JosephH

Next thing you know the Ozone Peregrines will be shitting on it.

The FA of LW was ground up - no pre-flight inspection, cleaning, hanging or other mechanics - and more the sort of route folks avoid than climb.

When the grid lights up and everyone is enjoying the show, does it really matter who screwed in the bulbs?

Route setting is obviously at the root of this sort of thing...

Took me a minute, that's a lovely little dance, but the weather is better in boulder right now...

Broughtons doesn't close...

That's my point, all the routes out there put up pre-2001 are likely 'uncharted territory' by now.

Not at all, just commenting a lot of the routes at both places went up around the same time, by many of the same people, and if the bolts and some fixed pins are in as bad a shape there as they were at Beacon then folks might want to think about pulling some maintenance on the place.

Cool, i know a few people who claim to care, but not enough to actually step up or do what might be required to actually have a shot a lifting the closure. In general, a decade of clueless fuckups and infantile posturing and attitudes relative to managing the place has left me not really caring much what those folks think... so no offense taken. P.S. oh, and nothing I've done out there has ever been random...

Ivan, the comments above weren't so much about the routes you guys did so much as a general comment about the likely state of Broughton fixed pro given what was found at Beacon. Those folks who really care about the place might want to consider a random survey sometime and check a few pins and bolts and see what you find. Looks like you've been getting in all sorts of good training for the Valley - keep it up!

Just a note that it's worth remembering many knifeblades around here (as opposed to bugaboos), are too thin to withstand corrosion longer than about twenty to twenty five years even though they may look perfect from the outside. Fixed pro in all forms require maintenance and pins are no exception - I'm guessing by now all the pins at Broughtons could probably stand someone checking and either resetting or replacing the ones that are now loose or bad. Pretty much every pin you're likely to run across has been checked at Beacon and about one in four needed resetting, one in five needed replacing. Here's one of the knifeblades off of 'Fear of Flying' out at Beacon. All three pins on the route were bad, paper thin, and came out with the slightest imaginable funk - none would have held a fall. That said, it's also good to keep in mind that, on a percentage basis, pins way out performed bolts in useful longevity out at Beacon and that probably means there are a lot of lousy bolts as well if you were to pull and look at them (and odd as it may seem, a lot of bolts placed during the '90s at Beacon were in the worst shape of the lot).

Like I said, if you're never involved with anything even potentially dicey it's all good...

PM me, we clearly need to work on that two-point spread...

Skinny people climbing by-the-dots? I suppose so, they look good. But, handed a rack and pointed at a runout Trovolsian 5.8880-23r in 0.8 gravity, nine out of ten of them would hyperventilate all their O2 before one boot left the surface.

Yeah, and I almost passed out in the truck loading boxes as I didn't know a spray can of auto starter ether had gone off in one of the boxes.

In a nutshell, the Kong Ghost is smooth both belaying and rappelling. It doesn't lock up when belaying, doesn't chatter when rappelling, and just 'feels right' in both modes which is rare. I've used it for 7.8 - 9.8 thin ropes and my main complaint is that they don't make a larger one for normal ropes. I can't comment on how well it works for belaying seconds off anchors because I don't do that. I'm an old guy like Bill, and have used about every belay device ever made; it's not very often that I'm happy with one, this one I am. Also a note about rope size. Yeah, today they make lighter gear and ropes are part of that so you can buy really thin ropes. But don't kid yourself, sub-10 ropes wear significantly faster, stretch more, cut easier, and are more difficult to rap. From my perspective they are specialized pieces of gear and not for beginners or new intermediate climbers. If you are using a sub-10 rope with a grigri you better be belaying like the grigri is just an ATC. And while thin ropes a boon for sport and alpine climbers, trad climbers by and large should still not be cavalier about matching ropes to routes, rock, and the likely task at hand. 11mm ropes are clearly dead, but today's crop of sub-10 single ropes are still not sufficient in any respect to be replacing 10-10.5mm ropes for most serious trad climbing endeavors.

Jim's house has been sold and he has until the end of the month to find a new home and vacate the current one. He'll need help like the last time so we'll probably need to organize renting a truck and doing a moving party. He'll let us know when he finds a new place...

Kong Ghost, my favorite by a long shot so far. I also have a Reversino, a DMM Bugette, and a DMM V Twin as well (and I was a long time Reverso user for normal rope sizes).

Dane, man, sorry to hear about all the troubles of that day and hope you and yours fully recover.

Spent yesterday climbing in Red Rock with Sherri from cc.com and Christian Beckwith, founder of Alpinist. Christian is a stand-up guy who tried to make a go of it at a time when all of today's changing media forces are aligned against a standalone print journal now matter how much of your heart and soul you put into one. None of use likely would have made it to issue #12 let alone #25 like Christian and his crew did. Sounds like the folks who picked it up are honoring subscriptions so let's hope they can make a successful go of it as part of a family of publications - but even that won't happen unless all of use actually subscribe to it - kudos to everyone who did the first time around. If you like the mag and aren't a subscriber, please become one or the new owners won't make it with it either - real, substantive content isn't cheap to produce - we all need to do our part.

Sounds like they're open to a partial closure as opposed to shutting down the whole wall - that's means WDFW raptor biologists up in Region 2 are up for working with climbers on the closures which is way better than the alternatives. They may also be up for monitoring for when they chicks are flying reliably on their own for an open date as well - depends on resources, it may need to be hard date, but is probably worth asking about it.

Yes, they'd swivel and drop out of almost any and every placement no matter how you used them. I did own two of them and they, like the Camlocks, didn't last a day's use before I sent them to the box of bad ideas.

Yes, these (Kirk's Kams) are what we used to affectionately call the CMI "Swivel of Death". They and SMC Camlocks were a couple of the best-built 'misses' of the pre-cam climbing era. Both were miserably bad as pro, despite the fact that some people even today will stand up and defend the Camlocks. But they both sucked, these particularly badly. I have nothing but respect for Kirk and CMI - most of whose products over 30+ year have been superb, but these babies were a mistake.

Probably not yet, but it would be a good idea for the weekend if someone lives over that way and could put one up...

Granite climbers whining about Eldo sandstone - classic.