ivan Posted February 1, 2011 Posted February 1, 2011 Trip: SmiffistaniRawks - Free(ish) Lunch & Fishtaco Dihedral Date: 1/29/2011 Trip Report: dead of winter, and to the desert ben n' me went in search of hibernal hijinx - chaotic our planning was, and despite a deep interest in getting up early to climb saturday we succumbed to the joy of sleeping in sans kids in a warm tent w/ a devil-thick swathe of soft foam below us ben made an apt observation - why had we driven to the land of sun to climb a route in the shade? the plan was to repeat tyler's fishtaco dihedral route variation, then do the farewell to smith - reminded me of going to zion to climb prodigal sun in perpetual winter shade - dense i am. ben was making sense, but if you give that boy an inch, you might be apt to spend the better part of the day packing n' repacking picture of sunny smith, taken shaking in the shade our grand aspiration - farewell to smith, w/ not even a pretense of freeing it... eventually we did rouse ourselves, skipped a christian breakfast,and set out - an easy pitch of low 5th and 4th takes you from the start of sky chimney to the perch ben led the pitch above as well, exciting sport wanking on fine stone - from there it was the fish taco and what the Tyler the Great assured me would be its second ascent - fun route, though odd perhaps to sport climb to reach a nail-pounding aid climb 2 bolts get you to a fixed angle - above that i put in a lost arrow, then a small cam, then scratched my head a bit - only thing i could sort out was a tomahawk, which ended up, beak and all, buried in the crack - clipped the rope to the cam, moved onto the beak, and 10 seconds later it blew out in a great blur, ripping out a bullshit nut i'd placed for a handhold, then sending me well below the cam - a few moments later i realized the adjustable daisy had been shock loaded before the rope took the strain, and in the process tore the inch wide strap in half! undaunted, i figured a way around it, got on the other 2 bolts which led me to the short roof - tyler had left an upside down fat angle pounded into the roof - it took about 5 seconds of standing on it to explode out from under me in a newtonian direction, sending me tumbling yet again - jeebus! bitchy sorting out a way round that, but eventually settled on just resetting the angle, wailing it into the soft crack that was barely half the width of the pin as it nonetheless swifty bit in ben followed quickly, hammer in hand - we left tyler's 2 pins in place ben w/ the funkness next was a stimulating 5 bolt traverse away from the shit stone the last pitch to the plateau top was, per the book, lackluster - once there it was clear we didn't have enough time for the real business, so figured it would just have to be another day - preferably a day when it wasn't chilly, chilly ran into justinp n' his boy kirk in the dark of the 'lot - fun n' games n' smokes n' tall tales ensued - alaska fishing, irish whiskey, potato salad and burgundy - pbr and the vanilla n' chocolate-chip cookies i made w/ the daughter woke earlier on sunday, ben hot for free lunch - i'd done it w/ layton some number of years ago and completly forgotten how stiff it was - i suffered some and ben styled his pitches and we had a day of it pickmynosefirlunch wall - phuck yeah. ben owning on p1 - i forgot how much the pitch traversed and the considerable distance between many of hte bolts - i decided to make the route much harder by ripping a giant chunk of rock out w/ my fingertips while frantically trying to mantle up just short of the bolt on the prow - took a giant wheeling fall and slammed into the dihedral, showering down yet more choss - after much suffering, managed to claw my way back to the route proper and sweet-baby-jesus-miracle my way up to ben, merciful patient belayer that he is i got p2, which i did last time - nice n' easy for the leader to just lower down the hard downclimb, and for the 2nd to do the same on a bail biner and just retie below ben peaking around at the business on p2 the rock's far from stellar, but the ledges are tits! the ledge below p3, and a desperate place to try bailing from w/o 2 ropes i'd warrant the crux of p3 - ben on the attack - my fucking hero i got the money pitch, and led it no better than last time - phat handcrack but the awkwardness of the ramp and the shitty, shitty rock on both sides of it kept me from enjoying the feet much...sigh. justin n' kirk walked by and got a shot of me in the midst of the pitch who's that white boy down there ben? ben below enjoying yet another sweet ledge as i'm entering into the chimneyish thing leading to yet another pigeon-craptacular perch ben coming up p4, feeling the funk ben about to set out after a fine meal in hanta-virus heaven - a couple of tough bolts avoid a monstrous looking offwidth, which nonetheless then has to be grappled w/, but then ends mercifully quick on top as the shadows lengthened and i started regretting not bringing the puffy jacket, ben sent the crux in fine style, literally chortling w/ glee - i followed, here just above the bolts, taking a break before contending w/ the Crumbling Wideness past the crux, eager for dinner n' a smoke long drive home - short talk w/ an old friend in a junkie tailspin over the past decade - rain and fog - all to discover that the family had spent hte whole weekend puking, nary a clean blanket to be found in the house! gotta find excuses to get out to the smiffistani republic more often Gear Notes: free(ish) lunch rack - coulda taken just a single set of dmm offset nuts and none other - tripling up in .75, 1 & maybe 2 mighta been wise? we made do. 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jfs1978 Posted February 1, 2011 Posted February 1, 2011 Hey! I bailed off that Free Lunch thing-a-ma-jigger once. Sweet TR Ivan. Quote
ivan Posted February 1, 2011 Author Posted February 1, 2011 Hey! I bailed off that Free Lunch thing-a-ma-jigger once. Sweet TR Ivan. where from? you have 1 rope or 2? looked like the last party to the p2 ledge probably had done just that, as the cordelette was set up over hte edge - holy shit it looks like they would have had a scary time getting onto the rap though! Quote
Lodestone Posted February 1, 2011 Posted February 1, 2011 Sweet TR. I'd been wondering about Free Lunch. Chad Quote
YocumRidge Posted February 1, 2011 Posted February 1, 2011 Awesome! Now you are ready for some ice action, white boy ! Quote
jfs1978 Posted February 1, 2011 Posted February 1, 2011 (edited) Hey! I bailed off that Free Lunch thing-a-ma-jigger once. Sweet TR Ivan. where from? you have 1 rope or 2? looked like the last party to the p2 ledge probably had done just that, as the cordelette was set up over hte edge - holy shit it looks like they would have had a scary time getting onto the rap though! Wasn't too bad actually. We were at the huge ledge at the base of P3. Full rap distance is a fair bit less than 60...but a lot more than 30. Having a single 60m line meant things were slightly more complicated...but not much. Genius idea - fix and haul up the 2nd one...no worries. Back home/at work in time to keep from getting fired...so 'twas a successful day in my book. We'll go back. Edited February 1, 2011 by jfs1978 Quote
billcoe Posted February 1, 2011 Posted February 1, 2011 Another Jeff Thomas masterpiece. Hey, tell Ben it looks like he needs a bigger hammer. Nice TR! thanks Quote
John Frieh Posted February 1, 2011 Posted February 1, 2011 Free Lunch is good. Following the second pitch is the crux IMO as you get to downclimb that shit chimney but beyond that a fine day out on an "unselected" Quote
corvallisclimb Posted February 1, 2011 Posted February 1, 2011 HAHA hell ya dude! Thats awsome! I never thought any one would repeat it, you made it sound a lot harder than I remember You deserved to keep the angle after that! Quote
ivan Posted February 1, 2011 Author Posted February 1, 2011 nah, it's not that hard tyler - it's just that i weigh damn near much as 2 of you and those pins in soft tuff can only support so much bubble-gum john, the crux on p2 is easily slain if the second is willing to leave a bail biner or webbing on the bolt and just lower down - feels more like a big wall climb that way! Quote
OlympicMtnBoy Posted February 1, 2011 Posted February 1, 2011 Sweet, looks like my kind of fun in the sun! Quote
corvallisclimb Posted February 1, 2011 Posted February 1, 2011 nah, it's not that hard tyler - it's just that i weigh damn near much as 2 of you and those pins in soft tuff can only support so much bubble-gum Heh ya... Pretty funny about the angle tho, I left those in for free climbing pro if someone ever wanted to try. Whoops! Too bad you didn't go to the Depot for Fish Tacos to complete the full send. Quote
ivan Posted February 1, 2011 Author Posted February 1, 2011 Whoops! Too bad you didn't go to the Depot for Fish Tacos to complete the full send. dammit, you left out the msot critical bit of beta! i settled for cold mac n' cheese after discovering i'd destroyed the seal of my stove somehow... Quote
corvallisclimb Posted February 1, 2011 Posted February 1, 2011 Whoops! Too bad you didn't go to the Depot for Fish Tacos to complete the full send. dammit, you left out the msot critical bit of beta! i settled for cold mac n' cheese after discovering i'd destroyed the seal of my stove somehow... Haha sadly they where closed last month for renovations, otherwise I obviously woulda thrown it out there. Nice job again thats a soild two days in the park too! Quote
ivan Posted February 1, 2011 Author Posted February 1, 2011 after 2 days at smiff i always seem to need at least 2 more days for my fingertips to regenerate Quote
beaconben Posted February 2, 2011 Posted February 2, 2011 Thanks for the great trip Ivan. I really loved Free Lunch, it is definitely one of my favorite routes at Smith. Pitch 4 is so awesome. It must be about 180 feet long, 5.8 and 5.9, follows the same solid crack the whole way. Pitch 5 had a cool crux, you have to climb thru a small overhang to enter a flaring chimney, which seemed kind of unique Quote
OlegV Posted February 3, 2011 Posted February 3, 2011 Stellar work, Eric! ...climbing like it is your last day. Quote
mountainsloth Posted February 3, 2011 Posted February 3, 2011 I always wondered about that route. Sounds interesting! Thanks for the story Ivan. Quote
fgw Posted February 3, 2011 Posted February 3, 2011 Great TR & stoke for the free lunch outing! Quote
corvallisclimb Posted February 3, 2011 Posted February 3, 2011 Hey Radek didn't you get some pics of when I was doing the FA? Quote
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