JosephH

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

Man, you are so damn lucky and I am glad to read you are still with us - there can't be too many survivors of such falls out there or I would imagine the survival rate at RB must be under %50. "Instead, they slid and I went right over the edge." I very much do consider this a climbing accident exactly because you were in that environment to climb. In fact, these days, climbing is about the safest part of climbing from reading all the accidents I hear about lately. Belaying, rappelling, and negotiating cliff tops and descent trails are all perilous support activities which enable climbing and expose one to significant risks. Manuevering the cliff-top/edge environment out at Rocky, even during descent, is an extemely tenous affair and one which simply cannot be underestimated or taken for granted at anytime. When I'm out at Rocky Butte and I'm not tied on a rope, walking on the road, or standing at the base I'm operating on high, high alert. Manuevering and negotiating the approach to the edge to establish top rope anchors is an high-risk proposition out there under the best of conditions and a deceptively hazardous affair when it's even slightly moist. Everyone please be incredibly aware and conscious at all times when operating around the top out at Rocky Butte. It just seems so familiar, pedestrian, and close-at-hand in it's urban camoflauge which makes it all the more dangerous. And Michelle, thanks so much for telling us your whole story of surviving that accident and all the very best to you. It sounds like you were able to heal well enough to resume a relatively normal life and that seems a great gift and miracle in and of itself. [ P.S. Anyone have an SUV or a truck with a winch? Extended with a retired climbing rope and redirected with a couple of pulleys a winch might make short work of getting that engine block and dishwasher out of there if you didn't feel like hauling them out as SAR/big wall practice. Two or three poles or 2x4's to lash a small A-frame might also make getting them up and over the lip easier (and safer). ]

He's back in Southern Illinois now - saw him two years ago at the first SoIll climbers reunion. I'll pm you with his email. Funny, though, I thought he climbed ok for a young guy...

I agree. I have two sets of both Alien and Metolius Offsets. The quality of the Aliens (and the whole Alien fiasco) is what caused me to throw my [minor] voice in with Ivo's to try and get these into production which was far from a done deal. They really had to be sold over time internally within Metolius and even then had to take their place in the priority queue behind the regular Ultralights. As I said, I've mainly free climbed on both the Aliens and Metolius Offsets, they are often superb when the going gets dicey. I definitely don't like the quality of the Aliens, but even they have their place on occasion. Sometimes there's just a surface V-gash and the only thing that will go in there solid is half an Alien (regular or offset) in anything else it's the Metolius all the way. Now if we could get WC to resume making the bigger hybrids again or at least let folks special order them. The Super Cam takes up some of that slack though.

Oly, that's not entirely true, Ivo and Brooke were just as psyched about them for free climbing which is all I've used mine for to-date.

Like I said, I'm prejudiced about them - ask Bill Coe, he's had a set of the offsets (not ultralights, though) for a couple of years now.

Big metal, they need to run that chain link down along that stretch as well so you can't haul stuff straight out of a truck and over the edge.