[TR] Z-z-z-ion - Lurching Queers 5/28/2010

[ivan]

Trip: Z-z-z-ion - Lurching Queers

 

Date: 5/28/2010

 

Trip Report:

memorial day goddammit - big planz laid n' then proper weather fucked - justinp n' i were gonna throw ourselves at lurking fear in der valley, but day after day of wind, snow n' shit was 'casted, so last minute we decided to tag on an extra 12 hrs of roundtrip driving n' just head off to u-tard

 

problem was we didn't exactly have a plan, and 20 hrs of non-stop driving through pouring rain n' darkness n' chainsmoking n' burdgundy-swilling didn't exactly clear our heads - hit zion in the afternoon w/o time to go for a wall proper, but got a pass for overnighting on moonlight buttress the next day and went off to see how far up monkeyfucker we could get - didn't end up more than a few pitches but at least it got the cobwebs outta our heads n' made passing out in the bottomless dust of the free area down by the river possible

 

tghe wrinkle was of course the river - in febuary geoff n' i had waded it in flipflops like it weren't no-thang, but now it was 4 billion cubic feet/second n' ugly, ugly, so we had to do the single carry approach from a couple miles downriver - the climber track ain't bad at all unenucmbered but w/ a wall rack n' rope n' 2 singleledges n' fucktardton of aqua it was a relentless hell of holly 'scwacking, every species of sedentary life hostile to our passing and pulling us backwards n' scarring us for our sacrilegous oaths

 

we emerged from the final up n' down much bloodied, but w/ the buttrees in sight

long story short, i burned up the 5th of my 9 lives just a little bit later - we'd never gotten a decent topo for our route w/ any sort of decent wall beta, so didn't know the best place to haul from - ended up ferrying the ledges n' rack up the 4th class bit - justin, chain-smoker that he is, smoked my ass as well on the appraoch and therefore roared up the scramble while i was still sucking wind - i hooked up the ledges n' rack which he brought up, then he started on the big pig as i scrambled up

 

arrived at the half-decent starting ledge to find a suspicious looking anchor in a block - seemed wrong to me, but i reasoned he'd had the bag on it for awhile now w/o incident, and when he added a cam into another block at my suggestion, i felt confident enought to attach meself to the haul line

 

as the bag got stuck at a final ledge below and i put my ass into the effort, my first recollection was of an awful noise and immeditaely being hit by a huge weight - the next was the rush of teh anchor sling roaring on by, an awful commotion, and looking down at justin miracously holding onto one strand of it as i looked at my gri and realized i was a mouse-fart away from the plummeting haulbag plucking my ass off the ledge and throwing me 80 feet down into the talus!

 

so yeah, shit was exciting for a few minutes, but it all ended well w/ us figuring out how to secure and then lower away the pig w/o further excitment

back on terra firma amidst the swelling and sweltering heat, it was clear we needed to alter our plans - the block that had nearly crushed the both of us had crushed my nalgene, bloodied us good n' proper, covered our whole rack in deep powdery sand, thrown off our schedule, and generally confused the hell out of our sleep-adled selves

 

down by the cool of the river i couldn't bear the thought of hauling all our shit back down to the angels landing bridge, and figured why not go actually finish prodigal sun, which geoff n' i had bailed on just 2 pitches from the top a few months back when we'd run low on time - all we had to do was hike the shit up to the base, swim the river, get good n' drunk, n' come back int he mornign!

 

prodigal sun in the morning

day 2 we made the much easier unencumbered approach w/ a water to replace what had been crushed n' started up

 

justin on the p1 ladder

up canyon towards space shot and monkeyfucker

i pulled all the easy belays - the shade of the trees at the base, chain-smoking n' swilling gatorade - then the p3 belay from the city park bench, suddenly chilly in the shade

justin got a shot of my taking off up our 4th pitch (p5 by the book) as the evening appraoched - i inteneded on throwing our ledges up the same place geoff n' i had done it early, just before the final bolt ladder

plenty of excitement at the camping spot - justin's ledge it turned out had been damaged by the falling blockt he day before and didn't want to set up proper - i was annoyed at the general difficult of spreading out horizontally at our chosen spot - in the end it all worked out and we both passed out w/o bothering even to eat dinner

 

it was justin's first night on a p'ledge, n' he awoke properly jazzed

i finished the last bit of the books p5, hauled the pig, n' justin threw himself at the oddness of p6

i had fun w/ p7, though even the 2nd time i still couldn't sort out how to get past the last pin w/o stick-clipping it - justin made a half-hearted attempt to get me to do the exit-flaps, but i brow beat him into it as i lit up my last cigarrette and popped a green-apple flavor gummy army man into me cake-hold

the park buses are a fine idea to alleviate the car-crowds

topping out was exciting - sandy gully fuck-fuck-fuck on the final "pitch" which i was suddenly ecstatic i'd brought the 2nd rope up for, since we could fix it to a tree and jug up w/ the pigs, slidign in the muck the whole way - fantastically cool grooves cut into the sandstone wherever the ropes belong

 

great topout point - holy shit, how many half-dressed hawt-chicks can hang on the same chain at the same time, half bent over, hooters a hanging out?

 

the look down from the shoulder at the base

we hiked down the uber-cool touron trail - had a hoot at the autistic chick-types gagging in horror at the sun scorched shitter where i dropped the bomb - made a fine repast of pizza n' decent beer in springdale, then passed out in the dust as the full-moon broke the barrier of the canyon n' bathed us in silver

 

next day we decided not to climb, as my lead rope was missing most of the kenrmantl ein the middle (discovered on p1) settled for doing the tourist thing, taking in the tunnel n' driving through the slick rock as i swilled endless chalises of ice n' redwine in the cool of the mid-morning shade, then threw down, conspiciously awesome-style, just before the checkerboard mesa, to sort wall shit- a few seconds later the tour-busses began arrived - we were roundly cursed by the drivers, but holy shit tourons took easily a thousand pictures of us amidst our glittering gear, paying for the privilege (goddamit) w/ food n' beers n' well wishes - a score of heathen tongues we suffered n' smiled at, adn all good

the free-return trajectory to or-e-gon through the endless backroads of u-tard and nevade went well - we spent a night in a coyote-choked field near the nv/or border, then drove the last bit in a ecstasy of pbr n' american spirits as teh cloud murk closed in and pissed on us the whole way home

[ClimbingPanther]

as always, a most stylish report, ivan

[stevetimetravlr]

Holy shit. Awesome TR.

[Tyson.g]

Nice Ivan!

This was a great read.

No pictures of the girls at the top though? Ouch man! Makes it kind of hard to beleive.

Cheers for salvaging the trip and avoiding the chopping block.

 

[billcoe]

Wow! Congrats on not just surviving, but climbing right back on the horse. Shit.

[ivan]

you think we were gonna drive all that goddamn way n' pick all those frak'n cacti thorns out of us and NOT rally, bill?

[justinp]

If thats my worst fawk up and closest brush with death I will be a happy man

 

Bring ur offset bitches

[denalidave]

Nice, velly nice!

[LostCamKenny]

offset bitches

are they the ones who have one leg shorter than the other?

[ivan]

my nuts are offset - fit damn near anywhere!

[denalidave]

my nuts are offset - fit damn near anywhere!

That hurts just thinking about it...