Beacon

[stevetimetravlr]

perfectly normal winter day at Beacon

[ivan]

beaming bright moon tonight - need a partner for late tomorrow night!

[astrov]

beaming bright moon tonight - need a partner for late tomorrow night!

 

I'll do a lap on SE Corner with you if my date doesn't materialize

[ivan]

 

7/13 - a lap on young warriors w/ geoff and a lap (sans cord) w/ geoff n' adam

 

7/15 - dod's jam w/ the phuzzy

 

7/17 - solo corner creep in the late evening before jetting off to pdx to pick up my peeps fresh off their wrong coast plane - read a few chapters and sucked down a liter of burgundy at the ledge until it was too dark to read

 

7/23 - 2 corner laps in a little more than an hour and done in time to get kids to the dentist, then a long walk by waterfalls (even introducing the bastardos to "5150" along the way, just for you, kev

 

7/26 - cruise'n to young warriors w/ nastia - bit of a scorcher after noon, specially for the devushka clad all in black - shiiiiiity roadwork delays on 14

 

7/27 - no one bit on the partner offer, so i spent a leisurely mornign w/ the little people - coffee n' bacon n' cats - went out to beacon at 3, uncertain what to do, packed for anything, and decided along the way, in honor of the olympics, to set a goal to climb as many solo laps as possible on the corner before getting back to the house for pizza n' wine w/ the wife in the evening - settled for 4 laps (bacon-flavored half dome day? BFHDD?) - could have done more i reckon, but ran into the company of Known Felons after lap 1 and that took a little bit of the wind out of my sails - did the pleasant last lap w/ denalidave, overladen w/ one beer, me ashamed to have left my gin n' juice in the rig for the celebratory drive home

 

perfect day, weather-wise, compared to yday - overcast, cool, variable winds - stoked to see a 3-some spending a night on ground zero, complete w/ double haul-bags n' ledge(s?) (didn't see room for the 3rd, what horrid price did he have to pay i wonder?) - thought to aid-solo ground zero i had, but they skunked me, and then that bastard timetravel'n'steve took my free 4 sum backup! a pox on all their houses!

 

dave's vid:

[video:youtube]

 

7/28 - warm n' sunny n' breezy - climbed w/ bob n' the phuzzy, both of whom did piss-poor jobs of Minding the Poisons - majestic snow-white n' toffee-brown owl winging about the arena of doom for a good half-hour - dod's to top-rope windsurfer - pumped stupid after that and the accumulation of yday - then free 4 all via the retard right start - snuff-porn wannabe free solo for 40 fucking feet, foot-stacking in constrictions n' lie-backing to get there, but a good gut-laugh, au-chevel style, at the pillar-top - jim showed late, grumpy to be tobacco-short as he tempts fate to quit - nose-trainers doing fine big-wall machinations, swinging from groudn-zero to flying swallow to practice their pendulums - dave n' crackman n' kyle flitting about - camas days clusterfucking the commute on back home!

 

7th day at beacon this season

7/31 - last of july - 8 days of beacon rock climbing this month

 

cruise'n'to right right gull n' then jills thrill w/ miker - bright, breezy n' cold - perfect! booty on jills - beers at the endless construction stops on the way back - how i long for a cigarette...

 

8/22 - 3 week beacon-hiatus - i'm in danger of losing my BRCA membership - been cavorting w/ the fam in colorado and at the oregon coast, coincidentally during the bitter depth of that 100+ pdx heatwave when the beach temps were damn near in the 40s each night - managed a dragontail clamber in thare too

 

the phuzzy made a public-transit trip to rendezvous w/ me in damned washoughal after a wicked reintroduction to work for me at the crack of dawn - climbed young warriors - a baker's half-dozen of wing enabled wave riding wacky-boys out beyond the island - elk herds grazing - good times! closed out the evening w/ little wing to the 1st pitch of right gull and then a sad attempt at tr'ing the off-width on wrong gull that got clubbed-on-the-head at just the right hour

 

9/5 - quick solo creep - tinywing (half little wing/half corner p1) to the corner to stoner ledge to young warriors - kenny n' ole'larry (thought he quit climbing?!) n' buddy dan at stoner ledge - 10th day at beacon this season.

 

9/6 - two solo corner laps, one w/ arndt (that is how that old boy spells his name, right?) while he was waiting for the "red ant" to arrive - horrified to find my good name impugned by certain unnamed low-lifes up on the little people ledge - seems they think i've been drinking their cached beer - despite my innocence, i nonetheless searched desperately to find said stranded beer so i could "protect" it better, but no dice

 

steve, yet again, climbing w/ random cuties, this one crushing on warriors and jills - gotta love an understanding wife!

 

9/7 - beacon hat-trick, 3 days in a row - 1 solo lap on the regular old corner, then one link-up i hadn't done before: tinywing => corner => hidden treats => corner => young-warriors => downclimb corner => uprising - 5 laps in 3 days

 

9/13 - lonely lap today, not a soul on the rock or on the trail, just a big, big wind, a shallow river, and a bone-dry bird-sanctuary across the way - thought i saw ole'boy dave's car in the lot so i packed not 1 but 2 tall-boys of pbr in the hopes of balancing out the debt, but nary a sight of him along the way - so sad, i had to swig'em both down as i was afeared to leave one on the ledge as a sign there warned of wanton russian-fuck-types showing up to swill'em away...

 

9/14 - 14th day at beacon this season - hardly a breathe of a breeze, odd after the howling gale of the day before - a peck of peregrines and a pretty phat pack of elk, dispersed upon the island and more thickly about the crick leading off towards bonneville - wheezy bugles and high-piercing shrieks - the powderhund on rehab on his mangled meniscus - cruise'n to jill's thrill - who/when the fuck cut out the sling and rings on the grassy ledges rap? beers and bullshit'n at the base - a heavy scent of fire in the air, like the memory of yosemite and sun-dappled mania - glorious sunset - the summer is banned and abased, fading fast in the fuck-fury dark of eight

 

9/16 - my first partner for sunday bailed on thursday, then my second on saturday, so, in the spirit of third-time's-the-charm, i settled for meself solo on this fine sabbath day

 

woke of 8 w/ the sun amplifying the undigested wine in my brain-box and biding me rise and begin the purification ritual - half my gear's been building up in the trunk of the red-devil, but i thought i shoudl make an occasion of it and go aid-solo something serious - big haulbag filled of all, i stumbled to the car w/ my gear and w/ the best breakfast i could lash together in my stertorous stupor - ended up being two pale ales and a mouthful of week old pad thai, backed up w/ a duo of sad camels

 

arrived in the lot to calm winds and calmer crowds - just didn't feel like strapping on the fifi, so reckoned to solo a corner lap first then get to it, but a few feet into the lap got to thinking back to july and the 4 laps in an evening i'd done on the occasion of the olympic kick-off - thought i oughta improve on that personal record and set the bar at six?

 

3 laps in the can and not a soul sighted - dripping sweat in the substantial heat, dawn just a memory by then as i'd arrived after 9 and the incipient breeze nothing more than a meteorological cock-tease - a hot glare and a heavy air

 

christians by the holy-fuck load cluster-fucking the trail - 4 full fucking tourbuses of the little fellows, bedecked w/ their goddamn savior's gibbot, which their leader hauled up in half-carries for the great glory of dog - "aren't you folks commanded to observe the sabbath and eschew heathen labor" i queried? led by laywers, his comment immediate the product of parsing his puzzling text: "today we do His work"

 

rounded the corner for lap 4 to find frazzled rick rigged up for a rope-solo and it didn't take long to reduce him to the dark side - we did a pair of simul solos, the first finding old boy w/ eyes as wide as irish butterballs passed a lovely lady w/ the slab well in hand, half-annoyed no doubt to weather our "helpful" comments - i can't complain about standing in line, mid-pitch, w/ such a luscious view...

 

rick fucked-off in the fullness of time and i had but one more to get my 6, but being done w/ it, felt a prime # more the thing - rick said he knew our old boy pink had once done 8, and my heart was half-set in the spirit of competition, but then surely the cut of my jib could never be so beguiling as our dear boy in his littlewing pic - came down for a 7th lap then and sent it soon enough, my head spinning, my mind twisting and wondering where it was exactly i was again in this ever-repeating scenario - coulda managed another 2 i reckon, there was sun enough, but i thought i'd wander on back to stoke the home-fires and finish some more of this never ending chicken-coop work the wife embarked on - a fine meal of eggs n' fresh peppers n' frank's sauce, finished off w/ a gullet-full of fine wine and a gut laugh over gross humor n' now it's time for school work and an early nap!

 

7 laps/day - here's to 9 by the end of october? managing 3 laps per 2 hours when there's no distractions to be had, so imagine i could manage the whole shit-eria in 6 hours and call the whole thing something like 4000+ feet of climbing/scrambling/moss-hiking?

 

9/18 - afterschool corner lap - hot stone even in the shade - jim n' adam on the ledge - casual conspiracy chatting - thoroughly tired of construction on 14 by now...

 

9/19 - had only an hour of time to play between the end of school and the start of back-to-school night and union rabble-rousing, but managed to storm out to beacon at warp speed and do the first lap i've ever thought to actually time - 32:10 (dog measured), parking lot to parking lot - ran into an old student on the run down - claims to work at a pizza joint these days and sure looks like it

 

9/21 - sick all day, if not as a dog, then at least as a puppy - snot n' sneezing - still, the last day of summer.... - mist-drops on the windshield after school, should i risk the drive? - a barren lot, the rock to meself - cruising to the corner - boooooooooty! 10 laps this week already, holy shit, at this rate in a year, if i could beg off rain, peregrines n' whatnot i could have 500!

 

9/25 - on the rebound after a week of hacking snotsicles out of my lungs great asgolf-balls - 2 laps up the corner - steve n' sal n' tim n' his special lady friend sharing the route - laughs n' hijinx - bellows of beasts out on the beatific isle

 

9/27 - my 20th day at beacon this season - 2 solo laps - not a soul on the southside nor more than 2 on the trail

 

best times today:

base to snag ledge: 2:00

to tree ledge: 4:40

to grassy ledges: 8:20

to uprising railing: 15:00

 

can't imagine me ever doing this better than 13:00 tops?

 

 

9/28 - 21st day at beacon since the opening - full moon and fucking mad rager up the rock in the rude-light - bob n' me had a run on jill's thrill after school, then crawled up the corner w/ the better part of a 6-pack - dusk by tree ledge - to little people by braille - high times n' hollering at the dusky moon - crazy smoke-cloud glitter off the river - clambered off sans headlamps - how much longer shall this indian summer insist?

 

9/29 - wife problems: full-moon free-solo sans-head-lamp! geoff n' arlo as helpful alarm clocks

 

10/1 - indian summer, a big old warm breeze like the Breath of Dog - 2 laps on the corner, then home in time to get the boy to kajukenbo.

 

10/3 - jesus, warm still outdoors but the Big Wind of Winter was on beacon today! roars n' lulls, catspaws and catastrophes playing out on the columbia - nary a soul to be seen, south side or north - a simple corner lap w/ cruising n' hidden treats n' the top of young warriors

 

10/4 - 3 of 4 october days climbing so far 25 days at beacon since the opening - possible to get 50 solo laps between july and november (31 so far by my count)? 'bone n' mike in the lot - hustled to climb cruising 'fore them to avoid treating them to snuff porn - jim n' sal in the lot on the way down, fresh from washing the way to the south-west of the evil poison oak - to wolfrock 2morrow for the weekend!

 

10/10 - 6 days since last i'd climbed at beacon, my longest dry spell in a month? barad dohl (!) and cheeky sheenanigans over the weekend, then high-tech dentistry and parent conferences keeping me away...

 

2 laps on the corner, car to car in 57 minutes - most enjoyable solo yet of cruising, all movement and no pauses, maybe 3 minutes total?

 

10/12 - my 38th birthday, and the day off to boot! the fall weather here finally, and no bacon-scrambling to be had therefore, so off i shot w/ kid#1 for a father/daughter trail hike, equipped w/ a mighty golf-umbrella and tori amos on the music box - our ascent complete, we winged it back to camas for a leisurely brunch at the lakeside chalet

 

10/18 - days of rain followed by a few of fine sun - storm-torn clouds aloft for the past 2 sunups - brilliant fall - done thursday early w/ work and raged out to the bacon-wand w/ a brown-paper bag of pbr's - steve's rape-van in the lot - roared down for a first lap up the corner, passing a boyfriend/girlfriend team - back down in the lot and it was raining cops - not surprisingly, opdycke was between them all - surprisingly he wasn't handcuffed to a bumper

 

freaked out by the free-fire zone n' all those fretting fuckers w/ zipguns, i caught wind of steve-o already having hucked it down the trail after me to have a lap and hustled off to find'em - had a gaff n' gut-laugh down by the base, discovering he'd neglected a cord and so set off for a chicken-wing lap alone w/ a plan to meet him again afterwards - back again we watched dark set in and he talked me into some adventure rappelling down the west side - i zoomed up the corner a third time in the Deep Gloaming and arrived at the start of the raps not 30 seconds before steve showed up w/ 2 ropes and an extra headlamp for me - holy shit, gotta get after that synchronicity!!!

 

so....3 laps for this day...can't imagine there's too many such days left this year

 

10/27 - fahq'n boatloads of sodden beatards at the bacon-wand this morning - arrived early w/ beacon ben n' got in a half-jerk-off lap, up the corner to young warriors where we ran out of time and had to rap to make the what-have-you - mega-serious terra-forming followed by grilled flap-jacks n' the like - facile conversations w/ fresh-faced chicas, veggie burgers n' fear of the incessant damp pouring down all about the half-frozen a-frame - a half-pack sucked down w/ a half-rack of half-decent beer - ambulations in the awe-inspiring great goddamn deluge - a work party overdue, damn near likely dead - drinks in their honor and some spare parts found rattling around - the day dead and done and i alone cast off to cavort on home through sheets of sleazy cheese n' easy wine

 

11/11 - my 30th day climbing at beacon since the sun of summer, and damn far from that it were - broken social connections, a total failure to rendezvous w/ the 'hound, so i shot out to beacon alone to see if he and his wouldn't eventually get it all sorted out (we planned to do the dynamite cave soon thereafter)

 

a solo lap while waiting - frozen hands - slime snot suppurating out of many a rocky orifice - on the trail down met the boys hiking up, n' bryan and i headed off to do another, roped, lap

 

sleet n' sheets of sleazy rain for much of the rest of the day, snow shitting out of the sky at the conclusion of the cave - cans of pabst n' pbr n' all sorta things to chuckle over deep in the foreboding bowels of the earth

 

11/16 - blustery in the evening, poor portents for a weekend spent in outdoor pursuits - a storm brewing, fierce and soon to follow the setting of the sun, but time enough for a lap in the damp, breezy, chilly dusk - chicken-wing => corner => hidden treats => corner

 

HOW YOU KNOW ITS WINTER AT BEACON:

1. on a friday afternoon you don't just have the corner to yerself, nor the whole rock, but what appears to be the entirety of the damn park, including the river!

2. all the chalk's washed off the holds, so ya gotta actually look around a bit...

3. your solo options suddenly seem awful limited, as cruise'n and any part of young warriors doesn't even appear on the radar

4. kenny's food bucket on the party ledge has turned into a foul slurry of what-the-fuck

5. you ain't seen jim in a looooong while

6. all the elk have fuckered off the island, the herons are hell n' gone, and the peregrines have a prissy air about them

7. on the rare occasions you climb indoors, you gotta re-tighten all yer shoelaces 'cuz you've been climbing in thick-socks since ever-fuck

8. you actually can hear the nagging voice of your wife ("you're an asshole") when having a quick lap after-work in the dark

9. getting even a single lap in after work seems a god-send to dispell the grim demons of Seasonal Affective Disorder

10. the fucking wdot cock-suckers FINALLY appear to be bringing their goddamn roadwork on 14 to a head, and the sorry white-bitches who've been holding signs all summer are now burka-safe under 10 bundles of warm whateverthefuck

 

11/27 - sweeping up steve's sleazy leavings i suppose! rid of work at the waning of the day on one of these short pre-solstice afternoons - rounded up miker soon after the ringing of the bells - swooped out, through the great gales of the gorge, the bitter breath of beacon, all girded out for a breeze up the corner in full battle-gear under the light of a full moon - tree-ledge at the turning of the night, full dark on grassy ledges, and a god-damned great big-old bag of gusty wind from there up the ridge, the very real danger of a packstrap putting out an eye any moment

 

you boyz musta really needed that chalk on a blistering day such as this!

 

12/21/12 - if the mayan motherfuckers were gonna be my end, where better to make my final banal stand than the fabulous bacon-wand?

 

dank, tepid, oppressive parking lot - a bad beacon BM, like so many i've been blessed w/ before

 

a survey of the base complete, geoff n' i thought the corner might go - after the first pitch took more time to finish than an entire lap in summertime, the wind picked up, the rain came down, and off we rapped, but not before taking in a strange scene - a flock of seagulls out on the swollen columbia, swirling about a sea-lion, alternately landing and leaping back up as he lashed around at them - what could it mean?

 

an aid session on wrong gull and w/ that our short first day of winter was done

 

hopefully not my last visit of the year, but the best laid plans of mice n' 'mericans...

 

12/28 - dal'right, come hell or high-water i'll wager that was my last bid of the year - 34 days dancing on the bacon-wand will have to do for two-single-ought-twelve (weeeeelllll, starting w/ the legal season since febuary i figure....) - a frosty-frosty lap w/ the good miker, roughly 3 hours commencing a mouse-fart afore midnight - might have to make a formal tr of it to set the thing straight?

 

 

[matt_warfield]

Another great TR from the Hunter S. Thompson of this website.

[ivan]

new year, new beatard count

 

1/1/13 - curiously cold and icy and windblown lap on the corner w/ that powderhound chap, clad in a goddamn gordon's fisherman jumpsuit w/ tight matching-colored gear - wondrous ice-curtain on the slab pitch, under the roofs, and frostcicles on tree ledge - a frozen gully choked w/ gravel up on grassy ledge - sand-storms out on the island, carrying grit all the way across the water to the docks - the boat landing slammed w/ waves, breaking across the ice-clad pier - many tourons on the trail - a fine, quick lap - the first day of Beatardia 2013!

[brionifitch]

Just exploring a bit via rap yesterday and pretty much got blown off the dang cliff! The wind forecast said 12mph with gusts to 15 or something, more like 30 with gusts of 50! anybody know of a good source for gorge wind forecasts?

[ivan]

... anybody know of a good source for gorge wind forecasts?

yes - me! any day, this time of year, regardless the forecast, assume nuking winds - all that really changes is the temp and the extent of precip

 

cool regardless - what did you rap? south side or north? 3 distinct rap lines off the beatard monolith

[pink]

... anybody know of a good source for gorge wind forecasts?

yes - me! any day, this time of year, regardless the forecast, assume nuking winds - all that really changes is the temp and the extent of precip

 

cool regardless - what did you rap? south side or north? 3 distinct rap lines off the beatard monolith

 

yeah! especially the north face, just connect the dots baa

[ivan]

yup, no need 4 nothing more than da power of chairman-mao thought there

[denalidave]

... anybody know of a good source for gorge wind forecasts?

yes - me! any day, this time of year, regardless the forecast, assume nuking winds - all that really changes is the temp and the extent of precip

 

cool regardless - what did you rap? south side or north? 3 distinct rap lines off the beatard monolith

 

yeah! especially the north face, just connect the dots baa

[brionifitch]

Figured that about the wind... it is the gorge none the less. Rapped off the hikers trail on the sw face. Nice looking climbing the top two pitches. Bottom was mostly sketchy choss, was using a 60 and stranded myself 20 ft off the deck on a moss ledge. Not sure what the routes are there, it's kinda been under the radar lately I suppose?

Edited January 6, 2013 by brionifitch

[ivan]

sounds like you started rapping off the railing about 1/2 way up, right where the trail turns back left n' heads towards endless switchbacks?

[JosephH]

Well, if there were newer heavy Metolious rap hangers, then you went down the LLL and Rip City rap. This is definitely the time of year to do it.

[brionifitch]

Yup that was it for sure. Is there another anchor lower down in the choss pile? I looked and looked and finally just downclimbed. Did see some older hangers on a route a bit to the left...

[stevetimetravlr]

My green down jacket is up there stuck to the cliff, thank you Rick. Did you see it or has Ivan bootied it already? You need 2 60's to get off the last rap, and the 3rd rap is a real rope stretcher with one 60, better have a knot in the rope and be paying attention. But you know that by now it seems..

[ivan]

why would i booty a jacket that wouldn't have fit me when i was 12?

[pink]

 

look familiar?

 

 

[video:vimeo]

[ivan]

holy shit, some one sold out the bacon wand

[pink]

holy shit, some one sold out the bacon wand

 

 

 

you mean someone sold it out again

 

[billcoe]

Holy crap, now I get something to aromate my starter beard. End of 2012 photo by the lad base of Uprising.

 

Crap it was cold, Ice anywhere there had been water. Good times.

 

[JosephH]

Yup that was it for sure. Is there another anchor lower down in the choss pile? I looked and looked and finally just downclimbed. Did see some older hangers on a route a bit to the left...

Yes, but we were done at that point.

[stevetimetravlr]

holy shit, some one sold out the bacon wand

 

 

 

you mean someone sold it out again

 

Ain't that the truth, sold us all out is more like it. Nice one Pink!

Bill, I hear ya, that spot at the base of Uprising seems to be the coldest location on the climb, the wind just rips thru ya right there.

[kevbone]

Almost time to say good bye to Beacon (south side) for a while.

[ivan]

here's to the final full-moon ascent of the season then - january 27!