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Olympia Climbing Wednesdays


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I haven't checked, what actually worries me is the rain prediction for Wednesday. Someone didn't get the memo: rain is not allowed on Wednesdays. I'll give a look tomorrow, but I'm confident if we get a dry day there will be ample routes available.

 

I'm sure it's been more than a dozen years since that route got a redpoint, and I believe only one other person has done that. It's going to be a good season out here.

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We can also argue whether that hold was chipped or merely aggressively cleaned.

 

 

Well, I say they all were chipped in 1912.

 

thebigblast13-1.jpg

 

From the article in Washington Geology:

 

"A famous event occurred at the No.2 quarry on Feb. 17, 1912. It was called the 'Big Blast'. Two three-foot diameter tunnels called 'coyote holes', with a combined length of 1,400 feet, were cut into the base of the outcrop (Fig. 8). The tunnels were carefully backfilled with two train car loads of explosives

(43,100 pounds of black powder and 1,200 pounds of 60 percent dynamite).

 

H.P. Scheel saw the blast as a wonderful opportunity for publicity. Tenino residents turned out, officials arrived from Washington and Oregon, and camera crews came from Hollywood to film the explosion, probably for newsreels at cinemas (Roberts, 1912). Tenino residents were asked to secure fragile possessions in their homes against the expected ground motion.

 

The 'Big Blast' was one of the largest single detonations in Washington history (Fig. 9) and it was larger than expected (an estimated 500,000 ton rockfall). It buried the quarry's rail spur with boulders (Fig. 10), damaged nearby quarry buildings with flying rock (Fig. 11), and pelted onlookers with rock fragments despite their 'safe' distant viewing positions. The cost of the event, including repairing the damage, totaled $20,000. However there was an additional cost—the huge concussion pulverized as much as 40 percent of the rockfall, making much of the rock either too small or too incompetent due to microfracturing

for its intended purpose at the jetty."

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Oh, and today being the 4th of July, many of the regulars have party and family obligations (myself included) so it's entirely likely that there will be no one out here. On the bright side, for me at least, some early morning beat the heat warriors did a few routes and I got to catch a ride.

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