JosephH

MisterMo posted up a cool shot of a concrete/bridge hand jam on the 'Wayback' thread. I'm guessing folks must know where some buildering/bridge/retaining wall cracks of various sizes are. If so post up a location and photo if you have one - otherwise we need to go on the hunt for them and post them up here. I could be way, way behind on all this as I basically don't jam anything, but am suddenly getting the urge to learn and don't have time to build a crack machine...

We need to catalog the various jams like that around PDX...

Fair enough Mike, it may have been plausible to drop from the chute (which, as you say travels parallel to the left and above quite close) onto the p4 anchor spot and then up p4, but it still seems pretty damn unlikely. Erik said you guys took the chute all the way to where it empties onto the left side of the face above the roof lip and traverses left-to-right across the lip bypassing the actual roof moves and the slabs below. Again, I'd pretty surprised if you guys made it up those slabs, up the boulder problem below the roof, and up through the roof without pro in some spots and without leaving some in others. The roof can be avoided pretty much just like the crux on YW - by going left up to where the chute empties and then do the high traverse back right - but there would be no bypassing the slab and boulder problem up to the roof, and dropping out of the chute onto that p4 anchor to go that way wouldn't be easy or obvious either. I will give you the point that, what with it starting on YW and ending by freeing the second half of the Lost Variation (hence LW), that it covers some well-traveled common ground for two of the six pitches. But I wouldn't call it contrived in any way, however, as there was just no other independent way to get into or off the heart p3-p5 pitches. Like I said, come do it again with me this summer and come work on the new ones where we can all be assured no one has ever been. Regardless of the murky FA status of the various stretches, the route is a pretty good and varied addition to the family of stout routes out there and will be a good "warmup" to acclimatize for the routes up through the roofs to the right...

Here's about the only other one I have - Doug Drewes, circa '76, on "Student Center South - By The Column" [very technical, V5/6 (I would guess) ]. As the name implies the problem goes up the column and then out the roof pods to where Doug is about to attempt the very careful transition to a full hang before firing the top. The first transition from the column top into to the knee jams in the roof pods is one crux, moving across the pods to get established on that edge is the second, and then negotiating that "careful transition" to a full hang while maintaining full control of how your feet lower out is the third crux - manage that one badly such that your feet just cut/swing and you get ripped off the edge suffering a desperate face-planting wrist-breaker onto the concrete below. We did it both on this lower South portico and on the 20 foot or so East portico.

Kevin, that was actually more Karsten's call on the grade - we settled on 11+ / 11c... Mike and Marcus said they thought the upper of the two cruxes was the harder of the two and Karsten and I thought the lower one was more challenging and still do after doing them a bunch. P.S. Once it opens and I'm back in shape we should hit it together and see what you think, you can also check with Jason and Ken for their thoughts on the grade...

Mike, when I talked with Erik he said you guys struck out right from the middle of YW p3 into the obvious chute running above (left) of the LW p3/4 and met LW instantly above the roof moves in the shot above. Do you recall differently? I think your comment that the "first aid pitch was different" would mean you did LW p3 with Marcus which would also mean you wouldn't have done LW p4 with Erik as the chute you guys went up bypasses the LW p3/p4 belays up and left. It's also hard to imagine there wouldn't have been any fixed/left small gear on the LW p3/4 if you had gone that way. The loose material on those pitches also suggested no traffic. Now, from above the roof to the top has certainly seen [mixed free/aid] traffic going back to the 60's, particularly where it meets and tops out through the 'Lost Variation'. Are you saying you also freed all of that last pitch to the top out? Kudos if so. So is it possible you and Erik did what we are currently calling LW? Possible, but I find it pretty hard to believe that the current LW P2-4 ever had anyone on them. But we should go up there together this coming season, scope it all out again and compare notes. Also, we'll be working on a couple of more independent lines to the right you should get in on.

bump for the next a few days...

What the hell, he was just giving us a hard time here like yesterday - what's going on?

I and others are trying to track him down. Anyone know how to get ahold of him...?

Reeds Direct sans cams - burly I would imagine...

It was a TR as we were hyper LNT - no bolts, no chalk even. The start is quite a ways to the right and down and the top is way up and left so it's a pretty ugly fall because you have to get up on it a ways for the TR to even kick in. I'm just moving through the lower crux which ends in a full hang rest from the lip before doing the top section. The TR doesn't start kicking in until about where I'm at and won't keep you fully off the ground until you hit the lip. You're essentially doing the roof as a highball problem 23' off the deck and we each took two dives from the spot I'm at sorting out the roof sequence. That resulted in landing more or less horizontal pounding your lower body, then having the TR kick in and drag you over some relatively flat rocks on your way out over the creek bank and through the bushes. You then had to manage the landing coming back into the creek bank. Pretty indelicate in general. Once you were moving out of the full hang onto the upper section you were just looking at a ride.

Cool pic. That's a fun route. Pretty advanced looking footwear for '72. Now we were admittedly in a Midwest backwater in '74 but I didn't think those were available til more like '75ish...

Oh, sorry. Mike and Marcus did it with Jim providing ground control. I believe they said they did a couple of points of aid, so no one other than Karsten and myself to-date. Ken (Walla-walla) and Jason went up it with me last fall.

I remember watching you as Frick and I climbing up under you on YW to check out the loose block you eventually trundled. Good job. I guess I was asking has anyone else freed it? Oh, yeah, I think that was one of the times Bill and I just did the first three pitches up to the rap that takes you down to the top of Boardwalk. I've done that a bunch of times and you saw me fall setting up for the lower crux if I remember right. I fell on that same lower crux stem one other time pretty hard from higher up - it was little scary as the pro at there is two side-by-side cams up in a downward facing pod up under the undercling and I wasn't entirely sure they'd hold, but I've since come to the conclusion that, looks to the contrary, that the cams are bomber.

Yes, I've done it three times since the FFA and led all the pitches the last time I did it this past fall.

Wish I did pink, but I was photographer in Vietnam and when I got back and found climbing I wanted nothing to do with cameras or taking pictures. Now I wish I'd taken more shots of us. I really just have the couple of my partner and I from the article in Climbing I did back in '78. Fiddler On The Roof (11+) - '75 (no harness / painter's pants / EB's / no chalk) Lost Warriors (11+), P4 - '04 (Tech'ed out to the groovy max / still no chalk)

Good shot of Jimmy O. there Kev...

Marmot Photon - being dumped - on sale some places online for $99. It's what I use in howling winter east winds up in the gorge at Beacon. Fits over a helmet particularly well. Dirt cheap at that price and works great.

Peter, that would be great to see...thanks!

Thanks, always interested to hear the stories. I take it you're still at it up there. Is there climbing there around Victoria proper or do you mainly go to Squamish? I've been here in the NW for quite awhile and embarrassed to say I've yet to make it up that way. Still hope to at some point.

Thanks for that post. Who is John Molenaar? Is he around? I just got some word that David may be in Las Vegas these days...

You're both kidding right? How many folks do you think get dropped annually at the PRG? How many at the half dozen or so gyms in Oregon? How many at those gyms and all the outdoor venues in Oregon? You can bet your ass that it's not a small number. Now add up all the gyms and climbing venues in the U.S. and you're probably looking at your 9k figure annually in the U.S. alone. Injuries from being dropped are more than likely underreported easily by an order of magnitude or more with only the most serious ever reported. Throw in the EU, Asia, S.A., Australia, and the old Soviet Block and I suspect your more like 20-30k drops per year. Do all of them result in reportable injuries? No, but if true and full reporting numbers were availabe being dropped while belayed would no doubt make being belayed the most dangerous part of climbing on a statistical basis.

I award this the "most retarted non-statistic of the day". You might well - but think about it - the odds are pretty damn superb that someone in a gym or outside somewhere in the world is being "grigri'ed" at least once per hour. You can disagree, but it probably just means you have way, way more faith in the "average" [gym/sport] climber today than I and my partner do.

My old partner and I were just talking about how amazing the contrast is with back in the day when all we did was hip belay. The observation was that being belayed these days is one of the most dangerous things you can do given the rate people are being dropped - we're guessing something on the order of once every 15-60 minutes somewhere in the world 24x7x365. That illicited the second thought that back then it was a case of advanced skills and poor technology as opposed to today when advanced technology and poor skills is more the reality.

Hi,I'm posting on behalf of Stephane Pennequin of the "Nut Museum" in Corsica, France who is trying to locate a Brit transplant to Canada named David Oldridge relative to the history around gear he produced from his two gear companies, 'Canadian Alpine Manufacturing' (Victoria, BC) and I think, 'International Climbing Equipment'. Anyone here know him, about him, or any other old timers who might? Thanks much, Joseph