Trip Report
Hesitant Laughter! The first ascent of the Funnybone!
Tuesday March 31, 2015 4:42pm
Oh dear. At the very top of the headwall on the Funnybone, a seedy 60-foot rhyolite spire in the middle of nowhere in Idaho, the next move onto the top seemed to be a flying bellyflop from aid slings over an overhanging lip, onto a desolate anchorless tabletop consisting of bird droppings and shattered plates. What to do? What to do?

Well, I’ll tell you what I did. I stood in the second steps, reared up above the lip, reached over and swatted one of the crumbly plates on the top, rousing a small cloud of dust and guano. That was the top, and I had touched it. Then, nauseous with fear and relief, I dropped, down-stepped and started rigging a rappel off the top piece, a baby angle I’d just driven with unsettling ease into an undersized hole right below the summit rim. Outa there! Yes! Down, down, down! Never again!

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Credit: Woody the Beaver
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The length of this trip report has already exceeded the extent of any conceivable claim on the reader’s interest. But let me give the Funnybone – and our strange interest in climbing these things – a moment of appreciation here. However decrepit and seedy, the ’Bone is an interesting spire, overhanging on all aspects and looking like an inverted bowling pin stuck weakly into a dusty hillside. Whatever its shortcomings as a climbing objective, the Funnybone is the proudest of the bunch in its Idaho neighborhood. The neighborhood is a swath of rhyolite outcrops and bluffs on Bennett Mountain, originating in a hot ash flow that took place, the books tell me, eight or nine million years ago.

I originally started the route on the Funnybone for training, sad as it sounds. I wanted a nearby little C1 clip-up route all to myself, where I could hone my geriatric grunt-and-grab aid chops in case I ever wanted to undertake something worthy somewhere else. The Funnybone is 20 minutes by highway and doubletrack from my house in Central Idaho.

Well, I found a route on the ‘Bone’s south side that seemed relatively safe, a vertical strip where the scaly rind had fallen off, leaving behind an inset panel, three to four feet wide, of compactly bedded grit and glass. This strip led topward between an overhanging aręte of stacked mud blocks on the left and a multi-ton gargoyle block weirdly overhanging the route on the right. From the top of the inset strip the route humped up over a frightening and shattered ceiling, past a sloping foot-ledge and a Triclops of huecos, and finally up a gently overhanging and scaly headwall to the biscuit-strength flange defining the top. So much for my dream of a solo C1 training clip-up – no cracks, and not even a single edge stout enough to bear a hook!

The way ahead became clear. Out, I blush to admit, came the drill. Two early speed-the-way experiments with venerable quarter-inch split-studs found in the depths of a moldy boltbag resulted in mortifying butt-in-the-dust groundfalls – the whole outer rind busted off when I stood on the things. So out came the big iron. Happily, the drilling was easy and fast. Less happily, this was because it was like drilling into a huge Lorna Doone cookie. Fast, though.

So up it went, over the course of several solo visits! Up, up between the overhanging mud aręte and the grotesquely overhanging gargoyle block! Rising alongside the top of the block was an eye-opener – from there I could see that nothing seemed to be holding this horrible thing to the spire but an adhesive plug of guano and sticks and rodent bones sagging into the split on top. Up and up over the creaky shattered ceiling, hole after crumbly hole, past the foot-ledge (I named it Camp 4) and the Triclops, and finally up the scabby overhanging headwall, where a pair of Canada geese, on the final triumphant day, circled the spire as I hung there toiling away, griping at my harness wounds.

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The horrible overhanging block can be seen right of the rope.
The horrible overhanging block can be seen right of the rope.
Credit: Woody the Beaver
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As the top crept down to meet me, I ran out of food, water, hope, fire, strength, delight, brains, everything. Gear, too. I knocked in my last 3/8” bolt a couple of feet below the rim. Ah, but the moldy bolt bag (I was using it to blot up my impotent tears at the time) yielded up a solitary and forgotten treasure: a cauliflowered ˝” angle I must have found or stolen decades before. So I grunted upward in the slings, drilled a final miserable hole just below the projecting lip and beat the sad old piece in up to the eye with four whacks. Laugh? Sob? There I was. The final move to the top of the Funnybone had announced itself. Overhead it was all blue blue blue! And I was about to head home.

  Trip Report Views: 2,779
Woody the Beaver
About the Author
Woody the Beaver is a trad climber from Soldier, Idaho.

Comments
johntp

Trad climber
Punter, Little Rock
  Mar 31, 2015 - 04:51pm PT
You are a sick man. Get help.
JEleazarian

Trad climber
Fresno CA
  Mar 31, 2015 - 04:54pm PT
What a fun read! THanks.

John
Fritz

Social climber
Choss Creek, ID
  Mar 31, 2015 - 08:58pm PT
Woody? How the heck do you walk with balls that big?

Gawds above! That rocks is good for nothing but looking at. I'm astounded you climbed one of those things.

They can be kinda pretty in a wet spring.
looks easy from here

climber
Santa Cruzish
  Mar 31, 2015 - 05:50pm PT
Fantastic!

I'm always glad that there are people like you who are willing to do this kind of stuff so that I can just enjoy it vicariously from my throne of granite snobbery.
Gnome Ofthe Diabase

climber
Out Of Bed
  Mar 31, 2015 - 06:00pm PT
Top notch
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
  Mar 31, 2015 - 06:11pm PT
How the hell did you ever manage to reach your apparent apex of longevity?
Certainly not by engaging in the described willful disregard for human life
with any regularity, that's for sure! But if a man's gotta do what a
man's gotta do thanks for making it an enjoyable tale to delight in!
I will henceforth reserve 'seedy' for something more geologic than
anthropologic, or perhaps pathologic.
neebee

Social climber
calif/texas
  Mar 31, 2015 - 06:20pm PT
hey there say, woody the beaver... wow, great fun to read...
wow, but from what i see in the comments, oh my--this is some not-so-common stuff to do... :)


say, yes, it is GREAT FOR looking at, art-wise, :)



fritz... lovely photo!

and to 'looks easy from here':
as to your quote:
Fantastic!

I'm always glad that there are people like you who are willing to do this kind of stuff so that I can just enjoy it vicariously from my throne of granite snobbery.


fun comment, it also helps me learn about 'this kind of rock-climb',
thanks for sharing...
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
  Mar 31, 2015 - 06:21pm PT
fritz... lovely photo!

I thought that was the picture Fritz' doctor sent him of his last colonoscopy?
MisterE

Gym climber
Small Town with a Big Back Yard
  Mar 31, 2015 - 06:28pm PT
Top shelf TR!

It reminds me why I like to suffer - thanks for that.

Love this bit:

As the top crept down to meet me, I ran out of food, water, hope, fire, strength, delight, brains, everything.
donini

Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
  Mar 31, 2015 - 08:24pm PT
Nicely done! The Piolet d'Or may be out of reach but a Golden Piton could be in the offing.
thebravecowboy

climber
The Good Places
  Mar 31, 2015 - 09:31pm PT
you did it! congratulations!

totally choss-tacular! them bizzle-bolts though....


So your route is named Hesitant Laughter? If so, I approve, heartily!
David Knopp

Trad climber
CA
  Mar 31, 2015 - 09:46pm PT
Trip report of the year. Period.
Jones in LA

Mountain climber
Tarzana, California
  Apr 1, 2015 - 06:36am PT
Holy frijoles, Marshall! You crushed it! (talkin' about your write-up first, but your send comes in a close second). I realize now you're way, way over-qualified for the Lost Arrow. But I'll be your belay slave and sherpa for a trip up the spire, any day you say -- just give me a holler. Seriously.

Rich Jones
jahil

Social climber
London, Paris, WV & CA
  Apr 1, 2015 - 10:12am PT
This is a great trip report, I hope you climb something longer so we can enjoy a longer sample of your wonderful writing !
steve
Ezra Ellis

Trad climber
North wet, and Da souf
  Apr 1, 2015 - 06:44pm PT
A great adventure, way to go
Be careful on that sh!t rock foe petes sake!
justthemaid

climber
Jim Henson's Basement
  Apr 1, 2015 - 09:26pm PT
Awesome trip report! We needed a little choss revival around here.
Sierra Ledge Rat

Mountain climber
Old and Broken Down in Appalachia
  Apr 1, 2015 - 10:14pm PT
Some Haldol would have put those aspirations to bed before those hallucinations manifested themselves into reality
The Real Mad Dog

Gym climber
Napa, CA
  Apr 12, 2015 - 01:24pm PT
Glad to see a climber that looks as old as I do, but with more hair, doing a ridiculous, yet entertaining (for us) climb. Don't know why you are still alive, but then again, I ask myself that question. We old geezers should have died many times. Keep on climbing. At your age, a fall to your death sure beats cancer or Alzheimer's. You kids (climbers under 60) don't have to worry about such end of life matters.
Evel

Trad climber
Nedsterdam CO
  Apr 12, 2015 - 06:41pm PT
Outstanding! RWA! (Real World Adventure!)
TWP

Trad climber
Mancos, CO & Bend, OR
  Mar 31, 2017 - 09:09am PT
Woody:

You are just the man to take up the challenge of the first ascent of this nightmare.

Taller and maybe more solid than that little Peckerwood of a Spire you found in c. Idaho.

Best wishes. Will provide full details of its locale if you are insane enough to be interested.

Cheers!



survival

Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
  Mar 31, 2017 - 12:30am PT
Don't know how I missed this the first time around.

Chosstacular!!

Your tale warms an old mud nailer's heart. Thanks!
guyman

Social climber
Moorpark, CA.
  Mar 31, 2017 - 12:01pm PT
Great, Just great... a wonderful, chilling, true adventure story.

I salute your boldness.
NutAgain!

Trad climber
https://nutagain.org
  Mar 31, 2017 - 01:46pm PT
Dude, I love this report! Like survival, don't know how I missed it first time around.

Bonus points for colorful descriptions.
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