[TR] Torture Memo #2, The Beatings Continue - Libe

[tvashtarkatena]

Trip: Torture Memo #2, The Beatings Continue - Liberty Bell and the Gardners

 

Date: 9/13/2009

 

Trip Report:

TR: Torture Memo #2: The Beatings Continue

 

Liberty Bell and the Gardners

 

9/13-15/2009

 

 

Parapentification over the Liberty Bell Group

 

 

“Hey, um, can you get our rack for us?”

 

“You left your rack up there?”

 

“Yeah. Oh, and watch out for the Underwear Men”.

 

Just another day on Liberty Bell. Taking the party on Concord Tower’s warning under advisement, I started up the crumbling chimney in my fly new Asolo trail tennies, size M 10.5, color ‘Chernobyl’.

 

I don’t understand the whole ‘torture debate’. “How can we, or why do we torture people” is often asked by the deeply concerned.

 

Why?

 

Because it’s fun, that’s why.

 

And no torture method is more fun, save perhaps putting the victim in coffin with a live insect (one of the more imaginative officially sanctioned methods, at least according to former Justice Department legal counsel), than taking a newbie out into the mountains.

 

There are two basic ways to learn a language. One is to study the syntax, grammar, pronunciation, slowly, deliberately, piece by piece, until you finally decide to stay only in hotels where English is spoken. The other is to swagger up to the counter, recite your carefully memorized “I’ll need a woman about twice my weight and that bottle of clear liquid with the wolverine penis floating in it”, and let the magic begin.

 

Having taught climbing both ways, I’ve become a firm believer in immersion. It’s quicker, and a whole lot more sadistic.

 

If your schedule is so desolate that you actually read my last TR, you will recall that I was charged with giving, the 21 year old son of a friend of mine, an introduction to alpinism. I decided to focus on 3 necessary backcountry skills:

 

Dirtbagging, scree skiing, and bushwhacking. We would cover less important topics, such as belaying, rapping, etc, as time allowed.

 

To this end, our objectives would include the Beckey Route on Liberty Bell, the Gardners in the Sawtooth Wilderness, and a super double plus dot com secret bonus mission, which I’ll address in the next and final TR of this series.

 

I picked Max up at 4:00 a.m. on Sunday and we were already faced our first crisis: Is Krispy Kreme open 24 hours?

 

 

 

Cutthroat Peak

 

 

Is there a more iconic piece of rock in Washington than Liberty Bell? A short approach, 4 quick pitches, OK rock, one long rap, a petting zoo, and lots of free gear. You just can’t beat it.

 

Plus, we were able to join forces and ropes with another party for the descent.

 

 

 

Free soloist

 

 

 

Hugs and mugs, pitch 2

 

 

 

Smile of relief, pitch 3

 

 

If only I could remember how I did the final friction pitch last time…or any of the route, for that matter. I blamed my tennies, but after about a year of Zenning it out, I finally pirouetted up on a shimmering cloud, arms outstretched, eyes heavenward, trailed by my Safety Vest DayGlo footwear…to find…as ridge turned into sky…the Underwear Men.

 

“Want some whiskey?”

 

 

The Underwear Men

 

 

 

The Rap

 

 

With our booty (a pair of Bolles, a wired stopper (Max couldn’t pry the other one out), and brand new rack of cams), we bid the Underwear Men farewell and headed down for the backcountry phase of the program: the Gardners. A flock of parapenters floated like 80’s angels far above our descent.

 

Careful to check our packs for illegal hang gliders, we rode two perfectly legal polled herefords about 3 miles into the Wolf Creek Trail before night fell.

 

After finishing off the 12 miles or so of trail, we decided to camp a couple of hundred feet above the duck pond quality water supply of Gardner Meadows, in a burn, next to a clear running stream. A visitor this time of year might opt to either sport a Teflon jumpsuit or allow an extra hour a day for picking the burrs off.

 

 

 

Seed pods of sumthin hellifiknowii Upper Wolf Creek

 

 

 

The burn, from our camp at Upper Wolf Creek

 

 

 

Upper Wolf Creek

 

 

 

Upper Wolf Creek

 

 

The following morning we hiked the dry, open meadow to the basin below Gardner, got some water, and headed up the far left side of the scree basin (not bad: just a few hundred feet of actual scree) to the saddle between the Gardners.

 

 

5:15 a.m., Upper Wolf Creek

 

 

 

Gardner Meadows, from Gardner’s lower slopes

 

Max’s legs were still a bit hammered from the day before, and Gardner’s summit was whited out, so I ran over and tagged North Gardner while he fueled and rested up. After a little more than an hour of down time he was itching to go for Gardner, which had cast off its misty shroud, so up we went.

 

 

Ninja with Gendarme

 

 

Once on the summit, we looked east and, hey, what’s that pinnacle over there? It looks higher.

 

 

The Gardners, from Gardner’s East Summit

 

 

 

Conglomerate, Mount Gardner

 

Next time (there won’t be one), I’d descend the scree basin just to the East of Gardner directly back to camp rather than retrace our steps back down to the saddle, but we’d left our packs there.

 

[video:youtube]irxh6D4hHyk

 

Warren Miller ain’t got nothin’ on this

 

 

 

Bee assassin apiomerus sp., Wolf Creek

 

 

We got back to the car around six, packed up, and drove to the Billy Goat trailhead to dine on 3 can chili with chips and share some fine parking lot camping with the Tre-bark crowd.

 

The following morning we would embark on our fourth and final bonus mission of this six day program, but your eyes can glaze over that topic next time.

 

 

 

 

 

Gear Notes:

small hammer for stuck booty

Edited September 18, 2009 by tvashtarkatena

[olyclimber]

you found a brand new rack of cams? or did you just put that in there to see if anyone was paying attention?

[G-spotter]

Those were my new cams. You can just courier them over to me.

[t_rutl]

sweet intro to the alpine tvash...Max has got to be stoked!

Edited September 18, 2009 by t_rutl

[curtveld]

I suspect returning the cams was compensation for the model-release rights for the first photo?

 

Nice tale and photos, T. Outstanding snag shots.

Edited September 19, 2009 by curtveld

[olyclimber]

well duh! obviously my reading comprehension is slipping!

 

i'm a much better cybersleuth usually. Anyway, cool pictures.

[curtveld]

We all need a nice 'booty fantasy' from time to time

[tvashtarkatena]

I suspect returning the cams was compensation for the model-release rights for the first photo?

 

Nice tale and photos, T.

 

Wait...those things are MANNED?

[Otto]

Another good collection of photos and humor, thanks again! That's one of the best pictures of a goat, ever.

[SmilingWhiteKnuckles]

I like how the bearded Underwear Man is giving you the "have a nice effin day" finger!

 

Hilarious report and as usual, awesome close-ups. Thanks.

[Pete_H]

EB's and a Speedo. Nice. It's as if I'm looking at myself in 20 years.

[tvashtarkatena]

Holy jebus, those are EBs.

[matt_warfield]

Remember when EBs were the shit? Then Fire with sticky rubber changed everything except we (who were climbing then) were too distracted by lycra to notice. But even lycra is better than speedos or underwear. I wonder what the highest rating would be if we hadn't advanced footwear beyond EBs or worse yet the early hard soled edging shoes.

 

But climbing is about individuality and I admire all of the persons who wrote or climbed or were pictured in this TR. Tvash continues to come up with some of the most entertaining TRs on this site. He is like the Big Lebouski of cc.com. Write on Dude.

[tvashtarkatena]

That's like, your opinion, man.

 

I started out in a used pair of RR's (blue boots). Skipped EBs because Spanish Rubber hit the scene. I recall some debate about poor Spanish shoe factory workers dying early from rubber inhalation or some shit, but we ran out and bought our Fires, anyway. I also recall all my cheapskate EB clad friends kvetching about whether or not they should retire their freshly resoled (ala Dave Page) shoes for the new stuff. Of course there was the brief but required 'cheating' debate.

 

A couple of my regular posse included a beer gutted welder in snakeskin lycra and his enormously backsided girlfriend, both of whom could crank upper 10s and the occasional 11...much to the consternation of the more serious minded body nazis of the day, particularly those who liked to 'give advice'.

[Pilchuck71]

Hey - The underwear men are Chris Christianson and Ken Strong. Whiskey Ken the "gear rustler" is a hell of a guy.Chris is one of those guys you either love him or hate him. I have yet to make up my mind.

[tvashtarkatena]

I was wondering when someone would recognize these two gents. Young crowd, here, I guess. Or quiet.

[Pilchuck71]

I was wondering when someone would recognize these two gents. Young crowd, here, I guess. Or quiet.

Mostly quite -

 

Edited October 1, 2009 by Pilchuck71

[tvashtarkatena]

No, but he has an incredible memory; recalling that he met me at Static Point in '92.

[Pilchuck71]

No question the guy is intelligent and has a great memory.

He is also one of the main names to have done a lot of the work on Squire Creek Wall.

 

[Pete_H]

I've repeated one of his routes there and wouldn't exactly say it was put up in fine style, but I guess that's a matter of opinion.

[Pilchuck71]

 

He has done some things I would consider "Hairbrained" and I don't want to be there the day he falls off something to his death and ruins everyones fun.

On the other hand, I have spent hours around a bottle and a campfire having a great time listening to some of his stories.

 

Edited October 1, 2009 by Pilchuck71

[matt_warfield]

That's like, your opinion, man.

 

I started out in a used pair of RR's (blue boots). Skipped EBs because Spanish Rubber hit the scene. I recall some debate about poor Spanish shoe factory workers dying early from rubber inhalation or some shit, but we ran out and bought our Fires, anyway. I also recall all my cheapskate EB clad friends kvetching about whether or not they should retire their freshly resoled (ala Dave Page) shoes for the new stuff. Of course there was the brief but required 'cheating' debate.

 

A couple of my regular posse included a beer gutted welder in snakeskin lycra and his enormously backsided girlfriend, both of whom could crank upper 10s and the occasional 11...much to the consternation of the more serious minded body nazis of the day, particularly those who liked to 'give advice'.

 

I started out in RR's as well (bright blue right?) which dates us both. Actually my first few sessions were in logging boots (pretty poor on edging). My first sighting of RR's was in the library at college where some dude was wearing them to advertise that he was a ROCK CLIMBER!

[tvashtarkatena]

Bright blue suede, only the edges were too worn to do the only thing they were good at other than standing in etriers, which I wasn't doing any of at the time.

 

My first rock climb (Mt. Conness, tolumne) was in those Nike running shoes with the super wedge shaped soles. It's funny to see those things come back like a bad TV show.

 

Definitely not an edging shoe.

[Off_White]

I like how Chris is giving you the "Come sit by me, little cupcake" sign, patting the open spot next to him.