JosephH

You can count a democratic win in 2016 as well. Women won't be forgetting the republican senators' message to them anytime soon and if the democrats have half a brain immigration reform won't hit congress until 2015 or 2016 when the republicans in the house will shoot it down cementing the latino vote. Add to that rightwing media is already calling for a move even farther to the right and it's already a done deal.

Don't forget to thank Virginia, Iowa, Michigan, Colorado, Nevada, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, and Florida in the morning. Obama dominated the swing states. I'm guessing Ivan is in shock over Virginia going for Obama and Kaine.

Two years ago when Jeff Thomas and I replaced the anchors down 'Lay Lady Lay' / 'Rip City' with an eye towards cleaning the poison oak out of them, what we found wasn't what we expected. We expected one or more very large vines growing up the lines we could just cut, as that's what it looked like from down at the boat launch. What we found was it's really hundreds of individual plants about a every 6-12" rooted way the hell back in the cracks. From my perspective the only real sure way of getting them out of there would be saturating them with crossbow-laden diesel oil for awhile and burning them out (maybe a couple of times when it was misting out). The odds of getting permission to do that are basically nil. To do it mechanically would be a long and tedious multi-day job similar to the four long days it took to thoroughly clean 'Flying Circus' the first time around. If anyone is contemplating such an ordeal you're going to want one or more of these on 24-36" handles (among other shorter sharp implements and shears) and an extra sharpened 18" blade (or a small diamond sharpener to take along) to really even have a remote shot at being successful: also and Anything else is going to be a lot of painfully futile hurling (good luck and godspeed). Also, the west side base is basically an ocean of poison oak, if serious about reclaiming those climbs then cleaning out a decent trail up the mid west side base that was free of oak wouldn't be a bad start if you weren't ready to get uber-gnarly on rappel yet. P.S. The Park has lost Breanne who has worked in the office for years; another victim of the cuts. So now Karl and Viv, who were already overworked in the park with Ben's departure, are now also swamped with additional admin work in the office. Maybe consider volunteering for non-climbing related park projects that could use volunteer help as well.

It would be if climbers did and most decidedly do not. The only places currently protected from climber 'self-management' (bolting) are crags on private lands like the Gunks or those under active collaborative management like Eldo.

Just that folks have started adopting this notion of routes being 'set' outdoors and the attending shift from rock to climber speaks volumes about the generational changes in thinking and perception underway after thirty years of gyms and sport climbing. It again speaks to the change from gyms having been born of a desire to have at least a poor emulation of real climbing indoors to a reversal where now folks basically just want a good emulation of their gym experience outdoors.

How about the last moves on that pitch to the next anchor? But then that's going to be a short conversation.

I believe the cakewalk being referred to is the alternate moves to the left, not the crux. And I wouldn't necessarily disagree much with your characterization of it, but I suspect more folks head left at that point than not and don't do it. I'm guessing that's because, while the bolt is right there, given the amount of rope you have out at that point you're still going to pound-and-bounce hard if you blow standing up on the move.

True enough. Now if every climb had an easy B[ail] option at the crux climbing would be more lovable all the way around. Could we start with a way to skirt the crux on FFS? Talk about a climb in desperate need of some love.

True, if you skirt the p4 crux.

From the mouth of babes...

Bump.

What's wrong with the odd R or X rated climb? Has / will the 'community' banished such 'egofests' all together as unsavory? At what cost? If it's a 'community service', how do you define 'community'? Who determines the lowest common 'community' denominator when bolting as a service? Is the long-term trend towards body-length or sub-body-length bolt spacing as a norm (115 / 22 = 5'2" though aid was the driver here)? Should all climbs be family-friendly and entertaining? Loop to top...

You should add the details if you're going to post that up: p1 - 5.6 / 120' / 2 bolts p2 - 5.4 / 110' / 4 bolts p3 - 5.4 / 100' / 2 bolts p4 - 5.6 / 100' / 9 bolts p5 - 5.5 / 110' / 9 bolts p6 - 5.7 / 160' / 5 bolts p7 - 5.6 / 190' / 7 bolts (walk) p8 - 5.5 / 200' / 3 bolts p9 - 5.9 / 160' / 10 bolts p10 - 5.8 / 100' / 7 bolts p11 - 10b / 90' / 9 bolts (walk) p12 - 5.8 / 110' / 6 bolts p13 - 5.2 / 130' / 1 bolts p14 - 5.7 / 160' / 10 bolts p15 - 5.2 / 160' / 2 bolts p16 - 5.0 / 80' / 0 bolts p17 - 5.0 / 140' / 0 bolts p18 - 5.8 / 110' / 8 bolts p19 - 10c / 130' / 17 bolts p20 - 5.7 / 60' / 2 bolts p21 - 10a / 180' / 15 bolts p22 - 5.8 / 160' / 11 bolts p23 - 5.9 / 90' / 14 bolts

Man, that wildly sucks!!! Glad to hear you're on the mend as I really need you out there a year ahead of me setting an example of what is possible (pretty much just you and Donini that I hear about on any regular basis)

Whereabouts? Top of Wrong Gull finish falling off?

Despite all the activity, I'm not convinced we're adding to that particular inventory at what you'd call a fast clip.

I guess I'm going to have to revert back to Win7 from Win8 because the new calculator is broken.

If by "rap the route from that station" you mean rap off the corner tree, please instead consider just looking around the start to cruisin or under the big oak tree to the right of it and on the other side of trail from both. It would likely be somewhere in that vicinity depending on whether, or how far, it bounced on the way down. Besides, rapping off the poor old tree is a suck rappel.

Still love you too...

Careful man, there are places out there where every time you climb the same 'route' you'll be doing an FFA, if it doesn't kill you.

Sounds like a good epic story in there somewhere...

That looks like a great idea paired with a grigri for free rope-soloing with the rope hanging down. For myself after ten years or so of free, rope-soloing on a grigri I ditched it after the Eddy came out - so much cleaner, simpler, and it relocks if you pull the handle all the way back. I also carry the rope and don't care for having it hang down regardless of device and how it's rigged, but rope-soloing is definitely a 'to each his own' sort of deal and you have to sort out what works for you among all the options. RC.com free roped soloing article Various SuperTopo.com aid soloing threads http://lmgtfy.com/?q=site%3Asupertopo.com+%20aid+solo But pay attention to any of Mark Hudon's tip, technique, or 'system' threads of the past year or two http://www.supertopo.com/forumsearch.php?s=s&o=&v=0&cur=420&ftr1=%22aid%22&ftr2=&ftr3=&ftr4=Mark+Hudon#list

For free, lead rope-soloing this is what I used to do (tab-mod grigri): This is what I now do: For aid soloing I've always just used an unmodified grigri on the same rapide mallion (10mm, INOX SS, CE-stamped, rated at 25kN)

So far Kevin was the only one who suggested adding a bolt. The only protection bolt I ever added at Beacon (and then removed), I did with Opdycke, at his suggestion, and with his help. Ditto the only anchor I added and then removed - at his suggestion and with his help (removed despite the fact, as Opdycke repeatedly pointed out, there was an anchor there originally as can still be seen today). That all said YW p1 is ridiculously overbolted, but Opdycke said that was done deliberately at the time to toss a bone to folks who came out looking for bolted lines. As far as anchors go, I'd personally remove about 60% of them entirely, but hey, that's just me.

I'm glad to hear we're past the butthole bolt idea.