JosephH

No one...? It should be much cooler later...

That's my latest laptrack these days, good solid yardage to the railing. Anyone up for a full moon lap on it this evening (Sunset: 8:20pm / Moonrise: 7:02pm)?

Fractured ribs...???

Yep, if you can't do the route-finding without chalking arrows then either you or the person you're with probably shouln't be out there at all. Someone please clean it up the next time they're up that way...

Steve, you can say that again - pretty much a Beacon classic no matter how you look at it. As far as the pro on p2 goes, there's pro on the right, center, and left, but I've personally never thought any of it is was so great as to be worth bothering with. I'd do an #10 HB alloy nut on the left if I was going to use any, though; I don't like the idea of a cam in any of it. And I think the real key to protection through those two moves up to the next piece of pro in the slot is less a matter of gear and more about distributing your weight across the four points of your body you have on the rock. It's essential to be delicate, fluid, and well-distributed across whatever holds you might use through there. You absolutely have to be able to withstand blowing any single point of rock throughout any sequence you choose. The plane in which you impart pressure to any individual flake or edge is also incredibly important - you want to minimize any outward (away from the rock face) pressure on any of them - keep the pressure you apply in-plane with that of the overall flake system. They are easy moves and I think Dave's comment about it all being largely psychological is pretty spot on. Pink, always good to hear the history. But there is still a bolt stud up and left of the p1 anchor. I've done the direct left and center variations off of the anchor on TR and they are interesting, though the lefthand one has some of the same delicate flake issues as the way it is normally done these days.

Ha!

Bill, sometime when we're both out you'll have to point out some of these for me, still having a hard time visualizing a couple of them, though I'll try a look for that tat you're talking about.

That's what we thought too when we headed up after studying it all. But not much of anything was actually solid once we got up into the mix. A lot of those blocks are fractured in-plane and heavily layered like a book made up of a lot of thin pages. Those don't take pro, pins, or bolts unless you had some really long ones. Like I said, never had a remote interest in ever going back up there again, just plain ugly.

So you guys were up there before us; and as usual there's probably lots more to the story from the sound of it. Hmmm, we did see a green sling at the top of the pyramid thing, but I don't recall the pin. Easy enough to miss, though (just saw another dolt or dolt-copy on Dastardly Sunday afternoon). Whew, glad I was nowhere near Southern Belle when that went down. Everything I've heard about Caylor, even from him, makes it sound like he had a hard time recognizing boundary conditions when he was younger and was damn lucky to live through his twenties.

Bill, great story - is Steve still around? Pretty much similar to the experience my partner Jim Tangen-Foster and I had back in '87 when we tried to head up through those big roofs, except for the part of the big block cutting on him. We headed up the wall straight out from the big tree where the trail first turns down from the parking lot. We naively went up there with a double set of Chouinard nuts and I think three original Friends. We barely escaped with our lives and once down I have never had a second thought about returning up to the big East Face roofs.

Kevin, it's a fair question and one I've been asking for the past four years - "where's the line?" The result of a lot of talks with the BRSP and Lisa Lantz, the WSP SW Resource Steward (she "owns" Beacon, but is climber-friendly) is basically a picture that looks sort of like this - with the caveat that nothing is final until Lisa makes it down from Olympia to set the final delineation. The line in the photo below is based on the position of the last anchor to the north out on the face proper (as opposed to any of the lines starting, and climbing out from, anywhere back under the East Face roofs). It also represents the rising, vertical, right-arching edge of the southern-most of the two major upper East Face roof structures. Basically, anything right of that line means you're going under the major East Face roof structures. This line represents pretty much the best 'deal' we as climbers can expect or hope to be able to make due to concerns about the endangered species and archeological contexts which both exist across the breadth of the area under and above the major East Face roofs and north-end vertical faces.

It is! Everything right of the old yellow / orange anchor to the right of Rythmn Method/Menopause and everything under the roofs is closed.

Bill, Mark is just saying he'd like to get after that line. The big A-frame roof is what I had originally planned on as it seemed to have hand/finger crack in the top of it. But now that we're up there it turns out to just be a water stain and doesn't appear freeable. The red line we're on is the most plausible free line through the roofs (at the moment). The crux is like a tall, narrow 'A'-shaped chimney which is too wide at the bottom to chimney or stem - you have to face / crack climb up the back wall a bit before you can get into a chimney sort of mode - the difference is this flared chimney is more than 45 degrees overhung and you get completely squeezed out of it at the top. All in all, it's very un-Beacon-like climbing through the roof. That flake panel you're speaking of, I did end up climbing through it on roped solo and then trundling it from above in a stance, as it was just too dangerous to have anyone below belaying. I tagged a second line just in case, which was a good thing because the trundle did chop my lead line.

The 'D-viation', though now that I've been up on top of that big orange block it's still not making me very damn happy. So far it's been a pretty x-rated affair above the high anchor though now it's down to an 'r' rating. By the end of the next go we hope to have that down to a mild 'r' and a single rope, but at the moment it's still serious business on double ropes. Bill, cool pics - that blue tint really gives it an extra-choss feel...

View from above the first roof - yellow as planned, red as being realized...

Shane and I need to get back on it but I'm going to be out of town for a week starting wed. Just now starting to feel like I'm geting in good enough shape for it all.

Good post - I'll keep Adam in mind. Sorry I missed you guys out there yesterday...

Carolyn, I know Chuck Boyd and rushed to check their blog tonight on seeing the news. Was relieved to to see they were just back in base camp at Broad Peak. Wonder if now they won't end up just supporting rescue / recovery efforts. I don't believe they have high altitude porters with them, so if the fixed lines are now gone off the bottleneck on K2 I suspect it will be a tough go for them if they were to decide to still try it - if the mountain even remains open.

It was the second pitch I was interested in, thanks.

Good going guys - glad to hear that anchor finally got a ledge on it as it's a sweet spot! All the column routes should see more traffic. Ground Zero got more or less cleaned out hard three years ago, but that was then. How about some more details on flightime as that's my next project relative to mid-anchor, good cleaning, etc.

No need, Jim doesn't want it moved. Where it is works for me for LW, so I don't mind, but it's pretty worthless for YW. Again, I'd say there's pro right at your feet at the mantle and then it's only two short moves off the stance ledge to place a cam in the bottom of the slot.

I would do that as well. I've never felt the need to place anything between the bolt and a yellow TCU at the bottom of the hand slot, but I'd say if you did you'd be better off putting a piece down just below your feet at the stance before you mantle up into it than to place anything in the choss once you're up there. If you have your weight distributed over evenly across both hands and both feet you should be immune to anything coming off. I have rapped from that anchor a couple of dozen times. I have a 60m rope. I have to down climb like 3 feet. No big deal. All my 60's must be 16 feet short because they all end up eight feet short and if you did blow the transition since the big trundle you'd be landing on the rock you formerly used to step around at the top of p1.

Kevin, glad you got a chance to get out. Yeah, I cleaned up the shitpile when I got to the ledge the other day hence the 'janitorial staff' reference. I'm with Bill, that would be a no vote from me as well. You have a bolt below you and pro right at your feet at the mantle up if you want it and then solid pro at the start of the hand crack. You're at most 'run out' something like fifteen feet over very easy terrain in between. The rock is fine enough if you're careful and distribute your weight across all four points of contact. I'd be with you for removing two of the three bolts, keeping the one by the pin. For me, I'd say if anything move the first pitch anchor down so a 60m reaches the ground - pretty much marooned and worthless where it is since the big trundle...

I'm not Ivan, I don't know who's been doing it. But it's been going on for several years now and it just gets a bit disheartening after awhile to keep coming upon so many of them.

I'd be worried, except I suspect your aim and bowel control is no better than than this weekend's shooter. And god knows what your car would smell like by the time you did roll into town...