layton Posted January 8, 2005 Posted January 8, 2005 Well, it's about fucking time I wrote a TR...finally got a pool of photos from the cats I went with. Here goes: The playa's: Me: the hot mysterious one Necronomicon: the bad boy Lane Brown: the romantic Jay H: the Jew Christian: the crazy guy Marcus: the really really tall guy The Bison Willy's Bunkhouse Gang Life was good in the bunkhouse, climbing in the morning, debauchary in the evening: Shit got a little outta hand at times and after a little skirmish, we had a dead prostitute on our hands. Didn't we learn anything from the billboards along the roadside? Guess not, well...I paid for it: So anyways, besides night after night of intense debauchary and heavy drinking we actually did some climbing. Luckilly the bunkhouse was sponsored by Red Bull. Here is our fridge: The 1st day Jay, Necro, and I did an amazing 100 meter WI0 by accident, "Climb Left of Deer Creek" which was this awesome couloir (read: flat streambed) and then realized we fucked up and did Deer Creek, the only sandbagged WI2 i've ever seen. I actually backed off soloing it! Seriously, we were a little worried about grades in Cody after this thing, and yes, Cody is on the challenging end of the grade spectrum! It was in "lean" conditions to start with, so everything was at least a grade if not a full grade harder. Most WI4's and 5's were 4+ and 5+, the mean green pillar was probably WI6. Jay and I the next day did Smooth Emerald Milkshake, a 200 meter fun WI4. Lane and Necro did it later (here's necro leading one of the pitches) I gave it a thumbs up Lane and Necro gave it a thumbs down, the wankers We had to step it up after than and go do High On Boulder a beautiful climb, reminiscent of the Sorcerer. My crampon fell off at the crux, VERY EXCITING! Other fun climbs from the trip were (in order of photos): Smoked turkey, Outdoorsman -2 pictures, and Main Vein me smokin' the turkey Necro on outdoorsman lane on outdoorsman Jay showing us the main vein My highlights were doing Mean Green. Marcus on a separate day with Christian took an amazing 25' whipper and landed on his head right as his screamer activated. Good times! It was in hard conditions for sure. No one took any pics of this climb unfortunately! Spying and Flying is one of my favorite climbs ever. You start off by rapping down this 60m slot off the trail into a deep slot canyon. Lane and I pulled the ropes and I got one of the best leads of my life. Run-outs on weird ice bubbles, stemming and Chimneying off rock and ice. Fucking awesome! Then pitch after pitch of beautiful big ice with some STEEP long pillars. One pitch took me probably 20minutes to find a screw in a sea of vertical chandaliers. Fuckin' pumpy! All in all a fun, kinda pyschologically tiring trip! Of course my alternator died on the Hwy during a snowstorm which added the obligitory shitty drive home. Wish I wasn't so tired right now so I could'a embelished and written a little better article, but tough shit. Quote
snodger Posted January 9, 2005 Posted January 9, 2005 Climb'n and drink'n just what a road trip should be! In my book the only thing missing would be a little pyromania (no, not def leppard) - nothing like burning shit up to soothe the drunkn soul... If this TR doesn't give people a woody they must be dead; or gym rats. Way to go, spying and flying sounds incredible- a ten on the surrealism scale. So how long was the drive from PDX? Quote
thelawgoddess Posted January 9, 2005 Posted January 9, 2005 that's some beautiful ice there! i am so jealous ... . thanks for the pics!!! Quote
artesonraju Posted January 10, 2005 Posted January 10, 2005 Check this out: Cody, WY (AP) The partially decomposed carcass of the well-known party girl and part-time hooker, Calamity Jam, was discovered by Joe and Elmira Johnstone early yesterday morning. Apparently, their golden retriever brought them a particularly grisly treat that morning - part of a severed human arm. Following their 911 call, the county sheriff promptly initiated a search of the remote reached of the canyon formed by the South Fork of the Shoshone River. Police duputies subsequently recovered the rest of the body in a remote wash leading to the ice climb known as Shank Stew. The body had been wrapped in plastic, covered in lime, and partially buried, but the torrential rains of the past week uncovered the bloated corpse. Identification was difficult due to the ravages of a hungry grizzley bear known to frequent this area, but one of the deputies had dated Jam during high school in the 1990s and recognized some distinctive birth marks on the inner thigh region. Based on information received from an anonymous source, the police checked the www.cascadeclimbers.com website, and are now actively searching for Michael Layton, a notorious NW climber. His last known residence is listed as Bellingham, WA, but his current residence remains unknown. Police are offereing a reward for information leading to his location for questioning. All of the residents (especially the lonely men) of Shoshone county will deeply miss Calamity Jam. A open coffin service is planned on the grounds of Bison Willy's Bunkhouse for April 1, 2005. Quote
kurthicks Posted January 10, 2005 Posted January 10, 2005 When were you guys there? We were there from the 1st-4th and saw a couple cars w/oregon plates and never managed to catch up with them. I'm assuming it was you guys... how was getting off the Main Vein in the dark? It looked a little epic from the road. We also saw your truck (i'm assuming) parked at Deer Creek, we thought you were doing that 70m, WI4 climb just up the creek... we bailed when the cold weather came in on wednesday but did manage to get on High on Boulder before that happened. super cool climb. Definately worth the drive Quote
layton Posted January 10, 2005 Author Posted January 10, 2005 i left on the 31st, musta been marcus and christian who left on the 1st or 2nd. i didn't do the main vein, but i imagine it goes very very fast and you can get off before dark. lane and I left the cabin at 9:30 for spying and flying and it has a 2+ hour approach with many pitches and we managed to get off before dark, so if you got up before 8am you should be fine. warning, do this on a cold, or cloudy day, w/o much wind. the top pitch gets baked as does the top of the mtn that feeds into the climb. Quote
tcozzens Posted January 10, 2005 Posted January 10, 2005 Michael Outstanding series of photo's. Absolutely classic! Gather a group of wild ice climbers, rent a bunkhouse on the Southfork, "intense debauchary and heavy drinking", climb some mega classics and live to tell about it. I love it! ... It's enough to make a guy homesick. Quote
layton Posted January 11, 2005 Author Posted January 11, 2005 Todd, I have you to thank for a lot of it. Thanks for doing a major portion of the dirty work so all of us could climb on some of your awesome finds! Quote
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