Beacon

[stevetimetravlr]

Hammering in pins and playing with your wiener does not cut the mustard no mo. Imaginary lines are great but someone has to climb them. if you want to claim first ascent, do it before the second ascent, not after with indignation or its all just USELESS OLD SHIT talking.

 

 

hey steve... does ur dick hang down to ur knees?

 

It does indeed Andrew. and that's when its folded in half. I got to razz you a little, since I've been out at Beacon a bunch lately and aint seen hardly any of the old timers out or hardly any of the regulars either. Not sure where they have gone except to pasture.. Bill, you are right as usual!

[pink]

well then why don't you go fuck urself ;)

[ivan]

sounds like he's got the requisite length, but as every lady-boi knows, you can't bend a hard dick in half

 

hoping to be out in the fabled beacon-land come this weekend - ain't seen much of the wife this summer so spending some solid-thyme w/ her this week doing the lovely - jeebus, even got some art n' culture in me over in portland town today at the picture-placey museum thang - fine fresh ramen noodles sucked down in the presence of floppy homeless folks too

[stevetimetravlr]

Thank Andrew, but way funner to fu k with you brother! Ivan, welcome home to the Beaconwand. Havent seen you since i bailed off that nasty bastard Santian Ledges. I should be rightly humbled but for some reason still feeling good about not sailing off that filthy biatch.

[billcoe]

There's also a story going around of a guy who did 2 first ascents of the same route out at Beacon. First go round, it was a boltless ground up moss and pants filled X rated ascent, then forgetting about it. Totally. Climbed it: done. Survived it, finished. Lets go climb Dods etc etc. Forgotten. It would have been lost to prosperity for all of time except that 15 years later he spys a potential line and thinking it unclimbed, comes back with a buddy, drill and bolts. Sticks in 4 of the 7 eventual bolts total before the anchors and there almost 1/2 way up this "unclimbed route" hidden in the back of a crack mostly covered by moss is an old Chouinard Lost Arrow Piton driven to the eye in a huge expanding flake. Crap. He's both astounded and stumped at anyone's audacity at having wandered up here in no mans land. Upon further reflection on "how the heck did the guy get back down". There are no rap slings, bolts or other pro visible anywhere logical. There is, however, another route @ 25 feet over that has an anchor @ 20-30 feet higher than the new routes anchor. The mystery is definitely bothersome. As some bolts were in, might as well go full retard and finish the route. Blam, in go the rest of the bolts and an anchor. The partner, Kelly Warden, wants to name it "Raindance" as it was raining on and off when it was being led, but still danced. The other guy was thinking the most approximate name would be just call it "Second Ascent" to reference the route, but with the piton still stuck in there @1/2 way up sure as hell can't call that a First Ascent.

 

It's all very confusing until the guy is later comparing notes with Jim. Jim explains that he had belayed the FA leader and that the guy who did the 2nd Ascent also did the FA and Jim says that person is standing right there in front of him. More confusion ensues. The question, how did the person get to the ground is asked. Basically just a free solo with one shit pin the entire route was a ground fall as even the pin would have pulled. Jim explains that it went up about to the new anchor location and then turned left and with still no pro but lots of moss continued up and over to the anchor on the next route. Jim knows who did this, I don't want to out such stupidity on the internet, you can ask Jim who that was if you are interested. Jim named the route the first time, his choice was "Rythem Method". A reflection on the need for perfect timing so as to not have a huge accident while getting F**cked. Excellent choice for a name.

 

The guy who did the 2 first ascents now quietly chuckles to himself when told now or upon hearing a casual comment (repeatedly in fact) that there are not enough bolts or the bolts are too far apart. True story, happened just that way (I think). This example is another illustration of how first ascents use to get lost in time.

 

[ivan]

1/10/16 - 4th year of setting down the shit that does go down in beatardia, where men are women and women are never around

 

was a rude late fall/early winter season - the big blow of early november annihilated the hiking trail and i woulda been pissed about it if'n never-ending rains hadn't set in and made soloing laps insane anyway

 

a late december trip out w/ geoff at the start of winter break - we ended up just drinking beers n' smoking shit n' commenting on the awful, awful slickery nature of everything - the wall closed at ground zero and so nothing aidable particularly of interest

 

christmas ensued and all was well - didn't have the cash or the clock-time to go for a long off trade to red rocks or whatever, so the only local option was heading up to the puget sound and make a water-man of meself again - last year was great, a 3 day back-pack on the olympic coast n' a 2 day ocean kayak

 

this time around it was a 6-day sea window

 

beat up north in the early hours of 12/27, bent out of my mind it seemed, water streaming along the side of the automovat - seattle shortly after dawn, proud pat all pat-like

 

made our way to the marina n' nattered in the cold light waiting to meet up w/ our captain, a true comedy of errors - soon enough we were on board and casting off

 

sweet simple sailing southward in light airs, past bouys bestowed with sealions - seals - dolphins - eagles both american and candadian i bet - the pleasant site of a 'lion bolting down a full-growth salmon by tail

 

the last bit into port orchard by motor, the night come round so soon - carriers at bremerton

 

ashore we 'sup n' carouse n' enjoy ourselves capitally - meet a sheila-acquaintance of denali dave's round the fireplace n' philsophize over the weight of smoke before rambling off to a sea-berth

 

sail oughta town the next day and all was well - got meself nearly kilt by a swinging boom just shy of brian island or somethign like that - spent much of the night dazed as could be but enjoyed a grand time nonetheless binging on burgundy, n' noble reds n' flowing bowls of what-have-you until 2 in the morning

 

awoke feeling near as death as i've felt in awhile - the hard-knock the day before was certainly one of my fabled 9 lives n' i felt the truth of it - grayed out - feeling the cold i'd inherited from the silverton clan plus the concusssion plus the cold above deck plus the deep, deep fucking booze funk

 

they all thought i was dead the day before and grew doubly grim when i was drawing breath the day after but groaning - turned into me laying in agony on the cabin bench n' holding me head together as we steamed back to seattle against a solid breeze

 

the rest of the day was a healing thing - pat flung himself into the sound in his wetsuit as i laid around his joint, showering and trying to sleep off my fucking concussion - that night we did some super-stoned shopping n' headed over to his girlfriend's for a sumptous dinner set against a most scorchign cold outside - i cackled n' thumbed through 1960's civil defense brochures while pat snored n' i made small talk w/ his missus and her very alien animal

 

3 days of ocean kayaking ensued - launched out from an indian reservation near bellingham, stocked up on cheap injun smokes - the rudder was rudely impaired n' pat didn't know but had me in the back anyhow, so after hours of bitching n' cussing we finally fetched up on clark island

 

soaked rather wet we came straight ashore n' made camp in what proved to be a damned cold place - made a roaring fire n' had a bit of a good night - italian fare i recollect - olives n' red sauce n' sausage tortellinis n' mozeralla n' red wine - a sputtering fire, a bit of a dissapointment but soon enough the tent beside a snoring pat n' i slept soundly, the head cold resonating through me

 

day 2 of the ocean kayak we resolve to shift our camp southwards on the island but no further - find a sweet cove filled w/ firewood n' a sweltering sun, relative to our recent camp - we souse along the shore for a bit n' later launch for a trip to a nearby island where pat is molested by sheep

 

great night, this one - we were promised the northern lights but they never appeared but fuck it - it was new years eve - we sat by a roaring fire n' enjoyed bacon n' chili n' what-have-you, me sucking down pionot noir n' smokes n' enjoying the simpleness of being stranded at sea

 

new year's eve we returned to civilization n' after a bit of agony i made it home in time for winter weather and a nice delayed start to the school year

 

 

but this a beacon thread, n' so all this stuff before is simple bullshit n' i apologize for it

 

today was day 1! corner lap #1, but not solo n' gladly not

 

geoff at the bk a bit past 10 - we saunter eastwards by strong light n' stronger winds

 

the parking lot in a simple gale - we pack and wander down, bound n' determined to reach the top of the uprising and to suss out the damage from there

 

cold n' icy but delightfully dry - i take pitch 1 n' we alternate from there - snow patches here and there, but dry where it needs to be - some beers along the way n' we get time to poke our head over the railing n' take in the carnage on the touron-trail - much work to be done it's obvious - big blown out trees n' blowdown n' battered stones - we take it in and scoot down the raps in the big blow n' enjoy some beers and ramboling aroudn and reach back for home

 

here's to 2016

 

1/31 - day 2 - closing day, and not a very promising one - 39 degrees n' pouring rain in the parking lot - a drive out through mental desperation, the moss on this here rolling rock of meself growing thick n' fucking shaggy

 

beers n' bullshitting w/ steve n' waiting for the weather to give up a little - there were no illusions of how thorough soggy it was gonna be

 

no wind to speak of though, so there was that at least and it got warmer on the south side after the mist melted away - soon enough i cast off, pulling on gear here and there to remind meself not to be a dipshit on a point of pride climbing the slime-cone

 

the sun shone out halfway up and the mood improved noticeably - fresh snow, as innocent as a downy laotian-lamb along the far gorge walls -steve was exuberant to lead the second pitch and i salute him for it as it wouldn't have taken much to talk me out of it

 

a real slippy-slidey one is that - our boy did it w/o flying off but, following, i found meself doing the cartoon-character spinning me feet in the air thang at one point and only narrowly avoiding a pretty cosmic pirouette around the first crux

 

found meself holding forth somethign fierce on tree ledge, swilling pbr n' pounding upon our poor fellow about his own cosmic hangups -those rightly disposed, and a few butts thrown in to boot, i bolted on up the slippery ramps to grassy ledges - since i had a 70 and the jill's anchor was running wet, i went past it and anchored to a tree - a flippant shoulder belay ensued n' steve quite soon went n' fell big time onto it but i proved them old-boys knew what they were doing and ended up smiling on the ground for it

 

the trail closed sign even as we slipped away - stone soup next month now i suppose, though i suspect it's gonna take a civil action and yet another juicy skamania judge session before it gets sorted out - how good is it i have no other hobbies?

 

 

2/27 - day 3 - stone soup in the sopping wet - sausage n' eggs n' a leisurely breakfast - 'nastia at tad past 10 - streaming water on the sides of the machine on the way out - the k-19 in classic form, fresh off a cardiac arrest for christ's sake?

 

3/2 - day 4 - the k-19 konked out saturday just at the parking lot ledge n' we ran out of day and had to leave all the gear hanging on the wall - ya'll bitches lost out on a treasure trove of scary worn-out trash

 

we raced out amid squalls n' rain-storms, me simultaneously sucking down beer n' butts n' changing clothes - was an easy romp up the route w/ the gear all pre-placed - strong winds n' steady rain at times but all went well

 

prime time for putting up some more routes on this small patch of available wall...

 

3/26 - day 6 - spring breaks big upon the land - breezy clouds n' bright sun - a right sound sleep-in - wine n' pizza for breakfast, than a side-saddle into the gorge under glorious skies - crisp n' cold - spent some time scrambling 'round the ozone n' enjoying da wedder, then busted eastwards more to beacon - aid-soloed stone soup n' had a prime time of it, binging on, of all things, katy perry

 

4/28 - day 7 - been out to hike hamilton a couple times the past few weeks but that shit don't count - been a bad fews weeks of loss: health, cool students, ambition, colleagues, etc. - got a taste of bacon to soothe the senses today - me n' mike at the base of stone soup in the cool grey of the afternoon - the alpine start to three tree ledges - to the swiss ledges from there, swapping leads - sawzalled a couple bolts to get'em more righteous - shit, there's so many more to do - set off 2 huge blocks on the rap back down, topping a big tree along the way - for the best really - stoked to see so much chalk on p1 & 2, just gotta improve them amateur bolts for the sporto's

 

5/2 - day 8 - nobody to climb w/ but it was 80+ at days end and nary a cloud in the crystal sky, so what can you do? scampered out to beacon, belting out bale-loads of smoke along the way n' bitch'n ballads, the 'lesberu purring away n' throwing engine warning lights out like it's wont to do - were time compressed into a single moment and a single feeling, i'm sure this wouldn't be the worst of em all to settle on, spring setting in and summer beckoning right behind...

 

not a soul in the parking lot, not right at all for so rare a spring day - what worries me really about the closed hiking trail is there isn't a sign at all of work being done to fix the damn thing - if i had a dollar for every tourist who stops, pays the 10$, then curses to discover the main attraction is under wraps, i'd have 1/10 of what the park's getting...

 

joe lent me a mean sawzall n' i put it to some use - climbed the 1st pitch of stone soup and, while cleaning it, cut down all the nasty extruding studs n' filed n' em nice n' smooth

 

5/28 - day 9 - many hikes up hamilton in recent days, but that don't hardly count - thursday was out for the big walk an saw topher n' company on stone soup - brought a bit of a smile to the heart n' had a good govreet w/ them fools after the walk was over - passed off a sawzall, which didn't appear to get much use, and after a few gut-laff's w/ denali-dave, all done up and vivisected on account of his duputryens, danced away west

 

teamed up w/ geoff today - hadn't seen that courtly fool since casting him off at his hill house shortly after completing our spring break trip to the valley

 

our sad friend greatly hobbled all this time gone by, he braved his early exit from fat-phuck retirment and out we went - topher'd pulled his ropes, and we rambled up the first 2 pitches, me getting all the good work

 

the recently renovated p1 was hardly noticable - p2 not so much - a new bolt allows the aid'n fool to skip the eyebrow cave (bryan managed this same variation w/o a bolt i recall) which makes the aid across a bit more mellow - no more sling on the tree above the bush but it still works, so long as you fully extend your daisy and commit to the top step on tiny handholds

 

the 2 upper headwall bolts all ripped out and eloped east - it got called stone soup for a reason - the new way just fine, aiding-wise, and kinda fun as it forces some funky mixed free maneavours to make the high step

 

rawked out for the rest of our times - 3 tree - the long way down - rangers abound - beers and butts - the boat-dock - always bet on #28 - the big bound home

 

6/9 - die X - not such a balmy day after all this august heat - grey and gloomy - school's done as done can be, just the simple matter of casting these cynical bastards off in the morrow's afternoon and it's summa, summa, summa

 

jeffy-t at the register rock in the half rain - a good gavreet and a glorious shit and it was sauntering time - rambled up to the top-most railing and ran down the stone soup, taking in the rare auold sights - was a trifle baffled by the dangling old fixed line at three tree - guess that's what it means to make nice w/ the neighbors - cut out the hanging trash and cast in on down and couldn't for the life of me find it once upon the ground - wouldn't mind recovering it really, it's the rancid remnants of my first rope, bought back in the waning days of clinton-one

 

might be a bit for beacon - next week's the redwoods and yosemite and san-franny w/ the famibily, then mike n' me making our easting off to the wind river range n' hopefully high times....

 

 

7/16 - day 11 - opening day + 1 - been a busy summer - sand dunes, redwoods, yosemite, san francisco, flat-irons, devils's tower, the winds, smith and darrington, then me washed up flat n' busted on my doorstep just a few days before the family rolls back in - road weary and woe-eyed - sometimes i think i'm a shadow and the sun's almost down

 

a morning spent mending the damage done to tires on the most recent road-trip, then out to beacon and a lap up the corner w/ geoff n' bill - cool weather, cloudy - the old place looking just fine after all this time...

 

musta spent at least 10 solid minutes trying to find the new party spot rumored to be an unladen-swallow's flight away, but eventually we figured ole'adam just must not be home

 

7/17 - day 12 - lap 1 of the summer - woke up late, this last day of bachelor freedom, bound to recover a dog at noon, despite my vexations - just enough time for a sleep in n' a big breakfast n' some beer, then bounced out the door for a lap - musta passed 4 parties of 4-climbers each on the corner? jeebus, the man could make a fortune if'n he claimed for each

7/31 - lucky #13 - lap 2 - a trip to tower and success seemingly in hand after a mort more work - a week w/ the wife at art museum's n' doing ya'd wo'k n' f'ck knows what else - hips hurt - knees hurt - seem to have the planter fascist-fukyu in both my heels now - keerist, i'm a few months short of a solid douglas adams' 42 n' i'm feeling auooooold

 

sunday morning after a solid sleep in - a week w/ the fam at the beach tomorrow so this was it, and not much time to spare as i needed to set the ya'd in order before we fuckered off

 

beacon near noon - the lot like a gypsy caravan before the nazis knew what's what - cool n' grey - bro'seph n' his benji-buddy in buckling down n' ready to bound up dastardly

 

wandered up the corner w/ a head half-right - crowds like always of course, and a poor dam anchored off and leaving on the travese tree giving me the heebie-jeebies - the crux like cream these days - i don't know what my feet are doing, but i just smile and saunter on

 

fresh air and following breeze - fun times - the ramble down - beers and the long babbling road back home...

[kevbone]

I put a new route up at ozone. Starts on top of Heaven ledge. Up and right yout will see a bolt. 3 bolts and pro gets you to the top. Do it with stairway to heaven and it makes a long pitch. 70 m rope barely gets you down. 10-......called highway to hell.

[billcoe]

Congrats Kev! Any photos?

 

Ivan, protect yer feet man. Big fluffy Nike type of shoes.

 

Did an afterwork lap with Ujahn (bowed out of work early). @1:40 car to car via Jims finish. Ujahns been off for a while raising a great lil kid, so I passed on Warriors (maybe the shoulder pain helped there:-), but he wanted the Crusin pitch instead of the staid corner and flew up it faster and smoother than anyone I've ever seen climb it. Christ I wish I could climb like that.

 

Bonus was seeing the Gnome (looking good too) on the hike down and Jim as well. I'd stuffed the Vulgarian digest #1 in his open car window in the parking lot while back and it was nice to laugh about it. Cover is Dick Williams leading Shockley's Ceiling naked. About 1959 or so I believe. JT would know is someone could give him a shake. Anyway, waved to Denaili Dave and Adam from the base. Too many folks on it to grab a 2nd lap.

[ivan]

1/10/16 - 4th year of setting down the shit that does go down in beatardia, where men are women and women are never around

 

was a rude late fall/early winter season - the big blow of early november annihilated the hiking trail and i woulda been pissed about it if'n never-ending rains hadn't set in and made soloing laps insane anyway

 

a late december trip out w/ geoff at the start of winter break - we ended up just drinking beers n' smoking shit n' commenting on the awful, awful slickery nature of everything - the wall closed at ground zero and so nothing aidable particularly of interest

 

christmas ensued and all was well - didn't have the cash or the clock-time to go for a long off trade to red rocks or whatever, so the only local option was heading up to the puget sound and make a water-man of meself again - last year was great, a 3 day back-pack on the olympic coast n' a 2 day ocean kayak

 

this time around it was a 6-day sea window

 

beat up north in the early hours of 12/27, bent out of my mind it seemed, water streaming along the side of the automovat - seattle shortly after dawn, proud pat all pat-like

 

made our way to the marina n' nattered in the cold light waiting to meet up w/ our captain, a true comedy of errors - soon enough we were on board and casting off

 

sweet simple sailing southward in light airs, past bouys bestowed with sealions - seals - dolphins - eagles both american and candadian i bet - the pleasant site of a 'lion bolting down a full-growth salmon by tail

 

the last bit into port orchard by motor, the night come round so soon - carriers at bremerton

 

ashore we 'sup n' carouse n' enjoy ourselves capitally - meet a sheila-acquaintance of denali dave's round the fireplace n' philsophize over the weight of smoke before rambling off to a sea-berth

 

sail oughta town the next day and all was well - got meself nearly kilt by a swinging boom just shy of brian island or somethign like that - spent much of the night dazed as could be but enjoyed a grand time nonetheless binging on burgundy, n' noble reds n' flowing bowls of what-have-you until 2 in the morning

 

awoke feeling near as death as i've felt in awhile - the hard-knock the day before was certainly one of my fabled 9 lives n' i felt the truth of it - grayed out - feeling the cold i'd inherited from the silverton clan plus the concusssion plus the cold above deck plus the deep, deep fucking booze funk

 

they all thought i was dead the day before and grew doubly grim when i was drawing breath the day after but groaning - turned into me laying in agony on the cabin bench n' holding me head together as we steamed back to seattle against a solid breeze

 

the rest of the day was a healing thing - pat flung himself into the sound in his wetsuit as i laid around his joint, showering and trying to sleep off my fucking concussion - that night we did some super-stoned shopping n' headed over to his girlfriend's for a sumptous dinner set against a most scorchign cold outside - i cackled n' thumbed through 1960's civil defense brochures while pat snored n' i made small talk w/ his missus and her very alien animal

 

3 days of ocean kayaking ensued - launched out from an indian reservation near bellingham, stocked up on cheap injun smokes - the rudder was rudely impaired n' pat didn't know but had me in the back anyhow, so after hours of bitching n' cussing we finally fetched up on clark island

 

soaked rather wet we came straight ashore n' made camp in what proved to be a damned cold place - made a roaring fire n' had a bit of a good night - italian fare i recollect - olives n' red sauce n' sausage tortellinis n' mozeralla n' red wine - a sputtering fire, a bit of a dissapointment but soon enough the tent beside a snoring pat n' i slept soundly, the head cold resonating through me

 

day 2 of the ocean kayak we resolve to shift our camp southwards on the island but no further - find a sweet cove filled w/ firewood n' a sweltering sun, relative to our recent camp - we souse along the shore for a bit n' later launch for a trip to a nearby island where pat is molested by sheep

 

great night, this one - we were promised the northern lights but they never appeared but fuck it - it was new years eve - we sat by a roaring fire n' enjoyed bacon n' chili n' what-have-you, me sucking down pionot noir n' smokes n' enjoying the simpleness of being stranded at sea

 

new year's eve we returned to civilization n' after a bit of agony i made it home in time for winter weather and a nice delayed start to the school year

 

 

but this a beacon thread, n' so all this stuff before is simple bullshit n' i apologize for it

 

today was day 1! corner lap #1, but not solo n' gladly not

 

geoff at the bk a bit past 10 - we saunter eastwards by strong light n' stronger winds

 

the parking lot in a simple gale - we pack and wander down, bound n' determined to reach the top of the uprising and to suss out the damage from there

 

cold n' icy but delightfully dry - i take pitch 1 n' we alternate from there - snow patches here and there, but dry where it needs to be - some beers along the way n' we get time to poke our head over the railing n' take in the carnage on the touron-trail - much work to be done it's obvious - big blown out trees n' blowdown n' battered stones - we take it in and scoot down the raps in the big blow n' enjoy some beers and ramboling aroudn and reach back for home

 

here's to 2016

 

1/31 - day 2 - closing day, and not a very promising one - 39 degrees n' pouring rain in the parking lot - a drive out through mental desperation, the moss on this here rolling rock of meself growing thick n' fucking shaggy

 

beers n' bullshitting w/ steve n' waiting for the weather to give up a little - there were no illusions of how thorough soggy it was gonna be

 

no wind to speak of though, so there was that at least and it got warmer on the south side after the mist melted away - soon enough i cast off, pulling on gear here and there to remind meself not to be a dipshit on a point of pride climbing the slime-cone

 

the sun shone out halfway up and the mood improved noticeably - fresh snow, as innocent as a downy laotian-lamb along the far gorge walls -steve was exuberant to lead the second pitch and i salute him for it as it wouldn't have taken much to talk me out of it

 

a real slippy-slidey one is that - our boy did it w/o flying off but, following, i found meself doing the cartoon-character spinning me feet in the air thang at one point and only narrowly avoiding a pretty cosmic pirouette around the first crux

 

found meself holding forth somethign fierce on tree ledge, swilling pbr n' pounding upon our poor fellow about his own cosmic hangups -those rightly disposed, and a few butts thrown in to boot, i bolted on up the slippery ramps to grassy ledges - since i had a 70 and the jill's anchor was running wet, i went past it and anchored to a tree - a flippant shoulder belay ensued n' steve quite soon went n' fell big time onto it but i proved them old-boys knew what they were doing and ended up smiling on the ground for it

 

the trail closed sign even as we slipped away - stone soup next month now i suppose, though i suspect it's gonna take a civil action and yet another juicy skamania judge session before it gets sorted out - how good is it i have no other hobbies?

 

 

2/27 - day 3 - stone soup in the sopping wet - sausage n' eggs n' a leisurely breakfast - 'nastia at tad past 10 - streaming water on the sides of the machine on the way out - the k-19 in classic form, fresh off a cardiac arrest for christ's sake?

 

3/2 - day 4 - the k-19 konked out saturday just at the parking lot ledge n' we ran out of day and had to leave all the gear hanging on the wall - ya'll bitches lost out on a treasure trove of scary worn-out trash

 

we raced out amid squalls n' rain-storms, me simultaneously sucking down beer n' butts n' changing clothes - was an easy romp up the route w/ the gear all pre-placed - strong winds n' steady rain at times but all went well

 

prime time for putting up some more routes on this small patch of available wall...

 

3/26 - day 6 - spring breaks big upon the land - breezy clouds n' bright sun - a right sound sleep-in - wine n' pizza for breakfast, than a side-saddle into the gorge under glorious skies - crisp n' cold - spent some time scrambling 'round the ozone n' enjoying da wedder, then busted eastwards more to beacon - aid-soloed stone soup n' had a prime time of it, binging on, of all things, katy perry

 

4/28 - day 7 - been out to hike hamilton a couple times the past few weeks but that shit don't count - been a bad fews weeks of loss: health, cool students, ambition, colleagues, etc. - got a taste of bacon to soothe the senses today - me n' mike at the base of stone soup in the cool grey of the afternoon - the alpine start to three tree ledges - to the swiss ledges from there, swapping leads - sawzalled a couple bolts to get'em more righteous - shit, there's so many more to do - set off 2 huge blocks on the rap back down, topping a big tree along the way - for the best really - stoked to see so much chalk on p1 & 2, just gotta improve them amateur bolts for the sporto's

 

5/2 - day 8 - nobody to climb w/ but it was 80+ at days end and nary a cloud in the crystal sky, so what can you do? scampered out to beacon, belting out bale-loads of smoke along the way n' bitch'n ballads, the 'lesberu purring away n' throwing engine warning lights out like it's wont to do - were time compressed into a single moment and a single feeling, i'm sure this wouldn't be the worst of em all to settle on, spring setting in and summer beckoning right behind...

 

not a soul in the parking lot, not right at all for so rare a spring day - what worries me really about the closed hiking trail is there isn't a sign at all of work being done to fix the damn thing - if i had a dollar for every tourist who stops, pays the 10$, then curses to discover the main attraction is under wraps, i'd have 1/10 of what the park's getting...

 

joe lent me a mean sawzall n' i put it to some use - climbed the 1st pitch of stone soup and, while cleaning it, cut down all the nasty extruding studs n' filed n' em nice n' smooth

 

5/28 - day 9 - many hikes up hamilton in recent days, but that don't hardly count - thursday was out for the big walk an saw topher n' company on stone soup - brought a bit of a smile to the heart n' had a good govreet w/ them fools after the walk was over - passed off a sawzall, which didn't appear to get much use, and after a few gut-laff's w/ denali-dave, all done up and vivisected on account of his duputryens, danced away west

 

teamed up w/ geoff today - hadn't seen that courtly fool since casting him off at his hill house shortly after completing our spring break trip to the valley

 

our sad friend greatly hobbled all this time gone by, he braved his early exit from fat-phuck retirment and out we went - topher'd pulled his ropes, and we rambled up the first 2 pitches, me getting all the good work

 

the recently renovated p1 was hardly noticable - p2 not so much - a new bolt allows the aid'n fool to skip the eyebrow cave (bryan managed this same variation w/o a bolt i recall) which makes the aid across a bit more mellow - no more sling on the tree above the bush but it still works, so long as you fully extend your daisy and commit to the top step on tiny handholds

 

the 2 upper headwall bolts all ripped out and eloped east - it got called stone soup for a reason - the new way just fine, aiding-wise, and kinda fun as it forces some funky mixed free maneavours to make the high step

 

rawked out for the rest of our times - 3 tree - the long way down - rangers abound - beers and butts - the boat-dock - always bet on #28 - the big bound home

 

6/9 - die X - not such a balmy day after all this august heat - grey and gloomy - school's done as done can be, just the simple matter of casting these cynical bastards off in the morrow's afternoon and it's summa, summa, summa

 

jeffy-t at the register rock in the half rain - a good gavreet and a glorious shit and it was sauntering time - rambled up to the top-most railing and ran down the stone soup, taking in the rare auold sights - was a trifle baffled by the dangling old fixed line at three tree - guess that's what it means to make nice w/ the neighbors - cut out the hanging trash and cast in on down and couldn't for the life of me find it once upon the ground - wouldn't mind recovering it really, it's the rancid remnants of my first rope, bought back in the waning days of clinton-one

 

might be a bit for beacon - next week's the redwoods and yosemite and san-franny w/ the famibily, then mike n' me making our easting off to the wind river range n' hopefully high times....

 

 

7/16 - day 11 - opening day + 1 - been a busy summer - sand dunes, redwoods, yosemite, san francisco, flat-irons, devils's tower, the winds, smith and darrington, then me washed up flat n' busted on my doorstep just a few days before the family rolls back in - road weary and woe-eyed - sometimes i think i'm a shadow and the sun's almost down

 

a morning spent mending the damage done to tires on the most recent road-trip, then out to beacon and a lap up the corner w/ geoff n' bill - cool weather, cloudy - the old place looking just fine after all this time...

 

musta spent at least 10 solid minutes trying to find the new party spot rumored to be an unladen-swallow's flight away, but eventually we figured ole'adam just must not be home

 

7/17 - day 12 - lap 1 of the summer - woke up late, this last day of bachelor freedom, bound to recover a dog at noon, despite my vexations - just enough time for a sleep in n' a big breakfast n' some beer, then bounced out the door for a lap - musta passed 4 parties of 4-climbers each on the corner? jeebus, the man could make a fortune if'n he claimed for each

 

7/31 - lucky #13 - lap 2 - a trip to tower and success seemingly in hand after a mort more work - a week w/ the wife at art museum's n' doing ya'd wo'k n' f'ck knows what else - hips hurt - knees hurt - seem to have the planter fascist-fukyu in both my heels now - keerist, i'm a few months short of a solid douglas adams' 42 n' i'm feeling auooooold

 

sunday morning after a solid sleep in - a week w/ the fam at the beach tomorrow so this was it, and not much time to spare as i needed to set the ya'd in order before we fuckered off

 

beacon near noon - the lot like a gypsy caravan before the nazis knew what's what - cool n' grey - bro'seph n' his benji-buddy in buckling down n' ready to bound up dastardly

 

wandered up the corner w/ a head half-right - crowds like always of course, and a poor dam anchored off and leaving on the travese tree giving me the heebie-jeebies - the crux like cream these days - i don't know what my feet are doing, but i just smile and saunter on

 

fresh air and following breeze - fun times - the ramble down - beers and the long babbling road back home...

8/7 - day 14 - little wing n' jill's thrill just right to humiliate our friend n' humble narrator after a week family camping in the olympics, sucking down sausauges n' swill - swimming across lake quinualt some species of training i suppose...

 

thought ole'geoff was fixing to stand me up at the b.k. - read some n' tried not to feel like i was gonna barf up me breakfast - settled for just doing some soloing after a half hour rambled on by - went to fetch some of the regular old poisons out of the roadhouse first n' then pulled out n' headed east when i saw the big-G galloping up in his toy-yoya n' said sure, why not?

 

bit stormy out at beacon today, but nothing serious n' kept the crowds down a bit i bet

 

geoff did the real work so i wussed out and did the easier pitches but still fumbled n' fucked them up, conniving to cut me hand up in the bargain and bled like a little bitch all over the place

 

the Gnome King at grassy ledges, seemingly moved in for the season n' hogging all the space, his ride recently jacked by the Man n' him all "fukit, keepit" in response - a rare hero that'un

 

steve n' lisa all about too - we followed them down the raps n' rambled on over to the other side to see about the minotaur, who happily had left his labyrinth - ascended through threatening storm n' had a real satisfying time of it

 

rude reality back in the parking lot - some crackhead kraker chucked a big old stone through geoff's window n' did a quick once-over through its interior - pleasingly the car-alarm seemed to have brought the bitch out of the pussies and they fled before grabbing anything actually - guess it gives our boy an excuse to finally replace the broken windshield too...

 

the summer's setting quick - hope to get another tower trip or two in before it's time to slummit back to work...

 

 

[ivan]

1/10/16 - 4th year of setting down the shit that does go down in beatardia, where men are women and women are never around

 

was a rude late fall/early winter season - the big blow of early november annihilated the hiking trail and i woulda been pissed about it if'n never-ending rains hadn't set in and made soloing laps insane anyway

 

a late december trip out w/ geoff at the start of winter break - we ended up just drinking beers n' smoking shit n' commenting on the awful, awful slickery nature of everything - the wall closed at ground zero and so nothing aidable particularly of interest

 

christmas ensued and all was well - didn't have the cash or the clock-time to go for a long off trade to red rocks or whatever, so the only local option was heading up to the puget sound and make a water-man of meself again - last year was great, a 3 day back-pack on the olympic coast n' a 2 day ocean kayak

 

this time around it was a 6-day sea window

 

beat up north in the early hours of 12/27, bent out of my mind it seemed, water streaming along the side of the automovat - seattle shortly after dawn, proud pat all pat-like

 

made our way to the marina n' nattered in the cold light waiting to meet up w/ our captain, a true comedy of errors - soon enough we were on board and casting off

 

sweet simple sailing southward in light airs, past bouys bestowed with sealions - seals - dolphins - eagles both american and candadian i bet - the pleasant site of a 'lion bolting down a full-growth salmon by tail

 

the last bit into port orchard by motor, the night come round so soon - carriers at bremerton

 

ashore we 'sup n' carouse n' enjoy ourselves capitally - meet a sheila-acquaintance of denali dave's round the fireplace n' philsophize over the weight of smoke before rambling off to a sea-berth

 

sail oughta town the next day and all was well - got meself nearly kilt by a swinging boom just shy of brian island or somethign like that - spent much of the night dazed as could be but enjoyed a grand time nonetheless binging on burgundy, n' noble reds n' flowing bowls of what-have-you until 2 in the morning

 

awoke feeling near as death as i've felt in awhile - the hard-knock the day before was certainly one of my fabled 9 lives n' i felt the truth of it - grayed out - feeling the cold i'd inherited from the silverton clan plus the concusssion plus the cold above deck plus the deep, deep fucking booze funk

 

they all thought i was dead the day before and grew doubly grim when i was drawing breath the day after but groaning - turned into me laying in agony on the cabin bench n' holding me head together as we steamed back to seattle against a solid breeze

 

the rest of the day was a healing thing - pat flung himself into the sound in his wetsuit as i laid around his joint, showering and trying to sleep off my fucking concussion - that night we did some super-stoned shopping n' headed over to his girlfriend's for a sumptous dinner set against a most scorchign cold outside - i cackled n' thumbed through 1960's civil defense brochures while pat snored n' i made small talk w/ his missus and her very alien animal

 

3 days of ocean kayaking ensued - launched out from an indian reservation near bellingham, stocked up on cheap injun smokes - the rudder was rudely impaired n' pat didn't know but had me in the back anyhow, so after hours of bitching n' cussing we finally fetched up on clark island

 

soaked rather wet we came straight ashore n' made camp in what proved to be a damned cold place - made a roaring fire n' had a bit of a good night - italian fare i recollect - olives n' red sauce n' sausage tortellinis n' mozeralla n' red wine - a sputtering fire, a bit of a dissapointment but soon enough the tent beside a snoring pat n' i slept soundly, the head cold resonating through me

 

day 2 of the ocean kayak we resolve to shift our camp southwards on the island but no further - find a sweet cove filled w/ firewood n' a sweltering sun, relative to our recent camp - we souse along the shore for a bit n' later launch for a trip to a nearby island where pat is molested by sheep

 

great night, this one - we were promised the northern lights but they never appeared but fuck it - it was new years eve - we sat by a roaring fire n' enjoyed bacon n' chili n' what-have-you, me sucking down pionot noir n' smokes n' enjoying the simpleness of being stranded at sea

 

new year's eve we returned to civilization n' after a bit of agony i made it home in time for winter weather and a nice delayed start to the school year

 

 

but this a beacon thread, n' so all this stuff before is simple bullshit n' i apologize for it

 

today was day 1! corner lap #1, but not solo n' gladly not

 

geoff at the bk a bit past 10 - we saunter eastwards by strong light n' stronger winds

 

the parking lot in a simple gale - we pack and wander down, bound n' determined to reach the top of the uprising and to suss out the damage from there

 

cold n' icy but delightfully dry - i take pitch 1 n' we alternate from there - snow patches here and there, but dry where it needs to be - some beers along the way n' we get time to poke our head over the railing n' take in the carnage on the touron-trail - much work to be done it's obvious - big blown out trees n' blowdown n' battered stones - we take it in and scoot down the raps in the big blow n' enjoy some beers and ramboling aroudn and reach back for home

 

here's to 2016

 

1/31 - day 2 - closing day, and not a very promising one - 39 degrees n' pouring rain in the parking lot - a drive out through mental desperation, the moss on this here rolling rock of meself growing thick n' fucking shaggy

 

beers n' bullshitting w/ steve n' waiting for the weather to give up a little - there were no illusions of how thorough soggy it was gonna be

 

no wind to speak of though, so there was that at least and it got warmer on the south side after the mist melted away - soon enough i cast off, pulling on gear here and there to remind meself not to be a dipshit on a point of pride climbing the slime-cone

 

the sun shone out halfway up and the mood improved noticeably - fresh snow, as innocent as a downy laotian-lamb along the far gorge walls -steve was exuberant to lead the second pitch and i salute him for it as it wouldn't have taken much to talk me out of it

 

a real slippy-slidey one is that - our boy did it w/o flying off but, following, i found meself doing the cartoon-character spinning me feet in the air thang at one point and only narrowly avoiding a pretty cosmic pirouette around the first crux

 

found meself holding forth somethign fierce on tree ledge, swilling pbr n' pounding upon our poor fellow about his own cosmic hangups -those rightly disposed, and a few butts thrown in to boot, i bolted on up the slippery ramps to grassy ledges - since i had a 70 and the jill's anchor was running wet, i went past it and anchored to a tree - a flippant shoulder belay ensued n' steve quite soon went n' fell big time onto it but i proved them old-boys knew what they were doing and ended up smiling on the ground for it

 

the trail closed sign even as we slipped away - stone soup next month now i suppose, though i suspect it's gonna take a civil action and yet another juicy skamania judge session before it gets sorted out - how good is it i have no other hobbies?

 

 

2/27 - day 3 - stone soup in the sopping wet - sausage n' eggs n' a leisurely breakfast - 'nastia at tad past 10 - streaming water on the sides of the machine on the way out - the k-19 in classic form, fresh off a cardiac arrest for christ's sake?

 

3/2 - day 4 - the k-19 konked out saturday just at the parking lot ledge n' we ran out of day and had to leave all the gear hanging on the wall - ya'll bitches lost out on a treasure trove of scary worn-out trash

 

we raced out amid squalls n' rain-storms, me simultaneously sucking down beer n' butts n' changing clothes - was an easy romp up the route w/ the gear all pre-placed - strong winds n' steady rain at times but all went well

 

prime time for putting up some more routes on this small patch of available wall...

 

3/26 - day 6 - spring breaks big upon the land - breezy clouds n' bright sun - a right sound sleep-in - wine n' pizza for breakfast, than a side-saddle into the gorge under glorious skies - crisp n' cold - spent some time scrambling 'round the ozone n' enjoying da wedder, then busted eastwards more to beacon - aid-soloed stone soup n' had a prime time of it, binging on, of all things, katy perry

 

4/28 - day 7 - been out to hike hamilton a couple times the past few weeks but that shit don't count - been a bad fews weeks of loss: health, cool students, ambition, colleagues, etc. - got a taste of bacon to soothe the senses today - me n' mike at the base of stone soup in the cool grey of the afternoon - the alpine start to three tree ledges - to the swiss ledges from there, swapping leads - sawzalled a couple bolts to get'em more righteous - shit, there's so many more to do - set off 2 huge blocks on the rap back down, topping a big tree along the way - for the best really - stoked to see so much chalk on p1 & 2, just gotta improve them amateur bolts for the sporto's

 

5/2 - day 8 - nobody to climb w/ but it was 80+ at days end and nary a cloud in the crystal sky, so what can you do? scampered out to beacon, belting out bale-loads of smoke along the way n' bitch'n ballads, the 'lesberu purring away n' throwing engine warning lights out like it's wont to do - were time compressed into a single moment and a single feeling, i'm sure this wouldn't be the worst of em all to settle on, spring setting in and summer beckoning right behind...

 

not a soul in the parking lot, not right at all for so rare a spring day - what worries me really about the closed hiking trail is there isn't a sign at all of work being done to fix the damn thing - if i had a dollar for every tourist who stops, pays the 10$, then curses to discover the main attraction is under wraps, i'd have 1/10 of what the park's getting...

 

joe lent me a mean sawzall n' i put it to some use - climbed the 1st pitch of stone soup and, while cleaning it, cut down all the nasty extruding studs n' filed n' em nice n' smooth

 

5/28 - day 9 - many hikes up hamilton in recent days, but that don't hardly count - thursday was out for the big walk an saw topher n' company on stone soup - brought a bit of a smile to the heart n' had a good govreet w/ them fools after the walk was over - passed off a sawzall, which didn't appear to get much use, and after a few gut-laff's w/ denali-dave, all done up and vivisected on account of his duputryens, danced away west

 

teamed up w/ geoff today - hadn't seen that courtly fool since casting him off at his hill house shortly after completing our spring break trip to the valley

 

our sad friend greatly hobbled all this time gone by, he braved his early exit from fat-phuck retirment and out we went - topher'd pulled his ropes, and we rambled up the first 2 pitches, me getting all the good work

 

the recently renovated p1 was hardly noticable - p2 not so much - a new bolt allows the aid'n fool to skip the eyebrow cave (bryan managed this same variation w/o a bolt i recall) which makes the aid across a bit more mellow - no more sling on the tree above the bush but it still works, so long as you fully extend your daisy and commit to the top step on tiny handholds

 

the 2 upper headwall bolts all ripped out and eloped east - it got called stone soup for a reason - the new way just fine, aiding-wise, and kinda fun as it forces some funky mixed free maneavours to make the high step

 

rawked out for the rest of our times - 3 tree - the long way down - rangers abound - beers and butts - the boat-dock - always bet on #28 - the big bound home

 

6/9 - die X - not such a balmy day after all this august heat - grey and gloomy - school's done as done can be, just the simple matter of casting these cynical bastards off in the morrow's afternoon and it's summa, summa, summa

 

jeffy-t at the register rock in the half rain - a good gavreet and a glorious shit and it was sauntering time - rambled up to the top-most railing and ran down the stone soup, taking in the rare auold sights - was a trifle baffled by the dangling old fixed line at three tree - guess that's what it means to make nice w/ the neighbors - cut out the hanging trash and cast in on down and couldn't for the life of me find it once upon the ground - wouldn't mind recovering it really, it's the rancid remnants of my first rope, bought back in the waning days of clinton-one

 

might be a bit for beacon - next week's the redwoods and yosemite and san-franny w/ the famibily, then mike n' me making our easting off to the wind river range n' hopefully high times....

 

 

7/16 - day 11 - opening day + 1 - been a busy summer - sand dunes, redwoods, yosemite, san francisco, flat-irons, devils's tower, the winds, smith and darrington, then me washed up flat n' busted on my doorstep just a few days before the family rolls back in - road weary and woe-eyed - sometimes i think i'm a shadow and the sun's almost down

 

a morning spent mending the damage done to tires on the most recent road-trip, then out to beacon and a lap up the corner w/ geoff n' bill - cool weather, cloudy - the old place looking just fine after all this time...

 

musta spent at least 10 solid minutes trying to find the new party spot rumored to be an unladen-swallow's flight away, but eventually we figured ole'adam just must not be home

 

7/17 - day 12 - lap 1 of the summer - woke up late, this last day of bachelor freedom, bound to recover a dog at noon, despite my vexations - just enough time for a sleep in n' a big breakfast n' some beer, then bounced out the door for a lap - musta passed 4 parties of 4-climbers each on the corner? jeebus, the man could make a fortune if'n he claimed for each

 

7/31 - lucky #13 - lap 2 - a trip to tower and success seemingly in hand after a mort more work - a week w/ the wife at art museum's n' doing ya'd wo'k n' f'ck knows what else - hips hurt - knees hurt - seem to have the planter fascist-fukyu in both my heels now - keerist, i'm a few months short of a solid douglas adams' 42 n' i'm feeling auooooold

 

sunday morning after a solid sleep in - a week w/ the fam at the beach tomorrow so this was it, and not much time to spare as i needed to set the ya'd in order before we fuckered off

 

beacon near noon - the lot like a gypsy caravan before the nazis knew what's what - cool n' grey - bro'seph n' his benji-buddy in buckling down n' ready to bound up dastardly

 

wandered up the corner w/ a head half-right - crowds like always of course, and a poor dam anchored off and leaving on the travese tree giving me the heebie-jeebies - the crux like cream these days - i don't know what my feet are doing, but i just smile and saunter on

 

fresh air and following breeze - fun times - the ramble down - beers and the long babbling road back home...

 

8/7 - day 14 - little wing n' jill's thrill just right to humiliate our friend n' humble narrator after a week family camping in the olympics, sucking down sausauges n' swill - swimming across lake quinualt some species of training i suppose...

 

thought ole'geoff was fixing to stand me up at the b.k. - read some n' tried not to feel like i was gonna barf up me breakfast - settled for just doing some soloing after a half hour rambled on by - went to fetch some of the regular old poisons out of the roadhouse first n' then pulled out n' headed east when i saw the big-G galloping up in his toy-yoya n' said sure, why not?

 

bit stormy out at beacon today, but nothing serious n' kept the crowds down a bit i bet

 

geoff did the real work so i wussed out and did the easier pitches but still fumbled n' fucked them up, conniving to cut me hand up in the bargain and bled like a little bitch all over the place

 

the Gnome King at grassy ledges, seemingly moved in for the season n' hogging all the space, his ride recently jacked by the Man n' him all "fukit, keepit" in response - a rare hero that'un

 

steve n' lisa all about too - we followed them down the raps n' rambled on over to the other side to see about the minotaur, who happily had left his labyrinth - ascended through threatening storm n' had a real satisfying time of it

 

rude reality back in the parking lot - some crackhead kraker chucked a big old stone through geoff's window n' did a quick once-over through its interior - pleasingly the car-alarm seemed to have brought the bitch out of the pussies and they fled before grabbing anything actually - guess it gives our boy an excuse to finally replace the broken windshield too...

 

the summer's setting quick - hope to get another tower trip or two in before it's time to slummit back to work...

 

8/10 - day XV - lap III - leisurely breakfast w/ the kids and some midsummer school work dispensed with, hit the chiropractor to crack the old back n' suck the thetans outta me, then cruised out to beacon in the afternoon heat - warm n' windy in the park - the busted glass of geoff's smashed window all tidied up - just one couple gearing up n' ready to blast off as i started up the corner - felt like a slow old man, stopping to have a good lie down every few pitches n' gaze out at the much older man, the half moon hanging in the sky - the perseids tonight too - the free tv overhead never failing to fling something at you

 

looks like the gnome-king done got evicted - wonder where that wierd mutherfukka got to?

[ivan]

1/10/16 - 4th year of setting down the shit that does go down in beatardia, where men are women and women are never around

 

was a rude late fall/early winter season - the big blow of early november annihilated the hiking trail and i woulda been pissed about it if'n never-ending rains hadn't set in and made soloing laps insane anyway

 

a late december trip out w/ geoff at the start of winter break - we ended up just drinking beers n' smoking shit n' commenting on the awful, awful slickery nature of everything - the wall closed at ground zero and so nothing aidable particularly of interest

 

christmas ensued and all was well - didn't have the cash or the clock-time to go for a long off trade to red rocks or whatever, so the only local option was heading up to the puget sound and make a water-man of meself again - last year was great, a 3 day back-pack on the olympic coast n' a 2 day ocean kayak

 

this time around it was a 6-day sea window

 

beat up north in the early hours of 12/27, bent out of my mind it seemed, water streaming along the side of the automovat - seattle shortly after dawn, proud pat all pat-like

 

made our way to the marina n' nattered in the cold light waiting to meet up w/ our captain, a true comedy of errors - soon enough we were on board and casting off

 

sweet simple sailing southward in light airs, past bouys bestowed with sealions - seals - dolphins - eagles both american and candadian i bet - the pleasant site of a 'lion bolting down a full-growth salmon by tail

 

the last bit into port orchard by motor, the night come round so soon - carriers at bremerton

 

ashore we 'sup n' carouse n' enjoy ourselves capitally - meet a sheila-acquaintance of denali dave's round the fireplace n' philsophize over the weight of smoke before rambling off to a sea-berth

 

sail oughta town the next day and all was well - got meself nearly kilt by a swinging boom just shy of brian island or somethign like that - spent much of the night dazed as could be but enjoyed a grand time nonetheless binging on burgundy, n' noble reds n' flowing bowls of what-have-you until 2 in the morning

 

awoke feeling near as death as i've felt in awhile - the hard-knock the day before was certainly one of my fabled 9 lives n' i felt the truth of it - grayed out - feeling the cold i'd inherited from the silverton clan plus the concusssion plus the cold above deck plus the deep, deep fucking booze funk

 

they all thought i was dead the day before and grew doubly grim when i was drawing breath the day after but groaning - turned into me laying in agony on the cabin bench n' holding me head together as we steamed back to seattle against a solid breeze

 

the rest of the day was a healing thing - pat flung himself into the sound in his wetsuit as i laid around his joint, showering and trying to sleep off my fucking concussion - that night we did some super-stoned shopping n' headed over to his girlfriend's for a sumptous dinner set against a most scorchign cold outside - i cackled n' thumbed through 1960's civil defense brochures while pat snored n' i made small talk w/ his missus and her very alien animal

 

3 days of ocean kayaking ensued - launched out from an indian reservation near bellingham, stocked up on cheap injun smokes - the rudder was rudely impaired n' pat didn't know but had me in the back anyhow, so after hours of bitching n' cussing we finally fetched up on clark island

 

soaked rather wet we came straight ashore n' made camp in what proved to be a damned cold place - made a roaring fire n' had a bit of a good night - italian fare i recollect - olives n' red sauce n' sausage tortellinis n' mozeralla n' red wine - a sputtering fire, a bit of a dissapointment but soon enough the tent beside a snoring pat n' i slept soundly, the head cold resonating through me

 

day 2 of the ocean kayak we resolve to shift our camp southwards on the island but no further - find a sweet cove filled w/ firewood n' a sweltering sun, relative to our recent camp - we souse along the shore for a bit n' later launch for a trip to a nearby island where pat is molested by sheep

 

great night, this one - we were promised the northern lights but they never appeared but fuck it - it was new years eve - we sat by a roaring fire n' enjoyed bacon n' chili n' what-have-you, me sucking down pionot noir n' smokes n' enjoying the simpleness of being stranded at sea

 

new year's eve we returned to civilization n' after a bit of agony i made it home in time for winter weather and a nice delayed start to the school year

 

 

but this a beacon thread, n' so all this stuff before is simple bullshit n' i apologize for it

 

today was day 1! corner lap #1, but not solo n' gladly not

 

geoff at the bk a bit past 10 - we saunter eastwards by strong light n' stronger winds

 

the parking lot in a simple gale - we pack and wander down, bound n' determined to reach the top of the uprising and to suss out the damage from there

 

cold n' icy but delightfully dry - i take pitch 1 n' we alternate from there - snow patches here and there, but dry where it needs to be - some beers along the way n' we get time to poke our head over the railing n' take in the carnage on the touron-trail - much work to be done it's obvious - big blown out trees n' blowdown n' battered stones - we take it in and scoot down the raps in the big blow n' enjoy some beers and ramboling aroudn and reach back for home

 

here's to 2016

 

1/31 - day 2 - closing day, and not a very promising one - 39 degrees n' pouring rain in the parking lot - a drive out through mental desperation, the moss on this here rolling rock of meself growing thick n' fucking shaggy

 

beers n' bullshitting w/ steve n' waiting for the weather to give up a little - there were no illusions of how thorough soggy it was gonna be

 

no wind to speak of though, so there was that at least and it got warmer on the south side after the mist melted away - soon enough i cast off, pulling on gear here and there to remind meself not to be a dipshit on a point of pride climbing the slime-cone

 

the sun shone out halfway up and the mood improved noticeably - fresh snow, as innocent as a downy laotian-lamb along the far gorge walls -steve was exuberant to lead the second pitch and i salute him for it as it wouldn't have taken much to talk me out of it

 

a real slippy-slidey one is that - our boy did it w/o flying off but, following, i found meself doing the cartoon-character spinning me feet in the air thang at one point and only narrowly avoiding a pretty cosmic pirouette around the first crux

 

found meself holding forth somethign fierce on tree ledge, swilling pbr n' pounding upon our poor fellow about his own cosmic hangups -those rightly disposed, and a few butts thrown in to boot, i bolted on up the slippery ramps to grassy ledges - since i had a 70 and the jill's anchor was running wet, i went past it and anchored to a tree - a flippant shoulder belay ensued n' steve quite soon went n' fell big time onto it but i proved them old-boys knew what they were doing and ended up smiling on the ground for it

 

the trail closed sign even as we slipped away - stone soup next month now i suppose, though i suspect it's gonna take a civil action and yet another juicy skamania judge session before it gets sorted out - how good is it i have no other hobbies?

 

 

2/27 - day 3 - stone soup in the sopping wet - sausage n' eggs n' a leisurely breakfast - 'nastia at tad past 10 - streaming water on the sides of the machine on the way out - the k-19 in classic form, fresh off a cardiac arrest for christ's sake?

 

3/2 - day 4 - the k-19 konked out saturday just at the parking lot ledge n' we ran out of day and had to leave all the gear hanging on the wall - ya'll bitches lost out on a treasure trove of scary worn-out trash

 

we raced out amid squalls n' rain-storms, me simultaneously sucking down beer n' butts n' changing clothes - was an easy romp up the route w/ the gear all pre-placed - strong winds n' steady rain at times but all went well

 

prime time for putting up some more routes on this small patch of available wall...

 

3/26 - day 6 - spring breaks big upon the land - breezy clouds n' bright sun - a right sound sleep-in - wine n' pizza for breakfast, than a side-saddle into the gorge under glorious skies - crisp n' cold - spent some time scrambling 'round the ozone n' enjoying da wedder, then busted eastwards more to beacon - aid-soloed stone soup n' had a prime time of it, binging on, of all things, katy perry

 

4/28 - day 7 - been out to hike hamilton a couple times the past few weeks but that shit don't count - been a bad fews weeks of loss: health, cool students, ambition, colleagues, etc. - got a taste of bacon to soothe the senses today - me n' mike at the base of stone soup in the cool grey of the afternoon - the alpine start to three tree ledges - to the swiss ledges from there, swapping leads - sawzalled a couple bolts to get'em more righteous - shit, there's so many more to do - set off 2 huge blocks on the rap back down, topping a big tree along the way - for the best really - stoked to see so much chalk on p1 & 2, just gotta improve them amateur bolts for the sporto's

 

5/2 - day 8 - nobody to climb w/ but it was 80+ at days end and nary a cloud in the crystal sky, so what can you do? scampered out to beacon, belting out bale-loads of smoke along the way n' bitch'n ballads, the 'lesberu purring away n' throwing engine warning lights out like it's wont to do - were time compressed into a single moment and a single feeling, i'm sure this wouldn't be the worst of em all to settle on, spring setting in and summer beckoning right behind...

 

not a soul in the parking lot, not right at all for so rare a spring day - what worries me really about the closed hiking trail is there isn't a sign at all of work being done to fix the damn thing - if i had a dollar for every tourist who stops, pays the 10$, then curses to discover the main attraction is under wraps, i'd have 1/10 of what the park's getting...

 

joe lent me a mean sawzall n' i put it to some use - climbed the 1st pitch of stone soup and, while cleaning it, cut down all the nasty extruding studs n' filed n' em nice n' smooth

 

5/28 - day 9 - many hikes up hamilton in recent days, but that don't hardly count - thursday was out for the big walk an saw topher n' company on stone soup - brought a bit of a smile to the heart n' had a good govreet w/ them fools after the walk was over - passed off a sawzall, which didn't appear to get much use, and after a few gut-laff's w/ denali-dave, all done up and vivisected on account of his duputryens, danced away west

 

teamed up w/ geoff today - hadn't seen that courtly fool since casting him off at his hill house shortly after completing our spring break trip to the valley

 

our sad friend greatly hobbled all this time gone by, he braved his early exit from fat-phuck retirment and out we went - topher'd pulled his ropes, and we rambled up the first 2 pitches, me getting all the good work

 

the recently renovated p1 was hardly noticable - p2 not so much - a new bolt allows the aid'n fool to skip the eyebrow cave (bryan managed this same variation w/o a bolt i recall) which makes the aid across a bit more mellow - no more sling on the tree above the bush but it still works, so long as you fully extend your daisy and commit to the top step on tiny handholds

 

the 2 upper headwall bolts all ripped out and eloped east - it got called stone soup for a reason - the new way just fine, aiding-wise, and kinda fun as it forces some funky mixed free maneavours to make the high step

 

rawked out for the rest of our times - 3 tree - the long way down - rangers abound - beers and butts - the boat-dock - always bet on #28 - the big bound home

 

6/9 - die X - not such a balmy day after all this august heat - grey and gloomy - school's done as done can be, just the simple matter of casting these cynical bastards off in the morrow's afternoon and it's summa, summa, summa

 

jeffy-t at the register rock in the half rain - a good gavreet and a glorious shit and it was sauntering time - rambled up to the top-most railing and ran down the stone soup, taking in the rare auold sights - was a trifle baffled by the dangling old fixed line at three tree - guess that's what it means to make nice w/ the neighbors - cut out the hanging trash and cast in on down and couldn't for the life of me find it once upon the ground - wouldn't mind recovering it really, it's the rancid remnants of my first rope, bought back in the waning days of clinton-one

 

might be a bit for beacon - next week's the redwoods and yosemite and san-franny w/ the famibily, then mike n' me making our easting off to the wind river range n' hopefully high times....

 

 

7/16 - day 11 - opening day + 1 - been a busy summer - sand dunes, redwoods, yosemite, san francisco, flat-irons, devils's tower, the winds, smith and darrington, then me washed up flat n' busted on my doorstep just a few days before the family rolls back in - road weary and woe-eyed - sometimes i think i'm a shadow and the sun's almost down

 

a morning spent mending the damage done to tires on the most recent road-trip, then out to beacon and a lap up the corner w/ geoff n' bill - cool weather, cloudy - the old place looking just fine after all this time...

 

musta spent at least 10 solid minutes trying to find the new party spot rumored to be an unladen-swallow's flight away, but eventually we figured ole'adam just must not be home

 

7/17 - day 12 - lap 1 of the summer - woke up late, this last day of bachelor freedom, bound to recover a dog at noon, despite my vexations - just enough time for a sleep in n' a big breakfast n' some beer, then bounced out the door for a lap - musta passed 4 parties of 4-climbers each on the corner? jeebus, the man could make a fortune if'n he claimed for each

 

7/31 - lucky #13 - lap 2 - a trip to tower and success seemingly in hand after a mort more work - a week w/ the wife at art museum's n' doing ya'd wo'k n' f'ck knows what else - hips hurt - knees hurt - seem to have the planter fascist-fukyu in both my heels now - keerist, i'm a few months short of a solid douglas adams' 42 n' i'm feeling auooooold

 

sunday morning after a solid sleep in - a week w/ the fam at the beach tomorrow so this was it, and not much time to spare as i needed to set the ya'd in order before we fuckered off

 

beacon near noon - the lot like a gypsy caravan before the nazis knew what's what - cool n' grey - bro'seph n' his benji-buddy in buckling down n' ready to bound up dastardly

 

wandered up the corner w/ a head half-right - crowds like always of course, and a poor dam anchored off and leaving on the travese tree giving me the heebie-jeebies - the crux like cream these days - i don't know what my feet are doing, but i just smile and saunter on

 

fresh air and following breeze - fun times - the ramble down - beers and the long babbling road back home...

 

8/7 - day 14 - little wing n' jill's thrill just right to humiliate our friend n' humble narrator after a week family camping in the olympics, sucking down sausauges n' swill - swimming across lake quinualt some species of training i suppose...

 

thought ole'geoff was fixing to stand me up at the b.k. - read some n' tried not to feel like i was gonna barf up me breakfast - settled for just doing some soloing after a half hour rambled on by - went to fetch some of the regular old poisons out of the roadhouse first n' then pulled out n' headed east when i saw the big-G galloping up in his toy-yoya n' said sure, why not?

 

bit stormy out at beacon today, but nothing serious n' kept the crowds down a bit i bet

 

geoff did the real work so i wussed out and did the easier pitches but still fumbled n' fucked them up, conniving to cut me hand up in the bargain and bled like a little bitch all over the place

 

the Gnome King at grassy ledges, seemingly moved in for the season n' hogging all the space, his ride recently jacked by the Man n' him all "fukit, keepit" in response - a rare hero that'un

 

steve n' lisa all about too - we followed them down the raps n' rambled on over to the other side to see about the minotaur, who happily had left his labyrinth - ascended through threatening storm n' had a real satisfying time of it

 

rude reality back in the parking lot - some crackhead kraker chucked a big old stone through geoff's window n' did a quick once-over through its interior - pleasingly the car-alarm seemed to have brought the bitch out of the pussies and they fled before grabbing anything actually - guess it gives our boy an excuse to finally replace the broken windshield too...

 

the summer's setting quick - hope to get another tower trip or two in before it's time to slummit back to work...

 

8/10 - day XV - lap III - leisurely breakfast w/ the kids and some midsummer school work dispensed with, hit the chiropractor to crack the old back n' suck the thetans outta me, then cruised out to beacon in the afternoon heat - warm n' windy in the park - the busted glass of geoff's smashed window all tidied up - just one couple gearing up n' ready to blast off as i started up the corner - felt like a slow old man, stopping to have a good lie down every few pitches n' gaze out at the much older man, the half moon hanging in the sky - the perseids tonight too - the free tv overhead never failing to fling something at you

 

looks like the gnome-king done got evicted - wonder where that wierd mutherfukka got to?

8/11 - day 16, lap 4 - not so breezy at beacon today - hot n' humid, even after the shade had set in - gabbed w/ jimbo for a while - the gnome king remains in the witness protection program - ran up the corner, feeling a good bit better than yesterday - brought some clippers n' did some community-service cutting out all the clutter on hidden treats and uprising - gavreeted w/ some good folks n' gamboled on back home to set up shop in a dark field w/ the kids n' watch the pulsing perseids

[ivan]

1/10/16 - 4th year of setting down the shit that does go down in beatardia, where men are women and women are never around

 

was a rude late fall/early winter season - the big blow of early november annihilated the hiking trail and i woulda been pissed about it if'n never-ending rains hadn't set in and made soloing laps insane anyway

 

a late december trip out w/ geoff at the start of winter break - we ended up just drinking beers n' smoking shit n' commenting on the awful, awful slickery nature of everything - the wall closed at ground zero and so nothing aidable particularly of interest

 

christmas ensued and all was well - didn't have the cash or the clock-time to go for a long off trade to red rocks or whatever, so the only local option was heading up to the puget sound and make a water-man of meself again - last year was great, a 3 day back-pack on the olympic coast n' a 2 day ocean kayak

 

this time around it was a 6-day sea window

 

beat up north in the early hours of 12/27, bent out of my mind it seemed, water streaming along the side of the automovat - seattle shortly after dawn, proud pat all pat-like

 

made our way to the marina n' nattered in the cold light waiting to meet up w/ our captain, a true comedy of errors - soon enough we were on board and casting off

 

sweet simple sailing southward in light airs, past bouys bestowed with sealions - seals - dolphins - eagles both american and candadian i bet - the pleasant site of a 'lion bolting down a full-growth salmon by tail

 

the last bit into port orchard by motor, the night come round so soon - carriers at bremerton

 

ashore we 'sup n' carouse n' enjoy ourselves capitally - meet a sheila-acquaintance of denali dave's round the fireplace n' philsophize over the weight of smoke before rambling off to a sea-berth

 

sail oughta town the next day and all was well - got meself nearly kilt by a swinging boom just shy of brian island or somethign like that - spent much of the night dazed as could be but enjoyed a grand time nonetheless binging on burgundy, n' noble reds n' flowing bowls of what-have-you until 2 in the morning

 

awoke feeling near as death as i've felt in awhile - the hard-knock the day before was certainly one of my fabled 9 lives n' i felt the truth of it - grayed out - feeling the cold i'd inherited from the silverton clan plus the concusssion plus the cold above deck plus the deep, deep fucking booze funk

 

they all thought i was dead the day before and grew doubly grim when i was drawing breath the day after but groaning - turned into me laying in agony on the cabin bench n' holding me head together as we steamed back to seattle against a solid breeze

 

the rest of the day was a healing thing - pat flung himself into the sound in his wetsuit as i laid around his joint, showering and trying to sleep off my fucking concussion - that night we did some super-stoned shopping n' headed over to his girlfriend's for a sumptous dinner set against a most scorchign cold outside - i cackled n' thumbed through 1960's civil defense brochures while pat snored n' i made small talk w/ his missus and her very alien animal

 

3 days of ocean kayaking ensued - launched out from an indian reservation near bellingham, stocked up on cheap injun smokes - the rudder was rudely impaired n' pat didn't know but had me in the back anyhow, so after hours of bitching n' cussing we finally fetched up on clark island

 

soaked rather wet we came straight ashore n' made camp in what proved to be a damned cold place - made a roaring fire n' had a bit of a good night - italian fare i recollect - olives n' red sauce n' sausage tortellinis n' mozeralla n' red wine - a sputtering fire, a bit of a dissapointment but soon enough the tent beside a snoring pat n' i slept soundly, the head cold resonating through me

 

day 2 of the ocean kayak we resolve to shift our camp southwards on the island but no further - find a sweet cove filled w/ firewood n' a sweltering sun, relative to our recent camp - we souse along the shore for a bit n' later launch for a trip to a nearby island where pat is molested by sheep

 

great night, this one - we were promised the northern lights but they never appeared but fuck it - it was new years eve - we sat by a roaring fire n' enjoyed bacon n' chili n' what-have-you, me sucking down pionot noir n' smokes n' enjoying the simpleness of being stranded at sea

 

new year's eve we returned to civilization n' after a bit of agony i made it home in time for winter weather and a nice delayed start to the school year

 

 

but this a beacon thread, n' so all this stuff before is simple bullshit n' i apologize for it

 

today was day 1! corner lap #1, but not solo n' gladly not

 

geoff at the bk a bit past 10 - we saunter eastwards by strong light n' stronger winds

 

the parking lot in a simple gale - we pack and wander down, bound n' determined to reach the top of the uprising and to suss out the damage from there

 

cold n' icy but delightfully dry - i take pitch 1 n' we alternate from there - snow patches here and there, but dry where it needs to be - some beers along the way n' we get time to poke our head over the railing n' take in the carnage on the touron-trail - much work to be done it's obvious - big blown out trees n' blowdown n' battered stones - we take it in and scoot down the raps in the big blow n' enjoy some beers and ramboling aroudn and reach back for home

 

here's to 2016

 

1/31 - day 2 - closing day, and not a very promising one - 39 degrees n' pouring rain in the parking lot - a drive out through mental desperation, the moss on this here rolling rock of meself growing thick n' fucking shaggy

 

beers n' bullshitting w/ steve n' waiting for the weather to give up a little - there were no illusions of how thorough soggy it was gonna be

 

no wind to speak of though, so there was that at least and it got warmer on the south side after the mist melted away - soon enough i cast off, pulling on gear here and there to remind meself not to be a dipshit on a point of pride climbing the slime-cone

 

the sun shone out halfway up and the mood improved noticeably - fresh snow, as innocent as a downy laotian-lamb along the far gorge walls -steve was exuberant to lead the second pitch and i salute him for it as it wouldn't have taken much to talk me out of it

 

a real slippy-slidey one is that - our boy did it w/o flying off but, following, i found meself doing the cartoon-character spinning me feet in the air thang at one point and only narrowly avoiding a pretty cosmic pirouette around the first crux

 

found meself holding forth somethign fierce on tree ledge, swilling pbr n' pounding upon our poor fellow about his own cosmic hangups -those rightly disposed, and a few butts thrown in to boot, i bolted on up the slippery ramps to grassy ledges - since i had a 70 and the jill's anchor was running wet, i went past it and anchored to a tree - a flippant shoulder belay ensued n' steve quite soon went n' fell big time onto it but i proved them old-boys knew what they were doing and ended up smiling on the ground for it

 

the trail closed sign even as we slipped away - stone soup next month now i suppose, though i suspect it's gonna take a civil action and yet another juicy skamania judge session before it gets sorted out - how good is it i have no other hobbies?

 

 

2/27 - day 3 - stone soup in the sopping wet - sausage n' eggs n' a leisurely breakfast - 'nastia at tad past 10 - streaming water on the sides of the machine on the way out - the k-19 in classic form, fresh off a cardiac arrest for christ's sake?

 

3/2 - day 4 - the k-19 konked out saturday just at the parking lot ledge n' we ran out of day and had to leave all the gear hanging on the wall - ya'll bitches lost out on a treasure trove of scary worn-out trash

 

we raced out amid squalls n' rain-storms, me simultaneously sucking down beer n' butts n' changing clothes - was an easy romp up the route w/ the gear all pre-placed - strong winds n' steady rain at times but all went well

 

prime time for putting up some more routes on this small patch of available wall...

 

3/26 - day 6 - spring breaks big upon the land - breezy clouds n' bright sun - a right sound sleep-in - wine n' pizza for breakfast, than a side-saddle into the gorge under glorious skies - crisp n' cold - spent some time scrambling 'round the ozone n' enjoying da wedder, then busted eastwards more to beacon - aid-soloed stone soup n' had a prime time of it, binging on, of all things, katy perry

 

4/28 - day 7 - been out to hike hamilton a couple times the past few weeks but that shit don't count - been a bad fews weeks of loss: health, cool students, ambition, colleagues, etc. - got a taste of bacon to soothe the senses today - me n' mike at the base of stone soup in the cool grey of the afternoon - the alpine start to three tree ledges - to the swiss ledges from there, swapping leads - sawzalled a couple bolts to get'em more righteous - shit, there's so many more to do - set off 2 huge blocks on the rap back down, topping a big tree along the way - for the best really - stoked to see so much chalk on p1 & 2, just gotta improve them amateur bolts for the sporto's

 

5/2 - day 8 - nobody to climb w/ but it was 80+ at days end and nary a cloud in the crystal sky, so what can you do? scampered out to beacon, belting out bale-loads of smoke along the way n' bitch'n ballads, the 'lesberu purring away n' throwing engine warning lights out like it's wont to do - were time compressed into a single moment and a single feeling, i'm sure this wouldn't be the worst of em all to settle on, spring setting in and summer beckoning right behind...

 

not a soul in the parking lot, not right at all for so rare a spring day - what worries me really about the closed hiking trail is there isn't a sign at all of work being done to fix the damn thing - if i had a dollar for every tourist who stops, pays the 10$, then curses to discover the main attraction is under wraps, i'd have 1/10 of what the park's getting...

 

joe lent me a mean sawzall n' i put it to some use - climbed the 1st pitch of stone soup and, while cleaning it, cut down all the nasty extruding studs n' filed n' em nice n' smooth

 

5/28 - day 9 - many hikes up hamilton in recent days, but that don't hardly count - thursday was out for the big walk an saw topher n' company on stone soup - brought a bit of a smile to the heart n' had a good govreet w/ them fools after the walk was over - passed off a sawzall, which didn't appear to get much use, and after a few gut-laff's w/ denali-dave, all done up and vivisected on account of his duputryens, danced away west

 

teamed up w/ geoff today - hadn't seen that courtly fool since casting him off at his hill house shortly after completing our spring break trip to the valley

 

our sad friend greatly hobbled all this time gone by, he braved his early exit from fat-phuck retirment and out we went - topher'd pulled his ropes, and we rambled up the first 2 pitches, me getting all the good work

 

the recently renovated p1 was hardly noticable - p2 not so much - a new bolt allows the aid'n fool to skip the eyebrow cave (bryan managed this same variation w/o a bolt i recall) which makes the aid across a bit more mellow - no more sling on the tree above the bush but it still works, so long as you fully extend your daisy and commit to the top step on tiny handholds

 

the 2 upper headwall bolts all ripped out and eloped east - it got called stone soup for a reason - the new way just fine, aiding-wise, and kinda fun as it forces some funky mixed free maneavours to make the high step

 

rawked out for the rest of our times - 3 tree - the long way down - rangers abound - beers and butts - the boat-dock - always bet on #28 - the big bound home

 

6/9 - die X - not such a balmy day after all this august heat - grey and gloomy - school's done as done can be, just the simple matter of casting these cynical bastards off in the morrow's afternoon and it's summa, summa, summa

 

jeffy-t at the register rock in the half rain - a good gavreet and a glorious shit and it was sauntering time - rambled up to the top-most railing and ran down the stone soup, taking in the rare auold sights - was a trifle baffled by the dangling old fixed line at three tree - guess that's what it means to make nice w/ the neighbors - cut out the hanging trash and cast in on down and couldn't for the life of me find it once upon the ground - wouldn't mind recovering it really, it's the rancid remnants of my first rope, bought back in the waning days of clinton-one

 

might be a bit for beacon - next week's the redwoods and yosemite and san-franny w/ the famibily, then mike n' me making our easting off to the wind river range n' hopefully high times....

 

 

7/16 - day 11 - opening day + 1 - been a busy summer - sand dunes, redwoods, yosemite, san francisco, flat-irons, devils's tower, the winds, smith and darrington, then me washed up flat n' busted on my doorstep just a few days before the family rolls back in - road weary and woe-eyed - sometimes i think i'm a shadow and the sun's almost down

 

a morning spent mending the damage done to tires on the most recent road-trip, then out to beacon and a lap up the corner w/ geoff n' bill - cool weather, cloudy - the old place looking just fine after all this time...

 

musta spent at least 10 solid minutes trying to find the new party spot rumored to be an unladen-swallow's flight away, but eventually we figured ole'adam just must not be home

 

7/17 - day 12 - lap 1 of the summer - woke up late, this last day of bachelor freedom, bound to recover a dog at noon, despite my vexations - just enough time for a sleep in n' a big breakfast n' some beer, then bounced out the door for a lap - musta passed 4 parties of 4-climbers each on the corner? jeebus, the man could make a fortune if'n he claimed for each

 

7/31 - lucky #13 - lap 2 - a trip to tower and success seemingly in hand after a mort more work - a week w/ the wife at art museum's n' doing ya'd wo'k n' f'ck knows what else - hips hurt - knees hurt - seem to have the planter fascist-fukyu in both my heels now - keerist, i'm a few months short of a solid douglas adams' 42 n' i'm feeling auooooold

 

sunday morning after a solid sleep in - a week w/ the fam at the beach tomorrow so this was it, and not much time to spare as i needed to set the ya'd in order before we fuckered off

 

beacon near noon - the lot like a gypsy caravan before the nazis knew what's what - cool n' grey - bro'seph n' his benji-buddy in buckling down n' ready to bound up dastardly

 

wandered up the corner w/ a head half-right - crowds like always of course, and a poor dam anchored off and leaving on the travese tree giving me the heebie-jeebies - the crux like cream these days - i don't know what my feet are doing, but i just smile and saunter on

 

fresh air and following breeze - fun times - the ramble down - beers and the long babbling road back home...

 

8/7 - day 14 - little wing n' jill's thrill just right to humiliate our friend n' humble narrator after a week family camping in the olympics, sucking down sausauges n' swill - swimming across lake quinualt some species of training i suppose...

 

thought ole'geoff was fixing to stand me up at the b.k. - read some n' tried not to feel like i was gonna barf up me breakfast - settled for just doing some soloing after a half hour rambled on by - went to fetch some of the regular old poisons out of the roadhouse first n' then pulled out n' headed east when i saw the big-G galloping up in his toy-yoya n' said sure, why not?

 

bit stormy out at beacon today, but nothing serious n' kept the crowds down a bit i bet

 

geoff did the real work so i wussed out and did the easier pitches but still fumbled n' fucked them up, conniving to cut me hand up in the bargain and bled like a little bitch all over the place

 

the Gnome King at grassy ledges, seemingly moved in for the season n' hogging all the space, his ride recently jacked by the Man n' him all "fukit, keepit" in response - a rare hero that'un

 

steve n' lisa all about too - we followed them down the raps n' rambled on over to the other side to see about the minotaur, who happily had left his labyrinth - ascended through threatening storm n' had a real satisfying time of it

 

rude reality back in the parking lot - some crackhead kraker chucked a big old stone through geoff's window n' did a quick once-over through its interior - pleasingly the car-alarm seemed to have brought the bitch out of the pussies and they fled before grabbing anything actually - guess it gives our boy an excuse to finally replace the broken windshield too...

 

the summer's setting quick - hope to get another tower trip or two in before it's time to slummit back to work...

 

8/10 - day XV - lap III - leisurely breakfast w/ the kids and some midsummer school work dispensed with, hit the chiropractor to crack the old back n' suck the thetans outta me, then cruised out to beacon in the afternoon heat - warm n' windy in the park - the busted glass of geoff's smashed window all tidied up - just one couple gearing up n' ready to blast off as i started up the corner - felt like a slow old man, stopping to have a good lie down every few pitches n' gaze out at the much older man, the half moon hanging in the sky - the perseids tonight too - the free tv overhead never failing to fling something at you

 

looks like the gnome-king done got evicted - wonder where that wierd mutherfukka got to?

 

8/11 - day 16, lap 4 - not so breezy at beacon today - hot n' humid, even after the shade had set in - gabbed w/ jimbo for a while - the gnome king remains in the witness protection program - ran up the corner, feeling a good bit better than yesterday - brought some clippers n' did some community-service cutting out all the clutter on hidden treats and uprising - gavreeted w/ some good folks n' gamboled on back home to set up shop in a dark field w/ the kids n' watch the pulsing perseids

8/12-13 - days 17-18 - the plan was partake of the perseids and plenty of beer on the ledge, maybe do a night lap, then finagle maybe a new route off the top - temps in the mid-90s on the drive in, sweltering in my ac-broken car - drove in endless circles trying to discover the exact location of adam's rebel base where i was to rendezvous w/ my crack team of geoff n' bryan

 

eventually it all worked out and we walked up the painfully hot trail, weltering in sweat - once on the ledge the lack of breeze didn't offer much comfort as we lay around, damp as dogs, re-evaluating our recent decisions

 

bryan and i went on to climb the corner, setting off from the ground just at the last light left the sky - an uneventful and rapid ascent and then it was the rest of a long evening spent counting falling stars, drinking 3 different kinds of beer n' pinot noir to boot, gut-laughing and bullshit'n

 

by 9 a.m. the next morning it was absolutely sweltering and all willingness to scrub n' cut n' mank our way up the sun-blasted wall had wasted away in favor of a far more ambitious plan, ambling off and away over to the tepid columbia to swim like porpoises in the sweet water - we even managed to enlist old adam, who clearly had done this shit already - good times ensued over an afternoon that clearly demonstrated how our ancient mammalian cousins evolved and returned to the ocean to despatch their terrestrial ruinations

[kevbone]

Put up another new route at ozone. Start on heaven ledge and climb up and right to an obvious ledge. Step back left and up past 3 bolts.

 

Holy Diver 5.8 mixed gear and 3 bolts.

[ivan]

1/10/16 - 4th year of setting down the shit that does go down in beatardia, where men are women and women are never around

 

was a rude late fall/early winter season - the big blow of early november annihilated the hiking trail and i woulda been pissed about it if'n never-ending rains hadn't set in and made soloing laps insane anyway

 

a late december trip out w/ geoff at the start of winter break - we ended up just drinking beers n' smoking shit n' commenting on the awful, awful slickery nature of everything - the wall closed at ground zero and so nothing aidable particularly of interest

 

christmas ensued and all was well - didn't have the cash or the clock-time to go for a long off trade to red rocks or whatever, so the only local option was heading up to the puget sound and make a water-man of meself again - last year was great, a 3 day back-pack on the olympic coast n' a 2 day ocean kayak

 

this time around it was a 6-day sea window

 

beat up north in the early hours of 12/27, bent out of my mind it seemed, water streaming along the side of the automovat - seattle shortly after dawn, proud pat all pat-like

 

made our way to the marina n' nattered in the cold light waiting to meet up w/ our captain, a true comedy of errors - soon enough we were on board and casting off

 

sweet simple sailing southward in light airs, past bouys bestowed with sealions - seals - dolphins - eagles both american and candadian i bet - the pleasant site of a 'lion bolting down a full-growth salmon by tail

 

the last bit into port orchard by motor, the night come round so soon - carriers at bremerton

 

ashore we 'sup n' carouse n' enjoy ourselves capitally - meet a sheila-acquaintance of denali dave's round the fireplace n' philsophize over the weight of smoke before rambling off to a sea-berth

 

sail oughta town the next day and all was well - got meself nearly kilt by a swinging boom just shy of brian island or somethign like that - spent much of the night dazed as could be but enjoyed a grand time nonetheless binging on burgundy, n' noble reds n' flowing bowls of what-have-you until 2 in the morning

 

awoke feeling near as death as i've felt in awhile - the hard-knock the day before was certainly one of my fabled 9 lives n' i felt the truth of it - grayed out - feeling the cold i'd inherited from the silverton clan plus the concusssion plus the cold above deck plus the deep, deep fucking booze funk

 

they all thought i was dead the day before and grew doubly grim when i was drawing breath the day after but groaning - turned into me laying in agony on the cabin bench n' holding me head together as we steamed back to seattle against a solid breeze

 

the rest of the day was a healing thing - pat flung himself into the sound in his wetsuit as i laid around his joint, showering and trying to sleep off my fucking concussion - that night we did some super-stoned shopping n' headed over to his girlfriend's for a sumptous dinner set against a most scorchign cold outside - i cackled n' thumbed through 1960's civil defense brochures while pat snored n' i made small talk w/ his missus and her very alien animal

 

3 days of ocean kayaking ensued - launched out from an indian reservation near bellingham, stocked up on cheap injun smokes - the rudder was rudely impaired n' pat didn't know but had me in the back anyhow, so after hours of bitching n' cussing we finally fetched up on clark island

 

soaked rather wet we came straight ashore n' made camp in what proved to be a damned cold place - made a roaring fire n' had a bit of a good night - italian fare i recollect - olives n' red sauce n' sausage tortellinis n' mozeralla n' red wine - a sputtering fire, a bit of a dissapointment but soon enough the tent beside a snoring pat n' i slept soundly, the head cold resonating through me

 

day 2 of the ocean kayak we resolve to shift our camp southwards on the island but no further - find a sweet cove filled w/ firewood n' a sweltering sun, relative to our recent camp - we souse along the shore for a bit n' later launch for a trip to a nearby island where pat is molested by sheep

 

great night, this one - we were promised the northern lights but they never appeared but fuck it - it was new years eve - we sat by a roaring fire n' enjoyed bacon n' chili n' what-have-you, me sucking down pionot noir n' smokes n' enjoying the simpleness of being stranded at sea

 

new year's eve we returned to civilization n' after a bit of agony i made it home in time for winter weather and a nice delayed start to the school year

 

 

but this a beacon thread, n' so all this stuff before is simple bullshit n' i apologize for it

 

today was day 1! corner lap #1, but not solo n' gladly not

 

geoff at the bk a bit past 10 - we saunter eastwards by strong light n' stronger winds

 

the parking lot in a simple gale - we pack and wander down, bound n' determined to reach the top of the uprising and to suss out the damage from there

 

cold n' icy but delightfully dry - i take pitch 1 n' we alternate from there - snow patches here and there, but dry where it needs to be - some beers along the way n' we get time to poke our head over the railing n' take in the carnage on the touron-trail - much work to be done it's obvious - big blown out trees n' blowdown n' battered stones - we take it in and scoot down the raps in the big blow n' enjoy some beers and ramboling aroudn and reach back for home

 

here's to 2016

 

1/31 - day 2 - closing day, and not a very promising one - 39 degrees n' pouring rain in the parking lot - a drive out through mental desperation, the moss on this here rolling rock of meself growing thick n' fucking shaggy

 

beers n' bullshitting w/ steve n' waiting for the weather to give up a little - there were no illusions of how thorough soggy it was gonna be

 

no wind to speak of though, so there was that at least and it got warmer on the south side after the mist melted away - soon enough i cast off, pulling on gear here and there to remind meself not to be a dipshit on a point of pride climbing the slime-cone

 

the sun shone out halfway up and the mood improved noticeably - fresh snow, as innocent as a downy laotian-lamb along the far gorge walls -steve was exuberant to lead the second pitch and i salute him for it as it wouldn't have taken much to talk me out of it

 

a real slippy-slidey one is that - our boy did it w/o flying off but, following, i found meself doing the cartoon-character spinning me feet in the air thang at one point and only narrowly avoiding a pretty cosmic pirouette around the first crux

 

found meself holding forth somethign fierce on tree ledge, swilling pbr n' pounding upon our poor fellow about his own cosmic hangups -those rightly disposed, and a few butts thrown in to boot, i bolted on up the slippery ramps to grassy ledges - since i had a 70 and the jill's anchor was running wet, i went past it and anchored to a tree - a flippant shoulder belay ensued n' steve quite soon went n' fell big time onto it but i proved them old-boys knew what they were doing and ended up smiling on the ground for it

 

the trail closed sign even as we slipped away - stone soup next month now i suppose, though i suspect it's gonna take a civil action and yet another juicy skamania judge session before it gets sorted out - how good is it i have no other hobbies?

 

 

2/27 - day 3 - stone soup in the sopping wet - sausage n' eggs n' a leisurely breakfast - 'nastia at tad past 10 - streaming water on the sides of the machine on the way out - the k-19 in classic form, fresh off a cardiac arrest for christ's sake?

 

3/2 - day 4 - the k-19 konked out saturday just at the parking lot ledge n' we ran out of day and had to leave all the gear hanging on the wall - ya'll bitches lost out on a treasure trove of scary worn-out trash

 

we raced out amid squalls n' rain-storms, me simultaneously sucking down beer n' butts n' changing clothes - was an easy romp up the route w/ the gear all pre-placed - strong winds n' steady rain at times but all went well

 

prime time for putting up some more routes on this small patch of available wall...

 

3/26 - day 6 - spring breaks big upon the land - breezy clouds n' bright sun - a right sound sleep-in - wine n' pizza for breakfast, than a side-saddle into the gorge under glorious skies - crisp n' cold - spent some time scrambling 'round the ozone n' enjoying da wedder, then busted eastwards more to beacon - aid-soloed stone soup n' had a prime time of it, binging on, of all things, katy perry

 

4/28 - day 7 - been out to hike hamilton a couple times the past few weeks but that shit don't count - been a bad fews weeks of loss: health, cool students, ambition, colleagues, etc. - got a taste of bacon to soothe the senses today - me n' mike at the base of stone soup in the cool grey of the afternoon - the alpine start to three tree ledges - to the swiss ledges from there, swapping leads - sawzalled a couple bolts to get'em more righteous - shit, there's so many more to do - set off 2 huge blocks on the rap back down, topping a big tree along the way - for the best really - stoked to see so much chalk on p1 & 2, just gotta improve them amateur bolts for the sporto's

 

5/2 - day 8 - nobody to climb w/ but it was 80+ at days end and nary a cloud in the crystal sky, so what can you do? scampered out to beacon, belting out bale-loads of smoke along the way n' bitch'n ballads, the 'lesberu purring away n' throwing engine warning lights out like it's wont to do - were time compressed into a single moment and a single feeling, i'm sure this wouldn't be the worst of em all to settle on, spring setting in and summer beckoning right behind...

 

not a soul in the parking lot, not right at all for so rare a spring day - what worries me really about the closed hiking trail is there isn't a sign at all of work being done to fix the damn thing - if i had a dollar for every tourist who stops, pays the 10$, then curses to discover the main attraction is under wraps, i'd have 1/10 of what the park's getting...

 

joe lent me a mean sawzall n' i put it to some use - climbed the 1st pitch of stone soup and, while cleaning it, cut down all the nasty extruding studs n' filed n' em nice n' smooth

 

5/28 - day 9 - many hikes up hamilton in recent days, but that don't hardly count - thursday was out for the big walk an saw topher n' company on stone soup - brought a bit of a smile to the heart n' had a good govreet w/ them fools after the walk was over - passed off a sawzall, which didn't appear to get much use, and after a few gut-laff's w/ denali-dave, all done up and vivisected on account of his duputryens, danced away west

 

teamed up w/ geoff today - hadn't seen that courtly fool since casting him off at his hill house shortly after completing our spring break trip to the valley

 

our sad friend greatly hobbled all this time gone by, he braved his early exit from fat-phuck retirment and out we went - topher'd pulled his ropes, and we rambled up the first 2 pitches, me getting all the good work

 

the recently renovated p1 was hardly noticable - p2 not so much - a new bolt allows the aid'n fool to skip the eyebrow cave (bryan managed this same variation w/o a bolt i recall) which makes the aid across a bit more mellow - no more sling on the tree above the bush but it still works, so long as you fully extend your daisy and commit to the top step on tiny handholds

 

the 2 upper headwall bolts all ripped out and eloped east - it got called stone soup for a reason - the new way just fine, aiding-wise, and kinda fun as it forces some funky mixed free maneavours to make the high step

 

rawked out for the rest of our times - 3 tree - the long way down - rangers abound - beers and butts - the boat-dock - always bet on #28 - the big bound home

 

6/9 - die X - not such a balmy day after all this august heat - grey and gloomy - school's done as done can be, just the simple matter of casting these cynical bastards off in the morrow's afternoon and it's summa, summa, summa

 

jeffy-t at the register rock in the half rain - a good gavreet and a glorious shit and it was sauntering time - rambled up to the top-most railing and ran down the stone soup, taking in the rare auold sights - was a trifle baffled by the dangling old fixed line at three tree - guess that's what it means to make nice w/ the neighbors - cut out the hanging trash and cast in on down and couldn't for the life of me find it once upon the ground - wouldn't mind recovering it really, it's the rancid remnants of my first rope, bought back in the waning days of clinton-one

 

might be a bit for beacon - next week's the redwoods and yosemite and san-franny w/ the famibily, then mike n' me making our easting off to the wind river range n' hopefully high times....

 

 

7/16 - day 11 - opening day + 1 - been a busy summer - sand dunes, redwoods, yosemite, san francisco, flat-irons, devils's tower, the winds, smith and darrington, then me washed up flat n' busted on my doorstep just a few days before the family rolls back in - road weary and woe-eyed - sometimes i think i'm a shadow and the sun's almost down

 

a morning spent mending the damage done to tires on the most recent road-trip, then out to beacon and a lap up the corner w/ geoff n' bill - cool weather, cloudy - the old place looking just fine after all this time...

 

musta spent at least 10 solid minutes trying to find the new party spot rumored to be an unladen-swallow's flight away, but eventually we figured ole'adam just must not be home

 

7/17 - day 12 - lap 1 of the summer - woke up late, this last day of bachelor freedom, bound to recover a dog at noon, despite my vexations - just enough time for a sleep in n' a big breakfast n' some beer, then bounced out the door for a lap - musta passed 4 parties of 4-climbers each on the corner? jeebus, the man could make a fortune if'n he claimed for each

 

7/31 - lucky #13 - lap 2 - a trip to tower and success seemingly in hand after a mort more work - a week w/ the wife at art museum's n' doing ya'd wo'k n' f'ck knows what else - hips hurt - knees hurt - seem to have the planter fascist-fukyu in both my heels now - keerist, i'm a few months short of a solid douglas adams' 42 n' i'm feeling auooooold

 

sunday morning after a solid sleep in - a week w/ the fam at the beach tomorrow so this was it, and not much time to spare as i needed to set the ya'd in order before we fuckered off

 

beacon near noon - the lot like a gypsy caravan before the nazis knew what's what - cool n' grey - bro'seph n' his benji-buddy in buckling down n' ready to bound up dastardly

 

wandered up the corner w/ a head half-right - crowds like always of course, and a poor dam anchored off and leaving on the travese tree giving me the heebie-jeebies - the crux like cream these days - i don't know what my feet are doing, but i just smile and saunter on

 

fresh air and following breeze - fun times - the ramble down - beers and the long babbling road back home...

 

8/7 - day 14 - little wing n' jill's thrill just right to humiliate our friend n' humble narrator after a week family camping in the olympics, sucking down sausauges n' swill - swimming across lake quinualt some species of training i suppose...

 

thought ole'geoff was fixing to stand me up at the b.k. - read some n' tried not to feel like i was gonna barf up me breakfast - settled for just doing some soloing after a half hour rambled on by - went to fetch some of the regular old poisons out of the roadhouse first n' then pulled out n' headed east when i saw the big-G galloping up in his toy-yoya n' said sure, why not?

 

bit stormy out at beacon today, but nothing serious n' kept the crowds down a bit i bet

 

geoff did the real work so i wussed out and did the easier pitches but still fumbled n' fucked them up, conniving to cut me hand up in the bargain and bled like a little bitch all over the place

 

the Gnome King at grassy ledges, seemingly moved in for the season n' hogging all the space, his ride recently jacked by the Man n' him all "fukit, keepit" in response - a rare hero that'un

 

steve n' lisa all about too - we followed them down the raps n' rambled on over to the other side to see about the minotaur, who happily had left his labyrinth - ascended through threatening storm n' had a real satisfying time of it

 

rude reality back in the parking lot - some crackhead kraker chucked a big old stone through geoff's window n' did a quick once-over through its interior - pleasingly the car-alarm seemed to have brought the bitch out of the pussies and they fled before grabbing anything actually - guess it gives our boy an excuse to finally replace the broken windshield too...

 

the summer's setting quick - hope to get another tower trip or two in before it's time to slummit back to work...

 

8/10 - day XV - lap III - leisurely breakfast w/ the kids and some midsummer school work dispensed with, hit the chiropractor to crack the old back n' suck the thetans outta me, then cruised out to beacon in the afternoon heat - warm n' windy in the park - the busted glass of geoff's smashed window all tidied up - just one couple gearing up n' ready to blast off as i started up the corner - felt like a slow old man, stopping to have a good lie down every few pitches n' gaze out at the much older man, the half moon hanging in the sky - the perseids tonight too - the free tv overhead never failing to fling something at you

 

looks like the gnome-king done got evicted - wonder where that wierd mutherfukka got to?

 

8/11 - day 16, lap 4 - not so breezy at beacon today - hot n' humid, even after the shade had set in - gabbed w/ jimbo for a while - the gnome king remains in the witness protection program - ran up the corner, feeling a good bit better than yesterday - brought some clippers n' did some community-service cutting out all the clutter on hidden treats and uprising - gavreeted w/ some good folks n' gamboled on back home to set up shop in a dark field w/ the kids n' watch the pulsing perseids

 

8/12-13 - days 17-18 - the plan was partake of the perseids and plenty of beer on the ledge, maybe do a night lap, then finagle maybe a new route off the top - temps in the mid-90s on the drive in, sweltering in my ac-broken car - drove in endless circles trying to discover the exact location of adam's rebel base where i was to rendezvous w/ my crack team of geoff n' bryan

 

eventually it all worked out and we walked up the painfully hot trail, weltering in sweat - once on the ledge the lack of breeze didn't offer much comfort as we lay around, damp as dogs, re-evaluating our recent decisions

 

bryan and i went on to climb the corner, setting off from the ground just at the last light left the sky - an uneventful and rapid ascent and then it was the rest of a long evening spent counting falling stars, drinking 3 different kinds of beer n' pinot noir to boot, gut-laughing and bullshit'n

 

by 9 a.m. the next morning it was absolutely sweltering and all willingness to scrub n' cut n' mank our way up the sun-blasted wall had wasted away in favor of a far more ambitious plan, ambling off and away over to the tepid columbia to swim like porpoises in the sweet water - we even managed to enlist old adam, who clearly had done this shit already - good times ensued over an afternoon that clearly demonstrated how our ancient mammalian cousins evolved and returned to the ocean to despatch their terrestrial ruinations

8/15 - day 19 - lap 5 - hawt, hawt day - did a lap, then grabbed a snorkel n' swam around the river for a good long while - don't think i've ever felt my arms quite that wasted after a solo day at beacon

[stevetimetravlr]

Can 35 feet really be a new route?

[ivan]

it'd be more than that, but at any rate it'd continue up the line hidden treats begins so i'd imagine it'd share the name at any rate...

[stevetimetravlr]

You know its sad times at Beacon when I cant even get a raise out of Kevbone! Good job with the new routes at Ozone Kevin.

[ivan]

1/10/16 - 4th year of setting down the shit that does go down in beatardia, where men are women and women are never around

 

was a rude late fall/early winter season - the big blow of early november annihilated the hiking trail and i woulda been pissed about it if'n never-ending rains hadn't set in and made soloing laps insane anyway

 

a late december trip out w/ geoff at the start of winter break - we ended up just drinking beers n' smoking shit n' commenting on the awful, awful slickery nature of everything - the wall closed at ground zero and so nothing aidable particularly of interest

 

christmas ensued and all was well - didn't have the cash or the clock-time to go for a long off trade to red rocks or whatever, so the only local option was heading up to the puget sound and make a water-man of meself again - last year was great, a 3 day back-pack on the olympic coast n' a 2 day ocean kayak

 

this time around it was a 6-day sea window

 

beat up north in the early hours of 12/27, bent out of my mind it seemed, water streaming along the side of the automovat - seattle shortly after dawn, proud pat all pat-like

 

made our way to the marina n' nattered in the cold light waiting to meet up w/ our captain, a true comedy of errors - soon enough we were on board and casting off

 

sweet simple sailing southward in light airs, past bouys bestowed with sealions - seals - dolphins - eagles both american and candadian i bet - the pleasant site of a 'lion bolting down a full-growth salmon by tail

 

the last bit into port orchard by motor, the night come round so soon - carriers at bremerton

 

ashore we 'sup n' carouse n' enjoy ourselves capitally - meet a sheila-acquaintance of denali dave's round the fireplace n' philsophize over the weight of smoke before rambling off to a sea-berth

 

sail oughta town the next day and all was well - got meself nearly kilt by a swinging boom just shy of brian island or somethign like that - spent much of the night dazed as could be but enjoyed a grand time nonetheless binging on burgundy, n' noble reds n' flowing bowls of what-have-you until 2 in the morning

 

awoke feeling near as death as i've felt in awhile - the hard-knock the day before was certainly one of my fabled 9 lives n' i felt the truth of it - grayed out - feeling the cold i'd inherited from the silverton clan plus the concusssion plus the cold above deck plus the deep, deep fucking booze funk

 

they all thought i was dead the day before and grew doubly grim when i was drawing breath the day after but groaning - turned into me laying in agony on the cabin bench n' holding me head together as we steamed back to seattle against a solid breeze

 

the rest of the day was a healing thing - pat flung himself into the sound in his wetsuit as i laid around his joint, showering and trying to sleep off my fucking concussion - that night we did some super-stoned shopping n' headed over to his girlfriend's for a sumptous dinner set against a most scorchign cold outside - i cackled n' thumbed through 1960's civil defense brochures while pat snored n' i made small talk w/ his missus and her very alien animal

 

3 days of ocean kayaking ensued - launched out from an indian reservation near bellingham, stocked up on cheap injun smokes - the rudder was rudely impaired n' pat didn't know but had me in the back anyhow, so after hours of bitching n' cussing we finally fetched up on clark island

 

soaked rather wet we came straight ashore n' made camp in what proved to be a damned cold place - made a roaring fire n' had a bit of a good night - italian fare i recollect - olives n' red sauce n' sausage tortellinis n' mozeralla n' red wine - a sputtering fire, a bit of a dissapointment but soon enough the tent beside a snoring pat n' i slept soundly, the head cold resonating through me

 

day 2 of the ocean kayak we resolve to shift our camp southwards on the island but no further - find a sweet cove filled w/ firewood n' a sweltering sun, relative to our recent camp - we souse along the shore for a bit n' later launch for a trip to a nearby island where pat is molested by sheep

 

great night, this one - we were promised the northern lights but they never appeared but fuck it - it was new years eve - we sat by a roaring fire n' enjoyed bacon n' chili n' what-have-you, me sucking down pionot noir n' smokes n' enjoying the simpleness of being stranded at sea

 

new year's eve we returned to civilization n' after a bit of agony i made it home in time for winter weather and a nice delayed start to the school year

 

 

but this a beacon thread, n' so all this stuff before is simple bullshit n' i apologize for it

 

today was day 1! corner lap #1, but not solo n' gladly not

 

geoff at the bk a bit past 10 - we saunter eastwards by strong light n' stronger winds

 

the parking lot in a simple gale - we pack and wander down, bound n' determined to reach the top of the uprising and to suss out the damage from there

 

cold n' icy but delightfully dry - i take pitch 1 n' we alternate from there - snow patches here and there, but dry where it needs to be - some beers along the way n' we get time to poke our head over the railing n' take in the carnage on the touron-trail - much work to be done it's obvious - big blown out trees n' blowdown n' battered stones - we take it in and scoot down the raps in the big blow n' enjoy some beers and ramboling aroudn and reach back for home

 

here's to 2016

 

1/31 - day 2 - closing day, and not a very promising one - 39 degrees n' pouring rain in the parking lot - a drive out through mental desperation, the moss on this here rolling rock of meself growing thick n' fucking shaggy

 

beers n' bullshitting w/ steve n' waiting for the weather to give up a little - there were no illusions of how thorough soggy it was gonna be

 

no wind to speak of though, so there was that at least and it got warmer on the south side after the mist melted away - soon enough i cast off, pulling on gear here and there to remind meself not to be a dipshit on a point of pride climbing the slime-cone

 

the sun shone out halfway up and the mood improved noticeably - fresh snow, as innocent as a downy laotian-lamb along the far gorge walls -steve was exuberant to lead the second pitch and i salute him for it as it wouldn't have taken much to talk me out of it

 

a real slippy-slidey one is that - our boy did it w/o flying off but, following, i found meself doing the cartoon-character spinning me feet in the air thang at one point and only narrowly avoiding a pretty cosmic pirouette around the first crux

 

found meself holding forth somethign fierce on tree ledge, swilling pbr n' pounding upon our poor fellow about his own cosmic hangups -those rightly disposed, and a few butts thrown in to boot, i bolted on up the slippery ramps to grassy ledges - since i had a 70 and the jill's anchor was running wet, i went past it and anchored to a tree - a flippant shoulder belay ensued n' steve quite soon went n' fell big time onto it but i proved them old-boys knew what they were doing and ended up smiling on the ground for it

 

the trail closed sign even as we slipped away - stone soup next month now i suppose, though i suspect it's gonna take a civil action and yet another juicy skamania judge session before it gets sorted out - how good is it i have no other hobbies?

 

 

2/27 - day 3 - stone soup in the sopping wet - sausage n' eggs n' a leisurely breakfast - 'nastia at tad past 10 - streaming water on the sides of the machine on the way out - the k-19 in classic form, fresh off a cardiac arrest for christ's sake?

 

3/2 - day 4 - the k-19 konked out saturday just at the parking lot ledge n' we ran out of day and had to leave all the gear hanging on the wall - ya'll bitches lost out on a treasure trove of scary worn-out trash

 

we raced out amid squalls n' rain-storms, me simultaneously sucking down beer n' butts n' changing clothes - was an easy romp up the route w/ the gear all pre-placed - strong winds n' steady rain at times but all went well

 

prime time for putting up some more routes on this small patch of available wall...

 

3/26 - day 6 - spring breaks big upon the land - breezy clouds n' bright sun - a right sound sleep-in - wine n' pizza for breakfast, than a side-saddle into the gorge under glorious skies - crisp n' cold - spent some time scrambling 'round the ozone n' enjoying da wedder, then busted eastwards more to beacon - aid-soloed stone soup n' had a prime time of it, binging on, of all things, katy perry

 

4/28 - day 7 - been out to hike hamilton a couple times the past few weeks but that shit don't count - been a bad fews weeks of loss: health, cool students, ambition, colleagues, etc. - got a taste of bacon to soothe the senses today - me n' mike at the base of stone soup in the cool grey of the afternoon - the alpine start to three tree ledges - to the swiss ledges from there, swapping leads - sawzalled a couple bolts to get'em more righteous - shit, there's so many more to do - set off 2 huge blocks on the rap back down, topping a big tree along the way - for the best really - stoked to see so much chalk on p1 & 2, just gotta improve them amateur bolts for the sporto's

 

5/2 - day 8 - nobody to climb w/ but it was 80+ at days end and nary a cloud in the crystal sky, so what can you do? scampered out to beacon, belting out bale-loads of smoke along the way n' bitch'n ballads, the 'lesberu purring away n' throwing engine warning lights out like it's wont to do - were time compressed into a single moment and a single feeling, i'm sure this wouldn't be the worst of em all to settle on, spring setting in and summer beckoning right behind...

 

not a soul in the parking lot, not right at all for so rare a spring day - what worries me really about the closed hiking trail is there isn't a sign at all of work being done to fix the damn thing - if i had a dollar for every tourist who stops, pays the 10$, then curses to discover the main attraction is under wraps, i'd have 1/10 of what the park's getting...

 

joe lent me a mean sawzall n' i put it to some use - climbed the 1st pitch of stone soup and, while cleaning it, cut down all the nasty extruding studs n' filed n' em nice n' smooth

 

5/28 - day 9 - many hikes up hamilton in recent days, but that don't hardly count - thursday was out for the big walk an saw topher n' company on stone soup - brought a bit of a smile to the heart n' had a good govreet w/ them fools after the walk was over - passed off a sawzall, which didn't appear to get much use, and after a few gut-laff's w/ denali-dave, all done up and vivisected on account of his duputryens, danced away west

 

teamed up w/ geoff today - hadn't seen that courtly fool since casting him off at his hill house shortly after completing our spring break trip to the valley

 

our sad friend greatly hobbled all this time gone by, he braved his early exit from fat-phuck retirment and out we went - topher'd pulled his ropes, and we rambled up the first 2 pitches, me getting all the good work

 

the recently renovated p1 was hardly noticable - p2 not so much - a new bolt allows the aid'n fool to skip the eyebrow cave (bryan managed this same variation w/o a bolt i recall) which makes the aid across a bit more mellow - no more sling on the tree above the bush but it still works, so long as you fully extend your daisy and commit to the top step on tiny handholds

 

the 2 upper headwall bolts all ripped out and eloped east - it got called stone soup for a reason - the new way just fine, aiding-wise, and kinda fun as it forces some funky mixed free maneavours to make the high step

 

rawked out for the rest of our times - 3 tree - the long way down - rangers abound - beers and butts - the boat-dock - always bet on #28 - the big bound home

 

6/9 - die X - not such a balmy day after all this august heat - grey and gloomy - school's done as done can be, just the simple matter of casting these cynical bastards off in the morrow's afternoon and it's summa, summa, summa

 

jeffy-t at the register rock in the half rain - a good gavreet and a glorious shit and it was sauntering time - rambled up to the top-most railing and ran down the stone soup, taking in the rare auold sights - was a trifle baffled by the dangling old fixed line at three tree - guess that's what it means to make nice w/ the neighbors - cut out the hanging trash and cast in on down and couldn't for the life of me find it once upon the ground - wouldn't mind recovering it really, it's the rancid remnants of my first rope, bought back in the waning days of clinton-one

 

might be a bit for beacon - next week's the redwoods and yosemite and san-franny w/ the famibily, then mike n' me making our easting off to the wind river range n' hopefully high times....

 

 

7/16 - day 11 - opening day + 1 - been a busy summer - sand dunes, redwoods, yosemite, san francisco, flat-irons, devils's tower, the winds, smith and darrington, then me washed up flat n' busted on my doorstep just a few days before the family rolls back in - road weary and woe-eyed - sometimes i think i'm a shadow and the sun's almost down

 

a morning spent mending the damage done to tires on the most recent road-trip, then out to beacon and a lap up the corner w/ geoff n' bill - cool weather, cloudy - the old place looking just fine after all this time...

 

musta spent at least 10 solid minutes trying to find the new party spot rumored to be an unladen-swallow's flight away, but eventually we figured ole'adam just must not be home

 

7/17 - day 12 - lap 1 of the summer - woke up late, this last day of bachelor freedom, bound to recover a dog at noon, despite my vexations - just enough time for a sleep in n' a big breakfast n' some beer, then bounced out the door for a lap - musta passed 4 parties of 4-climbers each on the corner? jeebus, the man could make a fortune if'n he claimed for each

 

7/31 - lucky #13 - lap 2 - a trip to tower and success seemingly in hand after a mort more work - a week w/ the wife at art museum's n' doing ya'd wo'k n' f'ck knows what else - hips hurt - knees hurt - seem to have the planter fascist-fukyu in both my heels now - keerist, i'm a few months short of a solid douglas adams' 42 n' i'm feeling auooooold

 

sunday morning after a solid sleep in - a week w/ the fam at the beach tomorrow so this was it, and not much time to spare as i needed to set the ya'd in order before we fuckered off

 

beacon near noon - the lot like a gypsy caravan before the nazis knew what's what - cool n' grey - bro'seph n' his benji-buddy in buckling down n' ready to bound up dastardly

 

wandered up the corner w/ a head half-right - crowds like always of course, and a poor dam anchored off and leaving on the travese tree giving me the heebie-jeebies - the crux like cream these days - i don't know what my feet are doing, but i just smile and saunter on

 

fresh air and following breeze - fun times - the ramble down - beers and the long babbling road back home...

 

8/7 - day 14 - little wing n' jill's thrill just right to humiliate our friend n' humble narrator after a week family camping in the olympics, sucking down sausauges n' swill - swimming across lake quinualt some species of training i suppose...

 

thought ole'geoff was fixing to stand me up at the b.k. - read some n' tried not to feel like i was gonna barf up me breakfast - settled for just doing some soloing after a half hour rambled on by - went to fetch some of the regular old poisons out of the roadhouse first n' then pulled out n' headed east when i saw the big-G galloping up in his toy-yoya n' said sure, why not?

 

bit stormy out at beacon today, but nothing serious n' kept the crowds down a bit i bet

 

geoff did the real work so i wussed out and did the easier pitches but still fumbled n' fucked them up, conniving to cut me hand up in the bargain and bled like a little bitch all over the place

 

the Gnome King at grassy ledges, seemingly moved in for the season n' hogging all the space, his ride recently jacked by the Man n' him all "fukit, keepit" in response - a rare hero that'un

 

steve n' lisa all about too - we followed them down the raps n' rambled on over to the other side to see about the minotaur, who happily had left his labyrinth - ascended through threatening storm n' had a real satisfying time of it

 

rude reality back in the parking lot - some crackhead kraker chucked a big old stone through geoff's window n' did a quick once-over through its interior - pleasingly the car-alarm seemed to have brought the bitch out of the pussies and they fled before grabbing anything actually - guess it gives our boy an excuse to finally replace the broken windshield too...

 

the summer's setting quick - hope to get another tower trip or two in before it's time to slummit back to work...

 

8/10 - day XV - lap III - leisurely breakfast w/ the kids and some midsummer school work dispensed with, hit the chiropractor to crack the old back n' suck the thetans outta me, then cruised out to beacon in the afternoon heat - warm n' windy in the park - the busted glass of geoff's smashed window all tidied up - just one couple gearing up n' ready to blast off as i started up the corner - felt like a slow old man, stopping to have a good lie down every few pitches n' gaze out at the much older man, the half moon hanging in the sky - the perseids tonight too - the free tv overhead never failing to fling something at you

 

looks like the gnome-king done got evicted - wonder where that wierd mutherfukka got to?

 

8/11 - day 16, lap 4 - not so breezy at beacon today - hot n' humid, even after the shade had set in - gabbed w/ jimbo for a while - the gnome king remains in the witness protection program - ran up the corner, feeling a good bit better than yesterday - brought some clippers n' did some community-service cutting out all the clutter on hidden treats and uprising - gavreeted w/ some good folks n' gamboled on back home to set up shop in a dark field w/ the kids n' watch the pulsing perseids

 

8/12-13 - days 17-18 - the plan was partake of the perseids and plenty of beer on the ledge, maybe do a night lap, then finagle maybe a new route off the top - temps in the mid-90s on the drive in, sweltering in my ac-broken car - drove in endless circles trying to discover the exact location of adam's rebel base where i was to rendezvous w/ my crack team of geoff n' bryan

 

eventually it all worked out and we walked up the painfully hot trail, weltering in sweat - once on the ledge the lack of breeze didn't offer much comfort as we lay around, damp as dogs, re-evaluating our recent decisions

 

bryan and i went on to climb the corner, setting off from the ground just at the last light left the sky - an uneventful and rapid ascent and then it was the rest of a long evening spent counting falling stars, drinking 3 different kinds of beer n' pinot noir to boot, gut-laughing and bullshit'n

 

by 9 a.m. the next morning it was absolutely sweltering and all willingness to scrub n' cut n' mank our way up the sun-blasted wall had wasted away in favor of a far more ambitious plan, ambling off and away over to the tepid columbia to swim like porpoises in the sweet water - we even managed to enlist old adam, who clearly had done this shit already - good times ensued over an afternoon that clearly demonstrated how our ancient mammalian cousins evolved and returned to the ocean to despatch their terrestrial ruinations

 

8/15 - day 19 - lap 5 - hawt, hawt day - did a lap, then grabbed a snorkel n' swam around the river for a good long while - don't think i've ever felt my arms quite that wasted after a solo day at beacon

8/22 - day 20 - lap 6 - spent a day lying wounded on the couch nursing my cranky hip after a lengthy tower rock trip, then up today to do the gym-thang w/ the wife, then a chiro visit, then a wander out east - cool and breezy on the south side - a party of 3 on the corner - the 2 dudes from vegas win the "beacon rock hero of the day" award for bringing their very cute girlfriend out - beautiful ebony skin and didn't look a day over 19 n' 1/2 - can't say i've ever seen someone so lovely on our dreary, drab old stone...

[pink]

1/10/16 - 4th year of setting down the shit that does go down in beatardia, where men are women and women are never around

 

was a rude late fall/early winter season - the big blow of early november annihilated the hiking trail and i woulda been pissed about it if'n never-ending rains hadn't set in and made soloing laps insane anyway

 

a late december trip out w/ geoff at the start of winter break - we ended up just drinking beers n' smoking shit n' commenting on the awful, awful slickery nature of everything - the wall closed at ground zero and so nothing aidable particularly of interest

 

christmas ensued and all was well - didn't have the cash or the clock-time to go for a long off trade to red rocks or whatever, so the only local option was heading up to the puget sound and make a water-man of meself again - last year was great, a 3 day back-pack on the olympic coast n' a 2 day ocean kayak

 

this time around it was a 6-day sea window

 

beat up north in the early hours of 12/27, bent out of my mind it seemed, water streaming along the side of the automovat - seattle shortly after dawn, proud pat all pat-like

 

made our way to the marina n' nattered in the cold light waiting to meet up w/ our captain, a true comedy of errors - soon enough we were on board and casting off

 

sweet simple sailing southward in light airs, past bouys bestowed with sealions - seals - dolphins - eagles both american and candadian i bet - the pleasant site of a 'lion bolting down a full-growth salmon by tail

 

the last bit into port orchard by motor, the night come round so soon - carriers at bremerton

 

ashore we 'sup n' carouse n' enjoy ourselves capitally - meet a sheila-acquaintance of denali dave's round the fireplace n' philsophize over the weight of smoke before rambling off to a sea-berth

 

sail oughta town the next day and all was well - got meself nearly kilt by a swinging boom just shy of brian island or somethign like that - spent much of the night dazed as could be but enjoyed a grand time nonetheless binging on burgundy, n' noble reds n' flowing bowls of what-have-you until 2 in the morning

 

awoke feeling near as death as i've felt in awhile - the hard-knock the day before was certainly one of my fabled 9 lives n' i felt the truth of it - grayed out - feeling the cold i'd inherited from the silverton clan plus the concusssion plus the cold above deck plus the deep, deep fucking booze funk

 

they all thought i was dead the day before and grew doubly grim when i was drawing breath the day after but groaning - turned into me laying in agony on the cabin bench n' holding me head together as we steamed back to seattle against a solid breeze

 

the rest of the day was a healing thing - pat flung himself into the sound in his wetsuit as i laid around his joint, showering and trying to sleep off my fucking concussion - that night we did some super-stoned shopping n' headed over to his girlfriend's for a sumptous dinner set against a most scorchign cold outside - i cackled n' thumbed through 1960's civil defense brochures while pat snored n' i made small talk w/ his missus and her very alien animal

 

3 days of ocean kayaking ensued - launched out from an indian reservation near bellingham, stocked up on cheap injun smokes - the rudder was rudely impaired n' pat didn't know but had me in the back anyhow, so after hours of bitching n' cussing we finally fetched up on clark island

 

soaked rather wet we came straight ashore n' made camp in what proved to be a damned cold place - made a roaring fire n' had a bit of a good night - italian fare i recollect - olives n' red sauce n' sausage tortellinis n' mozeralla n' red wine - a sputtering fire, a bit of a dissapointment but soon enough the tent beside a snoring pat n' i slept soundly, the head cold resonating through me

 

day 2 of the ocean kayak we resolve to shift our camp southwards on the island but no further - find a sweet cove filled w/ firewood n' a sweltering sun, relative to our recent camp - we souse along the shore for a bit n' later launch for a trip to a nearby island where pat is molested by sheep

 

great night, this one - we were promised the northern lights but they never appeared but fuck it - it was new years eve - we sat by a roaring fire n' enjoyed bacon n' chili n' what-have-you, me sucking down pionot noir n' smokes n' enjoying the simpleness of being stranded at sea

 

new year's eve we returned to civilization n' after a bit of agony i made it home in time for winter weather and a nice delayed start to the school year

 

 

but this a beacon thread, n' so all this stuff before is simple bullshit n' i apologize for it

 

today was day 1! corner lap #1, but not solo n' gladly not

 

geoff at the bk a bit past 10 - we saunter eastwards by strong light n' stronger winds

 

the parking lot in a simple gale - we pack and wander down, bound n' determined to reach the top of the uprising and to suss out the damage from there

 

cold n' icy but delightfully dry - i take pitch 1 n' we alternate from there - snow patches here and there, but dry where it needs to be - some beers along the way n' we get time to poke our head over the railing n' take in the carnage on the touron-trail - much work to be done it's obvious - big blown out trees n' blowdown n' battered stones - we take it in and scoot down the raps in the big blow n' enjoy some beers and ramboling aroudn and reach back for home

 

here's to 2016

 

1/31 - day 2 - closing day, and not a very promising one - 39 degrees n' pouring rain in the parking lot - a drive out through mental desperation, the moss on this here rolling rock of meself growing thick n' fucking shaggy

 

beers n' bullshitting w/ steve n' waiting for the weather to give up a little - there were no illusions of how thorough soggy it was gonna be

 

no wind to speak of though, so there was that at least and it got warmer on the south side after the mist melted away - soon enough i cast off, pulling on gear here and there to remind meself not to be a dipshit on a point of pride climbing the slime-cone

 

the sun shone out halfway up and the mood improved noticeably - fresh snow, as innocent as a downy laotian-lamb along the far gorge walls -steve was exuberant to lead the second pitch and i salute him for it as it wouldn't have taken much to talk me out of it

 

a real slippy-slidey one is that - our boy did it w/o flying off but, following, i found meself doing the cartoon-character spinning me feet in the air thang at one point and only narrowly avoiding a pretty cosmic pirouette around the first crux

 

found meself holding forth somethign fierce on tree ledge, swilling pbr n' pounding upon our poor fellow about his own cosmic hangups -those rightly disposed, and a few butts thrown in to boot, i bolted on up the slippery ramps to grassy ledges - since i had a 70 and the jill's anchor was running wet, i went past it and anchored to a tree - a flippant shoulder belay ensued n' steve quite soon went n' fell big time onto it but i proved them old-boys knew what they were doing and ended up smiling on the ground for it

 

the trail closed sign even as we slipped away - stone soup next month now i suppose, though i suspect it's gonna take a civil action and yet another juicy skamania judge session before it gets sorted out - how good is it i have no other hobbies?

 

 

2/27 - day 3 - stone soup in the sopping wet - sausage n' eggs n' a leisurely breakfast - 'nastia at tad past 10 - streaming water on the sides of the machine on the way out - the k-19 in classic form, fresh off a cardiac arrest for christ's sake?

 

3/2 - day 4 - the k-19 konked out saturday just at the parking lot ledge n' we ran out of day and had to leave all the gear hanging on the wall - ya'll bitches lost out on a treasure trove of scary worn-out trash

 

we raced out amid squalls n' rain-storms, me simultaneously sucking down beer n' butts n' changing clothes - was an easy romp up the route w/ the gear all pre-placed - strong winds n' steady rain at times but all went well

 

prime time for putting up some more routes on this small patch of available wall...

 

3/26 - day 6 - spring breaks big upon the land - breezy clouds n' bright sun - a right sound sleep-in - wine n' pizza for breakfast, than a side-saddle into the gorge under glorious skies - crisp n' cold - spent some time scrambling 'round the ozone n' enjoying da wedder, then busted eastwards more to beacon - aid-soloed stone soup n' had a prime time of it, binging on, of all things, katy perry

 

4/28 - day 7 - been out to hike hamilton a couple times the past few weeks but that shit don't count - been a bad fews weeks of loss: health, cool students, ambition, colleagues, etc. - got a taste of bacon to soothe the senses today - me n' mike at the base of stone soup in the cool grey of the afternoon - the alpine start to three tree ledges - to the swiss ledges from there, swapping leads - sawzalled a couple bolts to get'em more righteous - shit, there's so many more to do - set off 2 huge blocks on the rap back down, topping a big tree along the way - for the best really - stoked to see so much chalk on p1 & 2, just gotta improve them amateur bolts for the sporto's

 

5/2 - day 8 - nobody to climb w/ but it was 80+ at days end and nary a cloud in the crystal sky, so what can you do? scampered out to beacon, belting out bale-loads of smoke along the way n' bitch'n ballads, the 'lesberu purring away n' throwing engine warning lights out like it's wont to do - were time compressed into a single moment and a single feeling, i'm sure this wouldn't be the worst of em all to settle on, spring setting in and summer beckoning right behind...

 

not a soul in the parking lot, not right at all for so rare a spring day - what worries me really about the closed hiking trail is there isn't a sign at all of work being done to fix the damn thing - if i had a dollar for every tourist who stops, pays the 10$, then curses to discover the main attraction is under wraps, i'd have 1/10 of what the park's getting...

 

joe lent me a mean sawzall n' i put it to some use - climbed the 1st pitch of stone soup and, while cleaning it, cut down all the nasty extruding studs n' filed n' em nice n' smooth

 

5/28 - day 9 - many hikes up hamilton in recent days, but that don't hardly count - thursday was out for the big walk an saw topher n' company on stone soup - brought a bit of a smile to the heart n' had a good govreet w/ them fools after the walk was over - passed off a sawzall, which didn't appear to get much use, and after a few gut-laff's w/ denali-dave, all done up and vivisected on account of his duputryens, danced away west

 

teamed up w/ geoff today - hadn't seen that courtly fool since casting him off at his hill house shortly after completing our spring break trip to the valley

 

our sad friend greatly hobbled all this time gone by, he braved his early exit from fat-phuck retirment and out we went - topher'd pulled his ropes, and we rambled up the first 2 pitches, me getting all the good work

 

the recently renovated p1 was hardly noticable - p2 not so much - a new bolt allows the aid'n fool to skip the eyebrow cave (bryan managed this same variation w/o a bolt i recall) which makes the aid across a bit more mellow - no more sling on the tree above the bush but it still works, so long as you fully extend your daisy and commit to the top step on tiny handholds

 

the 2 upper headwall bolts all ripped out and eloped east - it got called stone soup for a reason - the new way just fine, aiding-wise, and kinda fun as it forces some funky mixed free maneavours to make the high step

 

rawked out for the rest of our times - 3 tree - the long way down - rangers abound - beers and butts - the boat-dock - always bet on #28 - the big bound home

 

6/9 - die X - not such a balmy day after all this august heat - grey and gloomy - school's done as done can be, just the simple matter of casting these cynical bastards off in the morrow's afternoon and it's summa, summa, summa

 

jeffy-t at the register rock in the half rain - a good gavreet and a glorious shit and it was sauntering time - rambled up to the top-most railing and ran down the stone soup, taking in the rare auold sights - was a trifle baffled by the dangling old fixed line at three tree - guess that's what it means to make nice w/ the neighbors - cut out the hanging trash and cast in on down and couldn't for the life of me find it once upon the ground - wouldn't mind recovering it really, it's the rancid remnants of my first rope, bought back in the waning days of clinton-one

 

might be a bit for beacon - next week's the redwoods and yosemite and san-franny w/ the famibily, then mike n' me making our easting off to the wind river range n' hopefully high times....

 

 

7/16 - day 11 - opening day + 1 - been a busy summer - sand dunes, redwoods, yosemite, san francisco, flat-irons, devils's tower, the winds, smith and darrington, then me washed up flat n' busted on my doorstep just a few days before the family rolls back in - road weary and woe-eyed - sometimes i think i'm a shadow and the sun's almost down

 

a morning spent mending the damage done to tires on the most recent road-trip, then out to beacon and a lap up the corner w/ geoff n' bill - cool weather, cloudy - the old place looking just fine after all this time...

 

musta spent at least 10 solid minutes trying to find the new party spot rumored to be an unladen-swallow's flight away, but eventually we figured ole'adam just must not be home

 

7/17 - day 12 - lap 1 of the summer - woke up late, this last day of bachelor freedom, bound to recover a dog at noon, despite my vexations - just enough time for a sleep in n' a big breakfast n' some beer, then bounced out the door for a lap - musta passed 4 parties of 4-climbers each on the corner? jeebus, the man could make a fortune if'n he claimed for each

 

7/31 - lucky #13 - lap 2 - a trip to tower and success seemingly in hand after a mort more work - a week w/ the wife at art museum's n' doing ya'd wo'k n' f'ck knows what else - hips hurt - knees hurt - seem to have the planter fascist-fukyu in both my heels now - keerist, i'm a few months short of a solid douglas adams' 42 n' i'm feeling auooooold

 

sunday morning after a solid sleep in - a week w/ the fam at the beach tomorrow so this was it, and not much time to spare as i needed to set the ya'd in order before we fuckered off

 

beacon near noon - the lot like a gypsy caravan before the nazis knew what's what - cool n' grey - bro'seph n' his benji-buddy in buckling down n' ready to bound up dastardly

 

wandered up the corner w/ a head half-right - crowds like always of course, and a poor dam anchored off and leaving on the travese tree giving me the heebie-jeebies - the crux like cream these days - i don't know what my feet are doing, but i just smile and saunter on

 

fresh air and following breeze - fun times - the ramble down - beers and the long babbling road back home...

 

8/7 - day 14 - little wing n' jill's thrill just right to humiliate our friend n' humble narrator after a week family camping in the olympics, sucking down sausauges n' swill - swimming across lake quinualt some species of training i suppose...

 

thought ole'geoff was fixing to stand me up at the b.k. - read some n' tried not to feel like i was gonna barf up me breakfast - settled for just doing some soloing after a half hour rambled on by - went to fetch some of the regular old poisons out of the roadhouse first n' then pulled out n' headed east when i saw the big-G galloping up in his toy-yoya n' said sure, why not?

 

bit stormy out at beacon today, but nothing serious n' kept the crowds down a bit i bet

 

geoff did the real work so i wussed out and did the easier pitches but still fumbled n' fucked them up, conniving to cut me hand up in the bargain and bled like a little bitch all over the place

 

the Gnome King at grassy ledges, seemingly moved in for the season n' hogging all the space, his ride recently jacked by the Man n' him all "fukit, keepit" in response - a rare hero that'un

 

steve n' lisa all about too - we followed them down the raps n' rambled on over to the other side to see about the minotaur, who happily had left his labyrinth - ascended through threatening storm n' had a real satisfying time of it

 

rude reality back in the parking lot - some crackhead kraker chucked a big old stone through geoff's window n' did a quick once-over through its interior - pleasingly the car-alarm seemed to have brought the bitch out of the pussies and they fled before grabbing anything actually - guess it gives our boy an excuse to finally replace the broken windshield too...

 

the summer's setting quick - hope to get another tower trip or two in before it's time to slummit back to work...

 

8/10 - day XV - lap III - leisurely breakfast w/ the kids and some midsummer school work dispensed with, hit the chiropractor to crack the old back n' suck the thetans outta me, then cruised out to beacon in the afternoon heat - warm n' windy in the park - the busted glass of geoff's smashed window all tidied up - just one couple gearing up n' ready to blast off as i started up the corner - felt like a slow old man, stopping to have a good lie down every few pitches n' gaze out at the much older man, the half moon hanging in the sky - the perseids tonight too - the free tv overhead never failing to fling something at you

 

looks like the gnome-king done got evicted - wonder where that wierd mutherfukka got to?

 

8/11 - day 16, lap 4 - not so breezy at beacon today - hot n' humid, even after the shade had set in - gabbed w/ jimbo for a while - the gnome king remains in the witness protection program - ran up the corner, feeling a good bit better than yesterday - brought some clippers n' did some community-service cutting out all the clutter on hidden treats and uprising - gavreeted w/ some good folks n' gamboled on back home to set up shop in a dark field w/ the kids n' watch the pulsing perseids

 

8/12-13 - days 17-18 - the plan was partake of the perseids and plenty of beer on the ledge, maybe do a night lap, then finagle maybe a new route off the top - temps in the mid-90s on the drive in, sweltering in my ac-broken car - drove in endless circles trying to discover the exact location of adam's rebel base where i was to rendezvous w/ my crack team of geoff n' bryan

 

eventually it all worked out and we walked up the painfully hot trail, weltering in sweat - once on the ledge the lack of breeze didn't offer much comfort as we lay around, damp as dogs, re-evaluating our recent decisions

 

bryan and i went on to climb the corner, setting off from the ground just at the last light left the sky - an uneventful and rapid ascent and then it was the rest of a long evening spent counting falling stars, drinking 3 different kinds of beer n' pinot noir to boot, gut-laughing and bullshit'n

 

by 9 a.m. the next morning it was absolutely sweltering and all willingness to scrub n' cut n' mank our way up the sun-blasted wall had wasted away in favor of a far more ambitious plan, ambling off and away over to the tepid columbia to swim like porpoises in the sweet water - we even managed to enlist old adam, who clearly had done this shit already - good times ensued over an afternoon that clearly demonstrated how our ancient mammalian cousins evolved and returned to the ocean to despatch their terrestrial ruinations

 

8/15 - day 19 - lap 5 - hawt, hawt day - did a lap, then grabbed a snorkel n' swam around the river for a good long while - don't think i've ever felt my arms quite that wasted after a solo day at beacon

8/22 - day 20 - lap 6 - spent a day lying wounded on the couch nursing my cranky hip after a lengthy tower rock trip, then up today to do the gym-thang w/ the wife, then a chiro visit, then a wander out east - cool and breezy on the south side - a party of 3 on the corner - the 2 dudes from vegas win the "beacon rock hero of the day" award for bringing their very cute girlfriend out - beautiful ebony skin and didn't look a day over 19 n' 1/2 - can't say i've ever seen someone so lovely on our dreary, drab old stone... [/quote

 

you shoulda had ur buddy Pat out to snap pics

[ivan]

think i'll just take it to the next level and start wearing a go-pro at all times

[kevbone]

You know its sad times at Beacon when I cant even get a raise out of Kevbone! Good job with the new routes at Ozone Kevin.

 

 

Lol.....yes 35 is a new route. Nice and easy. Go give it a try

[ivan]

1/10/16 - 4th year of setting down the shit that does go down in beatardia, where men are women and women are never around

 

was a rude late fall/early winter season - the big blow of early november annihilated the hiking trail and i woulda been pissed about it if'n never-ending rains hadn't set in and made soloing laps insane anyway

 

a late december trip out w/ geoff at the start of winter break - we ended up just drinking beers n' smoking shit n' commenting on the awful, awful slickery nature of everything - the wall closed at ground zero and so nothing aidable particularly of interest

 

christmas ensued and all was well - didn't have the cash or the clock-time to go for a long off trade to red rocks or whatever, so the only local option was heading up to the puget sound and make a water-man of meself again - last year was great, a 3 day back-pack on the olympic coast n' a 2 day ocean kayak

 

this time around it was a 6-day sea window

 

beat up north in the early hours of 12/27, bent out of my mind it seemed, water streaming along the side of the automovat - seattle shortly after dawn, proud pat all pat-like

 

made our way to the marina n' nattered in the cold light waiting to meet up w/ our captain, a true comedy of errors - soon enough we were on board and casting off

 

sweet simple sailing southward in light airs, past bouys bestowed with sealions - seals - dolphins - eagles both american and candadian i bet - the pleasant site of a 'lion bolting down a full-growth salmon by tail

 

the last bit into port orchard by motor, the night come round so soon - carriers at bremerton

 

ashore we 'sup n' carouse n' enjoy ourselves capitally - meet a sheila-acquaintance of denali dave's round the fireplace n' philsophize over the weight of smoke before rambling off to a sea-berth

 

sail oughta town the next day and all was well - got meself nearly kilt by a swinging boom just shy of brian island or somethign like that - spent much of the night dazed as could be but enjoyed a grand time nonetheless binging on burgundy, n' noble reds n' flowing bowls of what-have-you until 2 in the morning

 

awoke feeling near as death as i've felt in awhile - the hard-knock the day before was certainly one of my fabled 9 lives n' i felt the truth of it - grayed out - feeling the cold i'd inherited from the silverton clan plus the concusssion plus the cold above deck plus the deep, deep fucking booze funk

 

they all thought i was dead the day before and grew doubly grim when i was drawing breath the day after but groaning - turned into me laying in agony on the cabin bench n' holding me head together as we steamed back to seattle against a solid breeze

 

the rest of the day was a healing thing - pat flung himself into the sound in his wetsuit as i laid around his joint, showering and trying to sleep off my fucking concussion - that night we did some super-stoned shopping n' headed over to his girlfriend's for a sumptous dinner set against a most scorchign cold outside - i cackled n' thumbed through 1960's civil defense brochures while pat snored n' i made small talk w/ his missus and her very alien animal

 

3 days of ocean kayaking ensued - launched out from an indian reservation near bellingham, stocked up on cheap injun smokes - the rudder was rudely impaired n' pat didn't know but had me in the back anyhow, so after hours of bitching n' cussing we finally fetched up on clark island

 

soaked rather wet we came straight ashore n' made camp in what proved to be a damned cold place - made a roaring fire n' had a bit of a good night - italian fare i recollect - olives n' red sauce n' sausage tortellinis n' mozeralla n' red wine - a sputtering fire, a bit of a dissapointment but soon enough the tent beside a snoring pat n' i slept soundly, the head cold resonating through me

 

day 2 of the ocean kayak we resolve to shift our camp southwards on the island but no further - find a sweet cove filled w/ firewood n' a sweltering sun, relative to our recent camp - we souse along the shore for a bit n' later launch for a trip to a nearby island where pat is molested by sheep

 

great night, this one - we were promised the northern lights but they never appeared but fuck it - it was new years eve - we sat by a roaring fire n' enjoyed bacon n' chili n' what-have-you, me sucking down pionot noir n' smokes n' enjoying the simpleness of being stranded at sea

 

new year's eve we returned to civilization n' after a bit of agony i made it home in time for winter weather and a nice delayed start to the school year

 

 

but this a beacon thread, n' so all this stuff before is simple bullshit n' i apologize for it

 

today was day 1! corner lap #1, but not solo n' gladly not

 

geoff at the bk a bit past 10 - we saunter eastwards by strong light n' stronger winds

 

the parking lot in a simple gale - we pack and wander down, bound n' determined to reach the top of the uprising and to suss out the damage from there

 

cold n' icy but delightfully dry - i take pitch 1 n' we alternate from there - snow patches here and there, but dry where it needs to be - some beers along the way n' we get time to poke our head over the railing n' take in the carnage on the touron-trail - much work to be done it's obvious - big blown out trees n' blowdown n' battered stones - we take it in and scoot down the raps in the big blow n' enjoy some beers and ramboling aroudn and reach back for home

 

here's to 2016

 

1/31 - day 2 - closing day, and not a very promising one - 39 degrees n' pouring rain in the parking lot - a drive out through mental desperation, the moss on this here rolling rock of meself growing thick n' fucking shaggy

 

beers n' bullshitting w/ steve n' waiting for the weather to give up a little - there were no illusions of how thorough soggy it was gonna be

 

no wind to speak of though, so there was that at least and it got warmer on the south side after the mist melted away - soon enough i cast off, pulling on gear here and there to remind meself not to be a dipshit on a point of pride climbing the slime-cone

 

the sun shone out halfway up and the mood improved noticeably - fresh snow, as innocent as a downy laotian-lamb along the far gorge walls -steve was exuberant to lead the second pitch and i salute him for it as it wouldn't have taken much to talk me out of it

 

a real slippy-slidey one is that - our boy did it w/o flying off but, following, i found meself doing the cartoon-character spinning me feet in the air thang at one point and only narrowly avoiding a pretty cosmic pirouette around the first crux

 

found meself holding forth somethign fierce on tree ledge, swilling pbr n' pounding upon our poor fellow about his own cosmic hangups -those rightly disposed, and a few butts thrown in to boot, i bolted on up the slippery ramps to grassy ledges - since i had a 70 and the jill's anchor was running wet, i went past it and anchored to a tree - a flippant shoulder belay ensued n' steve quite soon went n' fell big time onto it but i proved them old-boys knew what they were doing and ended up smiling on the ground for it

 

the trail closed sign even as we slipped away - stone soup next month now i suppose, though i suspect it's gonna take a civil action and yet another juicy skamania judge session before it gets sorted out - how good is it i have no other hobbies?

 

 

2/27 - day 3 - stone soup in the sopping wet - sausage n' eggs n' a leisurely breakfast - 'nastia at tad past 10 - streaming water on the sides of the machine on the way out - the k-19 in classic form, fresh off a cardiac arrest for christ's sake?

 

3/2 - day 4 - the k-19 konked out saturday just at the parking lot ledge n' we ran out of day and had to leave all the gear hanging on the wall - ya'll bitches lost out on a treasure trove of scary worn-out trash

 

we raced out amid squalls n' rain-storms, me simultaneously sucking down beer n' butts n' changing clothes - was an easy romp up the route w/ the gear all pre-placed - strong winds n' steady rain at times but all went well

 

prime time for putting up some more routes on this small patch of available wall...

 

3/26 - day 6 - spring breaks big upon the land - breezy clouds n' bright sun - a right sound sleep-in - wine n' pizza for breakfast, than a side-saddle into the gorge under glorious skies - crisp n' cold - spent some time scrambling 'round the ozone n' enjoying da wedder, then busted eastwards more to beacon - aid-soloed stone soup n' had a prime time of it, binging on, of all things, katy perry

 

4/28 - day 7 - been out to hike hamilton a couple times the past few weeks but that shit don't count - been a bad fews weeks of loss: health, cool students, ambition, colleagues, etc. - got a taste of bacon to soothe the senses today - me n' mike at the base of stone soup in the cool grey of the afternoon - the alpine start to three tree ledges - to the swiss ledges from there, swapping leads - sawzalled a couple bolts to get'em more righteous - shit, there's so many more to do - set off 2 huge blocks on the rap back down, topping a big tree along the way - for the best really - stoked to see so much chalk on p1 & 2, just gotta improve them amateur bolts for the sporto's

 

5/2 - day 8 - nobody to climb w/ but it was 80+ at days end and nary a cloud in the crystal sky, so what can you do? scampered out to beacon, belting out bale-loads of smoke along the way n' bitch'n ballads, the 'lesberu purring away n' throwing engine warning lights out like it's wont to do - were time compressed into a single moment and a single feeling, i'm sure this wouldn't be the worst of em all to settle on, spring setting in and summer beckoning right behind...

 

not a soul in the parking lot, not right at all for so rare a spring day - what worries me really about the closed hiking trail is there isn't a sign at all of work being done to fix the damn thing - if i had a dollar for every tourist who stops, pays the 10$, then curses to discover the main attraction is under wraps, i'd have 1/10 of what the park's getting...

 

joe lent me a mean sawzall n' i put it to some use - climbed the 1st pitch of stone soup and, while cleaning it, cut down all the nasty extruding studs n' filed n' em nice n' smooth

 

5/28 - day 9 - many hikes up hamilton in recent days, but that don't hardly count - thursday was out for the big walk an saw topher n' company on stone soup - brought a bit of a smile to the heart n' had a good govreet w/ them fools after the walk was over - passed off a sawzall, which didn't appear to get much use, and after a few gut-laff's w/ denali-dave, all done up and vivisected on account of his duputryens, danced away west

 

teamed up w/ geoff today - hadn't seen that courtly fool since casting him off at his hill house shortly after completing our spring break trip to the valley

 

our sad friend greatly hobbled all this time gone by, he braved his early exit from fat-phuck retirment and out we went - topher'd pulled his ropes, and we rambled up the first 2 pitches, me getting all the good work

 

the recently renovated p1 was hardly noticable - p2 not so much - a new bolt allows the aid'n fool to skip the eyebrow cave (bryan managed this same variation w/o a bolt i recall) which makes the aid across a bit more mellow - no more sling on the tree above the bush but it still works, so long as you fully extend your daisy and commit to the top step on tiny handholds

 

the 2 upper headwall bolts all ripped out and eloped east - it got called stone soup for a reason - the new way just fine, aiding-wise, and kinda fun as it forces some funky mixed free maneavours to make the high step

 

rawked out for the rest of our times - 3 tree - the long way down - rangers abound - beers and butts - the boat-dock - always bet on #28 - the big bound home

 

6/9 - die X - not such a balmy day after all this august heat - grey and gloomy - school's done as done can be, just the simple matter of casting these cynical bastards off in the morrow's afternoon and it's summa, summa, summa

 

jeffy-t at the register rock in the half rain - a good gavreet and a glorious shit and it was sauntering time - rambled up to the top-most railing and ran down the stone soup, taking in the rare auold sights - was a trifle baffled by the dangling old fixed line at three tree - guess that's what it means to make nice w/ the neighbors - cut out the hanging trash and cast in on down and couldn't for the life of me find it once upon the ground - wouldn't mind recovering it really, it's the rancid remnants of my first rope, bought back in the waning days of clinton-one

 

might be a bit for beacon - next week's the redwoods and yosemite and san-franny w/ the famibily, then mike n' me making our easting off to the wind river range n' hopefully high times....

 

 

7/16 - day 11 - opening day + 1 - been a busy summer - sand dunes, redwoods, yosemite, san francisco, flat-irons, devils's tower, the winds, smith and darrington, then me washed up flat n' busted on my doorstep just a few days before the family rolls back in - road weary and woe-eyed - sometimes i think i'm a shadow and the sun's almost down

 

a morning spent mending the damage done to tires on the most recent road-trip, then out to beacon and a lap up the corner w/ geoff n' bill - cool weather, cloudy - the old place looking just fine after all this time...

 

musta spent at least 10 solid minutes trying to find the new party spot rumored to be an unladen-swallow's flight away, but eventually we figured ole'adam just must not be home

 

7/17 - day 12 - lap 1 of the summer - woke up late, this last day of bachelor freedom, bound to recover a dog at noon, despite my vexations - just enough time for a sleep in n' a big breakfast n' some beer, then bounced out the door for a lap - musta passed 4 parties of 4-climbers each on the corner? jeebus, the man could make a fortune if'n he claimed for each

 

7/31 - lucky #13 - lap 2 - a trip to tower and success seemingly in hand after a mort more work - a week w/ the wife at art museum's n' doing ya'd wo'k n' f'ck knows what else - hips hurt - knees hurt - seem to have the planter fascist-fukyu in both my heels now - keerist, i'm a few months short of a solid douglas adams' 42 n' i'm feeling auooooold

 

sunday morning after a solid sleep in - a week w/ the fam at the beach tomorrow so this was it, and not much time to spare as i needed to set the ya'd in order before we fuckered off

 

beacon near noon - the lot like a gypsy caravan before the nazis knew what's what - cool n' grey - bro'seph n' his benji-buddy in buckling down n' ready to bound up dastardly

 

wandered up the corner w/ a head half-right - crowds like always of course, and a poor dam anchored off and leaving on the travese tree giving me the heebie-jeebies - the crux like cream these days - i don't know what my feet are doing, but i just smile and saunter on

 

fresh air and following breeze - fun times - the ramble down - beers and the long babbling road back home...

 

8/7 - day 14 - little wing n' jill's thrill just right to humiliate our friend n' humble narrator after a week family camping in the olympics, sucking down sausauges n' swill - swimming across lake quinualt some species of training i suppose...

 

thought ole'geoff was fixing to stand me up at the b.k. - read some n' tried not to feel like i was gonna barf up me breakfast - settled for just doing some soloing after a half hour rambled on by - went to fetch some of the regular old poisons out of the roadhouse first n' then pulled out n' headed east when i saw the big-G galloping up in his toy-yoya n' said sure, why not?

 

bit stormy out at beacon today, but nothing serious n' kept the crowds down a bit i bet

 

geoff did the real work so i wussed out and did the easier pitches but still fumbled n' fucked them up, conniving to cut me hand up in the bargain and bled like a little bitch all over the place

 

the Gnome King at grassy ledges, seemingly moved in for the season n' hogging all the space, his ride recently jacked by the Man n' him all "fukit, keepit" in response - a rare hero that'un

 

steve n' lisa all about too - we followed them down the raps n' rambled on over to the other side to see about the minotaur, who happily had left his labyrinth - ascended through threatening storm n' had a real satisfying time of it

 

rude reality back in the parking lot - some crackhead kraker chucked a big old stone through geoff's window n' did a quick once-over through its interior - pleasingly the car-alarm seemed to have brought the bitch out of the pussies and they fled before grabbing anything actually - guess it gives our boy an excuse to finally replace the broken windshield too...

 

the summer's setting quick - hope to get another tower trip or two in before it's time to slummit back to work...

 

8/10 - day XV - lap III - leisurely breakfast w/ the kids and some midsummer school work dispensed with, hit the chiropractor to crack the old back n' suck the thetans outta me, then cruised out to beacon in the afternoon heat - warm n' windy in the park - the busted glass of geoff's smashed window all tidied up - just one couple gearing up n' ready to blast off as i started up the corner - felt like a slow old man, stopping to have a good lie down every few pitches n' gaze out at the much older man, the half moon hanging in the sky - the perseids tonight too - the free tv overhead never failing to fling something at you

 

looks like the gnome-king done got evicted - wonder where that wierd mutherfukka got to?

 

8/11 - day 16, lap 4 - not so breezy at beacon today - hot n' humid, even after the shade had set in - gabbed w/ jimbo for a while - the gnome king remains in the witness protection program - ran up the corner, feeling a good bit better than yesterday - brought some clippers n' did some community-service cutting out all the clutter on hidden treats and uprising - gavreeted w/ some good folks n' gamboled on back home to set up shop in a dark field w/ the kids n' watch the pulsing perseids

 

8/12-13 - days 17-18 - the plan was partake of the perseids and plenty of beer on the ledge, maybe do a night lap, then finagle maybe a new route off the top - temps in the mid-90s on the drive in, sweltering in my ac-broken car - drove in endless circles trying to discover the exact location of adam's rebel base where i was to rendezvous w/ my crack team of geoff n' bryan

 

eventually it all worked out and we walked up the painfully hot trail, weltering in sweat - once on the ledge the lack of breeze didn't offer much comfort as we lay around, damp as dogs, re-evaluating our recent decisions

 

bryan and i went on to climb the corner, setting off from the ground just at the last light left the sky - an uneventful and rapid ascent and then it was the rest of a long evening spent counting falling stars, drinking 3 different kinds of beer n' pinot noir to boot, gut-laughing and bullshit'n

 

by 9 a.m. the next morning it was absolutely sweltering and all willingness to scrub n' cut n' mank our way up the sun-blasted wall had wasted away in favor of a far more ambitious plan, ambling off and away over to the tepid columbia to swim like porpoises in the sweet water - we even managed to enlist old adam, who clearly had done this shit already - good times ensued over an afternoon that clearly demonstrated how our ancient mammalian cousins evolved and returned to the ocean to despatch their terrestrial ruinations

 

8/15 - day 19 - lap 5 - hawt, hawt day - did a lap, then grabbed a snorkel n' swam around the river for a good long while - don't think i've ever felt my arms quite that wasted after a solo day at beacon

 

8/22 - day 20 - lap 6 - spent a day lying wounded on the couch nursing my cranky hip after a lengthy tower rock trip, then up today to do the gym-thang w/ the wife, then a chiro visit, then a wander out east - cool and breezy on the south side - a party of 3 on the corner - the 2 dudes from vegas win the "beacon rock hero of the day" award for bringing their very cute girlfriend out - beautiful ebony skin and didn't look a day over 19 n' 1/2 - can't say i've ever seen someone so lovely on our dreary, drab old stone...

8/23 - day 21 - lap 7 - 2 days in a row w/ beautiful ladies at the crag, the stars must be aligning something fierce, i'm almost scared to go back out tomorrow ranger at the base, never a good sign - the mayor up high tending the sheep - some good talk, some grim - shit, the summer's damn near dead...

[ivan]

1/10/16 - 4th year of setting down the shit that does go down in beatardia, where men are women and women are never around

 

was a rude late fall/early winter season - the big blow of early november annihilated the hiking trail and i woulda been pissed about it if'n never-ending rains hadn't set in and made soloing laps insane anyway

 

a late december trip out w/ geoff at the start of winter break - we ended up just drinking beers n' smoking shit n' commenting on the awful, awful slickery nature of everything - the wall closed at ground zero and so nothing aidable particularly of interest

 

christmas ensued and all was well - didn't have the cash or the clock-time to go for a long off trip to red rocks or whatever, so the only local option was heading up to the puget sound and make a water-man of meself again - last year was great, a 3 day back-pack on the olympic coast n' a 2 day ocean kayak

 

this time around it was a 6-day sea window

 

beat up north in the early hours of 12/27, bent out of my mind it seemed, water streaming along the side of the automovat - seattle shortly after dawn, proud pat all pat-like

 

made our way to the marina n' nattered in the cold light waiting to meet up w/ our captain, a true comedy of errors - soon enough we were on board and casting off

 

sweet simple sailing southward in light airs, past bouys bestowed with sealions - seals - dolphins - eagles both american and candadian i bet - the pleasant site of a 'lion bolting down a full-growth salmon by tail

 

the last bit into port orchard by motor, the night come round so soon - carriers at bremerton

 

ashore we 'sup n' carouse n' enjoy ourselves capitally - meet a sheila-acquaintance of denali dave's round the fireplace n' philsophize over the weight of smoke before rambling off to a sea-berth

 

sail oughta town the next day and all was well - got meself nearly kilt by a swinging boom just shy of brian island or somethign like that - spent much of the night dazed as could be but enjoyed a grand time nonetheless binging on burgundy, n' noble reds n' flowing bowls of what-have-you until 2 in the morning

 

awoke feeling near as death as i've felt in awhile - the hard-knock the day before was certainly one of my fabled 9 lives n' i felt the truth of it - grayed out - feeling the cold i'd inherited from the silverton clan plus the concusssion plus the cold above deck plus the deep, deep fucking booze funk

 

they all thought i was dead the day before and grew doubly grim when i was drawing breath the day after but groaning - turned into me laying in agony on the cabin bench n' holding me head together as we steamed back to seattle against a solid breeze

 

the rest of the day was a healing thing - pat flung himself into the sound in his wetsuit as i laid around his joint, showering and trying to sleep off my fucking concussion - that night we did some super-stoned shopping n' headed over to his girlfriend's for a sumptous dinner set against a most scorchign cold outside - i cackled n' thumbed through 1960's civil defense brochures while pat snored n' i made small talk w/ his missus and her very alien animal

 

3 days of ocean kayaking ensued - launched out from an indian reservation near bellingham, stocked up on cheap injun smokes - the rudder was rudely impaired n' pat didn't know but had me in the back anyhow, so after hours of bitching n' cussing we finally fetched up on clark island

 

soaked rather wet we came straight ashore n' made camp in what proved to be a damned cold place - made a roaring fire n' had a bit of a good night - italian fare i recollect - olives n' red sauce n' sausage tortellinis n' mozeralla n' red wine - a sputtering fire, a bit of a dissapointment but soon enough the tent beside a snoring pat n' i slept soundly, the head cold resonating through me

 

day 2 of the ocean kayak we resolve to shift our camp southwards on the island but no further - find a sweet cove filled w/ firewood n' a sweltering sun, relative to our recent camp - we souse along the shore for a bit n' later launch for a trip to a nearby island where pat is molested by sheep

 

great night, this one - we were promised the northern lights but they never appeared but fuck it - it was new years eve - we sat by a roaring fire n' enjoyed bacon n' chili n' what-have-you, me sucking down pionot noir n' smokes n' enjoying the simpleness of being stranded at sea

 

new year's eve we returned to civilization n' after a bit of agony i made it home in time for winter weather and a nice delayed start to the school year

 

 

but this a beacon thread, n' so all this stuff before is simple bullshit n' i apologize for it

 

today was day 1! corner lap #1, but not solo n' gladly not

 

geoff at the bk a bit past 10 - we saunter eastwards by strong light n' stronger winds

 

the parking lot in a simple gale - we pack and wander down, bound n' determined to reach the top of the uprising and to suss out the damage from there

 

cold n' icy but delightfully dry - i take pitch 1 n' we alternate from there - snow patches here and there, but dry where it needs to be - some beers along the way n' we get time to poke our head over the railing n' take in the carnage on the touron-trail - much work to be done it's obvious - big blown out trees n' blowdown n' battered stones - we take it in and scoot down the raps in the big blow n' enjoy some beers and ramboling aroudn and reach back for home

 

here's to 2016

 

1/31 - day 2 - closing day, and not a very promising one - 39 degrees n' pouring rain in the parking lot - a drive out through mental desperation, the moss on this here rolling rock of meself growing thick n' fucking shaggy

 

beers n' bullshitting w/ steve n' waiting for the weather to give up a little - there were no illusions of how thorough soggy it was gonna be

 

no wind to speak of though, so there was that at least and it got warmer on the south side after the mist melted away - soon enough i cast off, pulling on gear here and there to remind meself not to be a dipshit on a point of pride climbing the slime-cone

 

the sun shone out halfway up and the mood improved noticeably - fresh snow, as innocent as a downy laotian-lamb along the far gorge walls -steve was exuberant to lead the second pitch and i salute him for it as it wouldn't have taken much to talk me out of it

 

a real slippy-slidey one is that - our boy did it w/o flying off but, following, i found meself doing the cartoon-character spinning me feet in the air thang at one point and only narrowly avoiding a pretty cosmic pirouette around the first crux

 

found meself holding forth somethign fierce on tree ledge, swilling pbr n' pounding upon our poor fellow about his own cosmic hangups -those rightly disposed, and a few butts thrown in to boot, i bolted on up the slippery ramps to grassy ledges - since i had a 70 and the jill's anchor was running wet, i went past it and anchored to a tree - a flippant shoulder belay ensued n' steve quite soon went n' fell big time onto it but i proved them old-boys knew what they were doing and ended up smiling on the ground for it

 

the trail closed sign even as we slipped away - stone soup next month now i suppose, though i suspect it's gonna take a civil action and yet another juicy skamania judge session before it gets sorted out - how good is it i have no other hobbies?

 

 

2/27 - day 3 - stone soup in the sopping wet - sausage n' eggs n' a leisurely breakfast - 'nastia at tad past 10 - streaming water on the sides of the machine on the way out - the k-19 in classic form, fresh off a cardiac arrest for christ's sake?

 

3/2 - day 4 - the k-19 konked out saturday just at the parking lot ledge n' we ran out of day and had to leave all the gear hanging on the wall - ya'll bitches lost out on a treasure trove of scary worn-out trash

 

we raced out amid squalls n' rain-storms, me simultaneously sucking down beer n' butts n' changing clothes - was an easy romp up the route w/ the gear all pre-placed - strong winds n' steady rain at times but all went well

 

prime time for putting up some more routes on this small patch of available wall...

 

3/26 - day 6 - spring breaks big upon the land - breezy clouds n' bright sun - a right sound sleep-in - wine n' pizza for breakfast, than a side-saddle into the gorge under glorious skies - crisp n' cold - spent some time scrambling 'round the ozone n' enjoying da wedder, then busted eastwards more to beacon - aid-soloed stone soup n' had a prime time of it, binging on, of all things, katy perry

 

4/28 - day 7 - been out to hike hamilton a couple times the past few weeks but that shit don't count - been a bad fews weeks of loss: health, cool students, ambition, colleagues, etc. - got a taste of bacon to soothe the senses today - me n' mike at the base of stone soup in the cool grey of the afternoon - the alpine start to three tree ledges - to the swiss ledges from there, swapping leads - sawzalled a couple bolts to get'em more righteous - shit, there's so many more to do - set off 2 huge blocks on the rap back down, topping a big tree along the way - for the best really - stoked to see so much chalk on p1 & 2, just gotta improve them amateur bolts for the sporto's

 

5/2 - day 8 - nobody to climb w/ but it was 80+ at days end and nary a cloud in the crystal sky, so what can you do? scampered out to beacon, belting out bale-loads of smoke along the way n' bitch'n ballads, the 'lesberu purring away n' throwing engine warning lights out like it's wont to do - were time compressed into a single moment and a single feeling, i'm sure this wouldn't be the worst of em all to settle on, spring setting in and summer beckoning right behind...

 

not a soul in the parking lot, not right at all for so rare a spring day - what worries me really about the closed hiking trail is there isn't a sign at all of work being done to fix the damn thing - if i had a dollar for every tourist who stops, pays the 10$, then curses to discover the main attraction is under wraps, i'd have 1/10 of what the park's getting...

 

joe lent me a mean sawzall n' i put it to some use - climbed the 1st pitch of stone soup and, while cleaning it, cut down all the nasty extruding studs n' filed n' em nice n' smooth

 

5/28 - day 9 - many hikes up hamilton in recent days, but that don't hardly count - thursday was out for the big walk an saw topher n' company on stone soup - brought a bit of a smile to the heart n' had a good govreet w/ them fools after the walk was over - passed off a sawzall, which didn't appear to get much use, and after a few gut-laff's w/ denali-dave, all done up and vivisected on account of his duputryens, danced away west

 

teamed up w/ geoff today - hadn't seen that courtly fool since casting him off at his hill house shortly after completing our spring break trip to the valley

 

our sad friend greatly hobbled all this time gone by, he braved his early exit from fat-phuck retirment and out we went - topher'd pulled his ropes, and we rambled up the first 2 pitches, me getting all the good work

 

the recently renovated p1 was hardly noticable - p2 not so much - a new bolt allows the aid'n fool to skip the eyebrow cave (bryan managed this same variation w/o a bolt i recall) which makes the aid across a bit more mellow - no more sling on the tree above the bush but it still works, so long as you fully extend your daisy and commit to the top step on tiny handholds

 

the 2 upper headwall bolts all ripped out and eloped east - it got called stone soup for a reason - the new way just fine, aiding-wise, and kinda fun as it forces some funky mixed free maneavours to make the high step

 

rawked out for the rest of our times - 3 tree - the long way down - rangers abound - beers and butts - the boat-dock - always bet on #28 - the big bound home

 

6/9 - die X - not such a balmy day after all this august heat - grey and gloomy - school's done as done can be, just the simple matter of casting these cynical bastards off in the morrow's afternoon and it's summa, summa, summa

 

jeffy-t at the register rock in the half rain - a good gavreet and a glorious shit and it was sauntering time - rambled up to the top-most railing and ran down the stone soup, taking in the rare auold sights - was a trifle baffled by the dangling old fixed line at three tree - guess that's what it means to make nice w/ the neighbors - cut out the hanging trash and cast in on down and couldn't for the life of me find it once upon the ground - wouldn't mind recovering it really, it's the rancid remnants of my first rope, bought back in the waning days of clinton-one

 

might be a bit for beacon - next week's the redwoods and yosemite and san-franny w/ the famibily, then mike n' me making our easting off to the wind river range n' hopefully high times....

 

 

7/16 - day 11 - opening day + 1 - been a busy summer - sand dunes, redwoods, yosemite, san francisco, flat-irons, devils's tower, the winds, smith and darrington, then me washed up flat n' busted on my doorstep just a few days before the family rolls back in - road weary and woe-eyed - sometimes i think i'm a shadow and the sun's almost down

 

a morning spent mending the damage done to tires on the most recent road-trip, then out to beacon and a lap up the corner w/ geoff n' bill - cool weather, cloudy - the old place looking just fine after all this time...

 

musta spent at least 10 solid minutes trying to find the new party spot rumored to be an unladen-swallow's flight away, but eventually we figured ole'adam just must not be home

 

7/17 - day 12 - lap 1 of the summer - woke up late, this last day of bachelor freedom, bound to recover a dog at noon, despite my vexations - just enough time for a sleep in n' a big breakfast n' some beer, then bounced out the door for a lap - musta passed 4 parties of 4-climbers each on the corner? jeebus, the man could make a fortune if'n he claimed for each

 

7/31 - lucky #13 - lap 2 - a trip to tower and success seemingly in hand after a mort more work - a week w/ the wife at art museum's n' doing ya'd wo'k n' f'ck knows what else - hips hurt - knees hurt - seem to have the planter fascist-fukyu in both my heels now - keerist, i'm a few months short of a solid douglas adams' 42 n' i'm feeling auooooold

 

sunday morning after a solid sleep in - a week w/ the fam at the beach tomorrow so this was it, and not much time to spare as i needed to set the ya'd in order before we fuckered off

 

beacon near noon - the lot like a gypsy caravan before the nazis knew what's what - cool n' grey - bro'seph n' his benji-buddy in buckling down n' ready to bound up dastardly

 

wandered up the corner w/ a head half-right - crowds like always of course, and a poor dam anchored off and leaving on the travese tree giving me the heebie-jeebies - the crux like cream these days - i don't know what my feet are doing, but i just smile and saunter on

 

fresh air and following breeze - fun times - the ramble down - beers and the long babbling road back home...

 

8/7 - day 14 - little wing n' jill's thrill just right to humiliate our friend n' humble narrator after a week family camping in the olympics, sucking down sausauges n' swill - swimming across lake quinualt some species of training i suppose...

 

thought ole'geoff was fixing to stand me up at the b.k. - read some n' tried not to feel like i was gonna barf up me breakfast - settled for just doing some soloing after a half hour rambled on by - went to fetch some of the regular old poisons out of the roadhouse first n' then pulled out n' headed east when i saw the big-G galloping up in his toy-yoya n' said sure, why not?

 

bit stormy out at beacon today, but nothing serious n' kept the crowds down a bit i bet

 

geoff did the real work so i wussed out and did the easier pitches but still fumbled n' fucked them up, conniving to cut me hand up in the bargain and bled like a little bitch all over the place

 

the Gnome King at grassy ledges, seemingly moved in for the season n' hogging all the space, his ride recently jacked by the Man n' him all "fukit, keepit" in response - a rare hero that'un

 

steve n' lisa all about too - we followed them down the raps n' rambled on over to the other side to see about the minotaur, who happily had left his labyrinth - ascended through threatening storm n' had a real satisfying time of it

 

rude reality back in the parking lot - some crackhead kraker chucked a big old stone through geoff's window n' did a quick once-over through its interior - pleasingly the car-alarm seemed to have brought the bitch out of the pussies and they fled before grabbing anything actually - guess it gives our boy an excuse to finally replace the broken windshield too...

 

the summer's setting quick - hope to get another tower trip or two in before it's time to slummit back to work...

 

8/10 - day XV - lap III - leisurely breakfast w/ the kids and some midsummer school work dispensed with, hit the chiropractor to crack the old back n' suck the thetans outta me, then cruised out to beacon in the afternoon heat - warm n' windy in the park - the busted glass of geoff's smashed window all tidied up - just one couple gearing up n' ready to blast off as i started up the corner - felt like a slow old man, stopping to have a good lie down every few pitches n' gaze out at the much older man, the half moon hanging in the sky - the perseids tonight too - the free tv overhead never failing to fling something at you

 

looks like the gnome-king done got evicted - wonder where that wierd mutherfukka got to?

 

8/11 - day 16, lap 4 - not so breezy at beacon today - hot n' humid, even after the shade had set in - gabbed w/ jimbo for a while - the gnome king remains in the witness protection program - ran up the corner, feeling a good bit better than yesterday - brought some clippers n' did some community-service cutting out all the clutter on hidden treats and uprising - gavreeted w/ some good folks n' gamboled on back home to set up shop in a dark field w/ the kids n' watch the pulsing perseids

 

8/12-13 - days 17-18 - the plan was partake of the perseids and plenty of beer on the ledge, maybe do a night lap, then finagle maybe a new route off the top - temps in the mid-90s on the drive in, sweltering in my ac-broken car - drove in endless circles trying to discover the exact location of adam's rebel base where i was to rendezvous w/ my crack team of geoff n' bryan

 

eventually it all worked out and we walked up the painfully hot trail, weltering in sweat - once on the ledge the lack of breeze didn't offer much comfort as we lay around, damp as dogs, re-evaluating our recent decisions

 

bryan and i went on to climb the corner, setting off from the ground just at the last light left the sky - an uneventful and rapid ascent and then it was the rest of a long evening spent counting falling stars, drinking 3 different kinds of beer n' pinot noir to boot, gut-laughing and bullshit'n

 

by 9 a.m. the next morning it was absolutely sweltering and all willingness to scrub n' cut n' mank our way up the sun-blasted wall had wasted away in favor of a far more ambitious plan, ambling off and away over to the tepid columbia to swim like porpoises in the sweet water - we even managed to enlist old adam, who clearly had done this shit already - good times ensued over an afternoon that clearly demonstrated how our ancient mammalian cousins evolved and returned to the ocean to despatch their terrestrial ruinations

 

8/15 - day 19 - lap 5 - hawt, hawt day - did a lap, then grabbed a snorkel n' swam around the river for a good long while - don't think i've ever felt my arms quite that wasted after a solo day at beacon

 

8/22 - day 20 - lap 6 - spent a day lying wounded on the couch nursing my cranky hip after a lengthy tower rock trip, then up today to do the gym-thang w/ the wife, then a chiro visit, then a wander out east - cool and breezy on the south side - a party of 3 on the corner - the 2 dudes from vegas win the "beacon rock hero of the day" award for bringing their very cute girlfriend out - beautiful ebony skin and didn't look a day over 19 n' 1/2 - can't say i've ever seen someone so lovely on our dreary, drab old stone...

 

8/23 - day 21 - lap 7 - 2 days in a row w/ beautiful ladies at the crag, the stars must be aligning something fierce, i'm almost scared to go back out tomorrow ranger at the base, never a good sign - the mayor up high tending the sheep - some good talk, some grim - shit, the summer's damn near dead...

8/24 - day 22 - lap 8 - hat trick - good day - swimming in battle ground lake w/ the dog n' family - freshwater jellyfish, holy shit, who'da thunk it? union social n' some lightweight boozing, then out to beacon - felt abit groggy on arrival and jumped in the columbia in the 90 degree heat to cool off - arrived in the parking lot to ranger questions - apparantly some dickmunch drove off with the picnic bench

 

jim in the lot too, said ole'bill n' ujohn were up high on the corner so i scooted off to see if i could catch them - took uprising and ran into the boys just at the railing - bill invited the gang for drinks at the skamania lodge n' we drank brown ale n' ate nachos n' nattered about an impeding return to tower

[billcoe]

 

 

Was there Monday for a Young Warriors lap and that picnic bench was gone then. I assumed that the rangers had taken it away as it seemed to be getting longer in the tooth than Jim and I. Crap, some dikmuch stole it ya say? Damned good thing the restroom is bolted down.

 

BTW, looking at the water and your dripping visage, one can't help but reflect on some similarity of what the Creature From the Black lagoon must have looked like crawling out of the Stinking Primordial Swamp.

 

 

Perhaps you were wetter of course:-)

 

Nice to see the mayor, if anyone is thinking of calling and saying hi to the man, do so.

 

 

 

 

[ivan]

1/10/16 - 4th year of setting down the shit that does go down in beatardia, where men are women and women are never around

 

was a rude late fall/early winter season - the big blow of early november annihilated the hiking trail and i woulda been pissed about it if'n never-ending rains hadn't set in and made soloing laps insane anyway

 

a late december trip out w/ geoff at the start of winter break - we ended up just drinking beers n' smoking shit n' commenting on the awful, awful slickery nature of everything - the wall closed at ground zero and so nothing aidable particularly of interest

 

christmas ensued and all was well - didn't have the cash or the clock-time to go for a long off trip to red rocks or whatever, so the only local option was heading up to the puget sound and make a water-man of meself again - last year was great, a 3 day back-pack on the olympic coast n' a 2 day ocean kayak

 

this time around it was a 6-day sea window

 

beat up north in the early hours of 12/27, bent out of my mind it seemed, water streaming along the side of the automovat - seattle shortly after dawn, proud pat all pat-like

 

made our way to the marina n' nattered in the cold light waiting to meet up w/ our captain, a true comedy of errors - soon enough we were on board and casting off

 

sweet simple sailing southward in light airs, past bouys bestowed with sealions - seals - dolphins - eagles both american and candadian i bet - the pleasant site of a 'lion bolting down a full-growth salmon by tail

 

the last bit into port orchard by motor, the night come round so soon - carriers at bremerton

 

ashore we 'sup n' carouse n' enjoy ourselves capitally - meet a sheila-acquaintance of denali dave's round the fireplace n' philsophize over the weight of smoke before rambling off to a sea-berth

 

sail oughta town the next day and all was well - got meself nearly kilt by a swinging boom just shy of brian island or somethign like that - spent much of the night dazed as could be but enjoyed a grand time nonetheless binging on burgundy, n' noble reds n' flowing bowls of what-have-you until 2 in the morning

 

awoke feeling near as death as i've felt in awhile - the hard-knock the day before was certainly one of my fabled 9 lives n' i felt the truth of it - grayed out - feeling the cold i'd inherited from the silverton clan plus the concusssion plus the cold above deck plus the deep, deep fucking booze funk

 

they all thought i was dead the day before and grew doubly grim when i was drawing breath the day after but groaning - turned into me laying in agony on the cabin bench n' holding me head together as we steamed back to seattle against a solid breeze

 

the rest of the day was a healing thing - pat flung himself into the sound in his wetsuit as i laid around his joint, showering and trying to sleep off my fucking concussion - that night we did some super-stoned shopping n' headed over to his girlfriend's for a sumptous dinner set against a most scorchign cold outside - i cackled n' thumbed through 1960's civil defense brochures while pat snored n' i made small talk w/ his missus and her very alien animal

 

3 days of ocean kayaking ensued - launched out from an indian reservation near bellingham, stocked up on cheap injun smokes - the rudder was rudely impaired n' pat didn't know but had me in the back anyhow, so after hours of bitching n' cussing we finally fetched up on clark island

 

soaked rather wet we came straight ashore n' made camp in what proved to be a damned cold place - made a roaring fire n' had a bit of a good night - italian fare i recollect - olives n' red sauce n' sausage tortellinis n' mozeralla n' red wine - a sputtering fire, a bit of a dissapointment but soon enough the tent beside a snoring pat n' i slept soundly, the head cold resonating through me

 

day 2 of the ocean kayak we resolve to shift our camp southwards on the island but no further - find a sweet cove filled w/ firewood n' a sweltering sun, relative to our recent camp - we souse along the shore for a bit n' later launch for a trip to a nearby island where pat is molested by sheep

 

great night, this one - we were promised the northern lights but they never appeared but fuck it - it was new years eve - we sat by a roaring fire n' enjoyed bacon n' chili n' what-have-you, me sucking down pionot noir n' smokes n' enjoying the simpleness of being stranded at sea

 

new year's eve we returned to civilization n' after a bit of agony i made it home in time for winter weather and a nice delayed start to the school year

 

 

but this a beacon thread, n' so all this stuff before is simple bullshit n' i apologize for it

 

today was day 1! corner lap #1, but not solo n' gladly not

 

geoff at the bk a bit past 10 - we saunter eastwards by strong light n' stronger winds

 

the parking lot in a simple gale - we pack and wander down, bound n' determined to reach the top of the uprising and to suss out the damage from there

 

cold n' icy but delightfully dry - i take pitch 1 n' we alternate from there - snow patches here and there, but dry where it needs to be - some beers along the way n' we get time to poke our head over the railing n' take in the carnage on the touron-trail - much work to be done it's obvious - big blown out trees n' blowdown n' battered stones - we take it in and scoot down the raps in the big blow n' enjoy some beers and ramboling aroudn and reach back for home

 

here's to 2016

 

1/31 - day 2 - closing day, and not a very promising one - 39 degrees n' pouring rain in the parking lot - a drive out through mental desperation, the moss on this here rolling rock of meself growing thick n' fucking shaggy

 

beers n' bullshitting w/ steve n' waiting for the weather to give up a little - there were no illusions of how thorough soggy it was gonna be

 

no wind to speak of though, so there was that at least and it got warmer on the south side after the mist melted away - soon enough i cast off, pulling on gear here and there to remind meself not to be a dipshit on a point of pride climbing the slime-cone

 

the sun shone out halfway up and the mood improved noticeably - fresh snow, as innocent as a downy laotian-lamb along the far gorge walls -steve was exuberant to lead the second pitch and i salute him for it as it wouldn't have taken much to talk me out of it

 

a real slippy-slidey one is that - our boy did it w/o flying off but, following, i found meself doing the cartoon-character spinning me feet in the air thang at one point and only narrowly avoiding a pretty cosmic pirouette around the first crux

 

found meself holding forth somethign fierce on tree ledge, swilling pbr n' pounding upon our poor fellow about his own cosmic hangups -those rightly disposed, and a few butts thrown in to boot, i bolted on up the slippery ramps to grassy ledges - since i had a 70 and the jill's anchor was running wet, i went past it and anchored to a tree - a flippant shoulder belay ensued n' steve quite soon went n' fell big time onto it but i proved them old-boys knew what they were doing and ended up smiling on the ground for it

 

the trail closed sign even as we slipped away - stone soup next month now i suppose, though i suspect it's gonna take a civil action and yet another juicy skamania judge session before it gets sorted out - how good is it i have no other hobbies?

 

 

2/27 - day 3 - stone soup in the sopping wet - sausage n' eggs n' a leisurely breakfast - 'nastia at tad past 10 - streaming water on the sides of the machine on the way out - the k-19 in classic form, fresh off a cardiac arrest for christ's sake?

 

3/2 - day 4 - the k-19 konked out saturday just at the parking lot ledge n' we ran out of day and had to leave all the gear hanging on the wall - ya'll bitches lost out on a treasure trove of scary worn-out trash

 

we raced out amid squalls n' rain-storms, me simultaneously sucking down beer n' butts n' changing clothes - was an easy romp up the route w/ the gear all pre-placed - strong winds n' steady rain at times but all went well

 

prime time for putting up some more routes on this small patch of available wall...

 

3/26 - day 6 - spring breaks big upon the land - breezy clouds n' bright sun - a right sound sleep-in - wine n' pizza for breakfast, than a side-saddle into the gorge under glorious skies - crisp n' cold - spent some time scrambling 'round the ozone n' enjoying da wedder, then busted eastwards more to beacon - aid-soloed stone soup n' had a prime time of it, binging on, of all things, katy perry

 

4/28 - day 7 - been out to hike hamilton a couple times the past few weeks but that shit don't count - been a bad fews weeks of loss: health, cool students, ambition, colleagues, etc. - got a taste of bacon to soothe the senses today - me n' mike at the base of stone soup in the cool grey of the afternoon - the alpine start to three tree ledges - to the swiss ledges from there, swapping leads - sawzalled a couple bolts to get'em more righteous - shit, there's so many more to do - set off 2 huge blocks on the rap back down, topping a big tree along the way - for the best really - stoked to see so much chalk on p1 & 2, just gotta improve them amateur bolts for the sporto's

 

5/2 - day 8 - nobody to climb w/ but it was 80+ at days end and nary a cloud in the crystal sky, so what can you do? scampered out to beacon, belting out bale-loads of smoke along the way n' bitch'n ballads, the 'lesberu purring away n' throwing engine warning lights out like it's wont to do - were time compressed into a single moment and a single feeling, i'm sure this wouldn't be the worst of em all to settle on, spring setting in and summer beckoning right behind...

 

not a soul in the parking lot, not right at all for so rare a spring day - what worries me really about the closed hiking trail is there isn't a sign at all of work being done to fix the damn thing - if i had a dollar for every tourist who stops, pays the 10$, then curses to discover the main attraction is under wraps, i'd have 1/10 of what the park's getting...

 

joe lent me a mean sawzall n' i put it to some use - climbed the 1st pitch of stone soup and, while cleaning it, cut down all the nasty extruding studs n' filed n' em nice n' smooth

 

5/28 - day 9 - many hikes up hamilton in recent days, but that don't hardly count - thursday was out for the big walk an saw topher n' company on stone soup - brought a bit of a smile to the heart n' had a good govreet w/ them fools after the walk was over - passed off a sawzall, which didn't appear to get much use, and after a few gut-laff's w/ denali-dave, all done up and vivisected on account of his duputryens, danced away west

 

teamed up w/ geoff today - hadn't seen that courtly fool since casting him off at his hill house shortly after completing our spring break trip to the valley

 

our sad friend greatly hobbled all this time gone by, he braved his early exit from fat-phuck retirment and out we went - topher'd pulled his ropes, and we rambled up the first 2 pitches, me getting all the good work

 

the recently renovated p1 was hardly noticable - p2 not so much - a new bolt allows the aid'n fool to skip the eyebrow cave (bryan managed this same variation w/o a bolt i recall) which makes the aid across a bit more mellow - no more sling on the tree above the bush but it still works, so long as you fully extend your daisy and commit to the top step on tiny handholds

 

the 2 upper headwall bolts all ripped out and eloped east - it got called stone soup for a reason - the new way just fine, aiding-wise, and kinda fun as it forces some funky mixed free maneavours to make the high step

 

rawked out for the rest of our times - 3 tree - the long way down - rangers abound - beers and butts - the boat-dock - always bet on #28 - the big bound home

 

6/9 - die X - not such a balmy day after all this august heat - grey and gloomy - school's done as done can be, just the simple matter of casting these cynical bastards off in the morrow's afternoon and it's summa, summa, summa

 

jeffy-t at the register rock in the half rain - a good gavreet and a glorious shit and it was sauntering time - rambled up to the top-most railing and ran down the stone soup, taking in the rare auold sights - was a trifle baffled by the dangling old fixed line at three tree - guess that's what it means to make nice w/ the neighbors - cut out the hanging trash and cast in on down and couldn't for the life of me find it once upon the ground - wouldn't mind recovering it really, it's the rancid remnants of my first rope, bought back in the waning days of clinton-one

 

might be a bit for beacon - next week's the redwoods and yosemite and san-franny w/ the famibily, then mike n' me making our easting off to the wind river range n' hopefully high times....

 

 

7/16 - day 11 - opening day + 1 - been a busy summer - sand dunes, redwoods, yosemite, san francisco, flat-irons, devils's tower, the winds, smith and darrington, then me washed up flat n' busted on my doorstep just a few days before the family rolls back in - road weary and woe-eyed - sometimes i think i'm a shadow and the sun's almost down

 

a morning spent mending the damage done to tires on the most recent road-trip, then out to beacon and a lap up the corner w/ geoff n' bill - cool weather, cloudy - the old place looking just fine after all this time...

 

musta spent at least 10 solid minutes trying to find the new party spot rumored to be an unladen-swallow's flight away, but eventually we figured ole'adam just must not be home

 

7/17 - day 12 - lap 1 of the summer - woke up late, this last day of bachelor freedom, bound to recover a dog at noon, despite my vexations - just enough time for a sleep in n' a big breakfast n' some beer, then bounced out the door for a lap - musta passed 4 parties of 4-climbers each on the corner? jeebus, the man could make a fortune if'n he claimed for each

 

7/31 - lucky #13 - lap 2 - a trip to tower and success seemingly in hand after a mort more work - a week w/ the wife at art museum's n' doing ya'd wo'k n' f'ck knows what else - hips hurt - knees hurt - seem to have the planter fascist-fukyu in both my heels now - keerist, i'm a few months short of a solid douglas adams' 42 n' i'm feeling auooooold

 

sunday morning after a solid sleep in - a week w/ the fam at the beach tomorrow so this was it, and not much time to spare as i needed to set the ya'd in order before we fuckered off

 

beacon near noon - the lot like a gypsy caravan before the nazis knew what's what - cool n' grey - bro'seph n' his benji-buddy in buckling down n' ready to bound up dastardly

 

wandered up the corner w/ a head half-right - crowds like always of course, and a poor dam anchored off and leaving on the travese tree giving me the heebie-jeebies - the crux like cream these days - i don't know what my feet are doing, but i just smile and saunter on

 

fresh air and following breeze - fun times - the ramble down - beers and the long babbling road back home...

 

8/7 - day 14 - little wing n' jill's thrill just right to humiliate our friend n' humble narrator after a week family camping in the olympics, sucking down sausauges n' swill - swimming across lake quinualt some species of training i suppose...

 

thought ole'geoff was fixing to stand me up at the b.k. - read some n' tried not to feel like i was gonna barf up me breakfast - settled for just doing some soloing after a half hour rambled on by - went to fetch some of the regular old poisons out of the roadhouse first n' then pulled out n' headed east when i saw the big-G galloping up in his toy-yoya n' said sure, why not?

 

bit stormy out at beacon today, but nothing serious n' kept the crowds down a bit i bet

 

geoff did the real work so i wussed out and did the easier pitches but still fumbled n' fucked them up, conniving to cut me hand up in the bargain and bled like a little bitch all over the place

 

the Gnome King at grassy ledges, seemingly moved in for the season n' hogging all the space, his ride recently jacked by the Man n' him all "fukit, keepit" in response - a rare hero that'un

 

steve n' lisa all about too - we followed them down the raps n' rambled on over to the other side to see about the minotaur, who happily had left his labyrinth - ascended through threatening storm n' had a real satisfying time of it

 

rude reality back in the parking lot - some crackhead kraker chucked a big old stone through geoff's window n' did a quick once-over through its interior - pleasingly the car-alarm seemed to have brought the bitch out of the pussies and they fled before grabbing anything actually - guess it gives our boy an excuse to finally replace the broken windshield too...

 

the summer's setting quick - hope to get another tower trip or two in before it's time to slummit back to work...

 

8/10 - day XV - lap III - leisurely breakfast w/ the kids and some midsummer school work dispensed with, hit the chiropractor to crack the old back n' suck the thetans outta me, then cruised out to beacon in the afternoon heat - warm n' windy in the park - the busted glass of geoff's smashed window all tidied up - just one couple gearing up n' ready to blast off as i started up the corner - felt like a slow old man, stopping to have a good lie down every few pitches n' gaze out at the much older man, the half moon hanging in the sky - the perseids tonight too - the free tv overhead never failing to fling something at you

 

looks like the gnome-king done got evicted - wonder where that wierd mutherfukka got to?

 

8/11 - day 16, lap 4 - not so breezy at beacon today - hot n' humid, even after the shade had set in - gabbed w/ jimbo for a while - the gnome king remains in the witness protection program - ran up the corner, feeling a good bit better than yesterday - brought some clippers n' did some community-service cutting out all the clutter on hidden treats and uprising - gavreeted w/ some good folks n' gamboled on back home to set up shop in a dark field w/ the kids n' watch the pulsing perseids

 

8/12-13 - days 17-18 - the plan was partake of the perseids and plenty of beer on the ledge, maybe do a night lap, then finagle maybe a new route off the top - temps in the mid-90s on the drive in, sweltering in my ac-broken car - drove in endless circles trying to discover the exact location of adam's rebel base where i was to rendezvous w/ my crack team of geoff n' bryan

 

eventually it all worked out and we walked up the painfully hot trail, weltering in sweat - once on the ledge the lack of breeze didn't offer much comfort as we lay around, damp as dogs, re-evaluating our recent decisions

 

bryan and i went on to climb the corner, setting off from the ground just at the last light left the sky - an uneventful and rapid ascent and then it was the rest of a long evening spent counting falling stars, drinking 3 different kinds of beer n' pinot noir to boot, gut-laughing and bullshit'n

 

by 9 a.m. the next morning it was absolutely sweltering and all willingness to scrub n' cut n' mank our way up the sun-blasted wall had wasted away in favor of a far more ambitious plan, ambling off and away over to the tepid columbia to swim like porpoises in the sweet water - we even managed to enlist old adam, who clearly had done this shit already - good times ensued over an afternoon that clearly demonstrated how our ancient mammalian cousins evolved and returned to the ocean to despatch their terrestrial ruinations

 

8/15 - day 19 - lap 5 - hawt, hawt day - did a lap, then grabbed a snorkel n' swam around the river for a good long while - don't think i've ever felt my arms quite that wasted after a solo day at beacon

 

8/22 - day 20 - lap 6 - spent a day lying wounded on the couch nursing my cranky hip after a lengthy tower rock trip, then up today to do the gym-thang w/ the wife, then a chiro visit, then a wander out east - cool and breezy on the south side - a party of 3 on the corner - the 2 dudes from vegas win the "beacon rock hero of the day" award for bringing their very cute girlfriend out - beautiful ebony skin and didn't look a day over 19 n' 1/2 - can't say i've ever seen someone so lovely on our dreary, drab old stone...

 

8/23 - day 21 - lap 7 - 2 days in a row w/ beautiful ladies at the crag, the stars must be aligning something fierce, i'm almost scared to go back out tomorrow ranger at the base, never a good sign - the mayor up high tending the sheep - some good talk, some grim - shit, the summer's damn near dead...

 

8/24 - day 22 - lap 8 - hat trick - good day - swimming in battle ground lake w/ the dog n' family - freshwater jellyfish, holy shit, who'da thunk it? union social n' some lightweight boozing, then out to beacon - felt abit groggy on arrival and jumped in the columbia in the 90 degree heat to cool off - arrived in the parking lot to ranger questions - apparantly some dickmunch drove off with the picnic bench

 

jim in the lot too, said ole'bill n' ujohn were up high on the corner so i scooted off to see if i could catch them - took uprising and ran into the boys just at the railing - bill invited the gang for drinks at the skamania lodge n' we drank brown ale n' ate nachos n' nattered about an impeding return to tower

8/25 - day 23 - lap 9 - a scorcher today - 104 read the car after rudely parking it in the sun - some union bidness dispensed with n' a stint of classroom setup sussed out, i wandered out gorge-ways after 3 - dallied around the dock for an hour or so swimming out to the island n' bantering w/ the fishermen who were bringing in the bass with perfect regularity and had some fine tales to tell- ranger-boi came by w/ some fancy high-powered options, i oughta keep that in mind next time i'm jerking off in the bushes up on grassy ledges

 

topped out to the strange site of some kids rapping off the south side summit, strung out in the trees above grassy ledges looking a little uncertain of the future - reckon they'd get themselves sorted out well enough, so sent them my salutations n' shuffled on

 

summer's done sprung a leak and's taking on water something fearful, i would not wager a fucking groat on its continuing good health