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mike m

Trad climber
black hills
Topic Author's Original Post - Sep 29, 2016 - 08:59am PT
OK here's the deal! Post stories of examples of good writing here and vote here on who wrote the best. Each week somebody can count up who has the most votes and that writer will have internet fame for one week. Who's in?
mike m

Trad climber
black hills
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 29, 2016 - 09:04am PT
Here is my first entry with apologies to Jefe and Pate as I have reposted this before but it may have been one of the first things I read at ST but certainly one of the things that have affected me the most even though I know nothing of the situation he is talking about and at the time did not know anything about either person involved. But something about these few paragraphs really hit home for me. Much more so than yet another story of an awesome climb with bright glossy wonderful pictures. It was about the relationships that form while doing the things we love and how strong the pull of climbing is for some of us that have lived that way for a long time.

anyway here is my entry for this week.

Jefe,

All this talk of sandstone and desert granite gets my hands sweating and my mind churning again..... I've been thinking about climbing non-stop for a week now. I got so bogged down in clients and top roping the same crags I lost perspective on that real feeling of freedom and brotherhood. Same thing happened with skiing, and the Mountains in general.

I realize now how lucky I was to have banged around from Colorado to Utah to Arizona to California, and looked past my feet down the snaking rope hundreds of times to marvel at the places that my courage, heart and strength had gotten me to. In this temporary new life I am living I am constantly in contact with people who will never ever know what it really means to be free. To not live by another person's agenda. To live by the mantra that beaten paths are for beaten men. That sounds so cliche, but the choices we made in life have led us to a place in spirituality that so few can ever find.

When I tell the stories of the things I have done, there seems to be one question that comes to most of my listeners minds, "where were you working then?" They can't understand that the work has nothing to do with the life. Instead of living so that we can work, we work just enough so that we can live. My stories seem almost fantastical when I tell them, and I realize that the story never ends, that there is always the before and the after and all of these incredible experiences are tied together in one long timeline. We leave our marks literally in blood and sweat and tears in improbable high places, down long rivers, in lonely deserts.

The road I have chosen has had so many bumps and pitfalls, but when I look back I can find so many moments of clarity in seemingly simple moments. A fox disappearing down a vertical gully on Thumb Butte, an owl bursting from an offwidth at the Monitor Dome, a rattle snake sunning on a ledge 300 feet up in Zion. Fumbling out hand rolled cigarettes and steaming black coffee on frosty J Tree mornings. Coyotes sniffing my head through a tent wall. Powder so fine that it chokes you, linked turns further than your legs can carry. Laughing hysterically at the ridiculousness of eating frozen cookie dough from a tube, crammed into a three person snow cave with 5 people on top of a stormy 14er. A far reaching cast across flooded river to a trout nose that was barely perceptible. I have these things stored in my mind, I am a collector of views and experiences.

I know that there is a world that I fit in, and belong to, and that belongs to me. The things I have done may have led me back to my parents house in Boston, but my loop has been so long and intricate, I feel like I have lived lifetimes compared to the people who surround me now. An old line constantly comes to mind these days "my best vacation is your worst nightmare." That is us and them. What we see as a commonplace challenge, gasless, rideless, homeless, jobless, moneyless, others see as the end of days. Is it true that you can never be set completely free until you have experienced these things?

I'm never going to change brother, I'm always going to be a vagabond, the same person inside, and offer the same unbreakable loyalty and love to my true friends. I am struggling with how to be a parent and still live the true life, walk the righteous path. I thought that I needed to ween myself away from a never never land, but bro THIS PLACE is never never land. I'm not sure where I'm going, but I am sure that being back in touch with you has clarified a lot of important things to me. Be true to your heart and embrace yourself for who you are and what you have done. People may look at me and where I am right now and think how I have nothing, but I, at 39, have lived lives and lives already, had thousands of "once in a lifetime" moments. and I am going to have thousands more.

I'm feeling all contemplative because I am sitting in the lounge in a Sheraton in Portsmouth NH while Jen has a job interview for some development job. She went off this morning looking like a million bucks, after we had an incredible night together, and in the wake I am realizing how different I must seem to her. I love her so much, I know her so well, have wanted her for so long, but she is incapable of understanding the roads that I have been down. I keep trying to tell her that to me anything is possible, if you let go you will not fall, you will fly, and I don't think she can get her mind around it. It is a new situation for me in life to be dealing with people who can not see the magic of the free fall journey, who can not rest easy in the fact that on a grand scale it all just kind of works out. All these things have been swirling around in my head for a few weeks now......just need to flow this stream your way. I know you understand. Random but true at heart, always.

Love from your brother, Marc


Pate wrote this so one vote for Pate
16 ounces

climber
homer, alaska
Sep 29, 2016 - 09:56am PT
i'll try though my keyboard
is saturated in spilled beer
so some of the letter come out
al wrong or not a all...

ahhemm.


last week i blew the sidewall
right out of a vagina.

then i gave her my insurance
card and we came to terms.

and now she's fixed up
better than new
and i'm killed
and broke and
i don't want nown of
tomoroww anyway.
survival

Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
Sep 29, 2016 - 11:09am PT
Don't quite know how this should work. Do you remember the excellent Tarbuster thread?
http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=194810&tn=40


Anyway, randomly grabbed vote for rockandice from New York
Another Day in the Woods

Pogue maneuvered the car into the far corner of the parking lot where the guide book said the trail started. He turned off the engine and in a matter of moments began his ritual transformation from jacket and tie to jeans and leather boots. As he did so, he glanced at his watch; it was after mid-day, but there was plenty of time left to find and scout out the cliff. Pogue finished tightening the laces of his heavy leather boots.

The area was an obscure park and quiet on a March weekday afternoon in the Northeast. It was Tuesday and not another car could be seen in the lot. This adventure was a little reward Pogue allowed himself as a break from the nine to five work grind: a salesman’s perk on the road. He was out to take a look as he had done at so many other “off the beaten track” areas. It was just another reconnaissance mission to a forgotten and neglected crag. He left his shoes and chalkbag in the trunk of the car, figuring he probably wouldn’t climb anything. The moth always underestimates the lure of the flame. The cliff holds a minor place in local climbing history, and a few pioneering regional legends had deemed the area worthy of their attention once upon a time. The desire to explore it burned strongly, and he set out.

The first obstacle in his search presented itself right away. A swift, broad creek without a bridge required crossing. As a kid, Pogue Mahone had spent many hours pitting the skills of balance and nerve against the hazards of rushing water and slippery stone. Streams and creeks always provided welcome challenges that could usually be overcome with a little confidence and a bit of ingenuity and luck. The penalty for failure rarely amounted to more than a wet sock or two. After a bit of easy leaping, Pogue scrambled up the opposite embankment in a dry pair of boots.

A wave of excitement washed over him as he rounded a bend and his eyes first set on the small crag. It was always the same, that first rush of excitement. He felt that gnawing hunger for what might appear around the next corner. With this fresh coursing of discovery running hot in his veins, Pogue stalked along the base imagining the thoughts of those earliest climbers as they eyed the first lines that would go. He then touched the rock. No sooner had the moth put flesh to stone, than the urge to climb sang through him.

He pulled into the first moves almost unconsciously, automatically, though he soon awoke to insecure slanted holds, his heavy leather boots reluctantly adhering on rounded polish. He ignored the warnings to retreat. Once the boots had left the ground, they kept moving up. The handholds were there; they were just tenuous and slopey, offering little in the way of any truly solid purchase. He knew he was broaching a point of no return.

The boots moved on up, though, soon leaving the realm of cautious bouldering behind. The line topped out at around thirty feet with the difficulty well within Pogue’s ability. Still, those old leather boots began to remind him how accustomed he had become to sticky Spanish rubber. Spoiled, even, you might say. The next sequence of moves, though, had brought him a prize: a solid incut hold. “Yes, breathe, just breathe and know where you are,” he thought. At twenty feet he was more than halfway there. He paused a moment. To reverse the earlier nebulous moves by downclimbing now with those cumbersome boots was far less appealing than pushing on and finishing. Ironically, it is the co-mingling of fear and confidence that often drives the decision-making process. Within the context of self-assessed skills, you must decide what it is you fear the most and then act. Pogue, through long experience, knew fairly well his capabilities both physically and mentally. Today, he didn’t try to ward off any lurking demons of fear. Rather, he acknowledged them with familiarity, and yielded to them the respect due formidable adversaries. From previous battles he had learned that you don’t always prevail against these demons, but he also knew that he was more than capable of being their master.

The holds returned to dirty slopers and Pogue began to wonder when the last time anyone had done this route. The polish on the route evidenced much previous traffic, but the buildup of dirt suggested it had been long ago. A serious air began to creep into what should have been a casual affair. Pogue resolved to beat the demons. “No adrenaline”, he commanded. “You must not allow it. Keep moving and keep focused.”

Pogue climbed to within three feet of the top only to arrive at an impasse just short of salvation. He knew he was off-route, too. The easier finish lay three to four feet left from where he now found himself uncomfortably perched. He had deviated from the true line, fooled by some “red herring” holds to the right that put him onto this dead-end course which led to much harder climbing. The top was at once mocking him and beckoning to him earnestly. The ground was now an awful, long way down. As his leather boots scuffed around on sloping holds, Pogue began to feel his strength ebb. Once his momentum stalled, he knew he had only precious little time to act.

The moves confronting him to a direct finish were steep, thin, face moves that did not invite an immediate attempt. Some mere few moves to the left promised a “Thank God” handhold that offered an entrée back onto the path of least resistance. “Breathe. Just breathe,” he counseled himself in an effort to chase desperation back into dark recesses. No, the direct finish would not do. To regain the proper line looked tough, but he resolved to work left. Delicate footwork with indelicate boots would have to get him there. It had taken the eternity of almost half a minute to decide. A first tentative move left pinned his fate to reaching the “Thank God” hold.

He moved. First, one hand left, then a committing step left. One more move up diagonally, then a foot shuffle and…R-E-A-C-H. A long reach stretched sideways as his left arm shot out to the “Thank God” hold. It was simultaneously to be an instant of salvation and damnation.

Pogue heard it as much as he felt it. The pain and the sound intertwined; the stringy fibers of his left shoulder tore like a slowly twisted celery stalk crunching into uselessness. Yet, Pogue fought to finish the moves, somehow managing to hang on as his good hand quickly assumed the burden of keeping himself pasted onto the face. He was at the very finish of the climb with his head and shoulders breaching the top of the cliff. In the immediate aftermath of the shoulder trauma, some muscle function lingered for a brief few seconds allowing Pogue to splay his arm up and out across the top itself. Unfortunately, the arm was useless, except for the minimal friction of its’ own weight against the rock. Although this was something, the arm would be of no help in any attempt to perform the manteling exit moves required to finish the climb.

On some cruel level, Pogue laughed appreciating the comedy inherent in his predicament. “Out of the pan and into the fire,” he thought, just as he was so close. The fingers of his good right hand searched for any hold with which to pull those last few moves. Finding none, they searched for even an indent or weakness that might encourage a gamble. Nothing presented itself. All within reach was a water caressed rock tableau that was silky and smooth like the metal playground slides he remembered as a kid. Time was now a fleeting commodity, and he knew that swift decisions needed careful weighing. It was very simple, really. He would go up or he would go down.

Among the many wonders that climbing can bring us is the instant ability to distill the essence of life to the focus of a mere grain. Not many routine activities require such a concentrated immediate analysis of an individual’s wants and needs. All peripheral demands of life are suddenly stripped away. The human animal is simply left to struggle with the gravity of life and death either through reason or primeval instinct.

Unroped, alone, and injured. Clinging and tiring, Pogue began to bend to gravity’s demand for a timely decision and conclusion. The ground loomed far below and the earth’s pull was becoming more insistent with each passing second. Rest was not an option. Pogue had delayed as best he could, but a reckoning was now past due. His left arm was gone, and soon gravity would wrest all control from him.

The longer he hesitated, the less energy there remained for a climbing effort. From that height, the penalty for falling in mid-sequence would be severe. To fall and land with his body at an angle would mean critical or ultimate consequences from such a height. An off-kilter landing was not a desirable outcome amongst the dirt and rocks that littered the base. Finishing upward seemed to be an “all or nothing” gambit in trying to top out. The top was smooth and featureless. Just one single handhold might have allowed him to grovel up onto his stomach, and, perhaps, worm and thrash his way off. It was not there for him. To attempt the necessary finishing footwork while trusting those leather boots to get the job done was more than Pogue could ask of them.

Did Geronimo break his legs in his fabled leap? Pogue thought not, but reckoned that a broken leg might be more than a fair trade-off as a means of deliverance from this plight. That seemed fair enough. There would be no more climbing today. The odds of a slip seemed too great. If he was going to land, he was determined to do so in a manner of his own choosing, feet first rather than headlong. The decision was made. The legs were to be sacrificed for the good of the cause. In one fluid, relaxed, motion, Pogue released himself from the cliff, gently turning to orient himself to the landing. His fall time elapsed was longer than he thought it would be. Then, with a violent abruptness, the ground rushed to meet him, impacting squarely those large leather boots. Instantly, the rest of his body merged with the dirt and stone at the base of the climb.

Later, dried blood that dripped sideways on his face suggested he had lost consciousness for a bit. He couldn’t reconcile this, though, with his sense that no lapse of time had occurred between his impact and a curious realization as he lay sprawled among the dirt and rocks before the cliff: No wrenching pain of broken bone was evident. Oh, he’d felt better for sure, but he rolled over gingerly, and realized he could bring himself to his feet. Blood on the pebbles beneath him let him know he was not unscathed, but he was surprised that his legs had come through enough to allow him to walk away. A large gash above his eye and some overly taxed legs seemed a pretty good bargain. He’d been willing to pay a little more, but the salesman in him said just walk away from the table and take the deals when you can.

Slowly, he made his way back to the broad creek. With no deference to his earlier game, he plunged into the coursing stream, and walked steadily across splashing along in those big leather boots. He wondered how many stitches he’d need this time, as he ambled along, just another day in the woods.

mike m

Trad climber
black hills
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 29, 2016 - 02:48pm PT
Okay one vote for tarbuster as well. Somebody needs to break this tie after all the first weekly ST Writing contest and internet glory is at stake.
nita

Social climber
chica de chico, I don't claim to be a daisy.
Sep 29, 2016 - 05:06pm PT
*
*
Internet fame, Big deal....!

Throw some money or prizes into your contest..

I don't have a pot to piss in, and i offered prizes in my contest.
http://www.supertopo.com/climbers-forum/1118744/Easy-contest-for-all-6-word-memoirs-Round-two
hooblie

climber
from out where the anecdotes roam
Sep 29, 2016 - 06:46pm PT
uh huh ... STRIKE! for prizes
mouse from merced

Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
Sep 29, 2016 - 07:22pm PT

Mar 19, 2010 - 05:45am PT
I heard about Layton Kor in the Tetons in the early sixties. Layton was around the climbing camps, but I didn’t really associate with him directly very much. Every once in a while I’d hear another legend about him. In the Tetons I went with Joe Fitschen and his wife Linea over to Blacktail Butte out in the plains of Jackson Hole, where we tried to repeat a new route that Layton had done. The wall on Blacktail Butte is a steep flat piece of limestone with small sharp holds. We heard that Royal had repeated the route, but we didn’t get very far with it.
In Yosemite I had seen this tall energetic guy charging around Camp 4 and been told that he was the Colorado G4, the great giant gobbling granite. Being from Idaho I was happy to see someone else from out of state. I have this image of Layton charging up the hill towards the boulders in Camp 4 where the climbers usually camped, looking a bit like a race horse coming out of the gate. He seemed to have more energy than anyone I had seen before.
Layton came to me in Camp 4 one day and asked if I would like to go with him to do the second ascent of the North Face of Lower Cathedral Rock. I was surprised and honored that he would think to ask me. I mainly knew Layton by reputation and considered him to be the best of the best; so he didn’t have to talk me into it. He may have come to me because we are both mountaineers and this wall has loose, decomposed and dirty rock making it dangerous. Or perhaps nobody else wanted to go near that climb. The wall goes up for a pitch to a large difficult overhang. Then it goes straight up again behind a huge loose flake with no visible means of support, and on up to another huge overhang. Then it finishes off with some steep tenuous face climbing covered with lichen. The entire route overhangs the base of the wall. Layton warned me that it was probably the most dangerous Grade Six route. The first ascent by Robbins, Pratt and Fitschen took over three days. They had let it be known that this was a horror show that should not be repeated.
The night before as we sorted gear on a table in Camp 4, I was surprised at some of what Layton was bringing along. He had two steel-shafted CMI hammers of a sort that I considered to be the strongest available. He told me he expected to break at least one of them. He wondered if I also had a spare, which I did not. I just had the worn-out carpenter’s hammer that Jim Baldwin had given me after he dropped mine. Layton also put several big bunches of celery and carrots in our pack, a couple of weeks supply to my way of thinking. My usual preferred food supply was a bag of trail mix and some hard salami. I raised an objection and he told me not to worry, he’d take care of it.
Very early in the morning we were on our feet hiking rapidly down the valley towards the wall. We arrived at the base of the wall and roped up with our swami belts and Goldline. Before I could take a deep breath Layton was running up the first pitch, up a short distance and then a long traverse ledge out to the right. I wasn’t very comfortable traversing the long dirty ledge, but was pulled along by the sheer energy of his presence. I recall one move where I wanted to work it out a bit, and he said, ‘Don’t think about it, just do it!” That’s not my usual style and I was surprised when it actually worked and I didn’t take a long swinging fall.
In moments I was tied into his belay stance at the top of the first pitch and Layton was charging ahead on the second pitch. I will never forget watching Layton lead that pitch. I don’t have the words to describe the experience properly. Up until that moment I had maintained a fantasy of being one of the better and faster leaders on difficult direct aid. Layton was in a league I hadn’t even guessed existed. That pitch is severely overhanging, dirty, crumbling, wandering up a black series of ceilings. Most of the cracks are not really cracks, just seams in the rock; using RURPs and knife blades.
I might have been able to lead it with a lot of care and thought and time. Layton was obviously applying the motto he had just shared with me on the previous pitch. He’s hanging up there with his feet swinging around, hammering on RURPs with rapid full arm swings of his hammer. It’s completely unreal to me that those RURPs could hold him while he’s swinging around hammering the next shaky pin. Then several times he used my thin haul line to bring up some more groceries. So now he’s a few pins up above me, hanging on very doubtful RURPs, swinging his hammer like an angry woodpecker; with moss, lichen, and rock chips flying in all directions; and stuffing his mouth with celery and carrots.
About half way up the pitch, the hammer gives up. First the steel shaft bends and Layton swears at it. A few more unsympathetic whacks and it breaks and the head goes sailing away. Without breaking his pace Layton has his backup hammer in action as he exclaims about how that one was already worn out from the last climb he did. By the time Layton reaches the top of the pitch I am in a lifelong state of awe; and a large portion of the celery and carrots have been consumed. I needn’t have worried about hauling the extra weight in the pack.
Now it’s my turn to follow and clean the pitch. I clean the belay anchor pins and clip my aiders to the first pin. While I’m hanging on the next one and reach back to take out the first one, the second one that I’m standing on falls out, sending me swing out of reach of the first one, if I didn’t still have a sling on it. I have to reach back and bang it out while pulling on the sling. About that time the third pin pulls out before I even put my weight on it. It’s completely unreal how Layton with an extra hundred pounds got those things to hold his weight. I guess you’re just not supposed to stop and think about it! In any case the whole pitch went like that. I didn’t so much have to clean the pitch as just figure out some way to get my body upwards while everything around me was falling off. In spite of the sense of compressed time, it must have been early afternoon by the time we finished the pitch. I had heard about Layton yelling at his partners, but he was actually very pleasant to me as I struggled to follow him up through the grunge. In retrospect I am very curious how this pitch compared to some of the other wonders Layton is know to have performed.
Layton didn’t offer me the lead, and I wasn’t so rude as to ask. The third pitch was relatively straight forward. The fourth pitch was a precarious stack of loose blocks covered with lichen and dirt that we climbed with great care and respect. At about this point Royal showed up in his car and yelled up at us that no one should try climbing that wall as it was too dangerous. Layton yelled back that Royal should move his car before it got hit by falling rocks.
The top of that loose fourth pitch is at the base of a 300 ft flake magically stuck to the middle of the wall. I’m standing looking up at this remarkable guillotine while Layton disappears inside a cave and up behind the flake. As he wanders around in the squeeze chimney behind the flake, he calls out that he doesn’t see how I’m going to be able to get up through there with the pack. This pitch actually seemed to slow him down slightly and we are starting to run out of daylight. When it gets to be my turn I wander out of the high exposure into the mysterious realm of vertical spelunking. You can’t just climb straight up in there, because variations in the width of the chimney force you to explore back and forth to find a place where your body can fit through. At each move I was dragging or pushing the pack along with me. Now I understood why Layton was slowed down by this pitch; a big guy in a tight space. I gradually found my way up and left until I was standing on a couple of chock stones directly below Layton. Layton was standing on a small flake wedged crosswise above a mass of boulders at the left edge of the squeeze chimney.
At this point with the rope leading directly up, Layton offered to haul up the pack. Looking at another fifty feet of squeeze chimney, that seemed like a great idea. Then as Layton pulled the pack up close to his position it pulled across the stack of boulders that he was standing on. Somehow the pack knocked out a key stone and the whole stack started tumbling down the chimney straight at me. It was immediately apparent to both of us that I probably wasn’t going to survive this barrage of rocks coming down through the confines of the chimney. Layton was yelling something above the din of falling rocks like Oh God, I’m sorry! I was busy trying to apply rule number one when facing falling rocks – watch the way the rocks bounce and don’t be there when they make the last bounce. Except here there were lots of rocks making lots of bounces in a confined space. The chimney was a little bit wider where I was and there were two chock stones a few feet apart where I could hop back and forth. Somehow that was enough that I kept my wits under control and managed to dodge the bigger ones with about the same mind set as running a ski slalom race course. I was left standing with my face and hair full of grit and just a few scratches and bruises.
Layton was so upset with himself and apologetic. I pointed out that neither of us could have anticipated what happened and he didn’t need to beat himself up about it. Particularly since all I got out of it was sand in my eyes. I was pretty drained at that point both physically and emotionally. I worked myself up the squeeze chimney to Layton and he tied me into the anchors. We both sat down on the flat slab, which was now perched on we knew not what, as it was now dark and we had no flashlight; but at least it was still perched. I got the inside perch jammed with my back into the chimney. Layton got the outside with his long legs. I was too tired to even check the anchors, which he assured me were not very good anyway. So we tried to get some rest. Layton kept getting cramps in his legs. Each time one of us moved the slab would go clunk like a restaurant table with uneven legs. I tried to keep myself wedged in well enough so that if our perch fell apart we’d still be there in some fashion.
At the first sign of visible light, without a word, I had Layton on belay and he was moving up the second half of the squeeze chimney. Another couple of pitches above the flake went by mechanically, with the second one taking us over the second barrier of overhangs; still difficult, but not in perspective to what we had already been through. I remember the two of us standing on a small flat ledge right at the top edge of that second big overhang way out from the base of the big wall. We were starting to relax and Layton told me it was the most exposed position he had ever been in before. I was surprised and asked him if that included El Cap. He said yes it did because we jutted so far out from the wall we had just climbed and there was no way we could ever consider going back down that way. We just stood there for a little while chatting and looking across the valley at the sun on El Capitan. The one remaining pitch is bare, unprotected, and lichen covered. But we just took our time very carefully as falling in that unprotected spot is not something anyone would want to do. We’d done the route in a day and a half.
There is a large ledge just below the scramble to the summit. We sat for a little while and stretched out and sorted our gear. Then we scrambled down the Gunsight Notch between Lower and Middle Rocks. Layton had torn out the seam of his pants and didn’t want anyone to see him. So I went ahead of him down the trail and signaled each time some tourist hikers came along so he could run up and hide among the trees. When we got back to Camp 4 he changed his pants and we went over to the Mountain Room in the Lodge, still looking scruffy. Layton ordered several steak dinners. As we sat there chatting, we noticed that waiters were setting up tables next to us with more settings. We laughed and let them know that we were not expecting anyone else. We hobbled back to Camp 4 and split up to our separate camps in the early evening. I couldn’t tell you how long I slept, but by the time I woke Layton was probably off doing another climb.
Tom Cochrane

"A very enjoyable read."--Tarbuster

"Two thumbs up if I had 'em."--Mouse

No redeeming social value, useless, in fact; but a helluva story.

A bookmark in the mail would be a nice catch.
mike m

Trad climber
black hills
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 4, 2016 - 11:44am PT
Sorry internet fame is all I got. Gotta do it for the love man.
Ksolem

Trad climber
Monrovia, California
Oct 4, 2016 - 12:52pm PT
This looks like fun, but if Largo chimes in it's game over...
j-tree

Big Wall climber
Typewriters and Ledges
Oct 4, 2016 - 03:16pm PT
Gardening on Los Banditos

From second pitch bolts I am ten white pins at the end of a bowling alley. Dixie leads above me up a water streak of black moss, leaves, dirt, and breaking rock. 5.7 run out climbing with the optional knob slung here and there. I hold the printout of the route description in one hand, holding down the cam of the grigri with the same hand’s wrist while I pay out more and more of the rapidly disappearing rope. “Ten feet!” I yell up at her. The printout in front of me says 195’ for the third pitch. I am doing metric conversion to feet for 60 meters of rope when Dixie responds to my yell of the remaining rope.
“ROCK!” I hear the familiar helicopter whomp whomp of rocks coming from above me. This one has a deeper tone than I’ve been hearing. I have moments of inaction before my mind stops converting metric to standard and instead converts pitch to size. I flatten myself to the wall as a rock that was once the size of a grapefruit bounces tot he right of me, shattering into smaller golf balls and continuing its crashing helicopter imitation towards the ground. Dixie yells again and I get comfortable as more rocks tumble past, these smaller and hitting me as dust by the time they reach me. I think of Ash Wednesday. Dixie yells again, “Did you say something?”
“Five feet!”
“I’m at the bolts!”

Once I begin to climb, I feel like a scuba diver. The rock is alive with pancaked fungus and blackened flakes that look like leaves. Orange piecrust that looks no different from the epoxy spilling out in a halo of security around all of the bolts. I am at odds as to whether the ease of flicking the orange mold off the rock affects my faith in glue reinforcement.
I am instituting a new style of climbing: windshield wipers of rubber with my feet. Every step slides back and forth to clear the step. Still they crinkle like the unwrapping of a present as I step on the holds. My hands are tentative with each new hold that flexes and cracks in my hand. I can no longer see the meadow below me and now must worry about who might be below us. I am in a minefield that’s more like a mine garden. I wish for a leaf blower.

At the belay Dixie asks me if I noticed a specific loose rock that she had to avoid. “I left it there because it wouldn’t fit in my pocket.” When I was at that point in the climb, I had counted six different protruding rocks that were standing on a ledge, threatening to jump at any time. I had made stemming moves far above the grade of the pitch to avoid weighting them, all the while converting the distance Dixie would have been above the last bolt when making the same moves then doubling the distance, as any lead fall would require. Forty feet.
“Good lead.”
“It was like climbing through a pile of leaves.” She was smiling and looking at the next pitch. “It reminded me of when we used to rake leaves up back in North Carolina and jump into the pile. People used to leave piles in front of their house for the county to pick up and we would jump into those too.
“That sounds a bit more fun that this pitch was.” She crinkled her nose when she smiled
“But then they had to stop putting their leaves like that because the piles would be partly in the road and someone would put cinder blocks under the leaves. Then, if a car drove through the pile, they would hit the cinder blocks.” Now my nose crinkled. “I think I may have missed a bolt.”
“There’s supposed to be knobs you can sling.” I thought of the various chicken heads, attached to the rock by piecrust epoxy.
“I didn’t even think of that. I guess there were some big breadboxed sized ones that would have worked.” She had instinctively taken out a sling and was practicing girth hitching it to her fist. “The bigger the better, right?”
“Solid as cinder blocks.”
Lynne Leichtfuss

Trad climber
Will know soon
Oct 4, 2016 - 08:12pm PT
"If Largo chimes in the game is over."

Hmmmmm, not really, just step it up.
There's always room for expansion and new techniques......I think. :)
Spider Savage

Mountain climber
The shaggy fringe of Los Angeles
Oct 4, 2016 - 09:36pm PT
If Russ Walling chimes in....


we will all be blowing cheese from our noses.
thebravecowboy

climber
The Good Places
Feb 13, 2017 - 06:48pm PT
They were grunting like constipated boar-hogs

The Co-Presidents of the USA, quite a pair by any definition, locked on in "The Mattress Room" at the glitzy Mar-a-Lago, by the ever-rising sea. The great floor-to-ceiling oaken double doors slammed shut behind the excited couple, and the heady hiss of air purifiers could be heard.

Outside of the Moscow press corps, few in the American Fifth Estate had been privy to the Marvelous Menopausal Maelstrom bent on consummation.

"I tell you, Frank, I've spent weeks behind a telephoto lens on the Serengetti, and never saw the likes to those two," Breitbart's Outdoor Editor said, awe in his voice. "I know damn well it ain't right, but, hell, it brought tears to my eyes."
SteveW

Trad climber
The state of confusion
Feb 13, 2017 - 08:42pm PT

I wanna hear/read another of 'L's stories!!!!
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