More Mud Nailing--Sugar Daddy first ascent--TR

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Studly

Trad climber

Mar 9, 2009 - 11:46pm PT

Man, that looks like the closer you got to the summit, the chossier it got. Scary! My hat is off to you guys for your persistence and balls. Were those railroad spikes you were pounding?

climber

I drink your milkshake!

Mar 10, 2009 - 12:06am PT

hahaha

awesome

Mungeclimber

Trad climber

sorry, just posting out loud.

Mar 10, 2009 - 02:07am PT

Prepping for a new route on Factory Butte is my guess as to what's all this is about.

http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.html?topic_id=758048&msg=758372#msg758372

get yer prepartory beer here...

M9iswhereitsat.

Big Wall climber

Australia

Mar 10, 2009 - 02:47am PT

Good one and well done guys. Thanks for sharing the experience by posting it up. The pictures indeed tell thousands of words!

What grade did you give it?

Have you done a topo/description of individual pitches?

~> would love to know more details.

paganmonkeyboy

climber

mars...it's near nevada...

Mar 10, 2009 - 10:59am PT

whoa...stunned...madness, i say ;-)

Steve Grossman

Trad climber

Seattle, WA

Mar 10, 2009 - 11:41am PT

I bet if you stood downwind in a clean white shirt on a windy day, the summit would be yours anyhow!!! Technical grade should replaced with a FLEA (Formation Life Expectancy Adjective). One Kick'll Do'er sits at the top of the scale!

Mungeclimber

Trad climber

sorry, just posting out loud.

Mar 10, 2009 - 01:58pm PT

one kick...

ROFLMAO!!!! so tru so tru heh

Rhodo-Router

Gym climber

Otto, NC

Mar 10, 2009 - 02:07pm PT

That's a FLEA-flicker, I believe. The A5 of the chossiverse.

mooser

Trad climber

seattle

Mar 10, 2009 - 02:07pm PT

Geez...my palms are sweating...

Reilly

Mountain climber

Monrovia, CA

Mar 10, 2009 - 02:13pm PT

Next stop...White Cliffs of Dover?
(I know Crowley 'ice climbed' there already)

le_bruce

climber

Oakland: what's not to love?

Mar 10, 2009 - 03:01pm PT

Did one rope get you to the top, or did you actually have to hang off of some kind of anchor mid way up? If you did, I'd love to see a pic of that anchor.

What about the cliffs down near Torrey and Bicknell, ever had a look at those?

Erik Sloan

climber

Mar 10, 2009 - 03:29pm PT

please post this over on the www.bigwalls.com/forum2/ trip report section, so it doesn't get lost forever.

Mega

cheers
e

SGropp

Mountain climber

Eastsound, Wa

Mar 10, 2009 - 03:38pm PT

Old guys rock!!!

crunch

Social climber

Topic Author's Reply - Mar 10, 2009 - 04:46pm PT

Wow, a lot of interest in this little thing.

Okay, a few more pics:

Me getting started, note old Chouinard ice hammer, the perfect tool for this kind of terrain (even with half the pick worn off).

Here’s a bashful Camalot, embarrassed to be involved in such shenanigans...

And a Toucan half buried in the crack:

Higher up was a horizontal, where a #5 Camalot just barely stayed in a shallow horizontal slot with the cams actually working to hold some fossilized Ryvita crackers in place. When the cam came out, the flakes fell off. No pics of this.

About 100 feet up was a perfect 3.5 Friend, way deep in the crack, plus a 6-inch long bolt, in pretty good rock, to provide a belay. Still, I elected to stay on the ground, and Chip had to put up with the extra weight of the rope. He got his revenge for the third pitch, where he too stayed on the ground, while I wrestled with 150 feet of extra rope, before I even got going. his is the view from that belay station:

Here’s another calcite seam placement high on pitch 3.

And a view of the upper part of pitch 3, with Chip cleaning. Scary taking photos, slightest careless movement could set off lots of flakes.

The view from the base, with the nearby Henry Mountains:

The thing was 210 feet tall, we reckoned. The end of pitch 2 has two okay bolts and a rap anchor. Rating about A3... give or take.

Still waiting for the second ascent....

SGropp

Mountain climber

Eastsound, Wa

Mar 11, 2009 - 01:47am PT

In high school and college, I used to "stress test " any prospective girlfriends by taking them rock climbing.

One girl, who really did turn out to be a winner and I climbed a sandstone pinnacle at the Peshastin Pinnacles in Eastern Washington called Trigger Finger in 1972.

This was a free climb ,about 5.7 , maybe 50' tall to a tiny summit just big enough to sit on. It was a classic little crag, perched on a high ridge with great views of the Cascades to the west and the desert to the east.

A few years later, I went back and found that the whole pinnacle had toppled over, broken clean off at ground level.

The girl had gone off to follow more sensible pursuits.

Some of my most memorable climbs were on loose, scary choss formations.

Steve Grossman

Trad climber

Seattle, WA

Mar 11, 2009 - 10:25am PT

I wish someday to drop a clod from the summit and that is what my route would have been! The ideal of the Dirtississima.

piquaclimber

Trad climber

Durango

Mar 11, 2009 - 11:03am PT

Whoa, I haven't been here for a while and I come back to find this.

Nice work Crusher!

You're giving me an identity crisis though. For years I have been motivated to climb desert towers and the loose rock and mud never bothered me. I got excited and wanted to climb every choss pile that I saw written up on the Internet.

After reading your report, I had a great feeling of anxiety and trepidation. It occurred to me that I might not want to climb that thing. I tried to tell myself that I was just being weak and that it's a sweet looking formation that begs to be climbed. Still, the feeling remained. Now I can't decide if I'm nearing the end of my mud days or if you're just pushing farther into that sick realm than my little, Ohio-born noodle can handle.

I miss the good old days when climbing in Dabneyland, the Mystery Towers, or the Valley of the Gods seemed like the chossiest sh#t I would ever have to climb. :)

Again, well done!
Brad