eldiente

The above picture is the correct way to rig this. This is the method I use for my 5.5mm joined to a 9.2mm lead line. Works great! -Nate

Go with a skinny 70M and bring a 5 or 6mm for the raps. Although I was never good at Math, if you add the weight-up, this is the lightest system way to go.

I'm debating going there for T-day. Any thoughts? Sounds like a group-of awful climbers is getting after it right now in the Valley. http://twitter.com/kjorgeson

Oh my, is all the rock in AK this bad? What's up with that hip belay, did Joseph teach him how to climb or something?

I should mention that nobody should take my advice on anything aid climbing related, I'm really bad at it and only use when I get shut down on free routes. That said, when I fall ( seems to be the norm) and have to aid up a pitch to get my kit back, I like to rig up something like this. If the daisy whipper was a real worry you could put a screamer into this system where the daisy connects to the aider(?) Or if I'm in a real hurry, I'll skip the daisy entirely and treat the aiders like climbing holds. Sort of like dry tooling with and aider attached to the bottom of your tools, if you let go of the grab loop you fall back onto the rope just like a normal leader fall. Again, this is probably not going to work for hard aid, but I find it fast when on splitter cracks like City Park. [img:center]http://www.climbing.com/print/techtips/ttaid219-01.gif[/img]

Turns out this route is way over hyped. It got a 3rd ascent yesterday and is reported to be "mundane" http://www.supertopo.com/climbers-forum/1306859/3rd-Ascent-of-Southern-Belle

I'm going to disagree with the group on your aid climbing skills. On easy C1 aid it isn't unsafe/wrong to clip the rope without bounce testing. I mean when's the last time you bounce tested gear while free climbing? Good gear doesn't often fail and even if it does, theres so much gear below the fall will be mellow. Being bad at aid, I like to pretend I'm free climbing. Put 4-6 pieces of gear on each aider and use them like moveable jugs for your hands. Every 10' feet stop and leave a piece of gear behind.

Maybe I'm just a sally, but I find great joy in TRing routes above my pay grade. There are many routes that are fun to TR but way too scary for me to lead, I'm OK with that. Maybe TRing is the best solution for these obscure/un-safe routes(?) J-tree would seem to be an ideal place for this, walk up the back and drop the TR down, scary route is scary no more. Nate

I have to ask, what crag do you climb at where this takes place? If I randomly picked-up a guidebook off my shelf and thumbed the pages, I'd bet that only 1 out of every 20 routes has an R or X behind it. (maybe even less?) Most sport climbs in the world are safe, recreational affairs. People bolting easy routes understand that they are establishing a route to be used by the masses and place the the bolts accordingly. Many of the new routes going in at Smith are put up by people that could free solo them in their flops but generously bolt it so the less skilled can enjoy it. Think of all the modern classics in the 5.6-5.10 range, most of these have gear so plentiful that my Mom could lead it. So I'd say that the current trend of new route development is going toward putting in new routes that are well protected and appeal to a wider audience. With so many well protected easy routes in the world, isn't there room for something with a bit more spice to it? As for Southern Belle.. I'm sure these guys weren't thinking of us when they put it up and nor should they. If there was better stances to drill from, you'd have to think they would have placed more bolts. Really gnarly and an inspiration.

I've had good times on Hood that time of year via the N.side. True, the weather will most likely suck, but if you get a break in the weather you can cruise right up there without having to deal with heavy snow and all that. Looking up Cooper Spur Nov 12th. [img:center]http://lh4.ggpht.com/_XNueStDVX8c/RziIOtvBUEI/AAAAAAAABpo/QJABrw0bCDk/s640/IMG_1664.JPG[/img]

I would agree that the current crop of Congress does not deserve a raise, some of them deserve to be in jail. Think about it this way. Your a smart person, got your PHD life is looking up. You're trying to figure what to do with your life. On one hand, you can run for a public office, let's say the Oregon House of Representatives. Sweet, that's a respectable job that that pays $21,600 per year. Or you can go work in the private sector designing widgets for 200k a year. No joke, there's no way in hell anyone with marketable skills is going to run for office with that kind of pay. Only trust fund babies without jobs can afford to run for office. Or look at myself, if I got elected to the House I'd have to quit my current job to attend votes in Salem. I would literally starve to death on that salary and have to take bribes from Big Oil to put gas in my car. I don't think paying reps more is going to fix everything, but at least make it a job that an honest person would want to take. -Nate

I give you props for telling it like it is. Too often TRs gloss over how awful the rock can be out there. Lose rock doesn't make a route all bad, there are some folks out there that love that sort of thing. However it is always nice to be honest when writing a TR so others know what to expect.

One thing about pay raises.... There is a good argument for paying elected officials more money, especially at the State level. These jokers are over-seeing billions and billions of dollars, making life or death discussions and get paid 174k per year. That's good money, but compare this to the kind of cash these people could be making in the private sector. Given the sort of responsibility were talking about, members of Congress ought to be the highest paid job in the land. Under the current system, the only way for a member of Congress to make a buck is to sell his/her influence to the highest bidder. Soo my proposal would be this. Higher pay, a lot higher pay for members of Congress. Strict term limits, campaign reform to get the private money out of it and after leaving Congress you have to wait XX numbers of years before taking any job in the private sector, no book deals no consulting no nothing. The tax payers fund your retirement. This would be sort of like the private sector and a non-compete contract that many of us work under, you worked for the Fed, now you can't compete against it for a few years after the fact. The end goal here is to make Congress a serious job that someone would want to aspire to as and end in itself. I want my elected officials to be smart and effective,unfortunately with our current system, anyone with brains is going to take up a job managing a trader joes store (you know those guys can make up to a 100k a year?)

Ivan, the fees and camp host have been in place for a while now. (most of this year if I recall?) I was bit skeptical of the fee system at first but now I'm stoked on it. $5 for a campsite seems fair to me, if you and a car of bros are there that comes out to a $1 per person. What can you do for a $1 per night? (aside from your Mom of course) The camp host down there is a strange one. He appears to be a rent a cop working as a contractor for the BLM. He's actually a nice dude doing a thankless job of running that place. I've forgotten to pay him a few times and he's always been very chill about it. Compare this to the FS hosts or BLM hosts, you forget to pay them and it is 5:00AM pounding on the tent with threats of fines and evection. -Nate

Ahh yes Peter was out there as well this past weekend. Very cool brothers and a proud route.

Trip: Wolf Rock - Barad-Dur Date: 10/2/2010 Trip Report: Micha and I climbed Barad-Dur last Saturday on Oregon's "big wall" Wolf Rock. I've been climbing around Portland for a while now but have never climbed anything in the Willy Valley. You always here about people climbing these chossy towers down there. I smugly assumed that people climbing on the West side of the Cascades were too stupid to realize that there's good climbing to be had just over the pass. Jokes on me, Wolf Rock is the real deal with real rock and not as dirty as I would have thought. The locals down there are a riot. Chris (guide book dude) had a great time sitting in the shade heckling us from the ground as we cooked in the sun. I was going to bail but couldn't face the shame of having to go back down while they watched. At first I thought these jokers were just a bunch of local dicks laughing at us pale skinned Portland type. I changed my tune when he yelled up key beta at the crux pitch that I wouldn't have seen. Chris is very stoked on Wolf Rock and was excited to talk with us once we made it to the ground. Good guy. On paper Barad-Dur sounds easy, a short section of 5.10D and some 5.11 and a bunch of 5.9. I was thinking it would be an easy few hours. Not sure what happened to me, but after the first few pitches I got spooked and moved slowly the rest of the day. I was scared. The climbing isn't bad, just unnerving moving onto a big face with no clear route, just climb and hope you're on route and that gear will appear. Looking up at the roofs from the ground it doesn't look like something you'd want to climb, I mean there's no clear crack systems or anything. Rock feels like French's Dome or some of the face climbs at Beacon. The holds are huge, but some of them are rounded and useless, some are lose. I had a hard time moving fast as all the holds had to be touched and tested. I think if you stay on route the rock isn't bad,(I broke off just one hold) but moving a few feet in either direction takes you onto some ugly rock. Climbed the route in full sun in 75F temps, bad idea. I can't recall ever being so hot while climbing, just pouring sweat all day. We used Nate's beta here. Good but here is a few add-ons. Full pics here. P1-P2. 5.9ish link 180 feet. Bad rope drag, use lots of double runners. P2 has the worst rock on the whole route. At the P1 anchor move right on shaky holds. After a few spaced bolts look high and slightly left for a long, moss filled crack. Go for that and place #2 and #1 cam in moss crack. Climb this to the top of a tower like formation. P3 Chill, fun face climbing on run-out terrain. 5.8 or 5.9 P4. Easy ramp climbing takes hand sized gear. Below roof old fixed bolts. Clip with long runners and move left under roof (no gear that I could find) Keep moving left under roof but don't even think about falling. Keep moving way left, bad drag. The climbing under the roof wasn't hard, but I was not stoked on the position. All I could think about was taking a giant fall into that corner. Feels committing to keep climbing left under these roofs with no clear opportunities for gear. It looks like it might be possible to go up and over roof without traversing, might need a bolt to do this though (?) P5. 5.10D. Two move boulder problem traversing right. Beta here is to find key foot right on arete before turning the corner. Long reach around corner to jugs. Have faith, they are jugs. Not sustained at all and good bolts protect an airy whipper. Wild terrain. P6. 5.11 Crux. Whacky belay stance in the middle of a football sized roof system. Clip two bolts aiming for obvious roof cux and bolt. The under cling flake takes bomber .75 BD on a long sling. A few feet higher and clip bolt protecting crux. Nice undercling low and right of bolt. Beta spoiler alert. Clip bolt. Move left hands across sloped ledge, the far left side has a spike on it for left hand. Dead hang with this and cut the feet and bring the feet above head and heel hook/bat hang on the same ledge that your hands are on. (yes upside down 500+feet off the deck) Set the heel hook hard and punch left and to obvious flake. Shake out and hand traverse right. The trick here is to stem wide to some steps far right while traversing with the hands. Once your feet are over to the right, throw another heel hook and reach far right to hidden hold, it's there. Stand-up to good gear (Purple BD C4) Crux #2 is hand traversing the obvious hand rail to the right and blindly around the corner. It is easy despite looking hard. An orang master cam will go in the hand rail, have faith and move fast to easy jugs around corner. Whole pitch feels wild as all this trickery is done shoved up inside roofs. P7 200+ feet easy 5th class. Never found another anchor, belayed from a tree on easy terrain. 200-400 more feet of 4th class to the summit with hiking shoes on. Descent. Not that obvious. Traverse the entire ridge top (hey are we alpine climbing now?) until there is no more ridge to traverse and then head down and left. Guide says third gully but I'm not sure how they are counting. Gully is steep and lose and cuts out left at the bottom to a trail through some big pines. Took us about an hour to go down. [img:center]http://lh4.ggpht.com/_XNueStDVX8c/TKpdXAfZxfI/AAAAAAAALP4/FW3AWUy77Zs/s640/P1010878.JPG[/img] Looking up P1. Route goes through roofs to the right. [img:center]http://lh6.ggpht.com/_XNueStDVX8c/TKpdZAB7-MI/AAAAAAAALQQ/nIgkzf1dGps/s640/P1010883.JPG[/img] Looking up P3. [img:center]http://lh6.ggpht.com/_XNueStDVX8c/TKpdbs9hlcI/AAAAAAAALQ8/Fcbnzyd5LcM/s512/P1010889.jpg[/img] Start of P4. [img:center]http://lh5.ggpht.com/_XNueStDVX8c/TKpdcM7muKI/AAAAAAAALRE/vb4jzPxBpCM/s512/P1010890.JPG[/img] Looking up P4. Route goes right into roofs for P5 and P6. [img:center]http://lh4.ggpht.com/_XNueStDVX8c/TKpdeX28_0I/AAAAAAAALRo/2yPotNA_9Js/s640/P1010898.JPG[/img] Cliche shot of Micha about to do the crux on P5. [img:center]http://lh4.ggpht.com/_XNueStDVX8c/TKpdgiUHCCI/AAAAAAAALSU/7se9idVRjC8/s640/P1010906.JPG[/img] Looking down P6. [img:center]http://lh5.ggpht.com/_XNueStDVX8c/TKpdizvL4uI/AAAAAAAALS4/WuWkHqA7-wI/s640/P1010912.JPG[/img] Summit Ridge [img:center]http://lh4.ggpht.com/_XNueStDVX8c/TKpdoF5dLWI/AAAAAAAALUU/oatB_Hv2hy8/s640/P1010924.JPG[/img] Gear Notes: Single from Green C3 to #3BD. Doubles on finger sized gear. We never used nuts but maybe you could force them in. Many runners, lots of drag. Bolts are bomber. Approach Notes: Far right side of the wall, 15 minutes.

I've had good luck renting condos off VRBO.com or CL.com. This is a good option if you can get a bunch of people together, we rented 2bdr condo for $75 a night next to Whole Foods, we did 5 of us in there and enjoyed cable TV every night. Nate

Trip: Smith Rock - Abraxas/Tombstone Date: 9/29/2010 Trip Report: A bit of beta for those of you enjoy a good crack pitch in a somewhat strange location..... Watt's new guide describes the Tombstone (5.10D) pitch on the Monument " Over hanging hand crack on perfect rock rivals the most spectacular pitches on Monkey Face." I can confirm that this pitch is fantastic, the best crack I've done at Smith and as fun as any of the other "big" classic cracks you can think of in the PNW. Unfortunately The Tombstone pitch starts 350 feet off the ground is and guarded by 5.12 terrain and lose rock. [img:center]http://www.mountainproject.com/images/37/95/105803795_medium_ba52f4.jpg[/img] The Monument. The Tombstone pitch is straight above the pine tree in the foreground of this picture. It climbs on the smooth looking section as the wall changes from tan to red. Technically the Tombstone is pitch 5 of Abraxas (5.12R) Our plan was to climb all of Abraxas to get at the Tombstone pitch. No luck there, we did the first two pitches, bailed, hiked to the summit and rapped in from the summit to climb the Tombstone. I was expecting lose rock, but Abraxas is stright-up disgusting. Every hold was either covered in sand, or would break off and have to be thrown off. There was a large group of climbers on the routes at the base of the wall and no amount of warning or yelling would get them to move or put a helmet on. I asked nicely several times but was told "were fine, we'll dodge them." Yikes! Side note. If anyone has climbed all of Abraxas I'd love to talk to you. Please PM me or post. Is there any possibility of this route cleaning up to be a good climb? So we onsite free soloed the North Ridge of the Monument at 5.1 to gain the summit. (Kidding aside it actually a fun jaunt to the summit with really nice views, there is about 20 feet of scrambling in a chimney that is more like 4th class, the rest is just scree gully climbing) From the summit the rap anchors are on the far West side of the formation behind a block. When rapping down you will want to move skiers right. Note the rock here is lose, trundling down rocks onto the beer drinking La Pine locals at the base of the wall is a real possibility. One 70M rope will get you from the summit to the anchors on top of the Tombstone. 60M will leave you short, or you'll need two ropes to go from the summit to top of the Tombstone. Rapping from new anchors on top of the Tombstone to the start of this pitch requires two ropes (about 150-170 feet for the Tombstone pitch) The pitch is steep enough that we placed a few cams to keep us close to the wall while we rapped. Sorry no pics of the actual route, check out Watt's guide for a good picture. The pitch itself is rad. More like Indian Creek stye jamming than Smith tuff. The crux is low on .75 and #1 jams. About mid-way through there is a roof/bulge thing to go over. This would be hard if it weren't for the perfect #2 and #3 hands. Higher up a few horizontal cracks allow complete rest. If you have small hands the #3 sizes sections might feel hard for you. For comparison sake, think of Gold Rush at Trout but steeper and longer with a lot air under your boots. To get off the Tombstone, we climbed a lose chimney system (5.6) up and left from the top of the Tombstone. Easy but not much gear and horrible rock. Lot of work for one pitch of climbing, but really fun to be hanging out in nice position away from all the crowds. Such a fun pitch we spent most of the day sitting up there running TR laps till our skin was ruined. DId anyone see the sunset last Sunday at Smith? Amazing! -Nate [img:center]http://lh5.ggpht.com/_XHOuJdzAB9k/TKA2pAt4IlI/AAAAAAAAA-8/S_oZ3BCCmeo/s800/DSC01569.JPG[/img] Hiking around near the summit. [img:center]http://lh5.ggpht.com/_XHOuJdzAB9k/TKA20yVZWhI/AAAAAAAABAE/fXe7V01bkJI/s800/DSC01585.JPG[/img] Summit. [img:center]http://lh3.ggpht.com/_XHOuJdzAB9k/TKA2w6uP76I/AAAAAAAAA_k/YQUe00psu-s/s800/DSC01577.JPG[/img] TR lap near the top of of the Tombstone pitch. The rock at the very end of the pitch is kinda junk. Rest of the pitch is very clean. Gear Notes: Lots of hand sized gear. Triples #3s and #2s. 2x #1s and 1x .75 for the start. No small gear needed. Approach Notes: Hike up gully left of the Monument. Short 4th class chimney to summit block. Rap anchors are on the West side of the summit block.

I'm not that excited about cams with extendable slings on them. I used to own a rack of Trango cams that were set-up with double slings on them. I found that I never used the slings in "extended" mode. When I actually needed to put a runner on the cam, the extended sling was too short to make much of a difference and I would end up just putting a proper runner on it. The rest of the time I was too gripped to fiddle around with extending the sling and would just clip the rope in the "normal" way. -Nate

The Interwebs as my witness. I'll solo YW naked if these guys can go a whole month without talking about Beacon rock on CC.com. Anyway, the weather is the splitter this weekend. Who wants to get out and do some rock climbing?

Quick question for you guys.. I would bet that you have each other's email address, why not just email each other directly instead of posting to CC.com? Not even kidding here, you guys all know each other, seems like a phone or email would make more sense vs posting what on a public forum. Sort of like if I invited my Mom to this forum so that her and I could argue about what were doing for Christmas dinner. (There's got to be a good Mom joke somewhere in here, chime in if you got one) Ah better idea just hit me, why don't you guys just IM each other or use one of the many video conferencing services available to talk about Beacon rock? Having two way conversation is tough on a internet forum....

Sorry Doug, but I don't think Jaime's bum arm was the only thing that messed up your climbing plans this past weekend, awful weather! Yes doing the p5 variation that that moves right to Outer Space would be a nice way to go, fun cool down terrain. Whereas the proper finish on Hyperspace feels like a fist fight right up until you top out.

Calling in for a late exit pass is super easy, it takes just a few minute. I do it almost every time so I can relax at the end of a climb and have a beer without fear of being ticketed. For alpine starts, consider buying a 2x4 from Home Depot, the 2x4 can be used to jam the tire spikes down so that you can drive into the park through the exit gate before they are open. (This also might get you arrested, the Vegas jail could be interesting at that time of the day. Only the foolish locals use this method)

Climbing jug hauls is hard on the hands, especially if you haven't gym climbed in a while. The Circuit seems really hard on the hands as they set steeo jug hauls with sharp holds. 1.) Climbing on smaller holds. This will keep the jug blisters at bay and probably be more realistic training as there just aren't that many overhanging jug hauls around the PNW. Seems like all the hard problems around the PNW are thin and crimpy. If your injured, consider trying to use open grip holds, sloppers and the like. This won't hurt the tendons as much and still gives you a good solid pump. If you are at the Circuit, trying climbing up and down on the black plastic pipes a few times, easy on the hands but oh my that blasts me every time.

Killing time at work here... Joe might have you on this one Kevin. Say in 100 years when we are all dead, should we never replace any bolts because the FA didn't want the bolts replaced? What happens when the bolts literally fall out of wall, can we still not replace them because the FA asked us not to? I'm too lazy to replace bolts, so I give high-fives to everyone who does. Shame on people that add more bolts to established routes, weak. (Although side note, I enjoy the retro-bolted climbs at Smith, lets punters like me get up routes that are way above my pay grade. Still weak though) -Nate