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kevbone

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7/13 - a lap on young warriors w/ geoff and a lap (sans cord) w/ geoff n' adam

 

7/15 - dod's jam w/ the phuzzy

 

7/17 - solo corner creep in the late evening before jetting off to pdx to pick up my peeps fresh off their wrong coast plane - read a few chapters and sucked down a liter of burgundy at the ledge until it was too dark to read

 

7/23 - 2 corner laps in a little more than an hour and done in time to get kids to the dentist, then a long walk by waterfalls (even introducing the bastardos to "5150" along the way, just for you, kev :)

 

7/26 - cruise'n to young warriors w/ nastia - bit of a scorcher after noon, specially for the devushka clad all in black - shiiiiiity roadwork delays on 14

 

7/27 - no one bit on the partner offer, so i spent a leisurely mornign w/ the little people - coffee n' bacon n' cats - went out to beacon at 3, uncertain what to do, packed for anything, and decided along the way, in honor of the olympics, to set a goal to climb as many solo laps as possible on the corner before getting back to the house for pizza n' wine w/ the wife in the evening - settled for 4 laps (bacon-flavored half dome day? BFHDD?) - could have done more i reckon, but ran into the company of Known Felons after lap 1 and that took a little bit of the wind out of my sails :) - did the pleasant last lap w/ denalidave, overladen w/ one beer, me ashamed to have left my gin n' juice in the rig for the celebratory drive home :)

 

perfect day, weather-wise, compared to yday - overcast, cool, variable winds - stoked to see a 3-some spending a night on ground zero, complete w/ double haul-bags n' ledge(s?) (didn't see room for the 3rd, what horrid price did he have to pay i wonder?) - thought to aid-solo ground zero i had, but they skunked me, and then that bastard timetravel'n'steve took my free 4 sum backup! a pox on all their houses!

 

dave's vid:

[video:youtube]

 

:rawk:

7/28 - warm n' sunny n' breezy - climbed w/ bob n' the phuzzy, both of whom did piss-poor jobs of Minding the Poisons - majestic snow-white n' toffee-brown owl winging about the arena of doom for a good half-hour - dod's to top-rope windsurfer - pumped stupid after that and the accumulation of yday - then free 4 all via the retard right start - snuff-porn wannabe free solo for 40 fucking feet, foot-stacking in constrictions n' lie-backing to get there, but a good gut-laugh, au-chevel style, at the pillar-top - jim showed late, grumpy to be tobacco-short as he tempts fate to quit - nose-trainers doing fine big-wall machinations, swinging from groudn-zero to flying swallow to practice their pendulums - dave n' crackman n' kyle flitting about - camas days clusterfucking the commute on back home!

 

7th day at beacon this season :P

7/31 - last of july - 8 days of beacon rock climbing this month :rawk:

 

cruise'n'to right right gull n' then jills thrill w/ miker - bright, breezy n' cold - perfect! booty on jills - beers at the endless construction stops on the way back - how i long for a cigarette... :)

 

8/22 - 3 week beacon-hiatus - i'm in danger of losing my BRCA membership :) - been cavorting w/ the fam in colorado and at the oregon coast, coincidentally during the bitter depth of that 100+ pdx heatwave when the beach temps were damn near in the 40s each night :rawk: - managed a dragontail clamber in thare too

 

the phuzzy made a public-transit trip to rendezvous w/ me in damned washoughal after a wicked reintroduction to work for me at the crack of dawn - climbed young warriors - a baker's half-dozen of wing enabled wave riding wacky-boys out beyond the island - elk herds grazing - good times! closed out the evening w/ little wing to the 1st pitch of right gull and then a sad attempt at tr'ing the off-width on wrong gull that got clubbed-on-the-head at just the right hour :)

 

9/5 - quick solo creep - tinywing (half little wing/half corner p1) to the corner to stoner ledge to young warriors - kenny n' ole'larry (thought he quit climbing?!) n' buddy dan at stoner ledge - 10th day at beacon this season.

 

9/6 - two solo corner laps, one w/ arndt (that is how that old boy spells his name, right?) while he was waiting for the "red ant" to arrive - horrified to find my good name impugned by certain unnamed low-lifes up on the little people ledge - seems they think i've been drinking their cached beer - despite my innocence, i nonetheless searched desperately to find said stranded beer so i could "protect" it better, but no dice :(

 

steve, yet again, climbing w/ random cuties, this one crushing on warriors and jills - gotta love an understanding wife! :grin:

 

9/7 - beacon hat-trick, 3 days in a row - 1 solo lap on the regular old corner, then one link-up i hadn't done before: tinywing => corner => hidden treats => corner => young-warriors => downclimb corner => uprising - 5 laps in 3 days :)

 

9/13 - lonely lap today, not a soul on the rock or on the trail, just a big, big wind, a shallow river, and a bone-dry bird-sanctuary across the way - thought i saw ole'boy dave's car in the lot so i packed not 1 but 2 tall-boys of pbr in the hopes of balancing out the debt, but nary a sight of him along the way - so sad, i had to swig'em both down as i was afeared to leave one on the ledge as a sign there warned of wanton russian-fuck-types showing up to swill'em away...

 

9/14 - 14th day at beacon this season - hardly a breathe of a breeze, odd after the howling gale of the day before - a peck of peregrines and a pretty phat pack of elk, dispersed upon the island and more thickly about the crick leading off towards bonneville - wheezy bugles and high-piercing shrieks - the powderhund on rehab on his mangled meniscus - cruise'n to jill's thrill - who/when the fuck cut out the sling and rings on the grassy ledges rap? beers and bullshit'n at the base - a heavy scent of fire in the air, like the memory of yosemite and sun-dappled mania - glorious sunset - the summer is banned and abased, fading fast in the fuck-fury dark of eight :(

 

9/16 - my first partner for sunday bailed on thursday, then my second on saturday, so, in the spirit of third-time's-the-charm, i settled for meself solo on this fine sabbath day

 

woke of 8 w/ the sun amplifying the undigested wine in my brain-box and biding me rise and begin the purification ritual - half my gear's been building up in the trunk of the red-devil, but i thought i shoudl make an occasion of it and go aid-solo something serious - big haulbag filled of all, i stumbled to the car w/ my gear and w/ the best breakfast i could lash together in my stertorous stupor - ended up being two pale ales and a mouthful of week old pad thai, backed up w/ a duo of sad camels

 

arrived in the lot to calm winds and calmer crowds - just didn't feel like strapping on the fifi, so reckoned to solo a corner lap first then get to it, but a few feet into the lap got to thinking back to july and the 4 laps in an evening i'd done on the occasion of the olympic kick-off - thought i oughta improve on that personal record and set the bar at six?

 

3 laps in the can and not a soul sighted - dripping sweat in the substantial heat, dawn just a memory by then as i'd arrived after 9 and the incipient breeze nothing more than a meteorological cock-tease - a hot glare and a heavy air

 

christians by the holy-fuck load cluster-fucking the trail - 4 full fucking tourbuses of the little fellows, bedecked w/ their goddamn savior's gibbot, which their leader hauled up in half-carries for the great glory of dog - "aren't you folks commanded to observe the sabbath and eschew heathen labor" i queried? led by laywers, his comment immediate the product of parsing his puzzling text: "today we do His work"

 

rounded the corner for lap 4 to find frazzled rick rigged up for a rope-solo and it didn't take long to reduce him to the dark side - we did a pair of simul solos, the first finding old boy w/ eyes as wide as irish butterballs :) passed a lovely lady w/ the slab well in hand, half-annoyed no doubt to weather our "helpful" comments - i can't complain about standing in line, mid-pitch, w/ such a luscious view...

 

rick fucked-off in the fullness of time and i had but one more to get my 6, but being done w/ it, felt a prime # more the thing - rick said he knew our old boy pink had once done 8, and my heart was half-set in the spirit of competition, but then surely the cut of my jib could never be so beguiling as our dear boy in his littlewing pic - came down for a 7th lap then and sent it soon enough, my head spinning, my mind twisting and wondering where it was exactly i was again in this ever-repeating scenario - coulda managed another 2 i reckon, there was sun enough, but i thought i'd wander on back to stoke the home-fires and finish some more of this never ending chicken-coop work the wife embarked on - a fine meal of eggs n' fresh peppers n' frank's sauce, finished off w/ a gullet-full of fine wine and a gut laugh over gross humor n' now it's time for school work and an early nap!

 

7 laps/day - here's to 9 by the end of october? managing 3 laps per 2 hours when there's no distractions to be had, so imagine i could manage the whole shit-eria in 6 hours and call the whole thing something like 4000+ feet of climbing/scrambling/moss-hiking?

 

9/18 - afterschool corner lap - hot stone even in the shade - jim n' adam on the ledge - casual conspiracy chatting - thoroughly tired of construction on 14 by now...

 

9/19 - had only an hour of time to play between the end of school and the start of back-to-school night and union rabble-rousing, but managed to storm out to beacon at warp speed and do the first lap i've ever thought to actually time - 32:10 (dog measured), parking lot to parking lot - ran into an old student on the run down - claims to work at a pizza joint these days and sure looks like it :)

 

9/21 - sick all day, if not as a dog, then at least as a puppy - snot n' sneezing - still, the last day of summer.... - mist-drops on the windshield after school, should i risk the drive? - a barren lot, the rock to meself - cruising to the corner - boooooooooty! 10 laps this week already, holy shit, at this rate in a year, if i could beg off rain, peregrines n' whatnot i could have 500! :)

 

9/25 - on the rebound after a week of hacking snotsicles out of my lungs great asgolf-balls - 2 laps up the corner - steve n' sal n' tim n' his special lady friend sharing the route - laughs n' hijinx - bellows of beasts out on the beatific isle

 

9/27 - my 20th day at beacon this season - 2 solo laps - not a soul on the southside nor more than 2 on the trail

 

best times today:

base to snag ledge: 2:00

to tree ledge: 4:40

to grassy ledges: 8:20

to uprising railing: 15:00

 

can't imagine me ever doing this better than 13:00 tops?

 

 

9/28 - 21st day at beacon since the opening :) - full moon and fucking mad rager up the rock in the rude-light - bob n' me had a run on jill's thrill after school, then crawled up the corner w/ the better part of a 6-pack - dusk by tree ledge - to little people by braille - high times n' hollering at the dusky moon - crazy smoke-cloud glitter off the river - clambered off sans headlamps - how much longer shall this indian summer insist? :grin:

 

9/29 - wife problems: full-moon free-solo sans-head-lamp! geoff n' arlo as helpful alarm clocks :)

 

10/1 - indian summer, a big old warm breeze like the Breath of Dog - 2 laps on the corner, then home in time to get the boy to kajukenbo.

 

10/3 - jesus, warm still outdoors but the Big Wind of Winter was on beacon today! roars n' lulls, catspaws and catastrophes playing out on the columbia - nary a soul to be seen, south side or north - a simple corner lap w/ cruising n' hidden treats n' the top of young warriors

 

10/4 - 3 of 4 october days climbing so far :) 25 days at beacon since the opening - possible to get 50 solo laps between july and november (31 so far by my count)? 'bone n' mike in the lot - hustled to climb cruising 'fore them to avoid treating them to snuff porn - jim n' sal in the lot on the way down, fresh from washing the way to the south-west of the evil poison oak - to wolfrock 2morrow for the weekend! :)

 

10/10 - 6 days since last i'd climbed at beacon, my longest dry spell in a month? barad dohl (!) and cheeky sheenanigans over the weekend, then high-tech dentistry and parent conferences keeping me away...

 

2 laps on the corner, car to car in 57 minutes - most enjoyable solo yet of cruising, all movement and no pauses, maybe 3 minutes total?

 

10/12 - my 38th birthday, and the day off to boot! the fall weather here finally, and no bacon-scrambling to be had therefore, so off i shot w/ kid#1 for a father/daughter trail hike, equipped w/ a mighty golf-umbrella and tori amos on the music box - our ascent complete, we winged it back to camas for a leisurely brunch at the lakeside chalet :)

coctober4.jpg

10/18 - days of rain followed by a few of fine sun - storm-torn clouds aloft for the past 2 sunups - brilliant fall - done thursday early w/ work and raged out to the bacon-wand w/ a brown-paper bag of pbr's - steve's rape-van in the lot - roared down for a first lap up the corner, passing a boyfriend/girlfriend team - back down in the lot and it was raining cops - not surprisingly, opdycke was between them all - surprisingly he wasn't handcuffed to a bumper :)

 

freaked out by the free-fire zone n' all those fretting fuckers w/ zipguns, i caught wind of steve-o already having hucked it down the trail after me to have a lap and hustled off to find'em - had a gaff n' gut-laugh down by the base, discovering he'd neglected a cord and so set off for a chicken-wing lap alone w/ a plan to meet him again afterwards - back again we watched dark set in and he talked me into some adventure rappelling down the west side - i zoomed up the corner a third time in the Deep Gloaming and arrived at the start of the raps not 30 seconds before steve showed up w/ 2 ropes and an extra headlamp for me - holy shit, gotta get after that synchronicity!!!

 

so....3 laps for this day...can't imagine there's too many such days left this year :(

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Yep, Ivan you were ripping off the laps on the corner at the rate of 1 round trip lap every half hour. I figure that is climbing at about the rate of about 40 vertical feet a minute. I heard the record for solo laps on the corner is 10 in one day, which is about 7000 vertical feet of mostly class 5 solo climbing. Now thats something to shoot for. Or maybe up the ante to a 10,000 vertical day if you're really in shape and feeling rowdy. Me, I'll just keep plodding along with a rope and a bad attitude.

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Yep, Ivan you were ripping off the laps on the corner at the rate of 1 round trip lap every half hour. I figure that is climbing at about the rate of about 40 vertical feet a minute. I heard the record for solo laps on the corner is 10 in one day, which is about 7000 vertical feet of mostly class 5 solo climbing. Now thats something to shoot for. Or maybe up the ante to a 10,000 vertical day if you're really in shape and feeling rowdy. Me, I'll just keep plodding along with a rope and a bad attitude.
10k in a day sounds like a worthy objective. That's a lot of PBR though. :)
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I got the PBR if you got the 10,000 vertical Dave. All you can Handel!

Does anyone know about the guy who decked off Crazy Horse onto Yosemite ledge this summer, how that turned out? Broken ankles, fractures, sprains, and his recovery ???

He landed beside me and it wasn't pretty.

Check with Tim H (Crackman). I know his buddy decked a a few months ago but I don't think anything was broken, just some sprains, if I remember correctly. Good guy, I climbed w him at Smiff. He is pretty new to trad though. Not sure if there was another incident there.
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From the base of the corner to where you reach the hikers trail is only 500 feet? That seems light but ok. If that is the case, then you should jog up to the summit for the extra vertical each time you top out, as your average just went down to 25 feet a minute.

I think youre right Dave, it was the guy climbing with Tim. I have found that those sprains sometimes take a long time to heal, even though the guy who fell was pretty agile and tried to absorb it and roll.

Its not called Crazy Horse for no reason, it must be named after Kevbone or Arndt, those guys fire it.

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Two years ago when Jeff Thomas and I replaced the anchors down 'Lay Lady Lay' / 'Rip City' with an eye towards cleaning the poison oak out of them, what we found wasn't what we expected. We expected one or more very large vines growing up the lines we could just cut, as that's what it looked like from down at the boat launch. What we found was it's really hundreds of individual plants about a every 6-12" rooted way the hell back in the cracks.

 

From my perspective the only real sure way of getting them out of there would be saturating them with crossbow-laden diesel oil for awhile and burning them out (maybe a couple of times when it was misting out). The odds of getting permission to do that are basically nil. To do it mechanically would be a long and tedious multi-day job similar to the four long days it took to thoroughly clean 'Flying Circus' the first time around.

 

If anyone is contemplating such an ordeal you're going to want one or more of these on 24-36" handles (among other shorter sharp implements and shears) and an extra sharpened 18" blade (or a small diamond sharpener to take along) to really even have a remote shot at being successful:

 

SA-UV47-2.jpg

 

also

 

SSE-9140.jpg

 

and

 

1840700_Photo1.jpg

 

S_11495E-L_L.jpg

 

 

duct-tape.jpg

 

 

Anything else is going to be a lot of painfully futile hurling (good luck and godspeed).

 

Also, the west side base is basically an ocean of poison oak, if serious about reclaiming those climbs then cleaning out a decent trail up the mid west side base that was free of oak wouldn't be a bad start if you weren't ready to get uber-gnarly on rappel yet.

 

P.S. The Park has lost Breanne who has worked in the office for years; another victim of the cuts. So now Karl and Viv, who were already overworked in the park with Ben's departure, are now also swamped with additional admin work in the office. Maybe consider volunteering for non-climbing related park projects that could use volunteer help as well.

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Plaid you are right, good thing for the park and good thing for the climbers to do trail work. Kudos to all that attend the Beacon Rock Climbers Assoc. trail work day this Saturday 9am to noon. I hear there is about 30 folks coming so far and a barbecue after. Nice.

 

BUMP!!!

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7/13 - a lap on young warriors w/ geoff and a lap (sans cord) w/ geoff n' adam

 

7/15 - dod's jam w/ the phuzzy

 

7/17 - solo corner creep in the late evening before jetting off to pdx to pick up my peeps fresh off their wrong coast plane - read a few chapters and sucked down a liter of burgundy at the ledge until it was too dark to read

 

7/23 - 2 corner laps in a little more than an hour and done in time to get kids to the dentist, then a long walk by waterfalls (even introducing the bastardos to "5150" along the way, just for you, kev :)

 

7/26 - cruise'n to young warriors w/ nastia - bit of a scorcher after noon, specially for the devushka clad all in black - shiiiiiity roadwork delays on 14

 

7/27 - no one bit on the partner offer, so i spent a leisurely mornign w/ the little people - coffee n' bacon n' cats - went out to beacon at 3, uncertain what to do, packed for anything, and decided along the way, in honor of the olympics, to set a goal to climb as many solo laps as possible on the corner before getting back to the house for pizza n' wine w/ the wife in the evening - settled for 4 laps (bacon-flavored half dome day? BFHDD?) - could have done more i reckon, but ran into the company of Known Felons after lap 1 and that took a little bit of the wind out of my sails :) - did the pleasant last lap w/ denalidave, overladen w/ one beer, me ashamed to have left my gin n' juice in the rig for the celebratory drive home :)

 

perfect day, weather-wise, compared to yday - overcast, cool, variable winds - stoked to see a 3-some spending a night on ground zero, complete w/ double haul-bags n' ledge(s?) (didn't see room for the 3rd, what horrid price did he have to pay i wonder?) - thought to aid-solo ground zero i had, but they skunked me, and then that bastard timetravel'n'steve took my free 4 sum backup! a pox on all their houses!

 

dave's vid:

[video:youtube]

 

:rawk:

7/28 - warm n' sunny n' breezy - climbed w/ bob n' the phuzzy, both of whom did piss-poor jobs of Minding the Poisons - majestic snow-white n' toffee-brown owl winging about the arena of doom for a good half-hour - dod's to top-rope windsurfer - pumped stupid after that and the accumulation of yday - then free 4 all via the retard right start - snuff-porn wannabe free solo for 40 fucking feet, foot-stacking in constrictions n' lie-backing to get there, but a good gut-laugh, au-chevel style, at the pillar-top - jim showed late, grumpy to be tobacco-short as he tempts fate to quit - nose-trainers doing fine big-wall machinations, swinging from groudn-zero to flying swallow to practice their pendulums - dave n' crackman n' kyle flitting about - camas days clusterfucking the commute on back home!

 

7th day at beacon this season :P

7/31 - last of july - 8 days of beacon rock climbing this month :rawk:

 

cruise'n'to right right gull n' then jills thrill w/ miker - bright, breezy n' cold - perfect! booty on jills - beers at the endless construction stops on the way back - how i long for a cigarette... :)

 

8/22 - 3 week beacon-hiatus - i'm in danger of losing my BRCA membership :) - been cavorting w/ the fam in colorado and at the oregon coast, coincidentally during the bitter depth of that 100+ pdx heatwave when the beach temps were damn near in the 40s each night :rawk: - managed a dragontail clamber in thare too

 

the phuzzy made a public-transit trip to rendezvous w/ me in damned washoughal after a wicked reintroduction to work for me at the crack of dawn - climbed young warriors - a baker's half-dozen of wing enabled wave riding wacky-boys out beyond the island - elk herds grazing - good times! closed out the evening w/ little wing to the 1st pitch of right gull and then a sad attempt at tr'ing the off-width on wrong gull that got clubbed-on-the-head at just the right hour :)

 

9/5 - quick solo creep - tinywing (half little wing/half corner p1) to the corner to stoner ledge to young warriors - kenny n' ole'larry (thought he quit climbing?!) n' buddy dan at stoner ledge - 10th day at beacon this season.

 

9/6 - two solo corner laps, one w/ arndt (that is how that old boy spells his name, right?) while he was waiting for the "red ant" to arrive - horrified to find my good name impugned by certain unnamed low-lifes up on the little people ledge - seems they think i've been drinking their cached beer - despite my innocence, i nonetheless searched desperately to find said stranded beer so i could "protect" it better, but no dice :(

 

steve, yet again, climbing w/ random cuties, this one crushing on warriors and jills - gotta love an understanding wife! :grin:

 

9/7 - beacon hat-trick, 3 days in a row - 1 solo lap on the regular old corner, then one link-up i hadn't done before: tinywing => corner => hidden treats => corner => young-warriors => downclimb corner => uprising - 5 laps in 3 days :)

 

9/13 - lonely lap today, not a soul on the rock or on the trail, just a big, big wind, a shallow river, and a bone-dry bird-sanctuary across the way - thought i saw ole'boy dave's car in the lot so i packed not 1 but 2 tall-boys of pbr in the hopes of balancing out the debt, but nary a sight of him along the way - so sad, i had to swig'em both down as i was afeared to leave one on the ledge as a sign there warned of wanton russian-fuck-types showing up to swill'em away...

 

9/14 - 14th day at beacon this season - hardly a breathe of a breeze, odd after the howling gale of the day before - a peck of peregrines and a pretty phat pack of elk, dispersed upon the island and more thickly about the crick leading off towards bonneville - wheezy bugles and high-piercing shrieks - the powderhund on rehab on his mangled meniscus - cruise'n to jill's thrill - who/when the fuck cut out the sling and rings on the grassy ledges rap? beers and bullshit'n at the base - a heavy scent of fire in the air, like the memory of yosemite and sun-dappled mania - glorious sunset - the summer is banned and abased, fading fast in the fuck-fury dark of eight :(

 

9/16 - my first partner for sunday bailed on thursday, then my second on saturday, so, in the spirit of third-time's-the-charm, i settled for meself solo on this fine sabbath day

 

woke of 8 w/ the sun amplifying the undigested wine in my brain-box and biding me rise and begin the purification ritual - half my gear's been building up in the trunk of the red-devil, but i thought i shoudl make an occasion of it and go aid-solo something serious - big haulbag filled of all, i stumbled to the car w/ my gear and w/ the best breakfast i could lash together in my stertorous stupor - ended up being two pale ales and a mouthful of week old pad thai, backed up w/ a duo of sad camels

 

arrived in the lot to calm winds and calmer crowds - just didn't feel like strapping on the fifi, so reckoned to solo a corner lap first then get to it, but a few feet into the lap got to thinking back to july and the 4 laps in an evening i'd done on the occasion of the olympic kick-off - thought i oughta improve on that personal record and set the bar at six?

 

3 laps in the can and not a soul sighted - dripping sweat in the substantial heat, dawn just a memory by then as i'd arrived after 9 and the incipient breeze nothing more than a meteorological cock-tease - a hot glare and a heavy air

 

christians by the holy-fuck load cluster-fucking the trail - 4 full fucking tourbuses of the little fellows, bedecked w/ their goddamn savior's gibbot, which their leader hauled up in half-carries for the great glory of dog - "aren't you folks commanded to observe the sabbath and eschew heathen labor" i queried? led by laywers, his comment immediate the product of parsing his puzzling text: "today we do His work"

 

rounded the corner for lap 4 to find frazzled rick rigged up for a rope-solo and it didn't take long to reduce him to the dark side - we did a pair of simul solos, the first finding old boy w/ eyes as wide as irish butterballs :) passed a lovely lady w/ the slab well in hand, half-annoyed no doubt to weather our "helpful" comments - i can't complain about standing in line, mid-pitch, w/ such a luscious view...

 

rick fucked-off in the fullness of time and i had but one more to get my 6, but being done w/ it, felt a prime # more the thing - rick said he knew our old boy pink had once done 8, and my heart was half-set in the spirit of competition, but then surely the cut of my jib could never be so beguiling as our dear boy in his littlewing pic - came down for a 7th lap then and sent it soon enough, my head spinning, my mind twisting and wondering where it was exactly i was again in this ever-repeating scenario - coulda managed another 2 i reckon, there was sun enough, but i thought i'd wander on back to stoke the home-fires and finish some more of this never ending chicken-coop work the wife embarked on - a fine meal of eggs n' fresh peppers n' frank's sauce, finished off w/ a gullet-full of fine wine and a gut laugh over gross humor n' now it's time for school work and an early nap!

 

7 laps/day - here's to 9 by the end of october? managing 3 laps per 2 hours when there's no distractions to be had, so imagine i could manage the whole shit-eria in 6 hours and call the whole thing something like 4000+ feet of climbing/scrambling/moss-hiking?

 

9/18 - afterschool corner lap - hot stone even in the shade - jim n' adam on the ledge - casual conspiracy chatting - thoroughly tired of construction on 14 by now...

 

9/19 - had only an hour of time to play between the end of school and the start of back-to-school night and union rabble-rousing, but managed to storm out to beacon at warp speed and do the first lap i've ever thought to actually time - 32:10 (dog measured), parking lot to parking lot - ran into an old student on the run down - claims to work at a pizza joint these days and sure looks like it :)

 

9/21 - sick all day, if not as a dog, then at least as a puppy - snot n' sneezing - still, the last day of summer.... - mist-drops on the windshield after school, should i risk the drive? - a barren lot, the rock to meself - cruising to the corner - boooooooooty! 10 laps this week already, holy shit, at this rate in a year, if i could beg off rain, peregrines n' whatnot i could have 500! :)

 

9/25 - on the rebound after a week of hacking snotsicles out of my lungs great asgolf-balls - 2 laps up the corner - steve n' sal n' tim n' his special lady friend sharing the route - laughs n' hijinx - bellows of beasts out on the beatific isle

 

9/27 - my 20th day at beacon this season - 2 solo laps - not a soul on the southside nor more than 2 on the trail

 

best times today:

base to snag ledge: 2:00

to tree ledge: 4:40

to grassy ledges: 8:20

to uprising railing: 15:00

 

can't imagine me ever doing this better than 13:00 tops?

 

 

9/28 - 21st day at beacon since the opening :) - full moon and fucking mad rager up the rock in the rude-light - bob n' me had a run on jill's thrill after school, then crawled up the corner w/ the better part of a 6-pack - dusk by tree ledge - to little people by braille - high times n' hollering at the dusky moon - crazy smoke-cloud glitter off the river - clambered off sans headlamps - how much longer shall this indian summer insist? :grin:

 

9/29 - wife problems: full-moon free-solo sans-head-lamp! geoff n' arlo as helpful alarm clocks :)

 

10/1 - indian summer, a big old warm breeze like the Breath of Dog - 2 laps on the corner, then home in time to get the boy to kajukenbo.

 

10/3 - jesus, warm still outdoors but the Big Wind of Winter was on beacon today! roars n' lulls, catspaws and catastrophes playing out on the columbia - nary a soul to be seen, south side or north - a simple corner lap w/ cruising n' hidden treats n' the top of young warriors

 

10/4 - 3 of 4 october days climbing so far :) 25 days at beacon since the opening - possible to get 50 solo laps between july and november (31 so far by my count)? 'bone n' mike in the lot - hustled to climb cruising 'fore them to avoid treating them to snuff porn - jim n' sal in the lot on the way down, fresh from washing the way to the south-west of the evil poison oak - to wolfrock 2morrow for the weekend! :)

 

10/10 - 6 days since last i'd climbed at beacon, my longest dry spell in a month? barad dohl (!) and cheeky sheenanigans over the weekend, then high-tech dentistry and parent conferences keeping me away...

 

2 laps on the corner, car to car in 57 minutes - most enjoyable solo yet of cruising, all movement and no pauses, maybe 3 minutes total?

 

10/12 - my 38th birthday, and the day off to boot! the fall weather here finally, and no bacon-scrambling to be had therefore, so off i shot w/ kid#1 for a father/daughter trail hike, equipped w/ a mighty golf-umbrella and tori amos on the music box - our ascent complete, we winged it back to camas for a leisurely brunch at the lakeside chalet :)

coctober4.jpg

 

10/18 - days of rain followed by a few of fine sun - storm-torn clouds aloft for the past 2 sunups - brilliant fall - done thursday early w/ work and raged out to the bacon-wand w/ a brown-paper bag of pbr's - steve's rape-van in the lot - roared down for a first lap up the corner, passing a boyfriend/girlfriend team - back down in the lot and it was raining cops - not surprisingly, opdycke was between them all - surprisingly he wasn't handcuffed to a bumper :)

 

freaked out by the free-fire zone n' all those fretting fuckers w/ zipguns, i caught wind of steve-o already having hucked it down the trail after me to have a lap and hustled off to find'em - had a gaff n' gut-laugh down by the base, discovering he'd neglected a cord and so set off for a chicken-wing lap alone w/ a plan to meet him again afterwards - back again we watched dark set in and he talked me into some adventure rappelling down the west side - i zoomed up the corner a third time in the Deep Gloaming and arrived at the start of the raps not 30 seconds before steve showed up w/ 2 ropes and an extra headlamp for me - holy shit, gotta get after that synchronicity!!!

 

so....3 laps for this day...can't imagine there's too many such days left this year :(

10/27 - fahq'n boatloads of sodden beatards at the bacon-wand this morning - arrived early w/ beacon ben n' got in a half-jerk-off lap, up the corner to young warriors where we ran out of time and had to rap to make the what-have-you - mega-serious terra-forming followed by grilled flap-jacks n' the like - facile conversations w/ fresh-faced chicas, veggie burgers n' fear of the incessant damp pouring down all about the half-frozen a-frame - a half-pack sucked down w/ a half-rack of half-decent beer - ambulations in the awe-inspiring great goddamn deluge - a work party overdue, damn near likely dead - drinks in their honor and some spare parts found rattling around - the day dead and done and i alone cast off to cavort on home through sheets of sleazy cheese n' easy wine :grin:

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  • 3 weeks later...

7/13 - a lap on young warriors w/ geoff and a lap (sans cord) w/ geoff n' adam

 

7/15 - dod's jam w/ the phuzzy

 

7/17 - solo corner creep in the late evening before jetting off to pdx to pick up my peeps fresh off their wrong coast plane - read a few chapters and sucked down a liter of burgundy at the ledge until it was too dark to read

 

7/23 - 2 corner laps in a little more than an hour and done in time to get kids to the dentist, then a long walk by waterfalls (even introducing the bastardos to "5150" along the way, just for you, kev :)

 

7/26 - cruise'n to young warriors w/ nastia - bit of a scorcher after noon, specially for the devushka clad all in black - shiiiiiity roadwork delays on 14

 

7/27 - no one bit on the partner offer, so i spent a leisurely mornign w/ the little people - coffee n' bacon n' cats - went out to beacon at 3, uncertain what to do, packed for anything, and decided along the way, in honor of the olympics, to set a goal to climb as many solo laps as possible on the corner before getting back to the house for pizza n' wine w/ the wife in the evening - settled for 4 laps (bacon-flavored half dome day? BFHDD?) - could have done more i reckon, but ran into the company of Known Felons after lap 1 and that took a little bit of the wind out of my sails :) - did the pleasant last lap w/ denalidave, overladen w/ one beer, me ashamed to have left my gin n' juice in the rig for the celebratory drive home :)

 

perfect day, weather-wise, compared to yday - overcast, cool, variable winds - stoked to see a 3-some spending a night on ground zero, complete w/ double haul-bags n' ledge(s?) (didn't see room for the 3rd, what horrid price did he have to pay i wonder?) - thought to aid-solo ground zero i had, but they skunked me, and then that bastard timetravel'n'steve took my free 4 sum backup! a pox on all their houses!

 

dave's vid:

[video:youtube]

 

:rawk:

7/28 - warm n' sunny n' breezy - climbed w/ bob n' the phuzzy, both of whom did piss-poor jobs of Minding the Poisons - majestic snow-white n' toffee-brown owl winging about the arena of doom for a good half-hour - dod's to top-rope windsurfer - pumped stupid after that and the accumulation of yday - then free 4 all via the retard right start - snuff-porn wannabe free solo for 40 fucking feet, foot-stacking in constrictions n' lie-backing to get there, but a good gut-laugh, au-chevel style, at the pillar-top - jim showed late, grumpy to be tobacco-short as he tempts fate to quit - nose-trainers doing fine big-wall machinations, swinging from groudn-zero to flying swallow to practice their pendulums - dave n' crackman n' kyle flitting about - camas days clusterfucking the commute on back home!

 

7th day at beacon this season :P

7/31 - last of july - 8 days of beacon rock climbing this month :rawk:

 

cruise'n'to right right gull n' then jills thrill w/ miker - bright, breezy n' cold - perfect! booty on jills - beers at the endless construction stops on the way back - how i long for a cigarette... :)

 

8/22 - 3 week beacon-hiatus - i'm in danger of losing my BRCA membership :) - been cavorting w/ the fam in colorado and at the oregon coast, coincidentally during the bitter depth of that 100+ pdx heatwave when the beach temps were damn near in the 40s each night :rawk: - managed a dragontail clamber in thare too

 

the phuzzy made a public-transit trip to rendezvous w/ me in damned washoughal after a wicked reintroduction to work for me at the crack of dawn - climbed young warriors - a baker's half-dozen of wing enabled wave riding wacky-boys out beyond the island - elk herds grazing - good times! closed out the evening w/ little wing to the 1st pitch of right gull and then a sad attempt at tr'ing the off-width on wrong gull that got clubbed-on-the-head at just the right hour :)

 

9/5 - quick solo creep - tinywing (half little wing/half corner p1) to the corner to stoner ledge to young warriors - kenny n' ole'larry (thought he quit climbing?!) n' buddy dan at stoner ledge - 10th day at beacon this season.

 

9/6 - two solo corner laps, one w/ arndt (that is how that old boy spells his name, right?) while he was waiting for the "red ant" to arrive - horrified to find my good name impugned by certain unnamed low-lifes up on the little people ledge - seems they think i've been drinking their cached beer - despite my innocence, i nonetheless searched desperately to find said stranded beer so i could "protect" it better, but no dice :(

 

steve, yet again, climbing w/ random cuties, this one crushing on warriors and jills - gotta love an understanding wife! :grin:

 

9/7 - beacon hat-trick, 3 days in a row - 1 solo lap on the regular old corner, then one link-up i hadn't done before: tinywing => corner => hidden treats => corner => young-warriors => downclimb corner => uprising - 5 laps in 3 days :)

 

9/13 - lonely lap today, not a soul on the rock or on the trail, just a big, big wind, a shallow river, and a bone-dry bird-sanctuary across the way - thought i saw ole'boy dave's car in the lot so i packed not 1 but 2 tall-boys of pbr in the hopes of balancing out the debt, but nary a sight of him along the way - so sad, i had to swig'em both down as i was afeared to leave one on the ledge as a sign there warned of wanton russian-fuck-types showing up to swill'em away...

 

9/14 - 14th day at beacon this season - hardly a breathe of a breeze, odd after the howling gale of the day before - a peck of peregrines and a pretty phat pack of elk, dispersed upon the island and more thickly about the crick leading off towards bonneville - wheezy bugles and high-piercing shrieks - the powderhund on rehab on his mangled meniscus - cruise'n to jill's thrill - who/when the fuck cut out the sling and rings on the grassy ledges rap? beers and bullshit'n at the base - a heavy scent of fire in the air, like the memory of yosemite and sun-dappled mania - glorious sunset - the summer is banned and abased, fading fast in the fuck-fury dark of eight :(

 

9/16 - my first partner for sunday bailed on thursday, then my second on saturday, so, in the spirit of third-time's-the-charm, i settled for meself solo on this fine sabbath day

 

woke of 8 w/ the sun amplifying the undigested wine in my brain-box and biding me rise and begin the purification ritual - half my gear's been building up in the trunk of the red-devil, but i thought i shoudl make an occasion of it and go aid-solo something serious - big haulbag filled of all, i stumbled to the car w/ my gear and w/ the best breakfast i could lash together in my stertorous stupor - ended up being two pale ales and a mouthful of week old pad thai, backed up w/ a duo of sad camels

 

arrived in the lot to calm winds and calmer crowds - just didn't feel like strapping on the fifi, so reckoned to solo a corner lap first then get to it, but a few feet into the lap got to thinking back to july and the 4 laps in an evening i'd done on the occasion of the olympic kick-off - thought i oughta improve on that personal record and set the bar at six?

 

3 laps in the can and not a soul sighted - dripping sweat in the substantial heat, dawn just a memory by then as i'd arrived after 9 and the incipient breeze nothing more than a meteorological cock-tease - a hot glare and a heavy air

 

christians by the holy-fuck load cluster-fucking the trail - 4 full fucking tourbuses of the little fellows, bedecked w/ their goddamn savior's gibbot, which their leader hauled up in half-carries for the great glory of dog - "aren't you folks commanded to observe the sabbath and eschew heathen labor" i queried? led by laywers, his comment immediate the product of parsing his puzzling text: "today we do His work"

 

rounded the corner for lap 4 to find frazzled rick rigged up for a rope-solo and it didn't take long to reduce him to the dark side - we did a pair of simul solos, the first finding old boy w/ eyes as wide as irish butterballs :) passed a lovely lady w/ the slab well in hand, half-annoyed no doubt to weather our "helpful" comments - i can't complain about standing in line, mid-pitch, w/ such a luscious view...

 

rick fucked-off in the fullness of time and i had but one more to get my 6, but being done w/ it, felt a prime # more the thing - rick said he knew our old boy pink had once done 8, and my heart was half-set in the spirit of competition, but then surely the cut of my jib could never be so beguiling as our dear boy in his littlewing pic - came down for a 7th lap then and sent it soon enough, my head spinning, my mind twisting and wondering where it was exactly i was again in this ever-repeating scenario - coulda managed another 2 i reckon, there was sun enough, but i thought i'd wander on back to stoke the home-fires and finish some more of this never ending chicken-coop work the wife embarked on - a fine meal of eggs n' fresh peppers n' frank's sauce, finished off w/ a gullet-full of fine wine and a gut laugh over gross humor n' now it's time for school work and an early nap!

 

7 laps/day - here's to 9 by the end of october? managing 3 laps per 2 hours when there's no distractions to be had, so imagine i could manage the whole shit-eria in 6 hours and call the whole thing something like 4000+ feet of climbing/scrambling/moss-hiking?

 

9/18 - afterschool corner lap - hot stone even in the shade - jim n' adam on the ledge - casual conspiracy chatting - thoroughly tired of construction on 14 by now...

 

9/19 - had only an hour of time to play between the end of school and the start of back-to-school night and union rabble-rousing, but managed to storm out to beacon at warp speed and do the first lap i've ever thought to actually time - 32:10 (dog measured), parking lot to parking lot - ran into an old student on the run down - claims to work at a pizza joint these days and sure looks like it :)

 

9/21 - sick all day, if not as a dog, then at least as a puppy - snot n' sneezing - still, the last day of summer.... - mist-drops on the windshield after school, should i risk the drive? - a barren lot, the rock to meself - cruising to the corner - boooooooooty! 10 laps this week already, holy shit, at this rate in a year, if i could beg off rain, peregrines n' whatnot i could have 500! :)

 

9/25 - on the rebound after a week of hacking snotsicles out of my lungs great asgolf-balls - 2 laps up the corner - steve n' sal n' tim n' his special lady friend sharing the route - laughs n' hijinx - bellows of beasts out on the beatific isle

 

9/27 - my 20th day at beacon this season - 2 solo laps - not a soul on the southside nor more than 2 on the trail

 

best times today:

base to snag ledge: 2:00

to tree ledge: 4:40

to grassy ledges: 8:20

to uprising railing: 15:00

 

can't imagine me ever doing this better than 13:00 tops?

 

 

9/28 - 21st day at beacon since the opening :) - full moon and fucking mad rager up the rock in the rude-light - bob n' me had a run on jill's thrill after school, then crawled up the corner w/ the better part of a 6-pack - dusk by tree ledge - to little people by braille - high times n' hollering at the dusky moon - crazy smoke-cloud glitter off the river - clambered off sans headlamps - how much longer shall this indian summer insist? :grin:

 

9/29 - wife problems: full-moon free-solo sans-head-lamp! geoff n' arlo as helpful alarm clocks :)

 

10/1 - indian summer, a big old warm breeze like the Breath of Dog - 2 laps on the corner, then home in time to get the boy to kajukenbo.

 

10/3 - jesus, warm still outdoors but the Big Wind of Winter was on beacon today! roars n' lulls, catspaws and catastrophes playing out on the columbia - nary a soul to be seen, south side or north - a simple corner lap w/ cruising n' hidden treats n' the top of young warriors

 

10/4 - 3 of 4 october days climbing so far :) 25 days at beacon since the opening - possible to get 50 solo laps between july and november (31 so far by my count)? 'bone n' mike in the lot - hustled to climb cruising 'fore them to avoid treating them to snuff porn - jim n' sal in the lot on the way down, fresh from washing the way to the south-west of the evil poison oak - to wolfrock 2morrow for the weekend! :)

 

10/10 - 6 days since last i'd climbed at beacon, my longest dry spell in a month? barad dohl (!) and cheeky sheenanigans over the weekend, then high-tech dentistry and parent conferences keeping me away...

 

2 laps on the corner, car to car in 57 minutes - most enjoyable solo yet of cruising, all movement and no pauses, maybe 3 minutes total?

 

10/12 - my 38th birthday, and the day off to boot! the fall weather here finally, and no bacon-scrambling to be had therefore, so off i shot w/ kid#1 for a father/daughter trail hike, equipped w/ a mighty golf-umbrella and tori amos on the music box - our ascent complete, we winged it back to camas for a leisurely brunch at the lakeside chalet :)

coctober4.jpg

 

10/18 - days of rain followed by a few of fine sun - storm-torn clouds aloft for the past 2 sunups - brilliant fall - done thursday early w/ work and raged out to the bacon-wand w/ a brown-paper bag of pbr's - steve's rape-van in the lot - roared down for a first lap up the corner, passing a boyfriend/girlfriend team - back down in the lot and it was raining cops - not surprisingly, opdycke was between them all - surprisingly he wasn't handcuffed to a bumper :)

 

freaked out by the free-fire zone n' all those fretting fuckers w/ zipguns, i caught wind of steve-o already having hucked it down the trail after me to have a lap and hustled off to find'em - had a gaff n' gut-laugh down by the base, discovering he'd neglected a cord and so set off for a chicken-wing lap alone w/ a plan to meet him again afterwards - back again we watched dark set in and he talked me into some adventure rappelling down the west side - i zoomed up the corner a third time in the Deep Gloaming and arrived at the start of the raps not 30 seconds before steve showed up w/ 2 ropes and an extra headlamp for me - holy shit, gotta get after that synchronicity!!!

 

so....3 laps for this day...can't imagine there's too many such days left this year :(

 

10/27 - fahq'n boatloads of sodden beatards at the bacon-wand this morning - arrived early w/ beacon ben n' got in a half-jerk-off lap, up the corner to young warriors where we ran out of time and had to rap to make the what-have-you - mega-serious terra-forming followed by grilled flap-jacks n' the like - facile conversations w/ fresh-faced chicas, veggie burgers n' fear of the incessant damp pouring down all about the half-frozen a-frame - a half-pack sucked down w/ a half-rack of half-decent beer - ambulations in the awe-inspiring great goddamn deluge - a work party overdue, damn near likely dead - drinks in their honor and some spare parts found rattling around - the day dead and done and i alone cast off to cavort on home through sheets of sleazy cheese n' easy wine :grin:

11/11 - my 30th day climbing at beacon since the sun of summer, and damn far from that it were - broken social connections, a total failure to rendezvous w/ the 'hound, so i shot out to beacon alone to see if he and his wouldn't eventually get it all sorted out (we planned to do the dynamite cave soon thereafter)

 

a solo lap while waiting - frozen hands - slime snot suppurating out of many a rocky orifice - on the trail down met the boys hiking up, n' bryan and i headed off to do another, roped, lap

 

sleet n' sheets of sleazy rain for much of the rest of the day, snow shitting out of the sky at the conclusion of the cave - cans of pabst n' pbr n' all sorta things to chuckle over deep in the foreboding bowels of the earth :)

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