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great looking adventure climb - thanks!!

thanks for the boxtop info - yeah, that's a great book to get the tower juices going no doubt

Great stuff!! Islet looks like an amazing tower tick...did you get a looksee at Boxtop's std rt?

Great stuff John! that's always the most inspiring thing for me.

Holy shit Jesse - that's some approach! Nothing civilized like that bus ride up to Cima Catinaccio? -R

that's a productive handful of days in rr - Nice! always amazed that that crimson thing goes at the grade it goes and not something much higher

Nice! Esp. like the climbing on the Mediterranean coast.

probably doesn't need it if you have some OW skill...we don't so in our case we were happy with the huge rack for the short Off Tempo

I've used these guys last year for trigger wire replacement (Aliens, Friends, BD's) - great workmanship, prompt, no bullshit service. They do reslinging too. The guy (Luke Malatesta) does some bolt replacement work around Moab (seems like a good place to give business to) http://www.runoutcustoms.com/

just seek out the wide stuff & you're good to go:

what are you going to learn on a bolt ladder that you cannot doing this?

'01 tundra...a 2 ton cheater stick

more ideas...jubilant song .8 on windy peak is a nice climb with a slight backcrountry feel. If you're careful with route finding you can get to the TH in a sedan...second the bighorn idea - short climb, short approach but 1 really fun pitch. armatron is a soft .9 & pretty unique climbing & black dagger next door is a classic .7

Ivan, yeah - down (climb or lower), left, & end up maybe only 20' higher at next belay.

crimson chrysalis & dark shadows are both classic (crowded) .8's. community pillar was an uncrowded classic .8...very memorable. Lotta balls & dark magic next door to each other were good, short .8's. on the solar slab, thought that sunflower was much better than sundog - both friendly .9's

Topping out on the Pillar Of Wisdom route high above Wadi Rum in Jordan.

Shirley leading the 3rd pitch of Primrose Dihedrals.

Very sad to hear. Some years ago (’05?) word was that Eric would watch climbers’ dogs since he had a fenced yard and two of his own. That was a great excuse to go to his place and meet the man. Back then he told us he was working on a new desert towers book – no walls, no crags, just a big old tome on towers. Sounds like that’s not likely to happen now. Sad to think of a climbing life slowly winding down largely alone in a small house in Moab – hopefully that is not the full picture.

great stuff...makes me wanna go check out J-tree someday.

thanks for the kind words all. Ivan, for every attractive female on the beach, you get visually assaulted by some dude sporting the latest in Euro g-string trends. Joseph, those romantic notions of the place no longer hold I'm sorry to say - the stretch of sea between Ao Nang village & tower and Tonsai area is a six lane highway of longtail boats...you can barely hear each other even when face to face at belay stations on Ao Nang tower.

Sang Som is the rum. Drinkable. Local beer options were Singha, Chang, and Tiger. Drinkable but couldn't really tell them apart. Cheap local whiskey is the Hong Thong, ~$10 for fifth...stick to rum.

the central Thailand place is far enough from the ocean that they just use standard SS expansion bolts (oldest rts though date only to early 2000s). the oceanside places are heavy (the stuff we've done anyway) on the glue-ins, both SS & titanium. those looked good & seemed solid (think it's an ongoing experiment)...belays usually have a mixed bag of stuff (tied off features, glue ins, maybe an expansion bolt or two). eg of Ti glue in:

thanks for the good word Matt. I saw the same show - and then they had this street market thing in town (literally 2 blocks from the monkeys' hood). Tons of food! I was waiting for the monkeys to show up in force at any minute but they did not -weird. If you're on their block eating anything...good luck though!

Trip: Thailand Sampler - a couple routes Date: 12/31/2012 Trip Report: Nine days of climbing in Thailand. Went to a place called Lopburi, 2 hrs north of Bangkok for some dry multipitch limestone on a tower with a cool name of Khao Chin Lae 2. Then did the standard thing and headed for Railay. The former had some fun, somewhat adventurous climbing (some approaches were anyway) and offered some rich cultural experiences (street markets with amazing fruits and food, no climbers, only a few western touristas). The depth of the cultural experience in the latter was about equivalent to that in American Fork in Utah. Fun climbing but the ambiance kinda sucked...crowded and full of drunken loud tourists. Things improved in the last few days when we discovered their local (cheap but very drinkable) rum. More pics and words here . A resident of the Prang Sam Yot (“The Monkey Temple”) watching the tourists over his shoulder: The monkeys pretty much do as they please but don’t seem to venture beyond a one block radius of the temple (weird). Enjoying the spoils of a successful robbery: Picking up some rambutans from a street vendor in Lopburi: A rambutan fruit – think we hit those slightly out of their prime season: A fresh mangosteen fruit – more tasty than it looks and it’s one pretty fruit: The beautiful limestone tower of Khao Chin Lae 2 with the sunflower fields below. A rental scooter is pretty much a must to get to the climbing from town: Shirley belaying on pitch 3 of Corcovado: Another route. Shirley realizing that what we thought was a palm tree stump from the base was in fact a highly active bees’ nest… there was a second one (out of the photo) on pitch one and a huger one on pitch 2…we quickly bailed: Signing the register atop Easter Island – a 3-pitch tall limestone tower: The charm of central Thailand: The iconic shot from Railay – crux pitch of Humanality with my sweat fogging up the camera lens: The place was not totally devoid of charm…like this here 50 meter rap directly onto a bar patio: Pitch 5 of Pai Noon Mai on Phi Phi Don Island: A long nosed whip snake we found crossing a trail. Apparently mildly venomous in a bee sting sort of a way: Shirley getting ready to start the short traverse pitch that gains the start of the Orange Chandeliers route: The cool belay station that marks the start of the Orange Chandeliers route: Pitch 2 of Orange Chandeliers: Our ride home at Railay East on the morning of the departure day: Gear Notes: Sporto package & 2 ropes. Approach Notes: Some misc. beta on our blog.