eldiente

I too have climbed the key rock boulder at the Winter's. V4 might be a sandbag, damn hard to see the holds when dark and carrying an arm full of groceries.

Why on Earth would read anything form Abby? You're aware that he liked the natural environment right? You might have to hand over your GOP card for reading that as his work runs contrary to just about everything the GOP advocates. (Well except the guns)

Or maybe John could just carry me back to the car to finish off the day. The fixed ladder might be tricky carrying someone, but hey it isn't supposed to be easy.

Not sure if this is a trend or not, but it seems like the summers have been warmer/drier in the NW the past two years. Can anyone confirm? Last year was crazy, every weekend was splitter with such reliability that I stopped checking the forecast when planing trips as it always seemed to be great. -Nate

"I wont bitch about the weather if you dont." *laughs* For some reason that reminds me of those dating adds "I'm VD free and you should be too." We'll be doing some widget placing down in the Lower Gorge on Sunday if you want to join in, milage day for sure. Wear a pack and climb a bunch of routes like Steve does. :-)

Ivan, I'm going to say summit of CBR.

Funny as I had never even thought about placing gear on a bolted route until Jaime told me about what Mark had done out at Broughton. Yikes! The bolts at Ozone make these type of gear leads possible. Trying to lead a face climb out there without bolts and with no cleaning would be a suicide mission. (and not any fun) I'm too much of a sissy to try any of those routes without first checking them out from the safety of the bolts. The Crumbling is a lot of fun on gear, the low crux has no gear and climbs like a high boulder problem. At the broken horizontal the first gear goes in, from there lots of good gear options while moving up on the jugs. (brass nuts, C3s behind flakes) The finish takes a bomber Alien in that right-hand finger lock, of course that jams up the finger lock that you really need to use on that roof. Doh! I ended up not placing the cam and moved up to the anchor. *Side note, bottom climbs like a V4ish boulder problem, maybe you could use pads to help soften a fall? After 15-20 feet it eases off there is lots of good gear, sew it up. The upper crux by the chains has no gear, falling here would be scary but painless as the route overhangs so much that there would be nothing to hit*

All this hate toward Ozone! We're too cool for school so we're going to XYZ crag and climbing dirty 5.5 gully climbs to get away from the common man. Ozone can indeed feel a bit monotonous at times, reach up high grab a jug, repeat. However there is lots of gear leads to be had at Ozone, they just happen to be bolted. Many of the routes at Ozone can be climbed by skipping the bolts. Some routes are really easy to do this on, while others can be exciting with the possibility of hitting the ground. There would be a good goal for the summer, repeat every Ozone route without bolts. I would bet the right (er stupid) person could lead 75% of the routes out there on natural gear. The crux would be ignoring all the bumpkins from Washougal (Sorry Nate F, you're the best thing to come out of that town) yelling at you to "use the metal rings." Portland's most popular 5.12 sport climb (The Crumbling/Ozone) recently saw a trad lead. Not classic like oh say Super Crack, but still a good challenge. ( don't fall at the crux broken bones for sure) If clipping bolts bores you, there is plenty of good gear routes at the bolt zone. I'd love to see someone do an all natural lead of masterpiece theater, I see some pro options down low but no idea what you would do up high... -Nate

Sheriff ey? In most sports, the "best" get to decide the direction of the sport. Mostly because it assumed that whoever raises to the top 1.) knows a thing or two about the sport. 2.) is obsessively dedicated to the sport 3.) deserves a reward for being good at said sport. Same rules should go for sport wanking (ok call it trad, but that's a tough term when you're rap cleaning.) Basically whoever has the highest 8a. score gets to be the sheriff and has final say on bolts and other such matters. Done. (That was sort of satirical but I would say that CC.com should follow the same rules. Seems like the folks who are posting the most are climbing the least. Correlation there I suppose. Here's an idea, no joke. For every TR you post, you are rationed say 20 postings that you can use however you like. If you can't find the time to get out and climb a bit, how on Earth do you find time to post a zillion posts on CC.com?)

Can I ask you Fairweather and KKK a question (Actually to all of you) Why do you post political commentary in a online climbing forum? What's your motivation? (Actually let's extend that question to anyone that starts such a thread) You'd have a lot more fun hashing it out with other like minded people over at fivethirtyeight.com or frumforum.com. (Although 538.com might not be a good choice for some of you, statistical analysis might require you to form an argument based on something more than "You're wrong." Other random question that comes to mind... What's the the reasoning behind the term "Libtards" ? Surely you must be aware that the majority of people that have terminal degrees (like really smart people yo!) would label themselves as "liberal" and vote democratic. Conversely the majority of folks that are mystic ( reject logic, believe in the Easter Bunny, creationism etc) would call themselves conservative and vote Red. Can you help explain the logic behind this term? Perhaps there is proof out there that mentally handicapped people (retards) tend to vote blue more often. -Nate

Thread drift but since were talking about self belay now.... I've always had good luck with my GriGri for top-rope self belay. I'm sure the MiniTrax works better ( seems to be the big wall standard for top roping) but I'm too cheap to buy one. The GriGri will self feed if there is enough weight on it, I'll tie my pack to the bottom of the line or tension it with some pro. This only works on routes that are straight up, any type of traversing and the rope tension will keep you from being able to move. Once in a blue moon I'll have to manually feed the device, on these types of routes I just pretend I'm on lead and stop every 10 feet to pull the slack out just like you might if you were stopping to clip pro. Not the best solution but better than doing a hang-board workout on a sunny day.

Tieton is just over the pass, lots of variety from mellow cracks to steep sport. http://www.mountainproject.com/v/washington/tieton_river/105921237

Yeah there is a bit of heckling going on here (I'm in that group) but the general idea is not to under-estimate that wall and get some practice. Most of the wall climbing I've tried to do ended in failure and bailing, not because the climbing was hard, but because I was too slow. Just about anyone can figure out how to aid up C2, however the real skill of it is to do it quickly and efficiently. Unlike free climbing, on the big "day" you just can't will yourself to move faster or push harder, if your systems weren't dialed before they won't get dialed up there. I'll stand by my earlier recommendation, you should be able to lead and clean a (moderate) pitch in two hours or less. If it takes you 8 hours ( as someone suggested) to lead a pitch on El Cap, you'll be up there for a month. Now there's a TR I would read! -Nate

Well as my grandma would say " They must have needed it more than you did." I get the feeling someone was watching me, I was in the process of loading up my car with bins of gear to move it into storage. I took a break and 30 minutes later I came back and the car was cleaned out. (and I do mean clean,they even stole an old parking ticket) I could care less about the climbing gear, just metal junk, however they stole my pancake pen I got as a gift. Hard to make pancake animals without it. Irony on this one is the last load of crap I hauled to my car (when I discovered it had been robbed) was my shotgun. Thankfully I didn't catch them in the act as I probably would have ended up in jail or worse. I hope my American Pride rope makes a good dog leash for someone. -Nate

Hey all. I just had a huge pile of gear stolen from my car last night. Yes, please lecture me about leaving my rack in the car. These ass-holes were brave, they cleaned out my car while I was taking a break from loading it up! Please keep an eye out for this gear and let me or the police know if you see it. The worst of it all is that my shoes were stolen after I just spent two full weeks breaking them in. Arrg! This is a rough list of what is missing. I'll work on getting a full inventory soon.The climbing hardware is missed the most is listed below. I hope some meth head enjoys climbing cracks on my hardware! 2X set of Aliens. Blue-Orange. 3X set of BD C4 Cams. .4-#5 2x set of BD C3 Cams. Purple- Yellow 2X seto of Master Cams: Blue-Orange Set of draws. Set of Alpine Draws. Nuts. BD and Offsets Ropes. 2x 60 and 70 M. Shoes. TC Pro, Muria, 2x Pitons. Size 40 on most of these. BD Harnes. Size M. GriGri/ATC 2x Backpacks. Size Large black Dana Design. Haul bag Size M. Misc clothing and hiking gear. -Nate

Is this the guy you are climbing with? At the pace of one pitch per day, it'll take you a full month to send and a lot of water. I think it is possible to do a big wall your first try without having ever been on the big stone, however you'll need to practice your systems at the local crag( and no, aiding a bolted sport route doesn't count as practice) If you can't lead and follow a pitch in less than two hours, you'll never make it and we will indeed see a real time bail report on the interwebs.

I would imagine since NH has ONE mountain, they dedicate all of their resources to just that one lump. Tough to do that with such a large mountain range like the Cascades. I honestly don't put much faith in the avy forecasts, you almost have to go up there and see it with your own eyes before making a decision. Especially on Hood as there is lots of ways to bypass unsafe avy terrain and conversely you can find unstable snow even when the forecast says it is "safe"

The GriGri is for people who do nothing but single-pitch cragging and don't know how to tie off a climber and initiate a rescue scenario. People learning how to belay on a GriGri just leads to laziness and bad habits. You might want to take a look at this: http://gravsports.blogspot.com/2010/02/simple-tricks-for-speed-on-multi-pitch.html "Belay the leader with an auto-lock lead belay device. This allows the second to eat, drink, organize the belay" If you think the GirGri is only used by lazy sport wankers, it could be said that ATCs are only used by slow multi-pitch climbers :-) Seriously, I love the auto-lock on longer routes, allows me to change songs on my iPod while belaying.

Note that this rule only applies to people with a permit to carry a concealed weapon in that State. Ie If you have a permit in WA, it is still illegal to bring your loaded hand-gun to Yosemite. If you have no permit, it is still illegal to carry in a concealed weapon in NP.

Vantage isn't the only place with lose rock. Last weekend at J-Tree my partner pulled off a flake near the end of O'Kelleys Crack. The rock and him both went flying, the falling rock hit his knee before the rope caught him.(see pic for the end result) Dumb luck and slight movement of my head to the left kept this plate from chopping my head-off at the belay. I'm not sure if a helmet would have saved me, this rock was moving and I suspect it would have killed me and then my partner had it hit me. A bit crazy as this route sees tons of traffic and the rock at J-Tree is normally the best around. I might be using my GriGri more often in the future... [img:center]http://lh4.ggpht.com/_XNueStDVX8c/S32wLTBx6WI/AAAAAAAAJY4/K3UmCuS97j8/s640/P1010079.JPG[/img]

The same cornice almost got me a few weeks ago while snowboarding. I was eating an Apple for lunch when the whole thing cuts under my feet. I was able to jump off the block and face first dived back onto the ridge, made an awful noise as it rushed down into the crater. I felt bad as it scared the crap out of a large group of Mazams that were up there.

The GriGri is for people who do nothing but single-pitch cragging and don't know how to tie off a climber and initiate a rescue scenario. People learning how to belay on a GriGri just leads to laziness and bad habits. Yes, that's why most Wall climbers, free and aid, cary nothing but GriGris these days. Maybe you should post to ST and let Chris know that his recommendation for using a GriGri for wall climbing is wrong? http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=875439 You can also hunt around ST and find the gear beta for when Chris and Tommy linked the Nose and Freerider together in a day, the only belay device listed is a GriGri. I find a lot of use for the GriGri,even while alpine climbing. Good tool for simul climbing, I can adjust the length of the rope on the fly and still climb. I can take my hand off the rope to eat food while lead belaying (not going to do that with an ATC) handy for self belaying as a second, short fixing, hauling etc etc. Yep it is heavy, but there is a reason all the speedy climbers carry only this device and skimp on the rest.

Get a GriGri and forget about all this nonsense. New climbers get too hung-up on the process and not the final outcome. The end goal is to keep your partner off the deck, how you do it is up to you.

I retract my statement about the dumb tat. A good friend of mine has an even dumber tat. (John you can appreciate this) This guy loves computers so much that he got a Pentium 4 chip tattooed on his foot. (this was back when a P4 CPU was hot shit) :laf: As we've all seen someone will always be willing to tell us something we did is dumb. Would I get the same tat as Rick or your friend Nate? Nope. But that said cheers to them for doing something they wanted to do that didnt affect the rest of us I have to give my buddy props, he was very excited about his Intel P4 tattoo despite the heckling. I told him he should get new ink every time Intel came out with a new family of CPUs. Although he is stoked about hit tattoo, I don't think the girls are very impressed by it. Any ouch painful on the foot!