[TR] Penis Lunch Wall - The Christmas Tree Ascent 3/26/2011

[ivan]

Trip: Penis Lunch Wall - The Christmas Tree Ascent

 

Date: 3/26/2011

 

Trip Report:

fuksakes - rain and work and aggravation and more rain and poison oak and fucking rain for months w/o end it seems - needed a change of scenery, but what? - took a solid wack at the picmenoseforlunch route a year or two ago and damn near died - seemed like the potential solution to a # of current problems, 'specially the solid head of steroid-steam i'd built up in a blue funk in a desperate bid to stop scratching my ballz - christ, did i really nearly murder a crossing guard at 6:58 in the goddamn a.m. this week in a damn near religious frenzy?

 

all attempts at a coherent plan failed in the days leading up to friday, but in the end geoff and i had something lashed together - meet his bro kyle n' big ben out at skull-fuck hollow on friday evening, then find something that wasn't covered in rain and snow to do

 

got good n' drunk on the drive over so looked and felt my best as we neared the desert bowl of bullshit in a sudden blizzard - probelm was the boys were nowhere to be found - turned out they'd lollygagged the morning away, then done the 1st pitch of bubbas and fixed it, only to return to the lot in the gloaming to discover kyle's fine piece of swedish engineering was dead as a dickhead at 400k miles

 

geoff launched on the rescue mission as i grappled w/ the wife's most recent purchase - a hanoi hilton of a giant goddamn family tent - the coleman weathermaster motherfucker - immediately tore it while pitching the bitch, but miracled the rest together enough to party like rockstars when the boys returned w/ taco bell and uncontrollable flatulence - an inspired locale it seemed, and cozy in the rain that poured all night

 

kyle bailed saturday to find a rental car and mend his mangled life - the 3 of us figured, what w/ the total shit forecast, that we oughta take advantage of the rope hanging on bubbas and do a 3-some trip up the big, big wall - i had 2 fat static lines and a real burning desire to top the thing out this time, so figured we could just fix the first 3 pitches and we'd be guarenteed to make the top on sunday, w/ everybody getting a chance at the sharp end - more importantly that ought to leave plenty of time for drinking good beer and smoking really bad cigarettes

 

hard not to want to do so striking a route

by the time we were done, the route was strung up like a fucking xmas tree w/ red, orange, green and 2 white ropes variously hung all over the fucking place like a gypsy laundry - i started out jugging ben's line, then short-fixed and started the 2nd pitch while ben came up to give me a belay

by mid-pitch ben was at the anchor and it was shitting sleet, the wombat looking like a cold sterile womb in the wayback

[video:youtube]

hitting the anchor at the top of bubbas, the sun burst out and all was groovy - noticed the anchor had been relocated since my last visit and beefed up w/ gigantic goddamn bolts, making the whole package much nice - i set geoff up on the static i'd tailed from the ground and he came on up while ben cleaned the pitch

dangling white boys

ben settled in for the sunshine as we watching geoff gear up for his pitch, his first in many months as he too has been consumed by professions and personal property and all the shit that truly doesn't matter when you have a sincere and faithful climbing problem

all the new bolts replacing hte old mank are much appreciated, as are the relics left for posterity

geoff on the attack, stick-clip enabled - this third pitch can be done sans iron, as can the whole route really, 'specially if you carry that suessian-contraption

[video:youtube]

where the rock turns to cheese

i had plenty enough time to draw my breath in big and deep and achieve a truly glorious glowing feeling, impervious to the chill and hail and horseshit the unsettled sky kept throwing out the next hour or so - ultimatly geoff got up to a point ben wanted him at, and ben went on up to see if there were any bolts bearing replacement - i used the opportunity to scoot on down to the ground, and get a picture of the dazzling dipsticks - man, this route overhangs!

 

where's the waldos?

the rest of the evening is a bit hazy, but i recall mixing burgundy and beer and driving around in blizzards in search of food - there was a fun bit when we returned to the campsite to find the weathermaster crushed against the earth as if by the palm of a pissed off god - luckily the booze had survived the crash and i could spelunk in to recover it before heading off for burritoes

 

sunday morning cold and dreary, but nothing to it but the doing - ben took off first - simply awesome jug, 50 meters of pure air, far, far from the wall

 

 

the best part of the jug is climbing up a good 30 feet off the ground on the giant blocks, takign in all the slack, then launching! 2 years ago though of course this is what chopped the rope on me and damn near left me riding the range - the new anchor leaves the rope lying on a better edge, and a fat static coupled w/ a rope protector made the terrifying simply fun

[video:youtube]

eventually i ended up at the p3 anchor and put ben on as he tangled w/ the big roof - he tapped in a few sawed off angles i think, but in hindsight was pretty certain he could avoid their future use there

when you have a hammer...

one last pitch to go - ben under the 2nd roof, the compelling shiprock behidn him

snow and sleet started to pour as i rounded the roof - 2 phat bolts and gear in the occasionally gross rock, then an easy bolt traverse to the end

ben and geoff tucked under the roof atop p4

geoff coming up the last pitch - shame the route doesn't climb the final walls above the bowl, but the rock is total horseshit there so it's understandable as it would have to be bolts in pressed dust

ben finishing into the upper basin - a cool place to be - no tracks or trail, and plenty of big loose rocks that you can't help but send for The Big Ride

in the end, quite the lazy ascent of the route - looking forward to doing it sometime w/ just 1 partner and short-fixing it in 2 blocks - was tits cold but good adventure and laughed my balls off much of the time

 

Gear Notes:

pretty much a clean route now, even if you're not the hardman who freed it

 

what i recall:

- skyhook

- single set of cams from blue alien to #4 camalot

- 2nd #4, #3, .75, yellow alien

- double set of offset nuts

- couple small brassies

- cheater stick means you don't need to worry about hammering at all

[miker]

I like watching the rope protector roll along that edge. Shiver.

Fun times had by all it seems. Wish I coulda been there.

[OlympicMtnBoy]

Awesome, one of these days I'm going to have to go back and finish that. Pitch 2 was my first ever aid lead. Scary back then.

[Wallstein]

I've always wanted to climb up that wall. Maybe if I ever get back into aid climbing I will.

 

Dam entertaining TR. Nice work.

 

 

[denalidave]

You are one funny bastard, Ivan, keep up the insanity.

[corvallisclimb]

Yo Mikey!... free that bitch, Brad Heller from SLC did last year at .12d, no problem for you. He also did an excellent job of rebolting the rest route with Ryan Lawson. He posted all the juicy beta on mp.com I think. Hopefully I'll see ya in the valley again this year.

 

Nice work Eric! Way to finally knock her off the list, another one of the classic Oregon aid lines! The picture of Ben reminds me of one of the better days of my life when Jim A and I slapped those anchor bolts in during a speedy five hour ascent in 2007. Yes Jims block was 3-5 that day

 

Edit: Also Jim and I also tryed to do that direct finish another time but yes obviously too much drilling and crap rock kept it from ever happening.

Edited March 30, 2011 by corvallisclimb

[stevetimetravlr]

Wow! Way to be getting it done while the rest of us hunker down under our umbrellas.

[fgw]

Great TR & climb! Really putting a shitty weather weekend to use!!

[powderhound]

Hmm well our guess's as to whom was leading what were pretty wrong, but we did hear that hammer from all the way over in the sups.

 

p.s. take that tent back and get a new one.

[ivan]

Hmm well our guess's as to whom was leading what were pretty wrong, but we did hear that hammer from all the way over in the sups.

 

p.s. take that tent back and get a new one.

woulda thought my ass big enough to recognize even from a mile away

 

costco has already taken the savage burn back - not certain what my wife was more pissed about, the squashed tent (sum of all her summer aspirations!) or me getting in at 1 a.m.

[corvallisclimb]

We managed to have plenty of fun in an undisclosed location. Didn't notice any bad weather. Even got Alan Watts out of climbing retirement Friday to do some worthless FA.

 

Alan Watts practicing his dissapearing act.

 

Bryan on belay duty.

 

The junk show.

 

Bryan looking forward to some chicken, brats, chicharones and pbrrrrrrrrrrr.

 

 

Edit to add: And Eric wasup with the TR name... It jus don't make no sense!

Edited March 31, 2011 by corvallisclimb

[ivan]

goddamn you boys know how to live right!

 

bad noises 'bout my nomenclature sir, how dare ye? well...in truth...the penis lunch just appeals to my juvenile nature, sounds like some snack you'd get in goddamn hong kong round rush-hour- the christmas tree ascent occured to me as a name while belaying ben - ropes of all colors everywhere like on an xmas tree - cold - impatient for my turn - chain-smoking - you know, the normal christmas shit?

 

a bit more of the bright n' festive ropes - if you can figure out what the fuck's going on, yer a wise, wise man

[corvallisclimb]

HAHAHA classic dude, love it. That was going to be my next question. What the hells going on with all them ropes?!?!?!?

 

[wayne]

Nice! Awesome tr. Glad to see these old routes getting more and updated traffic.

I am planning a photo shoot of the T monster whenever it opens again.

Gotta climb the damn thing twice

[ivan]

if you want help i'd love to be in on that wayne as it's worth doing twice for me too - shit, set up a sweet tyrolean while you're at it?

[fgw]

2 quality tr's in a single thread. great stuff. if you drop a note as to "when" Wayne, maybe we could get some (loooong range) shots from the south bunny ear

[Lovetoclimb]

So if everybody knows it went free, and everybody knows it goes hammerless then why are people still nailing it and saying in the TR that it would go hammerless? Probably the same reason people take how many days to climb 500 feet? I know Smith is just a muddy craphole that nobody cares about but I think that people could do better? Perhaps?

 

 

[The Ospray]

So if everybody knows it went free, and everybody knows it goes hammerless then why are people still nailing it and saying in the TR that it would go hammerless? Probably the same reason people take how many days to climb 500 feet? I know Smith is just a muddy craphole that nobody cares about but I think that people could do better? Perhaps?

 

 

Amen brother! My friend and I did it nearly clean in 2000. My partner nailed a pin on the original first pitch, and some free climbers walked by and gave us shit. I said well we will leave the hammer on the ground and so we did. Topped out eight or so hours later in the dark, that scramble off was really scary. I think we might have used a stick clip once or twice but with all the offsets, hooks, ball nuts etc, I bet it would go. Leave the hammer and pins on the ground! Thanks for the pics, reminded me of what a fun day of suffering we had. Thats cool most of the bolts got replaced, there was a lot of mank back then too!

 

Todd

[ivan]

So if everybody knows it went free, and everybody knows it goes hammerless then why are people still nailing it and saying in the TR that it would go hammerless? Probably the same reason people take how many days to climb 500 feet? I know Smith is just a muddy craphole that nobody cares about but I think that people could do better? Perhaps?

 

is it me or are you trying to come off as a classic pacific-northwest passive-aggressive dick?

 

while my text tends towards the obtuse to be sure, it wasn't that hard to comprehend that this was my first time climbing the route above the 3rd pitch, and that i had no idea it had been rebolted in the last year - it was not my intention to commit a hate-crime against the cheese-tuff, quite the opposite, and as the tr said, i didn't put in any pins, and the few that did go in this trip could be avoided in the future w/ a stickclip

 

agreed - future parties should bring just their exotic clean gadgets - however, till it becomes widely known (and hey, my tr wasn't THAT good , i'd hold back on the hostility for those who roll up to the base w/ metal - the ospray, for example, would have been well in his rights to throw his poo at his detractors

 

raging hangover this morning, combined w/ a fine fresh coat of poision oak too, so excuse me if i was reading you wrong

[Lodestone]

Fun reading and great pictures Ivan. Thanks for posting. I may have missed it but what is this route? Bubbas In Bondage > Picnic Lunch Wall?

 

Not that I have any experience with it, but it looks like Journey To Ixlan will get you that little extra mileage you desire by continuing up the highpoint in the formation. Although the description alone is making me sweat.

 

 

 

Chad

[ivan]

yeah, bubbas to the uncreatively named picnic lunch wall route

 

i read that same description of course, which is far from encouraging - still, if you placed nothing but long, fat bolts, i suspect it'd be okay - sport aiding!

[stevetimetravlr]

Is the title of this trip report based on how hungry you got?

[Lovetoclimb]

Journey is going to be a bit harder than Picnic Lunch Wall. More mandatory thin nailing. Enchanted hooks high on the route with bad falls possible because it is kind of slabby on the upper two pitches. But you will always be caught by fatty bolts as most everything was replaced on the second ascent. FA party was kind of dicks and removed hardware or had special bat hooks that they used and then f'd the holes to make repeat ascents harder (hence the enchanted hooks).

 

I wasn't trying to be passive agressive. But I could see how it could come off that way. I'm just saying do PLW clean. It can be done, it isn't unsafe. There are lots of fatty bolts up there, it is steep, and the falls that could happen will likely be clean.

 

 

[billcoe]

I think anyone who can get up any route clean that has otherwise not gone clean before has an obligation to others to widely see that info disseminated. Furthermore, I'd like to see them indicate any crazy or less normal things that they had to do to achieve this goal (ie, brought a long stickclip, specially mfg or ground hooks, used large offset cams mandatory for 2 moves, Alien offsets needed, etc etc, so that others can follow. Especially at Smith, I'm with everyone here on the page that we should be clean climbing everywhere possible. If climbers thinks a route still goes on pins, they'll take them along and most likely use them. It's not quite as bad at Beacon although degradation occurs there too, but the Smith cracks get trashed fast. It was difficult to see the Great Roof crack still get bashed when it would go clean, but with the internet we can and should share that info.

 

I'm not bagging on anyone cause the odd pin or 2 used here or there ain't going to ruin civilization (love the TR too BTW), just suggesting that we should all consider this as the way we should be....our protocol as it were.

 

Regards to all!

[KirkW]

Pardon my ignorance but google turned up nothing and I've never heard of enchanted hooks before. What are they?