Plaidman

What is the point of you even existing? This is supposed to be a NICE spray thread. I have been violated. I think. Maybe?

Sent a little money. I hope someone will do the same for me if I was there. All the love and prayer man. You can do it! Plaidman

Had to get out of the house. Got some great shots of the fall colors. Took the wife and dog up to Angels Rest.

Here are some pics Jake Plaidman will NEVER be benighted again Delirious Plaidman. So happy to be in the Big Valley Plaidman at third belay on Snake Dike Plaidman leading the first pitch of The Grack Plaidman still getting it done on The Grack Plaidman firing off on the Second pitch Posing for the camera Washington Column and North Dome Plaidman leading second pitch of Snake Dike Plaidman at the top of the 3rd pitch Rick at the top of the third pitch The raging storm on the second pitch of After 6 looking toward Middle Cathedral

Spoken like a true dirtbag. I am with you 100% Plaidman

Trip: Yosemite Valley - Date: 10/8/2009 Trip Report: Big Valley Oct. 8th – 13th 2009 The trip to Yosemite had been planned for months. We decided to move it up a week and now I am glad we did. Rick made his van available for the trip and provided all the gas. Rick is the best. I talked him into the trip by selling him on the idea of summiting on Half Dome by way of the Snake Dike route. I sold it like a snake oil salesman from the old west. I played it up as the greatest summit in the world and that it would cure all his ills. We rolled out of Portland Oregon a little after 8 am on Thursday morning. We took turns driving and we had no issues with the van, it drove great. It was chocked full of all our gear. 5 ropes, every piece of gear I owned and several I had borrowed, and two stoves. I had two sleeping bags just in case it got really cold. We each brought a tent. And to top it all off we brought a wheel barrow. That was so we could get all that crap into our camp site. We crossed the border into California and stopped at the Agriculture Produce check point. The officer asked if we had any fruit or vegetables. I said “No but he and I are a pear”. She didn’t even miss a beet and said a pear of what? Well they didn’t arrest us for the bad joke. We arrived in the Yosemite Valley after midnight. Camp 4 was full and we had to wait till the morning to find out if we could get in. So off we went to find other digs for the night. Rick rented a tent cabin. I tried to sleep and couldn’t. It could have been the four 24 ounce cups of coffee I drank, with the 6 shots of espresso. Ya think? I lay in bed for 2 hours and got up at 4 am to stand in line for Camp 4 camping. I got in line at 4:45 and waited until the ranger showed up at 8:30 am. We paid our fee and got our site. Wahoooo. Camp 4 is such an awesome place. It’s like the United Nations of climbing. There are climbers from all over the world. It was really worth it getting up so early to get in to that camp ground. I wanted to give Rick the whole experience. We set up camp and got ready to go climbing. I was really moving slow with no sleep. To The Grack we went. It is a 5 star route that had been suggested by a friend of ours. The approach was short. We needed to save our energy for Snake Dike the next day. We got to the base of the climb and found no line. It was late in the afternoon and everyone was leaving. We had the place to ourselves. I set off on the on sight attempt on this route. I briefly looked at the guide book and started climbing. I got to the crux of the route and was stymied by the awkward bulging feature in front of me. To the left looked too easy. 5.5 at most, but the bulge looked harder than 5.6 like the guide book said. I moved up and placed a ridiculous amount of gear and after committing to the move up past the bulge realized it was not necessary. That is why the on sight is so much fun. Guide books can be so vague and objective. Made it to the anchor and brought Rick up. The next pitch was the most fun hand crack that I have ever climbed. I ran up it. I didn’t even want to stop to place gear. It was truly a dream pitch. Rick had fun too. Then for the money pitch. The reason we were climbing this route was to introduce Rick to Yosemite Valley friction slab climbing. I wanted him to have this technique dialed in before he got slapped up side the side of the head on the 3rd pitch of Snake Dike. Rick jumped on the last pitch and commented that friction slab climbing is like ice climbing. “Great then you won’t have any problems tomorrow” I said. We were having a great time. We had the crag all to ourselves and what a spot. The sun was setting and the colors were incredible. No wind at all and 60 degrees. What an awesome day. We rapped off and made our way back to Camp 4. We needed to get some sleep for our next day of adventure. I set the alarm for 3:00 a.m. I normally don’t have a problem getting up for a big climb. But this morning I thought we could sleep in another hour. Rick was having no of it. He was up and knocking on my tent. I got up and we were in the van and at the trailhead by 4:00 a.m. The hike up was not difficult. The plan was to stash water where we took off from the trail. We stashed the pack and Rick took pictures of the area so we could find it later. After hiking for a bit more we gained the south face of Liberty Cap and skirted the base to the left. We found the correct trail and moved up to some exposed 3rd class scrambling. The exposure was a bit unnerving and Rick got to a spot were the trail ended. It looked like we would have to down climb about 20 feet. The problem with this was that if we slipped or fell we would bounce down onto a ledge and fall 400 feet into the abyss. I looked back about ten feet and spotted a cairn in a tree. Someone had just saved our ass. Normally I take cairns with a grain of salt. All they really prove is that someone was there and their next act could have been to fall to their death. In this case someone knew what they were doing. We made our way up the cut between Mt. Broderick and Liberty Cap. This is an awesome spot in the Valley to be. I started having leg cramps. The muscles on top of my legs in the quads and into my inner thigh started cramping so bad that I had to stop and sit down several times. The muscles were literally jumping and squirming. I kept moving forward and drank more water. When we made it out of the cleft I was still having problems with cramps. So we stopped and ate. Rick had some really good jerky that had a lot of salt in it and also some flattened dry banana. The salt and the potassium seemed to help and I drank more water. It seemed to alleviate the cramps. We made it up onto the slabs just under Half Dome. The wall of granite above us was very intimidating as it lorded itself above us. It dominated ¾ of our field of vision. Our sense of perspective was askew. Everything in the Big Valley does that to you. Everything is so large and we were so small. We were in the Valley of Giants and we were the little people. We found the slabs and moved up until we found the ledges to traverse to our left. We met some other climbers that got lost in the manzanita maze. The woman was not happy as it had caught her pack, rope, hair and ripped her clothing. Rick wanted to rope up over the ledges as they were strewn with marble sized rocks and the exposure was intense. It looked like one hundred feet of steep slab below us. But by this time we knew that it was very likely much further. So rope up we did. Two rope lengths later we walked up to the base of Snake Dike. We were greeted by a long line of folks. They explained to us the circus that was going on above us on the first pitch. It really was a circus with clowns, jugglers, and midgets. WOW! You don’t often see a cluster fuck of that magnitude. We were told there was a point when 8 ropes were headed to the same anchor. Leaders out of control. Rick and I waited for 3 ½ hours to start climbing. Two parties bailed and started the dismal hike back down to the trailhead. We were determined to finish this climb. We started up Snake Dike at 3:30 p.m. All the pitches went well. When I led the first pitch I did a friction traverse to the slab below the eyebrow and did not even try the slippery traverse under the eyebrow. I lowered off my first piece and swung across. I led the second and third pitch better than I did when I climbed it 2 years before. When I led the 3 third pitch crux I went high instead of low after the bolt. When I led it before I went low and it was much harder. There were only little teaspoons to try to smear my shoes into. When I went high it was only one move that really that got my full attention. I had to commit to a high step smear similar to one that I had come across earlier this summer in Colorado. That day I would not commit, but this day it was on and I made the move. Success. Thank God! It was a run out move but I would not have hit anything if I had fallen. After I gained the dike I did not clip the rap anchor that was there. It was two hangers and bolts and I skipped it to make it easier for Rick. I went up another 20 feet to the next hanger and clipped that with a 48” runner so that his fall and pendulum potential would be negated to a high degree. I could give him tension without pulling him off, so that he could top rope the traverse. I saw a guy come back to Camp 4 that looked like he had be run over and dragged by a truck. I asked him what happened. He explained that he had been following the 3rd pitch friction traverse on Snake Dike and had fallen and pendulumed. He was in really bad shape and I didn’t want Rick to get the same present. I think it would have been the end of our trip. Any time you don’t fall when climbing that is good. That is why they call it climbing and not falling. We were fully on the dike now. The dike is an odd formation. It is pink to white in color and protrudes out of the glacier polished granite face. I have likened the dike to climbing the back of a stegosaurus or a ladder. There are knobs, chicken heads, scoops and holes. It is really a menagerie of beautiful sculptured rock. There are no cracks to speak of so the bolts were added here and there. I found a description of how the feature was formed at: http://www.nps.gov/grte/planyourvisit/upload/geology.pdf magma (molten rock) forced its way up through cracks and zones of weakness in the gneiss. This igneous (formed by heat) rock slowly cooled, forming light-colored intrusions called dikes of granite, inches to hundreds of feet thick. The wind died down after the 4th pitch and it warmed up a bit. We were concerned about getting the climb done as the sun was starting to set. By this time we were fully committed to the climb. We had one rope, I had two headlamps and Rick had battery back up. Up we went. Soon it would get dark. So we got the headlamps out. I led the 5th pitch which has a hole in the rock at the belay. There was water in it. It smelled terrible. We tried to keep the rope out of it. The sun was setting as Rick climbed up to me at the belay. I set off in the dark on the 6th pitch and found the single bolt on the pitch by using my headlamp like a search light. Hangers and bolts are hard to see with a headlamp. I didn’t realize how dim my headlamp was until the next evening when comparing it with Rick’s. I was exasperated to find that my headlamp compared to his was like a 5 watt bulb to his 200 watt bulb. It could have been easier to climb using his headlamp. But not as much adventure. I found the next two bolt anchor by Braille. Not easy to do on a polished granite friction slab. The next pitch I knew I was supposed to go straight up and not follow the dike any more. I was not sure if there were any bolts or protection. Thus I set off on my next treasure hunt blindfolded. I went up on the 5.2 friction slab and wished for a bolt. I was coaching myself. “You are doing great. Just keep moving. You are doing great” Then there must have been an invisible line after I got 50 feet from the anchor. The thought of a factor two fall on the anchor after sliding an tumbling and maybe getting roughed up by the dike must have reach critical mass. Because instantly I went from being fine to terror. I have yet to experience such alarm so fast. Rick must have heard me swallow my heart and yelled up “Hang in there buddy”. It was the perfect thing for him to say. I sucked it up and moved up and right 15 more feet grabbed a flake and slammed in a #1 Camalot. Then I almost puked on my shoes. I was shaking so bad I just breathed deep to calm down before continuing up. I built an anchor and brought Rick up to me. I told him that I was not sure where to go now. My instinct told me to go left but the guide book had told me not to go left at the beginning of the pitch. We could have referred to the guide book if we had brought it. But we had left it with the water that we had stashed. I had made copies of the route and was going to have them laminated. But they were in Portland 800 miles away. We felt like we were on the dark side of the Moon. Out came the cell phone. I called several climbers to ask if they had their guide book to Yosemite Valley handy. Bill Coe told me to call Ben because Bill was driving. Finally I got a hold of Ben and he asked why we needed it. I told him we were lost in the dark on Snake Dike and after he had finished laughing his ass off he walked us through the last pitches of the climb. I also had my wife call YOSAR to tell them that we were fine just in case someone had told them we were up there. I didn’t want someone wasting any effort checking on us. We continued and my memory of the route came back a little brighter than the headlamp I was using. We made it to the top of the 8th pitch and my instincts were correct. We stayed on route. As I was climbing some kind of rat like animal kept running up to me to check me out. Then it would run away. I started yelling at it to stay away because I was busy. It was a strange animal with large eyes and a tuft of fur on the end of a long tail. It really looked like a large rat. It sure was curious about us. We stayed roped up and pitched it out for two more belays. Just to be safe. Then we started simil climbing with a running belay. The rope drag was horrendous so I had Rick tie in short so we were not dragging the rope across the slabs. We were really starting to suffer from attitude sickness. Not altitude sickness. We were not high enough for that. We finally took the rope off. It was starting to brush up on rocks and I was concerned with knocking them off and having them start to pitch off and roll down the route. We stayed roped up for a couple of reasons. It was dark, I was fried mentally and we were just pain tired. We made it to the summit at midnight and were greeted my no wind and the moon rise. We could have used that earlier. We wandered over to The Visor. This is a feature on the Half Dome. When I had climbed it last time my partner and I slid out on our bellies to look over the edge. It is fully a 2000 foot sheer cliff face. We decided that it may not be a good idea considering how tired we were and that it was pitch black and we wouldn’t see anything anyway. I knew the general direction of the Cable Route so we could use that to get off Half Dome. We did not commit to anything and stayed away from the edge. We were just about to give up when Rick flipped on his search light feature on his headlamp (something that I could have used earlier). And there they were the cables. We ran over and I used my daisy chain on my harness and two carabineers to attach my self to the cable. I would slide one biner down until it came to the post holding up the cable and then grabbed the other biner attach it. After it was clipped in I would remove the other biner. So I was always attached to the cable. The route between the cables is polished and slick. Rick fell a few times going down. Most tourists go up it with no protection. It’s hard to believe that it is allowed by the Park Service. One slip and you are tumbling down the side of Half Dome. We got off the cables. Out of water we started the 9 mile hike out. At times I was barely moving shuffling my feet along the trail. But we kept moving. We ran into other hikers in the dark and they shared their water with us. We had food but they offered that also. I went into autopilot. My energy level would go up and down all the way down the trail. At times I was able to almost run down and then I would be back to scuffling. I was moving and that was all that counted. Rick and I got separated at one point but we had radios to communicate with. He looked for the pack with the water while I continued to move down the trail. I was concerned that the cramps would come back to debilitate me. I just wanted to get back to camp. It took Rick an hour to find the pack. Even with pictures of our stash spot at the bottom of Nevada Falls. He could not find it right away. I had the vitamin I (ibuprofen). I stashed it for him on the trail and talked him to it over the radio. I was stopping for nothing. We made it back to the van at 8:30 a.m. We had been hiking, waiting to climb or climbing for 28 ½ hours. We started calling ourselves team epic. We may not climb fast but we will sure get there last. Or we don’t climb fast but we climb long. I was able to talk Rick into going to the all you can eat breakfast buffet at Curry Village. He almost did a face plant in his eggs. He had the bright idea of taking a shower since we were right there. He even carried my towel for me. I have to say that was the coldest shower I have ever taken. I was almost hypothermic. There was no heat in the building and a very cold breeze with the door open. The water couldn’t have been more that lukewarm. It was the worst part of the ordeal. Now I was really smoked. Rick started driving over to Yosemite Village so I could go to the store to buy celery. I was told by Jim Opdycke that it is the cure for muscle cramps after climbing. It seems to work. My other option I figured was to go to the Valley clinic and get an IV to deal with the dehydration. Driving to the store Rick almost fell asleep twice. So I insisted on driving. After getting the celery we rolled into Camp 4 and our tents. At this point we had been up from 3:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. the next day. 32 hours total. Following a three hour nap I talked Ricky into going to look at Sacherer Cracker. We drove down to take a look. Walking up to El Capitan Rick was overwhelmed by the massiveness of the face. He said and you want to climb that. My response damn right I do. We took pictures and walked up and looked at Sacherer Cracker. I reasoned that today in the state I was in. I think it was California. There was no way I was going even to attempt it. Down we went back to the car. We figured it was good to get out and hike so the lactic acid would not just ferment in our muscles. I told Rick to pick something out on the Manure Pile Buttress. We were suffering from approachitis and the 5 minute approach was very appealing. I figured that I owed him some fun after putting him trough the meat grinder. We went back to Camp 4 to rest up for the next day. We woke up late and took our time getting started. After racking up we headed to the Manure Pile Buttress. I told Rick you pick. It’s your day. We will climb anything that you want to. And if it has people on it we will climb what ever is open. We got on the road and at the bus stop we saw some climbers. So we offered them a ride. It turned out they were from the Czech Republic. We enjoyed talking with them about some of the climbing areas in Europe. Like Dresden and others. They had climbed a lot in Dresden and had many stories to tell. We dropped them off and continued to get on over to our climb. The After 6 route was open and it was something I had led before. We started up and in the crux section the audience that had gathered to watch another party on the next climb over started to get unruly and disruptive. They had small children running around falling over and smacking their heads on the ground. When one of them split their lip and started screaming while I was trying to pull the crux I lost it and fell. I was not really feeling it before. But I thought whatever that kid wants give them two. The guy next to us would not stop talking to Rick. So I barked at Rick “it’s me and you and no one else here. Watch me!”and the guy shut up. No that I had un-sighted my previous on sight of After 6. I started pulling on gear and struggled up. That 1st pitch is really greasy and even more so after the hoards have climbed it all summer. When we got to the top of the 2nd pitch the wild started howling and the clouds started building. I knew that we could bail on the 4th pitch so I wasn’t too concerned. We got to the 4th pitch and I thought I felt a pellet of hail. I screamed into the radio to Rick “You had better move your ass cause I felt some hail. I can climb in the dark and the rain but I am not sure I can climb in a hail storm. And hail means lighting.” I led the last pitch really fast and got under the tree at the belay. No he could take all the time he wanted. The weather held and we made it off the climb and down to the trail. No rain this trip and thankfully no hail. Back to Camp 4 for some dinner. After making dinner I decided to go look for the Camp 4 Wall. I told Rick I would be right back. The light was fading so on with the headlamp. I was hiking in the dark again. I kept running out of sunlight. After stumbling around for a while I found the Wall and looked at a few wide cracks and some stuff that was not in the guide book. I stayed well away from any ledges and worked my way in the drainage that leads to the Wall from Camp 4. Somehow I had missed the drainage on the way up. In the guide book it seemed to me that the drainage would contain fist sized rocks and be kind of gravely. Wrong, the rocks in the drainage were the size of apartment buildings with drops of over 20 and 30 feet. In the dark it was not easy finding my way down. I had to keep skirting my way into the woods. Eventually I heard the laughter and camaraderie of Camp 4 and walked back to camp. I told Rick what I had done. He said “You’re nuts”. Well I had to go just look. Now I know where it is. Later that night I heard the sound of guitar and singing. Wandering over I found the Czeck’s that we had given a ride singing Czech folk songs. I joined in and had a great time faking singing in Czech. Then to bed as we were leaving in the morning. We woke up to a slight drizzle and I thought if we hurried we could get all our stuff in the van before it really let loose. I sent Rick after the van. I packed the rest of the stuff and checked the bear boxes for our food loaded it all in the wheel barrow. Rick drove up and parked in the woods and I ran over with a load, handed it to him and ran back for another. We had the van packed in 10 minutes and hit the road. We made it before the rain really came down. On the way out to the park we stopped to see Generator Crack and vowed to come back and tackle it. The storm hit as we were leaving and it rained most of the way back to Oregon. We certainly hit the best weather window and had an incredible trip. The trip of a lifetime in the Big Valley. We climbed as near as we can figure about 23 pitches of roped climbing including simil climbing with running belays and over 20 miles of hiking in four days. We were happy to have had such a great trip in the bag. Plaidman Gear Notes: Too much gear always. Wide stuff I never used. Approach Notes: We climbed as near as we can figure about 23 pitches of roped climbing including simil climbing with running belays and over 20 miles of hiking in four days.

Trip: Yosemite Friction Tour - The Grack Date: 10/9/2009 Trip Report: This is when Rick and I were still having fun and had not been beaten to smallness by the Big Valley. The weather was off the charts fantastic. Warm and no wind. We had the route all to ourselves. Video not edited for small ears. Sorry. Just a friendly notice of the content. Plaidman Gear Notes: Standard rack. Which with me is a ridiculous amount of gear. Approach Notes: Really short and easy.

Try doing the last 3 pitches in the dark with a shitty headlamp. Think of the sun and minus a blackhole. Very exciting and scary. We felt like we were on the dark side of the moon. Plaidman

We did have some fun. Here is some footage of us on The Grack. The Grack is on Glacier Point Apron. Plaidman

Will, what are we doing here? Did you erase some sick pic? (Edited by willstrickland (10/04/09 07:09 PM) Edit Reason: whiners) The whiners must have erased their posts...... Yeah Will what up?

Happened to me a few years ago. File a police report they told me if I saw any of my gear just to take it back. It is legal to do it. I am still looking. Also I got some of my gear back after posting it on craigs list that it was stolen with a description of the stuff. See my post at: Stolen Gear Plaidman

How's that Will? I added Carriage Returns. Carriage ReturnCarriage ReturnCarriage ReturnCarriage Return

Thanks. My friend told me three weeks would be perfect. Enough time to get it done without getting burnt out. My wife and I are trying to figure out how to live between there and Indian Creek. The Valley is such a magical place. There were times I just stood and cried. Plaidman

Nice job guys. Wish I was there with you. Plaidman

The gear cleaned off the 4th pitch of Snake Dike: It is still daytime. Plaidman

Wow. Thanks Joseph. Plaidman

This is the video of us Smoked at the top out on Snake Dike at flipping midnight. Click on the link:

The first time I climbed Snake Dike the day after I on sighted the first pitch of Nutcracker did the second pitch and rappped off. So I was comparing bananas to atom bombs. This time after a 3 hour nap we hiked up to the Schacker Cracker and wanted to throw up. It was good to get up and get the lactic acid out of our muscles before we went into that sleep of the dead. Plaidman

Here are some photos. Carriage Return Carriage ReturnCarriage ReturnCarriage ReturnCarriage ReturnCarriage ReturnCarriage ReturnCarriage Return Carriage Return Carriage Return

Trip: Yosemite Wide Tour - A Bust - Short Version - Date: 10/8/2009 Trip Report: Well I can only report that the wide tour did not happen. I am working on a detail account of the facts. Here is a short version of the epic. Got lots of pics. Will Post soon. I will never spray again about the big things I am going to do. I got seriously smoked by the Big Valley. Plaidman Gear Notes: Took wide gear. Never used it.

Three cameras and a better video taking unit. Lot's of pictures on the way. See ya all in 5 days. WAAAAAHOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

royal arches to cres jool :kisss: Yeah Yeah. Sounds good. Good to see you back Pink. Plaidman

OHHHHHH!!! My list is toooooo long. I will have to highjack Rick and tell him we are marooned and must stay until the list is done. I have looked at Crest Jewel. It's a long hike too. Plaidman

I don't know how it missed the list? There are some boulder problems with wide cracks on the way up on the 3 class scramble up to the top. I talked my climbing partner Rick into the trip by selling Snake Dike as the most classic route in the world. Kinda like a snake oil salesman. I really hyped it up. It really is a cool way to get up on Half Dome. I have forgotten the pain of the hike from the last time up. Mostly I have forgotten now that the nostalgia has had time to ferment. It does have the nickname of Snake Hike. Looking forward to doing it faster and with a whole lot less gear. Plaidman

This is why you just solo it Something like they do. [video:youtube]v1gYBeWnbJU Wild!!! I heard that Mark Twight tried that stuff too. Thanks for putting that up. Question where is his survival suit in case he takes a dump in the water. Not quite like deep water soloing in Thailand. Plaidman Plaidman