JosephH

Beacon warning: It should be noted that the very first sizeable block at the bottom of the final SE Corner ramp (immediately above where YW and the SE Corner meet) is now beyond precariously loose and could come down on someone at any moment if they're not extremely careful. Also, going around it to the left as seen in this photo is not without loose rock issues as well. This really needs to be formally addressed and dealt with sooner than later and might as well deal with the loose rock nightmare at the top of the ramp at the same time.

Could someone please explain to the not-so-anonymous person who cut the Dropzone anchor rap ropes for the sixth time that I have almost as many old ropes as Bill Coe.

Took a friend up the Corner for his first real climb after three months in the gym up in Seattle. 38 degrees made for a fairly burly start, but he did fine.

Actually, back in the '90's a pair of guys who were both climbers and windsurfers hit pretty much everything climbable from Mosier to Maryhill on both sides of the river. Given the number of newly established Gorge crags, new Mt. Hood vicinity crags, Beacon, and Trout Creek I'm not sure why anyone would bother with most of the bits of climbable Gorge rock scattered about.

It's most definitely a to each his own sort of deal...

Those little heater packs. a) The thin, small ones which go in your shoe with the tape strip - put one of those in each glove on your palm with the tape strip outward sticking to the palm of the [fingerless] glove (not your hand) and the round end pointing towards your fingers. b) The regular hand warmer size ones, sport tape one of those fairly loosely against the underside of each wrist where the blood flow is most exposed. c) If it's really cold (like below 32), take a hit of niacin which sends blood out to your peripheral vascular system. Was doing a charcoal-stick hand-warmer version of this bitd in the winter in Chicago working as an arborist and roofer - works like a charm and it's what I've been doing at Beacon for a couple of decades now.

I got some redone recently and they came back almost like new - in fact, I almost couldn't believe they were my cams when they came back.

Different bolts. These are new from my last go of the route two weeks ago. ??? Not sure what you're referring to here... Kev reached out to me about fixing it and I need to get to it. A bit of a challenge, but doable. However, the pressing issue up there at the moment is that it's now a complete nightmare of loose rock that's going to take a substantial effort to clean up. As it is it's only a matter of time before a bunch of it ends up raining down on the base of the SE Corner and possibly killing someone. Maintaining Beacon requires far more than re[tro]-bolting, building unneeded platforms, and destroying beautiful little trees that didn't need cutting. It requires formally organized and coordinated loose rock cleanups at least once every five years and preferably a loose rock survey prior to every open to determine if any threats to climbers or the railroad developed over the winter which needs to be cleaned up.

So who Planet Granite'd Borderline? And who this past week sunk the two bolts instantly to the left of the middle of YW p4?

Don't run across those every day and didn't see many of the big ones or CMI IBeams bitd either...

Oh, but to envy the life of a poet teetering on the cusp of battles just out of reach in the glowering mist...

The tea part is good, jumping jacks with crutches is probably harder core than I have in me at the moment.

You can actually do YW without a headlamp in the full moon. The trick is to wait until the moon is up a bit so it lights up the first pitch. I didn't discover that until one night I came to climb it (with a headlamp) about a decade ago. The parking lot was deserted except for another car at the other end of the lot and before I could even get out of the car the couple in the other car totally erupted into a fight. The gal eventually ran over to my car and asked to use my cell. She immediately dialed 911 and gave it back to me as the boyfriend was headed our way. They tangled some more and just as I stepped out to intervene the state police and sheriff showed up as both were right nearby talking as it turned out. Next thing you know they're detaining me as a witness and after they get through with the other two, like 45 minutes later, they finally took my statement and gave me my leave. At that point, it was what I considered late and I at first thought about blowing it off, but instead, for whatever reason, I geared up and headed down the trail without my headlamp on as the moon was high enough to give just enough light to navigate by. When I get down to the base of YW my eyes had adjusted and compared to the trail down it seemed like daylight with the moon lighting up the first pitch where if I'd gone when I intended the first pitch would be in shadow still. So I start climbing with the headlamp in my rope solo pack and never felt the need for it the rest of the night. In fact, the moon followed me around such that by the time I was walking down the trail the west face was then lit up. It's been one of my favorite things to do out there and I've done I've done it a couple of times a year ever since and would love to now but am currently not ambulatory.

https://letsencrypt.org/

The article, quite unfortunately, conflates two separate issues: a) blanket closures over large swaths of [mostly western] Federal land which are unsupported by evidence and b) targeted closures supported by evidence at climbing venues and in doing so presents them as one in the same under a title assertion which is only valid for the first of these issues. The first issue: the blanket closures of large tracts of BLM and FS land is a valid concern. It should be realized, however, that the BLM and FS resort to blanket closures because they don't have the budgets and manpower to monitor raptors over the blanket closure areas in question. That's was the case ten and twenty years ago and their budgetary and manpower situation is far worse today. The Trump administration is bending use of the BLM budget towards energy exploitation and away from conservation while the FS budget has been hammered by large-scale western wildfires which have become a new normal so neither is going to be ponying up for monitoring Raptors any time soon. Greg Orton has been tackling this issue for years and there is a case to be made for ratcheting-down these large Federal blanket closures based on population numbers. The other possibility is climbers establishing cooperative, versus adversarial, relationships with regional Federal agency offices and biologists, learning to objectively monitor raptors, and in doing so establish select, evidence-based exceptions within the larger blanket closure areas. The second issue: evidence-based targeted closures of small crags and selected faces and formations within larger crags is well-supported by the science and it ill-serves climbers to confuse and conflate these limited closures with the large blanket closures on Federal lands. Doing so does nothing to advance climbers' access agenda and is, in fact, as counterproductive and damaging to that agenda as breaking closures is as both make climbers look both ill-informed and not interested in cooperative relationships. The other issue to keep in mind is the quality/breeding performance of any given eyrie - all nesting sites are not equally desirable or productive. High-quality breeding sites should be given more priority than poorly performing ones. Unfortunately for climbers, many of the best sites are on cliffs we want to climb and we and the Raptors are selecting these sites as high-value based on similar criteria if not for the same reasons. Bottom line - not sharing is not an option so the only question is what form does that sharing take. And another reality is that shaking our fists, playing the victim, and bemoaning how unfair it all is at every single crag and face in the nation is not going to be a viable solution. The solution is trusted cooperative working relationships and objective monitoring by climbers - the latter being easier said than done as it takes time and energy [away from climbing] to monitor effectively as anyone who has done it can testify.