[TR] Beacon Rock - Lone Wolf and the Last Hurrah 9/12/2009

[King Beatard]

Trip: Beacon Rock - Lone Wolf and the Last Hurrah

 

Date: 9/12/2009

 

Trip Report:

FA "Lone Wolf and the Last Hurrah" at Beacon Rock. 1st pitch 9/12/09 Bill Coe, Adam Winslow and Ujahn Davisson. Gear notes: thin is in, mixture of thin iron, nuts and cams to a #1 Red Camalot.

 

There are no FAs to be had at Beacon Rock. It's all been done years ago. Except possibly for the one Jim Opdycke had been thinking of for 25 years that is. Jim, seen below with the binoculars, with Bill Coe and his cousin Jay (rhymes with belay which is what Jay did) had put up a route called Ground Zero that long ago. Jim had always remembered the crack to the right, sandwiched between Ground Zero the prominent crack that is called Takes Fist, and that no one had ever gone and fired it. This has started to take on some meaning as the lower slabs were getting cleaned off and it would be a matter of time until someone just looked up. Pretty surprising when you consider how many times climbers had walked below or climbed nearby... but there it is.

 

Jim had seen a spark in me and figured out that I would get the biggest bang for the buck, entertainment wise, so Jim turned me onto the crack and said "Go thee and climb". I ran through the folks I knew to partner up with and there was a list of solid climbers and good folks I could call. Yet one name stood out as having the most gear and it was then that I called Bill Coe, hoping I could pry a bit of gear out of the archives to get on this. Besides that, Bill has been telling me that he is going to invite me along for the FA of the best knob climb West of South Dakota and better than anything else in Oregon. Then he taunted the shit out of me by sending some sick pictures of this amazing 400' route he's drawn arrows and lines all over at some "secret" location and he won't tell me where it is. So I almost preemptively owe the fucker, and the bastard hasn't given up shit yet, claiming the road is closed....like I'm supposed to believe that bullshit. So I call him anyway having heard that he gives good belay: and he's game for Saturday. The weatherfolks are not that game, however, as they are predicting record heat, at 93, presaging the fact that the great south face of Beacon will be an oven. I'd wanted the first lead, but Bill throws an elbow and grabs the rack. I almost didn't put him on belay but our buddy Ujahn wanders over, and since the dude is as loyal as a dawg to Bill, I ignore the slight and up Bill heads into the wild blue yonder. Plus hey, I owe the fucker.

 

As part of his extreme gearho'ism sickness, Bill has stacks of brand new ropes in his house squirreled away someplace. He had even cracked open a brand new 70meter rope the night before and made sure there was a middle mark. Then he brought another 70meter for rapping and even drug along a 7mm tag line. With the new rope up he went and I fed it steadily. He cruises the lower angled 70-80 foot section free climbing while pausing only to pro or to pull some salmon berry bushes that had either been missed or recently decided to grow back in. He gets to the steep, thin, dirty upper crack in about an hour. Of significance to me and our tale is that despite his claims of being old and fat, he made the free climbing part look like a deceptively easy jaunt as he floated up it - fucker.

 

Soon we've got other folks hanging out watching the show. Jim Opdycke and Kyle Silverman make it over to say hi and are kicked back for the show. My buddy Aaron, seen below with me belaying in the background, whom I'd just done Monkey Face with, shows up and looks at the route.

 

It takes a 1/2 hour of screwing around but eventually Bill gets the hammer of Thor smiting the mighty stone. He said that just getting established into the "crack" if you can call a seam that small a crack, was the crux. He gets to the base of the steep thin crack and starts stemming up as if he is going to take a shot at freeing it with what is left of his rack. Soon he decides that there's no real pro above and backs down to the pinnacle, and asks me to tag the pins and aid gear. Ujahn puts him on belay and I eventually get most of it clipped off or on to the wall rack based on his recommendations, toss in his clunker wall shoes and Bill hauls it up to his perch. As I will soon learn, it's very technical and thin nailing between some good nuts...not particularly scary or dangerous...but ...different.

 

 

Bill aiding on the upper crack.

 

Bill makes steady progress alternating between cams, nuts and the odd hammering now and then, but the heat eventually cooks him. One placement after I'd yelled out, "halfway", he decides that the shade and water that the yet available and accessible ground would provide seemed like a good idea and he lowers down. There's 2-1/2 hours of my life I won't get back.

 

Jim comes over to wish Bill well and generally be upbeat and happy that the route is going. I grab the rack from Bill's hands (as he starts wandering around looking like a parched Jew after 40 years in the desert searching for a water bottle). His hands are cramping bad now and not so much resemble hands as they do little curled up animal claws. Once he downs most of a full water bottle he wanders back over to tell me what I need to finish the route and what I don't need, he peels off and drops what he feels are the useless pins and cams. At close to noon I charge up the route with my logging boots and the wall rack and 3 liters of water strapped to my back. To preface the story a bit, the other day at a party, a bunch of us were at Ujahns by his climbing wall and were looking at Ujahns pull-up bar. I'd asked him how many pull-ups he could do, and Bill had proudly divulged (confessed?) that he could do 3, but he wanted to make sure everyone knew that was 3 in a row! I'd grabbed the pull-up bar right there and cranked off about 20, but that was after drinking and also having worked all day and also worked out earlier, so I'd already done pull-ups that day and had used up most of my daily pull-up allotment. So I figure I'll just sprint up the lower section and I'm totally focusing on the upper crack Bill had left for me. This inattention only lasted about 20 feet when I took a fall. Huh? I jumped back on, and immediately realize that it's not a gimme pitch just because a fat old guy can float it. Fortunately Ujahn, still belaying, had the belay snug and the mank crap Bill had left on the high point held. I take another shot at freeing it and quickly give up on that idea. So I start hand over handing up the rope to the steep part so as to get her dealt with. Soon I'm stepping above the high mark, seen here as Bills red aider just below my feet.

 

Bill had told me he'd gotten some real solid nuts here and there so any fall I'd take would be safe, but I get shafted and don't get anything that looked like this HB brass offset he'd put in lower.

 

Mine looks like this mank tricam behind the loose rock. But it comes together and I move up.

 

The anchors are under the roof next to the greenery up there. 20' shy of the anchors is a relatively large hollow sounding chunk of rock seated in the wall. I work hard to place just below and just above it as I fear a pin would send it flying onto my friends below. In reality it is probably more sound than the cam placement everyone uses below the butthole but I didn't feel like aiding on it any more than I'd want to aid the butthole so I did the required high stepping and placement effort to avoid it. There's a half hour nobody on the ground will ever get back.

 

I soon ignore the exposure and get engaged. I'm pounding some myself, and while trying to clean the moss out of the next placement my baby knifeblade pops and letting out an involuntary scream, I fly. The foreshortening in this picture makes it looks shorter than it was, between the 6' of air and the rope stretch, from up there, it looked like a 20 footer. One of Therons new Tomahawks catches the fall...whew!

 

Ujahn jugs and cleans the line.

 

He snaps this of me as I rap past on a single line after having tagged up a 2nd rope.

 

We're planning on coming back to do the 2nd pitch a bit later. It may or may not go to the ledge system above, and we want to strategize and think it over, and didn't want to piss anyone off by leaving a fixed rope, as is tradition, so we pulled our gear. If anyone is looking to repeat the 1st pitch (please leave P2 for us to get on), please try and pull your iron by hammering up, not down, so that nut placements get formed.

 

[ivan]

There are no FAs to be had at Beacon Rock.

nonsense.

 

sounds like a nice day - no small amount of new shit out at the big b to nail on, especially if you're willing to suffer on the n side!

[JosephH]

...while pausing only to pro or to pull some salmon berry bushes that had either been missed or recently decided to grow back in.

Probably some of both from last year's initial cleaning sessions. Anything any of you guys can pull on the way up, down, or while hanging out is good. The cleaning will get finished this fall from Double Dirty Overhang over to a left-leaning line angling up to the p1 Flying Swallow anchor.

 

As Ivan said, there are still plenty of free routes to be done and aid lines to be freed. Good TR, but it would probably be a good idea to put in a fixed pro application with the BRSP if you're going to be posting FA TRs of any line that includes new points of fixed pro (if this one does). It's ok to do it after the fact saying you only figured out during the climb that fixed pro was needed (if any was, for protection or anchors).

[billcoe]

Isn't there more...?

 

What about the slaying the dragons part and the Dread Pirate Roberts, comradeship, villains and fighting Rhous in the Fire Swamp grandpa?

 

Nice cleanIng job. Fixed pro? Don't know about that, all the brand new shiny HB brass Offset nuts and such that Adam kept falling on were easily recovered with bent to shit wires.....thanks for that memory Arm Vein Boy:-). There was a single tiny RURP left behind as SOMEONE *cough* cough* left the funkness cable in the basement, and rather than beat the rock to get it out it Ujahn just left till we go back with a funkness and then it's just pop! out. He just stepped the 3' left and ended P1 at the Ground Zero anchor under that roof, you can see the slings in one of those pictures just above Adams head.Maybe, like a dawg peeing on a bush, we can leave this RURP to mark the territory? Adam can ask permission later since it's his.

 

(spoken like Foghorn Leghorn)I say...I say...now Boy, now get your lazy ass out there and fill out the Fixed-Pro application.

[kevbone]

I am confused. The title says FA. Yet you talk about Jim getting good nuts in there before? And there is an anchor? Has anyone been on this climb before you?

[Farrgo]

Seems like there have been more than a handful of FAs put up at Beacon within the last year or two...

 

So this is the first pitch of Takes Fist, or is it between this and Ground Zero?

[King Beatard]

This crack is a seam between Takes Fist and Ground Zero that few have probably noticed and those that did probably thought little of. At the risk of eating my words, it'll probably never go free but you all know how that goes. Some asshole to whom gravity doesn't apply shows up and makes us alll feel like a bunch of pussys.

 

As for a discussion of whether there are more lines to be be done at Beacon - it's unnecessary as the opening line is a literary device used to convey my excitement when Jim told me about this line and suggested I do it.

 

I'll get on that fixed pro application thing and I like the idea of fixing a RURP - should keep it interesting for future accents.

[King Beatard]

I am confused. The title says FA. Yet you talk about Jim getting good nuts in there before? And there is an anchor? Has anyone been on this climb before you?

 

Bill got good nuts in that I saw on my way up (we changed leaders mid-pitch). At 165' I traversed left to the Ground Zero anchor. You can see this well in the pic below the black tricam pic. The GZ crack on the left, The roof under which is the GZ anchor, and the dirty crack I am standing in.

[Plaidman]

Nice job Adam and Bill. Liked the trip report. Wish I had been there instead of climbing the choss across the river.

[LostCamKenny]

but it would probably be a good idea to put in a fixed pro application with the BRSP

 

I'm sorry, fixed pro application? Is there really such a thing? Huh... does my cam need to be documented since it is now a permenant fixture on the 2nd pitch of the corner? Screw that! Just don't tell anyone you're doing it. Better yet, DON'T POST ABOUT IT HERE!!!

[LostCamKenny]

Oh yeah, nice work guys! That'll give me and scott somethign to check out when we get on GZ later in the fall...

[JosephH]

but it would probably be a good idea to put in a fixed pro application with the BRSP

I'm sorry, fixed pro application? Is there really such a thing? Huh... does my cam need to be documented since it is now a permenant fixture on the 2nd pitch of the corner? Screw that! Just don't tell anyone you're doing it. Better yet, DON'T POST ABOUT IT HERE!!!

Hmmm, I'm always a bit confused by your attitude in such matters given you are part and parcel of the regulatory fabric that shuts down climbing every year and demands Climbing/Resource/Habitat management plans for places like Beacon - you're as responsible for it all as anyone else in the WA state government. "Screw that!"? How about just stop being THE MAN if that's what you really think? Or again, how about you head up such matters given you have the inside track? But either way, the bottom line is that WA state law mandates climbing at Beacon be governed by a Climbing Management Plan [CMP] (however dated it may be) and it is. It's a different story that staff churn and budget crisis have long-delayed the overhaul and enforcement of the CMP, but make no mistake, now that budget crisis is handled and Ben is onboard Erik is absolutely determined to get that long-standing BRSP management shortfall corrected.

 

And yes, there is now a very workable [per route as opposed to per pieced] Fixed Protection protocol and application that is way better than the old per piece approval protocol. With the old protocol every piece you might install required a separate application. With the new one you can submit a single application for either a new piece or pieces of fixed protection or for a new route that may include fixed pro. Just provide a digital photo marked up with where you think fixed pro will be required and on completing the route ammend it with where the pro ended up. That's so the dates the pro goes in gets documented so that stuff can be maintained. Menopause and all of Shane's new NW face routes have been done with fixed protection applications and the process is entirely painless and doesn't take long to get approval. As of this year I'll be using it for all remaining anchor and bolt replacement activities I'm doing.

 

At the moment, the applications are reviewed by the BRSP staff and Lisa Lantz the SW Region Resource Steward. But, they are also supposed to be reviewed by a Climbers Advisory Committee which hasn't existed for a number of years. Once the CMP is reviewed and revised over the next year or two that will change and CAC will be reconstituted and then we're back to the same old problem - who serves on it? Last time the topic was visited it was quite clear some organizations were opposed to it being dominated by Beacon locals, instead all but demanding it be "broadly representative of the greater Oregon and Washington climbing communities" - not a great idea from my point of view.

 

So yeah, none of this stuff has been very visible or much in effect due to a number of reasons, but trust me, Erik has been looking for the chance to move this off the back-burner for several years as the BRSP gets dinged in its performance review every year it doesn't get handled. Just because we haven't seen it in operation lately is a lousy reason to think it can be safely ignored going forward - it can't. It especially can't if we want to have the possibility of early opens, reclaim the SW Face from the oak and Peregrine closure, or ever have a shot at lifting the Peregrine closure either in any given year or permanently.

 

Do locals want a say in how climbing at Beacon will be managed when the BRSP gets back ontrack with revising the CMP? If so, at some point someone will have to participate in the process (Kenny? Bryan? Bill? Who?). But do the status quo - and you'll get the status quo, or more likely, worse.

[denalidave]

Got that B.R.S.P.F.P.A. taken care of yet?

[denalidave]

If so, at some point someone will have to participate in the process (Kenny? Bryan? Bill? Who?). But do the status quo - and you'll get the status quo, or more likely, worse.

I appreciate the effort you put in at Beacon, even if I don't always agree with you. I'd be happy to help out when the time comes, just let me know.

[kevbone]

If someone drills a bolt on rappel with a power drill at Beacon, and no one is there to see or hear it.....would the authorities care?

 

Tree falling in the woods scenario.

[denalidave]

If someone drills a bolt on rappel with a power drill at Beacon, and no one is there to see or hear it.....would the authorities care?

 

Tree falling in the woods scenario.

Probably not, but if the forest manager shows up to the forest one day and notices someone has cut down most of the trees, I bet you would see a much stricter and more heavily enforced tree cutting policy soon there after.

[JosephH]

If someone drills a bolt on rappel with a power drill at Beacon, and no one is there to see or hear it.....would the authorities care?

Yes. Lisa Lantz and Erik care about every bolt or pin that goes into the rock and every plant that comes off of it. And even if they didn't, other climbers including myself also care.

 

I appreciate the effort you put in at Beacon, even if I don't always agree with you. I'd be happy to help out when the time comes, just let me know.

Dave, you don't have to agree with me, but if other opinions and voices want to count then folks in the local crew are going to have to figure out someway to become constructively engaged. That, or more organized, non-locals will be the ones filling the void and ruling the roost as it were; then locals won't be rebelling against 'the man', but rather other climbers.

[kevbone]

Yes. Lisa Lantz and Erik care about every bolt or pin that goes into the rock and every plant that comes off of it. And even if they didn't, other climbers including myself also care.

 

 

How would they care about something they dont know about?

[LostCamKenny]

Do locals want a say in how climbing at Beacon will be managed when the BRSP gets back ontrack with revising the CMP? If so, at some point someone will have to participate in the process (Kenny? Bryan? Bill? Who?). But do the status quo - and you'll get the status quo, or more likely, worse.

 

You're not in the military anymore, dude... you can stop using the silly acronyms, now!

[LostCamKenny]

Hmmm, I'm always a bit confused by your attitude in such matters given you are part and parcel of the regulatory fabric that shuts down climbing every year and demands Climbing/Resource/Habitat management plans for places like Beacon - you're as responsible for it all as anyone else in the WA state government. "Screw that!"? How about just stop being THE MAN if that's what you really think?

 

I'm waiting til you quit climbing to do anything about it... then you're out of the way

[billcoe]

I'm waiting til you quit climbing to do anything about it... then you're out of the way

 

Then you will have NO voice.

_______________________________________________________________

 

.... you don't have to agree with me, but if other opinions and voices want to count then folks in the local crew are going to have to figure out someway to become constructively engaged. That, or more organized, non-locals will be the ones filling the void and ruling the roost as it were; then locals won't be rebelling against 'the man', but rather other climbers.

 

CMP = Climbing Management Plan.

 

[kevbone]

 

Then you will have NO voice.

 

How is that any different than now?

[pink]

Hmmm, I'm always a bit confused by your attitude in such matters given you are part and parcel of the regulatory fabric that shuts down climbing every year and demands Climbing/Resource/Habitat management plans for places like Beacon - you're as responsible for it all as anyone else in the WA state government. "Screw that!"? How about just stop being THE MAN if that's what you really think?

 

I'm waiting til you quit climbing to do anything about it... then you're out of the way

[pink]

 

Then you will have NO voice.

 

How is that any different than now?

[pink]

I'm waiting til you quit climbing to do anything about it... then you're out of the way

 

Then you will have NO voice.

_______________________________________________________________

 

.... you don't have to agree with me, but if other opinions and voices want to count then folks in the local crew are going to have to figure out someway to become constructively engaged. That, or more organized, non-locals will be the ones filling the void and ruling the roost as it were; then locals won't be rebelling against 'the man', but rather other climbers.

 

CMP = Climbing Management Plan.

 

guess what i'm gonna do now?