hemp22

Thanks Bill DONE and DONE hopefully the PDX regulars will take note & mark their calendars

Hey Every Body: It's Adopt-a-Crag time! The Adopt-a-Crag has been set for Broughton's Bluff (Lewis & Clark State Park; Troutdale, OR) What: It's the fourth annual Broughton's Bluff Adopt-a-Crag How: We will be hitting the erosion on the approach trails and right side of Hanging Gardens, and this year the State Parks are actually giving us power tools and chemicals- Oh Boy!! So wear your long pants and get ready to get those nasty nettles and poison oak. When: Sunday September. 10 (not the 3rd,due to the holiday.) We are planning on still running from 9:30 am- 2:00 pm with climbing (as usual) there-after. Why: You love Broughton's! You know Broughton's, where you had all those "3:00 meetings" all last year and came home late with that dusty grimy smile on you face. oh, and free stuff too! It's time to give back to the crag that has given us all so much. (visit the Access Fund Oregon Adopt-a-Crag website for contact info. )

Correction to my previous post. The Broughton's adopt-a-crag has been rescheduled for next Sunday, September 10th, so that it doesn't fall on the holiday weekend. Still 9:30-2:00.

I tend to agree. Columbian crack didn't seem to warrant the 4 stars. Other climbs on the Elephant, and other 5.7 cracks in the city, were much more fun. i was wondering if anyone who's been to city recently has had a chance to check out the pizza & beer at Rock City repairs. they were set to open at the beginning of this summer.

For any portlanders that aren't getting out of town for the holiday weekend: Broughton's Bluff adopt-a-crag is this Sunday, Sept 3rd, 9:30am-2:00pm. i'm guessing focus will be on trail maintenance, followed, of course, by schwag & climbing. Also, the semi-annual Rocky Butte adopt-a-crag cleanup is scheduled for Sunday, October 8th, 10:00am-1:00pm

the deal with the REI superclearance (as noted on the web page) was that all items with a price ending in .83 got an *additional* 50% off at checkout - so it wasn't included in the 144.83 list price, but the discount was taken later, after the item was in your cart. and yes, it looks like they ran out of the ropes some time over the weekend. most of the worthwhile stuff seems to be sold out already

For those looking for cheap ropes, also check this out: sale at the empire probably for a very limited time

check out this Alpiners Anonymous thread in the Events section for an ongoing portland partners thread. they get out multiple times a week after work to climb, and new people are generally welcome to just show up and join on in. in fact, there are probably people out climbin right now...

nat - to get to the bouldering, just follow the usual approach above, and head downhill at the obvious trail that starts in the middle of one of the walls. there's a rudimentary bouldering guide online: http://home.earthlink.net/~mrmrsabbott/Carver_Bouldering/Carver.html don't forget to pay your $5 at PRG to be part of the "club"

powder - i did something very similar to this a few years ago. Definitely go with the 2 dynamic ropes instead of static. You don't need to move so far to the side of the bridge to get the ropes 100% taught, but you should feel the weight of the rope pulling on you back towards the anchor. Once you jump, the weight of the 2 climbing ropes between you and the anchor will be enough to start your arching, lateral movement before you get to the point where the rope is stretched [Edit: I did this on 2 full 50-meter ropes, so there was more weight than you'll probably get from only 70'] . I had a chest harness on when I did it, but it probably wasn't necessary. Also, i'm not sure what your plan is for getting down - for us, we had a 3rd rope attached high on the banks of the river that we'd raise up after the swinging slowed down, so the jumper could grab it & pull himself to the bank. I do have some photos of this somewhere, but this was before I ever owned a digital camera, so I'd have to find them & scan them.

I'm not actually sure if it's in shops yet. Amazon lists the release date as Sept 1, but you can get it now from the publisher at this URL if you want to see what areas it covers, there's a copy of the table of contents on page 1 of this thread.

I just got a copy of this book. I haven't had a chance to look through it in too much detail yet, but it looks fairly on par with the Washington Falcon Guide. I've never been to many of the places covered in the book, so I can't comment on the accuracy of most sections. In looking through the areas that I'm familiar with, there only a couple things that I've noted so far that seem incorrect. The routes listings for some areas are not quite complete or up-to-date. But, the crag descriptions/directions and route descriptions are all pretty thorough. For my own tastes, there is occasionally too much "sequence" beta, and not always enough logistical beta ("two ropes needed for rappel" etc). Also, it seems weird that they applied YDS to boulder areas. They do leave out most areas that are already covered in the Portland book, or the SW Oregon books. Anyway, if people have specific questions about it, let me know.

thread resurrection to pass on this link to BD's analysis: http://www.blackdiamondequipment.com/scene/beta/qc_kp.php

excellent work bill. good job takin charge. i think we saw you waiting for the cops to show up as we were leaving. I was over in that area and saw the guys, but I didn't hear or see any bottles being thrown (although it did smell like they were burning something plastic or rubber), so I didn't really realize what was going on until we saw the cop car. it'll be nice if the broken glass supply chain dries up for a while. (the other guys that we're down at silver bullet seemed to be under the impression that all the broken corona bottles at the bottom of the new buttress were the work of whomever had cleaned the routes). anyway, good work. just sorry you've had to deal with the brunt of this yourself. by the way, where'd the poison oak come from? I think there's some poison oak up at the top of some of the breakfast crack climbs...

hi all, since it looks like there are some other folks heading out, i figured i'd say that i'm gonna be out at the butt too. so if you see a couple ugly guys hangdogging on all the primo dirty 5.7s, don't be afraid, we don't smell too bad once you get used to us.

Well, we had an "extended lunch meeting" at the smokefree Godfather's pizza in hillsboro yesterday that coincidentally overlapped with the brazil game being shown on their bigscreen. Kell's is going to be showing every match and may be smoke-free. as for other smoke-free pubs, i'd try the new lucky lab in multnomah village. I think maybe Henry's & the Bitter End downtown are smoke-free. Another option: The semifinals and finals will be shown on a giant LED screen at Pioneer Square on July 4, 5 and 9. really though, if you know of a smoke-free pub with a TV, just go there, and they should really be showing the games. (edit to correct my pioneer square data)

I agree - so many new guidebooks it's hard to keep track of them all. (I just saw the smith rock select book, and now these 2 Oregon books are due out this year also?) What I found interesting from the TOC above is that this Rock Climbing Oregon falcon guide doesn't include any info on the crags that are so close to Portland (possibly because some of them are covered in detail in Olson's out-of-print book that can still be purchased locally), and yet it looks like it's going to try to cover a large part of Smith Rock, which now has multiple guidebooks available. anyway, seems like a quick money-making scheme, without the necessary due diligence. I don't have high hopes for it being up-to-date or accurate.

i didn't mean to come across as if i were criticizing the spacing of bolts on the new routes. I was just being a tad sarcastic because it's annoying when some of those anchors disappear. anyway, i'll have to wait to check out the new routes until a later date, looks like i'm off to fight traffic and try to make it to broughton instead.

So there's a shiny new bolted route on silver bullet? I'll have to get over there today after work and get the tick on that one before the infamous rocky butte mystery chopper shows up... and the car might be a nice added touch to the area - it's always nice to be able to belay from the the comfort of a car seat. seriously though, if you guys are going to clear some brush and stuff - be ready for an ongoing project. with how quickly things grow around here, you could probably practically decimate the place, and all the shrubbery would be back by next spring. But if you're looking for tools & whatnot to assist with the project, contact the access fund to see if they can help. At the last couple Rocky Butte adopt-a-crags, I think all they did was clean up litter. But at the last couple Broughton's adopt-a-crags, they showed up with weed-whackers, shovels, picks, etc for doing some trail maintenance and clearing a lot of blackberries & stuff. the access fund could probably hook you up with the necessary tools. (on a related note, i believe the broughton's adopt-a-crag is tentatively scheduled for September 3rd 9:00-2:00 this year)

I'm not great at this either, but this is how I got it to work. There are two addresses that you'll need, and it's probably easiest to cut & paste them into a temporary notepad file before you do your post. 1) you need the URL to the web page that shows your full size picture. It'll have showphoto.php and a bunch of numbers in the address. When you're viewing your full size picture in the gallery, just copy the address from the browser's address bar. 2) you need the image location for the thumbnail. When you're viewing the picture in your gallery, it'll have the thumbnail-size image down below the big picture. Do a right click on the thumbnail picture and choose Properties. Then copy & paste the Address from the window that pops up. It should be something ending in .JPG once you have those 2 addresses, go write your post. when you want to put the thumbnail link in, click the URL option under UBB code. The first thing it should ask for is the URL for your link, and you paste in the First address there. Then, the second thing it'll ask for is the web page description. Here, you need to type in so it's all in the one line. Then hit okay, and it should fill it all into your post. It should look something like the line below. Preview post to see if it worked. [url=http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/plab/showphoto.php?photo=18178&size=big&sort=1&cat=500][img=http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/plab/data/503/6196Crack_of_Doom_-_Morning_Glory_Spire-thumb.jpg][/url]

No, that's a buddy of mine on lead on it. I was giving the marathon belay when that picture was taken (some substantial hanging going on in the lower section). I only did it on TR this trip, and even that required a couple hangs. that climb never really gives ya a break.

Here's some more more useful beta to keep your party fueled: As you probably know, the Almo Outpost quit selling beer last year. But fortunately, the Rock City repair shop (located back behind the visitor center in Almo) is building an extension so that they can have a place to sell Pizzas, sandwiches, and Beer. They're supposed to have their grand opening this memorial day weekend. (of course, because of that competition, the Outpost is going to start selling beer again later this summer - but it'll only be available if you're sitting down for a meal...no more take-out beers) Anyway, the Rock City owners are good people (and they're originally from Vancouver, WA). They saved our ass a couple times after flat tires, so they're a good local business to support. The turn-off to get to Rock City is in between the visitor center & the road into the park. Get stoked. you should have an awesome trip.

It sounds to me like you're looking to do the right thing and make sure that these climbs are set up to be safe and solid, and I think that's great. If they are indeed new routes, then yeah, I think it would be poor form for someone to chop them. I think that this new area could be a great little addition as long as care is taken it setting the whole area up to be clean & safe. In addition to trundling loose rocks off the routes, that may also mean that there are stable areas at the top & base of the route, that the approach to the top or base is stable and not sketchy, and preferably that there's no poison oak. I can't quite picture the area that you're talking about, so I don't have a good idea in my head about it right now, but even if the new routes are great and have nice anchors on them, I probably wouldn't feel compelled to check them out if I were going to be risking life & limb (or another nasty rash) to get to the climbs. As for the climb next to superman - I'd agree that you guys should be free to set up anchors for the new route. But if the route is really close to superman, then I could see how someone might think that you're just adding a bolted anchor to that established climb and want to chop them because of that. Again, I don't know exactly where the line is that you're talking about, but hopefully it's far enough away that there won't be confusion. so, anyway, for what it's worth, I have no objections. hopefully soon I'll actually make it out to one of these after-work sessions at rocky and take a look at the lines. out of curiosity, what types of climbs are your new ones? all gear, all face/bolts, or mixed, or TR-only?

Hey man, that story is indeed a scary one, and it sucks that it had to happen. Glad to hear that you're getting better. I had a similar thing happen once, although it was fortunately not as severe. I was climbing outside with a guy that I knew from a gym, but wasn't normally a partner of mine. I had climbed with him a couple times before, but it later occurred to me that he had never actually belayed me before this incident (I was either belaying him, or we were in a larger group and other people belayed me). Anyway, I was on lead on a route, and I was at the crux, that was well-protected by a bolt at about my waist level. There was maybe about 2 feet of rope between my harness & the lower biner of the draw. I felt secure going through the moves but then had a foot grease off unexpectedly, so I came off. Before I knew it, I was about 40 feet below that bolt, hanging in my harness about 5 feet off the deck. No broken bones, but I had some pretty nasty rope burn & rock rash that kept me off the rock for a couple weeks (there was a slabby section below the part of the climb that I was at). So, I asked "dude, how did I get so low? the bolt was right at my waist." and his response was something like "oh, yeah, i didn't quite have my brake hand on the rope tight enough". Anyway, that wasn't as bad as your experience, but for me, the first decision was simple: I'll never climb with that guy again. But the longer, more difficult psychological part is that it freaked me out about my belayers paying attention to me, so I've been a lot more anal about making sure my belayer is paying attention. I still feel comfortable letting my regular climbing partners belay me any time, but I have no problem yelling down at them to pay attention if I think they're in a situation where they could get distracted (i.e. crowded crag or cute co-eds).

Hey, as always, much thanks to the access fund and all the volunteers out there for giving the butte it's well-needed semi-annual enema. I'm "working" this weekend and wasn't able to make it out this morning (it's a shame too, because I only have like 4 access fund nalgenes so far), but hopefully the cleanup went well and people had a chance to get a few TRs in before the rain hit.