crimper

I'm game. can whoever is drafting our proposal/website get in touch with me?

as per joe's comment, i'd be happy to help, with the caveat that we're expecting a second baby any minute now (due date was march 6) so my freetime (er, what's left of it) is about to get seriously limited.

and i knew that surely you jested. the other night while putting ian down to bed (a tiresome process) i had my eyes closed re-living the FA of the summitting chimney just to the right of the cougar headwall, and how glad i am we did it groundup and didn't clean it on rappel or place any fixed gear. i wonder if anyone has climbed it since we each led it? anyway, i wish we'd been able to take some photos of that FA as well.

hey markd. it's a nice route but come on now, best route in central OR? i know that surely you jest. then again i never climbed past the roof that day, or saw the route without the tree growing out of it, so maybe i shouldn't judge....

markd, that sure looks like the cougar buttress headwall that you freed this past fall. and it's west of bend, about 11 miles. am i right?

Finally talked my new-girlfriend (now-wife) into summitting Beacon, just a few months into our relationship and the start of her climbing career (both events starting at the same time, as our first date was disguised as a "trip to the rock gym" heh heh heh, anyone else tried that maneuver?) The climb takes longer than expected - go figure - and of course I had to take her the scenic route via the Ledge. So it's dark by the time I start Uprising, but I am wearing a headlamp and have convinced her we're still "safe" because I can see just fine. I get up to that hincky/slopey little "move" (you all know just the one I mean) about 20-30 feet off the belay, no pro in so far, and lightly bump my head against the dark wall. The headlamp flies off and sails down to the belay. She managers to trap it under her foot but it has fatal injuries. So I'm perched up there blindly, leading a pitch in the dark that I've only led a few times before at this point, afraid to tug on the pro I have blindly slotted (and which we all know is marginal even in the daylight). I hold my breath through hose moves, fumble my way to the top, step left onto the trail and build an anchor in the dark, and listen to her curse my name all the way up. The headlamp incident definitely ruined my carefully projected presentation that climbing was a safe "sport" where nothing ever goes wrong. on the plus side, she now believes every "epic" yarn i come home with every time i come home late, which is just about every time (our rope got stuck, mark left his wallet/camera/phone up there, someone stole the rap hangers!/my headlamp died!/and on and on...)

thanks Kev for starting the thread, and thanks Mark for posting the photos; I'd never even seen the third one before (and oh how i miss our little bouldering cliffbands now that i'm back in stumptown - sometimes you don't know what you've gone til it's gone!)

kevbone, i was there with markd and watched ryan prepare to bolt that crack even as we stopped him beforehand and basically said "don't do it." obviously he ignored us and drilled the holes as soon as we walked off. i can assure you it's glue in the photo as me and mark were so pissed we went back and led the crack sans bolts a bit later. i led it again this past fall with my sister, and the glue is so obnoxious you can see it from the road below. if ryan is reading this, we tried to save you from yourself and TOLD YOU that you were bolting an existing trad line using an existing anchor that someone else drilled - and you violated the most basic rule of bolting an existing trad line. oh, and the gear at cougar is surprisingly good. the steeper the wall, the better the gear seems to be the general rule. most of the recent FAs out there have been groundup, no bolts placed on rappel. then again, i've also backed off on 2 ascents there due to loose flakes/blocks.

what bolted cracks are you thinking of, kevbone?

so many opinions, so little time to wade through them. well, here's one more. i agree with bill coe that not all crags are the same, and you're trying to cram a square peg into a round hole if you try to apply the same exact ethics to all crags. i've been developing routes with markd in central OR for a couple years now, and it is true that the area is blessed with solid protectable cracks. i placed only 7 bolts on 2 routes out of 10-12 routes i've been fortunate enough to establish during that time. and i hated it. but those bolts linked cracks on longer lines and were true to the character of that crag, where mixed routes were deemed necessary due to a couple horizontal bands of crackless and looser rock that ran the length of the crag, interrupting otherwise beautiful crack systems. meanwhile, the crag in question is a choss pile, comparatively speaking, and the best rock there is smooth, crack-free face climbing. so, when we rapped over these lines after viewing them from below and deeming them unprotectable, it was obvious that rap-bolting was the only realistic way to develop this crag, unless the majority of the routes (and the best rock there) was to be R or X rated. now, maybe pope or raindawg would say either solo up through chossy 5-10 or 5-11 terrain for 60, 70, 80 feet to "maybe" find a ledge to drill an anchor from. but that would be a death wish, as a quick glance at the base of the crag will show you just how many holds and ledges turned out to be complete garbage once weighted. the central OR ethics simply couldn't be applied here. it was not a matter of a few runouts, or "sacking up," it was a matter of free soloing versus roped climbing. and, clearly, the decision was made to create routes that would allow you to fall and not die or be paralyzed, routes you would actually repeat or recommend to someone. we also left spaces betweeb bolts where there were solid gear placements - a decision that not everyone likes or liked, as we knew there would be a backlash among those who wished we had "convenience bolted" every line so that a rack would not be necessary. but we didn't want mindless climbing, we didn't want to "dumb down" the rock or the experience that future leaders would have. so yes, there are a lot of bolts, but they are not haphazard and do not guarantee safety. i agree with markd that the rap-bolting went too far, and in my opinion set a precedent that gave cover to later routesetters who have by now added a couple squeeze jobs. there was a lot of debate over the need to establish routes on every climbable section of rock, since it would encourage those squeeze jobs. but of course the argument could be made that even one rap-bolted route enables others to rap-bolt to the extent possible. that's about all i wanted to say on the issue, and felt i should, considering i was involved with the devleopment. hopefully this gives a clearer view of the issues we dealt with, and clarifies that we thought long and hard about the consequences of rap-bolting.

hey joseph. i am in the process of buying a house and we're supposed to close in the last week of october, so that's when we'd move up. and no, mark will not be coming with me. sniff sniff. i look forward to some rainy day climbing on steep stuff this winter around town, and making the occasional trip over the pass to the good stuff in central or. if you ever want to join me.

thanks for posting the video, bill, it was nice to be inspired and see something i hope to at least try once i move back in a month or so. kev, can you please respect what bill wrote and take your comments to stewart and bill offline? although you never listen, so i don't know why i'm even bothering to ask. finally, who thinks they're qualified to write a guidebook on ozone without sitting down with or even contacting the 7-8 of us who developed 90% of this place? (i'm making this assumption since i haven't heard a word about this guidebook until i read what bill wrote) since you've already posted on this thread, according to bill, it's pretty easy to narrow it down, but maybe you'll come out of the closet on your own at this point?

Nice FFA on that line. We (the first wave) all knew someone would free that line through the roof, it was just a question of who and when. One question: is that two pieces of fixed gear hanging in the roof? I was there 6 weeks ago and was pretty sure it was fixed gear (cams?). Has that gear been retrieved now that the climb was finally sent? PS - if it's gear, what are those two pieces?

kev, you have been soloing on beacon this year, and you have a beautiful baby boy - so why challenge ivan unless you are, once again, trolling?

what markd said.

My fiancee' bought them just before becoming, um, pregnant, and now they are much too small. They are size US 5, UK 4, Eur 37. They were $90 new, and we'd like to get around $50 or so for them. But we're negotiable. We live in Bend, if it's convenient to see and/or buy them in person. otherwise, I will work on getting a photo of them into this post, but they really appear brand new (still have that new shoe smell!)

i heard from a guide whose fellow guides witnessed the accident -and who saw the helicopter himself - that the fall was fatal. it was a crack (i think a 5-7?)on the block. the theory was that the belayer had to stand back a bit because of a slab at the base, and when she fell the gear pulled out and up and evidently was not placed so as to avoid the zippering effect - which to me still doesn't explain how her top piece failed. that's most of what i know, and most of the rest is pure speculation. apparently the local media have blacked out the story, and the one article that did apear online has been deleted from the archives.

to my knowledge - and i'm in bend - nobody smashed anything. what happened: ryan was told the climb was off-limits. ryan climbed it anyway. jason heard ryan climbed it and told kevbone he was pissed, and had a mind to destroy that route and his neighboring route. a bunch of online chatter and some conversations with ryan have ensued. g spotter and others made a bunch of stupid comments designed to antagonize, and the subjects of the antagonism defended themselves because it's human nature to do so. the thread is now about how the locals are wankers and crybabies because they stood up for an injured climber on principle. but the routes are fine and hopefully stay that way. ryan palo will bring his notoriety to harder routes elsewhere. kevbone will overcompensate for his forced retirement from climbing by posting every our he is at work. i'll go back to lurking until something like this happens again at a crag i care about.

g spotter, you bore me, i'm done with you. pink chalk, i agree that the thing to take away from this is that 2 years is excessive, and jason probably should have opened the route after that much time elapsed. by not doing so, he created a situation where someone would almost certainly climb it against his will. but instead of it being climbed by accident, or by a genuinely ignorant climber, it was climbed by ryan, who admitted he did so for selfish reasons and with full knowledge of why everyone else was showing respect. so now ryan has earned a reputation as "that one selfish guy who knowingly did that off-limits route at ozone that everyone else respected." he may be a great guy, but that's how i know him now. and maybe he thought it through and realized he would get a bad rap from the locals, or maybe he didn't care - but the fact he posted on this thread indicates he does care.

hey g spotter, i was just feeling left out and wanted some of your crap spewed my way. ah, that felt good. and as kevbone and i keep saying: several climbers could have led the climb at any time but didn't because they have at least a little bit of class, as well as respect for the routsetter and his work and his injury. but according to your logic, it would be "ballsy" of me to punch you in the face if i met you and felt i could take you. but i wouldn't EVEN IF I COULD. i could also take candy from a cripple, but i wouldn't. i guess that's the difference between you and most everybody else i know. just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. or did you miss that lesson back in grade school?

g spotter is such a punk, he's even sticking up for ryan just so he can piss off the people who actually care. when you've got like 9,000 posts next to your name it's either because you have no sense of proportion and care about everything, you care about nothing and are just aggravating other people, or you are underemployed and could really use a hobby besides sounding off to strangers. so which is it? when g spotter has your back, and nobody else does, it's pretty clear you're in the wrong. thanks for clearing things up for us g spotter! (are we at 10 pages yet?)

in fairnes to the sender, i guess i should clarify that i don't think he sent the climb out of intentional dis respect, but rather out of a lack of respect. i think there is a big difference. i don't think he meant to piss anyone, or anticipated a negative response from anyone except maybe the routsetter. he actually told me that after the send he went out of his way to inform people of his send, so that others would go out and do the climb now. this supports his reasoning that he wanted to get the climb open to others, and also that he was not trying to hide his send in any way. btw, it is an awesome line, and would see traffic anywhere. assuming the routesetter cools off and doesn't do anything rash, i look forward to finally climbing it on lead.

i don't really want to spend my time entertaining g spotter, so no, i don't want to deal with his absurd hypothetical about crystal meth. or his wanker comments.

kevbone, g spotter is dragging your ass down troll lane, getting you riled up to defend the routesetter and the crag this event took place at. he's doing a good job, too!

well, g spotter has given us his answer, which seems to be that's it's not an issue of morals or ethics, but just survival of the fittest: if a route is bolted and can be led, it should be led by anyone capable of leading, regardless of the specific circumstances surrounding the route or the routesetter. sounds like an easy creed to live by, unless you are the routesetter.