Climbing

if you've got a fat broadband pipe at work, check this out (and put
your headphones on, the audio is even better than the video)

video part 1

video part 2

so, like, what's up in this circus act? does the upside down guy on
acid have a partner? (is that a portaledge and a haul bag seen at
around 1min20sec in

the first video, or a portaledge and a partner?) if it's a partner,
why the fook isn't s/he hauling the moron up, or doing something
useful? that and who hangs a portaledge so low (relatively speaking)
even if doing the route solo? it's like, what, 3 pitches up.

and how do you fall that far from a portaledge? the suggestion
promoted in the text hostinghostinghostingociated with the video says that the moron was
hanging soley by a rope wrappped around his leg. this is of course
complete hooey. no one takes a 70 foot space shot and avoids
cratering soley because of a rope that happened to be tangled around
his leg. sheesh. he had to have been tied into a harness. though,
that said, he did clearly and successfully mhostinghostinghostingively fook himself into
one a hell of a hostinghostinghostinghosting knot thereafter.

and what route is that? mescalito? other than the trivial east
buttress route (albeit ending in a screaming snow storm), i've made a
careful point of avoiding all of the lunatic stuff on the east side of
el cap (i can't afford the really good acid). the nose is as close as
i've been. and from there just the views of the east face circus
routes tightened my sphincter such as to make a diamond from what was
left of that snickers bar i ate.

as i understand it (soley from what i can glean from the two videos --
and the audio tells more than the video -- i couldn't find anything
else anywhere on the web on this lunacy), one of the yosar dudes
juggged up to him on a line attached solely to two jumars that the
upside down moron attached (hopefully) to the line he was hanging
from. they shot those two jumars up to him with a rope gun (one hell
of a shot, fwiw).

so then this yosar stud does a free spin jumar up, what, maybe 200'
attached only to what the upside down moron on acid had piddled
together as he begged for chewing tobacco -- and then called
"bomber" (his words, "you're bomber buddy, don't worry about it...")
this surely rates a galaxy clhostinghostinghosting hostinghostinghostinganium cajones award for the
rescuer. that or perhaps the rescuer had himself already swallowed
the other half of the rescuee's acid blotter (just kidding -- no
offense to that yosar dude who was truly heroic).

now i've always tried to do my duty on rescues, but do _that_? nope,
not this dog. no way i'm jugging up a free hanging line attached to
what an upside down blathering moron on acid thinks he might have
rigged to his own lines (which said same moron also rigged). nope.
call the coast guard, dude. me, i'll go try to collect 200 bouldering
crash pads (and a body bag). that and i'll see if i can find you some
chewing tobacco. perhaps i can shoot it at you with my ruger o/u. in
the meantime, best of luck.... dude. sheesh.


canis fidelus est
(to a point... i'm not jugging up a line attached to a
jerry garcia mental image of "bomber, dude" even for you)



^,,^



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"My head is really spacey right now, it's all twisted up" -the upside
down moron on acid

"This is some good acid, dude. You wouldn't believe this hostinghostinghostinghosting..." -
ibid

"Be a warrior dude, you gotta get your head together." -one of the
yosar dudes shouting up to the upside down moron on acid

"^,,^" <> writes:

> so, like, what's up in this circus act? does the upside down guy on
> acid have a partner? (is that a portaledge and a haul bag seen at
> around 1min20sec in

Looks like it, couldn't see if he had a partner.

> the first video, or a portaledge and a partner?) if it's a partner,
> why the fook isn't s/he hauling the moron up, or doing something
> useful? that and who hangs a portaledge so low (relatively speaking)
> even if doing the route solo? it's like, what, 3 pitches up.

If there were a partner, why didn't he/she shoot them down a pair of
jumars so he could jumar himself upright?

> and what route is that? mescalito?

Something just left of Zodiac. Shortest Straw, though it looked a bit
to the left of that. I find it hard to believe someone would drop
acid for that though, the first few pitches are pretty heads up. You
could imagine that he was soloing SS, fell on the Journey pitch
(pretty spacy hooking), or that his haulbag ripped out of the belay,
taking him with it if he had it set up for liftoff when he got to the
next anchor.

> i've made a
> careful point of avoiding all of the lunatic stuff on the east side of
> el cap (i can't afford the really good acid). the nose is as close as
> i've been. and from there just the views of the east face circus
> routes tightened my sphincter such as to make a diamond from what was
> left of that snickers bar i ate.

It's way easier to haul on the right side.

> so then this yosar stud does a free spin jumar up, what, maybe 200'
> attached only to what the upside down moron on acid had piddled
> together as he begged for chewing tobacco -- and then called
> "bomber" (his words, "you're bomber buddy, don't worry about it...")
> this surely rates a galaxy clhostinghostinghosting hostinghostinghostinganium cajones award for the
> rescuer. that or perhaps the rescuer had himself already swallowed
> the other half of the rescuee's acid blotter (just kidding -- no
> offense to that yosar dude who was truly heroic).

I dunno, jugging is always a bit of a gamble far as I'm concerned. If
it holds you for the first ten feet off the ground, it'll likely hold
you for the last 190 feet. And if you back it up with a grigri, you
can change plans and be back on the ground pretty quick.

> "Be a warrior dude, you gotta get your head together."

Words for the ages.

Fortunately on my YouTube, all the faces were pretty blurry so I
couldn't recognize anybody. Funny that they helo'd him out of there,
I figured for that they'd hike down the talus.

-bw

On Aug 5, 1:10hostingam, "^,,^" <> wrote:
> if you've got a fat broadband pipe at work, check this out (and put
> your headphones on, the audio is even better than the video)
>
> video part 1 hosting hosting hosting
>
> video part 2 hosting hosting hosting
>

oh how I wish I could access youtube at work. I'm slated to do my
first wall later this month but was planning on doing it sans acid.

our sister kellie wrote, in part
> oh how I wish I could access youtube at work. I'm slated to do my
> first wall later this month but was planning on doing it sans acid.

me, i'd recommend you wait until after your first wall to watch those
silly vids, if ever. there are certain mental images you don't want
to take on your first big wall, or any big wall for that matter.

may i ask what route you are planning?

our brother brett wrote, in part:
> It's way easier to haul on the right side.

true. and way harder to retreat, unless you have 1200' of rap cord in
one of your 175lb haul bags. of course, my pal lupo refers to such
considerations as 'the Maginot Mentality' - and usually follows it up
with some remark about how the french are still making tanks with 1
gear in forward and 12 in reverse. no offense intended to my many
french pals, brother Guillaume among them -- i'm just phostinghostinghostinging on a
lupoism. the french are one of the very few western nations that have
been able to maintain a distinct culture. though having met both lupo
and guillaume (the latter only briefly, in eldorado canyon) i suspect
they'd yank each others chains a bit and then become fast friends.
for they share a common vision of what's worth climbing - and what's
worth mocking. but i digress (surprise...)

as i've often written on this venue (among others) i'm no fan of aid
climbing. i'll do a bit of it at the low end it if the payoff is
access to acres of quality free climbing (the nose being an obvious
case in point), but otherwhise, phooey. as such i mostly suck at it.
A2/C2 is about my limit. and jugging both frightens and bores me --
simultaneously (such oxymorons seem to be my native environment). my
pal B actually likes the lunatic fringe of aid climbing. he seems to
like the pure engineeering problems involved, and doesn't mind
spending half a day to tip tap out 120 of it. he's done a bunch of
goofy routes in the valley (and far more locally, on clhostinghostinghostingic bitteroot
teeny flairing seamettes a quarter inch deep); the kinda stuff that
takes 3 hours to climb a single pitch and involves a half ton of
hooks, rurps, bashies, mashies, and even (in at least one instance)
car keys. after 160 feet of such weirdness, i suspect he genuinely
believes that the belays he sets up are actually 'bombproof'. i've
followed later verified A5 and found it absolutely horrifying. i
wonder what you kids are thinking. perhaps that's where the acid fits
into the program.

but it's all good by me. whatever floats your boat. way (way) back
when i haunted camp 4, i could tell the aid dudes (ripped up floppy
jumpsuits from salvation army that tell tale 1000 yard stare in their
eyes, and no prom dates within multiple time zones) from the free
climbing dudes (europeans, or locals pretending to be, lycra, fancy
hairdoes, harams of mindless prom dates) at hostinghosting0 yards, minimum, every
time. in the end i wasn't hip enough to be the latter, or crazy
enough to be the former. which is why i referred to myself simply as
'an out of place alpinist' (6000 miles from the alps). though, in
fairness, if i were on a wall -- even one of those mostly free (ie,
"left hand side") walls i've actually checked out, and the hostinghostinghostinghosting really
hit the prop, i'd definately rather have one of the aid dudes as my
partner. like the song goes in West Side Story, "There's A Place For
Us" all of us. maybe even me.

re:
>> "Be a warrior dude, you gotta get your head together."

our brother brett wrote:

> Words for the ages.

i see your point, and in that agree. though that said, from what i've
read (like, The Iliad) and what i've actually witnessed (kinda like
the Illiad), one is either a warrior or one has one's head together.
but not both simultaneously. the two strike me as mutually
exclusive.

what else. in fairness i should admit that i have this raging dislike
of lsd. i've done it twice, both in the same month, both times
involuntarily, and both times back when i was like twelve. my then
buddy's older brother dosed me (and him, via hamburgers hot off his
household's charcol grill). he thought it'd be funny to see the
results. i've since promised to save him a front seat in hell. on
the first dosing i stumbled home staring at all those cells pulsing
through the vascular system in the leaves of the few trees in that
neighborhood. i realized that i had lost my mind, i just didn't know
why. me, i think dosing a child with lsd is profoundly poor form.
on the second dosing he fess'd up and i tried to beat him to death
(and failed, he was 20 something and a recently ex-marine). my
opinion is also informed by the hours and hours and hours i spent
sitting on some squirming bad acid trip back when i was a med ranger
at burning man. what, precisely, distinguishes bad acid from good
acid? i don't have a clue - though i did try to look it up once via
GALEN at the med school library at UCSF. i learned nothing. mostly
i remember actually sitting on this guy who had previously never done
so much as three beers in the same night, trying to convince him not
to try (again) to beat "satan" out of his head with a rock. blood
everywhere, and that long tedious night spent trying to coax this poor
moron to "be a warrior, and get his head together". arghhh. after
another year or two of such stupidity and i simply walked away from
all that. my thought is, if you want to experiment with weird
chemistry, do it back home where you have like friends and dialing 911
will actually yield a response. why wait until your first trip to one
of the harshest environments in the contintal US to poison yourself?
especially when i have a radio and am chosen to be responsible for
your stupidity. arghhh


um, so anyway, kellie, what big wall are you planning?


me, i'd like to do the nose again this fall, this time actually NIAD.
(i've done NI3D and NI2D). i was thinking late september, early
october, midweek. but i suspect that even then the crowds will be
nuts. i'm thinking two souls, seconding with a pack <20lbs, jumars
only to haul the impossible goofy pitches, otherwise cleaning what aid
is required in a combination of (very) pink and in in clhostinghostinghostingic form
(ie, no jugging). i have this vision of talking our pal Ant into
it. i'm rather certain he'd be up to it - especially after a summer
in tuolumne. question is, am i up to it? two weeks of an expensive
quinine derivitave and some doxycycline vanquished the malaria (which
my MD and i have determined i almost certainly got in cambodia last
november/december - not on my spring trip to the swamps of the
yucatan. for the latter would be literally a chance in a million (12
cases of gringos getting malaria in the quintana roo in the last 10
years / among at least 12 million gringo tourists there in the same
time frame). not even i am that unlucky. the pros tell me that
malaria, especially the weak variants like the one i found, can skip
like a flat stone on a still lake for months. so that is small
change. and my liver still tests out outstanding, imagine that. yet
it's remarkable how quickly one can loose one's fitness in one's
dotage (i turned 43 in april). it's equally remarkable how hard it is
to get back in shape in DC. it's like stupid hot, stupid humid, and
stupid flat. and everybody is a fooking genious and (at least claims)
to have read everything and hence know everything about everything.
i hope you haven't yet learned how tedious this can be. pretty much
the only person i actually like talking to is the guy i buy my dinner
hotdog from. i call him 'dirty water frank... um, yeah, the elite
diet pertion of my elite fitness regeme is also collapsing. i've been
'buildering' a lot (and have twice been nearly arrested for it -- a
terrorist with nothing but rock shoes) as frankly there is nothing
worth climbing within hours of this current variant of the endless
string of big earls stop'n'flops. (no offense to the locals, i'm sure
there is stuff dear to you, i just haven't found it yet).

oh sheeesh, i'm gonna be late for work. oh god, i have work -- worse
yet i have work where there are people who actually care when show
up.


um, so anyway, kellie, what big wall are you planning?




canis fidelus est (sans jumars),


^,,^


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend.
inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." -groucho marx

On Aug 8, 5:59hostingam, "^,,^" <> wrote many many
things, as usual:



> i'm no fan of aid climbing. hosting

I suspect the same is true of me, given that I have managed only a few
aid pitches in eight years of climbing. My very limited experience so
far suggests that leading aid is fun, belaying aid is stupefyingly
boring, and that aiding anything immediately subtracts five number
grades from your free-climbing ability. Once at Index I insisted my
belayer tie me off and go back to the car to get the big cam so I
wouldn't have to make a 5.9 move out of my aiders. aiiieeeee, so
scary!

But mostly, as you say, when there is quality free climbing I just get
all distracted. I know there's a ton of aid at Index but when there's
all those stellar free routes, I just can't seem to get around to it.
Not that I get around to the stellar free routes all that often either
these days; I mean why climb steep beautiful granite ten minutes from
the car when you could spend a full day schwacking into the Pickets
for a 7-pitch 5.8 instead? I finally got in there a few weeks ago and
can't WAIT to get back. But I am climbing like hostinghostinghostinghosting these days; it's
hard to keep your standards up when you spend three time as long
approaching as you do climbing. But WHAT a rad 5.8 and WHAT a
gorgeous setting!

>
>
> re:
>
> >> "Be a warrior dude, you gotta get your head together."
> our brother brett wrote:
> > Words for the ages.
>
> i see your point, and in that agree. hostingthough that said, from what i've
> read (like, The Iliad) and what i've actually witnessed (kinda like
> the Illiad), one is either a warrior or one has one's head together.
> but not both simultaneously. hostingthe two strike me as mutually
> exclusive.
>

thanks for the early morning laugh.




>
> me, i'd like to do the nose again this fall, this time actually NIAD.
> (i've done NI3D and NI2D). hostingi was thinking late september, early
> october, midweek. hostingbut i suspect that even then the crowds will be
> nuts. hosting hostingi'm thinking two souls, seconding with a pack <20lbs, jumars
> only to haul the impossible goofy pitches, otherwise cleaning what aid
> is required in a combination of (very) pink and in in clhostinghostinghostingic form
> (ie, no jugging). hosting i have this vision of talking our pal Ant into
> it. hostingi'm rather certain he'd be up to it - especially after a summer
> in tuolumne. hosting

Still sad that I missed Ant when he was up here. Even sadder that I
haven't spent my summer in Tuolumne. What a fabulous place. I too am
hoping to get down to the Valley in the fall and get on El Cap; hence
the "training" wall now. We'll see how it goes.


> it's remarkable how quickly one can loose one's fitness in one's
> dotage (i turned 43 in april). hosting

Yep. I came to the conclusion a couple years ago that the rest of my
life is just going to be an ongoing battle with (hopefully only minor)
injuries. I spend EIGHT MONTHS from last June until this winter in
Chile not climbing a thing trying to rid myself of tendonitis.
blech. Now it seems I would need to quit my job again to ever even
get back to my former not-particularly-impressive level.

everybody is a fooking genious and (at least claims)
> to have read everything

I'm reading The Sound and the Fury; it's rad. Kinda like some of your
digressions only harder to follow.


> oh sheeesh, i'm gonna be late for work. hosting oh god, i have work -- worse
> yet i have work where there are people who actually care when show
> up.

Work blows. I've been doing far too much working and not nearly
enough climbing lately. Although this past weekend after my second
consecutive 60-hour work week I managed to get away to Washington Phostinghostinghosting
with my friend Kat. We intended to climb in the Wine Spires but after
bivying in the parking lot at the overlook on Friday night we woke up
in the morning to many many mosquitos and just enough of that sort of
thick misty rain that we decided it would be much more fun to go climb
Prime Rib in the sun, so we headed on down to Mazama where we had a
great time making fun of all the bolts. Kat insisted she was going to
clip every single bolt on one pitch and it took 1/3 longer since you
could only make three moves before having to stop to clip another
one.

We ran into two other parties, both of whom I knew, and both of whom
had been rained out from somewhere else. We chatted with them a bit
and then went down and jumped in the river, where some folks offered
us their last beer. We got into a discussion about how dangerous
climbing is and in a brilliant moment Kat turned around and pulled
down the bottom of her swimsuit to show them her (very impressive)
scars from crushing her pelvis in an accident a year and a half ago to
prove her point that driving is more dangerous than climbing.

Afterwards we sat on the road in the sunshine drinking wine and eating
chips and getting up and dodging off the road when cars came by; then
it was off to the Twisp brewpub for dinner, where there was a band and
subsequently lots of drinking and dancing. We got up late the next
morning (quoth Kat: "Is it possible to still be drunk?"), and then
hiked up to Liberty Bell. After debating whether it would be more fun
to climb or just take a nap, we did the NW Face. Two super easy
pitches and two "real" pitches, then scrambling/simuling to the
summit. My real pitch was fun but heady climbing -- only 5.8 but not
a single piece I would have been interested in falling on. Kat's was
much better protected but I think I made it about as hard as possible
on second.

So nice to just goof around climbing instead of being all serious and
hostinghostinghostinghosting.

wait, you didn't really ask for a TR did you? too bad.

>
> um, so anyway, kellie, what big wall are you planning?
>
Note that I didn't actually say "big" I just said "wall." And if we
could actually climb at what I hear is a "moderate" standard it
wouldn't even be that, as it goes free at 12a. We plan to hit
University Wall up in Squish at the end of the month, 7 or 8 pitches,
C2. I'm sure it will be a highly educational experience; and here's
hoping there won't be a half-dozen 5.12 mutants waiting to get on it
as we aid slooooooooowly up the thing.

but for this weekend I'm off to Leavenworth. I hear there is a
potential FA on some choss over there called Cow Creek Buttress or
some such thing. How could anyone resist that?

btw sent you a link to the ANAM report for the lsd incident, it's
hilarious. The report preceding it was pretty funny too.

k

On Aug 8, 9:40hostingam, kellie <> wrote:
> > i'm no fan of aid climbing. hosting
> I suspect the same is true of me,

I've kinda taken a break from the aid thing too. Seems more like
work, and, less like climbing to me. Much rather do long free routes.

>hostingWe got into a discussion about how dangerous
> climbing is and in a brilliant moment Kat turned around and pulled
> down the bottom of her swimsuit to show them her (very impressive)
> scars from crushing her pelvis in an accident a year and a half ago to
> prove her point that driving is more dangerous than climbing.

A nearly simultaneous rise and fall of emotions as I read that...

Ha ha.

Great TR, btw!

> Note that I didn't actually say "big" I just said "wall." hostingAnd if we
> could actually climb at what I hear is a "moderate" standard it
> wouldn't even be that, as it goes free at 12a. hostingWe plan to hit
> University Wall up in Squish at the end of the month, 7 or 8 pitches,
> C2. hosting

I've looked at that. Be a great aid route for the less than proud in
free climbing ability. Great looking line.

Hope things are going great. I'm off to France for three weeks pretty
soon, for, hopefully a gob of climbing south and near Grenoble. Whoo
hoo!

Cheers,

-Brian in SLC

On Aug 8, 9:06hostingam, Brian in SLC <> wrote:
> On Aug 8, 9:40hostingam, kellie <> wrote:
>
> > > i'm no fan of aid climbing. hosting
> > I suspect the same is true of me,
>
> I've kinda taken a break from the aid thing too. hostingSeems more like
> work, and, less like climbing to me. hostingMuch rather do long free routes.
>
> >hostingWe got into a discussion about how dangerous
> > climbing is and in a brilliant moment Kat turned around and pulled
> > down the bottom of her swimsuit to show them her (very impressive)
> > scars from crushing her pelvis in an accident a year and a half ago to
> > prove her point that driving is more dangerous than climbing.
>
> A nearly simultaneous rise and fall of emotions as I read that...
>
> Ha ha.
>
> Great TR, btw!
>
> > Note that I didn't actually say "big" I just said "wall." hostingAnd if we
> > could actually climb at what I hear is a "moderate" standard it
> > wouldn't even be that, as it goes free at 12a. hostingWe plan to hit
> > University Wall up in Squish at the end of the month, 7 or 8 pitches,
> > C2. hosting
>
> I've looked at that. hostingBe a great aid route for the less than proud in
> free climbing ability. hostingGreat looking line.
>
> Hope things are going great. hostingI'm off to France for three weeks pretty
> soon, for, hopefully a gob of climbing south and near Grenoble. hostingWhoo
> hoo!
>
> Cheers,
>
> -Brian in SLC

Brian!! Good to hear from you; glad you're still killing it, as
clearly you are if you're going to France for three weeks. That
sounds like a lot of fun.

I'm going to suggest to Susan that we name ourselves "Team Less-Than-
Proud." hah!

Reminds me of when we were climbing the NE Ridge of Bugaboo and It
took us 13 hours camp to camp and although my original goal was just
to be one of the hostinghosting% who make it back in the daylight, it was hard to
be too self-congratulatory since two teams of 2 from Bozeman blew by
us on the route, and both climbed at least one other route that day.
One had done McTech to start the day and were heading for Sunshine
Crack afterwards (they said they were cold and tired so only did two
pitches of it though), and the other went on to climb an 8-pitch 5.10-
on Snowpatch afterwards. I said as much to Susan and she responded,
"Yeah, but I bet our combined age is greater than the combined age of
all four of those guys."

I'm not really sure whether that was supposed to make me feel better
or not.....

On Aug 8, 5:59hostingam, "^,,^" <> wrote:


> to get back in shape in DC. hosting

oh yeah, dog, wtfeck are you doing in DC?

our sister kellie wrote, in part:
> oh yeah, dog, wtfeck are you doing in DC?

languishing...


~~~~
According to AskOxford (just a bit of the true OED, though mercifully
online and free -- oh, how i miss my 'micrographically reduced version
of the complete OED, which is currently languishing in dusty storage
locker):

"languish"
verb. (Origin: Old French languir, from Latin languere).
[1] grow weak or feeble. [2] be kept in an unpleasant place or
situation [3] archaic: pine with love or grief.


yup, all of the above.



^,,^

kellie wrote:

> btw sent you a link to the ANAM report for the lsd incident, it's
> hilarious. The report preceding it was pretty funny too.



You aren't missing much in not seeing the video of the upside-down lsd
aid climber. Our faithful pooch did a more than a good job of
describing the scene. Both videos are way too long and apart from the
brief bits of talking pretty boring, although I did laugh after the
first footage of helicopter coming up valley cut back to quiet at the
base, for all the world like a TV movie-of-the-week needing to kill
some time.

The ANAM used to and perhaps still does lead off the reports with
"contributory causes", ranging from terse: FROSTBITE (Alaska, Mt.
Mckinley), to you know this can't end well: SLIP ON SNOW, FALL INTO
MOAT, INADEQUATE EQUIPMENT, CLIMBING UNROPED, INEXPERIENCE
(Washington, Mount Constance), but what do you call:

" At 0915 on August 10, 1984, Larry West (37) and Darrell Nielson
(36) left the Lupine Meadows parking area for a climb on the Petzoldt
Ridge of the Grand Teton. Nearing the spring on the first switchback
up from the Valley Trail junction, Larry noticed some mushrooms that
he thought were of the same variety that he and a friend had eaten
before. There were about five of them in a small, damp grove just off
the trail and they washed them off and Larry ate two and Darell ate
just one. They both had not eaten very much at all that morning.
An hour later as they were approaching the Surprise Lake
drainage, Larry mentioned that he felt sick to his stomach. Further
along, travel through the section of boulders past the Platform area
became more difficult as they both felt very dizzy and their vision
was distorted by not being able to focus on just any one thing. Thirty
meters below the Meadows camping area, they dropped their packs and
Larry vomited. They slept for a while, became unable to control their
extremities, experienced a dreamlike level of consciousness, and
Darell laughed for extended periods of time. Realizing that they were
in trouble and convinced they might die, Darell tried to get up to the
Meadows for help, but fell and twisted his right ankle."

?

Anyway, the point is, sometimes a few words get the job done quicker
than several thousand frames of video.



Thanks for the stories.