Beacon

[denalidave]

Why do you call it Beatard bro?

So asks the reason... Think about it.

Cause I changed the name of my new band to B'Jorn Gain Beatard. Booking show's at LOLP, ASAP. Dig?

[denalidave]

Bacon, Bacon, Bacon.

 

Er, Beatardia, Beatardia... Bacon....

 

[denalidave]

Please don't confuse the two... BEATARDIA and BACON. But when you wrap them together and add some cheese, it goes down really swell. Just say'n.

[ivan]

Why do you call it Beatard bro?

i learned by watching you, dad, i learned by watching you!

[denalidave]

Why do you call it Beatard bro?

i learned by watching you, dad, i learned by watching you!

It's time we all step up and claim our "B" for Beatard. "A" for Beatard, "E" for BEtardia, "T" or tardiness, "Ard" for an ending. Wow. That was easier than I spect'd... : )

[ivan]

new year, new beatard count

 

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

 

 

1/12 - day#2 - strange day - freezing fog on the wakeup, car shackled in ice at the dawn - geoff at the burger king - high-speed jet through the quiet lull of the gorge, the road dry n' gentle - beacon becalmed, all door discipline disregarded - a great gut-laugh at the peach allah had gracefully cast into our laps - i get all the leads down low - consensus conditions S5 (our ascent of 12/21/12 in recent memory a retard S9, damn near pegging the limit of the possible) - challenging lead conditions for sure still, with sheet-freeze all over, slowly peeling off in the relatively tropical conditions - runnels of run-off bubbling underneath the ice - the sun bursting through the clear air - rumbles of gunfire, pap-pap-pap-pap, a militia-action for certain on the oregon shores - slip-sliding away all over from grassy ledges up - glimpse of the bonneville crick draining into the river, all jizzum-milky, the vas defernes of the columbian cock- exited the long way, the Great Coward wending all to Starboard where he could - a walk down all bathed in rays of a riotous golden orb - jim at the base w/ an old boy - oaths and auguries, threats and Aggravated Assaults considered - an easy orbit back through the steaming warmth of the gorge-winter disbanded, if only for a bit

 

1/22 - #3 - annealed by two recent days at smith in the Big Fridge of the bivy site, mornings traversing the phantasmagorical formations of frozen sludge, mike and i had an evening run up the bacon-wand in a big olde freshet of gaudy coldness

 

a big dry had beaten off the vast damp of days gone by - barely any ice on route - half the digits of my right foot right numb by grassy ledges, i unshod and rubbed hardly any life back into them - toes throb as i type

 

booty nut on p2, should the original owner wish to claim it from a massive pile of such things i have growing in my garage

 

not even a fort-night of fucknoodling about the sunny-side left - full moon fever this weekend for any half-wit warriors who might feel the urge to come w/...

 

 

 

2/2 - day #4 - ground hogz day, a swift demise to deadly winter predicted - 'twas the day after a wander up the hood-wand w/ an interesting feller to dispatch the doldrum of the beacon s side closure - ya never stop learning in the mountains, this time 2 Ore-e-gone Snowboard'nBoyz taught me how to inhale green weeds through green apples using nothing more than a glorious bright winter sun and a magnifying glass - a good invention for the stiff breezes off an open glacier - much thanks for them that rock the Van Damme

 

stone soup w/ geoff today - despite the distinct sense of early spring setting in as the Great Hamster foresaw, it was a mort cold and savage breezy - geoff did p1, and i managed to mangle meself on p2 - found a fixed nut at the start of the eyebrow traverse and was hanging out on it for awhile, had just plugged the next cam in when suddenly i was falling - fell/slid into a slab, instinctively grabbing an edge to stop the fall, sheared off the flesh of my pinky-tip and sprung the sprockets in the other fingers' knuckles, then went heads'o'er'tits and continued on down, getting entangled in the rope running up through the gear and ultimately arresting hanging upside down looking straight at the olde boye, who looked frankly startled

 

blood pouring from the flensed n' flapping finger, i wrapped my balaclava about it n' took stock - had a good gut laugh upon recalling that last time i climbed on this side, last spring, i'd ended up in the e.r. too - maybe i'm just not getting the message?

 

geoff was my hero - not only did he finish the pitch, he also figured out how, after 10 minutes, to get my damn knot untied by pounding on it w/ a jug - the big breeze blew itself out as dejected would-be hiking trail ascenders milled about the parking lot and i howled at the sky in mock musical appreciation - the climb done, we went off, each to his saturday night debaucheries and me to keen my wound w/ wanton drunkenness

 

4/25 - day 5 - holy shee-it muslims, it's been 2 months - lovely spring day - many olde boyes humping the o-zone on the way out - on the north side, the sun peaking over, one hand washes the other, i fear nothing - 3 peregrines screeching n' flopping about - green grass - crisp n' crunchy moss - had time to stop by and yack-yack w/ jim n' sal n' steve n' wes n' a whole motley crew of misfits n' misogynistic fucks on the way back - did a couple solo laps on the jacobs ladder and drank some beers, then boogied on back home for "house of cards" w/ the wifey

 

jesus-h-christ, why are they doing more construction on the 14?!?

 

4/30 - beacon day 6 for the year - only 2 days at the baconwand this month, but spring seems to be here fo'shiz, even if today it was right blustery and overcast - scrambly, scrambly on the n side for a while, then a satisfying hike to the summit - the 70th anniversary of an intelligence coup - "mincemeat has been swallowed" - peregrines apparent from the uprising exit, swooping and screeching and having a ball it looked - kenny in the lot, horrifyingly still set in his hate-tobacco way, but w/ rainier-beer as always

 

5/2 - day 7 - all my pardners bail - the pearl is in the river - john has a long mustache - freedom is slavery, war is peace!!!

 

5/4 - international star-wars day, may the fourth be with you beatard day 8 for 2013 - stoned stupor w/ bryan n' bob - bryan styles following p1 and leads p2 almost all clean - breezy n' balmy - eyes scuppered w/ dust-scum as i type - stooooked for a fine day in the sun - olde boys climbing below us on the spike route, a fine view from the phone booth - miker stops by for a chat even - summer's upon us!

 

5/6 - day #9 - afternoon sprint up the sun-baked monolith after union meetings and whatnot - pilgrims at dawn - days gone by and dead men ghosts - great gashes in the highway - asphalt scars and concrete wars - the red devil turns over 190k even as the cd player craps in the bed, carrying nico blue into the way blue yonder - the pearl is in the river

 

5/8 - beatard day 10 of the year - jesus christ on a cum-stained cushioned couch, this'er fine weather just won't fucking quit! out to slouch and lounge around the bacon-wand once more, scrambly-scrambly here and there along the north wall - figure its about time to scoot up the spike route sans rope i reckon - on up to the slumit in rude circuitous style, but all the beauty on the scamper back down - a buxom couple encountered cruising on up the packinko-portion of the trail, dressed appropriate for a warm day - i cast down mine eyes, unworthy as i am, only to be brought up sharp by a strange question from the sultry lassie - a great gaping grin, "oh no, heaven's no, how could you think that and who might you be" - claimed to know me and my sorcerous ways, but most surely she must mistake me for some other beatard cunt? "you were that guy guzzling boxed wine and chain-smoking camels last summer!" - goddammit, i must stop meeting ladies of quality in my long aestival blacked-out ambulations, it augers poor for my alternate-reality amors!

 

"AF is having problems w/ its fresh-water condensers"

 

5/10 - day 11 - linked strong arms w/ der phuzzy, all phresh from phucking himself good n' proper last burn'n'man, flensed scars from incisions all about his satellite-parts - to the n side we did fly, me w/ the big wall dumpster full of wine n' hammers n' what have you...beers n' butts at the base - the spike route ensconced in scum n' villainy - we scamper up the right side first, when ole'jim w/ a jingus-voice arrived n' whisper-hollered up at us - to the tree n' the site of new natural destruction wrought all around, stone-fall n' swathes of moss scoured off in flight - we rap back to the big boy for bitter conversation and big Olde Tymes - intolerance for them a week earlier w/ their wire-brushes - gut laughs n' tyranny gestated - adam n' i up genesis to the tree again as the sun glows low - i above that, but bailing on a bolt too steep to suss out in the gloaming - the base again, shade-slumming w/ pall malls n' precious beer w/o end - the stumble-fuck in the dark, the way-back-bent in style - departure n' parting - kevbone no doubt kluster-fucked, i conklude

 

5/11 - a dozen days so far - 5 days this week - junuary kicked square in the nuts, but waiting in the wings it seems - good thing really, i'm on the verge of tweaking out my fingers already - dogs in my dreams, feeding on my feet - terror at daybreak, broken in the bone yard - the ringing of bells at all hours, the horror of home-coming gone wrong - dust, dust, dust - the bloody angle when the walls fell - spotsylvania on a warm spring evening - they sing the body electric, and then they too Pass Beyond

 

5/14 - lucky #13 - gray and gaunt at the dawn, dim-minded and mopey - when the world dies in an orgasm of heavenly-fire, how i fucking hope it's a tuesday, and early in the morning to boot, to spare me the whole gory goddamn details of the day - tuesday, the red-haired stepchild of the torrid week - hitler was conceived on a tuesday - it's true, you can google that shit man

 

sun breaks around noon, life reviving, rock drying, seniors shuffle in and out in a hyperstatic hepped-up euphoric hangover - the red devil galloping east through the gorge, growling at these goddamn men in their machines gouging out the concrete and showering everything in gravel - the tyranny inherent in giving any man a blaze-orange vest and sign, too gross to contemplate in the golden sunshine searing through my senses

 

RIP william fetterman, you awful fucker - "give me 80 men and i can ride through the whole sioux nation" - yeah, how'd that one work for ya, son?

 

5/20 - day 14 - a week of piss wedder, sunday's window spent wrangling kidz and wrestling w/ the garden n' chores n' what-have-you - union bidness at the close of day, my wits as always confounded n' humbled by the human machinery of government made flesh - the ghost of winston smith haunts me, but it's a special merry kind of fool who can't make lemonade out of a luscious afternoon of sun and rushing warm air gusting down the gorge - get on your fucking horse, dr rick marshall!

 

kenny's rig in the lot, him and sneezy-jim already up the spike route i reckon - i settle for a sleazy saunter up the big rock, lost in the gauzy thoughts gamboling through my thick head - the moon waxes great, will the wedder-gods set me up a solid?

 

fosters on the falling back, cops holed up n' counting donut-holes at cape horn - thank christ i don't have a cigarette to shit on this wondrous scene

 

5/31 - day 15, 9 dayz this gentle may - heartbreak for days gone by - memorial day weekend at tieton a near total bust - communiques pist upon for tr's w/o pixels - a week with pouring rain and occasional piercing sun w/o rainbows

 

ain't seen mike since a far long time it seems - set out in the afternoon for a ramble up the spike route, him not having had it he said - the base gross n' baking - thick drip and damp on the rock like it'd been sprayed w/ horse-semen - genesis after nearly shitting a kitten on the klutchy-klutchy start - mike made p2 not so sad, but like me needed to stand on the anchor bolts whilst thrutch-fucking into the danky mcdankerson pod there

 

dug leading the 3rd pitch spike-part proper, but this time w/ a stout old black cock of static death to bat-man on up the slab

 

beerz n' gut-laughing n' music up in the woods - mike does p4 and dislodges a big old panel to come whiffling down my ways - i do the last bit up to the trail wading through thick-glades of oak, oily and fresh and full of fear

 

bongos at the summit, guitars n' young ones yodeling - jesus-harold-christ, children I Know up there doing god know's what - ruins my summit celebration, but what can you do - wizened age equals patience equals wisdom?

 

rolling rock n' reefers on the ramble on down - the new Man meandering around, tending the meters in the lot - don't seem like too fearsome a feller...

 

"something seems wrong w/ our bloody ships today!"

 

6/3 - day 16 - sweet green first peaking from the new berms of the road-cut west of ozone - a throaty breeze when work is spent - the day beams brightly, i jet down the well-worn highway - apples n' ass-ended hits n' horrid cigarettes - jimbo in the house, somewhere high up the hell-side, waging war on moss i'll warrant w/ that nefarious Other Feller - a raucous ramble up the boring old way - teens on the summit w/ their elders, teeming w/ the airs of methadonia unleashed - tails grown tepid, they rocket down the rock to the grinding of gears, knees shivering in the sea-gale

 

"and, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;

The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,

And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;

but there is no joy in Beatardia, the south side is still closed out"

 

d-day - b-day plus 16 for me - machines shitting out soil on the road cut - long lines of traffic - sweating in the sun - a book and a beer for the beacon run - trains rumbling - falcons screeching - shade and wind - the island in the grips of the Drowned God - sweet tension released in seconds, the searing heat of summer upon us, the seniors soon to be flown and my professional sun setting

 

6/17 - #18 - grass bowing gently in the slight gusts of the western gorge - cool and sunny, scraps of clouds here and there - the highway gloriously free of frenetic machines fouling the thoroughfare - hawks and gulls hollering - hordes of dim-wits dashed all over the trail - the Usual Suspects - the Siegfried Oath issued all over again, the same all ways and in every weather - one day of classes left, the solstice hard upon us, sweet Summer is feeling rather tipsy and falling out of her panties in her haste - the Time is Right, my brothers

 

"well, i got in a quibble,

shot a door -

i'm reading the bible

by a 40 watt bulb -

what price freedom?

that is my rub

well i sleep like a baby

with the snakes n' the bugs"

 

7/31 - day 19 - first street legal day on the riverside in a rare ould time - mike's at 7 in the morning mist - bleary eyed, jesus christ, i'll be back at work in 4 weeks - knees too weary to start on cruising, we start up the corner and i somehow pinch a nerve in my back - electric lights dance when i move my head, so i learn to climb w/o looking anywhere

 

8/10 - XX pro anno diem - whiskey-sick at 7 a.m. - rough roll out of bed, down the steps and out the door - pat snoring on the couch - did i really smoke my fist-full of smokes in 30 minutes last night?

 

geoff @ the b.k. - cruis'n n' warriors n' right gull - choppers landing on the wildlife reserve, ferrying in fucking wind-boarders - dick synonym for the day: "snatch-ratchet" - long drives off the land of the little people, thank you mysterious stranger - old larry for fucks sake rapping in for an evening alone - pbr's n' passing showers on the way back

 

8/20 - day 21 - beaconben at the b.k. past dawn - lonely morning at beacon, the rock to ourselves - dodd's jam to big ledge, then ben did a tr-lap on blood, sweat n' jizzum as i wallowed in bird-filth (do them damned peregrines suffer from perrenial bladder infections or do they just binge'n'purge on peptobismal? the pink-hue to their ubiquitous turds is disconcerting)- topped out to trail on dastardly, then a run to the skamania mart for burritos n' beacon-rock brand beer - beerz in the shade by the boat-ramp, then back to the rock for a hybrid corner/warriors lap - international bring-yer-hawt-girlfriend to the crag day, w/ a saucy-shiela the lady in question along w/ her aussie-blokefriend - the boyfriend and our respective wives being but 3 obstacles in our path to awesomeness, that and i suppose also my plug-ugliness and the fact that ole'ben's so gawd-damned raytarded if he get's dropped on his head one more time he'll be eating applesauce from plastic spoons the rest of his life

 

phrase of the day, from the burrito ingredients: "intensified soy oil"

 

first i've seen of the elk today - them high-lonesome fuck-me-now bugles but days away

 

8/21 - #22 - moonlight ascent - tvash n' i rally at mike's in twilight camas after each enduring a hard days labor on our abodes, i sun-stroked n' wobbly from shoveling dirt all day - the moon gloaming through the gauzy sheets of smoke straggling through the gorge - fire-fucked, hazy light, like a septic bandage slapped across the lunar face, leaky and pus-red orange - the corner in t-shirts, hardly a breath of wind - kenny appears out of the heavens for a helluva session of gut-laughing on the ledge - top out on uprising and over the railing at 3 AM for more of the same - the long, illucid orbit back home, i nearly sail off the road at steigerwald - a lascivious plunge under my domestic sheets even at the arrival of the dawn...

 

8/23-25 - days 23-25 - couple nights on the ledge w/ the powderhund n' nocturnal ambulations up the corner by the light of a big moon, whiskey-addled n' howling at the hills - ranger lecture when it was all over on unpaid camping fees n' crushed cans of pbr in the car-trash - young warriors n' jills n' whatnot - hot n' sunny saturday, gloomy n' rainy sunday - dave n' the eternal shit-show of the NoBoTrfecta came rambling down the way in the saturday dark

 

8/27 - #26 - warriors w/ good'ole-kenny - jim n' sal, the stewarts rocking a parents day-out, rick n' his long-haired hippie-son - muggy but pleasingly breezy up high - pbr's n' american spirits along the way - tales of august vernal ventures - plans laid for seasons to come - that rat-bastard 'nastia appears to have beat me to the pirate-booty, but all for a good cause - who wouldn't want an autographed copy of a bikini-clad clamberer from our Proud Cascades?

 

8/28 - day #27 - soggy on the trail w/ the recent rains, fall's come quick - steve-o on ground zero, jim n' sal providing sage advice from below - 2 laps on the corner, my first solo climbing of the season - got a goal of 30 such laps before the season ends, so 1/15th of the way now

 

8/30 - #28 - 2 more corner laps for 4/30 total for the season - solo-aided wild turkey, p1 - left it fixed for tomorrow w/ geoff - what's up w/ these hard men stealing our aid lines, we gotta go take'em back, i say! christ, that second pitch of wild turkeys looks like sparse gear, at least grunge book has them nice shiny new bolts and helpful chalk hints

 

found a #7 bd nut, should its owner's wish for its speedy return - too many lying around my garage already, plus i have sympathy - got a tcu so stuck on wild turkey i had to bring out the hammer to reason it out

 

old larry lounging solo-style out there tonight w/ not a beer nor a bottle on him

 

8/31 - #29 - 10 days dry-humping the bacon-wand this aestival august - the last one to be spent w/ geoff - we split the grunge book in half, resplendent in the scorching sun its 4 shiny new bolts - geoff had the first bit, the 4 bolts, most interspersed w/ some thin nailing and fine brassies - i did the bunch above the last bolt, pumping in pins like a pre-teen caffeine-free baboon, all bitch-scared n' whatnot - amazing that matt feller freed it all

 

beers n' bottles n' bull-shitting down at the boat ramp afterwards - crusty beacon politics n' gut-busting nautical ventures comprehended - cop talk - a big old wind-born craft cast upon the piers, moribund n' motor-fucked, pleasing to see the pigs w/ someone else to fuck with

 

left the fixed line up to the beacon-towers should anyone care to make use of it in the next week - figuring on the full wild turkeys next weekend - beacon's 2 most recently freed aid-lines returned to the fold!

 

dod's n' grudge-book (adam's pic)

 

9/2/13 - day #30 - labor day, day before the bidness begins - up at 730 to practice awaking for honest employment - out to beacon by the time it was already hot - 2 laps on the corner, now 6/30 for the season - wasps still untouched on the 2nd pitch - plaid laying photo-siege to the crux 2 on p2 - met up w/ teacher-matt afterwards w/ enough time for him to rope-gun me up wind-surfer (muchas gracias!) - dumped larry off at the no-bo-trifecta for some beerz n' laffs w/ dave, then followed ranger karl back to beacon only to encounter the kewlest car-wreck i've ever seen there - a big-ass bus-sized rv, complete w/ towed-jeep, totally in the ditch across from the b-room in the main-lot, rangers n' cops everywhere w/ 10-foot hard-ons for their sudden importantness of purpose

 

9/3 - #31 - back 2 skewl - strange days and tales of human transformers - dashed out for a lap afterwards - kenny n' tim n' hijinx up on grassy - 7/30 corner laps for the season

 

9/4 - #32 - 2 more corner laps, 9/30 so far - elks bugling from the big beyond - grey and gloomy, wind off n' on - cluster-fuck kenny, a goddamn pater-familias now we find, n' denali-dave on round 2 - tiger woods by the banks of the mighty columbia - beers n' butts n' bullshitting as the day waned

 

9/7 - #33 - trail dayz - a herd assembled after 9 - ranger lecturz - why shouldn't i lick the saw-blade again? buncha beatards in attendance - adam n' kenny, the silvermanz, lucky larry, matt the hulk, crackman, nastia n' oleg n' some other slavic folk, plus no small number of imps n' goons of all sorts n' stripes - built a right nifty set of belay platforms for the se corner, finally a comfy place to put your shoes on and rope-wrangle, should you be into that sorta thing - jim'll hate it of course, but i notice all his routes have sweet set-ups at the base

 

solo lap off at the end of hte work day, 10/30 now for the season, then beerz n' bullshitting w/ many folks back up in the lot - geoff n' i had a breezy cruise up cruis'n'jillz afterward, bumping up against oleg n' nastia along the way - krazy foolz bathign in the columbia over the fence - motorboats bottoming out in the low, low river - a cool kid named dasan the third soloist on the corner today, him fresh from alaska and the wild, high life of youth....

 

9/11 - day #34 - somber day as always this time of year, though interesting - the first crop of seniors i've had none of whom could remember the happenings of but 12 years ago - mismangled comms w/ the powderhound, him sitting out at the parking lot, soaking up the intense sols, me hanging round camas waiting for the call

 

meet old boy at the base and a solo lap we had, 11/31 so far with summer surging and a successful completion all but assured

 

roped round on free4all soon thereafter - the biggest surprise on the rap - goddamn 8.9 mm rope, w/ 260 lbs of bubble-gum attached to it on an overhanging rappel, results in massive laser-burns through the palm unless you add some biners or wear gloves woven w/ space-shuttle-tile style wonder-fabric

 

9/12 - #35 - a jibber-jabber up cruis'n/middle-aged warriors w/ miker in the wind and dying desert heat - prizes in the fenceposts - what a wonderful world?

 

9/14 - day 36 - awoke hungover n' horrid 'round 6 on the couch - straggled upstairs for a sad attempt at a few extra hours of snoozing - appropriate to be horror-struck n' hairy-tongued for climbing a route called wild turkeys, wutcha say?

 

wild-turkeys w/ geoff - wondrous times, woe-struck by heat, tongue thick w/ wine-slick - hairy recollections of halcyon dayz - me the first, him the last - small cams, tiny nutz, off-sets n' hammering aplenty on kniveblades n' soft euro-trash - the smiths n' tom waits wailing in endless loops on the what-have-you - jim at the base - philosophies n' philanderous frippery -burgundy n' beer n' bullshit'n - lounging along the new-laid sou'east co'ner - the way bent back to the beginning n' pat all pulled up n' waiting - booze n' bereavement n' bitzes soon returning

 

"The world don't care what a sailor does in town

It's all hanging in the windows by the pound"

 

9/17 - day 37 - 151st anniversary of the worst day in american history, why not court my own bold disaster? work done at 3, i walked to the parking lot, licked my fore-finger n' thrust it up into the air to measure the mendacious breeze - the augors were awe-fucked - purple piss in every direction, but maybe, just maybe, i could squeeze in a lap? wife n' kids not home until 6 at any rate, i had no reason not too, and figured a hike up the trail or even just a book-worm sesh in the red-devil would suffice to chase away the inevitable tuesday-blues, should i arrive to find it all a'cock-billed

 

i've long held you can climb a hundred days at beacon and each day have a new distraction - this day it was a curious chem-trail on the 1st pitch - like the shimmery trail of a slug in morning, but strait up and down the full height to snag-ledge, and harder and cruncher than any slug-juice i've seen before - that and the merry martial site of what certainly appeared to be two apache attack helicopters making the dance of death up and down the gorge

 

surprised to find the first lap of the day so dry after all this grim grayness of late, i figured on a second when i reached the trail only for the heavens to open and the rain to fall eagerly on this fell-earth - back at the car i had a leisurely 40 minutes fumbling through rick atkinson's robust apogee of awesomeness, the guns at last light - the rain raged on the rooftop as i made my own private anabasis, ambling through the penultimate tale of a near-dead generation - then it cleared and the mist moved off - a second lap then and all for the better - the lead out the pencil, i pushed off for home and hearth and the Promise of a Better Tomorrow

 

13/30 laps for the year now

 

9/18 -#38 - full-moonlight ascent of the corner w/ geoff - the weather god's relented after gray and damp all week - a full cast of clowns in addition to ourselves, their leader did a helen-keller style ascent of cruising to start

 

lovely night - calm - the high moon on the river, the ripples hypnotic

 

9/20 - deo XXXIX - II laps for XIV towards XXX for the season, half-way bitzes, even as september sags sadly towards fall - the leaves on the wing, the thick lead sky-cloud ever lower towards dusk - fat gray raindrops on the windshield on the way-back - bunches of them bastard elk down the crick, bugling all the damn evening - jim n'an old-time vantucky friend round the base - kenny and a right curious feller from way-back east on the corner - a quick blow-by for the first lap, then a pause and some great goddamn gut laughs w/ them on the ledge - tales from the land of way-ago - pickens n' roanaoke n' hickory n' fucking appalachia 'n general discussed upon

 

winter is coming

 

9/26 - day 40 - almost a week of solid rain and fucking work, no adventure at all - nastia's all stoked after a spell in the valley and wants to be a big waller, not that i know a damn bit of useful beta 'bout that - figured she oughta learn to solo-aid and gain some experience that way w/o making demands on dim-witted belayers (though, in truth, it ought not be that hard to round up some young'uns willing to hold the other end and stare up at here bouncing nether-bits) - she did well on the first third of free for all, and as evening grew to dusk, she lowered off her funky gri-gri setup and i had a bit of fun down-aiding and cleaning

 

fucking torrential rain coming in a day - seems unlikely there'll be much more post-work beatarding this season

 

10/4 - day 41 - keeeerist, the fall fell down like a fucking bear trap on the balls some time ago it seems, and awful early too - nastia a bit waylaid by portland traffic - beacon's base looking a good bit like the argonne after old alvin york's big day - blasted tree debris all about the forest floor, the remnants of last weekend's big windstorm and great goddamn deluge - fresh broken blocks - oozing gashes on the upper edges of trees on grassy ledges - still a bit damp but it'll be a good weekend for clambering - we did the bastard warrior, finishing up just as dusk descended

 

10/5 - douglas adams day! - winter's upon the wall, albeit its adolescent, easy face - pure sunlight streaming through but somewhat weak - strong winds - battle debris from the week gone by all astrew - 3 laps on the corner then home for an afternoon w/ the kids n' wife n' parents

 

10/8 - 43rd beacon-wrangling day for the year - big fall in the gorge, the trees grown gaunt and dead-orange - damp, dull air on the evening orbit out, my head ringing w/ union-noise, deep wondrous woe - krazy late to met long-suffering kenny - up the corner in a damp, damp tizzy - S1+/2 conditions on the corner - a nut rescue - booty cordellete, cha-ching! babylyon fading, i fumble back in darkness gut-hungry to sad tales - dogs run demented, poor pat sure needs hisself a holy synod sometime soon

 

10/11 - #44 - epic fall beacon day - WRONG GULL IS GONE - the pillar damn near the size of a trailer that you used to jam to get up to the anchors below the off-width came out yesterday sometime, knocking down the massive old-growth tree below it and forever altering the trail - a fine little boulder for the kids to clamber on

 

lots of rockfall throughout the morning - nastia thrown at wind surfer for aid-testing - many beers - dogs and kids and hard-core grown ups - jim and kenny - chemtrails, johnson, shakespeare, fucking kennedy - good times on the tumble back - now off for a birthday feast, and a monkey face party on the 'morrow

 

10/15 - day 45 - 2 solo laps, one w/ the irascible denaliduckdave - 19 for the year now - jim n' steve n' tim n' kenny n' Various Others - breezy n' fall-balmy - jeff thomas' big black cock cable all athwart the corner - gut laughs n' the grand history of the bacon-wand considered - home at dusk to take out the trash and taste a most excellent gumbo whipped up by the little woman

 

10/17 - #46 - BLACK-JACK! kenny is formally awarded the Order of Beacon, 3rd Class for today bringing two pair of boobies to our sacred stone

 

10/19 - #47 - oregon forum blowing up w/ cruel threats to your friend n' humble narrator as the dawn broke, whiskey-drunk hungover - a gut full of greasy egg n' iced coffee - geoff at the b.k. via mike's - jensen's w/ kyle n' steve too for a tr on the arena of terror - i really need to remember to bring a #5 next time - topped out in the golden glow of the late-day sun - beers n' bullshitting w/ steve in the frosty parking lot after, eventually a run down to the skamania mart for a resupply - another beer later we rambled down for a full moon frolic on the corner, more good beers in tow - belting out big tunes in the darkness, nary a headlamp in sight

 

Trafalgar this day but a bit more than 2 centuries ago! lord nelson dead on the deck of his flagship, who among us could fear such a demise or wish one more wondrous? - "kizmet" he clamored as death clamped its chokehold along his wind-hole, or was "kiss me hardy" more the thing? my 48th beacon-ramble for the fast-rotting year - the Breath of God on the wall, fall colors and fecund smells - the south side to meself - 2 laps, 23/30 for the year and me feeling suddenly like the weather-lords will allow the whole solo set

 

10/22 - day 49 - 24/30 laps this season - the Indian Summer Endures - breezy n' balmy - the base empty, save for the echoes of jim's recent remodel of the rock-blasted bits - mixes right well w/ the corner's new platform - just need to drop 2 more trees n' it'll be purrfect

 

dave cat-calling from the ground as i began the 2nd pitch - lingered at tree ledge till he reached me, than had a ramble on up the rest of the corner together, bullshiting about the Life Beatardia

10/23 - A Hat Trick of Days at beacon this week so far, my 50th of the year - 26/30 laps now - jim's ride in the lot but lost he was somewhere in the immensity of the park - the Banal Ballad of the Big Breeze blowing down the Columbia - sport climbers wide-eyed on the way down

[stevetimetravlr]

 

I thought Beatard stood for Beacon retard, my middle name.

[MrGecko]

Referring to an earlier post regarding the Wrong Gull pillar that has departed the wall.

 

Is Right Gull still climbable to reach the anchors that were above the Wrong Gull pillar? The guide description states that one "gingerly" moves left from the top of the Right Gull pedestal to the bolt anchor. Not having done the route did it require getting on top of the now defunct pillar?

 

Thanks

[stevetimetravlr]

Referring to an earlier post regarding the Wrong Gull pillar that has departed the wall.

 

Is Right Gull still climbable to reach the anchors that were above the Wrong Gull pillar? The guide description states that one "gingerly" moves left from the top of the Right Gull pedestal to the bolt anchor. Not having done the route did it require getting on top of the now defunct pillar?

 

Thanks

 

Yes, Right Gull is still climbable to reach those anchors. That pillar is now a slightly leaning detached 60 foot pillar so tread on it gingerly although it's probably not going anywhere. I never go to those anchors atop that left pillar, no good reason to. From the top of the right pillar, place gear in the crack just to your right and go straight up there to the ledge, about 5.8 and good gear. Set up a gear belay there, you can sling a block as well. Next pitch your best option the leader goes left 15 feet and a step across to do the perfect 5.8 hand crack instead of the off-width overhead. The hand crack takes you up and then traverse left to the anchors at the top of Bluebird. From there the 3rd pitch face climbs the wide crack directly above to a ledge and perfect 5.8 finger crack, from which at the top of you can wander up to Grassy Ledges and belay from a tree.

I recommend starting the climb on Little Wing and linking it all the way to the gear belay,about a 160 foot lead. For that lead and the rest, bring a set of stoppers and a double set of cams up to 2", and a 3" and 4" cam,and lots of slings.

[ivan]

new year, new beatard count

 

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

 

 

1/12 - day#2 - strange day - freezing fog on the wakeup, car shackled in ice at the dawn - geoff at the burger king - high-speed jet through the quiet lull of the gorge, the road dry n' gentle - beacon becalmed, all door discipline disregarded - a great gut-laugh at the peach allah had gracefully cast into our laps - i get all the leads down low - consensus conditions S5 (our ascent of 12/21/12 in recent memory a retard S9, damn near pegging the limit of the possible) - challenging lead conditions for sure still, with sheet-freeze all over, slowly peeling off in the relatively tropical conditions - runnels of run-off bubbling underneath the ice - the sun bursting through the clear air - rumbles of gunfire, pap-pap-pap-pap, a militia-action for certain on the oregon shores - slip-sliding away all over from grassy ledges up - glimpse of the bonneville crick draining into the river, all jizzum-milky, the vas defernes of the columbian cock- exited the long way, the Great Coward wending all to Starboard where he could - a walk down all bathed in rays of a riotous golden orb - jim at the base w/ an old boy - oaths and auguries, threats and Aggravated Assaults considered - an easy orbit back through the steaming warmth of the gorge-winter disbanded, if only for a bit

 

1/22 - #3 - annealed by two recent days at smith in the Big Fridge of the bivy site, mornings traversing the phantasmagorical formations of frozen sludge, mike and i had an evening run up the bacon-wand in a big olde freshet of gaudy coldness

 

a big dry had beaten off the vast damp of days gone by - barely any ice on route - half the digits of my right foot right numb by grassy ledges, i unshod and rubbed hardly any life back into them - toes throb as i type

 

booty nut on p2, should the original owner wish to claim it from a massive pile of such things i have growing in my garage

 

not even a fort-night of fucknoodling about the sunny-side left - full moon fever this weekend for any half-wit warriors who might feel the urge to come w/...

 

 

 

2/2 - day #4 - ground hogz day, a swift demise to deadly winter predicted - 'twas the day after a wander up the hood-wand w/ an interesting feller to dispatch the doldrum of the beacon s side closure - ya never stop learning in the mountains, this time 2 Ore-e-gone Snowboard'nBoyz taught me how to inhale green weeds through green apples using nothing more than a glorious bright winter sun and a magnifying glass - a good invention for the stiff breezes off an open glacier - much thanks for them that rock the Van Damme

 

stone soup w/ geoff today - despite the distinct sense of early spring setting in as the Great Hamster foresaw, it was a mort cold and savage breezy - geoff did p1, and i managed to mangle meself on p2 - found a fixed nut at the start of the eyebrow traverse and was hanging out on it for awhile, had just plugged the next cam in when suddenly i was falling - fell/slid into a slab, instinctively grabbing an edge to stop the fall, sheared off the flesh of my pinky-tip and sprung the sprockets in the other fingers' knuckles, then went heads'o'er'tits and continued on down, getting entangled in the rope running up through the gear and ultimately arresting hanging upside down looking straight at the olde boye, who looked frankly startled

 

blood pouring from the flensed n' flapping finger, i wrapped my balaclava about it n' took stock - had a good gut laugh upon recalling that last time i climbed on this side, last spring, i'd ended up in the e.r. too - maybe i'm just not getting the message?

 

geoff was my hero - not only did he finish the pitch, he also figured out how, after 10 minutes, to get my damn knot untied by pounding on it w/ a jug - the big breeze blew itself out as dejected would-be hiking trail ascenders milled about the parking lot and i howled at the sky in mock musical appreciation - the climb done, we went off, each to his saturday night debaucheries and me to keen my wound w/ wanton drunkenness

 

4/25 - day 5 - holy shee-it muslims, it's been 2 months - lovely spring day - many olde boyes humping the o-zone on the way out - on the north side, the sun peaking over, one hand washes the other, i fear nothing - 3 peregrines screeching n' flopping about - green grass - crisp n' crunchy moss - had time to stop by and yack-yack w/ jim n' sal n' steve n' wes n' a whole motley crew of misfits n' misogynistic fucks on the way back - did a couple solo laps on the jacobs ladder and drank some beers, then boogied on back home for "house of cards" w/ the wifey

 

jesus-h-christ, why are they doing more construction on the 14?!?

 

4/30 - beacon day 6 for the year - only 2 days at the baconwand this month, but spring seems to be here fo'shiz, even if today it was right blustery and overcast - scrambly, scrambly on the n side for a while, then a satisfying hike to the summit - the 70th anniversary of an intelligence coup - "mincemeat has been swallowed" - peregrines apparent from the uprising exit, swooping and screeching and having a ball it looked - kenny in the lot, horrifyingly still set in his hate-tobacco way, but w/ rainier-beer as always

 

5/2 - day 7 - all my pardners bail - the pearl is in the river - john has a long mustache - freedom is slavery, war is peace!!!

 

5/4 - international star-wars day, may the fourth be with you beatard day 8 for 2013 - stoned stupor w/ bryan n' bob - bryan styles following p1 and leads p2 almost all clean - breezy n' balmy - eyes scuppered w/ dust-scum as i type - stooooked for a fine day in the sun - olde boys climbing below us on the spike route, a fine view from the phone booth - miker stops by for a chat even - summer's upon us!

 

5/6 - day #9 - afternoon sprint up the sun-baked monolith after union meetings and whatnot - pilgrims at dawn - days gone by and dead men ghosts - great gashes in the highway - asphalt scars and concrete wars - the red devil turns over 190k even as the cd player craps in the bed, carrying nico blue into the way blue yonder - the pearl is in the river

 

5/8 - beatard day 10 of the year - jesus christ on a cum-stained cushioned couch, this'er fine weather just won't fucking quit! out to slouch and lounge around the bacon-wand once more, scrambly-scrambly here and there along the north wall - figure its about time to scoot up the spike route sans rope i reckon - on up to the slumit in rude circuitous style, but all the beauty on the scamper back down - a buxom couple encountered cruising on up the packinko-portion of the trail, dressed appropriate for a warm day - i cast down mine eyes, unworthy as i am, only to be brought up sharp by a strange question from the sultry lassie - a great gaping grin, "oh no, heaven's no, how could you think that and who might you be" - claimed to know me and my sorcerous ways, but most surely she must mistake me for some other beatard cunt? "you were that guy guzzling boxed wine and chain-smoking camels last summer!" - goddammit, i must stop meeting ladies of quality in my long aestival blacked-out ambulations, it augers poor for my alternate-reality amors!

 

"AF is having problems w/ its fresh-water condensers"

 

5/10 - day 11 - linked strong arms w/ der phuzzy, all phresh from phucking himself good n' proper last burn'n'man, flensed scars from incisions all about his satellite-parts - to the n side we did fly, me w/ the big wall dumpster full of wine n' hammers n' what have you...beers n' butts at the base - the spike route ensconced in scum n' villainy - we scamper up the right side first, when ole'jim w/ a jingus-voice arrived n' whisper-hollered up at us - to the tree n' the site of new natural destruction wrought all around, stone-fall n' swathes of moss scoured off in flight - we rap back to the big boy for bitter conversation and big Olde Tymes - intolerance for them a week earlier w/ their wire-brushes - gut laughs n' tyranny gestated - adam n' i up genesis to the tree again as the sun glows low - i above that, but bailing on a bolt too steep to suss out in the gloaming - the base again, shade-slumming w/ pall malls n' precious beer w/o end - the stumble-fuck in the dark, the way-back-bent in style - departure n' parting - kevbone no doubt kluster-fucked, i conklude

 

5/11 - a dozen days so far - 5 days this week - junuary kicked square in the nuts, but waiting in the wings it seems - good thing really, i'm on the verge of tweaking out my fingers already - dogs in my dreams, feeding on my feet - terror at daybreak, broken in the bone yard - the ringing of bells at all hours, the horror of home-coming gone wrong - dust, dust, dust - the bloody angle when the walls fell - spotsylvania on a warm spring evening - they sing the body electric, and then they too Pass Beyond

 

5/14 - lucky #13 - gray and gaunt at the dawn, dim-minded and mopey - when the world dies in an orgasm of heavenly-fire, how i fucking hope it's a tuesday, and early in the morning to boot, to spare me the whole gory goddamn details of the day - tuesday, the red-haired stepchild of the torrid week - hitler was conceived on a tuesday - it's true, you can google that shit man

 

sun breaks around noon, life reviving, rock drying, seniors shuffle in and out in a hyperstatic hepped-up euphoric hangover - the red devil galloping east through the gorge, growling at these goddamn men in their machines gouging out the concrete and showering everything in gravel - the tyranny inherent in giving any man a blaze-orange vest and sign, too gross to contemplate in the golden sunshine searing through my senses

 

RIP william fetterman, you awful fucker - "give me 80 men and i can ride through the whole sioux nation" - yeah, how'd that one work for ya, son?

 

5/20 - day 14 - a week of piss wedder, sunday's window spent wrangling kidz and wrestling w/ the garden n' chores n' what-have-you - union bidness at the close of day, my wits as always confounded n' humbled by the human machinery of government made flesh - the ghost of winston smith haunts me, but it's a special merry kind of fool who can't make lemonade out of a luscious afternoon of sun and rushing warm air gusting down the gorge - get on your fucking horse, dr rick marshall!

 

kenny's rig in the lot, him and sneezy-jim already up the spike route i reckon - i settle for a sleazy saunter up the big rock, lost in the gauzy thoughts gamboling through my thick head - the moon waxes great, will the wedder-gods set me up a solid?

 

fosters on the falling back, cops holed up n' counting donut-holes at cape horn - thank christ i don't have a cigarette to shit on this wondrous scene

 

5/31 - day 15, 9 dayz this gentle may - heartbreak for days gone by - memorial day weekend at tieton a near total bust - communiques pist upon for tr's w/o pixels - a week with pouring rain and occasional piercing sun w/o rainbows

 

ain't seen mike since a far long time it seems - set out in the afternoon for a ramble up the spike route, him not having had it he said - the base gross n' baking - thick drip and damp on the rock like it'd been sprayed w/ horse-semen - genesis after nearly shitting a kitten on the klutchy-klutchy start - mike made p2 not so sad, but like me needed to stand on the anchor bolts whilst thrutch-fucking into the danky mcdankerson pod there

 

dug leading the 3rd pitch spike-part proper, but this time w/ a stout old black cock of static death to bat-man on up the slab

 

beerz n' gut-laughing n' music up in the woods - mike does p4 and dislodges a big old panel to come whiffling down my ways - i do the last bit up to the trail wading through thick-glades of oak, oily and fresh and full of fear

 

bongos at the summit, guitars n' young ones yodeling - jesus-harold-christ, children I Know up there doing god know's what - ruins my summit celebration, but what can you do - wizened age equals patience equals wisdom?

 

rolling rock n' reefers on the ramble on down - the new Man meandering around, tending the meters in the lot - don't seem like too fearsome a feller...

 

"something seems wrong w/ our bloody ships today!"

 

6/3 - day 16 - sweet green first peaking from the new berms of the road-cut west of ozone - a throaty breeze when work is spent - the day beams brightly, i jet down the well-worn highway - apples n' ass-ended hits n' horrid cigarettes - jimbo in the house, somewhere high up the hell-side, waging war on moss i'll warrant w/ that nefarious Other Feller - a raucous ramble up the boring old way - teens on the summit w/ their elders, teeming w/ the airs of methadonia unleashed - tails grown tepid, they rocket down the rock to the grinding of gears, knees shivering in the sea-gale

 

"and, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;

The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,

And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;

but there is no joy in Beatardia, the south side is still closed out"

 

d-day - b-day plus 16 for me - machines shitting out soil on the road cut - long lines of traffic - sweating in the sun - a book and a beer for the beacon run - trains rumbling - falcons screeching - shade and wind - the island in the grips of the Drowned God - sweet tension released in seconds, the searing heat of summer upon us, the seniors soon to be flown and my professional sun setting

 

6/17 - #18 - grass bowing gently in the slight gusts of the western gorge - cool and sunny, scraps of clouds here and there - the highway gloriously free of frenetic machines fouling the thoroughfare - hawks and gulls hollering - hordes of dim-wits dashed all over the trail - the Usual Suspects - the Siegfried Oath issued all over again, the same all ways and in every weather - one day of classes left, the solstice hard upon us, sweet Summer is feeling rather tipsy and falling out of her panties in her haste - the Time is Right, my brothers

 

"well, i got in a quibble,

shot a door -

i'm reading the bible

by a 40 watt bulb -

what price freedom?

that is my rub

well i sleep like a baby

with the snakes n' the bugs"

 

7/31 - day 19 - first street legal day on the riverside in a rare ould time - mike's at 7 in the morning mist - bleary eyed, jesus christ, i'll be back at work in 4 weeks - knees too weary to start on cruising, we start up the corner and i somehow pinch a nerve in my back - electric lights dance when i move my head, so i learn to climb w/o looking anywhere

 

8/10 - XX pro anno diem - whiskey-sick at 7 a.m. - rough roll out of bed, down the steps and out the door - pat snoring on the couch - did i really smoke my fist-full of smokes in 30 minutes last night?

 

geoff @ the b.k. - cruis'n n' warriors n' right gull - choppers landing on the wildlife reserve, ferrying in fucking wind-boarders - dick synonym for the day: "snatch-ratchet" - long drives off the land of the little people, thank you mysterious stranger - old larry for fucks sake rapping in for an evening alone - pbr's n' passing showers on the way back

 

8/20 - day 21 - beaconben at the b.k. past dawn - lonely morning at beacon, the rock to ourselves - dodd's jam to big ledge, then ben did a tr-lap on blood, sweat n' jizzum as i wallowed in bird-filth (do them damned peregrines suffer from perrenial bladder infections or do they just binge'n'purge on peptobismal? the pink-hue to their ubiquitous turds is disconcerting)- topped out to trail on dastardly, then a run to the skamania mart for burritos n' beacon-rock brand beer - beerz in the shade by the boat-ramp, then back to the rock for a hybrid corner/warriors lap - international bring-yer-hawt-girlfriend to the crag day, w/ a saucy-shiela the lady in question along w/ her aussie-blokefriend - the boyfriend and our respective wives being but 3 obstacles in our path to awesomeness, that and i suppose also my plug-ugliness and the fact that ole'ben's so gawd-damned raytarded if he get's dropped on his head one more time he'll be eating applesauce from plastic spoons the rest of his life

 

phrase of the day, from the burrito ingredients: "intensified soy oil"

 

first i've seen of the elk today - them high-lonesome fuck-me-now bugles but days away

 

8/21 - #22 - moonlight ascent - tvash n' i rally at mike's in twilight camas after each enduring a hard days labor on our abodes, i sun-stroked n' wobbly from shoveling dirt all day - the moon gloaming through the gauzy sheets of smoke straggling through the gorge - fire-fucked, hazy light, like a septic bandage slapped across the lunar face, leaky and pus-red orange - the corner in t-shirts, hardly a breath of wind - kenny appears out of the heavens for a helluva session of gut-laughing on the ledge - top out on uprising and over the railing at 3 AM for more of the same - the long, illucid orbit back home, i nearly sail off the road at steigerwald - a lascivious plunge under my domestic sheets even at the arrival of the dawn...

 

8/23-25 - days 23-25 - couple nights on the ledge w/ the powderhund n' nocturnal ambulations up the corner by the light of a big moon, whiskey-addled n' howling at the hills - ranger lecture when it was all over on unpaid camping fees n' crushed cans of pbr in the car-trash - young warriors n' jills n' whatnot - hot n' sunny saturday, gloomy n' rainy sunday - dave n' the eternal shit-show of the NoBoTrfecta came rambling down the way in the saturday dark

 

8/27 - #26 - warriors w/ good'ole-kenny - jim n' sal, the stewarts rocking a parents day-out, rick n' his long-haired hippie-son - muggy but pleasingly breezy up high - pbr's n' american spirits along the way - tales of august vernal ventures - plans laid for seasons to come - that rat-bastard 'nastia appears to have beat me to the pirate-booty, but all for a good cause - who wouldn't want an autographed copy of a bikini-clad clamberer from our Proud Cascades?

 

8/28 - day #27 - soggy on the trail w/ the recent rains, fall's come quick - steve-o on ground zero, jim n' sal providing sage advice from below - 2 laps on the corner, my first solo climbing of the season - got a goal of 30 such laps before the season ends, so 1/15th of the way now

 

8/30 - #28 - 2 more corner laps for 4/30 total for the season - solo-aided wild turkey, p1 - left it fixed for tomorrow w/ geoff - what's up w/ these hard men stealing our aid lines, we gotta go take'em back, i say! christ, that second pitch of wild turkeys looks like sparse gear, at least grunge book has them nice shiny new bolts and helpful chalk hints

 

found a #7 bd nut, should its owner's wish for its speedy return - too many lying around my garage already, plus i have sympathy - got a tcu so stuck on wild turkey i had to bring out the hammer to reason it out

 

old larry lounging solo-style out there tonight w/ not a beer nor a bottle on him

 

8/31 - #29 - 10 days dry-humping the bacon-wand this aestival august - the last one to be spent w/ geoff - we split the grunge book in half, resplendent in the scorching sun its 4 shiny new bolts - geoff had the first bit, the 4 bolts, most interspersed w/ some thin nailing and fine brassies - i did the bunch above the last bolt, pumping in pins like a pre-teen caffeine-free baboon, all bitch-scared n' whatnot - amazing that matt feller freed it all

 

beers n' bottles n' bull-shitting down at the boat ramp afterwards - crusty beacon politics n' gut-busting nautical ventures comprehended - cop talk - a big old wind-born craft cast upon the piers, moribund n' motor-fucked, pleasing to see the pigs w/ someone else to fuck with

 

left the fixed line up to the beacon-towers should anyone care to make use of it in the next week - figuring on the full wild turkeys next weekend - beacon's 2 most recently freed aid-lines returned to the fold!

 

dod's n' grudge-book (adam's pic)

 

9/2/13 - day #30 - labor day, day before the bidness begins - up at 730 to practice awaking for honest employment - out to beacon by the time it was already hot - 2 laps on the corner, now 6/30 for the season - wasps still untouched on the 2nd pitch - plaid laying photo-siege to the crux 2 on p2 - met up w/ teacher-matt afterwards w/ enough time for him to rope-gun me up wind-surfer (muchas gracias!) - dumped larry off at the no-bo-trifecta for some beerz n' laffs w/ dave, then followed ranger karl back to beacon only to encounter the kewlest car-wreck i've ever seen there - a big-ass bus-sized rv, complete w/ towed-jeep, totally in the ditch across from the b-room in the main-lot, rangers n' cops everywhere w/ 10-foot hard-ons for their sudden importantness of purpose

 

9/3 - #31 - back 2 skewl - strange days and tales of human transformers - dashed out for a lap afterwards - kenny n' tim n' hijinx up on grassy - 7/30 corner laps for the season

 

9/4 - #32 - 2 more corner laps, 9/30 so far - elks bugling from the big beyond - grey and gloomy, wind off n' on - cluster-fuck kenny, a goddamn pater-familias now we find, n' denali-dave on round 2 - tiger woods by the banks of the mighty columbia - beers n' butts n' bullshitting as the day waned

 

9/7 - #33 - trail dayz - a herd assembled after 9 - ranger lecturz - why shouldn't i lick the saw-blade again? buncha beatards in attendance - adam n' kenny, the silvermanz, lucky larry, matt the hulk, crackman, nastia n' oleg n' some other slavic folk, plus no small number of imps n' goons of all sorts n' stripes - built a right nifty set of belay platforms for the se corner, finally a comfy place to put your shoes on and rope-wrangle, should you be into that sorta thing - jim'll hate it of course, but i notice all his routes have sweet set-ups at the base

 

solo lap off at the end of hte work day, 10/30 now for the season, then beerz n' bullshitting w/ many folks back up in the lot - geoff n' i had a breezy cruise up cruis'n'jillz afterward, bumping up against oleg n' nastia along the way - krazy foolz bathign in the columbia over the fence - motorboats bottoming out in the low, low river - a cool kid named dasan the third soloist on the corner today, him fresh from alaska and the wild, high life of youth....

 

9/11 - day #34 - somber day as always this time of year, though interesting - the first crop of seniors i've had none of whom could remember the happenings of but 12 years ago - mismangled comms w/ the powderhound, him sitting out at the parking lot, soaking up the intense sols, me hanging round camas waiting for the call

 

meet old boy at the base and a solo lap we had, 11/31 so far with summer surging and a successful completion all but assured

 

roped round on free4all soon thereafter - the biggest surprise on the rap - goddamn 8.9 mm rope, w/ 260 lbs of bubble-gum attached to it on an overhanging rappel, results in massive laser-burns through the palm unless you add some biners or wear gloves woven w/ space-shuttle-tile style wonder-fabric

 

9/12 - #35 - a jibber-jabber up cruis'n/middle-aged warriors w/ miker in the wind and dying desert heat - prizes in the fenceposts - what a wonderful world?

 

9/14 - day 36 - awoke hungover n' horrid 'round 6 on the couch - straggled upstairs for a sad attempt at a few extra hours of snoozing - appropriate to be horror-struck n' hairy-tongued for climbing a route called wild turkeys, wutcha say?

 

wild-turkeys w/ geoff - wondrous times, woe-struck by heat, tongue thick w/ wine-slick - hairy recollections of halcyon dayz - me the first, him the last - small cams, tiny nutz, off-sets n' hammering aplenty on kniveblades n' soft euro-trash - the smiths n' tom waits wailing in endless loops on the what-have-you - jim at the base - philosophies n' philanderous frippery -burgundy n' beer n' bullshit'n - lounging along the new-laid sou'east co'ner - the way bent back to the beginning n' pat all pulled up n' waiting - booze n' bereavement n' bitzes soon returning

 

"The world don't care what a sailor does in town

It's all hanging in the windows by the pound"

 

9/17 - day 37 - 151st anniversary of the worst day in american history, why not court my own bold disaster? work done at 3, i walked to the parking lot, licked my fore-finger n' thrust it up into the air to measure the mendacious breeze - the augors were awe-fucked - purple piss in every direction, but maybe, just maybe, i could squeeze in a lap? wife n' kids not home until 6 at any rate, i had no reason not too, and figured a hike up the trail or even just a book-worm sesh in the red-devil would suffice to chase away the inevitable tuesday-blues, should i arrive to find it all a'cock-billed

 

i've long held you can climb a hundred days at beacon and each day have a new distraction - this day it was a curious chem-trail on the 1st pitch - like the shimmery trail of a slug in morning, but strait up and down the full height to snag-ledge, and harder and cruncher than any slug-juice i've seen before - that and the merry martial site of what certainly appeared to be two apache attack helicopters making the dance of death up and down the gorge

 

surprised to find the first lap of the day so dry after all this grim grayness of late, i figured on a second when i reached the trail only for the heavens to open and the rain to fall eagerly on this fell-earth - back at the car i had a leisurely 40 minutes fumbling through rick atkinson's robust apogee of awesomeness, the guns at last light - the rain raged on the rooftop as i made my own private anabasis, ambling through the penultimate tale of a near-dead generation - then it cleared and the mist moved off - a second lap then and all for the better - the lead out the pencil, i pushed off for home and hearth and the Promise of a Better Tomorrow

 

13/30 laps for the year now

 

9/18 -#38 - full-moonlight ascent of the corner w/ geoff - the weather god's relented after gray and damp all week - a full cast of clowns in addition to ourselves, their leader did a helen-keller style ascent of cruising to start

 

lovely night - calm - the high moon on the river, the ripples hypnotic

 

9/20 - deo XXXIX - II laps for XIV towards XXX for the season, half-way bitzes, even as september sags sadly towards fall - the leaves on the wing, the thick lead sky-cloud ever lower towards dusk - fat gray raindrops on the windshield on the way-back - bunches of them bastard elk down the crick, bugling all the damn evening - jim n'an old-time vantucky friend round the base - kenny and a right curious feller from way-back east on the corner - a quick blow-by for the first lap, then a pause and some great goddamn gut laughs w/ them on the ledge - tales from the land of way-ago - pickens n' roanaoke n' hickory n' fucking appalachia 'n general discussed upon

 

winter is coming

 

9/26 - day 40 - almost a week of solid rain and fucking work, no adventure at all - nastia's all stoked after a spell in the valley and wants to be a big waller, not that i know a damn bit of useful beta 'bout that - figured she oughta learn to solo-aid and gain some experience that way w/o making demands on dim-witted belayers (though, in truth, it ought not be that hard to round up some young'uns willing to hold the other end and stare up at here bouncing nether-bits) - she did well on the first third of free for all, and as evening grew to dusk, she lowered off her funky gri-gri setup and i had a bit of fun down-aiding and cleaning

 

fucking torrential rain coming in a day - seems unlikely there'll be much more post-work beatarding this season

 

10/4 - day 41 - keeeerist, the fall fell down like a fucking bear trap on the balls some time ago it seems, and awful early too - nastia a bit waylaid by portland traffic - beacon's base looking a good bit like the argonne after old alvin york's big day - blasted tree debris all about the forest floor, the remnants of last weekend's big windstorm and great goddamn deluge - fresh broken blocks - oozing gashes on the upper edges of trees on grassy ledges - still a bit damp but it'll be a good weekend for clambering - we did the bastard warrior, finishing up just as dusk descended

 

10/5 - douglas adams day! - winter's upon the wall, albeit its adolescent, easy face - pure sunlight streaming through but somewhat weak - strong winds - battle debris from the week gone by all astrew - 3 laps on the corner then home for an afternoon w/ the kids n' wife n' parents

 

10/8 - 43rd beacon-wrangling day for the year - big fall in the gorge, the trees grown gaunt and dead-orange - damp, dull air on the evening orbit out, my head ringing w/ union-noise, deep wondrous woe - krazy late to met long-suffering kenny - up the corner in a damp, damp tizzy - S1+/2 conditions on the corner - a nut rescue - booty cordellete, cha-ching! babylyon fading, i fumble back in darkness gut-hungry to sad tales - dogs run demented, poor pat sure needs hisself a holy synod sometime soon

 

10/11 - #44 - epic fall beacon day - WRONG GULL IS GONE - the pillar damn near the size of a trailer that you used to jam to get up to the anchors below the off-width came out yesterday sometime, knocking down the massive old-growth tree below it and forever altering the trail - a fine little boulder for the kids to clamber on

 

lots of rockfall throughout the morning - nastia thrown at wind surfer for aid-testing - many beers - dogs and kids and hard-core grown ups - jim and kenny - chemtrails, johnson, shakespeare, fucking kennedy - good times on the tumble back - now off for a birthday feast, and a monkey face party on the 'morrow

 

10/15 - day 45 - 2 solo laps, one w/ the irascible denaliduckdave - 19 for the year now - jim n' steve n' tim n' kenny n' Various Others - breezy n' fall-balmy - jeff thomas' big black cock cable all athwart the corner - gut laughs n' the grand history of the bacon-wand considered - home at dusk to take out the trash and taste a most excellent gumbo whipped up by the little woman

 

10/17 - #46 - BLACK-JACK! kenny is formally awarded the Order of Beacon, 3rd Class for today bringing two pair of boobies to our sacred stone

 

10/19 - #47 - oregon forum blowing up w/ cruel threats to your friend n' humble narrator as the dawn broke, whiskey-drunk hungover - a gut full of greasy egg n' iced coffee - geoff at the b.k. via mike's - jensen's w/ kyle n' steve too for a tr on the arena of terror - i really need to remember to bring a #5 next time - topped out in the golden glow of the late-day sun - beers n' bullshitting w/ steve in the frosty parking lot after, eventually a run down to the skamania mart for a resupply - another beer later we rambled down for a full moon frolic on the corner, more good beers in tow - belting out big tunes in the darkness, nary a headlamp in sight

 

Trafalgar this day but a bit more than 2 centuries ago! lord nelson dead on the deck of his flagship, who among us could fear such a demise or wish one more wondrous? - "kizmet" he clamored as death clamped its chokehold along his wind-hole, or was "kiss me hardy" more the thing? my 48th beacon-ramble for the fast-rotting year - the Breath of God on the wall, fall colors and fecund smells - the south side to meself - 2 laps, 23/30 for the year and me feeling suddenly like the weather-lords will allow the whole solo set

 

10/22 - day 49 - 24/30 laps this season - the Indian Summer Endures - breezy n' balmy - the base empty, save for the echoes of jim's recent remodel of the rock-blasted bits - mixes right well w/ the corner's new platform - just need to drop 2 more trees n' it'll be purrfect

 

dave cat-calling from the ground as i began the 2nd pitch - lingered at tree ledge till he reached me, than had a ramble on up the rest of the corner together, bullshiting about the Life Beatardia

 

10/23 - A Hat Trick of Days at beacon this week so far, my 50th of the year - 26/30 laps now - jim's ride in the lot but lost he was somewhere in the immensity of the park - the Banal Ballad of the Big Breeze blowing down the Columbia - sport climbers wide-eyed on the way down

st crispin's eve LI de die ascensus editi! 7 corner clambers in 4 dayz, hang in indian what have you - 28/30 laps now as the autumn augurs roar on just rightly - busy day at bacon - jim n' steve n' the horror of a kamikaze kamera - a crew of girlz on uprising and a nice right sight to follow behind for a few minutes, untethered from terrestrial concerns

[ivan]

new year, new beatard count

 

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

 

 

1/12 - day#2 - strange day - freezing fog on the wakeup, car shackled in ice at the dawn - geoff at the burger king - high-speed jet through the quiet lull of the gorge, the road dry n' gentle - beacon becalmed, all door discipline disregarded - a great gut-laugh at the peach allah had gracefully cast into our laps - i get all the leads down low - consensus conditions S5 (our ascent of 12/21/12 in recent memory a retard S9, damn near pegging the limit of the possible) - challenging lead conditions for sure still, with sheet-freeze all over, slowly peeling off in the relatively tropical conditions - runnels of run-off bubbling underneath the ice - the sun bursting through the clear air - rumbles of gunfire, pap-pap-pap-pap, a militia-action for certain on the oregon shores - slip-sliding away all over from grassy ledges up - glimpse of the bonneville crick draining into the river, all jizzum-milky, the vas defernes of the columbian cock- exited the long way, the Great Coward wending all to Starboard where he could - a walk down all bathed in rays of a riotous golden orb - jim at the base w/ an old boy - oaths and auguries, threats and Aggravated Assaults considered - an easy orbit back through the steaming warmth of the gorge-winter disbanded, if only for a bit

 

1/22 - #3 - annealed by two recent days at smith in the Big Fridge of the bivy site, mornings traversing the phantasmagorical formations of frozen sludge, mike and i had an evening run up the bacon-wand in a big olde freshet of gaudy coldness

 

a big dry had beaten off the vast damp of days gone by - barely any ice on route - half the digits of my right foot right numb by grassy ledges, i unshod and rubbed hardly any life back into them - toes throb as i type

 

booty nut on p2, should the original owner wish to claim it from a massive pile of such things i have growing in my garage

 

not even a fort-night of fucknoodling about the sunny-side left - full moon fever this weekend for any half-wit warriors who might feel the urge to come w/...

 

 

 

2/2 - day #4 - ground hogz day, a swift demise to deadly winter predicted - 'twas the day after a wander up the hood-wand w/ an interesting feller to dispatch the doldrum of the beacon s side closure - ya never stop learning in the mountains, this time 2 Ore-e-gone Snowboard'nBoyz taught me how to inhale green weeds through green apples using nothing more than a glorious bright winter sun and a magnifying glass - a good invention for the stiff breezes off an open glacier - much thanks for them that rock the Van Damme

 

stone soup w/ geoff today - despite the distinct sense of early spring setting in as the Great Hamster foresaw, it was a mort cold and savage breezy - geoff did p1, and i managed to mangle meself on p2 - found a fixed nut at the start of the eyebrow traverse and was hanging out on it for awhile, had just plugged the next cam in when suddenly i was falling - fell/slid into a slab, instinctively grabbing an edge to stop the fall, sheared off the flesh of my pinky-tip and sprung the sprockets in the other fingers' knuckles, then went heads'o'er'tits and continued on down, getting entangled in the rope running up through the gear and ultimately arresting hanging upside down looking straight at the olde boye, who looked frankly startled

 

blood pouring from the flensed n' flapping finger, i wrapped my balaclava about it n' took stock - had a good gut laugh upon recalling that last time i climbed on this side, last spring, i'd ended up in the e.r. too - maybe i'm just not getting the message?

 

geoff was my hero - not only did he finish the pitch, he also figured out how, after 10 minutes, to get my damn knot untied by pounding on it w/ a jug - the big breeze blew itself out as dejected would-be hiking trail ascenders milled about the parking lot and i howled at the sky in mock musical appreciation - the climb done, we went off, each to his saturday night debaucheries and me to keen my wound w/ wanton drunkenness

 

4/25 - day 5 - holy shee-it muslims, it's been 2 months - lovely spring day - many olde boyes humping the o-zone on the way out - on the north side, the sun peaking over, one hand washes the other, i fear nothing - 3 peregrines screeching n' flopping about - green grass - crisp n' crunchy moss - had time to stop by and yack-yack w/ jim n' sal n' steve n' wes n' a whole motley crew of misfits n' misogynistic fucks on the way back - did a couple solo laps on the jacobs ladder and drank some beers, then boogied on back home for "house of cards" w/ the wifey

 

jesus-h-christ, why are they doing more construction on the 14?!?

 

4/30 - beacon day 6 for the year - only 2 days at the baconwand this month, but spring seems to be here fo'shiz, even if today it was right blustery and overcast - scrambly, scrambly on the n side for a while, then a satisfying hike to the summit - the 70th anniversary of an intelligence coup - "mincemeat has been swallowed" - peregrines apparent from the uprising exit, swooping and screeching and having a ball it looked - kenny in the lot, horrifyingly still set in his hate-tobacco way, but w/ rainier-beer as always

 

5/2 - day 7 - all my pardners bail - the pearl is in the river - john has a long mustache - freedom is slavery, war is peace!!!

 

5/4 - international star-wars day, may the fourth be with you beatard day 8 for 2013 - stoned stupor w/ bryan n' bob - bryan styles following p1 and leads p2 almost all clean - breezy n' balmy - eyes scuppered w/ dust-scum as i type - stooooked for a fine day in the sun - olde boys climbing below us on the spike route, a fine view from the phone booth - miker stops by for a chat even - summer's upon us!

 

5/6 - day #9 - afternoon sprint up the sun-baked monolith after union meetings and whatnot - pilgrims at dawn - days gone by and dead men ghosts - great gashes in the highway - asphalt scars and concrete wars - the red devil turns over 190k even as the cd player craps in the bed, carrying nico blue into the way blue yonder - the pearl is in the river

 

5/8 - beatard day 10 of the year - jesus christ on a cum-stained cushioned couch, this'er fine weather just won't fucking quit! out to slouch and lounge around the bacon-wand once more, scrambly-scrambly here and there along the north wall - figure its about time to scoot up the spike route sans rope i reckon - on up to the slumit in rude circuitous style, but all the beauty on the scamper back down - a buxom couple encountered cruising on up the packinko-portion of the trail, dressed appropriate for a warm day - i cast down mine eyes, unworthy as i am, only to be brought up sharp by a strange question from the sultry lassie - a great gaping grin, "oh no, heaven's no, how could you think that and who might you be" - claimed to know me and my sorcerous ways, but most surely she must mistake me for some other beatard cunt? "you were that guy guzzling boxed wine and chain-smoking camels last summer!" - goddammit, i must stop meeting ladies of quality in my long aestival blacked-out ambulations, it augers poor for my alternate-reality amors!

 

"AF is having problems w/ its fresh-water condensers"

 

5/10 - day 11 - linked strong arms w/ der phuzzy, all phresh from phucking himself good n' proper last burn'n'man, flensed scars from incisions all about his satellite-parts - to the n side we did fly, me w/ the big wall dumpster full of wine n' hammers n' what have you...beers n' butts at the base - the spike route ensconced in scum n' villainy - we scamper up the right side first, when ole'jim w/ a jingus-voice arrived n' whisper-hollered up at us - to the tree n' the site of new natural destruction wrought all around, stone-fall n' swathes of moss scoured off in flight - we rap back to the big boy for bitter conversation and big Olde Tymes - intolerance for them a week earlier w/ their wire-brushes - gut laughs n' tyranny gestated - adam n' i up genesis to the tree again as the sun glows low - i above that, but bailing on a bolt too steep to suss out in the gloaming - the base again, shade-slumming w/ pall malls n' precious beer w/o end - the stumble-fuck in the dark, the way-back-bent in style - departure n' parting - kevbone no doubt kluster-fucked, i conklude

 

5/11 - a dozen days so far - 5 days this week - junuary kicked square in the nuts, but waiting in the wings it seems - good thing really, i'm on the verge of tweaking out my fingers already - dogs in my dreams, feeding on my feet - terror at daybreak, broken in the bone yard - the ringing of bells at all hours, the horror of home-coming gone wrong - dust, dust, dust - the bloody angle when the walls fell - spotsylvania on a warm spring evening - they sing the body electric, and then they too Pass Beyond

 

5/14 - lucky #13 - gray and gaunt at the dawn, dim-minded and mopey - when the world dies in an orgasm of heavenly-fire, how i fucking hope it's a tuesday, and early in the morning to boot, to spare me the whole gory goddamn details of the day - tuesday, the red-haired stepchild of the torrid week - hitler was conceived on a tuesday - it's true, you can google that shit man

 

sun breaks around noon, life reviving, rock drying, seniors shuffle in and out in a hyperstatic hepped-up euphoric hangover - the red devil galloping east through the gorge, growling at these goddamn men in their machines gouging out the concrete and showering everything in gravel - the tyranny inherent in giving any man a blaze-orange vest and sign, too gross to contemplate in the golden sunshine searing through my senses

 

RIP william fetterman, you awful fucker - "give me 80 men and i can ride through the whole sioux nation" - yeah, how'd that one work for ya, son?

 

5/20 - day 14 - a week of piss wedder, sunday's window spent wrangling kidz and wrestling w/ the garden n' chores n' what-have-you - union bidness at the close of day, my wits as always confounded n' humbled by the human machinery of government made flesh - the ghost of winston smith haunts me, but it's a special merry kind of fool who can't make lemonade out of a luscious afternoon of sun and rushing warm air gusting down the gorge - get on your fucking horse, dr rick marshall!

 

kenny's rig in the lot, him and sneezy-jim already up the spike route i reckon - i settle for a sleazy saunter up the big rock, lost in the gauzy thoughts gamboling through my thick head - the moon waxes great, will the wedder-gods set me up a solid?

 

fosters on the falling back, cops holed up n' counting donut-holes at cape horn - thank christ i don't have a cigarette to shit on this wondrous scene

 

5/31 - day 15, 9 dayz this gentle may - heartbreak for days gone by - memorial day weekend at tieton a near total bust - communiques pist upon for tr's w/o pixels - a week with pouring rain and occasional piercing sun w/o rainbows

 

ain't seen mike since a far long time it seems - set out in the afternoon for a ramble up the spike route, him not having had it he said - the base gross n' baking - thick drip and damp on the rock like it'd been sprayed w/ horse-semen - genesis after nearly shitting a kitten on the klutchy-klutchy start - mike made p2 not so sad, but like me needed to stand on the anchor bolts whilst thrutch-fucking into the danky mcdankerson pod there

 

dug leading the 3rd pitch spike-part proper, but this time w/ a stout old black cock of static death to bat-man on up the slab

 

beerz n' gut-laughing n' music up in the woods - mike does p4 and dislodges a big old panel to come whiffling down my ways - i do the last bit up to the trail wading through thick-glades of oak, oily and fresh and full of fear

 

bongos at the summit, guitars n' young ones yodeling - jesus-harold-christ, children I Know up there doing god know's what - ruins my summit celebration, but what can you do - wizened age equals patience equals wisdom?

 

rolling rock n' reefers on the ramble on down - the new Man meandering around, tending the meters in the lot - don't seem like too fearsome a feller...

 

"something seems wrong w/ our bloody ships today!"

 

6/3 - day 16 - sweet green first peaking from the new berms of the road-cut west of ozone - a throaty breeze when work is spent - the day beams brightly, i jet down the well-worn highway - apples n' ass-ended hits n' horrid cigarettes - jimbo in the house, somewhere high up the hell-side, waging war on moss i'll warrant w/ that nefarious Other Feller - a raucous ramble up the boring old way - teens on the summit w/ their elders, teeming w/ the airs of methadonia unleashed - tails grown tepid, they rocket down the rock to the grinding of gears, knees shivering in the sea-gale

 

"and, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;

The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,

And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;

but there is no joy in Beatardia, the south side is still closed out"

 

d-day - b-day plus 16 for me - machines shitting out soil on the road cut - long lines of traffic - sweating in the sun - a book and a beer for the beacon run - trains rumbling - falcons screeching - shade and wind - the island in the grips of the Drowned God - sweet tension released in seconds, the searing heat of summer upon us, the seniors soon to be flown and my professional sun setting

 

6/17 - #18 - grass bowing gently in the slight gusts of the western gorge - cool and sunny, scraps of clouds here and there - the highway gloriously free of frenetic machines fouling the thoroughfare - hawks and gulls hollering - hordes of dim-wits dashed all over the trail - the Usual Suspects - the Siegfried Oath issued all over again, the same all ways and in every weather - one day of classes left, the solstice hard upon us, sweet Summer is feeling rather tipsy and falling out of her panties in her haste - the Time is Right, my brothers

 

"well, i got in a quibble,

shot a door -

i'm reading the bible

by a 40 watt bulb -

what price freedom?

that is my rub

well i sleep like a baby

with the snakes n' the bugs"

 

7/31 - day 19 - first street legal day on the riverside in a rare ould time - mike's at 7 in the morning mist - bleary eyed, jesus christ, i'll be back at work in 4 weeks - knees too weary to start on cruising, we start up the corner and i somehow pinch a nerve in my back - electric lights dance when i move my head, so i learn to climb w/o looking anywhere

 

8/10 - XX pro anno diem - whiskey-sick at 7 a.m. - rough roll out of bed, down the steps and out the door - pat snoring on the couch - did i really smoke my fist-full of smokes in 30 minutes last night?

 

geoff @ the b.k. - cruis'n n' warriors n' right gull - choppers landing on the wildlife reserve, ferrying in fucking wind-boarders - dick synonym for the day: "snatch-ratchet" - long drives off the land of the little people, thank you mysterious stranger - old larry for fucks sake rapping in for an evening alone - pbr's n' passing showers on the way back

 

8/20 - day 21 - beaconben at the b.k. past dawn - lonely morning at beacon, the rock to ourselves - dodd's jam to big ledge, then ben did a tr-lap on blood, sweat n' jizzum as i wallowed in bird-filth (do them damned peregrines suffer from perrenial bladder infections or do they just binge'n'purge on peptobismal? the pink-hue to their ubiquitous turds is disconcerting)- topped out to trail on dastardly, then a run to the skamania mart for burritos n' beacon-rock brand beer - beerz in the shade by the boat-ramp, then back to the rock for a hybrid corner/warriors lap - international bring-yer-hawt-girlfriend to the crag day, w/ a saucy-shiela the lady in question along w/ her aussie-blokefriend - the boyfriend and our respective wives being but 3 obstacles in our path to awesomeness, that and i suppose also my plug-ugliness and the fact that ole'ben's so gawd-damned raytarded if he get's dropped on his head one more time he'll be eating applesauce from plastic spoons the rest of his life

 

phrase of the day, from the burrito ingredients: "intensified soy oil"

 

first i've seen of the elk today - them high-lonesome fuck-me-now bugles but days away

 

8/21 - #22 - moonlight ascent - tvash n' i rally at mike's in twilight camas after each enduring a hard days labor on our abodes, i sun-stroked n' wobbly from shoveling dirt all day - the moon gloaming through the gauzy sheets of smoke straggling through the gorge - fire-fucked, hazy light, like a septic bandage slapped across the lunar face, leaky and pus-red orange - the corner in t-shirts, hardly a breath of wind - kenny appears out of the heavens for a helluva session of gut-laughing on the ledge - top out on uprising and over the railing at 3 AM for more of the same - the long, illucid orbit back home, i nearly sail off the road at steigerwald - a lascivious plunge under my domestic sheets even at the arrival of the dawn...

 

8/23-25 - days 23-25 - couple nights on the ledge w/ the powderhund n' nocturnal ambulations up the corner by the light of a big moon, whiskey-addled n' howling at the hills - ranger lecture when it was all over on unpaid camping fees n' crushed cans of pbr in the car-trash - young warriors n' jills n' whatnot - hot n' sunny saturday, gloomy n' rainy sunday - dave n' the eternal shit-show of the NoBoTrfecta came rambling down the way in the saturday dark

 

8/27 - #26 - warriors w/ good'ole-kenny - jim n' sal, the stewarts rocking a parents day-out, rick n' his long-haired hippie-son - muggy but pleasingly breezy up high - pbr's n' american spirits along the way - tales of august vernal ventures - plans laid for seasons to come - that rat-bastard 'nastia appears to have beat me to the pirate-booty, but all for a good cause - who wouldn't want an autographed copy of a bikini-clad clamberer from our Proud Cascades?

 

8/28 - day #27 - soggy on the trail w/ the recent rains, fall's come quick - steve-o on ground zero, jim n' sal providing sage advice from below - 2 laps on the corner, my first solo climbing of the season - got a goal of 30 such laps before the season ends, so 1/15th of the way now

 

8/30 - #28 - 2 more corner laps for 4/30 total for the season - solo-aided wild turkey, p1 - left it fixed for tomorrow w/ geoff - what's up w/ these hard men stealing our aid lines, we gotta go take'em back, i say! christ, that second pitch of wild turkeys looks like sparse gear, at least grunge book has them nice shiny new bolts and helpful chalk hints

 

found a #7 bd nut, should its owner's wish for its speedy return - too many lying around my garage already, plus i have sympathy - got a tcu so stuck on wild turkey i had to bring out the hammer to reason it out

 

old larry lounging solo-style out there tonight w/ not a beer nor a bottle on him

 

8/31 - #29 - 10 days dry-humping the bacon-wand this aestival august - the last one to be spent w/ geoff - we split the grunge book in half, resplendent in the scorching sun its 4 shiny new bolts - geoff had the first bit, the 4 bolts, most interspersed w/ some thin nailing and fine brassies - i did the bunch above the last bolt, pumping in pins like a pre-teen caffeine-free baboon, all bitch-scared n' whatnot - amazing that matt feller freed it all

 

beers n' bottles n' bull-shitting down at the boat ramp afterwards - crusty beacon politics n' gut-busting nautical ventures comprehended - cop talk - a big old wind-born craft cast upon the piers, moribund n' motor-fucked, pleasing to see the pigs w/ someone else to fuck with

 

left the fixed line up to the beacon-towers should anyone care to make use of it in the next week - figuring on the full wild turkeys next weekend - beacon's 2 most recently freed aid-lines returned to the fold!

 

dod's n' grudge-book (adam's pic)

 

9/2/13 - day #30 - labor day, day before the bidness begins - up at 730 to practice awaking for honest employment - out to beacon by the time it was already hot - 2 laps on the corner, now 6/30 for the season - wasps still untouched on the 2nd pitch - plaid laying photo-siege to the crux 2 on p2 - met up w/ teacher-matt afterwards w/ enough time for him to rope-gun me up wind-surfer (muchas gracias!) - dumped larry off at the no-bo-trifecta for some beerz n' laffs w/ dave, then followed ranger karl back to beacon only to encounter the kewlest car-wreck i've ever seen there - a big-ass bus-sized rv, complete w/ towed-jeep, totally in the ditch across from the b-room in the main-lot, rangers n' cops everywhere w/ 10-foot hard-ons for their sudden importantness of purpose

 

9/3 - #31 - back 2 skewl - strange days and tales of human transformers - dashed out for a lap afterwards - kenny n' tim n' hijinx up on grassy - 7/30 corner laps for the season

 

9/4 - #32 - 2 more corner laps, 9/30 so far - elks bugling from the big beyond - grey and gloomy, wind off n' on - cluster-fuck kenny, a goddamn pater-familias now we find, n' denali-dave on round 2 - tiger woods by the banks of the mighty columbia - beers n' butts n' bullshitting as the day waned

 

9/7 - #33 - trail dayz - a herd assembled after 9 - ranger lecturz - why shouldn't i lick the saw-blade again? buncha beatards in attendance - adam n' kenny, the silvermanz, lucky larry, matt the hulk, crackman, nastia n' oleg n' some other slavic folk, plus no small number of imps n' goons of all sorts n' stripes - built a right nifty set of belay platforms for the se corner, finally a comfy place to put your shoes on and rope-wrangle, should you be into that sorta thing - jim'll hate it of course, but i notice all his routes have sweet set-ups at the base

 

solo lap off at the end of hte work day, 10/30 now for the season, then beerz n' bullshitting w/ many folks back up in the lot - geoff n' i had a breezy cruise up cruis'n'jillz afterward, bumping up against oleg n' nastia along the way - krazy foolz bathign in the columbia over the fence - motorboats bottoming out in the low, low river - a cool kid named dasan the third soloist on the corner today, him fresh from alaska and the wild, high life of youth....

 

9/11 - day #34 - somber day as always this time of year, though interesting - the first crop of seniors i've had none of whom could remember the happenings of but 12 years ago - mismangled comms w/ the powderhound, him sitting out at the parking lot, soaking up the intense sols, me hanging round camas waiting for the call

 

meet old boy at the base and a solo lap we had, 11/31 so far with summer surging and a successful completion all but assured

 

roped round on free4all soon thereafter - the biggest surprise on the rap - goddamn 8.9 mm rope, w/ 260 lbs of bubble-gum attached to it on an overhanging rappel, results in massive laser-burns through the palm unless you add some biners or wear gloves woven w/ space-shuttle-tile style wonder-fabric

 

9/12 - #35 - a jibber-jabber up cruis'n/middle-aged warriors w/ miker in the wind and dying desert heat - prizes in the fenceposts - what a wonderful world?

 

9/14 - day 36 - awoke hungover n' horrid 'round 6 on the couch - straggled upstairs for a sad attempt at a few extra hours of snoozing - appropriate to be horror-struck n' hairy-tongued for climbing a route called wild turkeys, wutcha say?

 

wild-turkeys w/ geoff - wondrous times, woe-struck by heat, tongue thick w/ wine-slick - hairy recollections of halcyon dayz - me the first, him the last - small cams, tiny nutz, off-sets n' hammering aplenty on kniveblades n' soft euro-trash - the smiths n' tom waits wailing in endless loops on the what-have-you - jim at the base - philosophies n' philanderous frippery -burgundy n' beer n' bullshit'n - lounging along the new-laid sou'east co'ner - the way bent back to the beginning n' pat all pulled up n' waiting - booze n' bereavement n' bitzes soon returning

 

"The world don't care what a sailor does in town

It's all hanging in the windows by the pound"

 

9/17 - day 37 - 151st anniversary of the worst day in american history, why not court my own bold disaster? work done at 3, i walked to the parking lot, licked my fore-finger n' thrust it up into the air to measure the mendacious breeze - the augors were awe-fucked - purple piss in every direction, but maybe, just maybe, i could squeeze in a lap? wife n' kids not home until 6 at any rate, i had no reason not too, and figured a hike up the trail or even just a book-worm sesh in the red-devil would suffice to chase away the inevitable tuesday-blues, should i arrive to find it all a'cock-billed

 

i've long held you can climb a hundred days at beacon and each day have a new distraction - this day it was a curious chem-trail on the 1st pitch - like the shimmery trail of a slug in morning, but strait up and down the full height to snag-ledge, and harder and cruncher than any slug-juice i've seen before - that and the merry martial site of what certainly appeared to be two apache attack helicopters making the dance of death up and down the gorge

 

surprised to find the first lap of the day so dry after all this grim grayness of late, i figured on a second when i reached the trail only for the heavens to open and the rain to fall eagerly on this fell-earth - back at the car i had a leisurely 40 minutes fumbling through rick atkinson's robust apogee of awesomeness, the guns at last light - the rain raged on the rooftop as i made my own private anabasis, ambling through the penultimate tale of a near-dead generation - then it cleared and the mist moved off - a second lap then and all for the better - the lead out the pencil, i pushed off for home and hearth and the Promise of a Better Tomorrow

 

13/30 laps for the year now

 

9/18 -#38 - full-moonlight ascent of the corner w/ geoff - the weather god's relented after gray and damp all week - a full cast of clowns in addition to ourselves, their leader did a helen-keller style ascent of cruising to start

 

lovely night - calm - the high moon on the river, the ripples hypnotic

 

9/20 - deo XXXIX - II laps for XIV towards XXX for the season, half-way bitzes, even as september sags sadly towards fall - the leaves on the wing, the thick lead sky-cloud ever lower towards dusk - fat gray raindrops on the windshield on the way-back - bunches of them bastard elk down the crick, bugling all the damn evening - jim n'an old-time vantucky friend round the base - kenny and a right curious feller from way-back east on the corner - a quick blow-by for the first lap, then a pause and some great goddamn gut laughs w/ them on the ledge - tales from the land of way-ago - pickens n' roanaoke n' hickory n' fucking appalachia 'n general discussed upon

 

winter is coming

 

9/26 - day 40 - almost a week of solid rain and fucking work, no adventure at all - nastia's all stoked after a spell in the valley and wants to be a big waller, not that i know a damn bit of useful beta 'bout that - figured she oughta learn to solo-aid and gain some experience that way w/o making demands on dim-witted belayers (though, in truth, it ought not be that hard to round up some young'uns willing to hold the other end and stare up at here bouncing nether-bits) - she did well on the first third of free for all, and as evening grew to dusk, she lowered off her funky gri-gri setup and i had a bit of fun down-aiding and cleaning

 

fucking torrential rain coming in a day - seems unlikely there'll be much more post-work beatarding this season

 

10/4 - day 41 - keeeerist, the fall fell down like a fucking bear trap on the balls some time ago it seems, and awful early too - nastia a bit waylaid by portland traffic - beacon's base looking a good bit like the argonne after old alvin york's big day - blasted tree debris all about the forest floor, the remnants of last weekend's big windstorm and great goddamn deluge - fresh broken blocks - oozing gashes on the upper edges of trees on grassy ledges - still a bit damp but it'll be a good weekend for clambering - we did the bastard warrior, finishing up just as dusk descended

 

10/5 - douglas adams day! - winter's upon the wall, albeit its adolescent, easy face - pure sunlight streaming through but somewhat weak - strong winds - battle debris from the week gone by all astrew - 3 laps on the corner then home for an afternoon w/ the kids n' wife n' parents

 

10/8 - 43rd beacon-wrangling day for the year - big fall in the gorge, the trees grown gaunt and dead-orange - damp, dull air on the evening orbit out, my head ringing w/ union-noise, deep wondrous woe - krazy late to met long-suffering kenny - up the corner in a damp, damp tizzy - S1+/2 conditions on the corner - a nut rescue - booty cordellete, cha-ching! babylyon fading, i fumble back in darkness gut-hungry to sad tales - dogs run demented, poor pat sure needs hisself a holy synod sometime soon

 

10/11 - #44 - epic fall beacon day - WRONG GULL IS GONE - the pillar damn near the size of a trailer that you used to jam to get up to the anchors below the off-width came out yesterday sometime, knocking down the massive old-growth tree below it and forever altering the trail - a fine little boulder for the kids to clamber on

 

lots of rockfall throughout the morning - nastia thrown at wind surfer for aid-testing - many beers - dogs and kids and hard-core grown ups - jim and kenny - chemtrails, johnson, shakespeare, fucking kennedy - good times on the tumble back - now off for a birthday feast, and a monkey face party on the 'morrow

 

10/15 - day 45 - 2 solo laps, one w/ the irascible denaliduckdave - 19 for the year now - jim n' steve n' tim n' kenny n' Various Others - breezy n' fall-balmy - jeff thomas' big black cock cable all athwart the corner - gut laughs n' the grand history of the bacon-wand considered - home at dusk to take out the trash and taste a most excellent gumbo whipped up by the little woman

 

10/17 - #46 - BLACK-JACK! kenny is formally awarded the Order of Beacon, 3rd Class for today bringing two pair of boobies to our sacred stone

 

10/19 - #47 - oregon forum blowing up w/ cruel threats to your friend n' humble narrator as the dawn broke, whiskey-drunk hungover - a gut full of greasy egg n' iced coffee - geoff at the b.k. via mike's - jensen's w/ kyle n' steve too for a tr on the arena of terror - i really need to remember to bring a #5 next time - topped out in the golden glow of the late-day sun - beers n' bullshitting w/ steve in the frosty parking lot after, eventually a run down to the skamania mart for a resupply - another beer later we rambled down for a full moon frolic on the corner, more good beers in tow - belting out big tunes in the darkness, nary a headlamp in sight

 

Trafalgar this day but a bit more than 2 centuries ago! lord nelson dead on the deck of his flagship, who among us could fear such a demise or wish one more wondrous? - "kizmet" he clamored as death clamped its chokehold along his wind-hole, or was "kiss me hardy" more the thing? my 48th beacon-ramble for the fast-rotting year - the Breath of God on the wall, fall colors and fecund smells - the south side to meself - 2 laps, 23/30 for the year and me feeling suddenly like the weather-lords will allow the whole solo set

 

10/22 - day 49 - 24/30 laps this season - the Indian Summer Endures - breezy n' balmy - the base empty, save for the echoes of jim's recent remodel of the rock-blasted bits - mixes right well w/ the corner's new platform - just need to drop 2 more trees n' it'll be purrfect

 

dave cat-calling from the ground as i began the 2nd pitch - lingered at tree ledge till he reached me, than had a ramble on up the rest of the corner together, bullshiting about the Life Beatardia

 

10/23 - A Hat Trick of Days at beacon this week so far, my 50th of the year - 26/30 laps now - jim's ride in the lot but lost he was somewhere in the immensity of the park - the Banal Ballad of the Big Breeze blowing down the Columbia - sport climbers wide-eyed on the way down

 

st crispin's eve LI de die ascensus editi! 7 corner clambers in 4 dayz, hang in indian what have you - 28/30 laps now as the autumn augurs roar on just rightly - busy day at bacon - jim n' steve n' the horror of a kamikaze kamera - a crew of girlz on uprising and a nice right sight to follow behind for a few minutes, untethered from terrestrial concerns

calamitous tragedy on st crispins - beacon bound, all hepped up n' frantic on a friday in the fall - the red devil, dead - i ain't quite laid 'er in her grave yet, but i'm assembling the titanic quantity of liquor likely to be needed to make it through the wake even as we speak - calling all nations - the universe conspires to deny me the finish to my heroic warrior-poet-god-king quest - i coast into a pro-christian octogenarian-infested polystyrene paneled diner as her soul ascends to heaven - later i work the diner's phone, star-dazzled on a true and wondrous high, hanging out on hold while reading photocopies of old billy graham prayers, trying not to sweat diamonds - the cavalry comes in at the cusp of evening, and i begin my sulk towards bethlehem to be reborn

 

sweet, sweet devil, don't be dead!

[YocumRidge]

But now you've got a minivan...OMFG

[tvashtarkatena]

WHAT DID YOU DO BIG MAN? YOU'VE KILT THE UNKILLABLE, MAN.

 

[YocumRidge]

I hear that like a proper nazi, he is just following the orders, Pat

[tvashtarkatena]

She was a good ship. Not a great ship, but she was red.

[tvashtarkatena]

And now shes red AND dead.

[powderhound]

Put me on the list to say a few kind words before you send her to her subterranean sleep. RIP

[powderhound]

Also let me know if you need a loaner whilst you find new wheels. My parents are gone so I can lend you my wheels and use their,s. Plus with the new job I usually take the bus.

[ivan]

don't worry, i'm not turning my back on my li'l red devil jes'yet- she's got 3k left to reach a christian 200k, and i shan't deny her that glory for a mere 500 shekels - yes, while i've come by a minivan in the interim, i'm salvaging my manhood by clapping a thoroughly racist moniker to her - "the grey gook"

 

beacon tomorrow anyone? might be the last chance to get some afterwork laps in 'fore the daylight savings bitch claps a stopper on my capers

[ivan]

new year, new beatard count

 

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

 

 

1/12 - day#2 - strange day - freezing fog on the wakeup, car shackled in ice at the dawn - geoff at the burger king - high-speed jet through the quiet lull of the gorge, the road dry n' gentle - beacon becalmed, all door discipline disregarded - a great gut-laugh at the peach allah had gracefully cast into our laps - i get all the leads down low - consensus conditions S5 (our ascent of 12/21/12 in recent memory a retard S9, damn near pegging the limit of the possible) - challenging lead conditions for sure still, with sheet-freeze all over, slowly peeling off in the relatively tropical conditions - runnels of run-off bubbling underneath the ice - the sun bursting through the clear air - rumbles of gunfire, pap-pap-pap-pap, a militia-action for certain on the oregon shores - slip-sliding away all over from grassy ledges up - glimpse of the bonneville crick draining into the river, all jizzum-milky, the vas defernes of the columbian cock- exited the long way, the Great Coward wending all to Starboard where he could - a walk down all bathed in rays of a riotous golden orb - jim at the base w/ an old boy - oaths and auguries, threats and Aggravated Assaults considered - an easy orbit back through the steaming warmth of the gorge-winter disbanded, if only for a bit

 

1/22 - #3 - annealed by two recent days at smith in the Big Fridge of the bivy site, mornings traversing the phantasmagorical formations of frozen sludge, mike and i had an evening run up the bacon-wand in a big olde freshet of gaudy coldness

 

a big dry had beaten off the vast damp of days gone by - barely any ice on route - half the digits of my right foot right numb by grassy ledges, i unshod and rubbed hardly any life back into them - toes throb as i type

 

booty nut on p2, should the original owner wish to claim it from a massive pile of such things i have growing in my garage

 

not even a fort-night of fucknoodling about the sunny-side left - full moon fever this weekend for any half-wit warriors who might feel the urge to come w/...

 

 

 

2/2 - day #4 - ground hogz day, a swift demise to deadly winter predicted - 'twas the day after a wander up the hood-wand w/ an interesting feller to dispatch the doldrum of the beacon s side closure - ya never stop learning in the mountains, this time 2 Ore-e-gone Snowboard'nBoyz taught me how to inhale green weeds through green apples using nothing more than a glorious bright winter sun and a magnifying glass - a good invention for the stiff breezes off an open glacier - much thanks for them that rock the Van Damme

 

stone soup w/ geoff today - despite the distinct sense of early spring setting in as the Great Hamster foresaw, it was a mort cold and savage breezy - geoff did p1, and i managed to mangle meself on p2 - found a fixed nut at the start of the eyebrow traverse and was hanging out on it for awhile, had just plugged the next cam in when suddenly i was falling - fell/slid into a slab, instinctively grabbing an edge to stop the fall, sheared off the flesh of my pinky-tip and sprung the sprockets in the other fingers' knuckles, then went heads'o'er'tits and continued on down, getting entangled in the rope running up through the gear and ultimately arresting hanging upside down looking straight at the olde boye, who looked frankly startled

 

blood pouring from the flensed n' flapping finger, i wrapped my balaclava about it n' took stock - had a good gut laugh upon recalling that last time i climbed on this side, last spring, i'd ended up in the e.r. too - maybe i'm just not getting the message?

 

geoff was my hero - not only did he finish the pitch, he also figured out how, after 10 minutes, to get my damn knot untied by pounding on it w/ a jug - the big breeze blew itself out as dejected would-be hiking trail ascenders milled about the parking lot and i howled at the sky in mock musical appreciation - the climb done, we went off, each to his saturday night debaucheries and me to keen my wound w/ wanton drunkenness

 

4/25 - day 5 - holy shee-it muslims, it's been 2 months - lovely spring day - many olde boyes humping the o-zone on the way out - on the north side, the sun peaking over, one hand washes the other, i fear nothing - 3 peregrines screeching n' flopping about - green grass - crisp n' crunchy moss - had time to stop by and yack-yack w/ jim n' sal n' steve n' wes n' a whole motley crew of misfits n' misogynistic fucks on the way back - did a couple solo laps on the jacobs ladder and drank some beers, then boogied on back home for "house of cards" w/ the wifey

 

jesus-h-christ, why are they doing more construction on the 14?!?

 

4/30 - beacon day 6 for the year - only 2 days at the baconwand this month, but spring seems to be here fo'shiz, even if today it was right blustery and overcast - scrambly, scrambly on the n side for a while, then a satisfying hike to the summit - the 70th anniversary of an intelligence coup - "mincemeat has been swallowed" - peregrines apparent from the uprising exit, swooping and screeching and having a ball it looked - kenny in the lot, horrifyingly still set in his hate-tobacco way, but w/ rainier-beer as always

 

5/2 - day 7 - all my pardners bail - the pearl is in the river - john has a long mustache - freedom is slavery, war is peace!!!

 

5/4 - international star-wars day, may the fourth be with you beatard day 8 for 2013 - stoned stupor w/ bryan n' bob - bryan styles following p1 and leads p2 almost all clean - breezy n' balmy - eyes scuppered w/ dust-scum as i type - stooooked for a fine day in the sun - olde boys climbing below us on the spike route, a fine view from the phone booth - miker stops by for a chat even - summer's upon us!

 

5/6 - day #9 - afternoon sprint up the sun-baked monolith after union meetings and whatnot - pilgrims at dawn - days gone by and dead men ghosts - great gashes in the highway - asphalt scars and concrete wars - the red devil turns over 190k even as the cd player craps in the bed, carrying nico blue into the way blue yonder - the pearl is in the river

 

5/8 - beatard day 10 of the year - jesus christ on a cum-stained cushioned couch, this'er fine weather just won't fucking quit! out to slouch and lounge around the bacon-wand once more, scrambly-scrambly here and there along the north wall - figure its about time to scoot up the spike route sans rope i reckon - on up to the slumit in rude circuitous style, but all the beauty on the scamper back down - a buxom couple encountered cruising on up the packinko-portion of the trail, dressed appropriate for a warm day - i cast down mine eyes, unworthy as i am, only to be brought up sharp by a strange question from the sultry lassie - a great gaping grin, "oh no, heaven's no, how could you think that and who might you be" - claimed to know me and my sorcerous ways, but most surely she must mistake me for some other beatard cunt? "you were that guy guzzling boxed wine and chain-smoking camels last summer!" - goddammit, i must stop meeting ladies of quality in my long aestival blacked-out ambulations, it augers poor for my alternate-reality amors!

 

"AF is having problems w/ its fresh-water condensers"

 

5/10 - day 11 - linked strong arms w/ der phuzzy, all phresh from phucking himself good n' proper last burn'n'man, flensed scars from incisions all about his satellite-parts - to the n side we did fly, me w/ the big wall dumpster full of wine n' hammers n' what have you...beers n' butts at the base - the spike route ensconced in scum n' villainy - we scamper up the right side first, when ole'jim w/ a jingus-voice arrived n' whisper-hollered up at us - to the tree n' the site of new natural destruction wrought all around, stone-fall n' swathes of moss scoured off in flight - we rap back to the big boy for bitter conversation and big Olde Tymes - intolerance for them a week earlier w/ their wire-brushes - gut laughs n' tyranny gestated - adam n' i up genesis to the tree again as the sun glows low - i above that, but bailing on a bolt too steep to suss out in the gloaming - the base again, shade-slumming w/ pall malls n' precious beer w/o end - the stumble-fuck in the dark, the way-back-bent in style - departure n' parting - kevbone no doubt kluster-fucked, i conklude

 

5/11 - a dozen days so far - 5 days this week - junuary kicked square in the nuts, but waiting in the wings it seems - good thing really, i'm on the verge of tweaking out my fingers already - dogs in my dreams, feeding on my feet - terror at daybreak, broken in the bone yard - the ringing of bells at all hours, the horror of home-coming gone wrong - dust, dust, dust - the bloody angle when the walls fell - spotsylvania on a warm spring evening - they sing the body electric, and then they too Pass Beyond

 

5/14 - lucky #13 - gray and gaunt at the dawn, dim-minded and mopey - when the world dies in an orgasm of heavenly-fire, how i fucking hope it's a tuesday, and early in the morning to boot, to spare me the whole gory goddamn details of the day - tuesday, the red-haired stepchild of the torrid week - hitler was conceived on a tuesday - it's true, you can google that shit man

 

sun breaks around noon, life reviving, rock drying, seniors shuffle in and out in a hyperstatic hepped-up euphoric hangover - the red devil galloping east through the gorge, growling at these goddamn men in their machines gouging out the concrete and showering everything in gravel - the tyranny inherent in giving any man a blaze-orange vest and sign, too gross to contemplate in the golden sunshine searing through my senses

 

RIP william fetterman, you awful fucker - "give me 80 men and i can ride through the whole sioux nation" - yeah, how'd that one work for ya, son?

 

5/20 - day 14 - a week of piss wedder, sunday's window spent wrangling kidz and wrestling w/ the garden n' chores n' what-have-you - union bidness at the close of day, my wits as always confounded n' humbled by the human machinery of government made flesh - the ghost of winston smith haunts me, but it's a special merry kind of fool who can't make lemonade out of a luscious afternoon of sun and rushing warm air gusting down the gorge - get on your fucking horse, dr rick marshall!

 

kenny's rig in the lot, him and sneezy-jim already up the spike route i reckon - i settle for a sleazy saunter up the big rock, lost in the gauzy thoughts gamboling through my thick head - the moon waxes great, will the wedder-gods set me up a solid?

 

fosters on the falling back, cops holed up n' counting donut-holes at cape horn - thank christ i don't have a cigarette to shit on this wondrous scene

 

5/31 - day 15, 9 dayz this gentle may - heartbreak for days gone by - memorial day weekend at tieton a near total bust - communiques pist upon for tr's w/o pixels - a week with pouring rain and occasional piercing sun w/o rainbows

 

ain't seen mike since a far long time it seems - set out in the afternoon for a ramble up the spike route, him not having had it he said - the base gross n' baking - thick drip and damp on the rock like it'd been sprayed w/ horse-semen - genesis after nearly shitting a kitten on the klutchy-klutchy start - mike made p2 not so sad, but like me needed to stand on the anchor bolts whilst thrutch-fucking into the danky mcdankerson pod there

 

dug leading the 3rd pitch spike-part proper, but this time w/ a stout old black cock of static death to bat-man on up the slab

 

beerz n' gut-laughing n' music up in the woods - mike does p4 and dislodges a big old panel to come whiffling down my ways - i do the last bit up to the trail wading through thick-glades of oak, oily and fresh and full of fear

 

bongos at the summit, guitars n' young ones yodeling - jesus-harold-christ, children I Know up there doing god know's what - ruins my summit celebration, but what can you do - wizened age equals patience equals wisdom?

 

rolling rock n' reefers on the ramble on down - the new Man meandering around, tending the meters in the lot - don't seem like too fearsome a feller...

 

"something seems wrong w/ our bloody ships today!"

 

6/3 - day 16 - sweet green first peaking from the new berms of the road-cut west of ozone - a throaty breeze when work is spent - the day beams brightly, i jet down the well-worn highway - apples n' ass-ended hits n' horrid cigarettes - jimbo in the house, somewhere high up the hell-side, waging war on moss i'll warrant w/ that nefarious Other Feller - a raucous ramble up the boring old way - teens on the summit w/ their elders, teeming w/ the airs of methadonia unleashed - tails grown tepid, they rocket down the rock to the grinding of gears, knees shivering in the sea-gale

 

"and, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;

The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,

And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;

but there is no joy in Beatardia, the south side is still closed out"

 

d-day - b-day plus 16 for me - machines shitting out soil on the road cut - long lines of traffic - sweating in the sun - a book and a beer for the beacon run - trains rumbling - falcons screeching - shade and wind - the island in the grips of the Drowned God - sweet tension released in seconds, the searing heat of summer upon us, the seniors soon to be flown and my professional sun setting

 

6/17 - #18 - grass bowing gently in the slight gusts of the western gorge - cool and sunny, scraps of clouds here and there - the highway gloriously free of frenetic machines fouling the thoroughfare - hawks and gulls hollering - hordes of dim-wits dashed all over the trail - the Usual Suspects - the Siegfried Oath issued all over again, the same all ways and in every weather - one day of classes left, the solstice hard upon us, sweet Summer is feeling rather tipsy and falling out of her panties in her haste - the Time is Right, my brothers

 

"well, i got in a quibble,

shot a door -

i'm reading the bible

by a 40 watt bulb -

what price freedom?

that is my rub

well i sleep like a baby

with the snakes n' the bugs"

 

7/31 - day 19 - first street legal day on the riverside in a rare ould time - mike's at 7 in the morning mist - bleary eyed, jesus christ, i'll be back at work in 4 weeks - knees too weary to start on cruising, we start up the corner and i somehow pinch a nerve in my back - electric lights dance when i move my head, so i learn to climb w/o looking anywhere

 

8/10 - XX pro anno diem - whiskey-sick at 7 a.m. - rough roll out of bed, down the steps and out the door - pat snoring on the couch - did i really smoke my fist-full of smokes in 30 minutes last night?

 

geoff @ the b.k. - cruis'n n' warriors n' right gull - choppers landing on the wildlife reserve, ferrying in fucking wind-boarders - dick synonym for the day: "snatch-ratchet" - long drives off the land of the little people, thank you mysterious stranger - old larry for fucks sake rapping in for an evening alone - pbr's n' passing showers on the way back

 

8/20 - day 21 - beaconben at the b.k. past dawn - lonely morning at beacon, the rock to ourselves - dodd's jam to big ledge, then ben did a tr-lap on blood, sweat n' jizzum as i wallowed in bird-filth (do them damned peregrines suffer from perrenial bladder infections or do they just binge'n'purge on peptobismal? the pink-hue to their ubiquitous turds is disconcerting)- topped out to trail on dastardly, then a run to the skamania mart for burritos n' beacon-rock brand beer - beerz in the shade by the boat-ramp, then back to the rock for a hybrid corner/warriors lap - international bring-yer-hawt-girlfriend to the crag day, w/ a saucy-shiela the lady in question along w/ her aussie-blokefriend - the boyfriend and our respective wives being but 3 obstacles in our path to awesomeness, that and i suppose also my plug-ugliness and the fact that ole'ben's so gawd-damned raytarded if he get's dropped on his head one more time he'll be eating applesauce from plastic spoons the rest of his life

 

phrase of the day, from the burrito ingredients: "intensified soy oil"

 

first i've seen of the elk today - them high-lonesome fuck-me-now bugles but days away

 

8/21 - #22 - moonlight ascent - tvash n' i rally at mike's in twilight camas after each enduring a hard days labor on our abodes, i sun-stroked n' wobbly from shoveling dirt all day - the moon gloaming through the gauzy sheets of smoke straggling through the gorge - fire-fucked, hazy light, like a septic bandage slapped across the lunar face, leaky and pus-red orange - the corner in t-shirts, hardly a breath of wind - kenny appears out of the heavens for a helluva session of gut-laughing on the ledge - top out on uprising and over the railing at 3 AM for more of the same - the long, illucid orbit back home, i nearly sail off the road at steigerwald - a lascivious plunge under my domestic sheets even at the arrival of the dawn...

 

8/23-25 - days 23-25 - couple nights on the ledge w/ the powderhund n' nocturnal ambulations up the corner by the light of a big moon, whiskey-addled n' howling at the hills - ranger lecture when it was all over on unpaid camping fees n' crushed cans of pbr in the car-trash - young warriors n' jills n' whatnot - hot n' sunny saturday, gloomy n' rainy sunday - dave n' the eternal shit-show of the NoBoTrfecta came rambling down the way in the saturday dark

 

8/27 - #26 - warriors w/ good'ole-kenny - jim n' sal, the stewarts rocking a parents day-out, rick n' his long-haired hippie-son - muggy but pleasingly breezy up high - pbr's n' american spirits along the way - tales of august vernal ventures - plans laid for seasons to come - that rat-bastard 'nastia appears to have beat me to the pirate-booty, but all for a good cause - who wouldn't want an autographed copy of a bikini-clad clamberer from our Proud Cascades?

 

8/28 - day #27 - soggy on the trail w/ the recent rains, fall's come quick - steve-o on ground zero, jim n' sal providing sage advice from below - 2 laps on the corner, my first solo climbing of the season - got a goal of 30 such laps before the season ends, so 1/15th of the way now

 

8/30 - #28 - 2 more corner laps for 4/30 total for the season - solo-aided wild turkey, p1 - left it fixed for tomorrow w/ geoff - what's up w/ these hard men stealing our aid lines, we gotta go take'em back, i say! christ, that second pitch of wild turkeys looks like sparse gear, at least grunge book has them nice shiny new bolts and helpful chalk hints

 

found a #7 bd nut, should its owner's wish for its speedy return - too many lying around my garage already, plus i have sympathy - got a tcu so stuck on wild turkey i had to bring out the hammer to reason it out

 

old larry lounging solo-style out there tonight w/ not a beer nor a bottle on him

 

8/31 - #29 - 10 days dry-humping the bacon-wand this aestival august - the last one to be spent w/ geoff - we split the grunge book in half, resplendent in the scorching sun its 4 shiny new bolts - geoff had the first bit, the 4 bolts, most interspersed w/ some thin nailing and fine brassies - i did the bunch above the last bolt, pumping in pins like a pre-teen caffeine-free baboon, all bitch-scared n' whatnot - amazing that matt feller freed it all

 

beers n' bottles n' bull-shitting down at the boat ramp afterwards - crusty beacon politics n' gut-busting nautical ventures comprehended - cop talk - a big old wind-born craft cast upon the piers, moribund n' motor-fucked, pleasing to see the pigs w/ someone else to fuck with

 

left the fixed line up to the beacon-towers should anyone care to make use of it in the next week - figuring on the full wild turkeys next weekend - beacon's 2 most recently freed aid-lines returned to the fold!

 

dod's n' grudge-book (adam's pic)

 

9/2/13 - day #30 - labor day, day before the bidness begins - up at 730 to practice awaking for honest employment - out to beacon by the time it was already hot - 2 laps on the corner, now 6/30 for the season - wasps still untouched on the 2nd pitch - plaid laying photo-siege to the crux 2 on p2 - met up w/ teacher-matt afterwards w/ enough time for him to rope-gun me up wind-surfer (muchas gracias!) - dumped larry off at the no-bo-trifecta for some beerz n' laffs w/ dave, then followed ranger karl back to beacon only to encounter the kewlest car-wreck i've ever seen there - a big-ass bus-sized rv, complete w/ towed-jeep, totally in the ditch across from the b-room in the main-lot, rangers n' cops everywhere w/ 10-foot hard-ons for their sudden importantness of purpose

 

9/3 - #31 - back 2 skewl - strange days and tales of human transformers - dashed out for a lap afterwards - kenny n' tim n' hijinx up on grassy - 7/30 corner laps for the season

 

9/4 - #32 - 2 more corner laps, 9/30 so far - elks bugling from the big beyond - grey and gloomy, wind off n' on - cluster-fuck kenny, a goddamn pater-familias now we find, n' denali-dave on round 2 - tiger woods by the banks of the mighty columbia - beers n' butts n' bullshitting as the day waned

 

9/7 - #33 - trail dayz - a herd assembled after 9 - ranger lecturz - why shouldn't i lick the saw-blade again? buncha beatards in attendance - adam n' kenny, the silvermanz, lucky larry, matt the hulk, crackman, nastia n' oleg n' some other slavic folk, plus no small number of imps n' goons of all sorts n' stripes - built a right nifty set of belay platforms for the se corner, finally a comfy place to put your shoes on and rope-wrangle, should you be into that sorta thing - jim'll hate it of course, but i notice all his routes have sweet set-ups at the base

 

solo lap off at the end of hte work day, 10/30 now for the season, then beerz n' bullshitting w/ many folks back up in the lot - geoff n' i had a breezy cruise up cruis'n'jillz afterward, bumping up against oleg n' nastia along the way - krazy foolz bathign in the columbia over the fence - motorboats bottoming out in the low, low river - a cool kid named dasan the third soloist on the corner today, him fresh from alaska and the wild, high life of youth....

 

9/11 - day #34 - somber day as always this time of year, though interesting - the first crop of seniors i've had none of whom could remember the happenings of but 12 years ago - mismangled comms w/ the powderhound, him sitting out at the parking lot, soaking up the intense sols, me hanging round camas waiting for the call

 

meet old boy at the base and a solo lap we had, 11/31 so far with summer surging and a successful completion all but assured

 

roped round on free4all soon thereafter - the biggest surprise on the rap - goddamn 8.9 mm rope, w/ 260 lbs of bubble-gum attached to it on an overhanging rappel, results in massive laser-burns through the palm unless you add some biners or wear gloves woven w/ space-shuttle-tile style wonder-fabric

 

9/12 - #35 - a jibber-jabber up cruis'n/middle-aged warriors w/ miker in the wind and dying desert heat - prizes in the fenceposts - what a wonderful world?

 

9/14 - day 36 - awoke hungover n' horrid 'round 6 on the couch - straggled upstairs for a sad attempt at a few extra hours of snoozing - appropriate to be horror-struck n' hairy-tongued for climbing a route called wild turkeys, wutcha say?

 

wild-turkeys w/ geoff - wondrous times, woe-struck by heat, tongue thick w/ wine-slick - hairy recollections of halcyon dayz - me the first, him the last - small cams, tiny nutz, off-sets n' hammering aplenty on kniveblades n' soft euro-trash - the smiths n' tom waits wailing in endless loops on the what-have-you - jim at the base - philosophies n' philanderous frippery -burgundy n' beer n' bullshit'n - lounging along the new-laid sou'east co'ner - the way bent back to the beginning n' pat all pulled up n' waiting - booze n' bereavement n' bitzes soon returning

 

"The world don't care what a sailor does in town

It's all hanging in the windows by the pound"

 

9/17 - day 37 - 151st anniversary of the worst day in american history, why not court my own bold disaster? work done at 3, i walked to the parking lot, licked my fore-finger n' thrust it up into the air to measure the mendacious breeze - the augors were awe-fucked - purple piss in every direction, but maybe, just maybe, i could squeeze in a lap? wife n' kids not home until 6 at any rate, i had no reason not too, and figured a hike up the trail or even just a book-worm sesh in the red-devil would suffice to chase away the inevitable tuesday-blues, should i arrive to find it all a'cock-billed

 

i've long held you can climb a hundred days at beacon and each day have a new distraction - this day it was a curious chem-trail on the 1st pitch - like the shimmery trail of a slug in morning, but strait up and down the full height to snag-ledge, and harder and cruncher than any slug-juice i've seen before - that and the merry martial site of what certainly appeared to be two apache attack helicopters making the dance of death up and down the gorge

 

surprised to find the first lap of the day so dry after all this grim grayness of late, i figured on a second when i reached the trail only for the heavens to open and the rain to fall eagerly on this fell-earth - back at the car i had a leisurely 40 minutes fumbling through rick atkinson's robust apogee of awesomeness, the guns at last light - the rain raged on the rooftop as i made my own private anabasis, ambling through the penultimate tale of a near-dead generation - then it cleared and the mist moved off - a second lap then and all for the better - the lead out the pencil, i pushed off for home and hearth and the Promise of a Better Tomorrow

 

13/30 laps for the year now

 

9/18 -#38 - full-moonlight ascent of the corner w/ geoff - the weather god's relented after gray and damp all week - a full cast of clowns in addition to ourselves, their leader did a helen-keller style ascent of cruising to start

 

lovely night - calm - the high moon on the river, the ripples hypnotic

 

9/20 - deo XXXIX - II laps for XIV towards XXX for the season, half-way bitzes, even as september sags sadly towards fall - the leaves on the wing, the thick lead sky-cloud ever lower towards dusk - fat gray raindrops on the windshield on the way-back - bunches of them bastard elk down the crick, bugling all the damn evening - jim n'an old-time vantucky friend round the base - kenny and a right curious feller from way-back east on the corner - a quick blow-by for the first lap, then a pause and some great goddamn gut laughs w/ them on the ledge - tales from the land of way-ago - pickens n' roanaoke n' hickory n' fucking appalachia 'n general discussed upon

 

winter is coming

 

9/26 - day 40 - almost a week of solid rain and fucking work, no adventure at all - nastia's all stoked after a spell in the valley and wants to be a big waller, not that i know a damn bit of useful beta 'bout that - figured she oughta learn to solo-aid and gain some experience that way w/o making demands on dim-witted belayers (though, in truth, it ought not be that hard to round up some young'uns willing to hold the other end and stare up at here bouncing nether-bits) - she did well on the first third of free for all, and as evening grew to dusk, she lowered off her funky gri-gri setup and i had a bit of fun down-aiding and cleaning

 

fucking torrential rain coming in a day - seems unlikely there'll be much more post-work beatarding this season

 

10/4 - day 41 - keeeerist, the fall fell down like a fucking bear trap on the balls some time ago it seems, and awful early too - nastia a bit waylaid by portland traffic - beacon's base looking a good bit like the argonne after old alvin york's big day - blasted tree debris all about the forest floor, the remnants of last weekend's big windstorm and great goddamn deluge - fresh broken blocks - oozing gashes on the upper edges of trees on grassy ledges - still a bit damp but it'll be a good weekend for clambering - we did the bastard warrior, finishing up just as dusk descended

 

10/5 - douglas adams day! - winter's upon the wall, albeit its adolescent, easy face - pure sunlight streaming through but somewhat weak - strong winds - battle debris from the week gone by all astrew - 3 laps on the corner then home for an afternoon w/ the kids n' wife n' parents

 

10/8 - 43rd beacon-wrangling day for the year - big fall in the gorge, the trees grown gaunt and dead-orange - damp, dull air on the evening orbit out, my head ringing w/ union-noise, deep wondrous woe - krazy late to met long-suffering kenny - up the corner in a damp, damp tizzy - S1+/2 conditions on the corner - a nut rescue - booty cordellete, cha-ching! babylyon fading, i fumble back in darkness gut-hungry to sad tales - dogs run demented, poor pat sure needs hisself a holy synod sometime soon

 

10/11 - #44 - epic fall beacon day - WRONG GULL IS GONE - the pillar damn near the size of a trailer that you used to jam to get up to the anchors below the off-width came out yesterday sometime, knocking down the massive old-growth tree below it and forever altering the trail - a fine little boulder for the kids to clamber on

 

lots of rockfall throughout the morning - nastia thrown at wind surfer for aid-testing - many beers - dogs and kids and hard-core grown ups - jim and kenny - chemtrails, johnson, shakespeare, fucking kennedy - good times on the tumble back - now off for a birthday feast, and a monkey face party on the 'morrow

 

10/15 - day 45 - 2 solo laps, one w/ the irascible denaliduckdave - 19 for the year now - jim n' steve n' tim n' kenny n' Various Others - breezy n' fall-balmy - jeff thomas' big black cock cable all athwart the corner - gut laughs n' the grand history of the bacon-wand considered - home at dusk to take out the trash and taste a most excellent gumbo whipped up by the little woman

 

10/17 - #46 - BLACK-JACK! kenny is formally awarded the Order of Beacon, 3rd Class for today bringing two pair of boobies to our sacred stone

 

10/19 - #47 - oregon forum blowing up w/ cruel threats to your friend n' humble narrator as the dawn broke, whiskey-drunk hungover - a gut full of greasy egg n' iced coffee - geoff at the b.k. via mike's - jensen's w/ kyle n' steve too for a tr on the arena of terror - i really need to remember to bring a #5 next time - topped out in the golden glow of the late-day sun - beers n' bullshitting w/ steve in the frosty parking lot after, eventually a run down to the skamania mart for a resupply - another beer later we rambled down for a full moon frolic on the corner, more good beers in tow - belting out big tunes in the darkness, nary a headlamp in sight

 

Trafalgar this day but a bit more than 2 centuries ago! lord nelson dead on the deck of his flagship, who among us could fear such a demise or wish one more wondrous? - "kizmet" he clamored as death clamped its chokehold along his wind-hole, or was "kiss me hardy" more the thing? my 48th beacon-ramble for the fast-rotting year - the Breath of God on the wall, fall colors and fecund smells - the south side to meself - 2 laps, 23/30 for the year and me feeling suddenly like the weather-lords will allow the whole solo set

 

10/22 - day 49 - 24/30 laps this season - the Indian Summer Endures - breezy n' balmy - the base empty, save for the echoes of jim's recent remodel of the rock-blasted bits - mixes right well w/ the corner's new platform - just need to drop 2 more trees n' it'll be purrfect

 

dave cat-calling from the ground as i began the 2nd pitch - lingered at tree ledge till he reached me, than had a ramble on up the rest of the corner together, bullshiting about the Life Beatardia

 

10/23 - A Hat Trick of Days at beacon this week so far, my 50th of the year - 26/30 laps now - jim's ride in the lot but lost he was somewhere in the immensity of the park - the Banal Ballad of the Big Breeze blowing down the Columbia - sport climbers wide-eyed on the way down

 

st crispin's eve LI de die ascensus editi! 7 corner clambers in 4 dayz, hang in indian what have you - 28/30 laps now as the autumn augurs roar on just rightly - busy day at bacon - jim n' steve n' the horror of a kamikaze kamera - a crew of girlz on uprising and a nice right sight to follow behind for a few minutes, untethered from terrestrial concerns

 

calamitous tragedy on st crispins - beacon bound, all hepped up n' frantic on a friday in the fall - the red devil, dead - i ain't quite laid 'er in her grave yet, but i'm assembling the titanic quantity of liquor likely to be needed to make it through the wake even as we speak - calling all nations - the universe conspires to deny me the finish to my heroic warrior-poet-god-king quest - i coast into a pro-christian octogenarian-infested polystyrene paneled diner as her soul ascends to heaven - later i work the diner's phone, star-dazzled on a true and wondrous high, hanging out on hold while reading photocopies of old billy graham prayers, trying not to sweat diamonds - the cavalry comes in at the cusp of evening, and i begin my sulk towards bethlehem to be reborn

 

sweet, sweet devil, don't be dead!

10/29 - day 52 of the year - redemption on what seems certain to be the dead last of the dancing days about the bacon-wand as fall upends and bumbles ever faster towards blasted winter - cold and crisp, dead air - i arrive w/o the red devil, desolate and gripped by autumnal angst - not a climber in sight and the sun rapidly setting on the south face - i scramble up to the last licks of light upon the first pitch, and pause, frog-like, in the frenzy of the fading furnace and Gather Strength - 2 laps on the corner, making me 30/30 for the year - from now on, like bj's after 7, every lap from here to the hereafter Pure Gravy

[ivan]

new year, new beatard count

 

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

 

 

1/12 - day#2 - strange day - freezing fog on the wakeup, car shackled in ice at the dawn - geoff at the burger king - high-speed jet through the quiet lull of the gorge, the road dry n' gentle - beacon becalmed, all door discipline disregarded - a great gut-laugh at the peach allah had gracefully cast into our laps - i get all the leads down low - consensus conditions S5 (our ascent of 12/21/12 in recent memory a retard S9, damn near pegging the limit of the possible) - challenging lead conditions for sure still, with sheet-freeze all over, slowly peeling off in the relatively tropical conditions - runnels of run-off bubbling underneath the ice - the sun bursting through the clear air - rumbles of gunfire, pap-pap-pap-pap, a militia-action for certain on the oregon shores - slip-sliding away all over from grassy ledges up - glimpse of the bonneville crick draining into the river, all jizzum-milky, the vas defernes of the columbian cock- exited the long way, the Great Coward wending all to Starboard where he could - a walk down all bathed in rays of a riotous golden orb - jim at the base w/ an old boy - oaths and auguries, threats and Aggravated Assaults considered - an easy orbit back through the steaming warmth of the gorge-winter disbanded, if only for a bit

 

1/22 - #3 - annealed by two recent days at smith in the Big Fridge of the bivy site, mornings traversing the phantasmagorical formations of frozen sludge, mike and i had an evening run up the bacon-wand in a big olde freshet of gaudy coldness

 

a big dry had beaten off the vast damp of days gone by - barely any ice on route - half the digits of my right foot right numb by grassy ledges, i unshod and rubbed hardly any life back into them - toes throb as i type

 

booty nut on p2, should the original owner wish to claim it from a massive pile of such things i have growing in my garage

 

not even a fort-night of fucknoodling about the sunny-side left - full moon fever this weekend for any half-wit warriors who might feel the urge to come w/...

 

 

 

2/2 - day #4 - ground hogz day, a swift demise to deadly winter predicted - 'twas the day after a wander up the hood-wand w/ an interesting feller to dispatch the doldrum of the beacon s side closure - ya never stop learning in the mountains, this time 2 Ore-e-gone Snowboard'nBoyz taught me how to inhale green weeds through green apples using nothing more than a glorious bright winter sun and a magnifying glass - a good invention for the stiff breezes off an open glacier - much thanks for them that rock the Van Damme

 

stone soup w/ geoff today - despite the distinct sense of early spring setting in as the Great Hamster foresaw, it was a mort cold and savage breezy - geoff did p1, and i managed to mangle meself on p2 - found a fixed nut at the start of the eyebrow traverse and was hanging out on it for awhile, had just plugged the next cam in when suddenly i was falling - fell/slid into a slab, instinctively grabbing an edge to stop the fall, sheared off the flesh of my pinky-tip and sprung the sprockets in the other fingers' knuckles, then went heads'o'er'tits and continued on down, getting entangled in the rope running up through the gear and ultimately arresting hanging upside down looking straight at the olde boye, who looked frankly startled

 

blood pouring from the flensed n' flapping finger, i wrapped my balaclava about it n' took stock - had a good gut laugh upon recalling that last time i climbed on this side, last spring, i'd ended up in the e.r. too - maybe i'm just not getting the message?

 

geoff was my hero - not only did he finish the pitch, he also figured out how, after 10 minutes, to get my damn knot untied by pounding on it w/ a jug - the big breeze blew itself out as dejected would-be hiking trail ascenders milled about the parking lot and i howled at the sky in mock musical appreciation - the climb done, we went off, each to his saturday night debaucheries and me to keen my wound w/ wanton drunkenness

 

4/25 - day 5 - holy shee-it muslims, it's been 2 months - lovely spring day - many olde boyes humping the o-zone on the way out - on the north side, the sun peaking over, one hand washes the other, i fear nothing - 3 peregrines screeching n' flopping about - green grass - crisp n' crunchy moss - had time to stop by and yack-yack w/ jim n' sal n' steve n' wes n' a whole motley crew of misfits n' misogynistic fucks on the way back - did a couple solo laps on the jacobs ladder and drank some beers, then boogied on back home for "house of cards" w/ the wifey

 

jesus-h-christ, why are they doing more construction on the 14?!?

 

4/30 - beacon day 6 for the year - only 2 days at the baconwand this month, but spring seems to be here fo'shiz, even if today it was right blustery and overcast - scrambly, scrambly on the n side for a while, then a satisfying hike to the summit - the 70th anniversary of an intelligence coup - "mincemeat has been swallowed" - peregrines apparent from the uprising exit, swooping and screeching and having a ball it looked - kenny in the lot, horrifyingly still set in his hate-tobacco way, but w/ rainier-beer as always

 

5/2 - day 7 - all my pardners bail - the pearl is in the river - john has a long mustache - freedom is slavery, war is peace!!!

 

5/4 - international star-wars day, may the fourth be with you beatard day 8 for 2013 - stoned stupor w/ bryan n' bob - bryan styles following p1 and leads p2 almost all clean - breezy n' balmy - eyes scuppered w/ dust-scum as i type - stooooked for a fine day in the sun - olde boys climbing below us on the spike route, a fine view from the phone booth - miker stops by for a chat even - summer's upon us!

 

5/6 - day #9 - afternoon sprint up the sun-baked monolith after union meetings and whatnot - pilgrims at dawn - days gone by and dead men ghosts - great gashes in the highway - asphalt scars and concrete wars - the red devil turns over 190k even as the cd player craps in the bed, carrying nico blue into the way blue yonder - the pearl is in the river

 

5/8 - beatard day 10 of the year - jesus christ on a cum-stained cushioned couch, this'er fine weather just won't fucking quit! out to slouch and lounge around the bacon-wand once more, scrambly-scrambly here and there along the north wall - figure its about time to scoot up the spike route sans rope i reckon - on up to the slumit in rude circuitous style, but all the beauty on the scamper back down - a buxom couple encountered cruising on up the packinko-portion of the trail, dressed appropriate for a warm day - i cast down mine eyes, unworthy as i am, only to be brought up sharp by a strange question from the sultry lassie - a great gaping grin, "oh no, heaven's no, how could you think that and who might you be" - claimed to know me and my sorcerous ways, but most surely she must mistake me for some other beatard cunt? "you were that guy guzzling boxed wine and chain-smoking camels last summer!" - goddammit, i must stop meeting ladies of quality in my long aestival blacked-out ambulations, it augers poor for my alternate-reality amors!

 

"AF is having problems w/ its fresh-water condensers"

 

5/10 - day 11 - linked strong arms w/ der phuzzy, all phresh from phucking himself good n' proper last burn'n'man, flensed scars from incisions all about his satellite-parts - to the n side we did fly, me w/ the big wall dumpster full of wine n' hammers n' what have you...beers n' butts at the base - the spike route ensconced in scum n' villainy - we scamper up the right side first, when ole'jim w/ a jingus-voice arrived n' whisper-hollered up at us - to the tree n' the site of new natural destruction wrought all around, stone-fall n' swathes of moss scoured off in flight - we rap back to the big boy for bitter conversation and big Olde Tymes - intolerance for them a week earlier w/ their wire-brushes - gut laughs n' tyranny gestated - adam n' i up genesis to the tree again as the sun glows low - i above that, but bailing on a bolt too steep to suss out in the gloaming - the base again, shade-slumming w/ pall malls n' precious beer w/o end - the stumble-fuck in the dark, the way-back-bent in style - departure n' parting - kevbone no doubt kluster-fucked, i conklude

 

5/11 - a dozen days so far - 5 days this week - junuary kicked square in the nuts, but waiting in the wings it seems - good thing really, i'm on the verge of tweaking out my fingers already - dogs in my dreams, feeding on my feet - terror at daybreak, broken in the bone yard - the ringing of bells at all hours, the horror of home-coming gone wrong - dust, dust, dust - the bloody angle when the walls fell - spotsylvania on a warm spring evening - they sing the body electric, and then they too Pass Beyond

 

5/14 - lucky #13 - gray and gaunt at the dawn, dim-minded and mopey - when the world dies in an orgasm of heavenly-fire, how i fucking hope it's a tuesday, and early in the morning to boot, to spare me the whole gory goddamn details of the day - tuesday, the red-haired stepchild of the torrid week - hitler was conceived on a tuesday - it's true, you can google that shit man

 

sun breaks around noon, life reviving, rock drying, seniors shuffle in and out in a hyperstatic hepped-up euphoric hangover - the red devil galloping east through the gorge, growling at these goddamn men in their machines gouging out the concrete and showering everything in gravel - the tyranny inherent in giving any man a blaze-orange vest and sign, too gross to contemplate in the golden sunshine searing through my senses

 

RIP william fetterman, you awful fucker - "give me 80 men and i can ride through the whole sioux nation" - yeah, how'd that one work for ya, son?

 

5/20 - day 14 - a week of piss wedder, sunday's window spent wrangling kidz and wrestling w/ the garden n' chores n' what-have-you - union bidness at the close of day, my wits as always confounded n' humbled by the human machinery of government made flesh - the ghost of winston smith haunts me, but it's a special merry kind of fool who can't make lemonade out of a luscious afternoon of sun and rushing warm air gusting down the gorge - get on your fucking horse, dr rick marshall!

 

kenny's rig in the lot, him and sneezy-jim already up the spike route i reckon - i settle for a sleazy saunter up the big rock, lost in the gauzy thoughts gamboling through my thick head - the moon waxes great, will the wedder-gods set me up a solid?

 

fosters on the falling back, cops holed up n' counting donut-holes at cape horn - thank christ i don't have a cigarette to shit on this wondrous scene

 

5/31 - day 15, 9 dayz this gentle may - heartbreak for days gone by - memorial day weekend at tieton a near total bust - communiques pist upon for tr's w/o pixels - a week with pouring rain and occasional piercing sun w/o rainbows

 

ain't seen mike since a far long time it seems - set out in the afternoon for a ramble up the spike route, him not having had it he said - the base gross n' baking - thick drip and damp on the rock like it'd been sprayed w/ horse-semen - genesis after nearly shitting a kitten on the klutchy-klutchy start - mike made p2 not so sad, but like me needed to stand on the anchor bolts whilst thrutch-fucking into the danky mcdankerson pod there

 

dug leading the 3rd pitch spike-part proper, but this time w/ a stout old black cock of static death to bat-man on up the slab

 

beerz n' gut-laughing n' music up in the woods - mike does p4 and dislodges a big old panel to come whiffling down my ways - i do the last bit up to the trail wading through thick-glades of oak, oily and fresh and full of fear

 

bongos at the summit, guitars n' young ones yodeling - jesus-harold-christ, children I Know up there doing god know's what - ruins my summit celebration, but what can you do - wizened age equals patience equals wisdom?

 

rolling rock n' reefers on the ramble on down - the new Man meandering around, tending the meters in the lot - don't seem like too fearsome a feller...

 

"something seems wrong w/ our bloody ships today!"

 

6/3 - day 16 - sweet green first peaking from the new berms of the road-cut west of ozone - a throaty breeze when work is spent - the day beams brightly, i jet down the well-worn highway - apples n' ass-ended hits n' horrid cigarettes - jimbo in the house, somewhere high up the hell-side, waging war on moss i'll warrant w/ that nefarious Other Feller - a raucous ramble up the boring old way - teens on the summit w/ their elders, teeming w/ the airs of methadonia unleashed - tails grown tepid, they rocket down the rock to the grinding of gears, knees shivering in the sea-gale

 

"and, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;

The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,

And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;

but there is no joy in Beatardia, the south side is still closed out"

 

d-day - b-day plus 16 for me - machines shitting out soil on the road cut - long lines of traffic - sweating in the sun - a book and a beer for the beacon run - trains rumbling - falcons screeching - shade and wind - the island in the grips of the Drowned God - sweet tension released in seconds, the searing heat of summer upon us, the seniors soon to be flown and my professional sun setting

 

6/17 - #18 - grass bowing gently in the slight gusts of the western gorge - cool and sunny, scraps of clouds here and there - the highway gloriously free of frenetic machines fouling the thoroughfare - hawks and gulls hollering - hordes of dim-wits dashed all over the trail - the Usual Suspects - the Siegfried Oath issued all over again, the same all ways and in every weather - one day of classes left, the solstice hard upon us, sweet Summer is feeling rather tipsy and falling out of her panties in her haste - the Time is Right, my brothers

 

"well, i got in a quibble,

shot a door -

i'm reading the bible

by a 40 watt bulb -

what price freedom?

that is my rub

well i sleep like a baby

with the snakes n' the bugs"

 

7/31 - day 19 - first street legal day on the riverside in a rare ould time - mike's at 7 in the morning mist - bleary eyed, jesus christ, i'll be back at work in 4 weeks - knees too weary to start on cruising, we start up the corner and i somehow pinch a nerve in my back - electric lights dance when i move my head, so i learn to climb w/o looking anywhere

 

8/10 - XX pro anno diem - whiskey-sick at 7 a.m. - rough roll out of bed, down the steps and out the door - pat snoring on the couch - did i really smoke my fist-full of smokes in 30 minutes last night?

 

geoff @ the b.k. - cruis'n n' warriors n' right gull - choppers landing on the wildlife reserve, ferrying in fucking wind-boarders - dick synonym for the day: "snatch-ratchet" - long drives off the land of the little people, thank you mysterious stranger - old larry for fucks sake rapping in for an evening alone - pbr's n' passing showers on the way back

 

8/20 - day 21 - beaconben at the b.k. past dawn - lonely morning at beacon, the rock to ourselves - dodd's jam to big ledge, then ben did a tr-lap on blood, sweat n' jizzum as i wallowed in bird-filth (do them damned peregrines suffer from perrenial bladder infections or do they just binge'n'purge on peptobismal? the pink-hue to their ubiquitous turds is disconcerting)- topped out to trail on dastardly, then a run to the skamania mart for burritos n' beacon-rock brand beer - beerz in the shade by the boat-ramp, then back to the rock for a hybrid corner/warriors lap - international bring-yer-hawt-girlfriend to the crag day, w/ a saucy-shiela the lady in question along w/ her aussie-blokefriend - the boyfriend and our respective wives being but 3 obstacles in our path to awesomeness, that and i suppose also my plug-ugliness and the fact that ole'ben's so gawd-damned raytarded if he get's dropped on his head one more time he'll be eating applesauce from plastic spoons the rest of his life

 

phrase of the day, from the burrito ingredients: "intensified soy oil"

 

first i've seen of the elk today - them high-lonesome fuck-me-now bugles but days away

 

8/21 - #22 - moonlight ascent - tvash n' i rally at mike's in twilight camas after each enduring a hard days labor on our abodes, i sun-stroked n' wobbly from shoveling dirt all day - the moon gloaming through the gauzy sheets of smoke straggling through the gorge - fire-fucked, hazy light, like a septic bandage slapped across the lunar face, leaky and pus-red orange - the corner in t-shirts, hardly a breath of wind - kenny appears out of the heavens for a helluva session of gut-laughing on the ledge - top out on uprising and over the railing at 3 AM for more of the same - the long, illucid orbit back home, i nearly sail off the road at steigerwald - a lascivious plunge under my domestic sheets even at the arrival of the dawn...

 

8/23-25 - days 23-25 - couple nights on the ledge w/ the powderhund n' nocturnal ambulations up the corner by the light of a big moon, whiskey-addled n' howling at the hills - ranger lecture when it was all over on unpaid camping fees n' crushed cans of pbr in the car-trash - young warriors n' jills n' whatnot - hot n' sunny saturday, gloomy n' rainy sunday - dave n' the eternal shit-show of the NoBoTrfecta came rambling down the way in the saturday dark

 

8/27 - #26 - warriors w/ good'ole-kenny - jim n' sal, the stewarts rocking a parents day-out, rick n' his long-haired hippie-son - muggy but pleasingly breezy up high - pbr's n' american spirits along the way - tales of august vernal ventures - plans laid for seasons to come - that rat-bastard 'nastia appears to have beat me to the pirate-booty, but all for a good cause - who wouldn't want an autographed copy of a bikini-clad clamberer from our Proud Cascades?

 

8/28 - day #27 - soggy on the trail w/ the recent rains, fall's come quick - steve-o on ground zero, jim n' sal providing sage advice from below - 2 laps on the corner, my first solo climbing of the season - got a goal of 30 such laps before the season ends, so 1/15th of the way now

 

8/30 - #28 - 2 more corner laps for 4/30 total for the season - solo-aided wild turkey, p1 - left it fixed for tomorrow w/ geoff - what's up w/ these hard men stealing our aid lines, we gotta go take'em back, i say! christ, that second pitch of wild turkeys looks like sparse gear, at least grunge book has them nice shiny new bolts and helpful chalk hints

 

found a #7 bd nut, should its owner's wish for its speedy return - too many lying around my garage already, plus i have sympathy - got a tcu so stuck on wild turkey i had to bring out the hammer to reason it out

 

old larry lounging solo-style out there tonight w/ not a beer nor a bottle on him

 

8/31 - #29 - 10 days dry-humping the bacon-wand this aestival august - the last one to be spent w/ geoff - we split the grunge book in half, resplendent in the scorching sun its 4 shiny new bolts - geoff had the first bit, the 4 bolts, most interspersed w/ some thin nailing and fine brassies - i did the bunch above the last bolt, pumping in pins like a pre-teen caffeine-free baboon, all bitch-scared n' whatnot - amazing that matt feller freed it all

 

beers n' bottles n' bull-shitting down at the boat ramp afterwards - crusty beacon politics n' gut-busting nautical ventures comprehended - cop talk - a big old wind-born craft cast upon the piers, moribund n' motor-fucked, pleasing to see the pigs w/ someone else to fuck with

 

left the fixed line up to the beacon-towers should anyone care to make use of it in the next week - figuring on the full wild turkeys next weekend - beacon's 2 most recently freed aid-lines returned to the fold!

 

dod's n' grudge-book (adam's pic)

 

9/2/13 - day #30 - labor day, day before the bidness begins - up at 730 to practice awaking for honest employment - out to beacon by the time it was already hot - 2 laps on the corner, now 6/30 for the season - wasps still untouched on the 2nd pitch - plaid laying photo-siege to the crux 2 on p2 - met up w/ teacher-matt afterwards w/ enough time for him to rope-gun me up wind-surfer (muchas gracias!) - dumped larry off at the no-bo-trifecta for some beerz n' laffs w/ dave, then followed ranger karl back to beacon only to encounter the kewlest car-wreck i've ever seen there - a big-ass bus-sized rv, complete w/ towed-jeep, totally in the ditch across from the b-room in the main-lot, rangers n' cops everywhere w/ 10-foot hard-ons for their sudden importantness of purpose

 

9/3 - #31 - back 2 skewl - strange days and tales of human transformers - dashed out for a lap afterwards - kenny n' tim n' hijinx up on grassy - 7/30 corner laps for the season

 

9/4 - #32 - 2 more corner laps, 9/30 so far - elks bugling from the big beyond - grey and gloomy, wind off n' on - cluster-fuck kenny, a goddamn pater-familias now we find, n' denali-dave on round 2 - tiger woods by the banks of the mighty columbia - beers n' butts n' bullshitting as the day waned

 

9/7 - #33 - trail dayz - a herd assembled after 9 - ranger lecturz - why shouldn't i lick the saw-blade again? buncha beatards in attendance - adam n' kenny, the silvermanz, lucky larry, matt the hulk, crackman, nastia n' oleg n' some other slavic folk, plus no small number of imps n' goons of all sorts n' stripes - built a right nifty set of belay platforms for the se corner, finally a comfy place to put your shoes on and rope-wrangle, should you be into that sorta thing - jim'll hate it of course, but i notice all his routes have sweet set-ups at the base

 

solo lap off at the end of hte work day, 10/30 now for the season, then beerz n' bullshitting w/ many folks back up in the lot - geoff n' i had a breezy cruise up cruis'n'jillz afterward, bumping up against oleg n' nastia along the way - krazy foolz bathign in the columbia over the fence - motorboats bottoming out in the low, low river - a cool kid named dasan the third soloist on the corner today, him fresh from alaska and the wild, high life of youth....

 

9/11 - day #34 - somber day as always this time of year, though interesting - the first crop of seniors i've had none of whom could remember the happenings of but 12 years ago - mismangled comms w/ the powderhound, him sitting out at the parking lot, soaking up the intense sols, me hanging round camas waiting for the call

 

meet old boy at the base and a solo lap we had, 11/31 so far with summer surging and a successful completion all but assured

 

roped round on free4all soon thereafter - the biggest surprise on the rap - goddamn 8.9 mm rope, w/ 260 lbs of bubble-gum attached to it on an overhanging rappel, results in massive laser-burns through the palm unless you add some biners or wear gloves woven w/ space-shuttle-tile style wonder-fabric

 

9/12 - #35 - a jibber-jabber up cruis'n/middle-aged warriors w/ miker in the wind and dying desert heat - prizes in the fenceposts - what a wonderful world?

 

9/14 - day 36 - awoke hungover n' horrid 'round 6 on the couch - straggled upstairs for a sad attempt at a few extra hours of snoozing - appropriate to be horror-struck n' hairy-tongued for climbing a route called wild turkeys, wutcha say?

 

wild-turkeys w/ geoff - wondrous times, woe-struck by heat, tongue thick w/ wine-slick - hairy recollections of halcyon dayz - me the first, him the last - small cams, tiny nutz, off-sets n' hammering aplenty on kniveblades n' soft euro-trash - the smiths n' tom waits wailing in endless loops on the what-have-you - jim at the base - philosophies n' philanderous frippery -burgundy n' beer n' bullshit'n - lounging along the new-laid sou'east co'ner - the way bent back to the beginning n' pat all pulled up n' waiting - booze n' bereavement n' bitzes soon returning

 

"The world don't care what a sailor does in town

It's all hanging in the windows by the pound"

 

9/17 - day 37 - 151st anniversary of the worst day in american history, why not court my own bold disaster? work done at 3, i walked to the parking lot, licked my fore-finger n' thrust it up into the air to measure the mendacious breeze - the augors were awe-fucked - purple piss in every direction, but maybe, just maybe, i could squeeze in a lap? wife n' kids not home until 6 at any rate, i had no reason not too, and figured a hike up the trail or even just a book-worm sesh in the red-devil would suffice to chase away the inevitable tuesday-blues, should i arrive to find it all a'cock-billed

 

i've long held you can climb a hundred days at beacon and each day have a new distraction - this day it was a curious chem-trail on the 1st pitch - like the shimmery trail of a slug in morning, but strait up and down the full height to snag-ledge, and harder and cruncher than any slug-juice i've seen before - that and the merry martial site of what certainly appeared to be two apache attack helicopters making the dance of death up and down the gorge

 

surprised to find the first lap of the day so dry after all this grim grayness of late, i figured on a second when i reached the trail only for the heavens to open and the rain to fall eagerly on this fell-earth - back at the car i had a leisurely 40 minutes fumbling through rick atkinson's robust apogee of awesomeness, the guns at last light - the rain raged on the rooftop as i made my own private anabasis, ambling through the penultimate tale of a near-dead generation - then it cleared and the mist moved off - a second lap then and all for the better - the lead out the pencil, i pushed off for home and hearth and the Promise of a Better Tomorrow

 

13/30 laps for the year now

 

9/18 -#38 - full-moonlight ascent of the corner w/ geoff - the weather god's relented after gray and damp all week - a full cast of clowns in addition to ourselves, their leader did a helen-keller style ascent of cruising to start

 

lovely night - calm - the high moon on the river, the ripples hypnotic

 

9/20 - deo XXXIX - II laps for XIV towards XXX for the season, half-way bitzes, even as september sags sadly towards fall - the leaves on the wing, the thick lead sky-cloud ever lower towards dusk - fat gray raindrops on the windshield on the way-back - bunches of them bastard elk down the crick, bugling all the damn evening - jim n'an old-time vantucky friend round the base - kenny and a right curious feller from way-back east on the corner - a quick blow-by for the first lap, then a pause and some great goddamn gut laughs w/ them on the ledge - tales from the land of way-ago - pickens n' roanaoke n' hickory n' fucking appalachia 'n general discussed upon

 

winter is coming

 

9/26 - day 40 - almost a week of solid rain and fucking work, no adventure at all - nastia's all stoked after a spell in the valley and wants to be a big waller, not that i know a damn bit of useful beta 'bout that - figured she oughta learn to solo-aid and gain some experience that way w/o making demands on dim-witted belayers (though, in truth, it ought not be that hard to round up some young'uns willing to hold the other end and stare up at here bouncing nether-bits) - she did well on the first third of free for all, and as evening grew to dusk, she lowered off her funky gri-gri setup and i had a bit of fun down-aiding and cleaning

 

fucking torrential rain coming in a day - seems unlikely there'll be much more post-work beatarding this season

 

10/4 - day 41 - keeeerist, the fall fell down like a fucking bear trap on the balls some time ago it seems, and awful early too - nastia a bit waylaid by portland traffic - beacon's base looking a good bit like the argonne after old alvin york's big day - blasted tree debris all about the forest floor, the remnants of last weekend's big windstorm and great goddamn deluge - fresh broken blocks - oozing gashes on the upper edges of trees on grassy ledges - still a bit damp but it'll be a good weekend for clambering - we did the bastard warrior, finishing up just as dusk descended

 

10/5 - douglas adams day! - winter's upon the wall, albeit its adolescent, easy face - pure sunlight streaming through but somewhat weak - strong winds - battle debris from the week gone by all astrew - 3 laps on the corner then home for an afternoon w/ the kids n' wife n' parents

 

10/8 - 43rd beacon-wrangling day for the year - big fall in the gorge, the trees grown gaunt and dead-orange - damp, dull air on the evening orbit out, my head ringing w/ union-noise, deep wondrous woe - krazy late to met long-suffering kenny - up the corner in a damp, damp tizzy - S1+/2 conditions on the corner - a nut rescue - booty cordellete, cha-ching! babylyon fading, i fumble back in darkness gut-hungry to sad tales - dogs run demented, poor pat sure needs hisself a holy synod sometime soon

 

10/11 - #44 - epic fall beacon day - WRONG GULL IS GONE - the pillar damn near the size of a trailer that you used to jam to get up to the anchors below the off-width came out yesterday sometime, knocking down the massive old-growth tree below it and forever altering the trail - a fine little boulder for the kids to clamber on

 

lots of rockfall throughout the morning - nastia thrown at wind surfer for aid-testing - many beers - dogs and kids and hard-core grown ups - jim and kenny - chemtrails, johnson, shakespeare, fucking kennedy - good times on the tumble back - now off for a birthday feast, and a monkey face party on the 'morrow

 

10/15 - day 45 - 2 solo laps, one w/ the irascible denaliduckdave - 19 for the year now - jim n' steve n' tim n' kenny n' Various Others - breezy n' fall-balmy - jeff thomas' big black cock cable all athwart the corner - gut laughs n' the grand history of the bacon-wand considered - home at dusk to take out the trash and taste a most excellent gumbo whipped up by the little woman

 

10/17 - #46 - BLACK-JACK! kenny is formally awarded the Order of Beacon, 3rd Class for today bringing two pair of boobies to our sacred stone

 

10/19 - #47 - oregon forum blowing up w/ cruel threats to your friend n' humble narrator as the dawn broke, whiskey-drunk hungover - a gut full of greasy egg n' iced coffee - geoff at the b.k. via mike's - jensen's w/ kyle n' steve too for a tr on the arena of terror - i really need to remember to bring a #5 next time - topped out in the golden glow of the late-day sun - beers n' bullshitting w/ steve in the frosty parking lot after, eventually a run down to the skamania mart for a resupply - another beer later we rambled down for a full moon frolic on the corner, more good beers in tow - belting out big tunes in the darkness, nary a headlamp in sight

 

Trafalgar this day but a bit more than 2 centuries ago! lord nelson dead on the deck of his flagship, who among us could fear such a demise or wish one more wondrous? - "kizmet" he clamored as death clamped its chokehold along his wind-hole, or was "kiss me hardy" more the thing? my 48th beacon-ramble for the fast-rotting year - the Breath of God on the wall, fall colors and fecund smells - the south side to meself - 2 laps, 23/30 for the year and me feeling suddenly like the weather-lords will allow the whole solo set

 

10/22 - day 49 - 24/30 laps this season - the Indian Summer Endures - breezy n' balmy - the base empty, save for the echoes of jim's recent remodel of the rock-blasted bits - mixes right well w/ the corner's new platform - just need to drop 2 more trees n' it'll be purrfect

 

dave cat-calling from the ground as i began the 2nd pitch - lingered at tree ledge till he reached me, than had a ramble on up the rest of the corner together, bullshiting about the Life Beatardia

 

10/23 - A Hat Trick of Days at beacon this week so far, my 50th of the year - 26/30 laps now - jim's ride in the lot but lost he was somewhere in the immensity of the park - the Banal Ballad of the Big Breeze blowing down the Columbia - sport climbers wide-eyed on the way down

 

st crispin's eve LI de die ascensus editi! 7 corner clambers in 4 dayz, hang in indian what have you - 28/30 laps now as the autumn augurs roar on just rightly - busy day at bacon - jim n' steve n' the horror of a kamikaze kamera - a crew of girlz on uprising and a nice right sight to follow behind for a few minutes, untethered from terrestrial concerns

 

calamitous tragedy on st crispins - beacon bound, all hepped up n' frantic on a friday in the fall - the red devil, dead - i ain't quite laid 'er in her grave yet, but i'm assembling the titanic quantity of liquor likely to be needed to make it through the wake even as we speak - calling all nations - the universe conspires to deny me the finish to my heroic warrior-poet-god-king quest - i coast into a pro-christian octogenarian-infested polystyrene paneled diner as her soul ascends to heaven - later i work the diner's phone, star-dazzled on a true and wondrous high, hanging out on hold while reading photocopies of old billy graham prayers, trying not to sweat diamonds - the cavalry comes in at the cusp of evening, and i begin my sulk towards bethlehem to be reborn

 

sweet, sweet devil, don't be dead!

 

10/29 - day 52 of the year - redemption on what seems certain to be the dead last of the dancing days about the bacon-wand as fall upends and bumbles ever faster towards blasted winter - cold and crisp, dead air - i arrive w/o the red devil, desolate and gripped by autumnal angst - not a climber in sight and the sun rapidly setting on the south face - i scramble up to the last licks of light upon the first pitch, and pause, frog-like, in the frenzy of the fading furnace and Gather Strength - 2 laps on the corner, making me 30/30 for the year - from now on, like bj's after 7, every lap from here to the hereafter Pure Gravy

Dia de Los Muertos putas! #53, a fine prime figure - my first head cold of fall bubbling up through my snot-ports, a weekend on the couch portending - Gravy Lap 1, snuck in on the dead-last work-day of the pre-daylight savings body-blow upcoming this sabbath - kenny n' adam n' jim n' steve n' scads of Portlanderz all about the damp n' doomy sunset slabs - a beer n' some butts, then a squinty-eyed slither back down the gorge to gullet-fulls of italian food n' a friday-night nap

[stevetimetravlr]

A day to live in infamy, the Plaidman has summited Zodiac. A false start on ZM, some rippers, some wounds, some rain, a snowstorm, some rest days, out of water but never out of courage, stuck haul lines, c3 in the dark, and a glorious solo topout the night before his 51st birthday. You will probably see the trip report here, but I think I will wait for the movie. His futures so bright he's got to wear shades. He just has to get himself and his gear off El Cap now. Rowdy Yates.

[ivan]

glad to hear he survived his ordeal - course, i wouldn't put it past him to epic in the parking lot

[ivan]

new year, new beatard count

 

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

 

 

1/12 - day#2 - strange day - freezing fog on the wakeup, car shackled in ice at the dawn - geoff at the burger king - high-speed jet through the quiet lull of the gorge, the road dry n' gentle - beacon becalmed, all door discipline disregarded - a great gut-laugh at the peach allah had gracefully cast into our laps - i get all the leads down low - consensus conditions S5 (our ascent of 12/21/12 in recent memory a retard S9, damn near pegging the limit of the possible) - challenging lead conditions for sure still, with sheet-freeze all over, slowly peeling off in the relatively tropical conditions - runnels of run-off bubbling underneath the ice - the sun bursting through the clear air - rumbles of gunfire, pap-pap-pap-pap, a militia-action for certain on the oregon shores - slip-sliding away all over from grassy ledges up - glimpse of the bonneville crick draining into the river, all jizzum-milky, the vas defernes of the columbian cock- exited the long way, the Great Coward wending all to Starboard where he could - a walk down all bathed in rays of a riotous golden orb - jim at the base w/ an old boy - oaths and auguries, threats and Aggravated Assaults considered - an easy orbit back through the steaming warmth of the gorge-winter disbanded, if only for a bit

 

1/22 - #3 - annealed by two recent days at smith in the Big Fridge of the bivy site, mornings traversing the phantasmagorical formations of frozen sludge, mike and i had an evening run up the bacon-wand in a big olde freshet of gaudy coldness

 

a big dry had beaten off the vast damp of days gone by - barely any ice on route - half the digits of my right foot right numb by grassy ledges, i unshod and rubbed hardly any life back into them - toes throb as i type

 

booty nut on p2, should the original owner wish to claim it from a massive pile of such things i have growing in my garage

 

not even a fort-night of fucknoodling about the sunny-side left - full moon fever this weekend for any half-wit warriors who might feel the urge to come w/...

 

 

 

2/2 - day #4 - ground hogz day, a swift demise to deadly winter predicted - 'twas the day after a wander up the hood-wand w/ an interesting feller to dispatch the doldrum of the beacon s side closure - ya never stop learning in the mountains, this time 2 Ore-e-gone Snowboard'nBoyz taught me how to inhale green weeds through green apples using nothing more than a glorious bright winter sun and a magnifying glass - a good invention for the stiff breezes off an open glacier - much thanks for them that rock the Van Damme

 

stone soup w/ geoff today - despite the distinct sense of early spring setting in as the Great Hamster foresaw, it was a mort cold and savage breezy - geoff did p1, and i managed to mangle meself on p2 - found a fixed nut at the start of the eyebrow traverse and was hanging out on it for awhile, had just plugged the next cam in when suddenly i was falling - fell/slid into a slab, instinctively grabbing an edge to stop the fall, sheared off the flesh of my pinky-tip and sprung the sprockets in the other fingers' knuckles, then went heads'o'er'tits and continued on down, getting entangled in the rope running up through the gear and ultimately arresting hanging upside down looking straight at the olde boye, who looked frankly startled

 

blood pouring from the flensed n' flapping finger, i wrapped my balaclava about it n' took stock - had a good gut laugh upon recalling that last time i climbed on this side, last spring, i'd ended up in the e.r. too - maybe i'm just not getting the message?

 

geoff was my hero - not only did he finish the pitch, he also figured out how, after 10 minutes, to get my damn knot untied by pounding on it w/ a jug - the big breeze blew itself out as dejected would-be hiking trail ascenders milled about the parking lot and i howled at the sky in mock musical appreciation - the climb done, we went off, each to his saturday night debaucheries and me to keen my wound w/ wanton drunkenness

 

4/25 - day 5 - holy shee-it muslims, it's been 2 months - lovely spring day - many olde boyes humping the o-zone on the way out - on the north side, the sun peaking over, one hand washes the other, i fear nothing - 3 peregrines screeching n' flopping about - green grass - crisp n' crunchy moss - had time to stop by and yack-yack w/ jim n' sal n' steve n' wes n' a whole motley crew of misfits n' misogynistic fucks on the way back - did a couple solo laps on the jacobs ladder and drank some beers, then boogied on back home for "house of cards" w/ the wifey

 

jesus-h-christ, why are they doing more construction on the 14?!?

 

4/30 - beacon day 6 for the year - only 2 days at the baconwand this month, but spring seems to be here fo'shiz, even if today it was right blustery and overcast - scrambly, scrambly on the n side for a while, then a satisfying hike to the summit - the 70th anniversary of an intelligence coup - "mincemeat has been swallowed" - peregrines apparent from the uprising exit, swooping and screeching and having a ball it looked - kenny in the lot, horrifyingly still set in his hate-tobacco way, but w/ rainier-beer as always

 

5/2 - day 7 - all my pardners bail - the pearl is in the river - john has a long mustache - freedom is slavery, war is peace!!!

 

5/4 - international star-wars day, may the fourth be with you beatard day 8 for 2013 - stoned stupor w/ bryan n' bob - bryan styles following p1 and leads p2 almost all clean - breezy n' balmy - eyes scuppered w/ dust-scum as i type - stooooked for a fine day in the sun - olde boys climbing below us on the spike route, a fine view from the phone booth - miker stops by for a chat even - summer's upon us!

 

5/6 - day #9 - afternoon sprint up the sun-baked monolith after union meetings and whatnot - pilgrims at dawn - days gone by and dead men ghosts - great gashes in the highway - asphalt scars and concrete wars - the red devil turns over 190k even as the cd player craps in the bed, carrying nico blue into the way blue yonder - the pearl is in the river

 

5/8 - beatard day 10 of the year - jesus christ on a cum-stained cushioned couch, this'er fine weather just won't fucking quit! out to slouch and lounge around the bacon-wand once more, scrambly-scrambly here and there along the north wall - figure its about time to scoot up the spike route sans rope i reckon - on up to the slumit in rude circuitous style, but all the beauty on the scamper back down - a buxom couple encountered cruising on up the packinko-portion of the trail, dressed appropriate for a warm day - i cast down mine eyes, unworthy as i am, only to be brought up sharp by a strange question from the sultry lassie - a great gaping grin, "oh no, heaven's no, how could you think that and who might you be" - claimed to know me and my sorcerous ways, but most surely she must mistake me for some other beatard cunt? "you were that guy guzzling boxed wine and chain-smoking camels last summer!" - goddammit, i must stop meeting ladies of quality in my long aestival blacked-out ambulations, it augers poor for my alternate-reality amors!

 

"AF is having problems w/ its fresh-water condensers"

 

5/10 - day 11 - linked strong arms w/ der phuzzy, all phresh from phucking himself good n' proper last burn'n'man, flensed scars from incisions all about his satellite-parts - to the n side we did fly, me w/ the big wall dumpster full of wine n' hammers n' what have you...beers n' butts at the base - the spike route ensconced in scum n' villainy - we scamper up the right side first, when ole'jim w/ a jingus-voice arrived n' whisper-hollered up at us - to the tree n' the site of new natural destruction wrought all around, stone-fall n' swathes of moss scoured off in flight - we rap back to the big boy for bitter conversation and big Olde Tymes - intolerance for them a week earlier w/ their wire-brushes - gut laughs n' tyranny gestated - adam n' i up genesis to the tree again as the sun glows low - i above that, but bailing on a bolt too steep to suss out in the gloaming - the base again, shade-slumming w/ pall malls n' precious beer w/o end - the stumble-fuck in the dark, the way-back-bent in style - departure n' parting - kevbone no doubt kluster-fucked, i conklude

 

5/11 - a dozen days so far - 5 days this week - junuary kicked square in the nuts, but waiting in the wings it seems - good thing really, i'm on the verge of tweaking out my fingers already - dogs in my dreams, feeding on my feet - terror at daybreak, broken in the bone yard - the ringing of bells at all hours, the horror of home-coming gone wrong - dust, dust, dust - the bloody angle when the walls fell - spotsylvania on a warm spring evening - they sing the body electric, and then they too Pass Beyond

 

5/14 - lucky #13 - gray and gaunt at the dawn, dim-minded and mopey - when the world dies in an orgasm of heavenly-fire, how i fucking hope it's a tuesday, and early in the morning to boot, to spare me the whole gory goddamn details of the day - tuesday, the red-haired stepchild of the torrid week - hitler was conceived on a tuesday - it's true, you can google that shit man

 

sun breaks around noon, life reviving, rock drying, seniors shuffle in and out in a hyperstatic hepped-up euphoric hangover - the red devil galloping east through the gorge, growling at these goddamn men in their machines gouging out the concrete and showering everything in gravel - the tyranny inherent in giving any man a blaze-orange vest and sign, too gross to contemplate in the golden sunshine searing through my senses

 

RIP william fetterman, you awful fucker - "give me 80 men and i can ride through the whole sioux nation" - yeah, how'd that one work for ya, son?

 

5/20 - day 14 - a week of piss wedder, sunday's window spent wrangling kidz and wrestling w/ the garden n' chores n' what-have-you - union bidness at the close of day, my wits as always confounded n' humbled by the human machinery of government made flesh - the ghost of winston smith haunts me, but it's a special merry kind of fool who can't make lemonade out of a luscious afternoon of sun and rushing warm air gusting down the gorge - get on your fucking horse, dr rick marshall!

 

kenny's rig in the lot, him and sneezy-jim already up the spike route i reckon - i settle for a sleazy saunter up the big rock, lost in the gauzy thoughts gamboling through my thick head - the moon waxes great, will the wedder-gods set me up a solid?

 

fosters on the falling back, cops holed up n' counting donut-holes at cape horn - thank christ i don't have a cigarette to shit on this wondrous scene

 

5/31 - day 15, 9 dayz this gentle may - heartbreak for days gone by - memorial day weekend at tieton a near total bust - communiques pist upon for tr's w/o pixels - a week with pouring rain and occasional piercing sun w/o rainbows

 

ain't seen mike since a far long time it seems - set out in the afternoon for a ramble up the spike route, him not having had it he said - the base gross n' baking - thick drip and damp on the rock like it'd been sprayed w/ horse-semen - genesis after nearly shitting a kitten on the klutchy-klutchy start - mike made p2 not so sad, but like me needed to stand on the anchor bolts whilst thrutch-fucking into the danky mcdankerson pod there

 

dug leading the 3rd pitch spike-part proper, but this time w/ a stout old black cock of static death to bat-man on up the slab

 

beerz n' gut-laughing n' music up in the woods - mike does p4 and dislodges a big old panel to come whiffling down my ways - i do the last bit up to the trail wading through thick-glades of oak, oily and fresh and full of fear

 

bongos at the summit, guitars n' young ones yodeling - jesus-harold-christ, children I Know up there doing god know's what - ruins my summit celebration, but what can you do - wizened age equals patience equals wisdom?

 

rolling rock n' reefers on the ramble on down - the new Man meandering around, tending the meters in the lot - don't seem like too fearsome a feller...

 

"something seems wrong w/ our bloody ships today!"

 

6/3 - day 16 - sweet green first peaking from the new berms of the road-cut west of ozone - a throaty breeze when work is spent - the day beams brightly, i jet down the well-worn highway - apples n' ass-ended hits n' horrid cigarettes - jimbo in the house, somewhere high up the hell-side, waging war on moss i'll warrant w/ that nefarious Other Feller - a raucous ramble up the boring old way - teens on the summit w/ their elders, teeming w/ the airs of methadonia unleashed - tails grown tepid, they rocket down the rock to the grinding of gears, knees shivering in the sea-gale

 

"and, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;

The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,

And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;

but there is no joy in Beatardia, the south side is still closed out"

 

d-day - b-day plus 16 for me - machines shitting out soil on the road cut - long lines of traffic - sweating in the sun - a book and a beer for the beacon run - trains rumbling - falcons screeching - shade and wind - the island in the grips of the Drowned God - sweet tension released in seconds, the searing heat of summer upon us, the seniors soon to be flown and my professional sun setting

 

6/17 - #18 - grass bowing gently in the slight gusts of the western gorge - cool and sunny, scraps of clouds here and there - the highway gloriously free of frenetic machines fouling the thoroughfare - hawks and gulls hollering - hordes of dim-wits dashed all over the trail - the Usual Suspects - the Siegfried Oath issued all over again, the same all ways and in every weather - one day of classes left, the solstice hard upon us, sweet Summer is feeling rather tipsy and falling out of her panties in her haste - the Time is Right, my brothers

 

"well, i got in a quibble,

shot a door -

i'm reading the bible

by a 40 watt bulb -

what price freedom?

that is my rub

well i sleep like a baby

with the snakes n' the bugs"

 

7/31 - day 19 - first street legal day on the riverside in a rare ould time - mike's at 7 in the morning mist - bleary eyed, jesus christ, i'll be back at work in 4 weeks - knees too weary to start on cruising, we start up the corner and i somehow pinch a nerve in my back - electric lights dance when i move my head, so i learn to climb w/o looking anywhere

 

8/10 - XX pro anno diem - whiskey-sick at 7 a.m. - rough roll out of bed, down the steps and out the door - pat snoring on the couch - did i really smoke my fist-full of smokes in 30 minutes last night?

 

geoff @ the b.k. - cruis'n n' warriors n' right gull - choppers landing on the wildlife reserve, ferrying in fucking wind-boarders - dick synonym for the day: "snatch-ratchet" - long drives off the land of the little people, thank you mysterious stranger - old larry for fucks sake rapping in for an evening alone - pbr's n' passing showers on the way back

 

8/20 - day 21 - beaconben at the b.k. past dawn - lonely morning at beacon, the rock to ourselves - dodd's jam to big ledge, then ben did a tr-lap on blood, sweat n' jizzum as i wallowed in bird-filth (do them damned peregrines suffer from perrenial bladder infections or do they just binge'n'purge on peptobismal? the pink-hue to their ubiquitous turds is disconcerting)- topped out to trail on dastardly, then a run to the skamania mart for burritos n' beacon-rock brand beer - beerz in the shade by the boat-ramp, then back to the rock for a hybrid corner/warriors lap - international bring-yer-hawt-girlfriend to the crag day, w/ a saucy-shiela the lady in question along w/ her aussie-blokefriend - the boyfriend and our respective wives being but 3 obstacles in our path to awesomeness, that and i suppose also my plug-ugliness and the fact that ole'ben's so gawd-damned raytarded if he get's dropped on his head one more time he'll be eating applesauce from plastic spoons the rest of his life

 

phrase of the day, from the burrito ingredients: "intensified soy oil"

 

first i've seen of the elk today - them high-lonesome fuck-me-now bugles but days away

 

8/21 - #22 - moonlight ascent - tvash n' i rally at mike's in twilight camas after each enduring a hard days labor on our abodes, i sun-stroked n' wobbly from shoveling dirt all day - the moon gloaming through the gauzy sheets of smoke straggling through the gorge - fire-fucked, hazy light, like a septic bandage slapped across the lunar face, leaky and pus-red orange - the corner in t-shirts, hardly a breath of wind - kenny appears out of the heavens for a helluva session of gut-laughing on the ledge - top out on uprising and over the railing at 3 AM for more of the same - the long, illucid orbit back home, i nearly sail off the road at steigerwald - a lascivious plunge under my domestic sheets even at the arrival of the dawn...

 

8/23-25 - days 23-25 - couple nights on the ledge w/ the powderhund n' nocturnal ambulations up the corner by the light of a big moon, whiskey-addled n' howling at the hills - ranger lecture when it was all over on unpaid camping fees n' crushed cans of pbr in the car-trash - young warriors n' jills n' whatnot - hot n' sunny saturday, gloomy n' rainy sunday - dave n' the eternal shit-show of the NoBoTrfecta came rambling down the way in the saturday dark

 

8/27 - #26 - warriors w/ good'ole-kenny - jim n' sal, the stewarts rocking a parents day-out, rick n' his long-haired hippie-son - muggy but pleasingly breezy up high - pbr's n' american spirits along the way - tales of august vernal ventures - plans laid for seasons to come - that rat-bastard 'nastia appears to have beat me to the pirate-booty, but all for a good cause - who wouldn't want an autographed copy of a bikini-clad clamberer from our Proud Cascades?

 

8/28 - day #27 - soggy on the trail w/ the recent rains, fall's come quick - steve-o on ground zero, jim n' sal providing sage advice from below - 2 laps on the corner, my first solo climbing of the season - got a goal of 30 such laps before the season ends, so 1/15th of the way now

 

8/30 - #28 - 2 more corner laps for 4/30 total for the season - solo-aided wild turkey, p1 - left it fixed for tomorrow w/ geoff - what's up w/ these hard men stealing our aid lines, we gotta go take'em back, i say! christ, that second pitch of wild turkeys looks like sparse gear, at least grunge book has them nice shiny new bolts and helpful chalk hints

 

found a #7 bd nut, should its owner's wish for its speedy return - too many lying around my garage already, plus i have sympathy - got a tcu so stuck on wild turkey i had to bring out the hammer to reason it out

 

old larry lounging solo-style out there tonight w/ not a beer nor a bottle on him

 

8/31 - #29 - 10 days dry-humping the bacon-wand this aestival august - the last one to be spent w/ geoff - we split the grunge book in half, resplendent in the scorching sun its 4 shiny new bolts - geoff had the first bit, the 4 bolts, most interspersed w/ some thin nailing and fine brassies - i did the bunch above the last bolt, pumping in pins like a pre-teen caffeine-free baboon, all bitch-scared n' whatnot - amazing that matt feller freed it all

 

beers n' bottles n' bull-shitting down at the boat ramp afterwards - crusty beacon politics n' gut-busting nautical ventures comprehended - cop talk - a big old wind-born craft cast upon the piers, moribund n' motor-fucked, pleasing to see the pigs w/ someone else to fuck with

 

left the fixed line up to the beacon-towers should anyone care to make use of it in the next week - figuring on the full wild turkeys next weekend - beacon's 2 most recently freed aid-lines returned to the fold!

 

dod's n' grudge-book (adam's pic)

 

9/2/13 - day #30 - labor day, day before the bidness begins - up at 730 to practice awaking for honest employment - out to beacon by the time it was already hot - 2 laps on the corner, now 6/30 for the season - wasps still untouched on the 2nd pitch - plaid laying photo-siege to the crux 2 on p2 - met up w/ teacher-matt afterwards w/ enough time for him to rope-gun me up wind-surfer (muchas gracias!) - dumped larry off at the no-bo-trifecta for some beerz n' laffs w/ dave, then followed ranger karl back to beacon only to encounter the kewlest car-wreck i've ever seen there - a big-ass bus-sized rv, complete w/ towed-jeep, totally in the ditch across from the b-room in the main-lot, rangers n' cops everywhere w/ 10-foot hard-ons for their sudden importantness of purpose

 

9/3 - #31 - back 2 skewl - strange days and tales of human transformers - dashed out for a lap afterwards - kenny n' tim n' hijinx up on grassy - 7/30 corner laps for the season

 

9/4 - #32 - 2 more corner laps, 9/30 so far - elks bugling from the big beyond - grey and gloomy, wind off n' on - cluster-fuck kenny, a goddamn pater-familias now we find, n' denali-dave on round 2 - tiger woods by the banks of the mighty columbia - beers n' butts n' bullshitting as the day waned

 

9/7 - #33 - trail dayz - a herd assembled after 9 - ranger lecturz - why shouldn't i lick the saw-blade again? buncha beatards in attendance - adam n' kenny, the silvermanz, lucky larry, matt the hulk, crackman, nastia n' oleg n' some other slavic folk, plus no small number of imps n' goons of all sorts n' stripes - built a right nifty set of belay platforms for the se corner, finally a comfy place to put your shoes on and rope-wrangle, should you be into that sorta thing - jim'll hate it of course, but i notice all his routes have sweet set-ups at the base

 

solo lap off at the end of hte work day, 10/30 now for the season, then beerz n' bullshitting w/ many folks back up in the lot - geoff n' i had a breezy cruise up cruis'n'jillz afterward, bumping up against oleg n' nastia along the way - krazy foolz bathign in the columbia over the fence - motorboats bottoming out in the low, low river - a cool kid named dasan the third soloist on the corner today, him fresh from alaska and the wild, high life of youth....

 

9/11 - day #34 - somber day as always this time of year, though interesting - the first crop of seniors i've had none of whom could remember the happenings of but 12 years ago - mismangled comms w/ the powderhound, him sitting out at the parking lot, soaking up the intense sols, me hanging round camas waiting for the call

 

meet old boy at the base and a solo lap we had, 11/31 so far with summer surging and a successful completion all but assured

 

roped round on free4all soon thereafter - the biggest surprise on the rap - goddamn 8.9 mm rope, w/ 260 lbs of bubble-gum attached to it on an overhanging rappel, results in massive laser-burns through the palm unless you add some biners or wear gloves woven w/ space-shuttle-tile style wonder-fabric

 

9/12 - #35 - a jibber-jabber up cruis'n/middle-aged warriors w/ miker in the wind and dying desert heat - prizes in the fenceposts - what a wonderful world?

 

9/14 - day 36 - awoke hungover n' horrid 'round 6 on the couch - straggled upstairs for a sad attempt at a few extra hours of snoozing - appropriate to be horror-struck n' hairy-tongued for climbing a route called wild turkeys, wutcha say?

 

wild-turkeys w/ geoff - wondrous times, woe-struck by heat, tongue thick w/ wine-slick - hairy recollections of halcyon dayz - me the first, him the last - small cams, tiny nutz, off-sets n' hammering aplenty on kniveblades n' soft euro-trash - the smiths n' tom waits wailing in endless loops on the what-have-you - jim at the base - philosophies n' philanderous frippery -burgundy n' beer n' bullshit'n - lounging along the new-laid sou'east co'ner - the way bent back to the beginning n' pat all pulled up n' waiting - booze n' bereavement n' bitzes soon returning

 

"The world don't care what a sailor does in town

It's all hanging in the windows by the pound"

 

9/17 - day 37 - 151st anniversary of the worst day in american history, why not court my own bold disaster? work done at 3, i walked to the parking lot, licked my fore-finger n' thrust it up into the air to measure the mendacious breeze - the augors were awe-fucked - purple piss in every direction, but maybe, just maybe, i could squeeze in a lap? wife n' kids not home until 6 at any rate, i had no reason not too, and figured a hike up the trail or even just a book-worm sesh in the red-devil would suffice to chase away the inevitable tuesday-blues, should i arrive to find it all a'cock-billed

 

i've long held you can climb a hundred days at beacon and each day have a new distraction - this day it was a curious chem-trail on the 1st pitch - like the shimmery trail of a slug in morning, but strait up and down the full height to snag-ledge, and harder and cruncher than any slug-juice i've seen before - that and the merry martial site of what certainly appeared to be two apache attack helicopters making the dance of death up and down the gorge

 

surprised to find the first lap of the day so dry after all this grim grayness of late, i figured on a second when i reached the trail only for the heavens to open and the rain to fall eagerly on this fell-earth - back at the car i had a leisurely 40 minutes fumbling through rick atkinson's robust apogee of awesomeness, the guns at last light - the rain raged on the rooftop as i made my own private anabasis, ambling through the penultimate tale of a near-dead generation - then it cleared and the mist moved off - a second lap then and all for the better - the lead out the pencil, i pushed off for home and hearth and the Promise of a Better Tomorrow

 

13/30 laps for the year now

 

9/18 -#38 - full-moonlight ascent of the corner w/ geoff - the weather god's relented after gray and damp all week - a full cast of clowns in addition to ourselves, their leader did a helen-keller style ascent of cruising to start

 

lovely night - calm - the high moon on the river, the ripples hypnotic

 

9/20 - deo XXXIX - II laps for XIV towards XXX for the season, half-way bitzes, even as september sags sadly towards fall - the leaves on the wing, the thick lead sky-cloud ever lower towards dusk - fat gray raindrops on the windshield on the way-back - bunches of them bastard elk down the crick, bugling all the damn evening - jim n'an old-time vantucky friend round the base - kenny and a right curious feller from way-back east on the corner - a quick blow-by for the first lap, then a pause and some great goddamn gut laughs w/ them on the ledge - tales from the land of way-ago - pickens n' roanaoke n' hickory n' fucking appalachia 'n general discussed upon

 

winter is coming

 

9/26 - day 40 - almost a week of solid rain and fucking work, no adventure at all - nastia's all stoked after a spell in the valley and wants to be a big waller, not that i know a damn bit of useful beta 'bout that - figured she oughta learn to solo-aid and gain some experience that way w/o making demands on dim-witted belayers (though, in truth, it ought not be that hard to round up some young'uns willing to hold the other end and stare up at here bouncing nether-bits) - she did well on the first third of free for all, and as evening grew to dusk, she lowered off her funky gri-gri setup and i had a bit of fun down-aiding and cleaning

 

fucking torrential rain coming in a day - seems unlikely there'll be much more post-work beatarding this season

 

10/4 - day 41 - keeeerist, the fall fell down like a fucking bear trap on the balls some time ago it seems, and awful early too - nastia a bit waylaid by portland traffic - beacon's base looking a good bit like the argonne after old alvin york's big day - blasted tree debris all about the forest floor, the remnants of last weekend's big windstorm and great goddamn deluge - fresh broken blocks - oozing gashes on the upper edges of trees on grassy ledges - still a bit damp but it'll be a good weekend for clambering - we did the bastard warrior, finishing up just as dusk descended

 

10/5 - douglas adams day! - winter's upon the wall, albeit its adolescent, easy face - pure sunlight streaming through but somewhat weak - strong winds - battle debris from the week gone by all astrew - 3 laps on the corner then home for an afternoon w/ the kids n' wife n' parents

 

10/8 - 43rd beacon-wrangling day for the year - big fall in the gorge, the trees grown gaunt and dead-orange - damp, dull air on the evening orbit out, my head ringing w/ union-noise, deep wondrous woe - krazy late to met long-suffering kenny - up the corner in a damp, damp tizzy - S1+/2 conditions on the corner - a nut rescue - booty cordellete, cha-ching! babylyon fading, i fumble back in darkness gut-hungry to sad tales - dogs run demented, poor pat sure needs hisself a holy synod sometime soon

 

10/11 - #44 - epic fall beacon day - WRONG GULL IS GONE - the pillar damn near the size of a trailer that you used to jam to get up to the anchors below the off-width came out yesterday sometime, knocking down the massive old-growth tree below it and forever altering the trail - a fine little boulder for the kids to clamber on

 

lots of rockfall throughout the morning - nastia thrown at wind surfer for aid-testing - many beers - dogs and kids and hard-core grown ups - jim and kenny - chemtrails, johnson, shakespeare, fucking kennedy - good times on the tumble back - now off for a birthday feast, and a monkey face party on the 'morrow

 

10/15 - day 45 - 2 solo laps, one w/ the irascible denaliduckdave - 19 for the year now - jim n' steve n' tim n' kenny n' Various Others - breezy n' fall-balmy - jeff thomas' big black cock cable all athwart the corner - gut laughs n' the grand history of the bacon-wand considered - home at dusk to take out the trash and taste a most excellent gumbo whipped up by the little woman

 

10/17 - #46 - BLACK-JACK! kenny is formally awarded the Order of Beacon, 3rd Class for today bringing two pair of boobies to our sacred stone

 

10/19 - #47 - oregon forum blowing up w/ cruel threats to your friend n' humble narrator as the dawn broke, whiskey-drunk hungover - a gut full of greasy egg n' iced coffee - geoff at the b.k. via mike's - jensen's w/ kyle n' steve too for a tr on the arena of terror - i really need to remember to bring a #5 next time - topped out in the golden glow of the late-day sun - beers n' bullshitting w/ steve in the frosty parking lot after, eventually a run down to the skamania mart for a resupply - another beer later we rambled down for a full moon frolic on the corner, more good beers in tow - belting out big tunes in the darkness, nary a headlamp in sight

 

Trafalgar this day but a bit more than 2 centuries ago! lord nelson dead on the deck of his flagship, who among us could fear such a demise or wish one more wondrous? - "kizmet" he clamored as death clamped its chokehold along his wind-hole, or was "kiss me hardy" more the thing? my 48th beacon-ramble for the fast-rotting year - the Breath of God on the wall, fall colors and fecund smells - the south side to meself - 2 laps, 23/30 for the year and me feeling suddenly like the weather-lords will allow the whole solo set

 

10/22 - day 49 - 24/30 laps this season - the Indian Summer Endures - breezy n' balmy - the base empty, save for the echoes of jim's recent remodel of the rock-blasted bits - mixes right well w/ the corner's new platform - just need to drop 2 more trees n' it'll be purrfect

 

dave cat-calling from the ground as i began the 2nd pitch - lingered at tree ledge till he reached me, than had a ramble on up the rest of the corner together, bullshiting about the Life Beatardia

 

10/23 - A Hat Trick of Days at beacon this week so far, my 50th of the year - 26/30 laps now - jim's ride in the lot but lost he was somewhere in the immensity of the park - the Banal Ballad of the Big Breeze blowing down the Columbia - sport climbers wide-eyed on the way down

 

st crispin's eve LI de die ascensus editi! 7 corner clambers in 4 dayz, hang in indian what have you - 28/30 laps now as the autumn augurs roar on just rightly - busy day at bacon - jim n' steve n' the horror of a kamikaze kamera - a crew of girlz on uprising and a nice right sight to follow behind for a few minutes, untethered from terrestrial concerns

 

calamitous tragedy on st crispins - beacon bound, all hepped up n' frantic on a friday in the fall - the red devil, dead - i ain't quite laid 'er in her grave yet, but i'm assembling the titanic quantity of liquor likely to be needed to make it through the wake even as we speak - calling all nations - the universe conspires to deny me the finish to my heroic warrior-poet-god-king quest - i coast into a pro-christian octogenarian-infested polystyrene paneled diner as her soul ascends to heaven - later i work the diner's phone, star-dazzled on a true and wondrous high, hanging out on hold while reading photocopies of old billy graham prayers, trying not to sweat diamonds - the cavalry comes in at the cusp of evening, and i begin my sulk towards bethlehem to be reborn

 

sweet, sweet devil, don't be dead!

 

10/29 - day 52 of the year - redemption on what seems certain to be the dead last of the dancing days about the bacon-wand as fall upends and bumbles ever faster towards blasted winter - cold and crisp, dead air - i arrive w/o the red devil, desolate and gripped by autumnal angst - not a climber in sight and the sun rapidly setting on the south face - i scramble up to the last licks of light upon the first pitch, and pause, frog-like, in the frenzy of the fading furnace and Gather Strength - 2 laps on the corner, making me 30/30 for the year - from now on, like bj's after 7, every lap from here to the hereafter Pure Gravy

 

Dia de Los Muertos putas! #53, a fine prime figure - my first head cold of fall bubbling up through my snot-ports, a weekend on the couch portending - Gravy Lap 1, snuck in on the dead-last work-day of the pre-daylight savings body-blow upcoming this sabbath - kenny n' adam n' jim n' steve n' scads of Portlanderz all about the damp n' doomy sunset slabs - a beer n' some butts, then a squinty-eyed slither back down the gorge to gullet-fulls of italian food n' a friday-night nap

11/10 - day 54 - a weekend of cavorting like a cave-contained wildman - rick's big five-o - the dynamite cave - party of 11, including da phuzzy - beer guzzling in the gut of the earth - howling music in the halls of the drowned god - all hepped up n' Heavy Crazy - bonfires n' bluegrass bands - chain smoking n' chili n' chilled coffee-touched stout - pissed n' damn near passed out in jim's ride after the party went down by the head - sunday morning whiskey-sick n' weak-souled - bacon n' greasy eggs n' beacon-rock brand beer - a wobbly orbit beacon-ways - blustery, strangely so - the wind in fits n' bursts - buxom girls all garbed in their autumnal get-up - cruising, panic-striken n' panting - up n' over n' back to the humble homestead for spring-rolls, sunday-night tv, n' getting soused

[ivan]

new year, new beatard count

 

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

 

 

1/12 - day#2 - strange day - freezing fog on the wakeup, car shackled in ice at the dawn - geoff at the burger king - high-speed jet through the quiet lull of the gorge, the road dry n' gentle - beacon becalmed, all door discipline disregarded - a great gut-laugh at the peach allah had gracefully cast into our laps - i get all the leads down low - consensus conditions S5 (our ascent of 12/21/12 in recent memory a retard S9, damn near pegging the limit of the possible) - challenging lead conditions for sure still, with sheet-freeze all over, slowly peeling off in the relatively tropical conditions - runnels of run-off bubbling underneath the ice - the sun bursting through the clear air - rumbles of gunfire, pap-pap-pap-pap, a militia-action for certain on the oregon shores - slip-sliding away all over from grassy ledges up - glimpse of the bonneville crick draining into the river, all jizzum-milky, the vas defernes of the columbian cock- exited the long way, the Great Coward wending all to Starboard where he could - a walk down all bathed in rays of a riotous golden orb - jim at the base w/ an old boy - oaths and auguries, threats and Aggravated Assaults considered - an easy orbit back through the steaming warmth of the gorge-winter disbanded, if only for a bit

 

1/22 - #3 - annealed by two recent days at smith in the Big Fridge of the bivy site, mornings traversing the phantasmagorical formations of frozen sludge, mike and i had an evening run up the bacon-wand in a big olde freshet of gaudy coldness

 

a big dry had beaten off the vast damp of days gone by - barely any ice on route - half the digits of my right foot right numb by grassy ledges, i unshod and rubbed hardly any life back into them - toes throb as i type

 

booty nut on p2, should the original owner wish to claim it from a massive pile of such things i have growing in my garage

 

not even a fort-night of fucknoodling about the sunny-side left - full moon fever this weekend for any half-wit warriors who might feel the urge to come w/...

 

 

 

2/2 - day #4 - ground hogz day, a swift demise to deadly winter predicted - 'twas the day after a wander up the hood-wand w/ an interesting feller to dispatch the doldrum of the beacon s side closure - ya never stop learning in the mountains, this time 2 Ore-e-gone Snowboard'nBoyz taught me how to inhale green weeds through green apples using nothing more than a glorious bright winter sun and a magnifying glass - a good invention for the stiff breezes off an open glacier - much thanks for them that rock the Van Damme

 

stone soup w/ geoff today - despite the distinct sense of early spring setting in as the Great Hamster foresaw, it was a mort cold and savage breezy - geoff did p1, and i managed to mangle meself on p2 - found a fixed nut at the start of the eyebrow traverse and was hanging out on it for awhile, had just plugged the next cam in when suddenly i was falling - fell/slid into a slab, instinctively grabbing an edge to stop the fall, sheared off the flesh of my pinky-tip and sprung the sprockets in the other fingers' knuckles, then went heads'o'er'tits and continued on down, getting entangled in the rope running up through the gear and ultimately arresting hanging upside down looking straight at the olde boye, who looked frankly startled

 

blood pouring from the flensed n' flapping finger, i wrapped my balaclava about it n' took stock - had a good gut laugh upon recalling that last time i climbed on this side, last spring, i'd ended up in the e.r. too - maybe i'm just not getting the message?

 

geoff was my hero - not only did he finish the pitch, he also figured out how, after 10 minutes, to get my damn knot untied by pounding on it w/ a jug - the big breeze blew itself out as dejected would-be hiking trail ascenders milled about the parking lot and i howled at the sky in mock musical appreciation - the climb done, we went off, each to his saturday night debaucheries and me to keen my wound w/ wanton drunkenness

 

4/25 - day 5 - holy shee-it muslims, it's been 2 months - lovely spring day - many olde boyes humping the o-zone on the way out - on the north side, the sun peaking over, one hand washes the other, i fear nothing - 3 peregrines screeching n' flopping about - green grass - crisp n' crunchy moss - had time to stop by and yack-yack w/ jim n' sal n' steve n' wes n' a whole motley crew of misfits n' misogynistic fucks on the way back - did a couple solo laps on the jacobs ladder and drank some beers, then boogied on back home for "house of cards" w/ the wifey

 

jesus-h-christ, why are they doing more construction on the 14?!?

 

4/30 - beacon day 6 for the year - only 2 days at the baconwand this month, but spring seems to be here fo'shiz, even if today it was right blustery and overcast - scrambly, scrambly on the n side for a while, then a satisfying hike to the summit - the 70th anniversary of an intelligence coup - "mincemeat has been swallowed" - peregrines apparent from the uprising exit, swooping and screeching and having a ball it looked - kenny in the lot, horrifyingly still set in his hate-tobacco way, but w/ rainier-beer as always

 

5/2 - day 7 - all my pardners bail - the pearl is in the river - john has a long mustache - freedom is slavery, war is peace!!!

 

5/4 - international star-wars day, may the fourth be with you beatard day 8 for 2013 - stoned stupor w/ bryan n' bob - bryan styles following p1 and leads p2 almost all clean - breezy n' balmy - eyes scuppered w/ dust-scum as i type - stooooked for a fine day in the sun - olde boys climbing below us on the spike route, a fine view from the phone booth - miker stops by for a chat even - summer's upon us!

 

5/6 - day #9 - afternoon sprint up the sun-baked monolith after union meetings and whatnot - pilgrims at dawn - days gone by and dead men ghosts - great gashes in the highway - asphalt scars and concrete wars - the red devil turns over 190k even as the cd player craps in the bed, carrying nico blue into the way blue yonder - the pearl is in the river

 

5/8 - beatard day 10 of the year - jesus christ on a cum-stained cushioned couch, this'er fine weather just won't fucking quit! out to slouch and lounge around the bacon-wand once more, scrambly-scrambly here and there along the north wall - figure its about time to scoot up the spike route sans rope i reckon - on up to the slumit in rude circuitous style, but all the beauty on the scamper back down - a buxom couple encountered cruising on up the packinko-portion of the trail, dressed appropriate for a warm day - i cast down mine eyes, unworthy as i am, only to be brought up sharp by a strange question from the sultry lassie - a great gaping grin, "oh no, heaven's no, how could you think that and who might you be" - claimed to know me and my sorcerous ways, but most surely she must mistake me for some other beatard cunt? "you were that guy guzzling boxed wine and chain-smoking camels last summer!" - goddammit, i must stop meeting ladies of quality in my long aestival blacked-out ambulations, it augers poor for my alternate-reality amors!

 

"AF is having problems w/ its fresh-water condensers"

 

5/10 - day 11 - linked strong arms w/ der phuzzy, all phresh from phucking himself good n' proper last burn'n'man, flensed scars from incisions all about his satellite-parts - to the n side we did fly, me w/ the big wall dumpster full of wine n' hammers n' what have you...beers n' butts at the base - the spike route ensconced in scum n' villainy - we scamper up the right side first, when ole'jim w/ a jingus-voice arrived n' whisper-hollered up at us - to the tree n' the site of new natural destruction wrought all around, stone-fall n' swathes of moss scoured off in flight - we rap back to the big boy for bitter conversation and big Olde Tymes - intolerance for them a week earlier w/ their wire-brushes - gut laughs n' tyranny gestated - adam n' i up genesis to the tree again as the sun glows low - i above that, but bailing on a bolt too steep to suss out in the gloaming - the base again, shade-slumming w/ pall malls n' precious beer w/o end - the stumble-fuck in the dark, the way-back-bent in style - departure n' parting - kevbone no doubt kluster-fucked, i conklude

 

5/11 - a dozen days so far - 5 days this week - junuary kicked square in the nuts, but waiting in the wings it seems - good thing really, i'm on the verge of tweaking out my fingers already - dogs in my dreams, feeding on my feet - terror at daybreak, broken in the bone yard - the ringing of bells at all hours, the horror of home-coming gone wrong - dust, dust, dust - the bloody angle when the walls fell - spotsylvania on a warm spring evening - they sing the body electric, and then they too Pass Beyond

 

5/14 - lucky #13 - gray and gaunt at the dawn, dim-minded and mopey - when the world dies in an orgasm of heavenly-fire, how i fucking hope it's a tuesday, and early in the morning to boot, to spare me the whole gory goddamn details of the day - tuesday, the red-haired stepchild of the torrid week - hitler was conceived on a tuesday - it's true, you can google that shit man

 

sun breaks around noon, life reviving, rock drying, seniors shuffle in and out in a hyperstatic hepped-up euphoric hangover - the red devil galloping east through the gorge, growling at these goddamn men in their machines gouging out the concrete and showering everything in gravel - the tyranny inherent in giving any man a blaze-orange vest and sign, too gross to contemplate in the golden sunshine searing through my senses

 

RIP william fetterman, you awful fucker - "give me 80 men and i can ride through the whole sioux nation" - yeah, how'd that one work for ya, son?

 

5/20 - day 14 - a week of piss wedder, sunday's window spent wrangling kidz and wrestling w/ the garden n' chores n' what-have-you - union bidness at the close of day, my wits as always confounded n' humbled by the human machinery of government made flesh - the ghost of winston smith haunts me, but it's a special merry kind of fool who can't make lemonade out of a luscious afternoon of sun and rushing warm air gusting down the gorge - get on your fucking horse, dr rick marshall!

 

kenny's rig in the lot, him and sneezy-jim already up the spike route i reckon - i settle for a sleazy saunter up the big rock, lost in the gauzy thoughts gamboling through my thick head - the moon waxes great, will the wedder-gods set me up a solid?

 

fosters on the falling back, cops holed up n' counting donut-holes at cape horn - thank christ i don't have a cigarette to shit on this wondrous scene

 

5/31 - day 15, 9 dayz this gentle may - heartbreak for days gone by - memorial day weekend at tieton a near total bust - communiques pist upon for tr's w/o pixels - a week with pouring rain and occasional piercing sun w/o rainbows

 

ain't seen mike since a far long time it seems - set out in the afternoon for a ramble up the spike route, him not having had it he said - the base gross n' baking - thick drip and damp on the rock like it'd been sprayed w/ horse-semen - genesis after nearly shitting a kitten on the klutchy-klutchy start - mike made p2 not so sad, but like me needed to stand on the anchor bolts whilst thrutch-fucking into the danky mcdankerson pod there

 

dug leading the 3rd pitch spike-part proper, but this time w/ a stout old black cock of static death to bat-man on up the slab

 

beerz n' gut-laughing n' music up in the woods - mike does p4 and dislodges a big old panel to come whiffling down my ways - i do the last bit up to the trail wading through thick-glades of oak, oily and fresh and full of fear

 

bongos at the summit, guitars n' young ones yodeling - jesus-harold-christ, children I Know up there doing god know's what - ruins my summit celebration, but what can you do - wizened age equals patience equals wisdom?

 

rolling rock n' reefers on the ramble on down - the new Man meandering around, tending the meters in the lot - don't seem like too fearsome a feller...

 

"something seems wrong w/ our bloody ships today!"

 

6/3 - day 16 - sweet green first peaking from the new berms of the road-cut west of ozone - a throaty breeze when work is spent - the day beams brightly, i jet down the well-worn highway - apples n' ass-ended hits n' horrid cigarettes - jimbo in the house, somewhere high up the hell-side, waging war on moss i'll warrant w/ that nefarious Other Feller - a raucous ramble up the boring old way - teens on the summit w/ their elders, teeming w/ the airs of methadonia unleashed - tails grown tepid, they rocket down the rock to the grinding of gears, knees shivering in the sea-gale

 

"and, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;

The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,

And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;

but there is no joy in Beatardia, the south side is still closed out"

 

d-day - b-day plus 16 for me - machines shitting out soil on the road cut - long lines of traffic - sweating in the sun - a book and a beer for the beacon run - trains rumbling - falcons screeching - shade and wind - the island in the grips of the Drowned God - sweet tension released in seconds, the searing heat of summer upon us, the seniors soon to be flown and my professional sun setting

 

6/17 - #18 - grass bowing gently in the slight gusts of the western gorge - cool and sunny, scraps of clouds here and there - the highway gloriously free of frenetic machines fouling the thoroughfare - hawks and gulls hollering - hordes of dim-wits dashed all over the trail - the Usual Suspects - the Siegfried Oath issued all over again, the same all ways and in every weather - one day of classes left, the solstice hard upon us, sweet Summer is feeling rather tipsy and falling out of her panties in her haste - the Time is Right, my brothers

 

"well, i got in a quibble,

shot a door -

i'm reading the bible

by a 40 watt bulb -

what price freedom?

that is my rub

well i sleep like a baby

with the snakes n' the bugs"

 

7/31 - day 19 - first street legal day on the riverside in a rare ould time - mike's at 7 in the morning mist - bleary eyed, jesus christ, i'll be back at work in 4 weeks - knees too weary to start on cruising, we start up the corner and i somehow pinch a nerve in my back - electric lights dance when i move my head, so i learn to climb w/o looking anywhere

 

8/10 - XX pro anno diem - whiskey-sick at 7 a.m. - rough roll out of bed, down the steps and out the door - pat snoring on the couch - did i really smoke my fist-full of smokes in 30 minutes last night?

 

geoff @ the b.k. - cruis'n n' warriors n' right gull - choppers landing on the wildlife reserve, ferrying in fucking wind-boarders - dick synonym for the day: "snatch-ratchet" - long drives off the land of the little people, thank you mysterious stranger - old larry for fucks sake rapping in for an evening alone - pbr's n' passing showers on the way back

 

8/20 - day 21 - beaconben at the b.k. past dawn - lonely morning at beacon, the rock to ourselves - dodd's jam to big ledge, then ben did a tr-lap on blood, sweat n' jizzum as i wallowed in bird-filth (do them damned peregrines suffer from perrenial bladder infections or do they just binge'n'purge on peptobismal? the pink-hue to their ubiquitous turds is disconcerting)- topped out to trail on dastardly, then a run to the skamania mart for burritos n' beacon-rock brand beer - beerz in the shade by the boat-ramp, then back to the rock for a hybrid corner/warriors lap - international bring-yer-hawt-girlfriend to the crag day, w/ a saucy-shiela the lady in question along w/ her aussie-blokefriend - the boyfriend and our respective wives being but 3 obstacles in our path to awesomeness, that and i suppose also my plug-ugliness and the fact that ole'ben's so gawd-damned raytarded if he get's dropped on his head one more time he'll be eating applesauce from plastic spoons the rest of his life

 

phrase of the day, from the burrito ingredients: "intensified soy oil"

 

first i've seen of the elk today - them high-lonesome fuck-me-now bugles but days away

 

8/21 - #22 - moonlight ascent - tvash n' i rally at mike's in twilight camas after each enduring a hard days labor on our abodes, i sun-stroked n' wobbly from shoveling dirt all day - the moon gloaming through the gauzy sheets of smoke straggling through the gorge - fire-fucked, hazy light, like a septic bandage slapped across the lunar face, leaky and pus-red orange - the corner in t-shirts, hardly a breath of wind - kenny appears out of the heavens for a helluva session of gut-laughing on the ledge - top out on uprising and over the railing at 3 AM for more of the same - the long, illucid orbit back home, i nearly sail off the road at steigerwald - a lascivious plunge under my domestic sheets even at the arrival of the dawn...

 

8/23-25 - days 23-25 - couple nights on the ledge w/ the powderhund n' nocturnal ambulations up the corner by the light of a big moon, whiskey-addled n' howling at the hills - ranger lecture when it was all over on unpaid camping fees n' crushed cans of pbr in the car-trash - young warriors n' jills n' whatnot - hot n' sunny saturday, gloomy n' rainy sunday - dave n' the eternal shit-show of the NoBoTrfecta came rambling down the way in the saturday dark

 

8/27 - #26 - warriors w/ good'ole-kenny - jim n' sal, the stewarts rocking a parents day-out, rick n' his long-haired hippie-son - muggy but pleasingly breezy up high - pbr's n' american spirits along the way - tales of august vernal ventures - plans laid for seasons to come - that rat-bastard 'nastia appears to have beat me to the pirate-booty, but all for a good cause - who wouldn't want an autographed copy of a bikini-clad clamberer from our Proud Cascades?

 

8/28 - day #27 - soggy on the trail w/ the recent rains, fall's come quick - steve-o on ground zero, jim n' sal providing sage advice from below - 2 laps on the corner, my first solo climbing of the season - got a goal of 30 such laps before the season ends, so 1/15th of the way now

 

8/30 - #28 - 2 more corner laps for 4/30 total for the season - solo-aided wild turkey, p1 - left it fixed for tomorrow w/ geoff - what's up w/ these hard men stealing our aid lines, we gotta go take'em back, i say! christ, that second pitch of wild turkeys looks like sparse gear, at least grunge book has them nice shiny new bolts and helpful chalk hints

 

found a #7 bd nut, should its owner's wish for its speedy return - too many lying around my garage already, plus i have sympathy - got a tcu so stuck on wild turkey i had to bring out the hammer to reason it out

 

old larry lounging solo-style out there tonight w/ not a beer nor a bottle on him

 

8/31 - #29 - 10 days dry-humping the bacon-wand this aestival august - the last one to be spent w/ geoff - we split the grunge book in half, resplendent in the scorching sun its 4 shiny new bolts - geoff had the first bit, the 4 bolts, most interspersed w/ some thin nailing and fine brassies - i did the bunch above the last bolt, pumping in pins like a pre-teen caffeine-free baboon, all bitch-scared n' whatnot - amazing that matt feller freed it all

 

beers n' bottles n' bull-shitting down at the boat ramp afterwards - crusty beacon politics n' gut-busting nautical ventures comprehended - cop talk - a big old wind-born craft cast upon the piers, moribund n' motor-fucked, pleasing to see the pigs w/ someone else to fuck with

 

left the fixed line up to the beacon-towers should anyone care to make use of it in the next week - figuring on the full wild turkeys next weekend - beacon's 2 most recently freed aid-lines returned to the fold!

 

dod's n' grudge-book (adam's pic)

 

9/2/13 - day #30 - labor day, day before the bidness begins - up at 730 to practice awaking for honest employment - out to beacon by the time it was already hot - 2 laps on the corner, now 6/30 for the season - wasps still untouched on the 2nd pitch - plaid laying photo-siege to the crux 2 on p2 - met up w/ teacher-matt afterwards w/ enough time for him to rope-gun me up wind-surfer (muchas gracias!) - dumped larry off at the no-bo-trifecta for some beerz n' laffs w/ dave, then followed ranger karl back to beacon only to encounter the kewlest car-wreck i've ever seen there - a big-ass bus-sized rv, complete w/ towed-jeep, totally in the ditch across from the b-room in the main-lot, rangers n' cops everywhere w/ 10-foot hard-ons for their sudden importantness of purpose

 

9/3 - #31 - back 2 skewl - strange days and tales of human transformers - dashed out for a lap afterwards - kenny n' tim n' hijinx up on grassy - 7/30 corner laps for the season

 

9/4 - #32 - 2 more corner laps, 9/30 so far - elks bugling from the big beyond - grey and gloomy, wind off n' on - cluster-fuck kenny, a goddamn pater-familias now we find, n' denali-dave on round 2 - tiger woods by the banks of the mighty columbia - beers n' butts n' bullshitting as the day waned

 

9/7 - #33 - trail dayz - a herd assembled after 9 - ranger lecturz - why shouldn't i lick the saw-blade again? buncha beatards in attendance - adam n' kenny, the silvermanz, lucky larry, matt the hulk, crackman, nastia n' oleg n' some other slavic folk, plus no small number of imps n' goons of all sorts n' stripes - built a right nifty set of belay platforms for the se corner, finally a comfy place to put your shoes on and rope-wrangle, should you be into that sorta thing - jim'll hate it of course, but i notice all his routes have sweet set-ups at the base

 

solo lap off at the end of hte work day, 10/30 now for the season, then beerz n' bullshitting w/ many folks back up in the lot - geoff n' i had a breezy cruise up cruis'n'jillz afterward, bumping up against oleg n' nastia along the way - krazy foolz bathign in the columbia over the fence - motorboats bottoming out in the low, low river - a cool kid named dasan the third soloist on the corner today, him fresh from alaska and the wild, high life of youth....

 

9/11 - day #34 - somber day as always this time of year, though interesting - the first crop of seniors i've had none of whom could remember the happenings of but 12 years ago - mismangled comms w/ the powderhound, him sitting out at the parking lot, soaking up the intense sols, me hanging round camas waiting for the call

 

meet old boy at the base and a solo lap we had, 11/31 so far with summer surging and a successful completion all but assured

 

roped round on free4all soon thereafter - the biggest surprise on the rap - goddamn 8.9 mm rope, w/ 260 lbs of bubble-gum attached to it on an overhanging rappel, results in massive laser-burns through the palm unless you add some biners or wear gloves woven w/ space-shuttle-tile style wonder-fabric

 

9/12 - #35 - a jibber-jabber up cruis'n/middle-aged warriors w/ miker in the wind and dying desert heat - prizes in the fenceposts - what a wonderful world?

 

9/14 - day 36 - awoke hungover n' horrid 'round 6 on the couch - straggled upstairs for a sad attempt at a few extra hours of snoozing - appropriate to be horror-struck n' hairy-tongued for climbing a route called wild turkeys, wutcha say?

 

wild-turkeys w/ geoff - wondrous times, woe-struck by heat, tongue thick w/ wine-slick - hairy recollections of halcyon dayz - me the first, him the last - small cams, tiny nutz, off-sets n' hammering aplenty on kniveblades n' soft euro-trash - the smiths n' tom waits wailing in endless loops on the what-have-you - jim at the base - philosophies n' philanderous frippery -burgundy n' beer n' bullshit'n - lounging along the new-laid sou'east co'ner - the way bent back to the beginning n' pat all pulled up n' waiting - booze n' bereavement n' bitzes soon returning

 

"The world don't care what a sailor does in town

It's all hanging in the windows by the pound"

 

9/17 - day 37 - 151st anniversary of the worst day in american history, why not court my own bold disaster? work done at 3, i walked to the parking lot, licked my fore-finger n' thrust it up into the air to measure the mendacious breeze - the augors were awe-fucked - purple piss in every direction, but maybe, just maybe, i could squeeze in a lap? wife n' kids not home until 6 at any rate, i had no reason not too, and figured a hike up the trail or even just a book-worm sesh in the red-devil would suffice to chase away the inevitable tuesday-blues, should i arrive to find it all a'cock-billed

 

i've long held you can climb a hundred days at beacon and each day have a new distraction - this day it was a curious chem-trail on the 1st pitch - like the shimmery trail of a slug in morning, but strait up and down the full height to snag-ledge, and harder and cruncher than any slug-juice i've seen before - that and the merry martial site of what certainly appeared to be two apache attack helicopters making the dance of death up and down the gorge

 

surprised to find the first lap of the day so dry after all this grim grayness of late, i figured on a second when i reached the trail only for the heavens to open and the rain to fall eagerly on this fell-earth - back at the car i had a leisurely 40 minutes fumbling through rick atkinson's robust apogee of awesomeness, the guns at last light - the rain raged on the rooftop as i made my own private anabasis, ambling through the penultimate tale of a near-dead generation - then it cleared and the mist moved off - a second lap then and all for the better - the lead out the pencil, i pushed off for home and hearth and the Promise of a Better Tomorrow

 

13/30 laps for the year now

 

9/18 -#38 - full-moonlight ascent of the corner w/ geoff - the weather god's relented after gray and damp all week - a full cast of clowns in addition to ourselves, their leader did a helen-keller style ascent of cruising to start

 

lovely night - calm - the high moon on the river, the ripples hypnotic

 

9/20 - deo XXXIX - II laps for XIV towards XXX for the season, half-way bitzes, even as september sags sadly towards fall - the leaves on the wing, the thick lead sky-cloud ever lower towards dusk - fat gray raindrops on the windshield on the way-back - bunches of them bastard elk down the crick, bugling all the damn evening - jim n'an old-time vantucky friend round the base - kenny and a right curious feller from way-back east on the corner - a quick blow-by for the first lap, then a pause and some great goddamn gut laughs w/ them on the ledge - tales from the land of way-ago - pickens n' roanaoke n' hickory n' fucking appalachia 'n general discussed upon

 

winter is coming

 

9/26 - day 40 - almost a week of solid rain and fucking work, no adventure at all - nastia's all stoked after a spell in the valley and wants to be a big waller, not that i know a damn bit of useful beta 'bout that - figured she oughta learn to solo-aid and gain some experience that way w/o making demands on dim-witted belayers (though, in truth, it ought not be that hard to round up some young'uns willing to hold the other end and stare up at here bouncing nether-bits) - she did well on the first third of free for all, and as evening grew to dusk, she lowered off her funky gri-gri setup and i had a bit of fun down-aiding and cleaning

 

fucking torrential rain coming in a day - seems unlikely there'll be much more post-work beatarding this season

 

10/4 - day 41 - keeeerist, the fall fell down like a fucking bear trap on the balls some time ago it seems, and awful early too - nastia a bit waylaid by portland traffic - beacon's base looking a good bit like the argonne after old alvin york's big day - blasted tree debris all about the forest floor, the remnants of last weekend's big windstorm and great goddamn deluge - fresh broken blocks - oozing gashes on the upper edges of trees on grassy ledges - still a bit damp but it'll be a good weekend for clambering - we did the bastard warrior, finishing up just as dusk descended

 

10/5 - douglas adams day! - winter's upon the wall, albeit its adolescent, easy face - pure sunlight streaming through but somewhat weak - strong winds - battle debris from the week gone by all astrew - 3 laps on the corner then home for an afternoon w/ the kids n' wife n' parents

 

10/8 - 43rd beacon-wrangling day for the year - big fall in the gorge, the trees grown gaunt and dead-orange - damp, dull air on the evening orbit out, my head ringing w/ union-noise, deep wondrous woe - krazy late to met long-suffering kenny - up the corner in a damp, damp tizzy - S1+/2 conditions on the corner - a nut rescue - booty cordellete, cha-ching! babylyon fading, i fumble back in darkness gut-hungry to sad tales - dogs run demented, poor pat sure needs hisself a holy synod sometime soon

 

10/11 - #44 - epic fall beacon day - WRONG GULL IS GONE - the pillar damn near the size of a trailer that you used to jam to get up to the anchors below the off-width came out yesterday sometime, knocking down the massive old-growth tree below it and forever altering the trail - a fine little boulder for the kids to clamber on

 

lots of rockfall throughout the morning - nastia thrown at wind surfer for aid-testing - many beers - dogs and kids and hard-core grown ups - jim and kenny - chemtrails, johnson, shakespeare, fucking kennedy - good times on the tumble back - now off for a birthday feast, and a monkey face party on the 'morrow

 

10/15 - day 45 - 2 solo laps, one w/ the irascible denaliduckdave - 19 for the year now - jim n' steve n' tim n' kenny n' Various Others - breezy n' fall-balmy - jeff thomas' big black cock cable all athwart the corner - gut laughs n' the grand history of the bacon-wand considered - home at dusk to take out the trash and taste a most excellent gumbo whipped up by the little woman

 

10/17 - #46 - BLACK-JACK! kenny is formally awarded the Order of Beacon, 3rd Class for today bringing two pair of boobies to our sacred stone

 

10/19 - #47 - oregon forum blowing up w/ cruel threats to your friend n' humble narrator as the dawn broke, whiskey-drunk hungover - a gut full of greasy egg n' iced coffee - geoff at the b.k. via mike's - jensen's w/ kyle n' steve too for a tr on the arena of terror - i really need to remember to bring a #5 next time - topped out in the golden glow of the late-day sun - beers n' bullshitting w/ steve in the frosty parking lot after, eventually a run down to the skamania mart for a resupply - another beer later we rambled down for a full moon frolic on the corner, more good beers in tow - belting out big tunes in the darkness, nary a headlamp in sight

 

Trafalgar this day but a bit more than 2 centuries ago! lord nelson dead on the deck of his flagship, who among us could fear such a demise or wish one more wondrous? - "kizmet" he clamored as death clamped its chokehold along his wind-hole, or was "kiss me hardy" more the thing? my 48th beacon-ramble for the fast-rotting year - the Breath of God on the wall, fall colors and fecund smells - the south side to meself - 2 laps, 23/30 for the year and me feeling suddenly like the weather-lords will allow the whole solo set

 

10/22 - day 49 - 24/30 laps this season - the Indian Summer Endures - breezy n' balmy - the base empty, save for the echoes of jim's recent remodel of the rock-blasted bits - mixes right well w/ the corner's new platform - just need to drop 2 more trees n' it'll be purrfect

 

dave cat-calling from the ground as i began the 2nd pitch - lingered at tree ledge till he reached me, than had a ramble on up the rest of the corner together, bullshiting about the Life Beatardia

 

10/23 - A Hat Trick of Days at beacon this week so far, my 50th of the year - 26/30 laps now - jim's ride in the lot but lost he was somewhere in the immensity of the park - the Banal Ballad of the Big Breeze blowing down the Columbia - sport climbers wide-eyed on the way down

 

st crispin's eve LI de die ascensus editi! 7 corner clambers in 4 dayz, hang in indian what have you - 28/30 laps now as the autumn augurs roar on just rightly - busy day at bacon - jim n' steve n' the horror of a kamikaze kamera - a crew of girlz on uprising and a nice right sight to follow behind for a few minutes, untethered from terrestrial concerns

 

calamitous tragedy on st crispins - beacon bound, all hepped up n' frantic on a friday in the fall - the red devil, dead - i ain't quite laid 'er in her grave yet, but i'm assembling the titanic quantity of liquor likely to be needed to make it through the wake even as we speak - calling all nations - the universe conspires to deny me the finish to my heroic warrior-poet-god-king quest - i coast into a pro-christian octogenarian-infested polystyrene paneled diner as her soul ascends to heaven - later i work the diner's phone, star-dazzled on a true and wondrous high, hanging out on hold while reading photocopies of old billy graham prayers, trying not to sweat diamonds - the cavalry comes in at the cusp of evening, and i begin my sulk towards bethlehem to be reborn

 

sweet, sweet devil, don't be dead!

 

10/29 - day 52 of the year - redemption on what seems certain to be the dead last of the dancing days about the bacon-wand as fall upends and bumbles ever faster towards blasted winter - cold and crisp, dead air - i arrive w/o the red devil, desolate and gripped by autumnal angst - not a climber in sight and the sun rapidly setting on the south face - i scramble up to the last licks of light upon the first pitch, and pause, frog-like, in the frenzy of the fading furnace and Gather Strength - 2 laps on the corner, making me 30/30 for the year - from now on, like bj's after 7, every lap from here to the hereafter Pure Gravy

 

Dia de Los Muertos putas! #53, a fine prime figure - my first head cold of fall bubbling up through my snot-ports, a weekend on the couch portending - Gravy Lap 1, snuck in on the dead-last work-day of the pre-daylight savings body-blow upcoming this sabbath - kenny n' adam n' jim n' steve n' scads of Portlanderz all about the damp n' doomy sunset slabs - a beer n' some butts, then a squinty-eyed slither back down the gorge to gullet-fulls of italian food n' a friday-night nap

 

11/10 - day 54 - a weekend of cavorting like a cave-contained wildman - rick's big five-o - the dynamite cave - party of 11, including da phuzzy - beer guzzling in the gut of the earth - howling music in the halls of the drowned god - all hepped up n' Heavy Crazy - bonfires n' bluegrass bands - chain smoking n' chili n' chilled coffee-touched stout - pissed n' damn near passed out in jim's ride after the party went down by the head - sunday morning whiskey-sick n' weak-souled - bacon n' greasy eggs n' beacon-rock brand beer - a wobbly orbit beacon-ways - blustery, strangely so - the wind in fits n' bursts - buxom girls all garbed in their autumnal get-up - cruising, panic-striken n' panting - up n' over n' back to the humble homestead for spring-rolls, sunday-night tv, n' getting soused

11/17 - #55 - the corner w/ nastia in full-on slippery conditions - damp, dead air, only the occasional catspaw on the placid columbia - the face alive w/ water, thick like buck-snot - french freeing to even start onto the slab