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Jerry Dodrill
climber
Bodega, CA
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Sep 21, 2007 - 01:43pm PT
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TR coming soon. I'm buried in work right now.
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tradchick
Trad climber
White Mountains
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Sep 21, 2007 - 06:08pm PT
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Chiloe: We say you guys on Sky Streak from the road on the drive in. We were going to do Hotter than Hell and Inferno, thinking it would be dry but headed for Interloper on the slabs instead. Sounds like we made a good choice if there was rockfall to the left of you guys.
Have you done Jacobs Ladder yet? 10c face climb, 3 pitches, left of Cold Day.
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 21, 2007 - 06:12pm PT
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Nope, I don't even know where Jacobs Ladder is, sounds like I should look it up.
Interloper, I remember that as a good stout slab route. Lower crux little crystals, upper crux bouldery? Leslie and I might be up the slabs Sunday, looking for a low-traffic route (but not that one).
From what we could hear, a lethal rock fell but fortunately hit nobody. There were several parties in the general area of Inferno.
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tradchick
Trad climber
White Mountains
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Sep 21, 2007 - 06:13pm PT
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Jerry - Did you guys do the overpass from the beast flake back to start the last pitch? We heard the overpass stays wet for a few days and were trying to avoid the chimney and that's how we ended up on Whitehorse.
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Jerry Dodrill
climber
Bodega, CA
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Sep 21, 2007 - 06:28pm PT
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Uh, I don't know. From the top of the flake we climbed down right, across a steep exposed void, liebacking up into the corner. It was dry. Wet down lower, getting across into the flake, stepping left into underclings though. Was my first time there, so I don't know what I'm talkin' about.
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Tomcat
Trad climber
Chatham N.H.
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Sep 22, 2007 - 04:02pm PT
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Chiloe,Jacob's Ladder is the leftmost route that starts up the gully from Hotter than Hell/Cold Day in Hell.There is a small birch and steep stance to start with a step right onto a face.P1 is 9+ overlap to ledge.P2 is two mostly bolted face steps,one like 20' and the next is a little more.The last pitch(we do it as one with doubles)is the money pitch,up a black coarse face to a small stance below the left side of the overhang.One bolt sans hanger,do the wire thang.We just clip the anchor and do the last 35'as one,up an excellent steep exposed face,really cool situation.NeClimbs reports that bit at 10c but we find it 5.8,dunno why.Tradchick and I did it for our first date.
Cold Day you probably know,the arcing bolted line left of Hotter than.10a....link it to Tranquilities upper finger crack,or pull out all the stops and fire that spicy bulge at the top,this is a quality link up.
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 22, 2007 - 08:18pm PT
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Sounds like fun. We're thinking about the slabs for tomorrow, haven't actually been up there in years.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Sep 23, 2007 - 01:24pm PT
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The Henry Barber thread elsewhere made me recall doing Subline (5.10d) at Ragged Mountain while building the Go Vertical gym in Stamford, Connecticut. I am always stoked to get on Barber routes when I have the chance. I recall minimal pro, off balance moves and a keen awareness of groundfall potential up high. Had a wonderful time! Any of you gents roll the dice on that one?
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Aya K
Trad climber
New York
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Sep 23, 2007 - 04:34pm PT
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I know I promised a TR when I got some photos, but I don't have too many so it's not that exciting anyway. Unfortunately, the stuff that should have been exciting turned out not to be, but what are you going to do? I pretty much ripped this striaght from my blog because I'm lazy.
At the end of August, Joe & I drove down to Bedford, PA, where my family was having its annual reunion. My father rented out an entire 520 acre sheep farm, and the whole situation was pretty sweet. We had our own bedroom and bathroom right off the porch with the hottub. Apart from the three straight days of pretty hardcore partying with my family (my cousins, my uncles, my aunts... all of them outdo me by far! I was good for one night only!), the highlight was probably the day we went golfing at the Bedford Springs Resort. $140 a round- but Arnold Palmer was there. I don't even need to get into the round we played; that would take ages. I was winning until the 13th hole, though, when the heat and lack of sustenance finally caught up with me and the wheels just totally came off. We got back around dark (we'd started at 2PM) and the round involved, apart from Arnold Palmer, a lot of balls lost in the rough, and my cousin's husband hitting a kid in the face (he was hidden up a hillside behind a tree!).
At any rate, on Monday morning we closed up the house and took the two and a half hour drive down to Seneca. We arrived a little after noon, in the heat of the day, and pulled into the parking lot to grab a quick bite to eat from the cooler (grilled corn, homemade refried beans, chilaquiles) and then proceeded to lay on the picnic tables and watch climbers. And watch, and watch, and watch. It was just too hot and humid out to contemplate much else, nevermind that one of us was feeling slightly hungover (and *I* did not drink the night before). At some point when the sun started going down, we headed over to the Southern Pillar and Joe somehow found his way up a 5.8, Block Party. The rock is orangey, blocky quartzite that basically looks like you took the gunks' Madame G's and turned it on end. Either way, I think it was a 5.8 *wink* *wink* rather than a 5.8, and pretty strenuous; I don't think i'd have led it. The air in the little amphitheater was stifling so we quickly ducked out, grabbed some pizza and crashed in the back of the truck. It was perhaps not the best introduction to Seneca, but not too bad. I'm not really sure what I was expecting; I didn't know much about the area except that it had a similar quartzite to the gunks except stood on end, with all vertical cracks rather than horizontals. I think I may have been expecting more of a climbing community and a bit more of a town, but basically I guess you have the cliffs, a couple of campgrounds, a couple of general stores and that's pretty much it.
The plan for the next morning was for me to lead West Pole, 5.7+ while the west face was in the shade in the AM, then Joe to do Madmen Only, 5.10, and then to duck to the east face in the afternoon for me to do something else of my choosing. The stairmaster getting up to the climb nearly killed me and I was about ready to call it quits right then and there. It wasn't the steps (beautiful staircase!) so much as the humidity; I must have lost 2 liters of water in just the walk up alone, nevermind my gimpy knee.
At any rate, West Pole was a mega classic moderate, going through a couple of roofs before finally arriving at the top. I did it in one short pitch and one long one; the only difficulties were at the first roof. Not so much because it was difficult but because Joe freaked me out with horror stories of people crashing back into the slab below and breaking various limbs. I got a pretty bomber nut slotted in, though, and there were no worries. I guess Joe had some issues actually getting my nut OUT though. I'd slid it through a crack and so it wasn't something that could be hit out with a nut tool; he had to get in there, lift it up and slide it back out, and I guess his hands were a little bigger than mine and so he had problems getting at it. Since West Pole is so well travelled, the rock was really nice and clean, and very solid.
At the top, we met up with another couple whom we let rap on our ropes; this procedure ended up taking a bit longer than expected and so by the time we got our ropes pulled and we soloed up over the gunsight notch to the base of Madmen Only, the sun was threatening to creep over and start beating on us. Madmen Only didn't go quite so well for Joe as West Pole had for me. He will kill me for divulging this, but the cursing started almost immediately thereafter. The startled looks from the Johns Hopkins students across the way shortly ensued, and finally I noted the father and small child looking up the telescope at the base at us. I won't reiterate his rantings, but I think the humidity had a lot to do with the problems. After he got through the difficulties down low (mostly consisting of figuring out how to get atop a sizeable, really friendly looking block, the true deviousness of which I didn't fully appreciate until I tried to move after the big sigh of relief I had breathed when I grabbed the huge incut jug behind it), he ran into more problems up high. A traverse move across the face was to bring him to the anchors, but he didn't have any gear to protect it. He clipped in, untied, lowered the rope and I sent some micronuts up to him. Sweet! The move takes you to a hole that goes fully through the fin that forms the north peak, which is only about two feet thick at that point and quite loose. In a word, scary! Screw it, I pulled on gear down low (Joe doesn't know that and he doesn't get on the internet so hopefully it will stay that way). We were basically done after that climb; we'd taken too long and gotten caught in the sun. We scampered back down, took a dip in the swimming hole (passing a little girl who said hey, we saw you climbing! saw, or heard?), and finished the day with a quick run up Judgement Seat (5.10). Joe redeemed himself on that climb! It's got a very cool, very slopy seat right in the middle of it, and getting off of it everyone seems to do the same thing - reach up into the perfect hand crack above and just slide their hand around for a while, realizing that it's too perfect and slippery and harder to jam in than expected. We had subs for dinner and crashed in the back of the truck again.
Breakfast the next day was amusing, as I listened to a woman at Yokum's start in on a loaded topic: religion. She started off by announcing that last summer, she'd worked with an atheist. He was a nice boy, mind you, but an atheist. She was just waiting to get into it with him, though, of course, to be as simpleminded as to be an atheist to begin with, she wasn't expecting much of a fight. After all, no atheist, with all their supposed and self-proclaimed genius, had ever been able to answer he one question.
Ah, I wonder, what will this be?
Rainbows.
Rainbows?!
God said that He made them as a promise that there would never be another flood. So if God said He put the rainbows in the sky for us, and we have rainbows, how can you explain them if you don't believe in God? I have to admit, her logic is impeccable. Her premise is flawed, but the logic impeccable. Her coffee wasn't too bad, either.
At any rate, with some good toast and eggs in us (btw, in WV you put mustard on your breakfast eggs and sausage. Not ketchup.), we set out climbing. Scary as the rock quality at the top of Madmen Only was, it was NOTHING compared to what we encountered on our climb the next day: Circumflex. The route (5.9) climbs through a huge, circumflex shaped (go figure) roof on the Euro Wall. From the ground, it just screams PLEASE CLIMB ME! (upside down v-shaped roof on the left wall in the photo)The approach is not bad, though it's described as exposed and scary in the book, and I settled down at a tree at the base. Joe half heartedly offered to let me lead, but I really didn't feel up to it. Good thing. From the getgo, it's "5.9 MY MOTHERF*#KING ASSWIPE!" and it degenerated from there. All angular blocks that are slippery and slope in the wrong directions, the climbing is never secure, the rock is never really secure, the gear frequently sucks (the potential for a 50 foot whipper is very real) and it's all terribly exposed. Fine. What was going through my mind while I belayed? The whole climb is on the Euro Wall, which is basically a big, 4 foot wide at the top fin that's detached from the marginally wider fin of the North Peak and all overhangs slightly. The whole thing could go! After what seemed like hours, with a lot of cursing (and maybe some pulling on gear - I didn't see it!), Joe got to the top and I started up after. It went ok for the most part, though I was scared to even weight the rope when I couldn't loosen a yellow TCU (it seemed like whatever Joe was anchored in to at the top couldn't possibly be secure and I was afraid!). The crux roof, just to the right of the apex of the circumflex went ok; I think I got some intermediate crimpers that Joe didn't. I tweaked sometihng and my index finger goes numb to this day, but no biggie. The scariest part was the top - the 4 foot leap across the gaping chasm of No Dally Alley. Even with the top rope I was a good ten minutes of hemming and hawing. I can't even imagine what Joe, with all the rope drag of a 180 foot pitch behind him and NO gear (he even used his gear sling as a draw) was thinking. I didn't have the mental energy after FOLLOWING that climb to contemplate leading something, so we decide to hightail it out of town. Too hot, too humid, too scary, whatever. We were bailing. It was Wednesday, I had to be back at work on Friday morning, and it seemed unlikely that it'd be much more pleasant to climb on Thursday.
We stopped by to say hi to Tom Cecil (runs a local guide service), who told us he reckoned that Circumflex had been climbed 20 times total (a little exaggeration perhaps??) and gave us some kudos for climbing a scary and rarely repeated route, a couple of t-shirts (http:www/tradclimbing.com) and sent us on our way (can you believe the man's enver climbed in the Dacks??). We driove the rest of the afternoon and got to the gunks that night where we hoped it will be cooler. Thursday was unfortunately not much cooler nor less humid, but we tried to catch some shade in the Nears. It was midweek and the cliffs were empty except for us and the dogs. Since I didn't get my crack fix at Seneca, we figured we'd walk down to Eastertime Too, which I had not climbed. Figured that another party was racking up for it as we arrived. The only other party at the cliffs. Ah well. I headed up Boston Tree Party (5.8) instead, and was stymied for a bit by some thin face moves up top once you pull around a roof. Me? Stumped by face moves?... what's going on?? Joe's corrupted me, I guess.
Eastertime Too(5.8+) presented no difficulties, and was a very nice, typical gunks crack: A lovely, jammable crack with a multitude of face holds that make the crack almost extraneous if you're not a crack climber. Joe sent Good Friday Climb(5.9), which was nice, too, and on our way out I scampered up Grease Gun Groove(5.6) to finish off the day. Not too shabby for an 11AM start and 4PM finish. I went back to the city to work for the next week or so.
A couple of weekends later I was up in the Dacks for a wedding.
This is Slim Pickens, a crack/corner at the Spiders Web in the Dacks. Mostly the web is a bunch of overhanging, beautiful cracks, but this one is a bit different in that it goes up the corner, turning into a stemming problem. Mellor rates it at 5.9+; realistically I'd drop the + (and I think the new Adirondack Rock book coming out next year does). Either way, Saturday morning before the afternoon wedding, but after the 7AM rainstorm that I thought would make the day a washout (can you believe the blue skies?!), I led it. No problems. Not to toot my own horn, because let's face it, it's only 5.9 and it's mostly an exercise in stemming, which as we all know is mostly footwork, which as we all know is apparently my forte, but all the same, I've only led a handful of other 5.9s on gear before (They Died Laughing over in NH and Wasp and No Glow down at the gunks) so it was pretty good to get up there so easily!
Joe's climbed everything at the Wed a gazillion times, but this is the chimney start to TR. I did it entirely differently, facing the other way and using face holds instead of stemming.
I partied really hard at the wedding that night and after we got back home; apparently I was dancing around on top of the picnic table alone for a good long time. Apparently I did some rollies, too, because my back was sore the next morning!! Some of the guides from Seneca had come up to visit and wanted to climbo on Sunday; it was pouring rain so we digured we'd give them a tour of the area, even if we couldn't climb.
The King Wall overhangs quite a bit (draws clipped to the bolts hang quite far from the wall) and so the boys took turns trying to get up an 11c called Kingdom Come. They both too whippers, too!
Thought Monday was going to be a washout, too, when it dawned as misty and miserable as Sunday did. We took a drive up to Poko just to show the boys, though, and as we were pulling up, the clouds broke and the sun came out. Sweet! (Image platantly stolen from Carl Heilman. Nice poster. I think I'm going to buy one) It's pretty amazing to me how few NYC climbers have climbed up in the Dacks, because the amount of quality climbing there is NUTS. There is sooooo much more than the gunks in NY, boys and girls! There're trad, sport, mixed, whatever routes, cracks, slabs roofs, everything! Get your butts up here! We figured we'd take a look and see if the rock was dry - it was - so we sent the boys up Gamesmanship, while Joe ran up the Sting. Both classic crack climbs. We then sent them up Bloody Mary in a single pitch (SWEEEET. Don't stop at the belay up there. Just do it!), and while they were on that, Joe gave me a choice between a bolted route called Casual Observer which he'd bailed off of the last time he'd tried to lead it and Fastest Gun, which I'd previously followed but not led. I was feeling a little ambitious because looking at the first route, it seemed manageable; Joe told me he figured that it was 5.10ish and so I grabbed some draws, and few small cams and set off. There was definitely a lot of whining and a lot of squealing; a lot of f*#k I'm pumped f*#k I need a rest oh man I still have to climb that far to get to the next bolt oh god can't I just lower here, but eventually, after slipping off while downclimbing to a rest under the third bolt (I thought that was the crux), I grunted my way through the climb. It's very cool, climbing a steep face on the ubiquitous dacks squarecut edges, then traversing left over a huge gap to another face up to a roof, then chimneying up between the wall and a jutting flake, and finally shooting up twin bulging cracks to the anchors. Jim Lawyer and Jeremy Haas give it a 5.10b in the new guide book they're working on (www.adirondackrock.com), but come on, I'm not leading Dacks 10b so I'll call it just 10. It was bolted, sure, but the only other 10s I've led were bolted, and they were either out west or at Rumney and so hardly count. Very draining physically, less so mentally. We went down and did the first pitch of something (I followed in my sneakers) and then Joe led the first pitch of Pilgrim's Progress, whcih I thought was marginally easier athn Casual Observer. I led it with Joe's draws in place (cheating) and it was pretty much no problem until the last move. That move rocks you right onto your foot with only bad, slopey little ripples on top of the bulge to hold you up; clipping risks knocking you off balance. I'll be honest; if I'd had to clip my own draws to the anchor bolts that move would definitely have taken me far, far longer than it did.
We climbed at the gunks last weekend after a wedding, and blah blah blah, we climbed a lot, but I did a few classics I hadn't done before, like Mainline (tried to do it in one, but ended up bringing up my belayer so he could see me while I pulled the roof) and Honky Tonk Woman (yay, my third gunks 9), as well as some crappy climbs like Twisted Sister (about 30 feet of solid 5.8 G climbing, and then some contrived bits, a long traverse across a ledge, and then a pitch of 5.6 R. Great. The Swain book calls the whole thing 5.8+ PG so I was stuck halfway up the 5.6 R section with no way to really bail, no gear below or above me, and dirty, dirty, dirty licheny rock and a ton of rope drag). I'm staying home this weekend to work on vet school apps, which are due in a week. I'm pretty stressed out.
I am totally looking forward to catching the tail end of leaf peeping in the dacks next weekend. If any of you northeasterners haven't been out to the dacks before, I think it would be the prime weekend to get in some rock there. Let me know if you're coming out that way!!!!
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 23, 2007 - 07:32pm PT
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Now there's a Northeastern TR with real mileage. Also eastern humidity and heat, the season for which is fortunately passing (up north anyway). You guys managed a good stack of high-effort leads despite conditions that would have persuaded lesser folks to go swimming. And westerners to stay west!
The weather could not have been nicer at Whitehorse Ledge today, where Leslie and I tiptoed up Slabs Direct/Wavelength.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Sep 23, 2007 - 07:42pm PT
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Jeepers Aya!
Get off your butt and put out a TR for us, won't you?
I'll have to print that one out for bedtime reading.
Nicely composed photo Larry,
Lots of sweeping atmosphere in that one.
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 24, 2007 - 08:58am PT
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Thanks! I was racing to catch that lighting while belaying with one hand. As you saw on the TM thread, I've been shooting the same model for, um, 35 years now.
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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Sep 24, 2007 - 12:56pm PT
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Lost soles should be right up there with the unicorn though a bunch easier. Duet Direct!!
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 24, 2007 - 01:23pm PT
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You got a photo of Duet Direct? I just have vague memories of a pretty layback corner with insecure small stopper placements.
Lost Souls, I know that one better. Here goes GO on the second pitch this summer.
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tradchick
Trad climber
White Mountains
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Sep 24, 2007 - 01:40pm PT
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Tomcat and I tossed that "best 5.10" question around this weekend. While Lost Souls, Last Unicorn and Duet Direct are all great, we think Loose Lips is pretty stellar especially with Ethereal as the start. Hard to beat that wild step onto the wall, then the thin face climbing on white granite followed by that perfect finger crack. The crack eases up just in time too.
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 24, 2007 - 05:36pm PT
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Yep, now that you mention it Loose Lips combined with Ethereal Crack or Seventh Seal makes a fine candidate too. What else have we got?
Snakefoot leading Loose Lips last spring:
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tradchick
Trad climber
White Mountains
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Sep 25, 2007 - 07:57am PT
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Chiloe: Nice pic of Loose Lips!! You get some great shots, what do you have for a camera?
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 25, 2007 - 09:45pm PT
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Thanks. All this recent stuff is just one-hand shots with a pocket camera, a Canon SD 550. I'd get the newer version with image stabilization if only this one would break, but despite mistreatment and many dents it has not (I did learn the LCD is not talus-proof, and after repairs covered it with a stronger piece of glass).
Jerry brought a real camera and photographer skills along on Last Unicorn, and put effort into setting up shots, so I'm look forward to seeing how the climb looked through his lens.
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climbingjones
Trad climber
grass valley,ca
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Sep 25, 2007 - 10:32pm PT
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Cool photos and good times. But I think you people would have more fun if you used more ropes when you climb. Maybe, say, one for each appendage. Maybe?
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Jerry Dodrill
climber
Bodega, CA
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Sep 27, 2007 - 03:53am PT
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A teaser will have to do for now
Chiloe leading off on The Last Unicorn.
Wootles cruising the third pitch.
More later.
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