shoes, buy clothes, the same appliances except the percentage they pay will be huge. I thought that we were going to stop raping the poor when Bush left office, now I see that the current president is wanting to re-up the Bush tax cuts for the rich. So lets call them the Obama tax cuts for the rich. Not a problem he says, we can keep borrowing the money from the Chinese. Uhhh, shit. As a country we need to spend a shitload less and the tax cuts for the rich need to expire. Should have never done them in the first place.[/rant]

HUH? Was out by myself yesterday. No one came along. It was super nice once the rain stopped. Steve, no one could fault you for getting stuck, you had a plow horse (Ivan) and a rope in the car, that's usually all it takes:-)

The Labyrinth. ...can I say it without getting yelled at?

damn.

Clever! Don't ya need one of these symbols to own it and charge $? Besides, that's not very PC, shouldn't it correctly be "Tea challenged™"? Hmmmmmmmmmm, I suppose that just reads poorly. A sentence might read Sarah Palin is a Tea Challenged™ candidate. I suppose that it doesn't have the ring of "Bailin Palin©, giving you the old in and out" (of office) since 2009", which also works well if you flip her over and say "Palin: bailin' since 2009©" Can't we get back to talkin bout Brandy? Who could NOT vote for her?

You can continue to strive for mediocrity Dave, but you are top notch on the humor list. Steve is up there too, I almost blew coffee through my nose when I read this one: I gotta meet him some day! You guys are a couple of characters:-)

37 routes 6 bolts and probably as many fixed pitons here. I agree your routes are not overbolted Bryan. There are not any overbolted lines out there. Hopefully no one bolts the the shit out of any of the toprope climbs, but if anyone wants to put some in any of the routes I did have at it. Like to see it be a group decision, talked over first by those who are climbing at the place. Certainly when I was watching the 240 lb Ivan run out Sweet Fucker clipped to only a knifeblade between him and his maker/the dirt I was thinking that damn pin should be a bolt. Just because I haven't gotten to it doesn't mean it shouldn't happen. I think Jim just doesn't want the place to turn into a rock gym so it can remain a spot where people can go to confront their own fear vs skill and work on climbing and learning to climb on gear routes. Where you CANNOT hang dog with risk and fear, like in real climbing. That it's pretty serious stuff is just the way it is I guess. We are still mulling over putting in a bolt on Snake: that's Kyles call and he's waffling. I wanted to put it in. Bryan and I talked specifically about Boo Coup, I said put it in but haven't done it. ps, cleaned off Freak Freely yesterday and it looks great. It was slick out and I couldn't quite reach over to the next route to the right though, so maybe Ryan and/or Jon should clean Ur Babies Daddy, it's an unclimbable blackberry patch. Looking forward to buying the book Tim! If you get it out before Christmas, you might get a bunch of extra gift sales out of it.

It's probably just another white and black issue. Anyone who had seen Brandy rock the Tango in major perfect artistic mode would have voted for her over Palin..... Holy crap she's hot. Could be it really is rigged but that she had some mega-million $ movie to start on to, nothing like some controversy to sell some tickets as well.

The Taiwanese newz version: [video:youtube] ..and from our Nipponese allies for those 18 and over: http://www.youtube.com/verify_age?next_url=http%3A//www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DTEeRD26hDDw%26feature%3Dplayer_embedded

....Wait, half a wit libturds and democrap deniers like Pat are still blaming all this on Bush.....right? No need now for an alternative version that might shake them up. Still Bush's fault. Nothing to see here. Same-same as it's ever been with an extra slice of hope and change and this time we mean that last part.

I've been thinking of the Bibler I-tent, very similar to the Eldorado. (Eldo is slightly longer) For that, a couple of near identical versions exist. They're all very light and don't utilize flys. First, they took the single walled Todd-tex fabric Bibler I-tent and put on some big-assed side zip access doors and called it the the Awahanee. Woot! Real similar to an I-tent except for the doors that an old guy who gets leg cramps at night would prefer over the i-tent. Same material. On the Event fabric question: they took the 4 season Awahanee and used that design as a framework to build a superlight tent they call the "Lighthouse". Lighter poles combined with Epic and Silicon Nylon fabric make this thing sickly light at about 3+ lbs. Has the solid bathtub type floor they all share. Double Woot! You can do the research in depth on all of these, there are some differences. On the "made in China" thing....can't speak to that except that Black Diamond has done a good job transitioning their quality when they transition their work over there. I suppose that their cost probably dropped from @$250 a unit to significantly less than $100.

WTF is right. As the democrats have owned the house, senate and Presidency since the last election that brought us all the hope and change....it brings the question to the forefront. How have the 1 and and a half teabggers actually in congress, who's main agenda of reduced government, deficit reduction and actually spending less has been trampled into the mud like a gopher trying to halt a cattle stampede in the democrats rush to stimulate themselves, gotten to steer the truck while surrounded by all of these brilliant, anti-climate change, Democrats? Hmmm. Hope and change baby hope and change!

We'll pay extra for climbing pics Dave:-)

"Hmmmm - whatever that is.... it's big....might be a .45....only bigger".

Very interesting, it's true that gays who are out seem much happier than straights or closets, so congrats on coming out Mike. In either case I'm not asking and I'm not telling. What I'd like to see is my country pissing significantly less money down the toilet both in general and especially for shit like this. If we have to then we have to, but we didn't have to in this case and we borrowed the $ from the Chinese to do it. At the end of the day, if our economy goes toast from paying for bullshit military expenditures like this: we won't have the $ or the credit tomorrow for the next war where we might be in desparete need for it.

This isn't a rehash of that old "one hangs lower than the other and they are both wrinkly and greying thing again is it?" I thought we'd moved past that Ivan....

Moore reminds me of a librul and less intelligent version of Rush Limbaugh.

Awesome! Any chance that this year we can get 1/10 of 1% of the $ going to regular or testicular cancer?

sure, but not two...how about let's call the next cobblestone find in OR 'Smith'. I emailed Tim and asked him to just not include it, but of course, no one would get strokes that way. I suspect that despite what some folks think, Tims not putting FA info into the book. Much like your extension to Rhythm Method at Beacon. Your name is interestingly absent on that in the last version JH, but he mentions the extension. It's fine by me although I like looking at the stuff myself on occasion. I'd like to see the Farside included in there so that the routes stay clean. Tim will be happy with the new material as well I'm sure. Last Saturday I looked at Freak Freely and it was way overgrown -so I need to go clean on it. I don't mind cleaning something once, twice....OK, but at some point, just climbing is what I want to be doing, and not ripping out sticker bushes sticking out of a crack while standing on a poor stance with bare hands. Getting folks on that stuff will help keep it climbable. Kind of following up on what Brian is saying above, I've noticed that the few folks that have found the spot have given feed back that the routes are under graded. Not sure if it's the grades or the serious technical nature of the pro. One of these folks was 1/2 way up and expressing concern on one of the "lighter routes". This would have been easier on my mind if dude was a begineer, but it wasn't: it was someone who has done 2 different El Cap routes in a day and a bunch of badassed stuff like that. It makes me concerned for less experienced folks climbing 5.10 in the gym over the winter then buying Tims new guidebook and just heading out there in the spring and run up the 5.9s only to discover to their horror and sorrow that they are significantly more dangerous and difficult than any 5.10+ they've ever encountered. I am feeling a tad uncomfortable with that but don't know what to do. I had all these warning labels on the route list I was producing, but I understand those might be gone to be replaced with a homily to Jim. Well written homily and overdue for sure, but some words of warning for new folks might be in order as well. I like the British system.....the R and X isn't really doing it for this spot.