JosephH

I think Chris is shopping for the same over on SuperTopo - you guys need to kidnap Ammon for a weekend...

Kev, yeah a few times over the years - but the sharp angular rock out there is a little short on monkey movement for my taste. It's more a case where it just shines a light on the fact I'm really not a good all-round climber in the mold of say someone like Bill or a Jim Anglin. I pretty much suck at both jamming and face climbing so tend not to shy away from Broughton. I prefer Rocky Butte close in and Beacon when I have more time. I can see how it would probably fitting your climbing needs and baby schedule pretty well however. With all you young toughs eyeball deep in diapers maybe it will even see a bit of a renasaince out there.

I guess I'm covered for a casual 11am start, but could probably accomodate a third if you're out alone...

Or maybe something more familiar - FFA > Dods > Dastardly...? Just mainly want to get some yardage in. Otherwise I'll be out there cleaning under Ground Zero if anyone's plans change...

Haven't tried to make it up 'Lost Warriors' this year and was thinking this might be a good weekend for it. It's a pretty challenging and, though I dread the word, 'adventurous' route which departs from the top of YW's p1 and heads up and to the right passing through the biggest square roof high on the SE cornice. It clocks in a 5.10c with two single points of A0 and somewhere in 5.11 range free. I can swap or lead any or all the pitches depending on how you feel about things. Give a shout if it sounds like something you might be interested in...

Regardless of federal strings, public education is still very much under state and local control. Very different from the centralized health care proposals you seem so fond of that aren't "actually" socialism. Public education in the U.S. was summed up well back in the late 80's as: '5,000 local school boards, all cranking out a lousy product. Bottom line - in a global economy if you have the education of a Guatemalan day laborer you're going to get paid like one, it won't matter that you live in Brooklyn or LA. Skills are the only way to differentiate our labor force in the U.S. from that of other economies and we are slipping ever further behind the rest of the world with every passing year.' By and large, local school boards have been an abysmal failure as a model for managing education when we're up against other industrial countries with national standards. Pretty much every one of them is kicking our ass at the primary and secondary level.

Shane and I took another run at the big p3 roof on Menopause (the extension route above 'Rythmn Method') yesterday. It was our second go at it. We got bloodied and spanked, but we're still alive and now much more 'comfortable' with the dicey p3 approach to the roof. And while we didn't get established [with pro] above the roof at least we have decent pro out at the lip and now the falls are way more manageable as we're making those final moves up and out around it. It's a pretty wild and very unBeacon-like set of moves up through the roof - think of a tall, narrow, flared chimney that's too big to stem at the start but rapidly closes to nothing at the top, then tilt it so it's way overhanging, splitting the roof. You basically have to jam into the base of it until you are high enough to start doing the [scum] chimneying, then do the overhanging flared chimney schrunching out to the top of it where it pierces the lip of the roof and forces you out, then there at the top you have to turn around 180 degrees from facing left to facing right to exit around the lip of the roof and onto the upper face. All in all it's a pretty wild place to be and out at the lip you have 275' feet of clean air exposure to the deck. We're just damn happy to be into clean falls out there now. If you're out and look up a bit after stepping around the "East face closed sign" you can see where the line is as we lowered off the last piece at the lip and it's still up there like an irritating little 'beacon'. We're still hoping to get in one or two more goes at it this year, though it was a little brisk up there in the shade yesterday. [ In this pic looking up from just under p2's second roof, Menopause's p3 takes the pink variation in this photo - the yellow one was the original concept that didn't pan out as the top of the big A-frame roof turns out to be cleanly sealed. ]

Yeah, Bill was saying the same thing last night - probably need to get together with him and get ahead of the curve before he gets in over his head on something. I think that was both their first rappels as well...

Called Ben up this morning to try to sort out when we could hit YW and again he says, "oh, I was out climbing this morning..." OK, says I... Turns out he took Vivian, his fellow [relatively] new BRSP ranger up the Corner. He made it up p2 - she couldn't pull the crux. Hmmmm. But check it out. He ends up smart enough not to try to rap back to her from the tree and instead down leads the pitch. He's then smart enough to go back over to the top of p1 rather then do the shitty rap off the p2 anchor. Downlead the corner on your third day on rock. This kid gets my vote - he's a climber in my book. Vivian didn't make it up the Corner this go, but she did have a great time nonetheless and still, the view from the p2 anchor is well-worth the price of admission and you know you've been somewhere different in the park that day.

I'll probably head out again tomorrow if anyone wants to do Dods or something comparable...

Sound good, I'll be out there...

Ah, then it sounds like your well setup. Good luck with p2, though I'd say if you haven't been getting out much, and don't necessarily feel psyched to do it, then maybe do something else that you might be. Kind of in the same boat myself. Gotta just get out and see where I'm at with things at this point. Probably do some more cleaning as well.

I'll belay ya...

Dods would be good with me... Anyone else?

Who else is going to be going out there...?

Another thing to keep in mind is, once Ben is as deep into climbing as all of us, he's also going to be bummed about the place being closed half the year and will likely pitch in to do the monitoring on the Peregrines to provide data and local WSP oversight on the closure for early opens and the possibility of lifting it as we accrue nesting data (we have to document a verifiable nest change off the South face - which we [David and I] haven't managed to-date, and not for lack of trying...).

I'd been meaning to get back to Ben, the young, new BRSP ranger, about taking him up YW after he floated the Corner when I took him up it, but I was sick for a bunch of weeks and totally forgot to call him to let him know that. So yesterday I finally remember to do it and explain why I never got back to him and he says that's fine and he's been climbing anyway on his own. Huh? Recall that, when I took him out, he'd been to a gym twice and our trip up the Corner was his third time climbing and his first time outside. He proceeds to tell me when he didn't hear back from me he drove down to PDX and bought a rope, some biners, and a set of nuts (I only use a single set of six nuts for the Corner), called his brother, and headed back up the Corner leading all the pitches (chalk-less). He said it went fine and did it again with a friend a week or two later. So - lead all the pitches on the corner on your fourth time climbing and second time outside on real rock? He's ok in my book regardless of the fact he's chosen a career path we all might not have taken. I for one am looking forward to climbing with Ben again and personally think it will be a very good thing for climbing at Beacon to have a ranger there who loves climbing and Beacon as much as we do.

Well, I did say he was a character - can't say he's someone I'd be interested in being around outside the context of wirewalking. I'm not sure of the freesoloing correlation though. The reason for the pole is because long lines (of any kind), won't stabilize, or 'settle', under your body weight, i.e. instead of just walking a stable line, you are both walking the line in front of you and also 'riding' the longer wave movements of the entire line. The pole droops and has weighted ends which significantly lowers your center of gravity. This allows you to 'walk' the line with relative ease and concentrate more on managing the 'riding' aspects of the walk. On a sufficiently guyed line that can't exhibit a lot of 'long wave' movement, then just walking it with a pole is fairly trivial, though you still have to manage the mental / emotional aspects of a high walk. But given the choice of a highwire walk with a pole and a significant free solo - I'm taking the wire and pole every time.

He's a character for sure. I spent some time with him a ways back when he was in PDX to do a walk for the ceremonies to open the Schnitz Concert Hall. You do have to hand it to him, and a bunch of other euro long line walkers too. Not sure if Steve Wallenda is still living up your way or not, but he's another interesting guy having survived his uncle's legacy more or less intact. Making a living walking wires is about as far out on the fringe as you can get. I still get out now and then on 11mm cranked down real hard, and can't imagine having to walking on a schedule. Doing stuff like that when you want to do it is one thing, doing it for work and at times when you otherwise might not be into it is a whole other business.

Congrats on #2! Hope Maggie is doing well. Just shipped our daughter off to begin college at UW - start saving now...

ebay and I believe Theron who I'm working with on the A5 hammer project has been talking to Ed about picking up some of the products. Ed's busy with other things these days: http://silencingthefields.com/

Moira, I might add another, even if it may or may not have revelance in this case. And that is the need to tread lightly. This is a learned behavior about really distributing your weight well and wisely across all of the points of contact available to you, and lightening up on one point by bearing down a ever slightly more on the others. It's also a matter of 'flow' or momentum across the stone with the minimum necessary loading on any given point. Just being able to get out an 'yard' on rock feels good more often than not, but on our basalt it is a luxury that can come back and bite you. And again, this is a general tip - I'm not in any way saying it would have made the slightest difference in the outcome of this particular incident. I see this sometimes out at Beacon when someone moves to town who is used to climbing on granite - it takes them awhile to adjust to basalt and marginal holds sometimes suffer during the learning curve. This is especially noticeable on lines like YW where the landscape has been altered several times recently by folks new to Beacon and basalt.

You're doomed whatever size you buy! The very next time you go out you'll need the size you didn't buy! You may epic hard, but you'll become a better climber for it. Just ask Bill, he was once young and poor and he rose up a great climber (even if now he has quadruples of every piece of gear known).

There has been a rash of impromptu fertilization attempts this year. I chalk it up to high gas prices bringing in large numbers of folks who would otherwise drive on by to Smith. They arrive unprepared and are ultimately overwhelmed by the permeating reality of the place. It happens to me too, but I have myself trained to go off at first sight just as I come into range of the parking lot. First things first...

Oh yeah, now that you mention it, I do remember. You'll have to come out and do the next pitch sometime.