JosephH

The 'right of passage' rules are written into the CMP at Beacon. As a multi-pitch crag, people leading have right of way over those TRing. Pretty simple and common sense. At single pitch crags it's bit of a different story, but even a modicum of common sense and politeness would dictate not tying up a pitch this way for a long period of time. This past Saturday Beacon was pretty quiet with no regulars around, but there was a party with a TR up on 'Little Wing' which probably wouldn't have flown long on a busier day - ditto for TRing the first pitch of the Corner.

One or two ascents a year would do to keep either of those lines clear. You managed to get on Pipedream this year inspite of the closure - I don't see any reason why others couldn't as well if folks have a sense of adventure on par with your own.

Well, yeah, there is the shoulder thing. That, and after cleaning 'Takes Fists' I only had to wait one day for the 'second day after' hammering to kick in. Black and blue thighs / crotch and all my digits were like plump, bloody little sausages until I iced my hands. Definitely need to get some young guns into the column cleaning game...

Same here - being old rules...!

Yep, sporting a secrecy transmission velocity that is only slightly behind Ozone's.

Beaconesque. Such provocative postings - why they should almost be moved to spray...

Not sure when this is going to happen, but Jim and I will sort out a day and we'll have a little aid and restoration fest and get the exiting approach routes cleaned back up. I also believe Jim said a pin or two need to be restored on them. Will let you guys know, but it probably won't be for a couple of weeks. 'Flighttime' is on the list and maybe you and I should tackle that one together and finish 'Flying Swallow' while we're at it. P.S. Talked with Mark Cartier about it today and he's about off to Makalu with Steve House and company, sounds like quite the adventure. Good to see he's still hard at all as well...

Yeah, way to go, that's a stout stretch of rock.

Just the moss-covered high angle slabs under the columns proper - what do you call them?

Yeah, it started to rain just after I got five feet down the rappel and hit me a couple more times. Fortunately I was under the roof when it really cut loose. Made the ropes a bit hard to pull. It's also a bit dicey pulling into the anchor under the roofs with a bag and all on rappel; might not have been able to if I hadn't had some cleaning tools with me that, after thrashing around a bit in space and really stretching out horizontally, I could finally just tip the arete with the tool and get a swing started - whew. Now I just have to sort out the soggy mess that's currently rotting in my trunk. Jim and I were talking last night again about the need to clean up and restore the various approach slab routes or otherwise have a couple of decent ways up to the columns. Sometime we just pick a day and go do it. Ivan, it would be mandatory attendance for you that day.

Spent about eight hours today cleaning out most of 'Takes Fists'. Managed to get the upper pitch above the roof thoroughly cleaned out, but on the pitch below the roof I only got about half of it done. What remains to be cleaned is the lower half of the first pitch - the slabs to the route proper. But, free or aid, this is a real beauty of a line. 'Flying Swallow' is up next. If anyone else wants to join in the fun and adopt a column line to clean out, I'd be happy to supply a whole arsenal of cleaning tools rigged for the job.

"Butch: In the fifth, my ass goes down" Hell, I didn't even make it through the second round...! Dave - glad to hear that cam held. Always a bummer to fight through a crux section to the primo jugs and then not have the energy left to use them...

Who do I talk to if I want to donate something for the auction...?

For some reason I've been obsessed with Dods for the last few weeks. Probably because I'm normally fat when Beacon opens each year and always get spanked on Dods my first time out each year. Even after getting in shape each year I typically never quite get 'comfortable' on the damn thing - it's never helped that I can't really jam worth a damn. This year though, I miraculously kept it somewhat together over the winter and of late have decied to 'come to terms' with Dods once and for all. To my complete surprise - and I have no idea why - the jamming thing seemed to just suddenly start 'happening' out of the blue when I first got on the line a couple of weeks back. Not that I didn't still layback the thing, but those initial, unavoidable jams seemed to just flow smoothly and the whole crux section ended up thorouhly enjoyable. It was relaxed enough that I decided a couple of days later to go up and try to rope-solo it for the first time. That ended up going really well, even if seconding it was a bit more edgy and arduous than actually leading it. After a rest up on Big Ledge, I then started up Dastardly only to run out of gas almost immediately, backing off, and rapping off of Big Ledge calling it a day. A week later I came back and roped soloed the line again making it up Dastardly to the trail railing with no problems at all. I then had to slack off climbing for a couple of weeks because of work, a trip to LA, and another to Seattle. On getting back to climbing this weekend, Hanmi and I headed up FFA and Dods so that, between her husband Jim and I, she could start getting in some laps on them herself (she's doing great on them, too). That also went really well - in fact, I told myself it was 'casual' - so today I figured I'd make another rope solo journey up to the railing again just to kind of 'lock' the whole thing in so I can move on to other things. Well, it actually all did go casually to the tree, but then on heading up the business it all unravelled amazingly fast. I got my sequence off the tree wrong managing to stick the second cam where my hand neeeded to go and it all over pretty damn quick. Two more falls followed trying to relocate the cam and then the obligatory aid up to where it eases off, and then bailing. In the end, instead of 'locking it all in' I got my ass completely handed to me for getting too cocky and now I'm sitting here trying figure out how I get my Dods mojo back. I mean it was literally almost like I'd never been up the damn thing. Where I was hoping to move the damn thing off my plate once and for all, it's now back as irritating as ever. Oh well - it's the seminal Beacon lesson - don't get too ahead of yourself or cocky as you're never more than one move away from a spanking. How did Marsellus put it? Oh yeah: The thing is, Butch, right now, you've got ability. But painful as it may be, ability don't last. And your days are just about over. Now, that's a hard motherfucking fact of life. But it's a fact of life your ass is gonna have to get realistic about. See, this business is filled to the brim with unrealistic motherfuckers. Motherfuckers who thought their ass would age like wine. If you mean it turns to vinegar, it does. If you mean it gets better with age, it don't. Besides, Butch, how many fights you think you got left in you anyway? Two? Boxers don't have an "old timer's league". You came close, but you never made it, and if you were gonna make it, you would have made it before now.

I've been really impressed with the ardent loyalty and support Kevin has inspired in his friends - count me in on this great way the rest of us can help out supporting Kevin and his family.

That's complete and total bullshit. We have not emboldened any of our enemies - we've scared the shit out of them. Really? If you believe that then I have a bridge in NYC I'd like to sell you...

Really an incredible amount of misconception and 'need to make ourselves feel good' delusion on display here. Mattp is actually, and factually, correct - there is no "war on terrorism" - winnable or otherwise - any more than there is a "war on drugs" or "war on illegal immigration". All are simply feel-good anthems and labels for systemic problems we refuse to deal with in any effective way - i.e., that might make us wince slightly. Terrorism, like drug use, is rooted in environmental conditions and normal human responses to them. Our nation was born of terrorism fueled by Britian's failure to recognize or address the root causes of our discontent. Militant Islam similarly feeds off, and is nurtured by, the discontent and displeasure of broad tracts of the population in the ME. This is, and will remain, the "new normal" in a media-saturated world only too capable of illustrating the sharp disparity and divide between the most and least fortunate among us. Selling the idea that it is a "war" is as sad pandering which precludes any rationale approach to alleviating the worst of the conditions which breed terrorism - it is a bankrupt mentality and a non-starter to boot. The requisite approach is addressing the conditions which breed terrorism, respond ruthlessly with overwhelming might when you must resort to military action, and continue to loopback with infrastructure and economic improvements which alleviate the original conditions. It isn't rocket science, except to the incompetent simps in the administration whose performance to date has broadly emboldened our enemies, large and small alike. Again, if Hu Jintao, Ahmadinejad, and OBL sat down on 9/10 and tried to hammer out a script for what would happen to the U.S. over the next seven years they couldn't have done half as well as the aftermath which has followed a commanding peformance of squandering and pillaging by W, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove, and their cast of robotic minions.

The unfortunate reality is there is no "winning" with the current approach or the approaches of either candidate - it's like saying we shouldn't have stuck our hand in that hornet's nest but we are going to stay until we "win" when what you need is a can of RAID. If we were serious about "winning" then we wouldn't have been or be screwing around - we'd have 500k troops minimum on the ground in Iraq. The borders would be secured and sealed tight with 100k of them, Baghdad with 100k, outlying towns of significance with 100k, and we'd have 200k involved with protecting and rebuilding their infrastructure. Had we done that in the beginning we could have been in and out of there in two to three years. Better yet, we could have just killed Saddam and his sons remotely and explained we'd like a few changes and we'll keep killing the leadership until we got them. What we've done instead - and since - has displayed an almost indescribable level of incompetence and a complete inability to wield U.S. military might effectively. So long as we approach such problems in a manner which won't disturb anyone's delicate suburban sensibilities we'll continue to drown in circumstances we refuse to take responsibility for or deal with as they've been dealt. And the similarities of our inability to deal effectively with the Iraq, New Orleans, and rebuilding the WTC are not lost on China who take all three to be a clear statement we lack the ability to project our will or endure pain. A huge strategic mistake on our part as far as I'm concerned.

Seeing the sign of times whether short or long hair (for those who've had both) is sort of like dealing with falling. Good to know where the edge is - sometimes you hang it over, sometimes you don't. Sort of like pissing in the wind - good to know which way the wind is blowing so that, while feeling great relief, you aren't just pissing on yourself at the same time...

All the way up the corner, took awhile to get them out and the result looking halfway decent. Can't really tell anymore unless you know where they were.

I resemble that remark, but it's not me...

So some bright person kicked over the new sign at the first turn in the trail, cool. That sign post was and is supposed to be for a sign that hasn't been made yet that warns tourists off the climbers trail so we aren't dealing with them down below. Once that sign is made it will host both signs. I've recommended that the 'overnight' sign not be placed at that spot but rather at the top of the trail - but the problem then is that the sign causes confusion with non-climbers, hence the BRSP wanting it down on the trail. But the bottom line - don't fuck with any of the signs regardless of whether you like the message or not - it will shut down all WSP cooperation on early opens if people do. You may not give a shit whether or not you get to climb earlier than July 15th every year, but I and others do. So piss on the damn thing if you must and if it makes you feel better, but leave it the fuck alone from here on out...

Hmmm, Dave, must have been someone else as Shane, Kellie, and Sam moved pretty smoothly with a minimum of yelling. And they started after me and a while after you guys had left. Hopefully the next full moon will be as good the last one and this one which should still be good for the next few nights. It really is spectacular and the main problem climbing is that, once you let your eyes adjust to the darkness, the moon is then too damn bright and creating deep, deep black shadows when it's more in your face than on the rock. Then you either have to remember where holds are, feel for them, or use your headlamp for long enough to sort things out.

Had to settle for a roped solo lap up YW - cool temps, solid breeze, and lit up to about half daylight - perfect. Topped it off with breakfast at Cake 'n Steak - perfect as well. Also, kudos to Shane's new roomate Kellie who did her first-ever go at rock climbing by doing the SE Corner by moonlight as well.

What 'work' are you going to be doing? It's all fairly dependent on that...