A Walk on the Wild Side, 5.7+

[catbirdseat]

Fun route. Pretty stiff for 5.7, if you ask me.

 

Couldn't help but notice this cozy looking man-sized hueco to the left of the belay for the second pitch. I wonder if anyone climbing with their girlfriends have ever availed themselves of that airy little perch...

[Kat_Roslyn]

Just lonely climbing men embraced in a sweet homohuddle.

[Off_White]

solohomohuddle:

 

[kevbone]

I thought it was rated 5.8? It feels more like 5.9 to me....but what do I know?

[MATT_B]

I thought it was rated 5.8? It feels more like 5.9 to me....but what do I know?

 

Have not done the rout but in my experience that is what they call 5.7+ at J-tree

[pink]

i was thinkin more like 5.6 but i love runout friction.

[Sol]

we climbed it around dawn once.

 

bumped bob marley as we climbed, with a backpack full of hot coffee.

 

drank coffee and herbables in that spot as the sun lit the desert.

 

good times.

[goatboy]

Fun route. Pretty stiff for 5.7, if you ask me.

 

 

That perfectly summarizes J Tree altogether -- fun, but pretty stiff (for whatever grade you're on).

 

BEWARE 5.9+ at J Tree!!!!!

[kevbone]

I climbed it first in 98 with Pink.

[G-spotter]

I remember getting to the base on an "injury day" where our hands were too beat up to climb cracks anymore. We arrived just behind a party that took an hour to rack up and tie in. We passed them at the first belay and when we got back to the car they had just started the third pitch.

[catbirdseat]

I didn't think there was a third pitch. We scrambled right after the second belay.

 

The party ahead of us was rather slow. When I started to go right behind their second, the guy up at the belay station declared that there wasn't room for more than two, so I sat and waited. By the time I was able to climb, I was cold, so I practically ran up the route to get warm.

[pink]

it can be done in two

[pink]

I climbed it first in 98 with Pink.

TceFKz2DZ9M

 

 

Edited February 26, 2008 by pink

[Moof]

In the old purple guidebook the description says 5.7, and up in the topo there is a nice little "5.8" notation at the crux (well, what I thought was the crux, about 30' short of the first set of anchors).

 

My opinion is that it's along the lines of Double Cross. If you are good at slab, it feels 5.7, if you are a gym gumby jug hauling noob, it feels 5.9 as you stare at your last runner 20' back taunting you with visions of the red smiley face you'll make if you peel and cheese grater down. Double Cross feels 5.7- to me now, but felt 5.9 the first time I hang dogged up it.

 

A few years back we arrived at the base to find a big dry blood splatter on the approach almost plum below the first anchors. One party behind us turned back. 2 years back we found a big cairn with a not about some chick dieing there a year before. We held in the urge to trundle the cairn.

Edited February 27, 2008 by Moof

[pindude]

A few years back we arrived at the base to find a big dry blood splatter on the approach almost plum below the first anchors. One party behind us turned back. 2 years back we found a big cairn with a not about some chick dieing there a year before. We held in the urge to trundle the cairn.

 

It wasn't just "some chick." And it wouldn't have mattered if it was. Good thing you withheld the urge, jerk.

---------

 

Vancouver Province obituary of D'Arcy McRae, 12-28-04:

 

Kootenay legend lived 'the life'

 

Ski mountaineer D'Arcy McRae dead at age 31 after fall

 

Greig Bethel, The Province

 

December 28, 2004

 

GOLDEN -- D'Arcy McRae, a Kootenay ski town legend, died from brain and spinal cord injuries in a Palm Springs, Calif., hospital after a Dec. 15 rock climbing accident in Joshua Tree National Park. He was 31.

 

McRae was climbing a moderate route on Saddle Rock known as Walk on the Wild Side when he slipped and fell about 20 metres. The safety rope caught, but McRae slammed into the rock. He was not wearing a helmet.

 

The popular three-pitch route is rated as 5.8, which was well within McRae's ability, and is bolted for protection. There is speculation that he may have missed placing protection or went off route.

 

Three-hundred people -- including family, life-long friends and mountain freaks from around the Kootenays -- attended McRae's funeral last Wednesday at the Wasa Community Hall. An impromptu wake was held that night at Lussier Hot Springs under a clear, starry sky.

 

McRae grew up in Wasa, a small, tight-knit community set among the ponderosa pines and mountain peaks of the southern Rocky Mountain Trench.

 

During his high school years in nearby Kimberley, McRae had a seminal experience.

 

While working as a summer student at the massive Skookumchuck pulp mill on the banks of the Kootenay River, he came to the conclusion that he'd rather be out skiing somewhere -- anywhere -- than stuck in a job he didn't want.

 

"A day at the hill is better than a day at the mill," McRae was fond of saying. These words became his mantra.

 

A couple of years later, he moved to the historic West Kootenay ski town of Rossland to pursue his passion for skiing the steep and deep.

 

He worked as a ski instructor at Red Mountain and in 1996, was part of a team that won the Olaus Jeldness super-G, a ski race that was established in the 1890s.

 

He then made the East Kootenay forestry-turned-ski town of Golden his permanent home in the late '90s.

 

McRae's skiing reached a new level in Golden, perhaps inspired by the numerous mountains that surrounded him. Along with partner Pierre Bernier, he recorded a number of incredible first descents in the Columbia and Rocky mountains, most notably 3,507-m Mount Bryce on the southwestern edge of the Columbia Icefield and 2,539-m Mount Dennis above the town of Field in Yoho National Park.

 

According to ski mountaineer Ptor Spricenieks, the ski descent of Bryce's northeast ridge -- done in less than ideal conditions -- was one of the most difficult and most radical he has ever witnessed.

 

Spricenieks, who was part of the Bryce expedition, speaks from experience. He has recorded a number of first descents -- including the north face of the highest summit in the Canadian Rockies, 3,954-m Mount Robson.

 

But unlike Spricenieks, McRae accomplished his feats without any sponsors, media coverage or hype. He led a low-key, laid-back outdoors lifestyle -- one that is idealized in advertising and the media -- on a shoestring budget and supported his ski-bum ways by working summers as a tree planter. In recent years, McRae also started up a fledgling guided-hiking and ski-shuttle operation, Kootenay Wilds.

 

McRae, a friendly and generous guy with a quick, easy smile, lived 'the life' -- winters spent skiing powder, summers spent working hard, other parts of the year spent playing in the mountains and travelling the globe. He knew that it was about the journey, not the destination.

 

And, more importantly, McRae -- someone who personified the Kootenay vibe -- knew that it was not about how much money was in his bank account, but how rich his life was. He will be missed.

[pink]

[Moof]

"It wasn't just "some chick." And it wouldn't have mattered if it was. Good thing you withheld the urge, jerk."

 

We all turn into grease spots eventually. Excess cairns in the back country are a nuisance, and a form of litter. Unless the cairn is there for a good reason (impromptu memorial barely qualifies) then I kick them over.

 

When I go I expect shoulder shrugs at best, no biggie. We willingly do a potentially life ending activity, so I don't see the need to get too upset or suprised when the odds catches up with one of us. I wear my helmet on that route however.

Edited February 27, 2008 by Moof

[Off_White]

I think you should take up peeing on roadside shrines too.

[kevbone]

Excess cairns in the back country are a nuisance, and a form of litter. Unless the cairn is there for a good reason (impromptu memorial barely qualifies) then I kick them over.

 

 

A stack of small rocks in the back country is a form of litter? Are you high? Are you the judge and jury as to what is “good reason” for a cairn to be on the trail?

 

[Moof]

Yep, Judge, Jury, AND Executioner. After all, there clearly are an excess of folks who feel the need to make a 12" cairn next to the middle of a well trodden 6' wide trail for no apparent reason. I think it is the boy scout mentallity gone astray.

 

In this case the fancy cairn was about 2.5' high, and had a note in a zip-lock baggy (more littering) at the bottom saying it was in memory of so and so who died here a year ago. I was glad to see it was gone by that spring.

 

"I think you should take up peeing on roadside shrines too."

 

Nothing quite like seeing a moldy Teddy Bear next to a dusty white cross on the side of the road to remember someone by. I really wish the bereaved would clean up the mess after a few months... It just gets sad and ugly after a while.

[pink]

"It wasn't just "some chick." And it wouldn't have mattered if it was. Good thing you withheld the urge, jerk."

 

We all turn into grease spots eventually. Excess cairns in the back country are a nuisance, and a form of litter. Unless the cairn is there for a good reason (impromptu memorial barely qualifies) then I kick them over.

 

When I go I expect shoulder shrugs at best, no biggie. We willingly do a potentially life ending activity, so I don't see the need to get too upset or suprised when the odds catches up with one of us. I wear my helmet on that route however.

 

 

[Bug]

When I took my girls out to Bonner on the Blackfoot to jump off the cliffs I had played on since I was a child, there was a steel cross drilled and permanently mounted on the highest platform on the rock. Apparently, a young man slipped and fell to his death there. So after thousands of us had successfully had a blast there for decades, the spot was closed to everybody by the bereived.

I feel for the family and friends but their reaction is misguided. So are all forms of worshipping the dead with permanent markers imo. Put some memorial on your mantle or someplace where you can see it regularly. But why subject other people, total strangers, to your greif.

I like the Tibetan custom of chopping up the corpse and feeding it to the buzzards to be "redistributed". Cremation comes closest in our society.

 

 

[bwrts]

Fun route. Pretty stiff for 5.7, if you ask me.

 

Couldn't help but notice this cozy looking man-sized hueco to the left of the belay for the second pitch. I wonder if anyone climbing with their girlfriends have ever availed themselves of that airy little perch...

CBS- you state 5.7+ in thread title but then say in your post pretty stiff for 5.7.

Perhaps, you will realize what a "+" sign means now.

 

Either way a great F'n route. Climbed it for the 4th time this Jan with my gf. She absoulutely loved the climb. The descent she felt was more difficult.

Kelsay observing the park's topo and a view of the dome from parking lot

 

Right around the crux prior to 1st belay.

 

gotta love the water grove

 

That reminds me of the first time I climbed it. We intended on climbing it by full moon. Well even tho the full moon was shinnin on the HV campground it sure wasn't moonbeaming us 3 on route. Damn hill. Oh well, nothing like scanning the cliff for bolts by headlamp...."Found one. climbing again." We did climb it in two pitches.

[G-spotter]

Hey CBS you should climb the Dolphin chimney to fully understand the J Tree 5.7 grade.

[catbirdseat]

So where is Dolphin Chimney? I've done one called Deflowered. That one gave new meaning to 5.6.