[TR] Bacon Rawk - DA Double Dirty HO - III 5.8 A2 9/11/2010

[ivan]

Trip: Bacon Rawk - DA Double Dirty HO - III 5.8 A2

 

Date: 9/11/2010

 

Trip Report:

on the eternal quest to tick off all the climbs beacon has to offer, i recently laid siege to alan kearney's smooth dancer, unclimbed since the wild n' heady days of the dying nixon admin - figured why not take advantage of all that cleaning n' tidying up i'd already done at the base and try kearney's warm-up, done in '73, dirty double overhang - it appears to have garnered a few more ascents since the fa as it actually has some fixed gear, including some wild relics more properly belonging in jim opdyke's musuem of dreams

 

can the corps of engineers clear cut up to the wall again please so we can actually see the fucking routes in the central roofs? the dirty ho dead center

murderers row - the 2nd pitches of the central roof complex - all tough and all deserving the grade III - from left to right - ground zero 5.11D, takes fist 5.10D, the crack 2 nowhere C1, smooth dancer 5.9 A2, dirty doubleoverhang 5.8 A2

joe caught wind of my dreadful preparations, said he'd wanted to do it since wayback, so there we were on a saturday morning attempting to get our heads around the thing - i like having partners sometimes, 'specially since i have little by way of pins or offset cams, and a growing pile of my small cams cry out for re-swaging - joe was eager to lead the 1st pitch too, which looked like crunchy, dirty n' sorta chossy free climbing

 

now clean and the crap stone cast off, p1 is fantastic and should be prized by those who seek moderate beacon routes (this means you kenny ) - 5.8, and very similiar to the butthole bit of young warriors - protects well too - only drawbacks are its a bit short and the original anchor is 3 pins at the bottom of a cramped stance - needs proper webbing so you can rap n' tr off it - other really interesting and now top-ropable routes here too

 

that first day joe wanted to see what could be freed of the clearly much harder 2nd pitch - turned out to be mostly aid and required a couple pins, which we've left behind - the 2nd anchor is also pins, one of which was this kniveblade, which made a better piece of art than pro

joe had to head off for the evening, so i fixed my line n' contented meself w/ a cordless lap up the corner where i ran into the gang making their malingering escape up uprising, including the savage slav mitchondria, jimmy o, wes n' kenny

 

came back sunday but it was rainy in the morning and by the time i'd wandered down to the base my taste for soloing was sour - joe showed up but couldn't stay for long - i ended up jugging to the hanging anchor, told joe to head up to the lower one and stay put, since there was no room for him higher up and the anchor gave me the heebie-jeebies anyhow - thin, thin, thin from the start, i only had time to get up a few pieces by the time he had to be off to commit godknows what sort of hellish crime against teh interwebs, so i settled for lowering down n' fixing a proper static line to the whole affair that i might just ignore the whole project for a few months

 

a week later i was back in spirits though and well-armed w/ joe's generous loan of every concievable pin n' aid-piece known to mankind plus some offsets, i got my head wide n' full of sunshine n' fresh air n' blasted off alone in the glorious early morning ambiance of a september day - wigged out at the very likely prospect of a high-force fall onto the less than amazing anchor, 30 feet up i reached way off route and linked a big #3 into the anchor and started to feel okay about being up on a long series of birdbeaks n' tiny offsets

 

as i uncovered grass n' moss from the long overhanging seam, some antiques emerged - gotta dig on how the mold n' lichen have colonized that old perlon, ninja-style

hammered in hex - sure, whynot? bet that cord has at least 20 more years in it!

soon enough for a solo adventure i was in the upper third of the route, pic here before the cleaning - as soon as you switch cracks right and pass the first overhang of bears in heat, the aiding eases considerably, becoming c1f - i was happy to be off all the beaks n' kniveblades, even as my eyeballs were massively exfoliating cornea-material from all the dirt n' veggies i was scraping out

fun moment under the last roof when the 0 cam i was on exploded a softball sized rock and cast me off - luckily the other 0 i'd linked it to was outside the blast zone so it was the classic ahhhhhh 5 inch aid fall

 

nice n' steep up there - no wonder the route hasn't been all freed as its usually past vertical and the middle third is quite blank

the final run up to grassy ledges is easy aid now that the trees have been chopped out - the final move requires topstepping n' freeing onto the choss gutter that marks the exit - annoyingly the fifi on the daisy refused to clean, and w/ no pro to be had, or an anchor (there is none, despite what the topo might show ) i cleaned till i found an edge and lowered down on a hook to free meself (also had the solo aid joy of having to stop mid-climb and lower down to unsnarl the lead-line, despite having rigged it up to prevent fubarage)

the lack of anchor was annoying, but fortunately i'd cleaned the necessary #4 camalot from below and between that and the smooth dancer anchor, fixed everything up and went back down to clean the pitch

 

pitch 3, the dirty ho, ready for cleaning

joe had said he'd be fine w/ me leaving any pins i placed, so i left 4 kbs, but i cleaned all my beaks, 'cept this motherfucker which felt like staying despite my raping the shit out of the entire neighborhood to get it out

beers n' sangria n' smokes n' russian lessons in the p-lot and a cool wind - satisfaction, a fine feeling.

 

in all, this route is a great one that deserves more traffic - moderate free climbing p1, mixed free/aid p2, a2 start to p3 becoming c1, and enough fixed gear now that a climber only needs to bring some beaks and a lost arrow or 2 - best style to shortfix p2&3 together - throw in a riverside exit to the trail and it beats the upper town walls of index n' a grade iv fo'shizzle

 

 

Gear Notes:

thin route, but a c4 #4 essential for the last couple feet and to redirect the anchor (#5 even better for that purpose)

[scottgg]

Nice Ivan! Always enjoy your reports!

[billcoe]

Rawking nice....

[denalidave]

Wow, I leave for a couple days and I come back to new routes, cool. I might actually want to get on that relic myself.

 

[denalidave]

Trip: Bacon Rawk - DA Double Dirty HO - III 5.8 A2

 

Date: 9/11/2010

 

Trip Report:

now clean and the crap stone cast off, p1 is fantastic and should be prized by those who seek moderate beacon routes (this means you kenny

[JosephH]

Will get a sling and ring on the first anchor sometime in the next week or so. The first pitch may be a bit short, but it's actually a great 5.8 and will make a good addition to the small collection of easier climbs out there. The second pitch looks like it could go possibly go free to one of you 135 lb. young aces. The third pitch is aid, baby, aid.

[denalidave]

Will get a sling and ring on the first anchor sometime in the next week or so. The first pitch may be a bit short, but it's actually a great 5.8 and will make a good addition to the small collection of easier climbs out there. The second pitch looks like it could go possibly go free to one of you 135 lb. young aces. The third pitch is acid, baby, acid.

fixed it fer ya...

[ivan]

The third pitch is aid, baby, aid.

anyone who can free the 2nd pitch will be able to do the last half of the 3rd pitch free too since they could actually get their little bullshit pinkies n' whatnot into the crack there - i suspect that upper part (including the final roof) is on par w/ ground zero, so 5.11ish

[kevbone]

Wow, I leave for a couple days and I come back to new routes, cool. I might actually want to get on that relic myself.

 

New route? Which one?

[denalidave]

Wow, I leave for a couple days and I come back to new routes, cool. I might actually want to get on that relic myself.

 

New route? Which one?

New, in the sense it has been brought back from the dead... More/less.

[ivan]

was looking at the big map last night - anyone done wild turkeys? the first pitch looks like it gets a good bit of traffic and must be a classic 10'ish finger crack - how about the upper pitches where the topo calls for nails? looks like there's 2 different options as well?

[eldiente]

The first pitch of Wild Turkeys is indeed good good fun, a bit tough to place gear as your always standing on these slick slopers, but aside from that it is a joy. I don't have the guide-book, but I was thinking mid to upper 5.10 (?)

 

-Nate

 

[ivan]

nice - how's it look above there? how dirty?

[eldiente]

Sorry can't help you with the upper pitches, we were using Wild Turkeys as a way to get to the start of Borderline. I didn't look-up. Although I do recall there is an anchor right where the finger crack ends.

[JosephH]

They should be relatively clean and the pins were checked and reset. By and large the routes from Blownout left to Flying Dutchman don't collect much in the way of crud or moss on the upper pitch.

[stevetimetravlr]

Nice job Ivan!!!

[ivan]

mike and i went back to the dirty ho y-day - i led the 5.8 first pitch, much fun and serious feeling too as the pro is not mindless and the climbing requires some concentration - put new webbing and a link through the 3 pins so you can rap/toprope from there - a c4 #4 lets you back the pins up, if you're so inclined

 

top-roping from there lets you do a very stimulating climb left of the Dirty HO start - i cleaned it as best i could when initially working on the HO and it was good enough for the tr - would be a very wild lead, and probably is best as a tr, since the few cracks would get filled by the gear - figured since it's a tr variation of the HO, it oughta be called "my dog's bitch"

 

already done as a tr in the past i'd imagine, but if so, declined into obscurity - .9 i reckon? sporty for sure, and it helps to be tall - bail right at the top of the column onto the ledge just below the 1st dirty double overhang anchor

[stevetimetravlr]

Sorry I missed ya Ivan! in the evening we were looking at the west face area where your route goes up, and were not sure of the start exactly as we would like to do it. Also, does anyone know the specs on the route on the West face that is bolted with at least 5 bolts? The bolts look like new stainless and the climb looks pretty burly and looks like it takes gear up a flake crack to get to the first clip.

[ivan]

no clue on the 5 bolt climb you're talking about - is it near the trail or closer to the old spike route?

 

the stone soup: from the water fountain, take the trail into the woods and take the immediate left where it ramps down to the wall and forms a bit of a trench - there's an obvious, easy 5th class ramp heading up right, then a brushy crack that takes you up (noticed its growing back quite strong currently - i haven't done it since late spring), whereupon you go left across a steep slab - if you step back from the wall and look through the trees you can see a fixed pin about 40 feet up, and 2 of the 3 black bolts that are well above that, protectign the exit from a cramped pod

[JosephH]

I think he's talking about one of Shane's new routes off the start of the trail. Check here:

 

http://www.mountainproject.com/v/washington/beacon_rock/106452015