layton

thanks! i got a Dell for $850 with all the goodies.

too late, i got a dell. i'll get an apple when i have more than Fin aid to pay for shit. total price 850 for my requirements

just in case marcus is reading this. when i said he wanted to quit, he really didn't want to quit, he just stated on the ride home that's how he felt, but had NO intention of doing so and rather forcefully shoved me that rack with the, "yeah, this sucks total ass, but you better lead this next pitch and if you mention bailing i will make things much more painful t han they already are" expression that transended words.

Found one of those on the NF inspiration! sorry the pic is so damn big and poorly scanned

Climb: Illumination Rock-Rime Dog 3rd ascent III 5.9 mixed 200m 4/24/04 Date of Climb: 4/24/2005 Trip Report: Edit: I've edited this thing twice now. 1st we thought we did Iron Maiden, then according to sources we did an FA, but Wayne corrected us since he's done all the routes on I-rock, and I guess we did the 3rd ascent of Rime Dog Finally, after a record number of failures due to weather, conditions, gear, time, etc...Marcus Donaldson and I were finally able to unleash the fury -which was well pent up from our almost weekly forrays into failure. Despite a 60% chance of snowstorms and even t-storms, Marcus and I drove up to Timerbline Lodge below Mt Hood arrive at a little after 5am. We could see a nice storm cloud growing above the summit of Hood and the wind was whippin'. The worst part of the slog up to Illumination Rock is havign done it before and remembering how long and boring that approach is. The mountain definately seems closer than it is, so it took us about 3 hours from starting to skin up the slope to being on belay. I am a terrible skiier so I left my skiis at the top of the upper Palmer lifts. This was a mistake and a blessing (more later). The route we were attempting starts left of the South Chamber up a series of gullies and headwalls. It looks like a ridge climb when viewed from the side, so it's pretty interesting to find gullies on a rather improbable looking line. The ice climb, "March Madness" was almost ready to climb (on the east face -a 1.5 pitch wi4) but was pretty thin and the ice looked very very very shitty. It wasn't even an option as we only brought one 17 cm screw anyways. I dug out a little platform and belayed Marcus up the 1st pitch. I wish I could say how hard it was or if it was good or not, but 2nding it, i got my ass fully handed to me. Unbelievable amounts of spindrift from above and from the howling wind completely blinded me. I mean i could not see anything. Snow and ice collected behind my belay parka (which i never took off througout the whole day) and gave me ice-cream headaches while i tried to claw my way up the pitch. None of the "ice" or rime would hold a stick. The rime would just collapse or chunk off, holding neither pick nor screw. In fact, during the whole climb neither of us got a single solid pick placement on the already marginal amount of ice and rime on the route. What we did have was tons of powder snow over rock and slab. Needless to say i was not too excited by the time i reached the end of the ropestrecher pitch. I was freezing and already covered in snow from head to toe. He wanted to quit when he reached the belay and knew i would feel the same by the time i reached it. But we had committed to doing a route together this winter and this was our final opportunity to do one. I took the rack and led out, just going through the motions of climbing, hoping that would psych me up again. His statement of, "hey, put a piece in quickly, i don't think this anchor will hold" didn't help much. I climbed up a pitch and put in a belay where i thought the route should go. I didn't really know b/c i couldn't see jack shit. I got about one second of vision between numerous bouts of furious blinking. Marcus's turn again. I put the belay directly under a rock headwall. Immediately above loomed a groove or offwidth looking section that went up about 50 feet into what looked like more headwall and rime gargoyles. Marcus did an amazing lead, and i could hear him talking to himself (saying very bad things) as he loudly grunted his way up. I climbed up and was very impressed. It was about hard 5.9 climbing with tools and crampons. I had to chimney, drop knee, layback, and handjam with extremely shitty feet (i.e. no feet). Then a run out tip-toe traverse on slab with quite the drop to another don't fall on me belay on the arete of a snow fluting. This 50meter pitch was nothing like Wayne or Lane's description of this climb as there was no "nice water ice" climbing and "easy 5.7". Either we were off route or the character was drastically different with no ice and full blizzard spindrift conditions. My next lead was a tight chimeny with shitty unusable rime gargoyles on my right and a closed seam of crappy rock on my left...all covered in powerder snow. I lived up that pitch and made it to the summit ridge after some very exciting bouts of gear placement. The rock ran out of crack features and the snow wasn't solid enough for a picket. I dug and dug for gear and tried about twenty differnt picked placements. Finally one picket lodged between some rocks under the powerder and held a pull. I piled more snow on it and jumped up and down to help pack it in. I put my pack on top of it, sat on the picket, and belayed Marcus up. On top we really had no idea how to get off. One way was a very long ridge of nothing but none too solid gargoyles which would take hours to traverse, the north face was an option but we couldn't see more than a few feet down it and had no idea what would happen if we started down it. Also we had nothing to rap off off. We concidered down the ridge the other way to the west as it was shorter, but after much digging and rooting around, we could find zilch to rap off of. What to do? The picket! Marcus rapped off my shitty belay picket (which has my mailing address on the back of it if you find it). I clipped into the picked and downclimbed the otherside of the mountain (N.face) so if it popped, he would have to pull me up and over the mountain. Luckily the picked held and i got to rap off it w/no back up. fun fun fun. Back at the base the wind calmed down but it was total white-out soup. I felt like falling over on flat terrain with no visual horizon. 360 deg of white. We wandered around what looked like heavens waiting room till we got to the upper palmer lifts. No skiis! Someone had taken my skiis back down to the palmer hut! D'oh!!! Why would someone do that? Turns out that someone did me a huge huge favor b/c just skiing out from the lower palmer hut back to the car, i crashed (spectacularily) many many many many -did i say many- times. I am a really shitty skiier. Maybe i'll make a "skiing sucks" t-shirt on my website. So the route is super fun, is a bit over 200m and goes in 4p at around 5.9(M?) mixed climbing. There is a route that goes out left on p2 called April Insanity and got a grade of IV 5.9+ AI4-M4+ whatever that means. I think the IV is a bit overzealous. The SW ridge gets a IV+ 5.9 AI4, and once again the IV+ seems rather much. There is a dihedral to the left of March Madness (the obvious ice climb) that goes at 10c. Inside the S.chamber there looks to be some fun 1 pitch stuff of all sorts of different grades. Go get em. I promised Zac not to share his very nice topo due to copyright issues...so if you want better info, email me. I guess you don't need any particular conditions except it not being real warm out. Ice would be a nice thing though. More photos to come. Some look better bigger, but the thumbnail for some reason isn't available in the gallery On the approach I-rock. "Rime Dog" is left of the s.chamber Marcus getting NAILED(he's in the center of the flash) by spindrift on p2. Marcus getting burly on p3. He's almost 7" tall so this section is a bit hard for shorter folks. Stemming, dropknees, jamming, and drytooling Rapping off White out...where's marcus? Where's the horizon line? Me n' Marcus well rested on the drive home Gear Notes: Skiis and skins One 9mm half rope Lots o' shoulder legnth slings Camalots-single set micro (don't use aliens they freeze) to .75". double set 1-3". we got away with only one but really could'a used two. Assortment pins: angles, LA's, and bugaboos...knifeblades not neccessary Lots o' nuts (marcus the gear miser brought the crappies selection known to man) This route takes rock pro in the .75-3" and nuts very well. Screws and pickets were totally worthless-find a better way down than rapping off a shitty picket Lots and lots of tat Goggles would be VERY nice Approach Notes: Boooooooooooring Start EARLY!!! Major shit coming down and the s.chamber is very very avy prone.

thanks! and why did i post this in the yard sale forum. i'm pretty whipped from this w/end.

I accidentally took a bunch of "photos" on a climb today under the movie mode on my canon digicamera. d'oh. they were such good pics too, but the dial slipped over to movie during the gnar. anyone know how i can save the 1st frame of the movie as a jpeg? i can't figure out how.

where?

I dare you not to respond to this post

come on, all these computer nerd and no spare 'puters? i'll sweeten the deal with a photo cd chock full of brazillian ladyboy whores.

next time try unimpeachable groping for some fun alpinclippin'. it's soft for the grade and lots o' bolts. super fun. 6 or 7 pitches if i remember. tops out same as ginger cracks. only a rack o' draws are needed too.

prepare to geek out on the weather like never before weather links and models

yeah, i know...but they are wicked expensive

using "LOL" is the gayest shit ever. also, don't you hate it when fitness instructors (like yoga or pilates teachers) call your ischial tuberosity your "sits bone"? fuck that pisses me off. I can see not knowing what to call it and naming it your "sit bone," but sits bone? it's the bone you sits on. christ.

dude, someone who would mooch off of me would be the lowest form of dirtbagger. that would be like asking a homeless guy if he could spare some change.

I'd like to buy a laptop computer. I need one fast enough for video editing, and dvd watching, also internet access, and to copy a shitload of music onto. any sugesstions or price ranges. i know very little about this and other things for that matter. Feel free to geek out. (link to my yard sale request)

i'm sure some of you intel or microsoft spraysters have one you wanna get rid of. I need one a bit faster than a pentium III (celeron?), with 512mb ram, 40GB or bigger Hard drive, wireless connection thingy for coffee shops,cd burned w/dvd player (CD/RW + DVD?), and microsoft office. I'll be using it for video editing and slideshowing (i have that software). if you have this, but it doesn't have something I listed...i'm still interested, but just help me out on how to add it to your computer. thanks

dude, nice TR on your website. i wish i did inti wantan a few weeks ago, you make it seem fun as hell...although i don't want to go through the last pitches of res.arete again...how do ya think the ropes would pull on inti?

is this in climbing mag or rock and ice?

i remember leaving the car at 3am and wishing i did the whole thing pre-dawn, it gets soft. remember folks, this climb is EAST facing and gets 1st light and it gets it good.

Or Peak Wal-Mart. I wanted to do this route for quite some time until i learned that Guy didn't get up it...then it went on the well stoked backburner. Who knows under the "right" conditions?

Yes...and no.

yeah, i need a photo of that

done. it's under custom products. i did a short and long sleeve. lemme know if you want anything different

and here is the revision before i spellchecked it: "The Gates to the Outerworld" I forced Master to awaken at 2am and hypnotically suggested that he quaff the regurgitated coffee vile he had brewed hours earlier to help coax me out of my early alpine start slumber. Such was our odd relationship. But the coffee wasn't strong enough to generate my emancipation. However, I knew my time was near. On the approach, each crunch from the hard snow sent parastalic waves of anger through me, each jolt tried to jostle me from my moorings. As dawn broke below the route, my arch nemesis "Pinchy" kept me at bay as Master haphazardly climbed well above his so called partner. While Master sent showers of ice and snow onto his cursing friend, Pinchy held me from my destiny and began the day-long battle between us. Alas, I cried, Master hast forsaken me! Thoughts of imminent death were all my master could think of as he struggled to live through the rapidly melting and delaminating pitch of ice. Where was I during this insane fight with potential energy, gravity and mortality? I was lurking in the bowels, biding my time, and waiting for Pinchy to lose his control on Master. Master's so called partner led an easy ice pitch and belayed Master and I from a tied off shrub and sunken ice-tool. I was beginning to force my way into Master's consciousness but the ghastly sight of that belay, and Master's next lead, all but destroyed my will. Pinchy quickly regained control. Master prayed to his god as he scrunched Pinchy tighter and tighter, his death fall potential increasing with every sketchy move. 80 degree slush and powder snow barely held his feet, nary his useless ice-tools. Every inch was a mile and every step was a step towards the grave for yours truly. Would I ever experience the taste of freedom and witness the sweet smells, sights, and sounds of the outside world that I had only experienced in my previous existence as a jumbo steak burrito? Master could not use his tools on the near vertical slush-mare! The sun's rays oscillated down onto the snow almost audibly, heating up the slopes at an alarming rate. Master punched the snow with his hands and packed in more snow until it became dense enough to swing his tool into. And instead of pushing down on the snow, Master would bear-hug the snow to keep it still attached to the mountain. Master was looking at a 400' whipper onto the belay shrub. At last, a cam, a pin! Master was off belay! Such relaxation caused my power to become almost overwhelming and my noxious gases of joy escaped from his churning bowels. The oppressive heat almost overcame him. Soon, I cried, soon! But on the summit Master tried with all his might to keep me at bay. There was little room and he was emabarrased to show me to this climbing partner of his. I was writhing and screaming with indignity! To "top-off" the summit is the greatest honor one of my kind can possibly have, and my horrible master was denying me this fate. Oh! Cruel Master! But surely Master would have no excuse to ignore me now that the fear was over, I thought. He quickly began a long downclimb, feeling my urgings no doubt. His partner however, took much longer, all the while cursing Master’s good name! His partner called him reckless for descending so fast unroped! But this was my doing. Master would finally have to stop and wait! The plan worked, Master finally stopped at the bottom! The sun was blazing. The time was at hand! Pinchy was exhausted and had no power over me anymore! I leaped for freedom into the new world of which my tribal leaders of yore had told me during my rite of passage through Master's G.I. tract. I steamed and coiled upon the snow, breathing for the first time the cold, clear mountain air. I was buried that day upon the southern flanks of Cutthroat Peak, but I exist still as part of everything. I have become the soil, the water, the air, and the animals. My story is a universal tale of battles between man and mountain; good and evil; and between my kind and Pinchy, gatekeeper of the outerworld.