JosephH

With a lot of various help, and before all the medical crises in the family of the last thirty months, I'd been trying to put a route up above Bill's 'Boardwalk' tentatively called 'Menopause'. It goes up two and a half rope lengths and through three roofs to it's high point at the lip of the third and largest roof. There's a headwall above that with either three or four more smaller roofs on it before topping out. There's also a line (of bolts) between it and the 'Pacific Rim' anchor that looks like they only go up a pitch, but of course I could be wrong on that. In general as it stands now, everything on the face forming the left side of the lower great arch is fair game; basically straight above and left of 'Pacific Rim'. The blue outline is the upper headwall defined by the true corner on the left, the roofs below, and the left edge of the lower great arch on the right. Shane and I have been to the lip of the big roof about five times each and, while we can 'turn' it to the point of getting our chest above the lip, neither of us have been able to get established on the headwall. Out at the lip you've trended right enough to be pulling the move over nothing but space 300ft to the deck and I've taken one fifty footer off it to-date, though we now have a solid BD 3.5 out at the lip. Some of it is pretty technical climbing and I hope to finally get another go at it this year. You walk under it on the trail down and can see it pretty well (more or less) at the rock where the trail splits to go up to 'Boardwalk' - just look for the 3.5 BD with the draw. Been up there for awhile now (and probably needs to just get tossed at this point). View from below the second small (but tricky) roof. The yellow line is where I wanted the route to go through the roofs, but what I had hoped was a handcrack through the big, broad a-frame turned out to be just a waterstain, so we go through up the narrower a-frame roof to the right marked in red (for scale, the big orangish block where the red actual line starts is slightly smaller than a UPS truck).

Personal opinions are great; everyone has one and they're held with varying degrees of emotion and belief and that's great. It becomes both problematic and counterproductive, however, when we can't distinguish between opinion and fact or between subjective reality (your opinion) and objective reality (law and policy). Operating solely from the former while denying the latter is the surest way I know of insuring you aren't going to get what you want. Might as well just bang your head against the nearest chunk of basalt because you'll never get taken seriously. I have my own personal opinions around the necessity of the various closures, but those opinions are entirely irrelevant in any legal or policy discussion unless I can back them up with facts. Wishing, as attractive as it is, just isn't how law and policy work.

The "Peshastin Pinnacles" thread is a fair warning of not giving the tribes any reason to become actively engaged at Beacon. If they do, their scope will more than likely be the whole rock and not just the East Face as it is now.

I'd say they're yours...

Lace ups. Couple of years old, but only used about a dozen times at most...

With regard to righteous indignation over chopping and retro-bolting, this incident would seem a far more appropriate application and one with a ready solution at hand. The fact they'd buy anything from climb-x alone tells you up front they lack the judgment to be bolting at all.

Wrong on both counts. I said the NW Face isn't my cup of tea - read closer. As for a bolt at the ORG, there isn't a route over there I'm interested in let alone would bother fucking with. Another complete and utter fabrication. Rather, I have assiduously avoided changing the character of any climbs and have only done so twice, both in one day - and did so together with and for your second father, Opdycke. The first was the bolt on the 'Reasonable Richard' runout where, after a lot of discussion, both Opdycke and I felt strongly Olson's star rating combined with the runout on a 5.9 represented an unreasonably attractive nuisance [for sport climbing crossovers]. The second was Opdycke wanted the old, chopped anchor on the perch under the Dodd's tree restored - I obliged him. People didn't like either so after talking with Opdycke I removed both. Beyond that there isn't single route I've ever "altered" in any way. Then again, never letting facts stand in the way of just making up utter bullshit to suit the moment or trying to make a case for something is a high art with a long tradition at Beacon that goes way back. Done here, bye...

Actually, that was my parther's rodeo, I just belayed and followed.

Dude, it wouldn't be my first rodeo with a sociopath bedeviled by violent tendencies and anger management issues so don't flatter yourself. But, hey, do keep threatening me on the internet as it does neatly tidy things up overall. And who knew the BRCA had thugs? It just makes for yet another inadvertent and self-revealing press release. Oh, and pissing all over yourself is what would happen if you ever tried to lead one of my routes.

Clueless as ever I see, but what the hell, let's break your conjecture down anyway: Really? Are you serious? Because unless I missed something in the course of replacing seventy or so anchors out there I'd say the 'long held tradition' at Beacon Rock is to slap a frigging anchor in pretty much anywhere and everywhere. I'd say that 'tradition' is why there's a ton of unnecessary bolted anchors on Beacon's South Face. And, since you appear as dense as pink on the concept, I'll repeat - it wasn't my anchor, I simply moved the existing anchor off the tree. And if you had even the slightest clue about the anchor in question then you'd know that I didn't "put an anchor next to a tree", rather I anchored the slings in the small alcove behind the tree so the net effect is a complete wash as the only change is the slings are on the hangers instead of the tree. Capisce? Feel free to chop it, but if I pulled the slings then we both know you'd be bitching and whining about that. Well, given I don't really care all that much for the NW face and seldom get on it, if slings (or ropes) are missing there, it wasn't me. In fact, the anchors you're using on the top of p1 across the NW face are anchors [w/ slings] that I replaced and paid for (two at pink's request) and (unfortunately) a bunch of the pins and bolts on 'Stone Soup' came from me, the NW face vandal. But then you've been spewing this kind of ridiculous tripe and slander right along so why should this one be any surprise. This is the basic problem with you guys - a paucity of fact, a complete failure to understand even the basics of how Beacon Rock is managed as a resource, and an abject failure to establish trusted working relationships with the various land managers and agencies. If [any of] you had [EVER] bothered to inform yourself, learn the facts, understand the policy, or establish even nominal working relationships with people like her, then you'd know that: no, Lisa didn't and doesn't advocate bolting at Beacon Rock. What she does advocate - and explicitly requested - is anchors off the trees and replacing chain anchors with camo'ed slings. But then we both know you aren't even vaguely interested in such reality-based WSP matters or you'd already have known that little tidbit for like the past eight years. So you guys are now suddenly against bolting Beacon. Wow, that's interesting. Because after the 50 bolt/pin 'Stone Soup', the bolt on FFA right, and of course the head-pointed, retro-bolted, pre-placed pro Wild Turkeys 'FFA' where you guys actually had the boneheaded audacity to claim authority to grant Matt permission for the bolting, you'll have to forgive me if I missed where "bolting Beacon Rock [is] against the wishes of the climbing community". In fact - quite to the contrary - of late you guys seem way, way 'all in' on bolting Beacon Rock (not to mention clear-cutting, chiseling and terraforming). And we won't even get into three leading BRCA members just getting busted for deliberately breaking the closure on the West Face. Surely it must have been a 'scientific research climb' to better manage the resource in the same way the Japanese do 'scientific research whaling' to better manage whales, right? Pretty fucking savvy move given it was the first thing the new head ranger learned about how serious the "climbing community" is about cooperatively managing the resource. But then, hey, I'm the idiot here.

Well, yet again, I didn't put the anchor there. And like the other "40 foot" anchor mentioned up thread, it's not hard to guess that this one was created for the same reason. You're certainly welcome to continue to argue that anchors on trees aren't really anchors but, sadly, it's a distinction without distinction. Or, you could just chop it (way ok by me anyway), and then we could see how long it takes for new [non-anchor] slings to show up on the tree. Then again, what would the place be without those huge crocodile tears over the things that really, really matter. Carry on... As for chopping a bolt at Ozone, what on earth would be the point? It would be about as meaningful as chopping a bolt in Boulder Canyon.

Except the anchor had been there for years to the tune of four slings. As I said, at best an exercise in hurling desperately meaningless semantics. Had I removed the anchor you'd no doubt be bitching and moaning about that.

Stout.

I didn't put the anchor there, I simply moved it three inches off the tree. If it were up to me personally, about 60% of the anchors out there would disappear overnight and Beacon is a bit unusual with respect to all the fixed anchors compared to most multipitch crags.

Not me, I only replace them. - definitely not my cup of tea. not true, you added a bolt anchor to the middle of a pitch on "Summer Daze". Not true, moved the existing anchor off the tree to the alcove immediately behind the trunk at the request of the Lisa Lantz, the WSP SW Resource Steward. There was an existing anchor there and it is still there, albeit on two bolts three inches behind the tree trunk. It's a net wash unless you're absolutely desperate for something to whine about.

Not me, I only replace them. Hell, have only been to Ozone a half dozen times, the last in 2008/9 or so and don't have the slightest friggin' clue as to what's what over there let alone who did what - definitely not my cup of tea.

Good TR. It's an interesting place. Some nominal climbing; long, steep scree slopes that went on forever and were interesting to run as you could get the whole affair moving and you just had to sort of run in place and ride it down. The oddest thing was the women - it's like there are six beautiful archetypal women and you keep seeing them over and over everywhere you go. That, and they are all in burlier shape than the men on average. My friend kept asking why all the girls were doing the outside work while the men were all inside at desks. Food on the other hand was pretty abysmal: fish pickled in more ways then you would have thought possible. All in all it's an interesting stopover if you're headed for Europe.

Will second that...que pasa?

You're right for solo aid; free climbing is a different story.

Most 'big name' soloists on Supertopo (Ammon and Kate) use an unmodified grigri for aid soloing. And while the SP is no doubt the 'safest' option for free lead rope soloing, I could never come to terms with it as it's too bulky and slow. The Edelrid Eddy is just so much cleaner and faster, but to each his own and YMMV.

It doesn't seem like posting is down.

Not going to happen...

The p3 dihedral pins were checked in 2005, 2008, and last in 2011 and they are still bomb. The first pin on p1 and the angle up on p4 on the other hand were reset in 2005 and checked in 2008 and 2011 and neither placement was ever what you'd call fabulous no matter what.

Good to know. Found a few links on 2013 base closures, sounds fast and furious. Sounds like there's a strong push to possibly go to zero troops instead of a large number of 'advisers' which would be great.