[TR] San Piedro's Cabeza - Pete's Abortion 5/24/2014

[ivan]

Trip: San Piedro's Cabeza - Pete's Abortion

 

Date: 5/24/2014

 

Trip Report:

memorial day again - the milestones of this melancholy life racking up like spent rolls of toilet paper in the shitter's trashcan, and about as appetizing - feeling old and feeble-fucked - wonky knees, cranked ankle, busted back, a deep bruise in the heel from way the hell back last july that hurts more goddammit than it did then it feels - whining like a little bitch, i deserve my woes

 

been too long since i'd had a genuine adventure it seemed, all work-primed and family-shackled, hardly an evening's space o' time to dash out to the bacon-wand - no complaints mind ye, remember they weren't gonna bust a cap in winston's noggin until he'd come to love big brudder, right? so i wanted a long weekend to remember, and for my sins i was given one

 

bryan's idea mostly, but i'd wanted to see the notorious st pete's first hand meself since i can't remember and we'd bullshitted about it on occasion. geoff was giddy for some sorta gambol-fuck too, so soon enough the 3 of us had fashioned a plan amidst the metaphorical crushed pbr cans n' greasy pizza boxes of our daily lives.

 

saturday, 8 a.m., the rendezvous accomplished - ainsworth campsite to be our base, we sorted shit n' i sucked down an early beer and a butt

 

we got promptly and completely off-route on the approach - i suppose i could feel ashamed, sorta hard to though - none of us had done it before - the campground had a map that showed some trails that looked like it would get us close to this big avy slide we'd heard of so we sauntered off on them - the olson guide, though i love it dearly, was terribly unhelpful in this area, as it referenced directions for another objective not included in the table of contents, index, or any page that i could find with my primitive alt-f function

 

so what should have been an hour and a half grunt turned instead into a craptacular, fully-laden gambol-fuck o'er hill and dale and endless climax-growth explosions of poison-fuck-oak interspersed w/ mossy stumble-fucking along horrid piles of incessantly shifting bullshit - almost 5 hours later it seemed, after utterly unpleasant bits of unctuous ambulations, we finally emerged at the saddle below the dome

 

awful wasted and well afternoon, it was time to start sorting this damn thign out - it looked ugly - the darr route shitty and downhill and w/ no good base to accomodate our rowdy party, we figured why not do the alpenjager? could see some fixed gear of various vintages, some moderately new, plus the saddle was the first vaguely flat and unsliding surface we'd encountered in hours and was thus hellish to contemplate abandoning

 

turned into a red-rover, red-rover sorta thang, w/ first geoff then bryan than me getting a Taste of the Nasty - mostly it was fear and loathing, oregon choss-wand style - virtually nothign to recommend it - deep possibilty of a ledge fall, the gear mostly nothing but unsavory pins that unsettling wrench the cracks ever wider as they thud into the cock-nasty cobblestones

 

bryan at one point having "fun"

i shivered in fear, settlign for chain-smoking and whiskey-drinking as the first two fools had their fill - then it was my turn - the pic captures the feel right well - incredulity - steepness (god is it steep - how the fuck does rude-choss remain at that angle of repose?) - a distinct dis-interest in the near-future

eventually the day was mostly done w/ and we'd not even managed to finish the first fucking pitch - the descent was an un-known to boot, given our bastardization of the approach, and so not too long after happy-hour it seemed to behoove us to start sorting out the proper way back home - we at least had the pleasure of not having to pack all that bitter-shit back down - we figured we'd gotten near where it looked like speed might just pick up, and even w/ geoff having to leave after sunday, we hoped the weather and fates would find us capable of finishing the fucker off on memorial day itself

 

the cookie didn't quite crumble that way - on the bright side the descent proved easy enough, staying on the faint trail that we'd not picked up until just below the saddle - back to camp by only 7 or so, we'd time to roll back to troutdale for beers n' burgers - a pleasant evening ensued of consuming the same, well lit by the burnign embers of the old-bits of geoff's buxom mansion - the first flowers of a poison oak rash to rule them all still at least 48 hours in the future

 

sunday mornign up reasonably early but wicked stiff - my whole physical existence below my knees too terrible to think on - hobbling like some meadow-bound horse-fucker well past his prime, my sole consolation being that i never really had a prime

 

with a light pack of no more than a fresh pack of smokes and a hand-ful of beers, we set off up the right way - done right, it took only a few minutes more than an hour

 

bryan was eager and so off he lept

 

against all expectations it didn't sort out so well - him wanting the stick-clip we didn't have to make the reach past a busted wasteland to a fixed pin and draw - high-stepped like a champ to no avail - went all fool-hardy like he was gonna try to pull down on some of that sick blasted bullshit and start freeing - ultimately he backed off and geoff set off to see if he couldn't send it on home, equipped w/ a impromptu cheater fashioned from a sapling - turned out he didn't like it much more than bryan

 

bryan was at least able to nearly kill us by hurling this bit of solid-steel shit down - it's in way better shape than the button-head bolt it was welded to

 

so here we are, day 2, and these 2 rat-bastards had already hit n' passed on the lead and it's damn near noon - guess its time to make this shit happen

 

got scary plenty quick but i somehow managed to meander my way past many shitty fixed pins, plus a few of my own, all in solid-gold goose-shit across a traverse where any fall would result in a serious mangle-fuck - topo mentioned a few feet of mandatory, unprotectable free and yup, that turned out to be plum necessary, yet nicely started w/ a cliffhanger in a damn strange hole

 

not the most uncomfortable belay spots, even had a beer-holder

the anchor had all the hoof-prints of the common fools who seemed to frequent it before us - half the bolts only half-drilled - hangers all askew - shit, the orignal home-made job mighta been the best of the bunch?

hammer-clad, bryan bounded on up the fixed line, banging away and finding some of the pins actually needed some persuading

my favorite moment - the ancient pin, a sprig of hemp-cord through its eye-hole, that was the only thing to use at a critical spot comes out at bryan's merest touch

so...yeah...the augors were shit. the route from there just as hard as it had been to that point. a hare-brained damn near full-length traverse to rejoin the darr route and still requiring 2 more pitches until we hit the top. rain portending for the evening and monday worse still. neither of us had any enthusiasm and geoff was too far to bother asking

 

it seemed a simple decision to head back down - turned out to be a very right idea - left us time to climb the little st pete just in time to split as the first heavy rains began to fall

 

bryan leading little st petes - not much to speak of but a good crumbly introduction to the big daddy not too far off, most every hold portable - the only pro some shitty fixed pins, the first one being way to far off the deck for a newbie's delight

 

fine views from the little summit though - the top of our first pitch just visible and nearly unlimited ground above for any crack-head considering drilling and nailing and praying his way up new ground

geoff on top, the fabulous bacon-wand, born out of the living bedrock of the earth itself by comparison, way in the way-back

the ancestral demense - why can't all the gorge be built that way?

the wind begins gusting, the heat sucked from the sky even as the clouds roll in - it was time to giddy-up - a quick fix of the old-faithful, a bit of bickering over which bitch carries what, then off we bounded, bent cruel under over-heavy packs - i could remember every shitty step of the way but i prefer not to, occasionally belly-flopping and rolling around, rolly-poly cruel, through acres of oak - eventually we make the creek in the pouring damps and then at least it seemed over, but not of course until most of us ate shit big time somewhere in there on the slippery rocks

 

camp in the down-pour - why stay? no hope for the future, cancer-conquers all and even bablyon falls - home we crept, each to our own, me to lie wounded and weak and sore the night on the couch as my children laid conquest to my bedroom, only to wake w/ the wicked awful feeling of poison oak beginning to fill up my face-joints and arms

 

i imagine i'll go back someday, it just might be a long, long time

 

Gear Notes:

knifeblades, birdbeaks of all descriptions, prayer-book, stretcher

 

Approach Notes:

hike the access road just east of the ainsworth campground about a 1/4 mile until a trail heads off right into a young forest, well marked w/ red flagging - numerous evil-looking punji sticks abound where the kind soul who helped to clear out the trail couldn't quite cut the young trees at ground height - trail leads to a creek which you follow uphill about 20 minutes where it becomes a deepening ravine - find a fixed rope that helps you haul yer overloaded ass hand over hand up a steep enbankment whereupon you encounter a mossy talus-field - follow up n' right and eventually get into steep, shitty, moss over rolling stones, stumble-fucky forest - that eventually spits you out at the saddle between the two petes

[stevetimetravlr]

Dang, you boys getting after it. Awesome. The oak, I feel your pain, Adventureering disease.

[YocumRidge]

A good one, Ivan.

 

You should put Heathens Highway (on the Friar) on your immediate list. The things you find there....are so totally bomber.

 

[ivan]

that looks a damn site more reliable than most everything i saw on the dome - shit, at least you can girth-hitch that bolt and ain't afraid the whole panel of gobbly-gook it's set in is about to explode in all directions

[miker]

Gluttons for punishment.

[fgw]

“fully-laden gambol-fuck o'er hill and dale and endless climax-growth explosions of poison-fuck-oak interspersed w/ mossy stumble-fucking along horrid piles of incessantly shifting bullshit “

 

Sounds like you guys found the way the first time around. Great read! I should’ve driven the 2 belay bolts deeper – toss it up to some inexperience and in equal part to being out of my mind with fear (plenty of meat buried in there though – those are the 3 3/4th inch if I recall right). The upper pitch lulls you in with some nice looking A1 & even much C1 to the ledge followed by some real choss.