crimper

yesterday the owner went up with me (he was packing heat, which made me feel better) and we saw that my rope (in its segments) was as i left it. in fact, it was in 3 pieces, confirming that there were 2 cuts, not 1. (earlier i had left this part out of my story, but when i snapped the line, a 10 foot section fell to the ground at my feet, meaning there must have been 2 cuts to create 3 pieces. i could not figure out how my one "snap" caused both partial cuts to tear at the exact same moment, which is why i didn't address that confusing fact in my original post - but now that i went back and the owner and i saw all3 pieces, we agreed that beyond a doubt, there were 2 cuts and 3 pieces) the cuts were at the 20 foot mark, and again at the 30 foot mark. anyway, he's pretty concerned that someone - homeless, pot grower, who knows - has gotten territorial about his property. metro knows all of the above and i will be in touch with them. so, beyond a doubt, someone cut the rope twice and this was no accident. i feel like i have more closure now that i have my rope (ropes?) back and confirmed the cuts.

i'll be providing updates if any of my conversations go anywhere. i intend to talk to the owner, the conservation group and metro and see what the options are. the owner also mentioned that he has had homeless/squatter types back there, one of who once started a fire that became a problem. so, i'll be pointing out that one of the 'pros" of allowing climbing is that it would keep away the riff-raff and deter someone froms etting up camp on the land. for example, now that ozone has been outed, it seems like it's no longer attractive to sketchy hermit/loner/squatter types.

well..i still don't know who cut my rope...and i have been told i don't have permission to climb there anymore...but at least i can retrieve the "stolen" ropes. i'd say i'm 1 for 3 so far.

i talked with the owner today. the ropes were taken by a metro survey crew, who gave it to the owner to hold on to. so that solves that mystery. the owner also said that apparently metro owns a portion of the crag, and the remainder - while still owned by him - was granted by him as an easement to a conservation group. the conservation group apparently does not currently "allow" climbing there and the owner made clear that until talks can develop, no climbing should occur there. however, the owner felt there was a possibility for climbing to be allowed there in the future with some restrictions and i am going to do what i can to achieve as much access as possible. wish me luck!

if you read this and want to avoid the crag, 5 minutes with olson's guide will conclusively show you where it is.

no, i didn't try to contact the owner. i also think it near impossible that the owner cut the rope to cause a murder and possible lawsuit on his property. we can debate my actions all day, but my point in posting here is that this crag is described in olson's most recent guide - with 8 or so route descriptions - and there is no mention of access issues (that i can remember), so i want to provide a warning to anyone who owns the guide and wants to check the crag out like we did.

deliverance is honestly the first thing i thought.

why be so secretive? i'm not sure how this will all play out on down the road and for now i'd like to not name the crag. further, i'm trying to perform a public service by telling people: 1)in general they should always inspect fixed gear left at a crag, no matter how remote or "safe" seeming because you have now introduced uncertainty and a lack of control into your safety system, and 2) this happened at a crag within 10 miles of carver and madrone. if you climb in that area, or plan to, you should know this happened and perhaps re-think a visit there, or at least not leave any gear there. if you don't plan on climbing around this area, then only 1) above applies and there's no need to know the name in order to learn the lesson.

i don't think so, bill. it's not carver. and i don't know of anyone else climbing here or any issues with the owner. this place was developed in the mid 1990s with the owner's permission. Pm me if you want.

yep. i was able to snap the uncut strand - and thus the rope in 2 - simply by holding the bulk of the rope in my arms and walking uphill, then straining backwards to make that strand break like a guitar string. twing! that would have been the last sound i heard.

i can't stop thinking about the mindset and mentality of the cutter and i wonder if he watched us on other days while we climbed.

the title might be dramatic but that's what i experienced last saturday at an unnamed crag - not madrone or carver - along the Clackamas. i am posting this as a warning to anyone who climbs at this crag, or who might in the future, and also to anyone who has ever left a fixed line anywhere. the crag has its own section in tim olson's latest portland rock guide, which is why i'm writing this. if you have the guide, you can figure it out pretty easily. so i want to make sure people know of the issue here before they wander into danger either from climbing or leaving fixed gear here. in brief: I had left a fixed single line on a tree so i could use it to rap down to a bolted anchor for a 100 foot climb i'd recently established. A few months ago 2 or 3 of us had our fixed lines stolen off nearby trees, but i re-set this rope much further downhill and hidden near the very edge. i used it once a month ago without incident, and upon seeing it still there i assumed it was safe in this new location. Since you may be thinking this: I have never left fixed lines anywhere else I have ever developed, but this crag is a fair hike and has some involved bushwhacking and appeared so remote and private that we felt OK leaving lines there. Anyway, I got there saturday and prepared to rap in with a gri gri when I noticed what seemed like a frayed end of the rope, mixed into the middle of my rope pile. i briefly inspected, and it seemed to be a frayed end, which i thought was odd because i didn't remember ever cutting this rope short. in hindsight, i must not have looked carefully enough, because as i would soon find out it was not an end, but rather a knife cut in the rope 25 feet down from the knot at the tree. i then pulled out some slack because I needed to traverse 20-25 feet to use another tree as a directional and didn't want the tension of the gri gri while i traversed (remember, i had put my rope on this tree because it was hard to see, not necessarily convenient). This saved my life because at that 25 foot mark I saw that the "frayed end" in fact was a clean cut in my rope, yet the cutter left one single core strand still connecting the rope. I think the perpetrator wanted the rope to appear intact when i threw it over the edge, with the cut being invisible below the lip - and then rap off to my death. they also were giving me a fighting chance because if i saw the cut i would live. if not, i would die. if i hadn't noticed the partial cut, you all would be reading that my rope "failed" or "was sliced on a sharp edge" as i rapped over the edge. it's doubtful there would be evidence that the cut was manmade. scary shit, huh, that someone would set a lethal trap for a total stranger just to be territorial? i am also positive as i can be that no animal chewed through the rope. the cut was in the middle of the pile, stuffed into the pile in a way inaccessible for any mammal's teeth to reach. only a human with intent to hide the cut could have hidden the cut back in the middle of the pile. i've heard mice chew on ropes in the desert for salt, but it has been raining constantly this spring, and my 10.2 rope was cut down to one tiny strand. the strand was also 6 inches long, which is what happens when a rope is cut suddenly with a knife and the ends spring apart from each other. in connection with the stolen ropes and everything else, too many coincidences for this not be done by a person. so: if you ever leave a fixed rope out there, ALWAYS inspect every inch of your rope for animal or man-made damage. if i had been rapping down, and thrown the rope casually over the edge, i'd b dead right now. also, there is a murderous psycho feeling territorial about this crag and he (probably not a she, i'm thinking) clearly has no problem with someone dying in order to discourage climber presence at this crag. send me a PM if you live around here and feel you need to know more. i'm thankful to be around to tell about this, and feel obligated to try and warn people about what happened or could happen out there.

cruiser is right. i had more trouble a bit lower when trying to commit to the 5.6plus friction crux until i realized i could traverse right to an easier crack and bypass those moves (didn't leave any gear in it so my partner could just head straight up through the friction crux). but if you are used to granite i'm sure it's not a big deal. and for what it's worth, the west face of the spire to the left (north? south? whatever is to the left) was a cleaner, steeper, prouder line that any 5-9 leader can get through with a little french freeing. but maybe you know that already....

brougton has the easiest toproping access (you can safely clip a few of the anchors without having to be on a rope or having to rap in to the anchor). at ozone you would need to rap in from a tree first - you can't just traverse or safely downclimb to any of those anchors - and that's a sketchy enterprise when you don't even know where the anchors below you are, or whether you will find an anchor, or what route goes to any anchor that you might find. www.mountainproject.com has like 15-20 ozone routes posted, and i think a few are all sport. check it out. maybe your 5-9 partner can fall, hang and french free up a few 10s! here's a bolted 5-8: http://www.mountainproject.com/v/washington/ozone/new_school_area__mordor/106439545

joe, you did promise to stay out of it....

i led this one, and as i only touch a granite once maybe twice a year (living in oregon with a couple toddlers) i usually get humbled when i leave the basalt. so i brought a new 4 and old 5 with me. i placed them both and it made the moves as safe as can be. also, the climbing was much easier than i expected, and i think i was even smiling with relief as i exited the wideness. but a fall without that 5 in up higher would smack you right on an unavoidable ledge, no doubt about it, so if you worry about that kind of thing (i do) i'd say bring the gear. but if smacking a ledge concerns you less than the extra pound or whatever, leave the gear at home. have fun!

if and when folks get to see madrone up close and personal - or when the wildlife folks get close and search for nests - they are going to find chalk all over the cliff that clearly is not left over from 1999. and if they also conclude that the birds are thriving despite obvious and regular climber presence, i would hope that - as bill coe suggests - they connect the dots and revisit whether climber presence actually harms the birds as much as they think. but if the evidence at madrone is ignored because it undermines existing closures elsewhere, it might be easy to conclude that the wildlife experts perhaps do have a bias against climber-bird interaction and are not interested in learning whether the two can co-exist. i sure hope that's not the case because most climbers rightfully respect wildlife closures precisely because they believe they are truly necessary.

i'm on a road shaped like a figure 8 i'm going nowhere but i'm guaranteed to be late

checat, what does this mean? (cut and pasted from page one) "Was it made clear to a new generation of climbers that the line (and others like it) had been climbed without the "new" crimper(username) bolts?" i only ask because you seem to be referring to me, and to drop zone, and i wonder why you are connecting that crag to your bouldering spot...but maybe i shouldn't have bothered to ask... you can send me a PM too instead

i feel like i'm wasting my breath every time i post that this little chopping controversy has been resolved and there is peace in the valley, but lots of you want to maintain the drama, or the impression that there is drama out there. i'm starting to feel bad that i ever took the bait and re-framed the issue once kevbone and bill started knocking it around...i only feel bad because instead of bringing people together in agreement that chopping a friend's route without warning is a bad move - and leaving it at that - there's been all this irrelevant seattle versus portland and oregon versus washington shit-talking... ...which i guess is funny to read...so remind me again why i'm complaining???

i guess this is me hijacking the thread BUT this little tempest ina teapot shouldn't be seen as the new guys versus the old guys. not true at all. it's more like these guys (and their younger buddies too) have a vision for the crag that i am on board with about 95%. it's well suited to heady gear-only climbs that will appeal to non-sport climbers. but very few of those climbs exceed 5.10a/b. although i'm definitely challenged by 10a/b trad lines, i also want to put up harder routes, and the blanker steeper harder chunks of the rock generally are on faces. but the faces aren't very tall, and usually have cracks both above and below them. so i've agonized over minimal bolts to protect just the face sections. it's true, these lines could be left as topropes, but it's pretty much a given that the experience and reward of leading a challenging climb are much greater than just doing the moves on a toprope. and jim has talked about the crag being a training ground, and now seems to get that having a few (very few, given that the crag is almost tapped out) harder and heady mixed routes provides a lesson, too. so he and i found common ground there, and it's a success story that we went from chopping bolts to agreeing that compromise is possible. right now, and 10 years from now, people are gonna be psyched to have a handful of harder 5-10 and even 5-11 climbs to hop on in between easier gear only leads. but this crag will never be appealing to the masses, it will always be dirty and sketchy and ugly at first blush, and it will never have sport routes like ozone. (they've been quarantined in there) PS - anyone who puts up routes and names them (the routes here all have names) is doing it for both the raw experience and the satisfaction of having their "own" route. putting up harder routes that challenge you is just a bonus.

i want this thread to go 26 pages so lance can prove his point. we're off to a pretty shaky start here... there have been studies showing that gossip - like these threads - have a positive social impact because they highlight bad behavior and demonstrate the negative consequences of that bad behavior. when you hear gossip, you instinctively draw lessons and modify your future behavior - unless you're on the fringes of society or a self-styled stubborn iconoclast or whatever. anyway....climbing is one of the most selfish pursuits out there because it requires a relatively huge amount of time and resources. even sport climbing or bouldering takes a minimum of 3-4 hours away from your family for even the shortest session at the closest crag. so as with most selfish endeavors, a lot of justification and investment is required. so when someone chops my bolts, it's more personal than if a certain trail got closed and i couldn't run or bike on it. plus, my bolts weren't chopped by the government, but by a fellow climber. that hits a different nerve. so maybe the pdx gossip and drama has a useful purpose after all if it solves problems and helps modify local ethics, etc. it's also good entertainment, lance, or you would never have spent the time to comment on the show we are putting on for you.

dude, you have 1670 posts. were they all as pointless as your opening "salvo" or "volley" or whatever you wish it to be called? at least you could have written something funny and worthy of your subject. i can hardly muster this limp reply...

a lot of this stuff could be discussed tomorrow night if you boys can keep it in yer pants til then. love, bryan.

keep the pictures coming and the masses will be sure to avoid this chosspile