Just find a rock with some cracks in it, and fiddle around with those small stoppers. put em in with a biner or a sling attached and pull on them from different directions. You will start figuring out how they work.
You dont even have to climb , just practice on what you can reach from the ground. Placing protection and being confident in it is one of the most important parts of climbing. You have had good teachers so far in Ken and Ed.
Just remember you have a child and you should be very careful.
The big something soon to be associated with my very own newly acquired ascenders is an enormous tree in my mom's backyard. I'm convinced I need to learn how to get myself out of trouble above all else...know thyself...or so it goes.
Laughing WITH you. Fact is, too many climbers these days don't know basic self rescue. They are 'Gonna die fer sure'.....
Getting up, getting down, moving around. You need them all.
Probably(!) make some good disco lyrics, too.
Rock on, DoltishLady. Hehe.
Thanks for the email, Lila. Didn't lurk into this one on the Forum...
Looks as though you'll be ready for Anders/Ed (the Dark Side) & the Mad Bolter (even Darker Side), for sure!!! Chuckle, Chuckle....
Yeh, send me your rent bill!
Climb SAFE & OFTEN Audrey (& Muppet and Husband, maybe)!!
Probably a few Old Timers (i.e., Vulgarians, even though they are from NYC, THE HORROR!!) that met/knew your Dad... & would love to meet you....
PS: MisterE/JTM, I was just going to bring my gifts to the Chapel, then leave. But one thing lead to another, so I rode with Ed to El Portal for a GREAT TIME!! What a LOVELY COUPLE!! Thank You again for your understanding & my reprieve!?!?!...
lilabiene
hey i am occasionally in your area. my folks live in southborough...a few miles down route nine past framingham. i am here now for a few more days and the weather looks like shite for climbing (due to extensive stays in cali i have become soft), but i will be back in the end of may.
sooo...if you are looking for a climbing partner, i am occasionally around.
peace,
j
Well, Lila, you've been duly warned! But as you already know, the SIDE OF LIGHT, (not to mention "The Range of Light!") will always OVERSHADOW THE DARK SIDE! (Thanks for the "Rewind..." recommendation!) I remember trips across L.A. to the Sport Chalet spending all our extra $ just as you have! Then we worked a Chouinard's Skunkworks to earn our hardware. Ahh! The addiction!!
There's more that I've been squirreling (as Ben so aptly phrased that!):
Modest acquisitions...thanks for the extra rope, Mouse ")
Credit: LilaBiene
I'm trying to avoid buying a bunch of stuff I'll never use, so I've bought a handful of things with the idea of playing around with them and trying to establish some kind of color-coordinated system and materials preferences so that I don't sink the proverbial financial boat.
GLEE: :D
tinker b: Hey, that'd be awesome!!! Weather should be better in May, though it is NE...lol.
BooDawg: Here's the thing about the dark side...I'd have to give up the Ring.
Mr. Villain: Eh-hem. Your warning is a tad LATE, don't you think?! I am SO screwed.
Depends. Since the cure (a crater) is worse than the disease.
The good news is that some people have lived full and satisfying lives with a climbing addiction by avoiding "the way of the gumby". Some climbers have even dabbled in gumbyism a bit and escaped unscathed,... (well OK, most of us did), but this is not advised.
But get some sling material, you don't want to be cutting up those sewn ones.
(and please, its Toker not Mr. Villain, aren't we still friends?)
Oh, but I liked Python R so much better! :D Just yankin' yer chain a bit...
Here's a doofus question (and for anyone that considers making fun of me, I have no fear of asking stupid questions because of the alternative to NOT asking them):
They are correct though, LilaB. I mostly use 9/16 tubular for slings,though I also have a few 1 inchers, & 1/2 for tieoffs. You won't need any of the 1/2's(for a bit, anyway).
The only stupid question is the one that you don't ask.
Careful - it's pretty slippery!
The rope will be handy when it's warm enough to climb. :-)
The last time I was there (way back in the day), it was with a bunch of fellow students, and I set up the ropes. But there was this one cute girl with long black hair who just started soloing up one of the faces, simply unaware of how slick it was and how quickly you can pop off. I noticed one of the strapping young lads was watching her incredulously as well. I just told him, "Go stand below her and catch her when she falls." He walked over, put his arms out, and shortly after she plunged and he caught her like it was nothing!
One of those great moments in climbing that you just can't script.
You and Muppet got that old 9 all untangled. Welcome to the spaghetti club! You know I got that from Ron Skelton via Mark Tuttle. I think Ron got it from Pettigrew who got it from Bridwell. :)
It hasn't quite got the history your Dad's rope has, but you'll make some of your own using it, I hope.
Your journey's just beginning, you know, so don't use up all your curses yet. You have a unique spot in our sport, a person being coached by some of the best in the business. I hope that the advice which you receive is taken and used by lots of others who may read these pages seeking knowledge and inspiration. It's one very good reason for the Taco's being, after all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfCqsPP3-yc
Here's a song for you, since you love the Shire. It's travelling music-- and we all want to visit and climb and pick up litter with you again when the stars conjoin in that manner...
Don't start buildering, dear. You are an officer of the court, for gosh sakes! HA!
HA!!! LMAO!!! MisterE, that skit is hilarious!!! Going to have to bookmark it. After I watch it again. ;D
Clint: Thanks for the head's up about the terrain. I'm fairly wary of NE rock generally having spent much of my time during summers growing up entertaining myself on rocks above & below the tide line. It's one thing to lose your balance on such rocks, but an entirely different story when your landing involves barnacles.
Crusher: Unfortunately, there was no companion book to my edition. But that looks like a total hoot! ") I confess that I look at buildings and overpasses, etc. in a whole new way...even the muppet calls out from the back seat whenever she spies a nice, big rock! I'll have to do some digging to see if I can find a copy somewhere. When I bought the book originally, it created a problem because it didn't have a price marked -- well, I wasn't going to leave without buying the ONE thing I went in to buy in the first place (lest my excuse for stopping in go "pouf"!).
As for Hammond Pond, I'm not so sure I'd call it a "cliff", but that's probably just as well. This time of year I'd want to ski it, anyway. Sigh. We have a baaaaad case of cabin fever. Spotting the rocks yesterday was a nice boost. I guess it's as good a time as any to investigate this so-called "sling material"...or maybe we'll head out to see if we can find some rocks in Miss Peabody's woods... :D
Probably a few Old Timers (i.e., Vulgarians, even though they are from NYC, THE HORROR!!) that met/knew your Dad... & would love to meet you....
Locally, we still have myself, Claude Suhl, Dick Williams, and Al DeMaria from the VMC, all of us still climbing even if none of us live in NYC anymore. A few more retired-from-climbing Vulgarians are scattered about nearby, Art Gran, Dave Craft, Roman Sadowy to mention three. All of us were contemporaries of Dolt, but I don't know if any of us knew him personally. I didn't, but I owned a few of his marvelous pitons, which were so gorgeously crafted it seemed criminal to abuse them by actually driving them into the rock. They abide, in pristine condition, somewhere deep in the cluttered recesses of my attic.
If you come down to the Gunks, pm me and I could try to gather a few of the old folks for a meeting, or we could all go out for some climbing if you'd like---scratch up some of that shiny gear you got there.
Beautiful day in Beatown today...we went for a short hike in Miss Peabody's woods. Found a single fabulous boulder with all kinds of problems to solve without getting too far off of the ground.
Goofy
Credit: LilaBiene
My penance for derailing the hike to scramble up the rock...
You'll not need the surfer's dictionary--you live in the wrong place.
This photo of Bill was taken by Tom Frost, and was given to us at the Oakdale Climbers Festival. It is impossible (at least at this point!) to put into words what it feels like to hold this picture in my hands.
Credit: LilaBiene
It STRUCK ME, how much alike you and Bill look. (But I couldn't locate this picture till today.)
Maybe that's his thing: He can't stand the competition!?
You'll be leading 5.8 before you know it. You will because you'll have to to keep up with Camila!
A PINK (woohoo!) t-shirt with Mama's daddy's name on it!!! (Note Crusher's book, open to the pages with the picture from the Totem Pole that's been on the sofa since Saturday when she got her first pair of rock climbing shoes...) :D
Credit: LilaBiene
The muppet donning her wonderful "surprise" in the mail from GLee. She put it on every night last week when she got home from school. Well, that, and her glass slippers. ;D
Mouse, you know you're absolutely right...she's out on our porch doing donuts @ the moment. I'd better go make sure she's not rapping off of the railing...
:D
P.S. GLee, she LOVED getting the postcard, too!!! Thank you so much.
Let us know!