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Cranbo

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Everything posted by Cranbo

  1. A buddy of mine - well, a Facebook buddy and an old high-school pal I haven't actually seen in years - was on a team just below the avi. He saw it. He ran like hell. He felt the spray from it. He's glad to be alive. This was his first mountain experience. I haven't asked him yet whether he's gonna try it again. I think I like climbing with my friends and little climbing club. If the conditions aren't right, we say "Let's wait till next week." My friend's been planning this all year, as have the guides, of course, and it was either go now, or forever hold your peace. Not that I'm suggesting the climbing guides would let that sort of pressure affect their go/no-go judgment. :-/ - rob
  2. A good friend of mine was the belayer, and I am also friends with the climber. I'll just call them "B" for Belayer, and "L" for, um, cLimber. L was about 35 feet up Rainy Day Woman (5.12a) on World Wall I, and biffed. B is not sure why so much rope played out, but L grounded. He was shaken up, but ultimately he walked out of the hospital that night. I saw him Friday and he looks fine - doesn't have a scratch on him. A freakin' miracle is how B put it. - rob
  3. And to feed back on a few of the ideas presented here... - I can't make an iPhone work on Verizon - the iPhone's GSM, and Verizon.... isn't. Right? - A POS free Verizon phone with a pre-paid account will cost a minimum of $100/year, as the time you buy for pre-paid expires after some given period. I crunched the numbers and $100/year is the cheapest I could find. That'd kinda piss me off to pay that for something I'm hopefully not gonna use (yeah, I know, cheap insurance, you say....) - rob
  4. Cranbo

    Take!

    I was amused and horrified in equal parts once when I was, I believe, at Smith, and there was a couple climbing next to us, and one of 'em was up on the rock and shouted down "Take!" The belayer hollers "What?" Up top replies "Take! Take me off belay!" Maybe it was their special code. :-/ - rob
  5. That's pretty funny, I was just on Baker exactly there, two days ago! And I got the same weird Rainier behavior (which Bogart explained, thanks) where it said I had coverage, 1 or 2 bars, but would just do "Connecting...." for a few minutes and then fail. Actually, it worked once, for about 30 seconds, then never again. I think I may just stick with my POS free Verizon phone, as many people recommended. Crunch the numbers, an iPhone costs around $2K/year - whereas my V plan is "only" $600/year - so I may just stick with that.... - rob
  6. That's plenty "definitive" for me. I can live with "hit and miss", I'm just wary of AT&T being mostly "miss".... Can you give any examples or rules of thumb as to where you can or can't connect? I have always been puzzled, for example, that when I'm on Rainier's south side, my Verizon phone would show one or two bars of signal strength, but would consistently fail to connect. A few years ago I found if I forced the phone to go analog, I could connect there, but since analog went away, I haven't found a work-around. - rob
  7. OK, call me a Yuckin' Fuppie with more dollars than sense, but I'm lusting after an iPhone. Years ago I went with Verizon, back when analog service was better in the back county - I'm talking Pacific Northwest, here - but analog's been gone for a while, so that's not a factor anymore. I wanted to know if people have any concrete experience with using an iPhone (3G, I suppose) off the beaten path. I try not to yak it up too much whilst climbing, but would like to have it for the proverbial emergency situation - OK, and calling my wife from the summit. :] Is moving to an iPhone a mistake? (Please try to keep this conversation to connectivity issues... yeah, like that's gonna happen....) Thanks, - rob
  8. I told my buddy another option is to replace the leader's somewhat used Camalot with a similar piece off my bud's rack, then go buy *himself* the shiny new cam! - r
  9. I'm sure this has been discussed before, but I couldn't find such a thread anywhere... and I'm sure there's no "right" answer... and I'm sure I'll get lotsa snide remarks but hey, it's raining out, so... What do y'all do when a second on a trad climb can't clean a piece of gear? Does he "owe" it to the leader? (Assuming it's the leader's gear). Should they split the cost? Figure it will all even out in the end? This happened to some friends recently, and altho I told 'em my opinion (I favor #3, above), I thought I'd see if there's a consensus here. Thanks, - rob
  10. My only suggestion for the new supplement (I picked one up at RP-Terrebonne a couple weeks ago) is that the plastic laminate for the cover is too damm stiff. It doesn't lie flat, or stay open, or stay closed, it just wants to be the way it is. (Or maybe this is an early edition?) But I've been coming to Smiff for 9 years now, and thanks to this book we sent 3 new routes on our last (short) trip! - r
  11. Cool, I have a Rock Empire cam that I picked up about 6 years ago in Wales. Time to retire it, perhaps. But it's my biggest piece! - rob
  12. We were at Smiff last weekend (along with 12 bazillion other people) and went off to the Marsupials to seek some solitude. Oops, it was full of Mazamas! But they were nice, and a couple of 'em were nice to look at.
  13. My wife grew up about a half mile from this place; her aunt and uncle, until about 3 years ago, lived immediately above it. We went hiking with her brother yesterday, so I asked them if they knew anything about it. Apparently it's an old quarry - it perhaps was called the Black River Quarry? Didn't have any beta as to climbability, but they did say that in the mid 60's one of their little classmates fell to his death there. Cheers! - rob
  14. OK, I know we all were new at some time and everybody's gotta learn somehow, but... Spring is (finally) here in the Northwest, and the Noobus Climorus is out in force. Have any "fun" sightings to share? We bailed on St. Helens this weeking cuz of the avvy danger, and after also bailing on doing a backpacking trip, decided to just go to Exit 38. Altho it wasn't so crowded we had to wait in line - actually, we got on everything we wanted without any waits! - there were crowds of people with shiny new racks with a dozen QDs (on a 5-bolt route), REI shopping bags and other recently-unpackaged toys, etc., etc. But the only really scary thing we saw was a team consisting of a young woman who seemed, more or less, to know what she was doing, and a beefy dude who was obviously new. He bulled his way up TR-ing a 5.9 at We Did Rock, and altho I wasn't paying close attention, seemed to be having a lot of trouble setting up the lower. So when he started letting himself down on one side of the rope, with the short end just 5 feet below him, his belayer shouted "Jason! The other end of the rope should reach the ground!". No shit. So Jason hurks himself back to the chains, and I think he was just holding the chains with one hand whilst pushing the rope thru what we assumed was his ATC, taking quite a bit of time and huffing and puffing at it. One of my buddies asks his belayer "Is he anchored in?" about 4 times, with no response, so we start shouting "Jason, are you on your personal anchor?", with no response from J, either, until one of his friends (they seemed to be there in a Noobus Posse of about 12) says to us "He doesn't know what that is", to which I shout "THEN WHAT THE F*** IS HE DOING UP THERE?" - meaning of course not "What action is he taking?" but "What is his reason for existing?" So eventually J gets the rope almost to the ground, a buddy comes over and ties a knot in it (one double overhand, up about 6 feet high, which is stupid and has exactly the ill effect later that you'd expect) and they tell Jason to come down. Which he does, and now we can see that one rope is just hanging free, and the other goes thru a quickdraw clipped to his harness, and he's hand-over-hand/sliding/slipping down the rope. He's a Stallone-looking dude, so he actually pulls this off for about the 1st 50 feet out of 70, then starts sliding out of control till the biner on the draw snags the knot at the botton, at which point he kinda goes upside down and all tangled, but he doesn't splat. My buddy the WFR and I relax a tad as the Noobs all giggle with glee. Shite. Afterwards I wondered if I should have said something, either in the heat of the moment or perhaps in a more measured way, later. Instead, we just moved on, quickly. - rob
  15. Sweat, The falls going for the top weren't off into space the way the last one was, there was rock under my feet at that point. If you look at the pic http://www.smithrock.com/aboutsr/gallery/images/monkey_face.jpg this was in the area like 45 degrees up and right of the mouth... so at that point I wasn't looking straight down to the ground, like I would be on the final pendulum swing. But I do gotta say I think I have something broken in my brain - if I'm on a solid line, I don't really have a fear of heights. Well, not if I don't think about it too hard, anyway. I'm sure I could spook myself if I let my imagination run wild, but I try to stay focused on the upward-and-onward task at hand. ;-) Glad you enjoyed my travails! - rob
  16. (I posted this on SmiffRock.com, shoulda thought of this place, too!) Dude, I have the rap anchor you asked me to take down from Bohn Street. Sorry I didn't get it back to ya, we had a mini-epic (see TR elsewhere on this board) and didn't get back till after dark. Left notes all over camp, haven't heard from ya. Send me a note, I'll mail this setup back to ya! - rob
  17. Trip Report: Pioneer Route / Monkey Off My Back, Monkey Face, Smith Rock State Park, Terrebonne, Oregon, USA Climbers: Cranbo, "D" Date: September 3, 2005 I should probably not relate this and hope that no one even hears about my misadventure, but perhaps my tale can help someone else not do three or four stupid things in a row like I did.... Saturday we started up the "Pioneer Route" of Monkey Face around 10AM; just one party of three in front of us, and no one behind us. I had climbed the route five years before, leading only the bolt ladder pitch. This time I'd lead them all except that one, which my buddy "D" would take. We get to the mouth of the Monkey just fine, weather is still nice. I lead out of the mouth, past so-called "Panic Point" - not an issue at all, lots of runs up "Cry Baby" have burned out the fear-of-exposure part of my brain, at least on terrain like that. I look up and to the right, and scop out "Monkey Off My Back", the new alternative single pitch to the top I'd read about. Shoot, that looks like a nice line, I think I'll go for it! (Mistake #1, perhaps; did I really asses my abilities after just having done the aid pitch, which isn't something I'm used to doing?) I think I more or less cruised 5 or 6 bolts (I'm always amazed by people who can remember every detail of a climb, afterward - I usually can't remember shit... but that way I get the thrill of a new climb every time!) to what seemed to be the last bolt over a slight bulge. Little-ish fingers, and I was kinda burnt from the bolt ladder. I popped off once, a nice 15' whipper 250' off the deck - cool! Again, up and pop! OK, once more up, nope, pop, whee! Three lead falls on top o' the Monkey! Well, f*** this, I thought, and tried to find another line. Off to the right, obviously unclimbed territory, with dinner plate sized loose chunks all over the place. Nope. Finally I decided I wasn't going to be able to do it, so I started downclimbing the route. (I'd forgotten about the suggestion of using a cam to get over this, posted at http://www.smithrock.com/flash/routeupdates/monkey_back.html - and I *was* carrying my trad gear! Stupid Mistake #2) The route traverses a fair amount, so I clipped a draw and was "trollying" down the line (Stupid Mistake #3 - why didn't I just unclip as I downclimbed? I think the technical answer has something to do with "chickenshit".) Not too cool, but it works. If I'd still had a brain in my head, I'd have gone all the way back to the mouth, pulled the line, and done the proper easy route, but no, I get close to the mouth and think I can fire for the next station without retreating all the way. But I'll have to abandon the trolly, the drag is too much. OK, so I do that, and make for the next station (REALLY Stupid Mistake #1)... I don't really remember popping off, but I'm sure it was "fun". I had about 20 or 30 feet of line out at that point, and I went whizzing on out in a nice big pendulum arc, rope sliding and catching across that rough crap... and I came to rest 30 feet below the 'head' bulge, maybe 10 feet out from the east face. I'm about 20 feet lower than the mouth, and it's straight down to the ground, nothing but 130 feet of air down to the dirt. Fuck. I wasn't really scared or terribly pissed, but for about 2 minutes all that went thru my mind was the embarrassing SAR circus to come, probably well after dark - "Hey, did you see that doofus who had to get rescued hangin' off the side of Monkey Face!?". After explaining my horrendous fuckup to D - he can't see me from the cave - I'm thinking about options: I did have a Tibloc, and a prussic loop, and a half-dozen slings, and biners.... so I probably can ascend the line somehow... Sheesh, that's gonna take *hours*.... Suddenly, a voice of calm reason floats up to me - "Hey, there's a rap station about 20 feet below you, can you get to it?". Some guy* is on the ground watching me, and sure enough, there's a station (the top of 'Just Do It', I find out later!) which with a bit of lowering and swinging, I get to. I make a belay, D follows out on the traverse, and, since I've totally sketched him out by my antics, he pops off after 3 or 4 bolts, he ends up about 20 left of where *I* went off. No problems, I lower him, he swings over to me, and at least we get the fun two-rope rap we'd been looking forward to, leaving two or three draws on the route. A $20 lesson that coulda been a lot worse. About the only two good things I can say about this: I survived... and I can say that I've been to the top chains of 'Just Do It'! - rob *My thanks again to Alejandro for being there!
  18. Hey, I wanna do the Pioneer Route on Monkey Face at Smiff this year, but it's been a while since I've done any A0, and I was wondering if anyone can recommend a nicely-spaced bolt ladder, maybe slightly overhung, that doesn't get much "real" action, that my buddy and I can gumby around on. Oh, and there should be dancing girls there, too. I've had Marymoor, Camp Long, and Index's Town Wall recommended (but I think TW is a trad crack, not bolted? Haven't climbed there nor looked it up yet, so sorry.) I guess I'm also looking for someplace to practice jugging - at the same place would be nice, but I'll take a separate recommendation for that. I'd do the Space Needle, but I loaned my 200m rope out. - rob
  19. I thought I was safely unique marking my gear with *two* Trango gear label thingies - I started with yellow, so I added blue (purple, supposedly). "catbirdseat" is right, that combination is as common as dirt, justabout. After reading that blub in one o' the mags a few months back, I've been hesitant to re-mark my ropes with ink (they said someone or other tested that, and it weakens rope by like 30%) so I'm trying to find a new way. I hate using tape, but I think that's about the only other alternative, 'cept maybe a radioactive tracer, with a little Geiger counter installed in your belay device - hey, I should patent that! - r
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