[TR] Bacon Wand - - The All Hallowed South-East Corner 12/28/2012

[denalidave]

BTW, you can detour around the road work closure on SR14 by taking a left (north) just before the are the work is going on... takes about 10 minutes or less for the detour.

[ivan]

my 4th year of documenting daily beatardia - rather a slacker year than those before, but i reckon that not such a rude thing really - spent much of the summer in yosemite n' up round tower rock doing rare thangs - you be around beacon too much you just ain't original, right?

 

1/9/2015 - day #1 - couldn't let a full week of january go by w/o putting in an appearance - thanks kevbone, absentee landlord-ye-be, for getting me on the kick years ago of noting what was worth NOT bitching about over the course of the beatard year

 

did 3 solo laps last january, but 1's plenty enough for me a year later - the classic approach through the lulls n' roars of the gorge - plenty windless at the lot though, barely w2 conditions, though still plenty chilly - took a dump n' renewed me year pass in 4 minutes, then galloped off for the main show - cold n' darkish but good enough and done in a saintly way, me pious n' piss skert in places, but nothing to really worry about

 

a long rotation home - holy shit i wish the whole year could be so balmy

 

1/21 - day 2 - VICTORY!!!

 

not that i ever need an excuse to get me some bacon, but today i was compelled to put in an appearance at the skamania court house - larry the tool (you know, the new one who was a lot like the old one?) saw fit to write me a 138$ ticket last november for getting back to the devil an hour after dusk, as apparently the current regime wants to say that's the same as bivying or doing a midnight ascent - don't know what the new feller was all butt hurt over, maybe it was just the shame of having to be bailed out of a bad spot last summer after his incompetence made itself plain before the very people he aspires to lord it over?

 

anyhow, i asked for my day in court and had a capital time today seeing justice in action - took a half day off and got good enough weather for a quick stop at beacon- gabbed w/ old man jeff n' coastie adam about the gubimint - they then were off to see what those rat bastards have been up to over on the what-have-you lately - i romped down to the base for a solo in street shoes n' shirt n' tie up the first half of the first pitch - then raced back up to the lot and hopped into the devil and bounded on in to stevenson in time to take my seat

 

the courthouse reminds me a bit of church - same sad old faces all around - same smell of worn wood and the same deep solemnity suffused through the assembly - the judge was a jovial looking chap at least

 

sat on the group W bench awhile reading my national geographic and grinning to hear all the cases of my fellows next to me who'd gotten the big dickie from the beacon man since thanksgiving - it was a mort of my fellow 'mericans, and they mostly got their fines reduced and a friendly reminder to Render on to Ceasar What Is..

 

then it was my turn to take the big oath and do my song and dance - i was delighted to see the Man With The Robe quickly warming to my argument - a decade of getting back to lot after dark with nary a ticket - the custom quite clear: pay yer 10 clams if yer bivying on the rock or doing a moon-light ascent, but never this nickel and dime "yer back 10 minutes after dusk" bullshit

 

i'm paraphrasing for the purpose of comedy i concede, but the Man in Black basically said repeatedly: "i get it, i get it, the bastards out there at beacon are little bitches, but i can't tell them what to do - all i can do is throw out their tickets, which is what i'm going to do" - SCORE!

 

and then the best line of all: "have you posted about this on cascade climbers? i hear that's a good place to discuss these issues"

 

so anyhow that's how the ball bounced - with a healthy reaffirmation for yer friend and humble narrator as to the virtue of our montesquien machine of government - one hand wacks on the other, eh?

 

celebrated the greatest civil rights victory of our modern age by gulping down a pabst and sprinting up the trail in the dusk, taking a slight detour into the weeds after my hat got blown off my head at the top of uprising - then it was back to the big city and a union meeting

 

in closing, if there's anythign serious to discuss here, what think you to a nocturnal version of the annual 30$ park pass? i'd easily get 30$ of night climbing in each year, plus be protected against this penny-ante crap

 

1/25 - day 3 - a day to die for - the circle complete - beacon set to close up shop for a mighty long season but fate vouch-safed to chuck this plum in a poor fools lap before it could sling off into spring

 

'twas a week for settling old scores - my court-date a comely kick-off, it was time to finish the climb adam and i had started that ill-omened late autumn day - we'd bailed from 2 pitches up, having to leave a tangle of biners and webbing to make the 5 lbj-era bolts up there work - hate to let a year go by w/o climbing jensens, and lordy didn't the stars align to reclaim the gear and get lit like a lord in doing so

 

first it was me n' adam on the list - then it was me n' adam n' goeff - it grew then to the 3 of us n' bryan too, then finally even fucking mike was coming out of his homo-biking hermitage to have at it w/ o - a 5-spot for fortune n' fleeting greatness

 

started poorly enough - me n' mike sitting at the b.k. for a good bit waiting for the assembly of demi-gods to gaggle together - eventually bryan and goeff showed a half hour late but i didn't mind - heavy fog in camas but frequently giant flocks of geese would go raging by above, gaudy as ghosts, gallumping off north - we gave adam 3 minutes to arrive then called to discover he was still snoozing in bed - damn, my cheap oregon smokes were in danger (and shit, i never did give that boy his 5-spot! remind me when next we meet, hear?)

 

sunny on the south side but a bit of a breeze - quite the clown-fucking convention we had to contend with - eventually we got it settled - geoff lead p1 whle mike belays and bryan and i get to guzzle beer and recollect it as recreation

 

geoff got his redemption for shitting between the sheets last month in a steel breeze - mike followed then bryan - adam was there by then, and goeff chucked down the other end of a 70 as bryan was climbing so i could send up another line and the li'l dawg - bryan cast off on p2 as i started jugging and i had a penthouse view of him slip-slidign away on the awful slippery lichenated stone - i had some gut-chuckles w/ the boys n' a butt too as we buttoned-up against the breeze, then bryan was there and i went on up to him to help out in getting An Anchor For a Modern Era

 

bryan was over his dream of repeating a free-ascent of the money pitch and suddenly i found myself delighted to get that pithy peach - adam was still on the ground, connected to us w/ a 70 - geoff came up on the new anchor as i launched into the incredible start that is jensen's 3rd pitch

 

just starting the 11a crack on a blind placement

 

time went by - jim and bill arrived below - lichen populated my eye-balls - the laughable # of 3s, 4s, n' 5s i had got whittled away and then i was there - bryan followed, panting in the odd hibernal-heat as he made the pillar-top - he rested and sorted as geoff followed then was off lickety-split, ending up aiding plenty of the pitch

 

mike jugged up in a jiffy n' got a spiffy pano

 

 

need to put a decent anchor in the lower nothc of jensens as i was a wee bit unhappy in my pee-pee places to see what had been holding me from flying through the sky down to the sea - an ocean of ants, the fould reek of formic acid exploding on the scene - frogs creek n' croaking, the whole world in wonder at the folly of winter with her guard down, panties askew and napping

 

suddenly we were all at the railing w/ jim n' hogsheads of tourons trundlign up down and all around - butts n' beers n' bullshitting and a fine heady-brew of homo sapien comraderie - the parking lot in the dying lot - pbrs n' pleasant conversation as adam went down to fetch the what have yous, then we set our sights west and went back to being ordinary men

 

poor adam - he ripped 50 feet of poision oak cables out of lay lady lay and the vicinty w/ not even gloves on his hands - he'll be in intensive care till next christmas i fear

 

1/26 - day IV for the annum - 2nd corner lap of this crisp season too - a warm night of good vibes after yesterdays jensens gang-bang - peanut noodles n' kids games, tv on the couch and a soft slink off to slumber covered in cushions

 

monday off for grading but i'd binged and purged friday night to get that dispatched - a sound sleep-in after somnambulating upstairs this side of dawn - book reading in the bright fog outside my bedroom window - the simple life of simon peg sounded n' sorted out before i need to take the first dump of the day

 

bacon w/ the kids, math-book bound though they were - a bit of wine n' honey and off i was down the sacred highway - beacon not near so balmy as so soon ago - a filtered light came greyly through the high cloud murk, the airs light and limp and heavyish with dampness

 

a couple on the corner already but i breezed by at tree ledge - read an old translation of beowulf on the party ledge and nursed a beer, then up and out via the ridge - more beer n' book by the pin in the last bit of direct sun that could be brought to bare there - croc-shod i clamber up to the trail and the site of former students, their names not recollected till i was several switchbacks further down

 

the long binge home w/ a 3-buck hat pulled low down where my eyes glim - the sun's near set and i sweat not to see the last part of this annual campaign ably dispatched

 

1/29 - day 5 - wholly shiite muslims, 5 days of fine beacon climbing in the king-of-winter and 2 more days left in the month n' fine weather forecast for each'o'them too! - my 3rd solo lap of the year

 

beautiful balmy thursday - the sun bright through the window of my classroom trailer - had no thought of beacon but by noon the desire-burn was bright - an annual bit of adjudicating upon the appeals of the absent in the afternoon, then that dispensed with, a desperate rage down the road into the sudden howling winds of the gorge - where did that wicked wind come from? it was so sweet before - like another fall of man, the ledger long unbalanced, the measure made right with the meat thrown against the wall

 

two ladies rambling up the trail as i lounged down after a frenzy of dressing n' dandyning meself up decent for the big blow in the parking lot - 2 more fellows earning the Ascent of the Day on young warriors, deep in shadow and bounding up unabashedly despite it

 

the breathe of the lord upon me - only the penitent man will pass - my doom diverted for now, i made my way up the windy hill and rumbled on down soon thereafter, my soul done up and ready for glory to the heavenly tune of tom waits' "come on up to the house"

 

my quotidian quote n' a personal favorite, a t.j. classic: "calamity was our best physician"

 

1/30 - day VI (holy fawk, did i really just hear the nfl's throwing in the fucking towel on latin numerals?!? jesus fucking fuck fuck!)

 

a rare auold junuary, the right kind really - 1 more day of winter afore the winter avalanches in n' shuts the cliffs for the fornication of the falcons - mike's after 3 - beers and bullshit'n on the way in - breezy for sure, but not batshit-so

 

adam in the lot - we ambulate to the base in the big wind and Walk Around the Issues

 

who can't love this life, it passes so even as you piss away the dregs of yesterday?

 

 

 

closing day 2015 - 7th day out at beacon this year - foggy and chilly-chilly at home in the dawn, lately dusted off from the couch - the boys at the b.k. soon thereafter - into the gorge the wind gathers wicked force - cruising w/ cold fingers, we fumble on up the rest the corner ducking and dodging through the plaid-man

 

the rest of the day rightly desposed, beer drinking and fucking around on the sunny side where the wind ramped up beyond all expectations

 

and so the sun sets on the southside - we shall see it soon enough i wager

 

2/22 - Dia VIII - sunny sunday - predictions for Big Wind but it wasn't really there - a weekend w/ the brudder n' family big n' small on saturday, also biking by the shrieking birds w/ the chilluns - a sound sleep-in - bacon n' eggs n' toast n' streaming sun through the windows - my beer gut hated upon by my helpless forebears

 

the plan was for a solo of pitch 1 of THE WORLD FAMOUS STONE SOUP - binged n' purged on the big orbit in after noon - racked up in the baby breeze - big flakes down the past few months, the bric'a'brac of busted trees all around - scooted up to the pin n' remembered rather drunkenly you need a pretty-durn big cam just there that i didna have, so after a come-to-jeebus session of thrashing around on untrustworhty shite i rapped off that n' a bit of booty, cleaning as i went

 

allright, looks like i have a reason for living come monday afternoon

 

roamed around the base abit w/ friendly pbr's n' saw steve up high on the spring routes, n' fir-krissakes, how's that good-ole'boy always manage to be climbing w/ a girl?

 

2/23 - 9th bite of bacon for 2015 so far - darted out soon after the final school bell to rescue my bail gear on stone soup from yday - a much easier pitch when you have the proper gear

 

about 30 minutes from ground to the 1st anchor - the 2nd pin came out in my finger-tips but it never was all that necessary - suuuuure hope the same knifeblades on pitch 4 are in better shape this season - need to actually carry a hammer next time i ramble on up there...

 

3/4 - day 10 - took the day off to do some union agitating but it abated soon after noon - winged it out to beacon and got another solo lap on stone soup in despite my snot-filled senses wrecking my equilibriums

 

full spring in the fucking first week of march, the world flipped on it's frack'n vernal maidenhead

 

Beware the Ides - day 11 - beware indeed for it was a day of woe stacked on woe - started amiably enough, a good sleep-in to the dull roar of rain outside the open windows (what a joy of summer to have come so soon) - met geoff at 9, gusts of raining galling the rain-wracked parking lot - our plan was siege tactics, always dry despite the worst the weather can offer

 

geoff got lap 1 and misfortune 1 of the day for me was some odd bit of grit creeping in my open eye and progressively offending me w/ every passing minute - within 2 hours i was almost blind - got my lap in and even moved onto the other unnamed wonder under the roof (starts on the headspace bolt but goes right thereafter) before the combination of continuous crying and sketchy hooking sent me home

 

geoff drove the red devil to camas at least, and by then the predicted wind had whipped up something fierce, him dodging downed trees n' sizzling power lines the whole way back, me keening n' cursing my old-skewl god's condemnation - my leg back to home was classic - one eyed, finger-pushing the offending orb into its socket to gain its pain-surrender, swerving out of the way of every wind-blown, coursing sprig of cedar, ignorant n' uncaring of the 3rd dimension - woe #2 on the arrival, the big breeze succeeding in blowing down 2 of my 4 backyard fences, to much horror to handle n' for certain the problem of the future - the rest of the day couch-bound n' crest-fallen, fresh-showered n' well sodden...

 

5/3 - day 12 - off my pace for the year - too busy doing other cool things - a trip to tower rock - union agitation on an increasingly grand scale - a week in red rocks and city of rocks

 

today was stone soup - went extremely smoothly - bryan did p2, which i still haven't led since hurting myself on it last year - i was sorta dreading p5, with all of its fixed funky knifeblades, but they all held, so i reckon it's all good?

 

anybody know what's going w/ the evergreens in the gorge? am i crazy or does damn near every pine near beacon show serious blight right now? tons of brown on most of the trees for miles - looks likely to burn like mad this summer if it continues.

 

5/9 - day 13 - way off my pace from last year

 

weeks on end it seems union bidness dominating my thoughts - so sad, prime weather for poaching

 

saturday at noon - the revenge rolls into a sun-soaked parking lot as i make parley w/ long-passed students

 

n side climbing - love all dem new routes - we do one n' enjoy life - a foolish rap back down - jim gib-jabbering soon therafter - a quick run up the alpine route and we top-route the shit 'round stone soup

 

the summer soon upon us - what fool sets this sorta shit aside?

 

6/11 - day 14 - seniors on the wing, graduation goes off tomorrow - an easy day of dispensing w/ the care-taker tasks before summer - practice walking w/ a pack of restless fools

 

out to beacon for the big what-have-you - pulled in for some soloing-aiding on the soup aforehand - salvaged me some russki steel on the first pin - nastia says she's american, but her 'biner color-scheme is still solidly russki

 

sudden politicking w/ suds out in godfirsaken stevenson - a good bit of the brethern assembled - lords know what will lay as a result, but let's not worry about that on the cusp of summer - a long orbit back, w/ a big semi-wreck sending my addled self of a disastrous detour

 

ah, the simple time of summer is soon

 

7/15 - day 15 - opening day 2015 - hangover at dawn - plans for a big trip to tower rock so a 6 a.m. ascent it was - can't remember a thing about it but i'm sure it was great

 

7/21 - day 16 - back after a long trip to tower rock, bill n' i nonetheless rallied the morning after to do a corner lap in the wondrous cool of the mid-morning - clouds and breeze - a pair of bros pleasant enough to let us pass at the base - goddamn i still haven't figured out a way to start p2 w/o fucking up my shins and scaring shit out of myself - hidden treats - a lengthy yack-yack at the ledge - then home to prepare for the arrival of the family after a month n' a half away...

 

bootied 2 phat steel biners off the base of p2 - might could make a present back of them if the feller who left them wants them n' understands it was either going to be me or the next party through to claim them as a prize

 

8/20 - day 17 - dod's w/ kenny, me rather rusty after a month of a whole lotta not climbing - practically a full division of armor heading west over the rail-head, a site i'd long wished to behold - christ, is summer so near deceased?

 

8/26 - day 18 - solo lap in the afternoon, moonlight climb at night - shared the stone w/ 2 lovely shielas on the first round (we bootied your nut if'n you want it back) n' the night round was w/ the silverman crowd - hooting n' hollering down on the dock w/ a drunken dave n' a krunked kenny - gripped drive home as the goddamn check engine light came back on

 

8/31 - day 19 - last day before returning to work - all good things....

 

takes fist w/ ben - hadn't climbed this in a coon's age, it sure hadn't gotten easier in the meantime

 

9/16 - day 20 - wow, all the signs show this'll be my least productive year at beacon since i rolled into the nor'west - only my 2nd solo lap since summer came - reckon i done been doing other things...

 

squeeze job of a climb, 'twixt the regular end of the day n' back 2 skewl night - nobody about - grey, gloomy, still - lost some of the muscle memory of the route, occasionally stopping n' down-climbing little parts in order to do them right - free pink tricam if'n you want to pry it out of the 3rd pitch in the infamous nut-eating crack, i would but i already bootied 2 pinkies that i never ever seem to use... dead chipmunk gathering ants on the walk off up the ridge, poor li'l feller, but best to leave summer at it's end rather than suffer through the winter for no fawk'n reason, no?

 

9/19 - day 21 - steady mob'n'in'da morning - rocked the bofa the night before, waking up bright eyed n' whatnot, wrenching me neck a wee bit in the dawn - went to work for a spell, strange for a saturday, but sallied forth just a shade shy of noon n' noodled on out to the beacon-wand w/ geoff

 

adam in the lot, then soon tim n' winter n' we hobnobbed a spell - shuffled on down to cruising w/ intent to check out cloud 9 - by the time we were there my time was shortish n' nobody seemed to relish the pg-nature of the newly cleaned route, so we settled for moving on up the normal way

 

back in the lot started to build meself up into a towering jesus-based rage at the sight of a ticket on geoff's ride, me having scratched out the license # of the newly defunct red devil on my parking pass n' substituting his on in - walked into the ranger station, ticket in hand, feeling much like a feller rambling on into a liquor store in the depth of a meth-binge w/ a sawed off shotgun barely obscured beneath his grimy coat - all went well inside, in shah allah, n' happy i was as i had but 20 minutes to make a family photo-session in the 'couve n' had no time to dig deep holes in the woods or slip a 7-state man-hunt

 

9/21- the double-deuce day - solo lap 3 - busy monday, but belated plan to blast out to beacon w/ mike after beating down the union-bidness after skewl - late getting to his place n' i need to borrow everything but a pair of shoes to make a go of it, but a bit late we bounded out east into the impending evening

 

hit the lot n' got all sorted n' soon sussed out Our Boy had brought no rope - was to be his first beacon climb of the year so maybe a bit of a bummer, but we settled for slumming it at the base w/ jim n' a fantastically furry old larry - a beer or two and some other thing sto boot n' mike n' i had a contest - who could make it to the top of uprising first: the feller on the trail or the feller soloing it? i lost

 

laughs w/ dave in sadly shortened no-bo-trifecta soiree, then back for a short session of family time

 

9/24 - 23rd beacon trip for the year, solo lap #4 since summer broke

 

crazy traffic on the drive, whatever...a parcel of folks gang-raping the first pitch - a feller doing his first gear lead on top rope, if only we all had such a gentle break-in

 

after a year of fumbling w/ the crux on p2 i finally appear to have figured out how to do it calmly

 

loose block on p5 up to the notch - can pull a grape-fruit sized chunk out w/ your fingers - tucked it back in carefully after noting there's no decent place to put it short of chucking it off the cliff

 

started the long slow process of moving our friend n' humble forest feller the recently deceased chipmunk on down the way

 

9/26 - trip 24 - sunny n' damp n' foggish on the way in - geoff n' the revenge - beers and some big big laffs - cheating on little wing, that unrepentant li'l prostitute - tr'n on jills n' fear of fly'n - the artist-formerly-known-as-jimbo n' geo-orge n' more merriment at the base - time's up, i make my amends n meander on up the corner (lap #5) mal-fucking the crux for christ's sake - time for date-night n' the pickle-tickle

 

9/28- 25 beacon days for 2015 - lap #6

 

last night's blood-soaked full lunar eclipse left me feeling a bit like i'd blown a fine opportunity - how kewl it'dve been to have been clambering around like a demented lizard under that doomed sky

 

settled for a quick redemption lap after school today, union-thoughts buzzing through my head and needing frequent beat-downs to focus on the next step ahead

 

sunday someboyd must have put in a directional on the big broken block on snag ledge while tr'ing their partner on cruising (or fallen while doing the traverse as part of the corner) - the 100 lb chunk that once made up a big part of the traverse is now on the trail

 

for only the 2nd time i managed to do the crux overhang move right - i need to intentionally focus my eye on where my left foot needs to go before committing into the sequence - it's freaky b/c i can't see the foot once my hands are on the block, but i think in theory the left really doesn't have to stick in order to move the right foot where it belongs - sure do like how it feels when it goes right...

 

found a 60$ piece of lovely booty on p3 - describe it and offer me 15$ of a 12 pack of your choosing (i'll drink damn near anything) and it's your's again felt rewarded enough to finally deliver The Man the 2 rescue biners i bootied back in july - old boy's wing was all busted from doing the nutcracker recently - i hardly styled the thing mself last summer but at least emerged unscathed

 

the first fall-ish climb of the year for me - done in shorts n' t-shirt but there was a big-old breeze that portended bigger things to come - had to pull up short just past the se corner notch to drink my pbr in piece from the wind - scampered on up afterwards and saw my friend n' humble forest-squirrel's corpse now Sleeps Beneath the Sands

 

9/29- 26 beacon days right-ill disposed in brawl ridiculous - 7th lap

 

how patterns assemble at summer's end and would they could go on forever, these lazy days of dead september - a simple time really, w/ the faint wisps of dire responsibility - the orbit out - a puff, a butt, a beer - the radio soon turned off - a zen cloud descends - focus finds us in the name of fear

 

a parcel of fools aroudn the rock - what a difference a day makes - yesterday righteous and lonely and lordly in the big presence of the rude weather - today the lot packed - jeff t, joey h, geoff, kenny, arndt, pilgrims all bent to a thousand seperate wheels and fates - i forfucked them all and crawled up the corner alone w/ my thoughts - only the penitent man will pass i said once and since then i've grown sour on salvation - i scraped up to the second pitch overhang, cocky w/ 2 recent right-sends and started to fuck it up - hemmed n' hawed, beating down back-mindedness, saved it and set meself straight

 

boomed up the rest of the track - hidden treats - breezed through the ledge w/o taking in the sights - the optional hard exit - uprising - then down the trail and through the Twight-like Zone to hoot n' holler at our local beatards banging it out On The What-Have-You - who am i to judge the One True Bowie, after so many editor's scoldings? enjoyed soloing up to the 4th bolt then thought the better of it, retiring to the rocks to yelp n' yammer n' yee-gawds them goddam fools as they soared up straight like true warrior-clown-poet-god-hero-kings up rip-city

 

9/30 - september's not fucked dood, cock-tober's for abuncha goddamned frak'n amateurs - Ernie Bank Day at the park (#27)- "let's play two" that anti-poltroon opined, ain't it? lap 8-9 at any rate

 

kenny n' new-guy jason it was at the start - never met a man w/ that moniker that wasn't a down-right psychopath i fear, yet was pleased to see such simple-isms ain't always so certain - breezed by Our Boy rattling his way up little wing, woe-be-gone-ish it was - i don't judge, it's for others to project their jurisdiction over me i see had no smokes n' cans for my fair-cousin, feared i was that to have brought them would have prejudiced me against a second lap, the likes i've not tempted since the big rock fall on the corner last summer - promised him i'd bring the poison on my second passing - it's a sweet ticket that carries us to our salvation

 

yet another member of the nom-de-guerre club crumple-fucking his sad father-time fuck-show down to the party ledge i found upon uprising- for tax reason's i'll not lay his rude christian name on ye, save to say his sadistically sad stories yielded a rather more appropriate nom-de-not-cum result - shit, you had to be there i'd assert - the gawdamn internets w/ its nutty protocols, who can you please if you would be you?

 

ran back into our boys on round 2 - enjoyed ourselves a spell - the summer re-visited - stories - what compels the human monkey to be so interested in his fellow mammals, it's a mystery, no? the good, the bad, the ugly recited. gut-laughs, lord how we need them.

 

the 2nd crucial jug-hold on the 2nd pitch over-hang is loose - jesus.forking.christ - didn't we just deal w/ this?

 

10/2 - day 28 - lap 10 - 5 laps this work week, 7 beacon ascents in 7 days - who can't like fall?

 

grey n' gloomy this friday - dull air - cool - spitting a thin spray on the windshield on the skedaddle in at the close of the working day

 

ruminations at the base w/ a bespectacled beacon-boy-o in search of missing metal - damn gravity will get us all - some fat-jokes made at your friend n' humble narrator, but i guess i'm a big enough man not to begrudge'em

 

father-time further up, deep in don quixote - i left a beer as a blessing n' boomed along n' back down in time for phriday w/ the family fiends - pizza n' do'watcha will, we'll all be pissed n' sated soon...

 

10/5 - day 29 - lap 11

 

indian summer is set upon us for a few more days at least - my birthday weekend sadly to be scuppered it seems by the soon-come falling goddamn damps - what can you do? thought for sure i had a Serious Bidness meeting afterschool but suddenly found meself free at the last minute so cast off in a frenzy just a few moments after the masses made their exit

 

the orbit out obsessed w/ the same old mystery - the cuckold's enigma of the simple n' complex - the burden and wreck of the butterfly's breath on our noosed-necks

 

old arlo sporting a curious queue, i breezed by quiet unawares

 

father time and the mangled mayor n' the Keeper of the Ken - the world half-digested n' soon spat out - the setting sun n' the return to the sane and mundane

 

10/6 - deo XXX - 12th lap

 

the rain threatens - doom upon us all - salvation is distant and saviors hesitant - desperate days and short time - the gods grow grim as the sun goes gaunt, the skin of the world is paper thin

 

ruminations upon the libido rightly considered on the cruise out - the Lion Behind the Glass - the allure of danger safely contained, the frenzy in the fear, the prospect of passion set free upon an unprepared world - what waits said is goddamn-straight and will always be so, you just gotta keep that devil down in the hole

 

a lonely corner crawl, light wind and cool commons - frogs for friends - beer n' a book on the ledge - the long way off

 

the Keeper of the Ken on the verge of the Second Coming - his one hand washes the other - He Fears Nothing

 

10/8 - a proudly prime one, trip 31, lap 13 - the rain of yesterday quite dissolved - lord i got lit up on the front end of the day - the Panda Problem Considered - the teacher's year quite systematic - day 1 you pick up a ball and start tossing it around, day 2 they hand you another, then another, then another - somewhere near the 15% mark you start feeling awed by your own power, True Master of the Impossible, then soon thereafter get the first solid cold of the season, struck down like a simpleton on the path to damascus, even as the balls pile up, and often give in to base despair

 

my tower rock trip quite tossed out, i look forward to 3 days worth of tending bulging buds n' shifting out smith-wards w/ Big Ben

 

10/12 - day 32, lap 14 - by my rough calculations it's been 14975.25 days since i left the womb - my 41st birthday at any rate - felt a wee bit nervous on the ascent, who wants a fuck'n snarky foot-note on their fell tome?

 

large meteorite strike near the young warriors cleaing - a 100'lb'er i'd say, half-buried in it's impact crater - musta fallen since last friday - nut booty on p2, should you wish to slum it...

 

10/14 - 33rd beatard day - my 15th lap - rommel died this day - hastings happened and harold wept w/ a worried eye - i wandered away in the afternoon after ambivalent amusements of the professional kind, curious and cruel, is it so for all i wonder?

 

beers and bright wind - worrying i wind away alone along a crooked course - the lot loaded w/ citizens of all sort - the rock redounds w/ reprehensibles of every strip - steve n' kenny, dave n' that-dude-who's-name-escapes-me

 

sea-lions in strong numbers stirring the waters - a sordid country tune you've no reason not to give a chance...

 

[video:youtube]

 

10/15 - day 34 - lucky 16 - a sight i'd never seen, as sweet and serene a by-product of initiative 502 as could be - sultry beauties on the descent, quite surprised, as sure as they'd been of a lonely summit - We could not help but tarry and oh-sweet-jesus it was lovely despite the big, big breezes

 

10/16 - #35, lap 17 - union bitterness n' beer-drowned badness at the back end of the working day - out to the royal rock as the rays grew red n' stretched - so many men in motion - i romp up in a half-reef wind, realizing the brethern will be rounded up right soon - adam n' kenneth, cocooned in comfort - steve n' nastia, creeping up soon in course - me in the middle, mindless n' mirthful - the world is wicked but i am fucking good, and so goes friday

 

10/20 - #36, 18th lap - macarthur fulfilled a famous pledge this day, and after 3 days of solid soaking, so did i - w/ temerity i plied the pilgrim path, tremulous at the prospects of a slimy ascent - topher n' his shiela alone at the base of the southeast corner - pleasant conversation n' a slow plodding paw-up for me soon after - a simple climb through a sordid, somnolent sky followed by a fast descent to fetch the boy-child n' carry him off to scouts

 

the fall is fast fading, the big blows of ancient autumn hovering hard-upon the eastern edges of the gaunt gorge n' threatening to descend - what hoary-haired centurion could not tremble at it? the dice will be cast, and who will count the dead?

 

trafalgar day, 210 years later - lap 19, n' day 37 - sweet teen dreams, if only i could describe them - would that i could make this sultry stone my hms victory, yet happy am i to have it my simple hms sophie - "beacon expects that every man will do his duty" - could i do better?

 

indian summer un-ending, these are sweet times we live in my friend - extravagant jolly-green giants w/ so-n-so in our hands, etc., etc.

 

vexing vixens preying upon my preternatural mind, i made my way through the pierced valley, intent upon glory or disgorgement - a venerable veteran in the lot, heavy-clad betwixt wind n' water against the venomous vines n' beside himself to heave away towards obligations i can not guess what

 

light winds, easy weather - i gambole up to grassy ledge n' hoot n' holler at kendall n' kenny beset upon big ledge - i binge on beer n' butts while taking in the rare environs of the top of smooth dancer, singing n' swinging n' sailing away towards wondrous seas of my own design

 

must have done 300 or so solo ascents yet today by accident sent down the biggest block ever - right at the split on the 4th class ramble up the true sou'east ridge i tended starboard - just below the big block overhang a right-big boulder tumbled out under my half-seen feet n' plunged down over the indian face, leaving me horror-struck at it's sudden and uncertain flight

 

11/3 n' 9 - days 38-9 - 2 straight solid scratches, the scorching flight, senses season-addled - the dim-dead light of the lying sky fading fast as i screech out, streaming out ribbons of bitter badness - the world is dying, my raison d'etre diminishing w/ each flagging day

 

the rock a streaming slippery disaster - i treasure my skin too much to sally out either time, but i bound on down for a good look-see n' good-sense to sip down beer n' bid my time - today i figure why not set a base time for a bipedal ascent from the start of the sodden corner, walking much as i'd wander up by my hands, unconcerned w/ the clock, concentrating just on capturing the buzz - 20:20 to the top of uprising, 23:45 to the true corner railing, 28:00 to the summit - now if only a long stretch of dryness could set in so i could do some adventurous ambling comparisons...

[ivan]

my 5th year of assorted bacon-bits

 

1/10/16 - 4th year of setting down the shit that does go down in beatardia, where men are women and women are never around

 

was a rude late fall/early winter season - the big blow of early november annihilated the hiking trail and i woulda been pissed about it if'n never-ending rains hadn't set in and made soloing laps insane anyway

 

a late december trip out w/ geoff at the start of winter break - we ended up just drinking beers n' smoking shit n' commenting on the awful, awful slickery nature of everything - the wall closed at ground zero and so nothing aidable particularly of interest

 

christmas ensued and all was well - didn't have the cash or the clock-time to go for a long off trip to red rocks or whatever, so the only local option was heading up to the puget sound and make a water-man of meself again - last year was great, a 3 day back-pack on the olympic coast n' a 2 day ocean kayak

 

this time around it was a 6-day sea window

 

beat up north in the early hours of 12/27, bent out of my mind it seemed, water streaming along the side of the automovat - seattle shortly after dawn, proud pat all pat-like

 

made our way to the marina n' nattered in the cold light waiting to meet up w/ our captain, a true comedy of errors - soon enough we were on board and casting off

 

sweet simple sailing southward in light airs, past bouys bestowed with sealions - seals - dolphins - eagles both american and candadian i bet - the pleasant site of a 'lion bolting down a full-growth salmon by tail

 

the last bit into port orchard by motor, the night come round so soon - carriers at bremerton

 

ashore we 'sup n' carouse n' enjoy ourselves capitally - meet a sheila-acquaintance of denali dave's round the fireplace n' philsophize over the weight of smoke before rambling off to a sea-berth

 

sail oughta town the next day and all was well - got meself nearly kilt by a swinging boom just shy of brian island or somethign like that - spent much of the night dazed as could be but enjoyed a grand time nonetheless binging on burgundy, n' noble reds n' flowing bowls of what-have-you until 2 in the morning

 

awoke feeling near as death as i've felt in awhile - the hard-knock the day before was certainly one of my fabled 9 lives n' i felt the truth of it - grayed out - feeling the cold i'd inherited from the silverton clan plus the concusssion plus the cold above deck plus the deep, deep fucking booze funk

 

they all thought i was dead the day before and grew doubly grim when i was drawing breath the day after but groaning - turned into me laying in agony on the cabin bench n' holding me head together as we steamed back to seattle against a solid breeze

 

the rest of the day was a healing thing - pat flung himself into the sound in his wetsuit as i laid around his joint, showering and trying to sleep off my fucking concussion - that night we did some super-stoned shopping n' headed over to his girlfriend's for a sumptous dinner set against a most scorchign cold outside - i cackled n' thumbed through 1960's civil defense brochures while pat snored n' i made small talk w/ his missus and her very alien animal

 

3 days of ocean kayaking ensued - launched out from an indian reservation near bellingham, stocked up on cheap injun smokes - the rudder was rudely impaired n' pat didn't know but had me in the back anyhow, so after hours of bitching n' cussing we finally fetched up on clark island

 

soaked rather wet we came straight ashore n' made camp in what proved to be a damned cold place - made a roaring fire n' had a bit of a good night - italian fare i recollect - olives n' red sauce n' sausage tortellinis n' mozeralla n' red wine - a sputtering fire, a bit of a dissapointment but soon enough the tent beside a snoring pat n' i slept soundly, the head cold resonating through me

 

day 2 of the ocean kayak we resolve to shift our camp southwards on the island but no further - find a sweet cove filled w/ firewood n' a sweltering sun, relative to our recent camp - we souse along the shore for a bit n' later launch for a trip to a nearby island where pat is molested by sheep

 

great night, this one - we were promised the northern lights but they never appeared but fuck it - it was new years eve - we sat by a roaring fire n' enjoyed bacon n' chili n' what-have-you, me sucking down pionot noir n' smokes n' enjoying the simpleness of being stranded at sea

 

new year's eve we returned to civilization n' after a bit of agony i made it home in time for winter weather and a nice delayed start to the school year

 

 

but this a beacon thread, n' so all this stuff before is simple bullshit n' i apologize for it

 

today was day 1! corner lap #1, but not solo n' gladly not

 

geoff at the bk a bit past 10 - we saunter eastwards by strong light n' stronger winds

 

the parking lot in a simple gale - we pack and wander down, bound n' determined to reach the top of the uprising and to suss out the damage from there

 

cold n' icy but delightfully dry - i take pitch 1 n' we alternate from there - snow patches here and there, but dry where it needs to be - some beers along the way n' we get time to poke our head over the railing n' take in the carnage on the touron-trail - much work to be done it's obvious - big blown out trees n' blowdown n' battered stones - we take it in and scoot down the raps in the big blow n' enjoy some beers and ramboling aroudn and reach back for home

 

here's to 2016

 

1/31 - day 2 - closing day, and not a very promising one - 39 degrees n' pouring rain in the parking lot - a drive out through mental desperation, the moss on this here rolling rock of meself growing thick n' fucking shaggy

 

beers n' bullshitting w/ steve n' waiting for the weather to give up a little - there were no illusions of how thorough soggy it was gonna be

 

no wind to speak of though, so there was that at least and it got warmer on the south side after the mist melted away - soon enough i cast off, pulling on gear here and there to remind meself not to be a dipshit on a point of pride climbing the slime-cone

 

the sun shone out halfway up and the mood improved noticeably - fresh snow, as innocent as a downy laotian-lamb along the far gorge walls -steve was exuberant to lead the second pitch and i salute him for it as it wouldn't have taken much to talk me out of it

 

a real slippy-slidey one is that - our boy did it w/o flying off but, following, i found meself doing the cartoon-character spinning me feet in the air thang at one point and only narrowly avoiding a pretty cosmic pirouette around the first crux

 

found meself holding forth somethign fierce on tree ledge, swilling pbr n' pounding upon our poor fellow about his own cosmic hangups -those rightly disposed, and a few butts thrown in to boot, i bolted on up the slippery ramps to grassy ledges - since i had a 70 and the jill's anchor was running wet, i went past it and anchored to a tree - a flippant shoulder belay ensued n' steve quite soon went n' fell big time onto it but i proved them old-boys knew what they were doing and ended up smiling on the ground for it

 

the trail closed sign even as we slipped away - stone soup next month now i suppose, though i suspect it's gonna take a civil action and yet another juicy skamania judge session before it gets sorted out - how good is it i have no other hobbies?

 

 

2/27 - day 3 - stone soup in the sopping wet - sausage n' eggs n' a leisurely breakfast - 'nastia at tad past 10 - streaming water on the sides of the machine on the way out - the k-19 in classic form, fresh off a cardiac arrest for christ's sake?

 

3/2 - day 4 - the k-19 konked out saturday just at the parking lot ledge n' we ran out of day and had to leave all the gear hanging on the wall - ya'll bitches lost out on a treasure trove of scary worn-out trash

 

we raced out amid squalls n' rain-storms, me simultaneously sucking down beer n' butts n' changing clothes - was an easy romp up the route w/ the gear all pre-placed - strong winds n' steady rain at times but all went well

 

prime time for putting up some more routes on this small patch of available wall...

 

3/26 - day 6 - spring breaks big upon the land - breezy clouds n' bright sun - a right sound sleep-in - wine n' pizza for breakfast, than a side-saddle into the gorge under glorious skies - crisp n' cold - spent some time scrambling 'round the ozone n' enjoying da wedder, then busted eastwards more to beacon - aid-soloed stone soup n' had a prime time of it, binging on, of all things, katy perry

 

4/28 - day 7 - been out to hike hamilton a couple times the past few weeks but that shit don't count - been a bad fews weeks of loss: health, cool students, ambition, colleagues, etc. - got a taste of bacon to soothe the senses today - me n' mike at the base of stone soup in the cool grey of the afternoon - the alpine start to three tree ledges - to the swiss ledges from there, swapping leads - sawzalled a couple bolts to get'em more righteous - shit, there's so many more to do - set off 2 huge blocks on the rap back down, topping a big tree along the way - for the best really - stoked to see so much chalk on p1 & 2, just gotta improve them amateur bolts for the sporto's

 

5/2 - day 8 - nobody to climb w/ but it was 80+ at days end and nary a cloud in the crystal sky, so what can you do? scampered out to beacon, belting out bale-loads of smoke along the way n' bitch'n ballads, the 'lesberu purring away n' throwing engine warning lights out like it's wont to do - were time compressed into a single moment and a single feeling, i'm sure this wouldn't be the worst of em all to settle on, spring setting in and summer beckoning right behind...

 

not a soul in the parking lot, not right at all for so rare a spring day - what worries me really about the closed hiking trail is there isn't a sign at all of work being done to fix the damn thing - if i had a dollar for every tourist who stops, pays the 10$, then curses to discover the main attraction is under wraps, i'd have 1/10 of what the park's getting...

 

joe lent me a mean sawzall n' i put it to some use - climbed the 1st pitch of stone soup and, while cleaning it, cut down all the nasty extruding studs n' filed n' em nice n' smooth

 

5/28 - day 9 - many hikes up hamilton in recent days, but that don't hardly count - thursday was out for the big walk an saw topher n' company on stone soup - brought a bit of a smile to the heart n' had a good govreet w/ them fools after the walk was over - passed off a sawzall, which didn't appear to get much use, and after a few gut-laff's w/ denali-dave, all done up and vivisected on account of his duputryens, danced away west

 

teamed up w/ geoff today - hadn't seen that courtly fool since casting him off at his hill house shortly after completing our spring break trip to the valley

 

our sad friend greatly hobbled all this time gone by, he braved his early exit from fat-phuck retirment and out we went - topher'd pulled his ropes, and we rambled up the first 2 pitches, me getting all the good work

 

the recently renovated p1 was hardly noticable - p2 not so much - a new bolt allows the aid'n fool to skip the eyebrow cave (bryan managed this same variation w/o a bolt i recall) which makes the aid across a bit more mellow - no more sling on the tree above the bush but it still works, so long as you fully extend your daisy and commit to the top step on tiny handholds

 

the 2 upper headwall bolts all ripped out and eloped east - it got called stone soup for a reason - the new way just fine, aiding-wise, and kinda fun as it forces some funky mixed free maneavours to make the high step

 

rawked out for the rest of our times - 3 tree - the long way down - rangers abound - beers and butts - the boat-dock - always bet on #28 - the big bound home

 

6/9 - die X - not such a balmy day after all this august heat - grey and gloomy - school's done as done can be, just the simple matter of casting these cynical bastards off in the morrow's afternoon and it's summa, summa, summa

 

jeffy-t at the register rock in the half rain - a good gavreet and a glorious shit and it was sauntering time - rambled up to the top-most railing and ran down the stone soup, taking in the rare auold sights - was a trifle baffled by the dangling old fixed line at three tree - guess that's what it means to make nice w/ the neighbors - cut out the hanging trash and cast in on down and couldn't for the life of me find it once upon the ground - wouldn't mind recovering it really, it's the rancid remnants of my first rope, bought back in the waning days of clinton-one

 

might be a bit for beacon - next week's the redwoods and yosemite and san-franny w/ the famibily, then mike n' me making our easting off to the wind river range n' hopefully high times....

 

 

7/16 - day 11 - opening day + 1 - been a busy summer - sand dunes, redwoods, yosemite, san francisco, flat-irons, devils's tower, the winds, smith and darrington, then me washed up flat n' busted on my doorstep just a few days before the family rolls back in - road weary and woe-eyed - sometimes i think i'm a shadow and the sun's almost down

 

a morning spent mending the damage done to tires on the most recent road-trip, then out to beacon and a lap up the corner w/ geoff n' bill - cool weather, cloudy - the old place looking just fine after all this time...

 

musta spent at least 10 solid minutes trying to find the new party spot rumored to be an unladen-swallow's flight away, but eventually we figured ole'adam just must not be home

 

7/17 - day 12 - lap 1 of the summer - woke up late, this last day of bachelor freedom, bound to recover a dog at noon, despite my vexations - just enough time for a sleep in n' a big breakfast n' some beer, then bounced out the door for a lap - musta passed 4 parties of 4-climbers each on the corner? jeebus, the man could make a fortune if'n he claimed for each

 

7/31 - lucky #13 - lap 2 - a trip to tower and success seemingly in hand after a mort more work - a week w/ the wife at art museum's n' doing ya'd wo'k n' f'ck knows what else - hips hurt - knees hurt - seem to have the planter fascist-fukyu in both my heels now - keerist, i'm a few months short of a solid douglas adams' 42 n' i'm feeling auooooold

 

sunday morning after a solid sleep in - a week w/ the fam at the beach tomorrow so this was it, and not much time to spare as i needed to set the ya'd in order before we fuckered off

 

beacon near noon - the lot like a gypsy caravan before the nazis knew what's what - cool n' grey - bro'seph n' his benji-buddy in buckling down n' ready to bound up dastardly

 

wandered up the corner w/ a head half-right - crowds like always of course, and a poor dam anchored off and leaving on the travese tree giving me the heebie-jeebies - the crux like cream these days - i don't know what my feet are doing, but i just smile and saunter on

 

fresh air and following breeze - fun times - the ramble down - beers and the long babbling road back home...

 

8/7 - day 14 - little wing n' jill's thrill just right to humiliate our friend n' humble narrator after a week family camping in the olympics, sucking down sausauges n' swill - swimming across lake quinualt some species of training i suppose...

 

thought ole'geoff was fixing to stand me up at the b.k. - read some n' tried not to feel like i was gonna barf up me breakfast - settled for just doing some soloing after a half hour rambled on by - went to fetch some of the regular old poisons out of the roadhouse first n' then pulled out n' headed east when i saw the big-G galloping up in his toy-yoya n' said sure, why not?

 

bit stormy out at beacon today, but nothing serious n' kept the crowds down a bit i bet

 

geoff did the real work so i wussed out and did the easier pitches but still fumbled n' fucked them up, conniving to cut me hand up in the bargain and bled like a little bitch all over the place

 

the Gnome King at grassy ledges, seemingly moved in for the season n' hogging all the space, his ride recently jacked by the Man n' him all "fukit, keepit" in response - a rare hero that'un

 

steve n' lisa all about too - we followed them down the raps n' rambled on over to the other side to see about the minotaur, who happily had left his labyrinth - ascended through threatening storm n' had a real satisfying time of it

 

rude reality back in the parking lot - some crackhead kraker chucked a big old stone through geoff's window n' did a quick once-over through its interior - pleasingly the car-alarm seemed to have brought the bitch out of the pussies and they fled before grabbing anything actually - guess it gives our boy an excuse to finally replace the broken windshield too...

 

the summer's setting quick - hope to get another tower trip or two in before it's time to slummit back to work...

 

8/10 - day XV - lap III - leisurely breakfast w/ the kids and some midsummer school work dispensed with, hit the chiropractor to crack the old back n' suck the thetans outta me, then cruised out to beacon in the afternoon heat - warm n' windy in the park - the busted glass of geoff's smashed window all tidied up - just one couple gearing up n' ready to blast off as i started up the corner - felt like a slow old man, stopping to have a good lie down every few pitches n' gaze out at the much older man, the half moon hanging in the sky - the perseids tonight too - the free tv overhead never failing to fling something at you

 

looks like the gnome-king done got evicted - wonder where that wierd mutherfukka got to?

 

8/11 - day 16, lap 4 - not so breezy at beacon today - hot n' humid, even after the shade had set in - gabbed w/ jimbo for a while - the gnome king remains in the witness protection program - ran up the corner, feeling a good bit better than yesterday - brought some clippers n' did some community-service cutting out all the clutter on hidden treats and uprising - gavreeted w/ some good folks n' gamboled on back home to set up shop in a dark field w/ the kids n' watch the pulsing perseids

 

8/12-13 - days 17-18 - the plan was partake of the perseids and plenty of beer on the ledge, maybe do a night lap, then finagle maybe a new route off the top - temps in the mid-90s on the drive in, sweltering in my ac-broken car - drove in endless circles trying to discover the exact location of adam's rebel base where i was to rendezvous w/ my crack team of geoff n' bryan

 

eventually it all worked out and we walked up the painfully hot trail, weltering in sweat - once on the ledge the lack of breeze didn't offer much comfort as we lay around, damp as dogs, re-evaluating our recent decisions

 

bryan and i went on to climb the corner, setting off from the ground just at the last light left the sky - an uneventful and rapid ascent and then it was the rest of a long evening spent counting falling stars, drinking 3 different kinds of beer n' pinot noir to boot, gut-laughing and bullshit'n

 

by 9 a.m. the next morning it was absolutely sweltering and all willingness to scrub n' cut n' mank our way up the sun-blasted wall had wasted away in favor of a far more ambitious plan, ambling off and away over to the tepid columbia to swim like porpoises in the sweet water - we even managed to enlist old adam, who clearly had done this shit already - good times ensued over an afternoon that clearly demonstrated how our ancient mammalian cousins evolved and returned to the ocean to despatch their terrestrial ruinations

 

8/15 - day 19 - lap 5 - hawt, hawt day - did a lap, then grabbed a snorkel n' swam around the river for a good long while - don't think i've ever felt my arms quite that wasted after a solo day at beacon

 

8/22 - day 20 - lap 6 - spent a day lying wounded on the couch nursing my cranky hip after a lengthy tower rock trip, then up today to do the gym-thang w/ the wife, then a chiro visit, then a wander out east - cool and breezy on the south side - a party of 3 on the corner - the 2 dudes from vegas win the "beacon rock hero of the day" award for bringing their very cute girlfriend out - beautiful ebony skin and didn't look a day over 19 n' 1/2 - can't say i've ever seen someone so lovely on our dreary, drab old stone...

 

8/23 - day 21 - lap 7 - 2 days in a row w/ beautiful ladies at the crag, the stars must be aligning something fierce, i'm almost scared to go back out tomorrow ranger at the base, never a good sign - the mayor up high tending the sheep - some good talk, some grim - shit, the summer's damn near dead...

 

8/24 - day 22 - lap 8 - hat trick - good day - swimming in battle ground lake w/ the dog n' family - freshwater jellyfish, holy shit, who'da thunk it? union social n' some lightweight boozing, then out to beacon - felt abit groggy on arrival and jumped in the columbia in the 90 degree heat to cool off - arrived in the parking lot to ranger questions - apparantly some dickmunch drove off with the picnic bench

 

jim in the lot too, said ole'bill n' ujohn were up high on the corner so i scooted off to see if i could catch them - took uprising and ran into the boys just at the railing - bill invited the gang for drinks at the skamania lodge n' we drank brown ale n' ate nachos n' nattered about an impeding return to tower

 

8/25 - day 23 - lap 9 - a scorcher today - 104 read the car after rudely parking it in the sun - some union bidness dispensed with n' a stint of classroom setup sussed out, i wandered out gorge-ways after 3 - dallied around the dock for an hour or so swimming out to the island n' bantering w/ the fishermen who were bringing in the bass with perfect regularity and had some fine tales to tell- ranger-boi came by w/ some fancy high-powered options, i oughta keep that in mind next time i'm jerking off in the bushes up on grassy ledges

 

topped out to the strange site of some kids rapping off the south side summit, strung out in the trees above grassy ledges looking a little uncertain of the future - reckon they'd get themselves sorted out well enough, so sent them my salutations n' shuffled on

 

summer's done sprung a leak and's taking on water something fearful, i would not wager a fucking groat on its continuing good health

 

8/28 - day 24 - jensen's ridge w/ oleg - ain't climbed w/ that slavic soul in too long and it was a fine day - hot to be sure, but very breezy so i barely noticed i was dying of heat stroke until i went the whole day w/o pissing

 

the oak's encroaching on the route at several places on pitch 3 and i don't know what the fuck to do about it as i hate that shit and have no tolerance for messing w/ it - all the work phuzzy-adam did 2 years ago seemed to just piss it off as its growing back something fiece

 

still a great route and no evidence of anyone climbing it this year - never can figure why so many hardmen crush the other beacon classics but never tangle w/ it...

 

8/30 - day 25 - lap 10 - fall came to beacon today - blustery and overcast and sub-70 in the parking lot - no pre- or post-lap swim today

 

first day of back to school - waking up at 630 is a hate-crime against mankind and should be constitutionally banned for krist's sake - felt quite greyed out on the quick ascent - chatted w/ cameron for a spell half-way up the first pitch - found a half-full pack of american spirits on the traverse (that you, santa claus? ) - by the time i hit the trail the sun emerged and it was brisk but balmy for the walk down

 

as churchill lamented when confronted with how much booze he'd belted down over the course of his long life: "sigh...so much work left to do!"

 

9/8 - day 26 - first day of school this tuesday and for the 2nd year in a row my ritual of closing out the day w/ a beacon ascent was scuppered by rain - got out today w/ my colleague jared_jackman, who amazingly knows denali-dave and even fracking lived in the no-bo-trifecta for a spell, yet somehow never climbed at beacon?

 

pleasant crawl up the corner in the cool breeze - woulda been pleasanter still if my trick hip didn't hurt so damn much - my grave keeps getting closer n' closer

 

2 things i'd never seen at beacon today - a, by beacon standards, big-ass snake coiled up in the hidden-treats crack, right at the top, really putting me off my meds as i like to jam there very much - the other a decent sized powerboat beached on the riverside, looking real grim n' all-to-seek

 

off to tower w/ big bill tomorrow - in shah allah, we'll see the long project come to completion finally...

 

9/12 - day 27 - lap 11 - finally some fine weather after work - feeling increasingly crippled as my hip disintegrates and i try to ignore it - gonna see the doc in a few days, so maybe he'll have a magic wand?

 

beached sea-craft still on the columbian shore - are salvage rights yet in effect? think i see an entrepreneurial opportunity

 

9/15 - day 28 - hadn't seen phuzzy adam since phuck all, but we met up in camas after some hard traveling for the burning-man boi over the tough portland roads

 

balmy n' breezyish beacon - talk of time gone by - fucking puerto-ricans on the bucket list i recollect - bad beer - good beer - chuckles - the dying light on the gorge walls, the winding way back...

 

9/19 - day 29 - lap 12 - took the boy scout camping on the coast and got poured on damn near every moment - headed out to beacon after work ready for disappointment - hit the lot and followed a frolic-some couple who clearly though they were headed to the summit even as they slunk ever lower

 

the rock was just dry enough to reckon on not getting kilt heading up it - moist to the touch, but no big drip-drips

 

pleasant walk down, passing the breeze with a fierce looking shiela and her deaf-husband (which somehow i didn't suss out until the very end) from merry minnesota - she having the shortest of warm-ups before an ultramarathon tomorrow, sweet jeebus, who can touch that kinda krazy fitness?

 

9/20-21 - days 30&31 - laps 13-14

 

well, the bastards tried to kill me yesterday - 3 young fucks, according to witnesses i later found on the trail down, spent the better part of 20 minutes chucking huge shit off the south summit as i cowered against the wall on the land of the little people, nursing my beer, guarding my shoes and alternating howls of hatred w/ maniacal laughter and "fuck you fucking fucks!" at the top of my lungs

 

even the falcons got into the act, screeching n' swooping - i felt something like a common cause in our anger against the common creeps

 

just a thought, but if the park is okay w/ putting up menacing signs citing washington state law and the penalty for walking down the climbers trail in the off season, why not put a similar sign threatening arrest for reckless endangerment or manslaughter at the green gate or by the railing above the south side? i'd like to think if the stupid bastards had killed me that they'd have been punished at least as severely as some poor hiker who just felt like walking to the base on a fine spring day...

 

jogged down the trail after emerging from my hidey-hole, my beer all gone and hungry for blood - probably for the best i didn't catch up, as it likely would have just resulted in 3 dudes kicking my dumb indignant ass

 

better day today - steve n' sal above tree ledge - sounds like jim is on the mend and we all wish him well

 

9/22 - day 32 - lap 15 - fell fall is here - decidedly cool and clammy road on the drive out in the afternoon, with a fading sun falling upon us all in this notoriously naughty northern half-fuck hemisphere of ours

 

big doings down by the dock - a busty barge w/ a crane careened up on the big pylons just east of the launch, looking lofty n' ready to tear somethang up - still a free water-craft just off the beach down by the south face, unmoved for weeks but at least floating now that the river's come up - were i a wanderer, intent on distant shores, i'd say stake a claim, kids

 

9/27 - day 33 - lap 16 - never a lap up the rock that you don't rumble into something new, so long as you know where to look - today no different - at the bottom 2 buxom-splendid shielas at the start of cruising, at the trail atop 3 nattily attired saffron-clad buddhist monks, not quite chanting but wouldn't be surprised if that's where it all ended up on the summit

 

9/28 - day 34 - lap 17 - big bill n' ujohn in the lot in the glittering afternoon sun - little time for frivolity, it's open house night after all bitzes - a quick lap - clusterfuck on the corner, i saw bill well ensnared in it by the time i cut the cord n' said let-hoes-be-hoes - the barge banging n' roaring away down by the river - big doings down there - big bounce back - they say there's no such thing as a free lunch, but it turns out there is such a thing as a free dinner

 

9/29 - day 35 - geoff at the bk a bit after 330, me smoking n' reading shelby foote n' waiting - off east soon thereafter - we crawl up cruising to the corner to premature ejaculation, then up the rest of young warriors - an easy world out there really n' not much else to report, save i suppose some spiffy new bolts just off the stoner ledge...

 

9/30 - day 36 - lap 18

 

thank kee-rist for opb fundraising - it got me off the libturd end of the radio dial on the drive in and i finally heard the song ole'bill had been badgering me to find for fuck-all - shit, i thought it was some old man tune

 

[video:youtube]

 

great shit there, couldn't help but remind me of another classic i got out at old beatardia from jovial jim

 

[video:youtube]

 

a friday evening packed w/ ominous portents - unknown agents acting nefariously in the nether-region of bladerunner, n' so wierd boy-o, as i done heard they're making a sequel today...

 

passed a three-some at tree ledge - bespoke me beer n' noodled over the wicked world while making me big thoughts on mushroom ledge, then zoomed off to zion

 

heart-attack at the car - couldn't find my car keys for the life of me - eventually remembered i'd arrived in the lot having to take a ten-pound shit ("warning - warp core breach in progress") - in my eager ecstasy to see it on its weary way, i done left the keys in the can

 

friday night fuckers - stopped off for some wine and had a wonderful conversation w/ a former student who, though somewhat portly n' latina, is all set to vote trump

 

10/3 - day 37 - lap 19

 

just managed to squeeze this one in - leaden sky on the cursory drive out - limp air, sodden with coming rain - rumbled out of the ride right quick to make a mighty shit - by the time i reached the base the sky portended bad, bad things - fat raindrops by the halfway point up the slab pitch, the rock cold and clammy and quick to grow dramp - like the tears of the lord by the top of pitch 3, and noah alone could comprehend the deluge by the top of uprising - i hoofed it over the railing and found sanctuary under the ramps of the trail to take a pause n' have a smoke n' contemplate the hereafter

 

fall's come quick - 20 laps was my goal, and in shah allah, we oughta be able to get it closer to 30 by the time the big endless breeze of december dances on in....

 

10/11 - day 38 - lap 20 - a week of solid, shitty fall weather followed by a brief window of what-have-you - glad i didn't go out y-day as it was wet enough today i'm sure it woulda been a waste

 

a big wind on our woe-wracked rock this here-after, but wierdly it was chockablock w/ white fellers - 'topher twerk'n it on the eternal route off snag ledge that a boatload a'fellers have wandered up only to wander back down - maybe he found the final way through the choss? folks on jills and rapping down wrong gull. a sight i never saw while noodling n' drinking n' thinking atop hidden treats, an old boy rapping down climbers of the far left end of grassy ledges, having just rapped into big ledge, rope-soled the original finishing pitches of dods, then traversed back down to me. he seemed to be newish to beatard-land, but clearly had his feet solidly under'em.

 

fall's here i fear, and to stay too - guess we'll have to make our peace w/ it....

 

10/12 - day 39 - today marks the 15,340 n' a half day this wicked world's been winging round the sun w/ me hanging on like hell n' hollering something awful - ain't so sure i got another 15,000 left in the tank, so reckon i gotta make the back half take it's time

 

heavy gray sky, the weekend storm waxes large on the western horizon - my second ascent w/ the jovial jared - we bump into ole'bill n' ujohn along the way n' have a bit of a bark-bark at the cloud-shrouded moon n' then move along, me fucking it all up leading all uprising w/o stopping w/o a single draw

 

home in time for a fine birthday dinner - the wife made my favorite, schnitzel n' suds

 

11/4 - day 4 X 10 - lap BLACKJACK!

 

been a dark and damp and drizzly november in yer friend n' narrator's humble soul - diagnosis of spinal arthritis accounting for the complete and total disintegration of my ability to be an ambulatory human-bean these past many moons

 

it will all pass by n' by, though why i must wait 4 weeks more for some fellow to burrow a hole into my spine n' squirt some happy juice in i can't say - i guess we all must suffer if we are to make our merry way

 

a solid month of shit sailing out the sky - never a thought of beacon i say - and now daylight savings here and so now after school there ain't gonna be no fuk'n way sarge, no fuk'n way

 

damp on the rock for sure, but good enough - been feeling 20 years older most days, this one just 17 n' 1/2

 

a cool, clammy ascent - the soft crumble of rocks on the track, the slow steady hum from the buzz in my back - a sealion on the columbia dealing some fishey's lament

 

denver dan is gonna die!

 

11/7 - day 41 - lap 22

 

'twas trumpageddon eve n' all through the gorge

the big breeze was blow'n n' i wanted a whore

the waves were whipping down the dock-side so bare

n' the tourons were missing n' nobody cared

 

the trail was all muddy and the rock a tad damp

but what did it matter, the country's in love w/ a tramp?

i started a lap, wondering what did it matter

should i slip on the slab and hit bottom w/ a splatter?

 

the ride back home i'm sure it was oh-so right

this world all on twitter n' on the edge of a knife

but the sun will keep rising, that's what they say,

and the flowers still bloom n' the queers will be ghey

 

 

11/10 - day 42 (aged 42) - lap 23

 

'twas trumpagadeon night just 2 days ago it seems

when i woke with a start n' thought it must be a dream

orange is the new black, i heard said with a laugh

but the sum'bitch who said it will soon suck zyklon-b gas

 

a lout is our president, 'twas the crime of the century

but if i say it too loud, i'll end up in a federal penitentiary

so i moved out to beacon, as fast as i could scurry

though i needn't of worried, the forces of evil are in no hurry

 

i bolted to the top in a big breeze with some beerz, yo

and sat at the summit n' pondered on who could be my hero

someone must fix this, maybe beyonce or maybe chess-master HAL

then suddenly i remembered, what about that mutha-fucka wierd-al?

 

[video:youtube]

 

 

11/11 - day 43

 

vet's day ceremony at school yday - couldn't feel much but a hard, hard heart - america's gotta sleep on the couch a few weeks first for me i think

 

big rick's 52nd bday - the annual descent into the dynamite in order - good place to take shelter from the shit-storm's that's blowing our way

 

geoff at the b.k. at half-past-hungover - the phuzzy nowhere to be found, so left to drown - we wheel out to beacon listless, all clad in our shiny new tower-shirts, courtesy of my legal counsel

 

irresolute and corner-bound, coastie adam cruised by and proposed we fuck around on the west side instead - big doings there, and well worth the effort - the more intense touron involvement definitely adds a shine, as does constant surveillance from the man down the dockside

 

after some hijinx n' harebrained addled antics, we were back on the ground, late for our very important date at the cold dark hole way back in them big bad woods - we roared off, emitting clouds of curious blue smoke, saddled through stevenson and acquired pizza, then blasted off and got good n' goddamn lost chasing a wild goose north of carson before finally admitting the obvious and reversing half our goddamn course back to the columbia n' going east - many who wander ARE lost, actually

 

wonder of wonders, we reached the cave just shy of dark, n' not a soul in sight - set up the gypsy tent even as the motley crew assembled - after some laffs n' some languishing, we eventually made our languid way down, down, down into the big black bowels of the indifferent earth

 

drip, drip, drip - the rest eludes me...

 

winter solstice - day 44 - long i've laid in erotic ruin - the flu, the fugue, the never-ending falling damps from the dreaded, drizzling heavens - couch-bound, bored, encrusted w/ incantations of the common kind - will this world never end?

 

but the blue devils can dance too, and so it was finally the sun broke big at beacon and kenny called out to me in my misery - fog-fucked though vantucky was, i Had the Faith, so felt my way east through the easing cloud-murk to find that mother-fucker was not malingering

 

the no-bo-trifecta just south of noon - snow on everything, a single-reef breeze roaring along the gaudy gorge - kenny in the car and so it goes west once more

 

never seen such snow on the trail to the south-side - the corner platform required kicking in - i led first, the rock wet and weeping but not as rude as rude can be - kenny the second, the cursed fool fucking me up royally by rambling back into that ungodly corner, a place i go but once every 5 years, always emerging w/ the words: never again

 

up to grassy ledges where the snow piled in heaps and the sun was perilously close to passing from view - kenny from there in one long lead to the duck-blind, then bounding quickly from that shadow-land to the glory of the western sun, sizzling it seemed on the lee face where we crushed cans of pbr and sauntered down

 

adam near the base, n' we bounced back to dave's n' had campfires n' crazy talk w/ a multitude of mangy neighbors, nattering at the ways of this wicked world until well past the magic minute melted away mt. hamilton - the space-cookie in my belly threatening to send me careening back into maniac madness, i cruised west in the post-gloaming, passing through incredible fog - real 3 mile n' hour shit - just short of home

 

think that might be the last one for this here year

 

 

 

 

[ivan]

2017

1/28 - grim indeed, so deep into this foul year of our dear lord Trump, the 1st of his name, blessed be his orange-mane, and yet i'd not made it to beacon to bare my mangled soul?

many things have passed, most of them tragic - what can they matter against a backboard so bleak?

much snow n' ice this month - work all ahoo - the good country on the verge of a solid-gold cunt taking control - what can you do?

the silverman crew in camas not too early in the morn, me emerged from my overnight couch-nap n' crawling in w/ a bit of a cloud-fuck hovering over my head

the typical chuckles n' cheerful banter backed with chutzpah as we wandered back east through the growing wind n' wicked glowing snow, not knowing what is adling toward us all (and eager)

yarg, the ranger in the lot, w/ the all too familiar yack-yack-yack

the corner was the call, and the walk down had me all grinning - snow the whole way, my boots fortuitously in the car, and a snow-pole too

curious indeed - can't recall the last time i tumbled towards the corner in this late winter season n' was skunked by some new comers, but sure as shit, there they were - battle-ground bryan n' his boi cluster-fucking their way up the rather wintry first pitch - i cracked open a beer n' waxed philosophic, but my crew grew cranky, and soon we were on the tracks n' headed west for a true circumnavigation

the labyrinth was the call, on the logical assumption the east wind would be more merciful on the west side, though it wasn't - we wound our way there n' kicked in our place among the snow and the oak - kyle carried us up there as we froze n' fretted, then we continued our hill ascent through the cluster-fucked cold n' fuckered off west to near the boat launch

had a beer n' some failed-fire laffs, then some redneck hijinx in the snowy parking lot, then that was it - the day done amidst the wreck of dogs n' burgundy n' bitter embers of this unctuous underworld...

6/18 - jeebus, 6 months in the can and only my 2nd climbing trip to beacon for this foul year of our lord, 2017

fadder's day morning dawned foul in more ways than i care to cofvefe - mike gave me the big head-fake, biking bound for cape horn - so just geoff instead - the plan to get some jugging laps in to make tower more tolerable - he leads stone soup 1 while i contemplate the hms haunted house of my life burning to the water-line and just how wonderful maybe that might be

had fun tearing out 500 yards of police tape from the general vicinity of the parking lot ledge - didn't quite get it all - don't understand why whoever take down the old fixed line from the ledge as it would have made that enterprise much easier...

summer's here, squamish the plan for next week, assuming the canuckistani's allow us passage 

7/19 n' 7/26 - lapz 1 n' 2 - back from hated virginia on a long flight made slightly less painful by sitting in the emergency row - i said i'd help, but secretly i planned to leave all those foolz behind at the first hint of danger 

the first lap an exploration in just how creaky i've become - hot and sunny but fun, my feet not always cooperating the way they're supposed too - afterwards i hiked the cape horn trail circuit w/ a few beerz n' ended up w/ wierd blisters after weeks of inactivity in the sultry south, air-conditioned bound and beer-dependent

the second lap a day after a long run after a long time of not running - jesus, how does this world work? panting n' perspiring after each pitch, i made my way from shade to shade, then went out to battle ground lake for a long, lazy swim 

7/28 - day 5 - lap 3

been running and swimming lately a good bit more than usual and feeling wicked sluggish perhaps as the result, panting from pitch to pitch, wondering what the fuck happened to the old me? 

3 little terrors in just 30 minutes today - the first a scotched scorpion, just a few feet up the start, mayhap placed by some malicious fool to put fear into the heart of the mortals - the third a fattish snake snug-deep in the finger crack on the first step of pitch 3 - and the middle the oddest of all, going to pull the 2nd crux of the slab pitch, right where you lie back above one pin to get to the place where you can clip the last one and scoot around and up to the tree ledge - caught my right short leg on the pin, and promptly my pants shot down, making further movement uphill impossible but just as difficult in the other direction, and suddenly i was on the verge of being found dead w/ only my drawers between me n' dignity - my first instinct was just to pull through, but it was a bad one, and w/ a bit of a whimper i had to half-reverse the move, hanging off of just one hand, to get shit unsnagged n' the situation resolved 

7/31 -day 7, lap 4 - volunteered to do some camp counseling w/ the fam this week for reasons passing understanding (well, not really - who doesn't like money?) - a humogoniod heat-wave in the offing starting tomorrow, so soon after we concluded i hit beacon as the south face passed into the shade - jimbo n' sal bandying w/ babes below cruise'n, i paused to soak in the ambiance n' let the heat break a bit

the scorpion n' snake from the other day have fled the scene - i hiked my hoe-boi shorts way up above my belly-button to avoid the other awful thing 

the river's nice n' cool n' slow now, allowing a most pleasant soak n' paddle after the pleasantries n' the festivities 

8/1 - day 8, lap 5

95 degrees fahrenheit at the skamania mart n' just 4:20 - seemed a moral necessity to stop n' splash in the blissful cool of the columbia for a long bit so that's what i did, after a capital shit in the class-a crappers down by the launch - cast across the channel w/ a pbr stuck in my pocket, n' after just a few short minutes i was across n' basking in the curious conditions, captivated by the sight of beatards abounding all over the recently shade-clouded column

soon enough the other side again n' it was up n' over - kevbone maybe on jills? some mike-dude solo n' on a cool creep w/ a rope - i'd seen him alone toproping above big ledge from the island, n' by the time i was on grassy ledges he was down soling the corner to the top of warriors, intent on fixing a line n' going swimming too

the fading light in the torrid heat - home only a sanctuary of sorts - how do these pale things persist in seeming perpetuity? 

8/3 - day 9, lap 6

STEM camp w/ kiddos n' at closing time it was 101 in the shade and i questioned my decisions as i headed beacon-ways, w/ heavy smoke in the skies and the suddenly thick-scene steadily growing ever thicker under the high gorge walls

a lovely sea-lap to start as i waited for the heat to break - paddled out to the island n' up n' over to just below the base, where i sucked on a brew n' watched a gang of fools frolicking all over the hazy stone

back at the dock bantering w/ the fisher-folk when adam sauntered down w/ his lovely wife and a new beacon belle - the ladies lazed in the water while we nattered about fuck-all over rolling rock n' i gained a certain respect for New Things

then it was the lot itself and denali-dave done appeared out of the canadian cloud-smoke to cackle and crow about his crazy-thing - ole'boy's looking as shredded as a julienne salad these days - guess all that clean living n' anabolic steroids, sunflower sprouts n' beatard-parkour really is putting the zap on his head, i should cut meself off a slice 

started up the corner as a crew were rapping down from tree ledge n' the evening air started to seep in, the shadows growing ever longer - after two flawless ascents in a row, this one wasn't so much but i lived, so that's right - lolled around w/ andreu n' justin as they finished up uprising n' bumped again into dave soling up, n' adam n' the beacon-belle rapping down - a damned donnybrook down by the riverside n' revelry is everything, ain't it? 

life could get a lot worse than this lazy day, n' it likely will before too long 

8/12 - day the tenth, lap the seventh - a week on the olympic coast w/ the homefolk, frolicking around lake quinalt - i swam the near 2 mile width and felt like a space traveler for a good long while - back in time saturday for adam's shindig in the shadow of beacon - w/ rain on the way after 2 months w/o, i figured to get my lap in before the festivities as there was fuck-all chance of getting another in the morning

bbq n' mojitos, taco dogs n' pretty girls, the gusts of fall upon our faces in the darkness - climber films n' classic bullshitting, nattering w/ the olde guard - guitar picking n' gut-sides splitting 

8/16 - day XI, lap VIII

3 days of negotiations n' seemingly endless nattering in the midst of dogdamned summer and still no salami? firfuksakes, a man needs to blow off some steam...

the lot near 3 - rumors of alex honnold in the neighborhood but preferring bulo's pt for reasons beyond reason - ran into steve n' adam n' levi instead on grassy ledges and had a chuckle-chuckle at the duckblind - they tucked down tourist attraction soon thereafter and i wandered over to the river for a lonesome swim - nearly a good mile circuit in the channel there, and almost all in water w/ great visibility and interesting things to stare at while doing the endless stroke-stroke - arrived at home to find my wet drawers n' shirt still on the top of the ride, miraculously still present after a near-hour drive 

8/18 - day 12

beacon w/ the brother-in-law, he in town for the great eciltopcalypse of 2017 - he's never climbed shit so i thought have him play around on rhythm method to suss it out, then maybe shove him on to the corner

had a ball n' some beers n' enjoyed the capital sun - the corner didn't totally work out but jim was there to gavreet w/ for a bit n' i at least got meself a half-chubbie - afterwards it was the lake w/ the clan n' some pizza n' early 2 bed to be in redmond in time for the world to go away 

8/23 - day 13, lap 9

the first dying gasp of summer, clouds about and occasional rain drops, temps in the 70s - an easy climb of the corner, past a crew that probably woulda been happier if'n i weren't there - someone seemed to think we needed a bolt at the very top of the se corner but left the pin - can't say i totally agree but whateva 

cool temps n' breezy by the dockside so just had a quick splash out to the island n' back

fork - the summer's dead in a few days 

8/24 - day 14

crazy day meeting new hires at work - 2 former students now teachers themselves - unsettling news of another one now in jail for a decade for shit that just ain't right 

adam n' steve fucking around on a recently much renovated local access/reasonable richard - jugged a lap to warm up, then top-roped them both while chit-chatting w/ jim n' sal n' generally enjoying a lovely, breezy, cool, late-summer day

a little bird on the way home zigged, then zagged, n' in the end splatted itself on my wind-shield - i suppose even the very wise cannot always find the right way 

8/29 - day 15

horrible news last week - the powderhund bryan is busting loose from pdx n' heading south to san franny to get his ghey on - setting up a permanent residence down there w/ his special lady-friend in the land of the cork-soakers - sigh... one last climb i suppose before i start hitting him up to drive us to yosemite for spring break 

crazy hazy w/ gaudy fire-smoke in the gorge - couldn't hardly see across the columbia

did the middle-aged warriors route, scooting around the other folk clogging up the lower 3 pitches - good times n' bad beer - couldn't help but notice the new bolt for the route off grassy ledges is sucking all kinds of suckers off the 4th pitch into a place of pain...

shit n' shinola, seems like school is back in full effect in six faqh'n days 

8/31 - day 16, lap 10

last day till it gets real

work - blissfully simple end to the warm-up week - pale ale and an easy ambulation out - crowds on the corner - jim n' shit - blitzed up n' then back to family bidness

heat wave coming - thinking the pierce island swim'n'circumnav is the order of the day 

9/8 - day 17, lap 11

the world turned upside down, the weak turds discouraged by the Great Eagle Crick Cook-Up of 2017 - 4 days after the big burn began, the Lords of Beacon re-opened the park so i scooted in to see what was still standing

despite the rumors of raging destruction, both sides of the gorge look good enough - oregon still smoking away of course, and the archer mtn sizzle continues, but 14 was clear, if a little traffic choked, and sunbreaks even showed here and there, a bit startling after a week solid of a sad, orange sun hardly able to scowl down on us in it's late summer-glory

beatard itself like the great n' querulous Khaleesi, totally unburnt despite the dangers close aboard - the local boys out in full force - adam n' dave n' steve, their homes still standing, undaunted n' undying, crawling all over the south side n' uncrying

bits of burnt debris all over, lifted up from the oregon side i'm sure after a flight thousands of feet up - seems 99% of it all was well out by the time it settled, but that 1% was clearly a bitch

lotza new bolts on the wall of the sport-boys there by blade-runner - looks to be getting some activity n' that's fine by me - the welcome table is well when it is widely set 

gut-lafz n' giggles w/ the crew up on snag ledge - we banter a bit before they all go away, then i bound up to grassy ledges for a beer and a bit of determined gazing at the gaudy scene before me - smoke rising east, north, south, n' west - fire clearly ragin up every canyon south of the river - chinooks cruising past w/ water buckets - hueys dully chopping away at the air like its doomed saigon in spring

oddly, train traffic un-interrupted on both sides of the river, even though on the south side the track wends in n' out of 84, which is closed to all

the trail down totally quiet, not a hiker in sight - the archer mountain smolder quite clear in the near horizon - the high-pitched whine of a generator somewhere close by, i assume powering some omnipotent attempt by humble humans to tame tumultuous nature

i was careful not to trammel the sweet-green mantis feeding on the tawny grassy ledge - we are all Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, and so Judgement is not just now in our own best interest, got it? 

9/9 - day 18

another burning day in the gorge, this one a bit gusty, so the fires bloomed as the wind blew

passed out by 9 the night before - adam said he wanted a solid sleep in, so when i awoke at 5 i had little choice but to get a pre-dawn drunk on in order to nap again before leaving at 11

cool n' breezy, the first day of climbing in pants since squamish in june - the eagle-creek sizzle continued unabated though, w/ the frantic all-day dance of the hueys a constant fucking reminder

pipeline - adam did it fine while i fucked around w/ my belay book - "the barbarous years" - turns out them early colonists were kinda cock-suckers 

afterwards we ambled up jensens first pitch n' then did some scrubbing n' fumbling on red ice - i did such a infelicitous job on tr that poor adam said fuck it...

spitting rain by cape horn on the drive out, then pouring by camas - could be the cure for our recent calamity?

9/13 - day 19, lap 12

the hump day dispensed, the air clear n' coolish, i eschewed a long swim in favor of a hootenanny out beacon-way - columns of smoke billowing into the balmy sky, 84 still closed, crowds of cars pouring out of the gorge on the washington side as i breeze eastwards, eager to see the waning summer survive a bit longer

bill coe leaving cryptic messages on jim's rambling ride - jim n' sal n' adam n' a foreign-speaking feller at the bottom of rhythm method - some good gavreeting - tried to put on sal's harness for a lap but it was silliness indeed, n' i wasn't so keen to climb-up n' climb-down w/ just a bow-line about me beer-gut 

the corner alone then - a good crisp wind to go w/ - a lovely lady following young warriors pitch 3 n' a bit of bantering, then bounding up again w/o interruption (i busted my lap-beer w/ the boys, so no need to tarry)

an easy orbit back - life's too easy - i fear the turning of the page...

9/14 - day XX, lap XIII

an awful n' orange sky as i plied east, intent on planing down the passions that do accumulate eagerly from time to time over the drip-drip of a day

limpid air, high clouds, the slow smoke seemingly w/ nowhere to go, it just sits there sullenly in the great valley - the choppers thud away, doing the dance of the valkyrie, dumping their loads n' limping away - time stands still

beacon all in a hush, the lot forlorn, i head out under a surreal sky - the base and a half-beer, i banter w/ a cute couple and crawl away upwards - the ledge, the slab, the ramp, another ledge again, no sights to be seen well across the way to the oregon side - obvious bands of dead trees, mostly well above the highway - extensive cutting above 84, bright white stumps marking the passing of the primal scurge

cameron n' his comrade who's name for chrissakes i can't recall (i spent a good time scratching my head to summon cameron's back to mind afterall) - they done w/ young warriors, we wound our way together up the final ridgeline, n' had a good laugh at the shiny new belay bolt at the top already having been disassembled, the rock-dust from the drilling not even having had time to be washed away before it was dispatched 

back in the lot, an amazing site - some guitar-playing fool going damn near 60 n' westbound suddenly flew into the ditch, bouncing viciously in the rubble, rubbing up against the stony hillside, rolling nearly 180 onto his backside before bashing back into the main thoroughfare, the bottom of his ride clearly ripped out and his beer certainly spilled 

don't worry, he came to rest, quite crucified, broken body n' spirit, in the beacon rock ranger parking lot - i'm unsure his trials n' tribulations were at an end... 

9/16 - day 21 - laps 14-15

the day begun after delicious sleep, the air so lively and cool now, the fan thudding away in the darkness, dispersing the humid demons of late

first it was climbing w/ ben, then it wasn't, then it was again, and then i simply said fukit n' headed out alone, figuring something would shape up

great gusts of wind, the smoke blowing wildly - lines of traffic though 84 is half open now - limited visibility - st. peter's dome like a looming demon, perfectly outset from the cliff behind, spectral, silent, wrapped in clouds of smoke

though it was a good n' gloomy drive, ozone was packed and beacon too - topher n' tim on blood, sweat n' smears, struggling but not quite brought to tears - one lap up the corner, then two, the second pausing atop flying swallow to watch the action below big ledge n' enjoy some beerz

big rain on the way - i'm over the surreality of these recent smoky weeks - hoping for a great soak to chase away the cloud-murk, then indian summer for as long as it can be sustained 

9/22 - day 22, lap 16

my autumnal ambitions of beyond the dreams of wildest avarice paid off in spades - the corner a treasure trove of wondrous delights, my eyes as wide as The Dude when he's just checked in to see what condition his condition was in - manna from heaven just kept falling from all around muthafuckers - lord how i love the complete fucking amateurs hereabouts 

rick n' steve n' a Right Olde Hollee Shit of a hootenanny soon thereafter - ole'rick's looking a tad too thin, we gotta feed him some corn-beef n' cabbage n' get'em back thick - blood red sky on the slow crawl back, the sun divided today in even bits, how i hope i shall survive to see the other side...

9/24 - day 23

no rock today, but the river instead - pat in town w/o warning, a notice on friday night for fuck's sake - a sudden feeling-out, authored by anastasia no less, an offer to cross the columbia in unusual style, swimming of course

saturday was a trip to suss out the stepladder situation, followed by a peek up pinto rock - good times - almighty cold up there actually - fall came fast

pat at the house for saturday night, i arrived late - the whole family together on the couch n' pizza n' burgundy n' a coupla episodes of "orville" - a heap of a hoot, but the wife was asleep early and soon i crawled that way too

sunday pat n' i galloped gorge-ways w/ the obligatory stops for offensive fast-food offerings - met nastia in camas after she called for a delay, n' she arrived sick as the proverbial puppy

our plans for a hood river cascade crossing suddenly all in a-hoo, we called the audible and bent our way to the beacon boat-launch instead - basked in the sultry sun and crisp autumnal air down by the dock, waiting for the right moment to throw ourselves in the water - nastia waffled on whether she'd wade in as well, n' ultimately walked the bank instead, willing us on our way

cold as hell in january, we jumped in and started paddling - the river so pitifully low we had to stand up and walk some sections as we headed east towards the end of pierce island - time passed - seaweed - clam shells - schools of fingerling fish - the water warm enough i guess, an honest incentive to keep going at least

after a bit of walking, we reached the main channel n' it was time for decisions - at first i was determined to eschew the main crossing n' keep the wife happy - there was plenty to see as dangerous: a ripping current, a bulging barge heading west at a frightening speed, throwing off a bow-wave that was itself intimidating, let alone let the damn thing run over you - plenty of power-boats beside

the delight of light-speed swimming down the island though was i guess too much - just floating in the current we were flying, so much so i reckoned wearing a fucking helmet not such a bad idea, as w/ the murk in the water, you could very well barrel into a submerged object at break-neck speed

enjoying just how easy it was to move, i looked back n' saw pat was heading south, oregon-bound, n' it was time to measure my manhood i guess - spur of the moment, it seemed to follow across was perfectly possible, and so then i was splashing south too - didnt' seem a thing until we were well across, when a boat came bearing down n' there wasn't much anything to do - then the shore itself, studded w/ dozens of fisher-men, all w/ their lines in the water, n' the whole coast therefore as nefarious as normandy, decidedly uninviting, but little choice as to an alternative

soaked n' sodden, i hauled meself ashore to incredulous eyes - a bit of a nervous chuckle, n' then the odd site of watching a forest ranger walking the beach, telling every last man he met to fuck-off, as everything was ordered closed by the eagle creek fire, still smoldering in eye-sight

i'd felt a bit desperate the last stretch into the arms of the fishermen, and looking north was uncertain how to proceed - walking back upstream before recrossing seemed a good idea, but w/o shoes unlovely indeed - pierce island seemed maybe long enough to let us make it back, the current bedamned, and somehow we thought it easily possible

i felt the Big Fear only a hundred yards out, a great big gorilla crowding out every other consideration - i've seen this bitter demon so many times before, and it's a devil better left way down in the hole - panting, passing west at a bewildering clip, it was obvious i'd be swept past beacon before touching the washington shore, and all i could think of was bailing back to oregon, even if that option seemed fucked - i got better things to do then die today, i reckoned

turned around and didn't feel a bit bad about it - pat eventually followed too, but we were split up and returned well apart - he nattering unhappily w/ fisherman who felt it necessary to call him an idiot, our boy never one to welcome a rebuke - i was happy w/ whatever just to be back on dry land and figured, one way or the other, we'd finagle our way back to washington

an offer of a boat-ride from a nice lady by a boat-launch, and humorously enough, the feller who'd just been bellowing at pat was the guy she directed to do it - a socially awkward roar back across the river at warp 5, taking all of 2 minutes, deposited us right by nastia, bathing in the sun n' sweating out a fever

bowls n' belly-laffs n' some beers n' butts by the dock-shore - the good life of the laggard slumming it in the sadly failing fall sun, then eventually home n' hearth n' tomato canning n' crawling back into the work-week w/ a suspicious smile 

and what do we say to the god of death, my dear?

not today

not today 

9/27 - day 24 - lap 17

back to school night, so just a bit of time to fill in w/ sheenanigans before heading back to work in the evening

a big, busty wind, but no smoke that i could see - i think they done broke the back of that eagle crick burning bastard

jim n' sal n' steve n' that busted-foot lady i've met before, all chatty-chatty at the base of the corner - a smooth ascent, but the flawless rating lost when a foot blew out above grassy ledges of all places - a pair of neophytes freshly finishing warriors, which jim had steered them to after they'd been geared up for the corner

sad sight on the trail down - a lady w/ her epileptic dog, post grand mal seizure, trying to reassure it back to health - on the off chance she's listening, it's phenobarbital that's seemed to stave off the same problem w/ my wife's pooch for the past 2 years...

10/4 - day 26

was supposed to be lap 18, but arrived to the lot to see quite the commotion - nastia and her buddy chris just come to grief on jill's thrill (hereafter to be called "chris's agony" more aptly) 

chris had fallen above jill's crux, having not protected the last bit to the anchor below crazy horse, and thus crashed into the ledge below the crux, some 20-some odd feet, and with terrific force - nastia was way down on snag ledge and well out of sight, and after a good bit of time, had lowered him all the way back down to her

i arrived not knowing what to see, just 2 beers and a jacket and some shoes for the same-olde solo - ole'boy was hobbling w/ his arms over adam and dave and not happy - we ended up laying him down near cruising and adam ambled up the trail to summon emt folks for a stretcher - though chris didn't seem too terribly damaged, caution was clearly called for and he wasn't walking any further unless the devil himself was calling in his dues

i lent my jacket, and soon my beer and smokes, to the cause, and so therefore in my shiverish state had little to offer beyond caustic comments and sheer sarcasm, shit-head that i am 

the ranger showed up in due course and did what rangers do, dampening the whole proceedings with dyspeptic diatribes against all manners of evil, all of them of course as well rooted into the living rock for phucking-generations like the poison oak itself, and just as harmless really - nastia and i looked dutifully naughty, as one must in contact w/ gun-clad quasi-authorities, and the whole thing continued at a snail's crawl - a few minutes later EMT folks rolled in w/ happy drugs and the same old questions and then we sat queerly around some more n' chuckled over poor ole'chris who i can only imagine at this point was thoroughly ready for the whole scene to move on to it's conclusion

eventually yet more rescue folks w/ a stokes litter and half-done tattoos and they bore him away, me to remain waiting for dave to finish his raps, rescuing abandoned gear, me rueing the bastard who ordered me to poor out my unoffending beers in the name of...what...exactly? 

i shoulda just crawled up the corner and had my fill, but tempting fate seemed not the order of the hour

all's well that ends whatever of course and soon we were back in the lot, the ranger gone and chris crammed into nastia's sweet-nasty love machine, heading west to the emergency room and i imagine a full evening of goddamn-you-mudda-fuckas 

10/4 - day 27 - lap 18

dastardly defalcations crop up in these deadly days, 'cuz -it's the mild man who cruises through them w/ care n' comes straight to safer shores w/ a a true n' towering buzz

a gentle fall afternoon - gentle breeze, gentle air - the far forest unsmoking now - the ghostly burnt standing sentinels showing totally clean floors- all the shite-wands a man might want to bolt-fuck his way up laid bare n' just right over there, go get'em boys

a crew on bluebird, otherwise a vacant, subdued scene - i scuttle silently up the south-east corner, the song inside me suspended for some time now i fear - curious how the significant humors that sculpt a man shift and settle, like tides upon the beach, the sands waxing and waning, and all heading towards a suspicious conclusion...

not a soul to see, i settle on a ledge and think thoughts of bloody revolution n' nurse the necessary things - these bastards have to learn sometime, no? so when shall that be? 

the bolt hangers back at the top of the final ridge now, should that put a bee in yer bonnet

international taco day i hear, how in tepid hell did it come not to be on a tuesday? 

10/15 - day 28

turned 43 thursday, even as tornadoes swept the town and the hard hail rained down - friday was day drinking and a trip to the dog-park w/ the wife - got in a freezing cold swim saturday, then some skerry movies w/ the family until midnight

sunday was adam's after 9, steve n' the prodigal son kenny rumbling around too under the haze and in a biggish breeze - took some time to get our plans sorted out - thought we were gonna all tag-team jensens but then it was just me n' steve down w/ that, they onto local access instead

not the worst fall weather for jensens, but stiff at any rate - i got blown around on the ever interesting first pitch, and steve wasn't so impressed w/ continuing up from there, but i managed to thrash him up one pitch higher before bailing - it was quite cold, and the lichen in high winds is a bitch - we left a rope fixed for a rematch sometime soon

did a corner crawl afterwards, having a hoo-down on the ledges along the way - good stories - goals for life and such - warm water and 40 oz dreams....

10/16 - day 29, lap 19

the goal to get at least a 20-spot of corner crawls this season seems w/n reach, the annual total declining much as a home-run slugger fades into obscurity though...

the tune "ain't no god in mexico" humming in my head, full of toxins n' temptations, i tumbled down to the tracks n' tussled w/ the fact ole willie n' waylon might have know damn-well what they were talking of - jim was there to set me straight if the highwaymen hadn't already and soon enough i was clear n' casting off the rock alone w/ only my fears to serve as friends

a gaudy, calm late-afternoon fall day - a pride of sea lions upon the spit, splashing and laughing, their slim, pale forms from high above troubling the waters not a bit...

10/24 - day XXX - lap XX

a shit day, this st cripin's eve - 30 seconds before going on-stage at 7:40 a.m., word comes of the death of a best friend - what is it i always say? "wise sir, do not grieve - it is always better to avenge dear ones than to indulge in mourning?"

but how to avenge a suicide a coast away? how to make up for the time that passed as distance sucked off the surface of a deep friendship?

i've never bawled before the kids before, but my class nearly saw it happen for the first time anyway - a few gulps and composure comes back - best to shove that shit in a mental closest n' come back to it before the sun sets- somehow i get through the day, then head east through the gaudy, gusty gorge, swallowing sadness back into my gullet as i go

beacon - wicked windy, but a metaphorical shelter from the storm i wish - nastia, joe n' steve nattering around on bladerunner - my small-talk powers shit

up the corner in my jacket, somewhat fearful of suspicious curses on this auspicious day, sweating n' freezing in turn

time for ruminations along the way - what to think on the dead, and does it matter?

the memories i carry, should any care:

- acid and moonlight and the beach, us simple as babes, the world not to worry us a wit, we were on the cusp of Total Consciousness afterall 

- new years 2000 - my boy, all of 130 lbs soaking wet n' standing in boots, squaring off against a 400 lb black bouncer in a boisterous bar as the ball comes down - when i try to intervene, my guy says "stand by or i'll belt you in the gob" n' the utter silliness of it all dissolves me into gales of laughter and somehow it all gets better

- my wife - i'dve never met her or convinced her i'm not the creep i appear to be w/o him

- his identical twin, dead by the same cause when we were kids practically - the surreality of it all, us powerless as sissies- the sick desperation, then as now, that hellish realization that those we love most we're least powerful to help

- pink floyd - never had heard them before him - many a feverish discussion in altered states, so often just on the cusp of dawn - "wish you were here" once blew my brains out in a mall parking lot, the tiny sound turned tremendous through his car speakers, the horror in hindsight over the aptness of that simple message, all these years later...

- in the end, just a warm, gentle impression, all these decades gone away - the goodest of friends, capable of fulfilling any demand, beyond the simplest: dude, can you please stop being so fucking broken? 

10/26 - day 31, lap 21

a balmy, easy indian summer day, coupled with ballistic wicked winds from the east - beacon with the parking lot in half-light, leaves lashing against the windshield, a turd released and off we wander

a team of 3 on tree ledge n' some rare auold rambling - i pause atop warriors for a beverage n' to yell at the gale - dave appears n' suddenly it's a party...

10/27 - day 32, lap 22

homecoming friday, hormones in full flood, the world tips sidewise n' i siddle eastwards as the wind grows in gasps and shrieks and what's left of life gets easy

all alone on the gusty stone, i take my time n' tipple a while on ledges here and there, until tumult once more comes upon me, n' i slouch back west to vantucky to be born 

10/28 - day 33

homecoming friday come n' gone n' sad camas unseated 14-13 in the final moments - we learn more in loss than in victory though, or so we are told, but those that beclaim it are nought but a cult of vicious bastards and you know it

a nice night w/ the boy-child - pizza n' tv n' he had the better sense to cart his ass upstairs before passing out, me spending the night on the couch even after the wife wandered back at whatever wicked hour

been 2 years since i'd done warriors complete, geoff neither, n' lord but the pair of us were sad fools fumble-fuckign our way up it in the shade and breeze - krist-on-a-kracker, our hari-kari hour is coming round fast...

10/31 - day 34 - lap 23

all hallow's eve n' all though the gorge

no one's got time fir me nor my whores

precious little time, i speed from an iep

n' rocket east with a pressing need to pee

jim in the lot, sad words on fred beckey

then down the trail i stumble as i change my perspecty

nastia, dan, then steve n' sweet kim

as i ponder my options n' wonder who could think who was Him?

it's the end of an era, but who the fuck could say

who's the next master of adventure, or where she shall stray?

there's gods n' there's guides, n' all men in between

but the truth is we all flounder at all times just like teens

godspeed, good fred, i hardly knew ye i know

but fuck we're all doomed, n' that's how it goes

11/18 - day 35

howling damps for weeks on end - tried thrusting my fat-fuck ass through the dead-horse last weekend to no avail - after days of sad union bidness, no hope for a brother or a sister, i slunk east not long after the sun ambled up w/ old adam, set to slink our way up free-fir-sum

dank, chilled air in the lot - building breeze at the base - beers whilst adam got up the first bit of the necessary, then me too - afterwards it was the corner, barely dry enough for an ascent but good enough

guess i ain't making it to 25 laps this year...

12/8 - day 36 - lap 24

3:45, the sun low, low, low in the sky - 36 degrees in the parking lot, radio said gusts to 80 mph - it took some coaxing to climb into my war gear n' crawl down the trail, leaking snot and tears in the glorious gale, half-certain i'm completely gone with the other half not caring one whit at all

at the base - stinking shoes over sweaty socks n' second guesses, but then goddammit-all-just-get-it-done n' up we go - pauses every few feet to shove my hands down my pants n' coax the digits back to their duty - the breeze rocking n' swaying my dump-truck body as i gasp for breathe - snag ledge n' i can't sit still for long - the first crux of the slab no problem but the second's scary w/ gloves on so off they come - the roar of the move onto the east side, the full riot of the wicked wind waking my woebegone senses - i try to time it but really there's no telling fate what's fucking what

the tree ledge, roots flexing in the poor soil it's precariously planted in, the dirt bubbling up as if in a full-on earthquake - the hurricane grows greater as we get up into the sky and i feel for maybe the first time ever that the railing sure seems a long way off - that curious mixture of freezing cold and sweating at the same time

uprising with the light gone gray and gaunt, the life bled out of the world as the heavens above begin to gleam with starlight

tornadoes at the final turn onto the trail, and what do we say to the god of death?

not today

not today  

[ivan]

the 2018 season, my 7th year of recording my daily what-have-yous - personal record of 60 solo corner laps, thanks in good part to long indian summer and horrific contract negotiations 

----------------------------------------------------------

been neglecting logging beacon days - guess the thrill is gone and i should just lay down in my grave already - still, in the spirit of defying obdurate death, some tardy observations:

7/14/2018 - day 1, solo lap 1 - wasted from 3 weeks in the sawtooths, olympics and alpine lakes wildernesses i laid about the house on opening day, not a tad ashamed of my torpor - on bastille day though honor demanded i rise and drunkenly wobble my way beacon-wards - heat was upon the rock, but i waited until after 3 when the sun sets and fuckers off west and then sauntered on up without event - the world keeps on turning and so must we

7/15 - day 2 - ben on a hall past - 97 degrees predicted so we foolished figured we could beat the heat by meeting at 7 - breathless heat dispatched the already sunny young warriors from our minds and we settled instead for the shade of cruising on up the corner - at grassy ledges we settled in the listless shadows of the trees as i sucked down beer - uprising was punishing in the baleful glare of the hated helios - afterwards we cooled ourselves in the columbia and nattered about nothing

7/18 - day 3, lap 2 - the family fetched from the old dominion, i settled for swimming for 2 delirious days, then it was nasty labor negotiations and sitting across a big table in a small room and trying to kill the killing thoughts that creep about the minds of even common men - for therapy i bent my way beacon-wise afterwards and sidled up the basalt sidewalk, finding of all things a fraternal brother at tree ledge - impromptu union issues expounded upon and my conscience clear, i crept my way upwards into the sky

7/19 - day 4 - the hms revenge, geoff at the helm, roars into the parking lot after 3 and soon thereafter we gun down the highway running east, eager w/ life's little leavings - i'm probably not built right for corvettes, though their curvaceous lines are not insensible to my dulled senses - helmet-less as from habit i suppose, i follow on crusing and wonder where the old me who used to solo this regularly went - good times and gut laughs follow - it's pretty much always the same old story, and its a grand one, so why gaze too deep into the meat?

7/20 - day 5, lap 3 - ushered 10 year old asher priestly and his addled papa up the corner after arriving a few hours earlier and wandering up the way alone, bumping into all kinds of familiar faces along the way - shared a beer w/ 2 union members on the ledge, than pink-himself appeared along w/ arndt - discourses about dramas and days gone by, the sun keeling over as an old man on fire, we fidget and fumble for something that already has found us but lies

7/22 - day 6 - plan for a trans-columbia crossing skrewt - geoff had a grand new wave riding what-have-you and i eagerly wanted to swim the river and climb phoca rock under cape horn w/ some adult supervision, but a combination of great gusty winds and rather-big waves, plus a not-so-ready escape-driver scuppered that there plan - we settled for scuttling eastwards a bit more and nattered around the beacon-channel - geoff roared around on the the what-have-you while getting bruised n' concussed and i swum - great schools of river carp under the pilings - beer and big times - grand.7/25 - day 7, lap 4 - 3 days of summer coding-camp concluded, i scurried out cautiously into the calamitous heat - 94 degrees at the skamania mart for the beer stop but settled on climbing first instead of swimming - unremarkable ascent, concluded w/ some high times and hearty yak-yaks w/ adam at the boat-launch - got a prime plan for a full moon ascent come saturday, should anyone by so motivated

7/27 -day 8, lap 5 - built a boxing bag in the morning w/ the boy in the morning then heaved away out east -lovely swim out to pierce island and and a leisurely float back, no fish on the pylons - a bit of head medicine after drying off, ran into dave in the lot - meshed our malodorous ways  and soon thereafter headed up the corner, simul-solo - good times n' guffaws along the way - on the way down our parkour boy done went'n parkoured the fuck outta of his face 

7/28 - day 9 - a grand get together out at adam n' claire's - the plan was to frolic in the fair columbia, dine, then climb the corner by the light of the recently full moon - didn't quite work out that way, but the first part was spot on - kyle n' amber n' geoff n' steve n' jim appeared in short order and we guffawed n' marked time as the scorching sun keeled over and the breeze blew - eventually we were at the boat launch - some swum, some shot about the channel on the blue demon, geoff's latest deadly boy-toy, and some sat in the shade and took in the scene - not a soul on the rock, even after the sun left the face - beers on pierce island and under the corner on the sandy shore - my smokes quite scuppered by a shit dry-bag - lazing by the river later on, then most left, bailing on the wonder of the moonlight ascent - swallowed my betrayal with bitefulls of lovely steak n' waiting for ben to arrive while bantering w/ my beatific hosts - darkness came and the glowing orb rose and ben roared in - adam retired to his well earned bed as we rambled on over and had an uneventful ascent, returning near 3 a.m. to natter a bit about future plans, then for ben to drive back home, leaving me to sleep in the cool air under the haughty heavens

7/31 - day 10 - lap 6 - illish health, my survival routine of swimming everyday disrupted by a disgusting infected cyst requiring lancing and antibiotics and a stern admonition by learned doctors to avoid total immersion in the local lakes - figured the corner might be a salve for my sullen soul - kevbone n' andreu on little wing - light breezes n' languid views, the world alone n' listing heavily to port - topher on the descent, bound to rap stone soup, saying the whole damn thing has been desecrated of its iron 

8/1 - day 11 - lap 7 - the first of august upon us and my beacon rock pass weren't no good no'mo, so i wrangled w/ the bastard machine - ate my credit card, required Strong Talking To to free it and complete my civilian transaction - a dude knows kenny saw i was a brother and need and succeeded where i failed, so goes the story of my life - still, made a new friend and he followed down to the corner to film my ascent while waiting for his girlfriend to finish hiking up the trail - lovely sight of a sealion zipping on down the river - against the strong cross-wind it cut up quite the bow wave, a big light brown torpedo sizzling on down the stream, heading towards adventures unheard of

8/2 - day 12 - kyle n' i went for a look see on something new that turned out not new at all - salvaged a corner crawl - homo gummi bears on the summit - topher n' company starting up stone soup - kevbone in the lot gearing up but i had to eschew conversation to roar back west for a salary bargain sesh that went straight to shit in short order...

8/3 - day 13 (4 days in a row) - rainy at dawn, our plans seemed doomed - the doctors office and more nasty and needless pain inflicted on your friend and humble narrator - kyle in the thick weather at the bk parking lot, his enthusiasm ironically undamped - we bend space n' crawl up to the beacon way to the uprising railing - cut some brush to investigate a possible line that might take you from the top of hidden treats to top of riverside's exit by the norseman's head - find an obscure and old hardman's route - many smc hangers with non-stainless bolts that are all now brown as shit, plus a big beefy nail - doesn't seem to have seen much traffic in the past 20-some-odd years - latter geoff rolls in and we head up right gull, where i'm rudely reminded i'm half the shit climber i once was

8/6 - day 14 - lap 8-9 - started w/ a doc yanking a nasty pus-infected strip of packing from my excised cyst - sad news, at least another week of not swimming for the dude, even as savage heat descends upon us, damn near clawing my eyes out to be stroking through the kewl... - beacon after some beers, two laps, both w/ shielas present, damn near paradise 

8/7 - day 15 - lap 10 - a dentist visit left me w/ a numb face at the boat launch, wondering what the hell exactly i'm doing w/ my life but ready to take a punch - a tasteless beer in the shade of the pylon n' then it was to the business - not a soul on the face and a big shady breeze in near 90 degree temps - pouring sweat, i found redemption, if not my sense of smell - no time to linger, i made it to "infinity wars" w/ the family just moments after the credits 

8/8 - day 16 - lap 11 -  union war planning  in the morning - teacher strikes on the march all throughout this state if The Bastards don't come to their senses soon - 98 degrees by afternoon and my back wound still unstitched i had no options but to return to church and pray that the water might readmit me soon - reached out to denali dave via the luminiferous aether on the long lunge out but the interwebs don't seem to work right and we got wildly different perceptions of the plan - spent a beer's worth of time waiting for his arrival on snag ledge before figuring out he'd run up the trail and was waiting on the summit - lit a fire under my ass to arrive up there, sodden w/ sweat, only to find him gone - lovely views up there though as the magic minute commenced and i cracked open a pbr and settled in when suddenly he appeared, making mystic motions and random runes atop the the tumult of thumb rock  - made a down-payment on the beer debt i've built up w/ our boy over the years and we sucked up the ambiance - 2 score of elk ambulating around in the emerald canal, living like lords of the earth - barges banging up the columbia as the coal trains chugged back the other direction - the smoke n haze of our smoldering earth setting everything in subtle shades of hate - sigh...the summer shall not last...

8/9 - day 17 - lap 12 - no time for dilly-dallying w/ Serious Business impending, i raced up the scorching stone, soaked in sweat, then winged it back west to the district office to behold 200-some-odd of my pissed off union brothers and sisters sharpening their pitchforks and preparing torches to Storm the Barricades (between bouts of belting down hot dogs of course  ) 

8/10 - day 18 - laps 13-14 - the wife away with friends of yore, i slept away the morn until even the kids were bored - they non-plussed at sallying forth, i fled beacon-ways for a bit n' had a good old mid-summer session - topher n' a lovely shiela on the siddle on down after lap one - adam honking as he raged along the road - jim n' a grand gavreet, the things of the past still the same but somehow sliding on by - lap 2 cooler still but nothing to report

8/12 - day 19 - lap 15 - shut down by rain, or at least the gut fear of rain, after 5 straight days of beacon goodness, i returned for an early morning lap before d'n'd w/ the kids in the afternoon - veritable dogdamn meat popsicle parade on the verge of the cool columbia - passed 13 folks on route, some with birthday caps on, many clearly up there for the first time and having fun - encountered ole chris winter who i ain't seen since the world was young and had a good gavreet - nattered about nastia w/ numerous folks in the know - maybe 10 folks on young warriors as well - topher up high on stone soup frittering time away - a fellow at the base who freed the first pitch of the soup recently and called it only 12a, how strange - woulda loved to do a second lap but time and the judgement of man made me jingle-jangle my way away back west

8/13 - day 20 - lap 16 - the morning mist dispersing, 70 degrees and dappled shade and the flow of the universe over my mottled flesh sweet sick-fuck in my flayed mind - the stone as it always is, it is only the curious i that changes i swear, my skin that of a depressed doppelganger that dithers forwards out of a habit of hope  - breath and dripping sweat and sinuous movement, the mind a tabula rasa after all its rude ambulations, this is the path to paradise even if it is nothing more than an odd oroboros that ultimately dumps us in disarray at our mother's doorstep, new-eyed and obtused by age

8/19 - day 21 - lap 17 - after a week at buxom lake quinault, i was querulous with cooped up beacon longings - sure, two grand lake crossings, both clad as a glorified white-walrus, did excite the meat in the marrow, but gawdamn it ain't quite the same, is it?  the rock much as i left it, rudely exposed to heat and wind, but rife w/ life - a crew with a dude named cannon i think - kayakers all upon the sound, fallen several feet from last i'd seen it - a lovely dmm off-set nut that i shall have come tomorrow morning or me name's not cheap-skate-mcgee 

8/20 - day 22 - lap 18 - thick canuckistani clouds of smoke upon the land - bonneville dam a mystery just 2 miles away - a morning lap w/ familiar faces on right gull and whatever it is we call the line just right of young warriors w/ the new bolts (the bolter himself on hand giving it a go) - not much time for dilly-dallying, but bootied a sweet dmm offset nut after near ten minutes of monkey-hammering on it w/ rocks and nut tool -  another below it but non-offset and a bit of a puzzle as to how to extract and thus not worth the effort - some union bidness over lunch dispensed, then it was the doc and my dupuytren's contracture poo-poo'ed and finally a lovely mile long swim back and forth and back again out at battle ground lake

8/21 - day 23 - lap 19 - discouraging day at the bargain table, a strike all but certain now, no matter the blase niceties that are nattered at us from the other end and with less than a week until the day of days - 6 hrs of pacing around a big table in a tiny room trying not to get uncontrollably pissed, my never significant small talk skills truly tapped out  by the end - the noose unloosed, a short flight out to beacon through the choking heat and smoky haze - the stone alone, i soared and sweated and saw the same old sights in the hellish half-light, leaving w/ a new resolution

8/23 - day XXIV - lap XX - a grey day, smoke subsumed by wind and light rain,  kinda nice to feel like ya can breath again - early to rise, my mind tormented by uneasy affectations, happily kilt by burnt coffee and trailer park boys - friendly union bidness near noon w/ the new fish - why join the union, you ask? firfuksakes, 'cause The Man don't want ya to!  just a skosh of the afternoon to bang out east, into the storm, and winkle my way up beacon in the big, big breeze and gentle sprinkles, passing folks here and there - time to take in the frenzied scene for a few below the southeast corner ridge but then it was hustling up n' hurtling out, the weasels raging along the edges of this swiftly revolving what-have-you - no better way to get my game face on then to have a construction worker scream "faaaaaaaaawk uuuuuuu" as me and another driver innocently turned through the cones to get to the district office - ugh, was there another way? sigh, the hairless monkey is just a hand's breadth from total hatred in even the most benevolent of times...

8/28 - day 25 - lap 21 - dark days duly dispensed - a 3 mile swim yday before a strike vote, my veins open and pumping a mighty purplish red,  the water like wine washing over my zealot head - shakespeare said it best, "all the world's a stage" etc. etc. - today the tempest upon us - half-hearted philippics in the fullness of time become declarations of war n' it's not long really - a right greek tragedy is this one, every actor aware of where his god-ordained line will leave him, loving yet ready to hack off the head of his brother if needed - beacon rock my temple i toppled towards as the day was dying - the simpleness of stone and wind and water - coyotes yip and yowl, and in their wildness tame my scowl

8/29 - day 26 - lap 22 - chaos crawls upon us - tomorrow the last best chance to avoid a strike, but only a simpleton would expect these base bastards to have changed - still, the runes are rather clear and the augors are auspicious, if fight they will, then fight i must, and hard-hearted hatred is the way we must follow - escaped the emotional cauldron near 4, finagled east, gnawing sunflower seeds like a silly fool - ben's car in the lot n' suddenly i remembered his grand plan, laid out just days before - boomed up the corner free of fear and encountered my boy with his 2 young sons plus bill n' ujahn - puff puff, drip drip, the rock receives us all - the corner is always the same, though some days its a crowd of false prophets  n' others it's just me alone - a mistress w/o maladies, a priest w/o profession - pictures ensued - i lingered and laid eyes on elks and ospreys and the livid scars of sacred earth - generations on display, i played my part, as we all must and laid aside the lamentations of the Late Ones - one day more and all is done!  

8/30 - day 27 - lap 23 - a day dominated by the damnable - ack - looking forward to when this thing is done and i can speak a tad more freely on the subject, hopefully with a large glass of high-proof whiskey in one hand and a very large hammer in the other  - took advantage of a two hour break to slink out to beacon and blitz up the crowded corner, realizing only belatedly i'd nothing to change into afterward - the stench of my climbing shoe funk encrusted feet could probably be weaponized and might just be the manhattan project style solution to our problems we need 

think my beacon streak will be busted tomorrow as we're bringing sleeping bags and pillows in preparation for yet another yak-yak marathon

8/31 -day 28 - lap 24 - the cone of silence descends on the bargain team so mum's the word and robert is your father's brother - did get a lovely 1 1/2 hr break to rocket out to beacon and rage up the corner as fast as my feet could carry me

9/4 - day 29 - lap 25 - sweet god, simple good-old-fashioned normality returns after far too long - my 20th first day of school, at least as a professional, and for the first time ever i genuinely could say to the hormonal masses "i'm glad to see you" as the alternative was too awful to contemplate - beacon breezy and balmy, the haze so thick hood was half-visible on the ambulation in - an easy ascent, all alone, the fear of death like water over hot stone, bubbling off and evaporating in an instant - if this is suddenly to be the end,  after all these tribulations, then who couldn't be eager for it, rather than face the far more terrifying descent into disuse and decay old age must inevitably entail?

9/5 - diebus XXX - beacon corner solo 26 - the heat of summer returns and tech issues leave me sweating through my shirt damn near every period - the crazy churn of new faces n' perky personalities, i feel drowned by names and details it'll take me months to truly reckon w/ - still, the day dispensed, there's the becalmed way east on balding tires - the sprint to the base in silly crocs - crowds n' conversation - followed a very lovely lady up the first pitch and struggled not to come off as a creep - kinda hard when you're on a rope on a big giant crag for your first time and some bleary-eyed foul-mouthed cord-less buffoon is stationed just feet below you, chomping at the bit to blast on past and staring at your ass (b/c...like...you're looking straight up the cliff to find your way, so what else could you do?) - bill coe n' the ubiquitous ujahnn at grassy ledges - we natter over beverages n'  resolve the dilemmas of man, the devil be damned 

9/6 - a prime beacon day, #31 - lap 27 - the big wind blows in and smokes confounds the sky - 3 days into school and the olde cycle establishes itself once again - the warts begin to appear and we start seeing just how decent are the human cards we've been dealt - recreation afterwards the order of the day - ole'lash rambling up the trail with a rucksack full of recovered soul - a good gavreet n' a gambol up the rock all alone, just me n' the wind n' me thinky-thoughts, then a reunion in the parking lot - this that and the other thing considered over a can, i cast out, gnome-king in the way-back n' we natter on the way to adams for the drop-off, then back back back to home n' hearth n' some tasty bbq 

9/7 - day 32, lap jimi-hendrix/janis-joplin/jim-morrison-can-go-fawk-themeselves (28 in case that needed translating) - friday night feels alright - a week in the can, just 35 more to go before the whole rigamarole goes round again - a very, very lonely rock, just me and the zopilotes and the dying shade of waxing fall

9/14 - 33rd day, 29th solo lap - fell fall upon us, and sooner than usual it feels - a year ago exact the gorge still raged in flames, the torrid air intolerable to breathe - this week of rain just past would have been relief indeed then - still, while climbing was scuppered it's been good weather for swimming now that i've figured out the super-hero suit thing, the cold and rain insensible just below the water line once in walrus mode - 5% of the school year already dispatched and friday to boot, it was beacon in the early evening, grand and somehow bigger than usual - the scenery gaudy beyond description, like the world had just taken in a big breath and was holding onto it for a while, or perhaps like the hands of the clock had slowed by half, but i could scramble just as fast as ever - whatever it was, a carefree ascent concluded and the beer debased, i decamped back homewards for a date w/ the wife in belligerent battleground - lord don't let those fools break you! 

9/17-18 - days 34-35, cordless laps 30-31 - The shadow of beaten Beacon slips East to be born Anew as the Elk bugle their evening tunes

9/19 - day 37, lap 32 - plumb forgot i had a prior engagement and ended up at beacon quite unawares i was embarrassing myself - such lovely shade and surging breeze - old lash plumb upon the bottom wall, wincing and whooped i reckon after a long day alone - a balm for the battered soul, the blazed trail overhead - elks congregating amidst the columbia - the big man peering down on the big world - fabulous fall n' finn finnson sayin fawk-all

9/21 - day 38, laps 33-34 - the hard-numbers creep up, like dingers on a baseball card history, how many more seasons i wonder, but sure this year nothing to be dismayed at - friday night = frequently climb night - the boy recovered in the after-noon and the chores dispensed, i beacon-bent then but was woefully delayed, bolstered though by fern prairie chicken-sticks n' the chuckles of the dimly-understood demented world - late evening 2-laps, the humor of 2 different-toned diffident frogs, still in the same place the second lap same as the first - the light sadly-diminished, the world settling away towards the dying-place as it lurches lazily through this stoned stretch of space - full moon flits through the gaudy sky at good-guest adam's, we play the word-game of sober-men n' have a good-gavreet - september is pierced and rent n' we must make amends, even if the hard-heart would have it otherwise

9/23 - day 39, lap 35 - sunday starts sprawling on the couch, neck-cricked n' staring up at the lights that'd been glaring down on me for hours as i gleefully slumbered - old pizza and iced burgundy and school work soon dispensed, then it was making a dozen damn quarts of red sauce n' wrapping my head around this whole-being-in-the-world thing - to beacon where the late-day crowds were quite high up, a baker's dozen come grassy ledge - heart-attack at the horn on p2 where, for the first time ever, both feet and a hand blew, leaving me hanging n' hollering, wondering what the heck exactly was going on, laughing hysterically but scared as hell - chuckles n' castabout comments n' then the top and down, down, running into oulde dave along the way - a beer at the base, then zoom-zoom n' the groceries of the week acquired - reckon that rude bastard monday is on the mend...

9/24 - dies XL - sexy time beacon lap XXXVI - today about redemption after the 10 second terror of y-day - a real contemplative re-assertion that this isn't some solo-suicide pact between me, meself n' i set on slo-mo for near 2 decades now - a so called flawless ascent, nary a technical error to cause complaint, nor time to pause and wonder with a school board meeting calling my name - a wild indian summer hard upon us, the heart-breaking glorious horizontal sun of fall, all shadows the husks of heroes, the air fresh as the yearning dreams of youth

9/25 - day 41 - i lawyered up at school around noon and before 4 my nattily-attired attorney cruised into the burger king parking lot in the hms revenge, ready to roll with a twinkle in his piratical eye  - 'twas a strange scene, a whole homeless crew ransacking the dumpster behind chevron for cans, loose, tired skin over tattered old bones, a grim-vibe indeed - guess that trump economy ain't exactly working for everyone? no time for such weighty thoughts, to beacon we sped, shaping plans n' having the good deep gut laffs that form the foundation of this long alliance of ours - the no-doubt livid-trumpito unbraided with unctuous laughter before the UN - its almost as if the one thing that literally half of humanity at least can agree on is this guy's a goddamn baleful modern-day p.t. barnum - whatever, it's beyond my pay-grade, as they say... - a lovely ascent of the Olde Warrior, which is 2 1/2 pitches of the corner to stoner ledge, then young warriors from there - blustery n' breezy, indian summer on the verge of over - dark by 730, the world is dying but surely it'll all be fine? 

9/26 - douglas adams day! atheists of the world...uh...uh...engage in high-minded, reasonably-toned, science-based discourse and fully embrace the impending annihilation of mind and body in an enlightened and insouciant fashion?  beacon solo lap 37 at any rate, so a prime day for yours truly as well - back to skewl night, so no time for noodling about, i raged on out as fast as the government mule could fly, pedestrians bedamned, to get my clamber on before rambling on back bare-footed and bespackled with sweat and grim to guiltily change in the parking lot n' greet the parents of the current crop - the irascible billcoe n' ubiquitous ujohn high upon the rock, crawling up into the sky, we exchanged quick wit and woeful self-portraiture n' then passed as the proverbial ships in the night, each on to his pressing obligation, our consciences clean as the new driven snow 

9/27 - a prime beacon day at #43 - solo corner lap #38, prime X2 i imagine - very much alone, and gloriously slow - the muse came upon by me after tree ledge so i stopped to consult her:

I am the candle that gutters

The guy the queer one calls quisling

I claim the bush-pilot’s creed:

“the truth is the real gold is not in the ground

It’s south of Sixty

Stuck in living rooms

Face in the boob-tube

Bored to death

Bored to death

But do you know what beats boredom?

Adventure  "

An anti-lilliputian storm of goddamn lithuanians crawl up the beacon stone on my lazy way down

Flags in fists

The pater familias very much at the crazed forefront of their fervid, collective minds

I saluted them and bid them:

Beware the Russians!

Then receded down the smiling path

9/30 - day 44 - lap 39 - sore as hell and asleep by 9 on a saturday night, sad, sad, sad - up by 6 as a result though so the chore of grading done w/ before noon, time enough for a beacon lap before the getting of groceries and the preparation of dinner for an indifferent audience - gray and gloomy along the river - a tween-ager and her pops on the 1st pitch, then on until glory to the top - a wee slip on the chimney above grassy ledges saw me slip-slide a bit but nothing like the mismanagement of last sunday - a good gavreet w/ a fellow sabbath violator below the notch, a beer, then the big blast back home

10/1 - day 45 - 40 solo beacon laps this summer, nothing to sneer at - if it's 500-some-odd vertical feet the lap, then that's 20,000 feet so far, almost 4 miles from sea to sky, the height of denali, which the normal mortal crunch-crunches up at something half-way horizontal - a few years at any rate since i've managed so many and 50 might not be impossible if the fall chooses to be sublime - the shoulder season hard upon us at any rate - a calm parking lot, the savage winds soon will come but they're not here yet and it's a balm for the past-bittered mind - changing into shorts and t-shirt, i stumbled down upon my way, recoiling at the critical moment from face-planting through the web of a huge forest-spider hung half-way across the trail - up the route i bounded, barely aware of the warnings of recent days - nary a soul along the way, just distant deep purple rain-clouds for company and nagging fear of course - a beer and beatific thoughts below the notch, then dave hoot-hooting as he exploding up uprising - reunited at the trail we nattered over ethical conundrums the common-citizen currently couldn't avoid but certainly should - then it was home and breakfast for dinner and that hard-harpy we call tuesday just over the horizon 

10/2 - day 46, lap 41 - the full october wind announcing it's presence in the parking lot with authority, blowing over garbage cans and ripping the tired leaves from the sagging trees - the face itself strangely quiet and calm though, the true beatard micro-climate in reality - a far cry from a flawless ascent, slipping and sliding all over the place, but the law of 3-point contact is a powerful one - just past the horn on pitch 2 i started onto the slab but found myself in an alien configuration - inspired by the freak-out of recent days to reject new ways i backed down to the start and attempted the human-flesh version of a control-alt-delete - amusingly, launching back once again after a few moments i repeated the same entire bizarre sequence and said screw-it and pulled through, all mortal fear bedamned - a great place to confront the true-true reality of sir isaac newton i swear and a happy ending so that's that - alone in the lovely wind at the top of uprising, i took in the total scene and felt the upwelling of the human spirit that keeps my broken soul at the wheel 

10/3 - day 47, the long-sought for douglas-adams memorial lap (how i hope someday to render my regards personally to him at the restaurant at the end of the universe  ) - frost on the car this morning, it appears fall is not fucking around - black ruminations today in lecturing on the 25th anniversary of the events of "black hawk down" - spinning senselessly through the gyre of time, sometimes i can't see out of the circle, good-god is there really any arc to history? - but beacon always the balm - as i've long claimed, every trip there reveals some curiosity not previously discovered - this time it was the double-tractor-trailer that went into the ditch just short of the park, spilling the largest pile of fresh corn on the cob i've ever seen in all directions - woulda been better n' more comical still if all the cops on the scene were eagerly munching on peeled ears whilst filling out the forms n' cleaning up the bodies - blasted up the lap w/o chit-chat w/ my fellow climbers, no time for beer n' contemplation, duty-bound to make a southwest central labor council meeting at the teamster's hall - kinda kewl to mix w/ pipe-fighters n' printers n' the other proud union laborers of the earth and plot the way forward 

10/4 - day 48 - solo lap 43, one for each sordid trip round the sun by your's truly - my 5th climbing day in a row, and right called for as the indian summer is clearly coming to a close w/ storms and fog for fuck'all to come - nary a soul, and i enjoyed the elbow room on my tiny perch where the warrior and the corner converge - shooting over the trail railing i crashed a total teen party - it's thursday night on the south shore of skamania county and the kids are out in force, sucking down pbr n' smoking all kinds of things - i hid my face as these fellows might all well be my responsibility but, far from home, and on the side of the beacon-wand, we're all kind of swiss and must abide - the drive back the best - the hill of road-corn, rudely left by a crashed tractor-trailer just yesterday, already sadly diminished, crawling w/ human scavengers made giddy by the prospect of free grain - as i paused solely to take pictures, car after car cruised in, spilling out half-drunk hill-billies w/ ikea bags and common tarps and high-hopes of scoring the perfect crime, leaving w/ arms over-filling of the produce of our far eastern brothers whose insurance i can only hope is secure 

10/11 - day 49 - lap 44, completed just hours before turning 44 - scuppered by slickness n' unnecessary concern the day before, i rocketed east just after close of day, sucking down copper ale n' spitting dill pickle sunflower seeds out the window - the corn mound sadly gone after a week of scavengers gilded w/ crazy n' ruinous rain - the base and our dear russian and chris b just getting down - rumors of war - bounding up the dry stone, joy internalized, the feel of friction and the puff-puff of determined breath pulsating through the pink-matter of the mind - topher n' company at the grassy ledge, n' jarred just above - hoot-hoot n' good times on the land of the little people, the golden gorge glowing before us as we bantered over god know's what - traffic jam at the parting place, we went up uprising w/o complaint - lost-cam kenny firkrisakes emerged w/ his special lady friend even as jarred jetted off - our boy a goddamn grandpa now and i suppose that fate is impending for all such fools who choose to procreate - the big bound home as crepuscular evening crept in - birthday meals in battle ground, a gullet-full of glorified  mac'n'cheese n' molly-coddling the indifferent - holy hell, the 3-day weekend is upon us 

10/12-13 -days 50-51 - 2 days of beacon bliss, and all thanks to adam, the supplier of the beacon-base for this critical shoulder-season session- my birthday friday free and so ben n' i made our separate ways out to the woe-be-gone driveway just off the little road in the early morning, where 'true country-living,' to coin ben's phrase, was for the having all around - friday a bit of donnybrook, me way-laid on flight time, a true disgrace really, for a route i once regularly traveled when the world was young - we salvaged it though in the afternoon, clambering up the first two crazed pitches of jensen's and fixing on down - a rare hootenanny of an evening to follow - bonfires n' beers n' hellish introspection on the part of your friend-n-humble-narrator - abed by 10 for firfawksakes and that's the worst you can say for some sad-sack on the completion of his 44th whizz-whirl around the great big-flaming-what-have-you - the first day after that though a prime one, ole'adam lighting-along his signature breakfast that makes dining till dusk unnecessary, the goddess-sauce the primary touch - we bolted from ben at the first opportunity, then jugged n' juggled our way up from the place where the trail ends - atop pitch 2, i launched again, my cuticles immediately cursed to dribble blood on the rock from there to the end - p3 the tribal-treasure, the wind blast a test of our basic character and nothing more - exposure enough to excoriate our under-lying essence which is weak-weak-weak - ben owned on p4, which we all beheld in the furious glare of fall's fell air, then me up the final bit and belaying on the trail - burgers n' bridging-the-light-fantastic after n' then the long roar down the road home to hang w/ ladies who don't look lightly on trying to talk during the midst of their movie-tales

10/15 - day 52 - lap 45 - the indian summer is threatening to last at least another week, the long-shot goal of 50 solo laps in a year yaws into sight - cats-paws n' baby white-caps upon the columbia, the raging winds of winter are clearly in the parlor and planning on rushing out soon to transform every outing into a rude epic, sunshine or no - fear enough to go round, despite no good reason, just the growing reality that it's all about to come crashing down soon and it's common sense alone between us and the devil and the deep-blue sea - the crag alone, the long nagging shadows of evening at just 4 o'clock now, the trail down as lonely as the climb up - a waxing moon - more corn trucks on the crawl in - before long it'll be finger-gloves n' 2 layers against the wind and a lap a month at best 

10/16 - day 53 - lap 46 - hero-october half-dispatched and summer will not die, though the wind builds up and sags upon the rock w/ a long and lasting sigh...

10/19 - day 54 - lap 47 - october w/o equal, the quiescent sun shines seemingly unwilling to quit - the week wounded to death, we decamp east as evening sets in - it's friday so fuck-off is what we say - shade and wind on the south side, but nothing like what the season will bring us in short order when the roar of heaven and furious earth will declare w/ simplicity the simple n' humble message of fawk-you human - death over our shoulder, we proceed undisturbed n' bolt down the pedestrian trail - back in time to fetch the maladjusted young'un from macbeth n' make pizza n' nap out the bitter end of the dying day - for november we have no need  

10/21 - day 55 - lap 48 - wearied by a long swim yday i was abed by 9 n' therefore wide awake come 430 in the morning, the soreness of my top-half making just rolling over a chore and the choice to rise n' binge n' purge on trailer-park boys in the rude darkness the clear one - a nice short nap come rosy-fingered dawn n' then it was d'n'd n' daughter-fetching n' time enough for a beacon lap - the golden gorge, fall's plaything, the columbia gone languid with catspaws crawling over its lazy face - passing 9 folks on the corner, i ended up essentially sprinting each pitch to avoid the log-jam at the next, no way to enjoy the sultry sabbath at all and killing my desire to cram in a 2nd ascent and set meself up for the half-century mark tomorrow - geoff in the lot w/ his prized bulls and a good goddamn gavreet over some session-beers ensued as we bandied over the here-to-fore's n' how-in-the-hell's of this atavistic age of ours - the world's gone completely side-ways on us, but there ain't no getting off anytime soon, so it's all about looking for a handhold and keeping an eye on the door 

10/22 - day 56 - lap 49 - once more we're prime, and seemingly poised to reach the half-century goal - a deep dive into years of cc.com drivel reveals my solo lap record was 54 in 2013 (not formally counted in 2012, when i first starting setting the daily dirty down w/ disdainful discourse n' good-lord even i can't wade through all that to madness to suss out the necessary #, but it looks well lower - 42 laps in 2014 - just 19 in 2015 - in 2016 only 23 - 24 more in 2017 - 162 counted laps so far in 5 years, roughly 3 everest's from sea to summit) - suddenly 56 seems the gnarly number to beat though the season stands on the end of a knife...

10/23 - day 57 - laps 50-51 - the dead-man of summer's at the door n' moaning - sunshine supplanted by grim grayness by noon n' it was all too clear it's time to get one last gullet-full of beacon before daylight savings and the ceaseless showers of winter say fuck-all to vain after-school vertical ambulations - sarah n' jared in the lot, fortunately just moments after i went the full-monty to wrangle my way into the ever-hawt shorts over poly-pro - dashed up one lap ahead of them, then another to get some action shots of the ever-active anagogic couple higher up - fled them as night crawled in on crepuscular wings and the sweet smell of fresh rain washed over the innocent stone 

11/8 - day 58 - lap 52 - winter blew its wet horn for a few weeks but then took a hike w/o warning - the sun suddenly returned, cheer flooded into my sick soul through the school-house windows, but daylight savings ending left me No Time for Fucking Around when that last bell sounded - to beacon i bounded, arriving in an already shade besotted parking lot - more clothes upon than the last 51 laps for certain, but soon it was frantically rushing down the leaf-littered trail in the breezy impending darkness - dampness on the stone for sure, oozing weeps upon the rock in the bad spots, but enough for a hero to take comfort (this is, indeed, the payoff for all those vernal ambulations) - up, up n' up, never a thought of death through sudden falls - the joy of the route reset by nature, an assurance of the curious fact that the things of man are in fact only quite temporary - the gravel surging down the 4th class spots, the recently snapped branches all ahoo, the sense of a scene of nature prepared to in short order grow totally alone - the quaint glow that does indeed soothe and salve the soul...

11/9 - day 59 - lap 53 - just 1 what-have-you between me n' my personal record and several days of clear weather to go so it's mine for the having unless i suddenly decide i don't give a shit - i'd be beside meself were it not for the fact that i'm by nature bemused by indifference - summit!....or....sleazy cheese?

11/10 - day 60 - laps 54-55 - high times in november continues w/ no notion of what's proper - adam's at ten after a good belly-sleep - i do 2 laps while geoff n' adam wrangle their way up cruising n' the corner - we wrestle w/ the west side soon thereafter - ain't got no record of me doing more corner laps never, so i'm gonna say it's the world record - still, no need for hubris, i figure the fella who really, really wants it could grab 400

11/11 - day 61 - a day w/ the devushka in the big, big breeze - we stuck to the west side as the boisterous breath of the bilious earth came blowing over from the east - a riot out on the columbia, the waves confused as they rebound from the close shore n' blast back through their angling brothers, resulting in a churning chop and a scene of pure marine delight - labyrinth n' many others too many for my un-nimble mind to remember - a bit of a bonfire at adams after, then home n' british baking shows 

11/16 - day 62 - lap 56 - so slap my ass n' call me sally, the autumnal season, so long a sad sigh-sigh n' slow shuffle on towards fuck-all 'till summer, has persisted in a vernal fashion, and proudly so - thick, slobbering mist n' 40 degrees this mid-november morning, yet by afternoon it was go-go-go n' so i went galloping on down the glowing highway in my gleaming piece of japanese steel, crawling out of my civies into me war-gear at 70 mph to capitalize on every sodding second of this sad wounded time of year - the sun perilously low in the parking lot n' me having to pee like the proverbial race horse, i heaved out in 2 minutes flat n' pounded on up the rock in the 10 minutes i had before the shadows moved in n' precluded all of my petty fantasies - afterwards it was deja vu all over again n' kicking up bob's-a-dying at dear old adams w/ dave n' mason n' the man hisself, then fetching the daughter even as the evening died n' macbeth descended into his nightly grave anon 

11/17 - day 63 - lap 57 - these heady halcyon days continue, tempered now by the crushing hurricane winds  of november - eyes watering without end, streams of snot coursing down my breeze-battered nose n' shooting out into the cosmos, my skullie perpetually in peril of being snatched away and flung into the vortex that's setting west without delay - strangers upon the route, threatening to muck up my perfectly laid plan, but soon enough we were through and through and the ten-minute terror was over and i tumbled back to town...

11/18 - day 64 - lap 58 - heady november continues, a corner hat-trick in as many days, a rare, rare thing - d n' d w/ the fam n' friends in the morning after kahlua n' coffee w/ the parents - we kilt a dragon and it was cool - afterwards the couch called me dearly but the clear streaming sunlight through the southern windows was dissuasion enough against apathy n' day-drinking - the orbit out as dramatic a shift in scene as can be had this time of year as calm conditions deranged themselves relentlessly with every mile east, into the gullet of the columbia gorge, a full gale going by cape horn, which i couldn't see in any case as an r.v. appears to have barrelled into the forest near there and burnt to the waterline, closing the highway and clipping full-growth trees and i must imagine killing somebody or at least leaving them seriously mangled - beacon  n' me intact alone at any rate soon thereafter and into the great gusts we leaned and stumbled down the trail, passing wind-battered climbers wending their way back home, full to the brim with cold and ready for casual beers in the calm not so very far away - yet another cluster-fuck on the slab pitch, but i crawled into my down jacket above the overhang and allowed it time to clear, sucking in the fall-flecked chilly scene and thinking deeply reverent thoughts - the 2nd 2nd crux always the same - the litany of fear - only the penitent man will pass, and so we do, only to sin again - had a huge head of steam to cruise down the trail and get a second slice to bring the record to 59, a solid prime # to hang a hat on, but got the text to tend to the daughter after closing up the macbeth production - already half way down the hiker's trail, i had half a thought to make her wait, but then pondered on the true-true lesson of that sad scotsman's lesson: beware ambition, and so i scuttled back... 

11/19 - beacon day 65 - solo corner lap 59 (and a reverse golden sombrero!) - a post-work, sullen, stormy, wind-wracked and dusky lap, the lines of "the wreck of the edmund fitzgerald" reverberating through my frost-blasted brain as I simultaneously freeze and sweat my way through each mortal move, swaying on my unsteady feet in the baffling breeze- the legend lives on, etc., etc. - the true black by the railing, the near full moon lording over everyone of us petty people no matter how we try, however audacious are our ambitions - in the final analysis we are all to be found wanting and suspect and with that we must make a frail peace 

12/5 - beacon day 66 - 60 solo laps in a climbing season, a badge of a honor, a black mark of shame - that's 59 times I could have done something totally different I reckon- still, as Cock-a-Doodle Dave might say, Beacon is our cathedral so let's bow-bow our heads n' braaay - took some mental lashing to get started - 38 degrees and strong winds in the parking lot, just 5 minutes from sunset, the car rocking in the howling breeze as i struggled into long-johns n' down micro-puff n' 3/4 gloves n' hats - the stumble down the half-frozen trail to a godawful lonely base, the parked train like time itself, unmoving in the hateful half-light - lord, how I resisted - this excuse and that, and twice I started to walk away only for the shame to overwhelm me, the tyranny of seconds and self-loathing in the impending darkness - finally it was fuck-all and fuck-this and we're off, toes soon numb and fingers unfeeling on the dry, frost-burnt stone - near total mind fuck on the 2nd pitch, out of sequence and out of sorts as i approached the wind-tunnel around the corner above the 2nd crux - gloves off for the lie-back and it's a true-true wing n' a prayer- only the penitent man will pass and then all was done and i was alive and rocking back and forth below tree ledge, the railing just a home run trot away - fun and games from there, the trail down in the dark, then union meetings and the sordid details of this little life - my goal for the year was 40 laps, so i'm sated w/ what i've wrought, even if'n you are naught 

Edited December 29, 2018 by ivan

[ivan]

2019 Annual Report n' Ruined Recollections:

for soloing, by far and away the grandest season at beacon ever, blasting away all notions of what i could accomplish - for anything else of honor out there, a true desert, and such is the price we pay for delusional obsessions

2019 stats:

free-soloing days: 68

other climbing days: 6 recorded, but i got distraught come spring and didn't bother for at least a half-dozen others, during which time, among other things, we put up the new line i dubbed the "heretic's highway" on the west side

total laps soloed: 161

average laps/solo day: 2.37

total Climbers Batted In: 314 (though i didn't start tallying these until sometime in september)

average CBIs/lap: 1.96 (a lovely # really as it makes complete sense - roped climbers tend to come in two's  )

most CBIs/day: 55 (11/23 - my last solo day of the season)

hat trick days (x3 laps): 9

reverse golden sombrero days (x4): 3

reverse platinum sombrero days (x5): 2

farmer's daughter days (x6): 1

el cap days (x7): 2

elizabeth hurley days (x10): 1 (on 9/21 - to date my biggest beacon day ever)

historic solo lap summary

2012 (first year i began record-keeping, albeit in a shoddy fashion): 38

2013: 54

2014: 42

2015: 19

2016: 23

2017: 24

2018: 60

2019: 161

lifetime recorded laps soloed: 421

average laps/year: 52.6

i suspect 2020 is going to be, in the grand scheme, a shit-show of historic proportions, but here's to hoping it'll be even better on the personal level as i tangle with the little undertaking i'll call Project 365

daily summaries

1/1 - 2019, the Year of the Marmot and Beacon Day One - adam n' i gallivanted up the gloppy, sunny, wistfully-windless south side n' grabbed in the process the first ascent of the year - strange start though, w/ adam's work-buddy chesta-the-molesta dislocating his shoulder just 3 feet up the first pitch, then crashing back down to the ground to re-set it against a tree, rambo-style - wish i coulda seen it as instead i was just 90 feet off the ground and awful confused as to what the hell exactly was the deal w/ all that screaming down there  ole'boy scuttled back up the trail as adam and i continued up the corner, both of us feeling very much out of practice and half-hung-over, but stoked indeed to have such ridiculously pleasant conditions for climbing - mild as milk was this day, and so hopefully too the next 364 days to come

1/26 - day 2 - chilly, solid cloud murk west of the gorge, but wonderous warm n' calm by cape horn - rapped down to join adam n' steve n' baylen (sp?) lapping stuff on the west side - a party on stone soup, and another on that new bolted arete route on jensens, packing a portaledge too

1/27 - day 3 - a lord alone in an empty hall the night before, and still off the sauce, i rattled around the mansion lunatic-like, sucking down tea n' nodding off near midnight - just north of freezing fog come morning, delayed the beacon mission an hour to give the sun a chance to make its appearance - adam n' steve at the little road estate n' the clouds still closing us in, we nattered on over to the rock anyhow and ambled upwards, the corner still a tad mucky but the sky eventually opened and the mercy of the world descended upon us again - quite the crowd on the west side later, crazy fools enjoying the taste of an indian summer...

1/30 - day 4 - a month after the solstice and just enough sun's left afterschool to scoot out quick n' get a corner crawl in before the falcon-fornication deadline dawns on the south side  - adam's at 4, the wind blowing good n' stiff, but nothing 8 layers of clothes couldn't conquer - up we rushed, the blue-steel breeze at our backs, spilling over the railing on to the lonely trail as the last light of the frigid new-born night sunk into the west

1/31 - day 5 - the Final Winter Ascent of the south side as the falcon-fornicating season saunters in and it becomes a federal crime to even *think* of setting foot on boss's trail - shame the jig is up, really, as ole'adam and i'd had gotten it down to damn near a science the past few days - like free-soloing lite, actually, w/ a rope for the one place i like it when it's decidedly winterish - and now our ambitions amble on over to the west and north sides...

7/20/19 - south side day 1 of the summer, well after le grande opening i'll grant you as i sallied up n' down the coast courting more arduous adventures - swimming in the olympics, multi-day colonel bob bumblefuck, marriage counselor sheenagins n' regular ole climbing in leavenworth w/ the silvermans shit-talking each other at every turn, then near a week about mt whitney w/ the whiskey hooligans - 2 solo laps in the shade, every hold an old friend and unforgotten - geoff n' kyle n' larry the gnome at the top n' beers n' bullshitting at the base - managed 60 solo laps last summer, so that's 1/30 of the way to repeating that unbelievable total 

7/21 - day 2 - laps 3-4 - hey, only 33 more days at this rate to top last year - foiled upon arrival at battle ground lake, i bounced off fallen leaf lake too n' resigned meself to clambering out at beacon - once again the rock all to myself, despite the weekend situation - a lap alone, then another w/ some folks thrashing their way up the original dods exit at the end - summer's halfway home n' i'm still all smiles 

7/22 - day 3 - laps 5-7 - a hat trick on a hottish day, 2 in the sun and the third in the shade the hottest of all w/ numerous half-clad hotties along the way

7/23 - day 4 - lap 8 - swam a slow wetsuit-less mile in fallen leaf under cloudy n' cool skies, fetched the boy child from camp, then deposited him again before darting out to the bacon-wand for a single ascent before coming back camas-ways to peruse new houses and ultimately sup on delectable thai takeout

7/24 - day 5 - laps 9-10 - ten laps in five days not so shabby - nary a soul in sight on this sweatyish day, but steve in the parking lot - a week in paradise it would seem... 

7/25 - another hat-trick makes it 13 laps in 6 days, a healthy clip - irish death's n' lovely crowds n' sun n' shade and all after a right-nice long swim continued a paradise-theme-of-a-summer so far...

7/26 - the end of my first summer beacon week and a productive one with 2 more laps to bring the total to 15, 1/4 of the way to last year's ludicrous total, but at a pace to bury it should that be my jealous jam on looking back (i've heard tale there's no more nefarious thief than nostalgia though) - a mile swim in fallen leaf while the wulf-man paddled away on lake vancouver, then beacon just after noon in the brutal brightness - shed my black shirt in favor of royal blue - lovely pair of sheilas atop tree ledge on the first lap - sucked down my beer in a patch of shade in the gut under uprising, panting like a bitch - a horde of latinos on the way down, one fella w/ a pack to support the lot of them for a month if need be - the second lap lonely but bearable in the breeze, fat drops of sweat drip-dripping and sizzling away on the stone - then house-hunting and general real-world bummer concerns...

7/27 - summer beacon day 8 - the late morning meetup out near no'bo - adam n' claire n' naterring as we waited for ole'geoff to arrive w/ his prized n' feared jet-ski - beers n' bullshitting n' plan forming - claire drove us up near the dam and we flung ourselves into hamilton creek, expecting far more fun than the fickle world felt like paying out, stumbling mid-knee forever through the stream in wetsuits w/ stuff sacks full of beer - the main current at last and drifting down under the beacon face, admiring some hard-dudes dancing on the journey to the east above big ledge - many more bevies on the dock afterwards n' some soft-porn skinny-dipping by the masses, than back to the little road hold-out before cursing them fools n' cutting loose to clamber up the corner in the gloaming-dark before darting back to home for chicken salad n' discoursing over stranger things 

7/28 - beacon day 9 - 2 more laps makes it 18, a tear beyond my tenous memory - wurst to drag adam's esposita up the corner at first, but she foreswore the morning heat and when adam got froggy on the immediate details i said fork-it n' went n' did a lap while he helped a timberline high-to-do set up a big kayak shuttle down to kalama- soggy as hell from sweat i returned as his business was concluded, having to concede another climb in the immediate future was fucked - we repaired to the river again then n' had a mort of swimming n' redneck shenanigans before i felt honor-bound to take advantage of the recent shade for another clambornation n' siddle on back home - plenty of folks casting about at the base, one even who recognized my nom de guerre n' threw a compliment my way that in hindsight i think i mighta thrown back a tad too heelish - perhaps if i spent more time on my people skills instead of scratching the Endless Itch?  

7/29 - was supposed to be a beacon-less day but the beacon lords giveth n' they take away too - beacon day 10 (in a row!) at any rate, n' solo lap 19 - met the k19 near noon after carting the boy child to row-row-your-boating on lake vancouver and stuffing in a quick swim at fallen leaf lake - after dressing his sadly chapped hands i cast out camas-ways - the plan was the adventure swim to phoca rock from the washington side, a jam i've yet to even get wet for yet despite numerous attempts, and this one the same - nastia said she was illish and prefered a columbia crossing at hood river instead, so sure, why not?  we both drove to set up a car shuttle and noticed near arrival that the wind was whipping, the waves white-capped and their swells nice n' rolling long - gave me the heebie-jeebies a bit, soul-scarred as i remain from the one and only trans-columbia transit i made a few years back w/ ole'pat when the gorge was freshly burnt and i was perhaps drunk by naval standards at our 10 am departure (holy jeebus, that incident still ranks high on my most-terrified ever list) - after setting up the shuttle though we gave her a go, me in my wetsuit and snorkel and boots and web-gloves and day-glo orange personal swimmer buoy (and sober besides, having learnt all kinds of lessons that chilly october morning) but the russkaya of course was just in her dainty 2-piece and rocking the doggy paddle stroke, true russian-berserker style and blazeningly loving it - not too far from shore the waves and winds announced their presence with authority and our humble tribe quailed at their querulousness, first she then me after starting a 2nd attempt alone - retiring to the oregon side once again to recover her car n' kick about the conversation-can we revolved the rubik's cube of future combinations and settled upon giving something/anything a chance someday soon, assuming we live that long  - a solo beacon lap on a wind-wracked n' shady south side sans shirt was my true reward for listening to the Little Voice Inside Me and chopped the voyage home neatly in half - all i have to worry about now is tomorrow...

7/30 - 11 back-to-back beatard days and i'm a bit drained - 2 more laps for 21 total on this still youngish summer - crater lake complications and house-swapping horseshit clouds everything, my spirits low - might it be that nothing ever really gets better?

8/1 - sou'side summer beacon day 12 of 2019 - solo laps 22-23 - early morning rising to house-hunt n' tidy up domestically, kinda lame really but we are rarely masters of our own destiny i reckon - the daughter-child to her amiga's skamania abide in the late afternoon left time for yours truly to scramble up the bacon wand twice before achieving apogee and getting sucked back west once again to stuff more things into the bursting garage before the photo man comes to record it all in the morning - the great crater lake creep south at sunrise, all mortal concerns cast aside in the gawdamned interest of aquatic glory 

8/8 - day 13 - laps 24, 25, 26 - a sad week away from the bacon-stone, but well spent - a swim-trip to crater lake - cock-blocked by the feds, we found better refuge at waldo lake, which was much like taking the 2nd hottest girl at the party home - union bidness in mcminville and quite alright, though it brought the summer death-knell to the forefront of a keening mind - rain in the west, after hours the beaconwand cast its spell and the world was my oyster again - gnome the larry in the gloaming lot, then kyle n' company came crawling in - three laps passing through numerous parties - some-guy-named-steve earned his Hero of Beacon Rock w/ oak-leaf clusters - placid blood flowed freely as it should in the scraping places - kyle got the kid up though competent legal counsel would eagerly have urged him not 

8/9 -estival beacon aeon 14 - laps 27-28 - a lazy friday summer sleep-in, the first in some time - warm coffee n' cold eggs w/ the wifey over steven colbert n' some orange-is-the-new-black - the kids like college students, slow to rise - afternoon i ambled out to beacon to meet old ben - beat him by an hour so got a lap in alone before he arrived with his boy asher, sullen n' silent, as a man should be in this shocking modern age - led them up the route sans belays, which i reckon counts as solo too, though a rope was technically tied round my ample beer-gut - a gaggle of elk gamboling about the meadows below the eastern train track, their worries little ones in this wonderous season - the drive home dominated by the sweet smell of summer rain n' the dying sun...

8/11 - day 15 - a rare reverse-golden-sombrero raises the lap count to 32 on the summer - the trip took weather-faith, for the rain fell throughout the gorge on the drive in, even in the lot itself a profound mist made its presence known - a fool's errand i thought, but took my shoes down to the base anyway to see if the stone was dry despite 2 days of storms and so it was, and with hordes of portlanders putting their dirty libturd-hands all over it in flagrant degradation too - kyle n' bill n' joe n' countless over fools all encountered and gavreeted with, and one parcel of folks i passed 4 times in total over the next few hours - the history of the world it would seem, and fitting that the soundtrack was 4 episodes of a podcast all about the ending of it 

8/12 - day 16 - lap 33 - the smell of sudden fiery death roused me at 5 and an hour later i arose in protest at my prickly senses - after tea and trailer park boys i eased myself eastwards for a single lap in the sun - the stone alone, i savored my solitude, the drip-drip of sweat the only sense of time to contend with - afterwards car-chores and lake-swimming w/ many chilluns 

8/13 - day 17 - laps 34-35 - the world waxes largish, so what exactly is the goal now? last year the improbable # of 60 made me think 61 is all any sane man might relish, or maybe just 62 to stick a fork in the eye of roger morris, but now something much bigger indeed seems possible - how about 74 to offer the proverbial bitch-slap to barry bonds? even if that is to be the improbable mark, such a tally looms already large in the wind-screen and is to be sought for - the hazy outlines of a plan for a phenomenal 14-in-a-day assault in september with a whole heap of fools to propel the thing to a frenetic conclusion - that's in the future though - tonight was sublime solitude and shade and space for easy contemplation - a podcast on theoretical physics' hapless potential to create an end of the world to keep me company - the peregrines on the scene after being rather silent this past month - stone throwing teenage tourists and a positive conversation on the merits of manslaughter - a road trip begins tomorrow w/ the family and maybe a giant swim in crescent lake at the conclusion - there's marrow still in the bone of summer boys, and meat on it to spare as well 

8/19 - day 18 - laps 36-40 for the rare Reverse Platinum Sombrero - a near week at the beach w/ the fam - a crossing of quinault and an epic lake crescent thing - barely a week left in summer 2019 i awoke wicked sore but set out east anyways - the stone near alone for the first 4 laps, but then dave n' steve where there n' we cackled our way upwards together alone to mushroom ledge n' some serious meditation 

8/24 - day 19 - laps 41, 42 n' 43 meant it was a douglas adams day (shamefully i must admit i forget my towel, but proudly i can say i did not panic) - 3 days in the alpine lakes wilderness didn't beat me down enough i guess, 'cuz the girl-child asked to get carted out to skamania for the afternoon to cavort w/ her polish friends and i rallied to run laps while letting her have her what-have-you - summer is doomed and so are you 

8/25 - day 20 - laps 44-45 - 11 CBIs n' 13 runs (new stats, to keep things fun n' make a game of the mundane - every meat-popsicle lapped is a Climber Batted In - runs are laps plus CBIs - good lord, the record couldn't be higher than 50 runs in a day could it?) - the coast guard earns its gold from yuppie scum along the banks of the rude columbia - nastia n' her main-squeeze set to scramble up blown-out in the blistering shade under the heavy hail of tourist stone, our beers n' smokes n' smalltalk cut savage short - the experiment to substitute a cordelette in lieu of a bolted anchor at the top an abject failure within 24 hours, though kinda an apollo 13 one since i got the cord returned as requested - 2 cruiser laps in the autumnally-building breeze with the crowds abounding, summer's done been set on a goddamn gibbet  

8/26 - blackjack day - laps 46-7 make me prime again - 4 CBIs for 6 runs - a soft slumber ended in the gentlest fashion - the damned dentist - the dmv denied - summer slams into the brickwall while i straighten out the classroom - a big breeze builds as we stumble eastwards - the first lap looms into the time-traveler and his canadian dame, well over her head on the second pitch, so i stayed to help her suss out the sitch and sacrificed a hat trick - beers and the inevitable bullshiting - the world careens and carries us along in its endless crapulous fucking fashion 

8/27 - summer beacon day double-deuce - laps 48-9 make me prime n' prone to wine - 96 degrees n' a big-breeze in the parking lot - the first day back to the what-have-you and the bullshite-factory appears to have been working overtime in my absence - cryptic runes n' rude cynosures, thank-fuck their clutches are so fleeting - a lap alone in the wild wind, and then another, all to seek and find the freek

8/28 - day 23, laps 50-51 - another hot day, minus the breeze - the mechanisms continue to rumble up to speed on the work machine, the corporate speak as thick as cancer but only half as deadly - hit beacon in a hurry w/ familialial functions to attend to in the soon-time  - 26 minutes car to car on the first lap, but a bit more mellow on the second - a curtailed conversation on retro-bolting an anchor on the corner down in the parking lot, sadly one that seems to have concluded with them deciding to add yet another scar to the recently patched rock in question - i guess we'll see if they go through with it... - lovely thai dinner after back-to-school night at least and so it goes and goes 

8/29 - day 24, laps 52-53 - awoke to the crack of thunder and the cold iron sound of roiling rain in the early hours - such wondrous slumber in a dry place, the wicked world just an open window away - the final pre-season day before the Big Show, the crest of bullshit surmounted and now we ride the flood tide to a preternatural future, knowing what is to come merely from a fleeting look back  - work over, i walked out the door to doom-streaked clouds and rain but bounded east on enthusiasm alone, sure that the universe intended me to climb today or never again at all and not caring which it was to be - the deep funk of strange humidity on the trail down - mama deer and baby deer surprised me at close quarters on the trail and gave me a sudden sharp stab of quicksilver-fear, a sensation too rarely felt in this saccharine world where tomorrow is always assured and death is a landlord easily dispensed with - new friends re-encountered on the warrior path, lovely souls i'll never see again and that's a shame - ruminations atop the ridgeline, soaked in sweat and soon to get heading west, tower-bound yet pleasantly besotted with the present...surely someday this will all make sense? 

8/30 - 7 days in a row at the fabulous beacon-wand summer-sweet spot makes it 25 total so far - corner laps 54-56, plus 11 CBIs for 14 runs on the day, the greatest since gestating the concept - the final friday before the big plunge - easy rising - dishes n' breakfast - the grey-gloom of many summer mornings that inevitably yields to glory soon after noon - adam's afterwards in the shade and breeze was total bliss - felt a bit frazzled n' forlorn before the end of the laps really, maybe a sign i need to sit my ass down for a few days, which would make some sorta sense i reckon given i can't remember a day i devoted to just lying around for a long while - that said it's a tower rock approach n' set-up tomorrow w/ a huge sunday afterwards, so maybe labor day will equal its lamentations and i'll rest then? 

9/3 - day 26 - 1 lap (#57), 2 CBIs - opening day of the 19-20 campaign, the 22nd of my career - old enough now that i'm teaching my daughter's friends, apparently she talks to them so i can actually find out some things about her from them  - only time for one lap before fetching the boy-child from crewing out there on the big lake - for the best really, i'm wicked whooped still from the trial of tower rock

9/4 - day 27 - lap 58 n' 2 CBIs -bill n' ujhan n' the prodigal-son-come-home adam in the parking lot - bill scooped up my dropped hook from tower rock's base yesterday along w/ plenty of other debris left over from my fellow floggers, yet he nay managed to bring it with him (no matter, we know he's good for it) - chris b' n company coming down from the party ledge, near the 2 year anniversary i reckon since i first made his acquaintance, busted badly at the base w/ nastia in the soon-time after the big burn had scorched damn near everything in site - shoulda stuffed in one more lap for sure, but its early school season still and it takes the zap oughta me working for the man, so i slunk back home for salmon n' spades w/ the fam n' an early turn-in

9/6 - day 28 - laps 59-60, plus 6 CBI's for 8 runs - with 6 prime-bacon-wedder-weeks to go, i'm plumb astride last year's all-time record w/ nothing to hold me back but random rain n' the rude restrictions of this love-shackled life - end of a week left me blinking n' bruised n' senselessly tired, thus the start of a third too terrible to comprehend, so home i crawled n' passed out in the midst of pizza n' bill maher, wine-cup perched on chest - clearly this world needs a li'l leg room 

9/7 - day 29 (5 CBIs for 6 runs) - roger morris reclamation day w/ lap 61 i say, my personal best n' for all i can imagine beacon's too, at least for a single year of solo laps - on the horn early w/ adam but we thought it fucked yet somehow separately we crawled to the wall n' didn't say shit when we saw each other, me 'specially w/ only a few minutes of fucking-around time cooked into the cookie - a three-some at tree ledge, the poor sheila below certain she had to do the hard-core-headwall - kincaid n' norman n' the normal nattering high above the hills, me nut-booby n' stupid - could it be that this is it for the simple set?  

9/12 - day 30 - laps 62-63 n' 11 CBIs for 13 runs - the soon-come cloud-bursts of baleful fall crashed down last sunday, tornadoes sweeping the neighbors with their gin n' juice to the middle of the street to natter over armageddon on the wing - 2 days of swimming for my daily-fun 'cuz ducks don't care if its damp out, but it just ain't the same, my soul shackled a wee bit to the corpse of coming winter - a sudden return to summer this morning though revivified my resolutions and at 330 out the door i went - the one-true-kevbone n' arent on the warrior - steve on my tail a few minutes behind, sounds like he lassoed himself a solo golden sombrero today, not too often i get out-cornered... a whole herd of folks suddenly come tree ledge, i cruised on through though on a ninja-mission to score another lap n' bounce back right quick to fetch the crewing feller from lake vancouver's teeming shore - the cherry on top the new-finangled high-tech contraption i plucked from the most obscure of places - my biiiiirthday prezent came early this year 

near-harvest-time-full-moon friday 13, day 31 - hops 64-65 - 6 CBIs for 8 runs, so sad... - 5% of the year in the can we crawl up n' encounter such lovely things - adam n' steve rooting around on rookie nookie - herds higher up - the sigh of september sidling away with wind n' cloud 

9/14 - beacon day 32 since the summer broke open - a Big Day - laps 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72 (respectively referred to as the single, double, hat trick, reverse golden sombrero, reverse platinum sombrero, farmer's daughter, and El Cap laps - next will be the shelob's sugar-titties, the nirvana of nazguls, the elizabeth hurley and then the alexandra daddario - after that might need to go back to the well for some creativity, but i've found the increasing adlemindness that accompanies each lap is wicked good in that regard) - unconscious by nine the night before, i still didn't manage to rouse out at 4 a.m. like i'd thunk of a few weeks earlier before the weather got all weird, but woke instead w/ the first twinges of a back-to-school head-cold at 7 and settled for bacon n' eggs n' coffee n' kombucha n' rewatching the bill maher i'd slumbered through earlier, yet somehow still remembered the odd line of - beacon by 10 though, and 8:59:37 later completed the 7th lap, putting me just one shy of tying barry bonds record (sure, he was on the juice, but i doubt i'd pass muster w/ the ioc either at the moment, so will say no more on the matter n' just motor on through 2 more laps n' claim the record fair n' square ) - a kaleidoscope of climbers, some nimble, some not, some titillating, some hawt - 37 (!) cbi's, for a total of 44(!) runs on the day - coulda squeezed more in for certain but spent a few hours sucking down cervezas n' nattering n' guffawing with ole adam keller, a goddamn old man now n' camas grad from the year five, when the world was young n' my gut was tighter...thinking there's at least one more big day left in me before this season siddles over the hill n' my body fails me and out goes the will 

9/21 - the Elizabeth Hurley sequence - 33rd outing since i sauntered back from carefree-cali a short-summer ago  - laps 73-82 (hoooooleeeee shiiiite-muslims batman, the century-mark ain't inconceivable) - my most laps in a day (n' seasonal record for sure), but still 2 shy of pink's legendary send in the by-gone days of yore (plus we hear-tell from jimbo at a remove of some feller named george back in the eon of lbj n' nixon doing more than that firfuksake) - 11:00:26 car to final top-out, a fine clip i feel - did the Farmer's Daughter all alone, then steve lashed me along for the final 4 (through the el cap, sheelob's sugar-titties, nirvana of nazgul n' aforementioned ms. hurley laps respectively) - early to bed after still plenty of wine the night before, still a hunk of hang-over at 4:30 when the siren called - snooze-tag until 5 then up soon thereafter to make the bacon n' eggs n' tea n' coffee n' avocado toast n' berry bowl to see us through most of the what-have-you - a 99% ying n' just 1% yang day but that fatal percent of darkness came early on when at 7:25 a.m., a few feet shy of the railing of uprising, i felt an electric pain permeating my dawn-addled senses n' looked down n' saw the yellow jacket furiously pumping his poison packet into the tender meat of my poor perspiring calf - nonplussed, i accepted ma-nature's censure at having eschewed the original finish n' proceeded well-advised thereafter - at least 2 laps left in my tank afterwards n' the daylight too but i left-them unaccomplished, the alexandra daddario fo'shiz plus the as-yet unnamed #12 - adams n' some fire-side chats w/ dave but then slunk back west for chicken n' wine n' devil-sunday - the most-appropriate conclusion, morphine's "do not go quietly" to quell my swole-tide sense of manliness   

9/24 - day 34, lap 83 - the century mark heaves increasingly into view even as fell fall hies upon the land with its long shadows and its hint of impending death - a frustrating season what with ever accumulating meetings for this that and the other thing, our tps reports all ahoo it would appear - rain for days after the elizabeth hurley what-have-you on saturday, the trail down a sodden mess, me skating on the smooth soles of my crocs, clutching at brush n' carving the mud to keep upright - the rock just dry enough to allay concerns as i cast off in the half-dark of dusk after whiling away the late afternoon in fruitless house-hunting w/ the fam - all alone, not a soul on either side of the stone, just a cursed will tempered by the wind and whimper of the ebb-tide out on the dank columbia

9/25 - day 35, lap 84 - back to school night beyotch - with little leeway for screwing around, sizzled out east at sub-sonic speeds just as soon as the life could be mercilessly squeezed out of the final meeting of the afternoon - jim's old beater in the parking lot and i was crazy-bummed to realize i had exactly zero time for small talk w/ that scion of scoundrels n' sleazebags - him n' steve halfway down the trail n' a micro-holy-hell-and-howz-it-hanging-gold-olde-bullshit and then it was go-go-go - the stone alone i soared along like i had a social disease and soon enough began my dizzying descent - back in time for pizza and the dog-n-pony show for my wonderous patrons - 16 laps to immortality, it may just materialize?

9/28 - day 36, a slippery, sodden saturday hat-trick takes us to 87 laps on the season - the most disturbing of pre-dawn derangements, me awakening to a dream within a dream, a serpent-tongued seraph square above my head, trident in hand, threatening death - in horror i screamed "i'm julius caesar, goddammit!" and, seizing his hay-fork from his childish hands, i stabbed him bodily through and through, again and again, but die he would not, despite his demented and cruel cries to the contrary - mostly assured it was a dream, i set his bloody corpse in a car-seat and retired into the overlook hotel to boulder around the lobby, dimly aware of his mother's sudden intrusion, oddly aware this delusion insisted it must persist and just-maybe holy-jeebus it was for real?  opening my eyes i felt a shower was down-right in order and was strongly afeared it would bathe me in blood at the twist of the handle - that done with, i dispatched the school chores with coffee and kombucha by noon as the beacon-stone sizzled off the damp of days gone by - after 2 i sidled out east as a huge storm-cell to the south knocked the hell out of town in my absence - the street soaked with rain and a vast greyness to the north, beacon seemed a complete waste of time, a sense doubly-reinforced as i entered the parking lot to pregnant drops of sky -dew going pitter-patter upon the window - nearly ate shit on the trail to the base, passing steve-o running right-quick back up - alone, despite all signs to the contrary, the way seemed clear, so into the cloud-murk i ascended - 1 lap, then 2, then, with a storm assured in seconds, i raced up the third as wind and water began to wrack the wall with me still well below the railing - hell didn't want me and heaven was full, so with that firmly in mind i walked back down n' boogied n' boondoggled my way to adam's to jam with him n' dave n' steve n' suss over the awful options still ahead of us in the damp days to come 

9/30 - day 37, laps 88-90 (the pvt ryan's ruination, fight the power, and winston churchill memorial laps respectively) - the last day of september much like the first day of december - 50  degrees in the sun and a searching, probing, penetrating breeze rendering needless small-talk improbable - steve n' dave dithering at the base, disinterested in embracing the full energy of a late-fall feeling ascent -the first lap of the year in pants and hoodie, but no socks nor hobo-gloves necessary yet, so it's still the kinda casual season - the second lap improved by the addition of the thickest hat the floorboards of the government mule could procure - dave managed to muster his mojo after stepping out to fetch beers at skamania mart n' launched up his own lap as i nattered w/ steve in the parking lot, eventually parting ways to wobble my way up number three and the promise of cerveza in the cruel wind on ivan's ledge - the long shadows of fall laid all the way to bonneville, the beacon-wand gone ripe with age and the lazy sun - home in the dark, monday mostly debunked and september too...

10/1 - day 38, lap 91- infernal busy day, dilemmas w/o end - i'm afraid i may have spit the professional bit already and awful early in the season - it's also always just possible its fucking tuesday; when i'm dictator, it will be one of several things taken out and shot w/o discussion on day one - another breezy and shady afternoon, but nicer than yday -- steve n' dave becoming a rather regular crew - some older fellow in the parking lot talking about soloing the corner after not climbing anything in 8 years, and in his street shoes no less - didn't amount to nothing though  

10/2 - on day 39 the phil collins' triptych takes us to 94 laps on the season - a gunmetal sky settles cold upon the stone, but somehow it was still a good deal warmer than that brisk monday when a jacket and a hat were true necessities - 8 climbers batted in - the barges now freed from behind their concrete pens, down the columbia they go barrelling with the produce of our bursting hinterlands - a deep funk and gloom pervaded the zeitgeist, but then dave put in an appearance in the parking lot to wax philosophic and demonstrate his award-winning dance movies, with soon to be in zoot-suits too was the rumor, all good indeed when gestated over a can of gratis beer - 10 laps in 5 days, the augurs are grand for blazing past the century mark this coming weekend when the wedder forecast portends we'll be able to give the pillars of heaven a hella-good shake

10/4 - day 40 - the bill gates n' scott fischer memorial laps push us to 96 on the season - startled on a stormy friday, i set one foot out my trailer n' suddenly realized there was only one place for a sleazeball like meself, n' that was eerily out east - the great nick boam by the door of the dirty-dirty n' me too shit-gripped to make decent conversation - sorry i was oughta sorts old-boy, steve says the sweet-home boulders just a few miles east are better for you? the first lap was silly enough, but then it was dave n' conversational delights n' steve n' i were back for lap 2, expecting him to come along -  lap 2 and it grew dark and rainy and suddenly it was uprising or death, the rain pounding and its intentions clear - dave by the trail, under the overhangs we handled the storm, steve sidling off in the end - then it was daves n' me nearly getting fucking shot at doug's, me dangerously deranged and disoriented in the fog and storm - disco at the no-bo, morphine mo'like, but there's no putting a name to delights like that - bounding back in the dark all cock-eyed to fetch the boy in camas, then the friday-friday fantasy 

10/5 - day 41 - a reverse titanium sombrero encompassing laps 97-101 (the scott bedford, thomas jefferson and unpronounceable symbol's memorial laps respectively, plus the BEN FRANKLIN and SCREAMING EAGLE laps to carry us into 3-digit country, ladies and very bored gentlemen) - last night was a mind-bender deluxe and so i awoke at dawn with the stink of derangement heavy on my heathen senses - bacon n' hateful coffee - the streets still soaked by the dregs of last night great deluge, but promising enough given the gracious forecast for the next few days - beacon-ways we crawl, my mind chewing on the words of "rope on fire" over and endlessly over to the point i thought i might have to pull over and do SOMETHING to make it All Go Away - adam's and its still plenty wet out with plenty of clouds - steve then his buddy stan - coffee and collusion - the trail to the base the most consistently sketchy part of the whole - lap upon lap and the day just grew and grew more fulsome, the crowds endlessly flittering by (33 cbi's, 38 runs) - flat light goes to long shadows and meaning creeps into the season as the sinews tire and flesh slowly tears upon the textured stone - dave joins up on the last one and the circle is closed then broken to the tune of "cuntry boner" thanks to the long-ago received wisdom of lost-cam-kenny

10/6 - the douglas adams' day and a reverse golden-sombrero sunday-sunday-sunday takes it to 105 (24 cbi's or something in that neighborhood if my nattered senses were shot) - thai the night before n' walmart after 9 to get well and truly centered w/ the meth-heads all around-us - aslumber at midnight atop the couch and after 6 slinked upstairs for the top-shelf sleep, man it was sweet on both ends - a day of laps n' laffs n' being nutty all alone - dave drove it along on the back end n' we traded wine bottles n' rainier beers to seal the deal - ben n' asher n' geoff on the warrior in the blistering wind - the world can't end soon enough

10/7 -day 43, laps 106-7 - 4 cbi's - an eerie evening, limp air, windless and quiet, the park almost entirely empty after the weekend crowds - clouds creep along the gorge walls - the trains slowly chug by the columbia's shores, the river this side of pierce island so low its reduced to a stagnant swamp - rain upon the way, thank dog, i'm sore n' whooped and could use a good lie down for a couple days...

10/9 - day 44, lap 108-9 - fall moves further and subdues the fervor of the season that preceded it - wicked work until the sun was perilously low in the western sky but undeterred shot east-wards w/o question once the querulousness of tomorrow was at least clearly defined - dave post dump n' prior to my own, once in sequence we shuffled down the still sodden trail and achieved the base in the brisk yet damp air - a first lap by the long way we felt another in order, and soon enough it was 2, a couple copper-ales to cement it all - groceries on the gambol home n' soon enough it'll be tomorrow and the three day what-have-you 

10/10 - day 45, lap 110 - the poo-dragon strikes back - i dearly detest a fecaphile, so say wave off if you're of the same sentiment and read no further - no time to spare, scooped up the boy-child at school and shot out west to lake vancouver n' then turned my head t'other direction, pounding down amber ale n' changing into my war-gear as the wind beat ever greater upon the windshield - not a second to spare w/o leaving my progeny in limbo, i hit the lot with clear purpose upon my mind, dressed and ready to set out - still, something weren't right on my southern-end, and with the bitter-memory of getting way-laid by the poop-demon on the trail down in the past, i sprinted privy-wise to dispense meself of that ignominious necessity - i'll spare ye the details, but 10 minutes later i was mostly naked and afraid and goddamned if i weren't gonna make the lap happen despite the worst a shit-devil might  distress me with - in turgid winds and already desperately late, i surged skywards alone and don't remember a damn bit other than off-colored blood splotches all over the place come the top of pitch 2 - mostly went well from there on out, w/ a solid birthday snitzel to settle my belly on the other side 

10/14 - day 46, laps 111-112 - 3 days at smiff for a mega-dose of nostalgia with big-name old cc.raytards out in the frosty coyote den of skull-fuck-me hollow - abraxas with ben and unholy hordes of sport-climbers and their babies, dogs, drones, etc at the base of the monument, us poised up the wall dumb-founded by just what a decade of progress has done to a place that used to be worth the long drive - i got the tombstone crack lead as evening loomed large and the clouds came in portending a late night downpour - a crowd by the fire n' a fire-sale on cut-rate pork, layton n' britne n' chief apparently deprived of power back home so pushing their once-frozen meats on everybody in sight - talk of bygone days and nostalgia it's been said is the thief of joy so enjoy it judiciously when you dabble - the full shit-show sunday and in the end all i really wanted was to see the place in the rearview mirror n' binge on burgundy n' bullshit w/ ben - a deadline for grade conferences bright and early monday morning meant a good bit of misery upon returning home but it got managed - the day dispensed, a pair of corner laps in the shade was my salvation before coffeeing up to make the long crawl back to catch the tail end of crew practice... 

10/15 - day 47, laps 113-114 - limpid air, dull breeze, the gorge heavy with a big long soak coming in by midnight - an indifferent hour, this place don't give a fuck and never will, but sweet jeebus, they could at least keep the bathroom from seeping into the crick, right? the first pitch a lady-bug obstacle course these past 2 days - crazy bad karma if you squish one of those beeches, but the stink bugs on pitch 2 are more of a mind-fuck - blending in well w/ the grey stone, they do nothing till they sense you're near, then play dead, falling ballistically downwards from wherever they're perched softly upon you, potentially making a lesser man squeal like a baby despite their innocuousness and just let go out of simple stupidness - dave in the lot after the first lap  but his mojo done took a downturn after a few too many nights flying close to that blackhole sun and he eschewed the invite to accompany me on the 2nd - contemplated a third but the long shadows and the promise of free coffee at the skamania mart if i hurried n' brought my own cup called me home, so westwards i turned, tuning into the inanity of libturds tearing into each other on the debate stage to keep me awake along the way

10/24 - day 48, laps 115-16 - fall storms came in thick and it seemed that might be that for the season, the soul cut clean from the gibbering corpse n' life nothing more than work n' at best the weak-light of the leaning sun on the way to the gym through the cloud-scum n' drizzling rain - no time to dilly-dally w/ middle school sheenagins to witness in 2 hours, i pounded down the proud highway out east n' binged n' purged w/ dave who met me up high in the sky w/ a shame-beer before jogging down to do it all again - perfect conditions really, cool and dry enough, the trail covered in leaves so not so slippery - the goldfish bowl of the columbia gilt with the glory of the dying sun

st. crispin's day!  beacon day 49, lap 117 - old men may forget but all may be forgotten yet he will remember with advantages what feats he did this day!  several days of pure late fall sun crisped away the dew and allowed 2 laps yesterday, yet this morning showed heavy overcast and a threat of rain - 5th period on the front porch and all seemed well, but by end of school the rain had come and all was wet and woebegone - heedless, i hurried east - the danes favored battle-luck above all, but a near second was weather-luck w/ woman-luck hard upon its heels, and today we had them all in spades - grey cloud all upon hamilton and the rock wet to the touch, with no reason not to i sauntered down the trail to see what's-what - slippery for sure i grew in confidence until hitting the base i saw 5 shiny CBI's ahead of me, filling my senses with courage - the dart through, the dancing among many cords promising safety for their owners but none for me, i heaved myself onto tree ledge finally alone and savored the fruits of fall - the jesus elk upon their watery walk - whitecaps upon the columbia channel but largely calm upon my face, i sat a spell n' supped it up before heading west to wring what's to have from the weekend ahead...

10/26 - day 50, laps 118-123 (the proverbial farmer's daughter i declare) - we're prime again, and something about 123 just rolls off the brain n' cries to run n' play away - abed by 10, but made it to an actual bed i did, and that's worth mentioning - strange dreams, sordid things, i do not like them sam-i-am - up at dawn for a bit of bill maher n' bacon n' toast n' coffee, then pounding down the proud highway - beacon by 9, the touron-tide already waxing large, i let loose alone for lap 1, the place to meself - 5 more over the hours to come and memory fails me now - jarred jackman tried to kill me with a biner but i collected it up n' passed it on w/ a smile cool as cucumbers - pouring rain suddenly on lap 2, the end of pitch 2 as gripping as anything i can remember in some time (can death come for you at 10:22 on a saturday morning? doesn't he get days off too?) - self-regulating at the car w/ berries n' tea n' what-not, the magic beans goddamn well know what to do and so my mind grows n' grows - what's the mother-fucking-frequency kenny put in an appearance, and with a mighty fine sheila too, and ain't that a fine how-ya-do? dave came along for the final lap and the sky grew purple n' thunderous as we perspirated our way upwards, pausing for brew at the usual places, descending finally in a downpour of hail and weather-hate - cut loose from the purely-personal, i beat my way west-wards for dinner w/ the folks under the golden rainbows that gilded the heavens all around, inspired by the tunes of long-dead nations to keep counting the miles even onto my surprising demise - "there is nothing more rotten, despicable and demented than a man deep in the throes of a Beacon-binge..." - fuck, mark it 123, Dude, next frame 

10/29 - day 51, lap 124 - howling winds haunt my day, my heathen-soul shackled to the hate-waves of late - how do we stay atop them and why? 42 degrees and 40 mph in the deep shade of the parking lot, this i suppose is what all that training was for in the not so distant days of yore - first lap this season in socks and gloves,  plus 3 layers of hat and hood,  my eyes screwed down to a port-lid of 12 inches, my vision no longer needed, my starfish-like fingers and toes independent things, creeping and crawling over the cold-scorched stone to seek and secure their ancestral holds - 15 short wind-shrieked minutes of fall terror, the full sequence utterly alone, Death dancing over my shoulder and patient he'll eventually get to come along and do His show

10/31 - day 52, laps 125-6 - two sordid ascents on samhain before zombieland w/ the wife-bot, then fetch-n-carry for the boy-childe - 'twas a sin to do something so simple after the scorching cold of the clamber just two days earlier...

11/1 - all saint's day was #53 n' yielded laps 127-8 - a resplendent school day spent trying to reign in the inner zeal - successful at school-break i sizzled out east to eat of the world eclectic - a lap alone, 2 terrified cbi's claimed as sinners in the eye of the wicked wind - dave came along for the second and lord did we wax large - the gnu-ledge in a stiff breeze but beers were suckled as the sky grew gaunt - the parking lot in the dark and god damn that was some good times, gesticulating over the godawful truths we've all been transfixed by - camas-wise i wicked up the boy-childe n' commercial-grade pizza n' so was friday way-laid  

11/2 - dia de los muertos, no? day 54, a golden sombrero means laps 129-132, plus a nice n' even 20 cbi's - awoke on the couch after a delightful friday night, intent on wandering upstairs to sleep in the soft bed for a few more hours, but soon saw it was 630 a.m. so settled for early coffee n' a good-old-fashioned fry-up - a cold, frosty morn, but we've managed still not to turn on the heat so i cooked in my climbing clothes n' hat from the evening afore - beacon after 10 as i put some kahlua in the coffee n' couldn't get to caring until it had run it's course - brilliant sun n' still plenty of wind, so the first few laps were limpid, freezy kind of things, me feeling all fluish, sweating n' freezing simultaneously but mostly secure in the sense it was all just a waking dream - did i see a condor? sure as hell looked like one...- many faces, many races, the trail down in particular a kaleidoscope of the multitudinous peoples that rim round the curious pacific - music alphabetically by song title, we crushed t through u n' only a few were fear-inducing in their not-so-subtle import - crowds kept dave from joining me on number 4 but i noodled along alone past 8 others and then in short order was living the dream w/ adam n' claire around a big old cheerful bonfire - night claimed its hostage and soon i headed back for a gutful of ameri-aussie food and a grand sleep in anticipation of going back out again in the morning...

11/3 - day 55 of beacon wunderlust for fey 2019, laps 133-4 - devil-sunday dawned a tad delayed, dished as it were by equally diabolical-daylight-savings-time - churlish chores chock-o-block about us, i had just a sliver of time to pound out east while the chilluns did their demon d'n'd - balmy n' nary a breath of wind, i was stripped down to my base just 50 feet off the ground, sweating like the proverbial pregnant nun n' loving it, the golden stone all to my own - the next lap and suddenly the crowds had convened their cloister and calamity was all at hand, but dauntless i donned my shoes n' shot up w/ hardly a word - 6 cbi's this time, i collided at its head w/ olde-ujahn n' company and a merry discourse mottled the next few hundred feet, whereupon i wagered the chances of passing once more through the cluster-fuck and arriving at the parking lot in time to get on home by the deadline was fuck-all - ostracized by noon then i noodled on off west into the quickly setting sun n' dispensed with the displeantries that i imagine are killing us all quietly, whether we care to notice or not...now is not the time for melancholy though, moreover given it's a fine week of weather laid out before us and domestic n' professional duties are not too ponderously piled upon us - certainly 150 laps by december 31 is no fucking febrile delusion? 

11/4 - day 56, laps 135-6 - the sun just a few fingers above the horizon in the windless parking lot and a balmy 50 degrees when i rolled in near the 420 hour - not a soul on the stone - slipped a bit at the penitent man's position and felt awful alive for half a second - the sun slipped under the horizon as i beat feet down the trail, but with an hour still to kill before fetching the boy i figured why not do the first head-lamp assisted lap of the year by the light of the waxing half-moon - with the bats for company and the centipedes too i felt my way up slowly into the sky, then satisfied beyond redemption shed my skin and was born again new

guido fawkes got-got in the grisliest of fashions this day, poor lad - day 57, lap 137, our per-diem lap count in sharp decline but what can you do when it's solid cloud-murk n' the dregs of dusk at 430? an eerie-evening, worthy of rod serling - the air limp n' half-frozen, fogbanks lazily drifting eastwards, bringing the summit in and out of focus - parking lot to parking lot w/o encountering a soul, the pad down in near total darkness - dave n' a quick gavreent then coffee n' crawling back west to get the boys n' toast the unholy union of tacos n' trash night

11/6 - day 57, lap 138 - 7 days in a row and in this season a gift greater than most on offer i'd suppose - hump-day dispensed with and hell-humors at a full-roiling boil, i burst out through the bus-lot as the big cheeses churned their engines n' edged outwards toward the surging torrent of their highway exit - supplies acquired and the sun heeling hard upon the horizon, we bent space n' soon were upon a breezy parking lot bereft of tourists - dave said he'd be there soon-time so in that faint hope i threw in his beer and headed down alone - shade worthy of poor pluto i placed stinking shoes upon naked feet n' nuzzled up on to the teat of the mountain-mother, up into the perpetually receding and rather cruel cosmos that laid beyond - dark thick as sin i sat upon the gnu ledge n' howled at the half-moon until the man hisself was there and shenanigans ensued in the dead-light - not only am i annoyed at the shortcomings of my fellow man was the upshot of it all apparently, and with proverbial tears in my eyes we parted n' i tore west only to discover i'd been rather unreliable myself - to settle the whole thing once and not for all i salved my soul w/ scorching thai food n' sank into my soul-trench, afeared of the lessons i'd once again be taught in the morning  

11/7 - beacon day 58, lap 139 - 8 days of serial ascents in a season notorious for nasty weather, my weather-luck waxes fat firfuksake - chris b n' company in the parking lot shy of 420, them fresh off blood, sweat n' smears on a tempestuous day - steve had attempted to scupper my quotidian compulsion with a sly bit of doomsday-saying as he scraped away on his pretty project but i shrugged his horned-words off (what else was i gonna do?) - winds to stamp us all to shreds he said, and at cape horn with 3 foot standing waves below and the car careening all about i was tempted to abandon meself to fickle-fate i must admit, but miles more and a calm came upon us and i shivered ever so slightly less at the portended storm afore me - mid-fifties and winds i could almost have outrun in the bye-gone days of yore greeted me in the lot, the sun six inches above the horizon, and that was good enough - nattering w/ steve in the gusty breeze at the base and then it was off and alone, the golden light of the setting sun gilding the upper branches of the bending trees - a flawless ascent in sock n' shoes n' gloves n' good-on-you that care to crawl along here after me...

11/8 - day 59, laps 140-1 - 16 ascents in 9 straight days of late fall, fortune shines brightly upon this unworthy boy for sure - the annual veteran's day show, such a delight to share my stage w/ someone who doesn't draw the same dull stares each diem - the ritual complete i crept out east under the dying light but with dainty winds n' set upon my business - a lap alone but encountered an olde broken boy at the top to accompany me down the trail - jon stewart i think he's called and out of the game for some time it's true, the demands of fatherhood and fixing grating bones mighty big ones - the 2nd lap under headlamp from the start, my breath foggy in the dead air, the placement of each foot n' finger a deliberate art - dave's afterwards we cooked up a rare auold great bonfire n' binged n' purged n' howled at the full moon w/ the coyotes to yip n' yowl n' keep us all amused - a 3 day weekend of fair weather open i weep to think just how much higher we can creep this rare record over... 

11/9 - day 60, laps 142-143, 2 CBIs - not the saturday i'd settled on, but somehow it turned out alright - up at daybreak to finish the bill maher i'd passed out on halfway through the previous evening over bacon n' the all-mighty avocado toast - the plan to turn laps until near evening and then fetch my mentee -  left the house under serious rain but it tempered by camas and faded away, the sky still deep gray and unpromising - the incorrigible bill coe n' company in the parking lot having completed lap 1, we headed down together to the base - kudos to those 2, as we started up simultaneously but they managed to top out before i could lap them, despite not dicking around more than a few minutes to top off on kombucha in the ride after lap 1 - sodden w/ sweat, i settled for sitting atop uprising alone n' sucking on that sweet, sweet temptation while looking around at the unholy sky - minutes later the heavens opened and the climbing was clearly over - worked out okay as i had chores homewards to tend to, and ended up watching classic movies w/ the boy-childe as the sky boomed down upon us - i guess there's always tomorrow...

11/10 - day 61, laps 144-5, 22 CBIs - sunday like saturday, thanks to the vets - yesterday curtailed after 2 when the rain crashed down long through the evening, but that'd been dispensed by mad max w/ the boy-childe until after the daylight died and i'd volunteered for bed - today a newe day and after 9 i set east, through cloud and fog and no feeling of favor - cape horne was hideous fogclime and with no reason for hope i kept hying away and soon thereafter was high-camped n cloistered along the steaming stone -  the first lap ended in horror and how can i make you comprehend it? slipping and sliding, i regressed to knocking along with my knees, but soon thereafter i was on top and shivering - a few hours of reading on patton planed away the protrusions and so i plied up a lazy second lap - that done, i returned west for a viewing of "dr sleep" w/ the family and afterwards headed off to bed thinking there was something certain beyond tomorrow

11/11 - day 62, lap 146, 9 CBI - 12 straight days of beacon and i'm ready for a break, my knees bruised and achy, my spirit a bit done with stuffing fear down into the back part of the brain - one lap in the howling wind, hemmed in by crowds - the 2nd pitch in a wicked goofy state - sat up top and listened to the sky screeching by and felt fine with calling it good, reading a bit in the parking lot before fetching the boy and watching "midway," which i found a tad disappointing - guess there's no getting one over on the old charlton heston classic... 

11/13 - day 63, lap 147 - after-work laps are on the knife's edge of no longer being a thing, the sun just a degree or two above the road once arrived - the drive a conundrum of trying not to get kilt whilst simultaneously going from work to climbing kit at sixty miles per hour, set to burst from the car within twenty seconds of arrival and claim the checkered flag - the roar of the sky edging in side-ways from the east as i gallump down the slippery trail - yesterday was a godsend - nothing but rain and languid meetings all day, excuse enough to settle down and suck at the marrow of life after a straight-fortnight of surrendering to the she-devil that's consumed my senses of late - a spot of sun and wicked winds made the rock frosty but cool - at the shaded base at the proverbial 420 hour, sober by beacon standards and adorned in a motley array of jackets, hats, hoods n' gloves - less than a half hour later at the railing, the billowing sky to the west wondrous to behold and the wind a talking thing, though i don't know for the life of me what it's saying...

11/16 - day 64, laps 148-150 (250% of last year's distinguished take by dog n' a nice round milestone too if the season is to once and finally go south on us with 6 weeks left yet to go in this foul year of our lord, two-thousand-nineteen) - 8 CBI's - woke up with no expectations, the chances of climbing anything seemed sad and so i was satisfied with that, ready for a swim if it came to it - but fog yielded to cloud and sun and with the wulf-man desiring drop-off in camas come noon i figured why not natter off in an eastern direction and suss out the situation - puddles along the proud highway to be sure, but that's not a threat to most and come beacon it was pretty promising - the trail down to the base nice n' slickery yes, and a couple folks on the route too but none of the alarm bells of yesterweek went off and so it was simple enough to don shoes n' get going up, the dread of days gone by gaunt and grey, their perilous powers over me weak n' frail today thank kee-rist - three in total, the sun scampering off the face after two, the third done in the same style as the first of the season, just a man n' a mustache n' all alone  - bill coe n' ryan n' a dog n' the olde yuck-yuck before #150, which was a pride n' joy - time enough for a golden sombrero, i set it aside instead for a quick trip to adam n' claire's for a cool blue fire n' a collective calling out of the crimes of guilty man - native american memorabilia fingered n' figured on - indian heaven sheenagins for the heathen summer to come contemplated upon by candle-light - booze and wetsuits seem to be key, but its a comfort to leave a healthy measure of juicy mystery upon the table and so we'll return to this come july - dave arrived just short of departure, diminished by his duties and somewhat dim - the long orbit back, but a delightful gut-full of grilled cheese n' ham n' pickles n' burgundy afterwards to perk us brightly back up n' set our face towards that sullen n' fell-tomorrow which must come shortly...

11/20 - day 65, laps 151-152 - sunday solid rain n' monday too, but tuesday was chilly-cloud fog all day and nothing more, slightly stirred by a light n' limp breeze - it all amounted to that awesome annual wormageddon, a holocaust of writhing nematodes all played out upon the hardtop of the morning parking lot, where every foolish footstep portends an unending stay in buddha hell - word came from the beacon-wand though that wednesday might support an assault, and so after a sun as strong as this time of year can afford and a piercing chill breeze to boot, i got all hot n' giddy n' bolted from work early enough to get a 2-spot before the sun went down - laps alone in the cool n' damp n' a sighing, surging wind - strangers emerged from messing around with iron maiden after dark n' dave stopped by for a chat as well - the dream don't die if'n you won't let it?

11/21 - day 66, lap 153 - november near done, thanksgiving grows great in the windscreen, all thoughts turn to turkey and the scent of the sea - how a sunny forecast forecludes rationality in my tortured mind - the promise of dry stone and something like the half-light of late evening enough to keep my motor running throughout the curious grind of my quotidian querulous cycle - the ass-end of an indian summer for sure, a sighing, gusty wind pushing mid-40s air around, drying the rock as much as could be hoped for, but the deep wet still set in, fat drops of run-off going plop-plop as i gasp and perspire under the great overhang n' stow my 3/4 gloves and gauge the breeze for the best moment to burst around the corner, 200 feet up in the sky and all alone in the coming darkness - my first jaunt up the final ridge since scaring myself silly a week ago, my head so covered in hats and hoods i couldn't look up and settled for just going slow - the car at late dusk and no need to leave for near an hour to fetch a child, still i couldn't summon the chutzpah for a second lap by headlamp and settled for reading n' noodling n' staring into the dark doom of the near-distance...

11/22 - day 67, lap 154 - streaming sun and not a hint of breeze dogged me through the day, drooling out the classroom windows - didn't feel like friday but it sure as hell was and so hair-on-fire i flung myself eastwards with the sun a handsbreadth above the horizon at the welcome bell - in the lot with the sun near dead, dave's ride was there already and so with a double-barrel of beers i beat my way down the dark trail to make his acquaintance up high in the sky - perfect conditions unlike what i've seen in weeks, i bounded up under thick shade on dry, windless stone - together at last we beat a bit further up then supped on cervezas n' regarded the long-set sunless sky over long tales and feckless fulminations - the lot achieved in the true-dark, we saw with glee a newsome couple rapping down stone soup by headlamp after the first couple pitches and nattered enthusiastic at them for awhile before wandering away to dither over elegies n' wax large at the coming of the one-last-weekend - 35 degrees by home, i scratched my head how best to salvage a 630 drop of for the girl-child at wrestling practice just a few hours away...

11/23 - day 68 - an el cap day takes me through laps 155-161 (plus an incredible 55 CBIs to make 62 runs for the day, records all, plus the single-lap total of 19, including bashful dave who abhorred the unholy crowd that clearly lay ahead on that veritable vertical sidewalk) - alas we do not end on a prime (7 X 23 - primes are poison to one another, as are far too many friends  ) - mates, this day makes me sad, for how can it possibly be improved upon? late fall yet no wind and no damp, a perfect day for binging and purging and salvaging from the turd-mine of the last month all that is great in life - this is why we nibble at the shit-sandwich, to find the cherry center tucked away inside, no? - awoke before dawn to convey the daughter-child to her weigh-in n' insanely early wrestling practice, so beacon by sunup, equipped w/ pillow and sleeping bag and stove n' breakfast things in case they proved necessary - #155 a frosty one in the frozen dawn, alone before the august conditions ahead - wraiths by the waters edge on the second, my fears a forgotten thing, heading west with everything else - #157 the proud n' mighty Columbia made mild as a mill-pond - a change of outfit as my first clothes were wringing with sweat despite the sweet coolness of the air - #159 coffee and crude discourse with common-born Beatards - the glorious reverse platinum sombrero achievement unlocked, the day comes into crystal focus - noon past, we tuck into the knotty blond ales n' try not to let our eyes settle too long on the lovely lady who adornes the cans - #160 a farmer's daughter on a glorious fall day - it ain't fair life can be this easy, is it? by the proud light all about me a pride of sealions splash below my sunkist toes - #161 kincaid murray crawls up into the sky as i sit in shade, astounded by the 19 mother-fuckers i'd just passed through to achieve my little perch - dave goes bounding by the wrong way, but we rally atop the norseman n' natter n' drink small beer as the breeze builds up and the chill makes its presence known - this might well be the last Big Day of the season and if so i'll come before my Creator cruel-certain i gave it what i had and squeezed that sweet sponge of life damn near desert-dry - "leaving las vegas" the theme of the drive home, the lyrics frame it right: "such a muddy line between the things you want and the things you have to do" - baby, i'm leaving beatardia, and by-jove that's cool by me  

12/30 - day 69 since summer broke (i was laaazy and untrustworthy before then but could safely say there were at least a dozen more days before july to contribute to the count)

ended the year as i begun it, climbing the corner (with a rope no less!) with adam (though steve tucked along too at the last minute) - a wierd day that dawned just past midnight for a hood climb - drove alone to timberline to find fine conditions but a combination of lethargy, pouring sweat and painful new plastic boots did me in by the palmer's end and i noodled on back home for an hour nap before heading west to close out the annum on the object of my eternal affection - bald eagles and a grim sky, that kind of cold that, though above freezing, touches deeper than it should, the damp stone sending waves of woozy-doom through rubber soles and thick socks - land of the little people as the sun went away - a few beers with the boys after, then the orbit back through the true darkness of a winter evening - a shower revivified what was fast fading, and i managed a proletarian feed-bag at the olive garden w/ the fam n' a mandalorian episode before passing into blissful oblivion for nearly 10 hours under mounds of down, dreaming of prisons and failures at flying and arms manufacturing with the assistance of children - so long 2019 and the most amazing beacon season my bedraggled senses can recall

 

[olyclimber]

miss ya @ivan  someone wake him up, I think he's passed out behind the porta-potty.

[ivan]

On 2/16/2023 at 8:57 AM, olyclimber said:

miss ya @ivan  someone wake him up, I think he's passed out behind the porta-potty.

aww, i miss me too - the world went and got Awful Silent