It's been two years since The Driller and I put up La Gota Fria. As of this writing, we have the FCA-- first complete ass-- with two pitches (12c ansd 12a?) remaining to be freed. I'm not holding my breath.
After our ascent, a bit of a shit-storm happened on-line. Basically, Napoleon was unhappy that Driller and I had done the First Ass of the route without him. He having done the First Ass of some of the pitches, wanted to be included in the First Ass, but wasn't, and this is why.
When we began the route, in 2008, Napoleon and I started ground-up. We immediately ran into one problem: Napoleon didn't want to show up for work. After the second day on the route, we made plans to work a third, and Napoleon sent in his stead Kasper Podgoski, who nabbed the Fist Ass of P1 and 2 with me (on aid).
After this point, Napoleon would only show up for the occasional day. It became obvious that the route was going to go, and it became equally obvious that, if we wnet at Napoleon's pace (one day per month) we would be retired by the time the FA came around. So I recruited The Driller, who has a ton of aid experience. The Driller, despite having a non-climbing girlfriend (now his wife), a full-time job, and full-time school, ALL AT THE SAME TIME, became a regular feature on the route. I also had a non-climbing girlfriend-- and we have kids-- and a full-time job, so during the doing of this route, both Driller and I gave up quite a few climbing days.
Together we pushed the route -- entirely ground up, via aid-- to the top of P10. Napoleon disagreed with the tactics. For him, ground-up was too dangerous. However, he had not led a single pitch. At this point he proposed that he rap in from the top, so he and our friend Ben hauled a few hundred meters of rope up there and they rapped down and isntalled fixed ropes to the top of P10.
We now had fixed ropes-- as of April 2009-- on the whole route, and it basically came time to clean, log and bolt. This work, while not awful, isn't nearly as fun as actual climbing. You are hanging from aiders or a butt-bag, hacking away at dirt, logs or flakes of rock. Yes, you can shit-talk with your partner, and the views are great, but it's not climbing.
As the route progressed, Napoleon did less and less work, while Driller and I kept at it. Napoleon would send us missives which included JPEGs of the route with suggestions that we "scrub variations" on the route. In the summer of 2009, on several occasions I was on the route, working, while Napoleon would project this or that on the Badge, and yell at us "hey fuckers, you guys should try climbing something!" and so on. Indeed, that summer, Napoleon-- who was working 8 hours per week and not in school-- was climbing five days per week, and came out twice to work on the route.
In March of 2010, Driller and I told Napoleon flat-out that when the first ascent was going to happen, he would not be on it unless he massively upped his work commitment. He responded with "I will be available to work on the route in May and June." Instead, he went to the Valley and we didn't see him for two months.
One week before the first ascent, I ran into Napoleon and his girlfriend in Starbucks. I told him that Driller and I were gunning for the First Complete Ass next weekend. He said "cool" and I said that we would save the two 12+ pitches for him, to which he said "cool."
On July 10, 2010, Driller and I did the F.C.A. of La Gota Fria, freeing all but two of the pitches.
The next day, when I put the topo online, the shitstorm started, with Napoleon name-calling both Driller and I on Squamishclimbing. He was told by the admin that if his comments persisted they would ban him, as he was slandering both of us.
When I added up the days of work on the route, it had taken something like 53 person-days. I had done around 30, Driller 15, and Napoleon 8. Other people like Ian Bennet, Tony McLane, Ben Roy, Paul Cordy and Kasper Podgorski had put in time as well.
Napoleon was angry that he'd been excluded from the F.A. I still have mixed feelings about this. His lack of work-- especially considering that he had no job, no girlfriend, and summers off-- was shocking. At one point in the summer of 2009, I called him to see if he wanted to get out onto the route, and he said "I can't; I've been climbing all week and I am too tired." While he enjoyed a climbing summer, Driller and I hung on ropes and dug mud.
Were we selfish in excluding him from the F.A.? Probably. Were we justified? Dunno, but it felt like it, and still does. If I were as generous as I'd like to be, I might've forgiven him...but that route came at great personal expense, it cost Driller and I many climbing days, and it felt like Napoleon was more into talking about the route than doing the work. Indeed, it became particularly galling when Driller and I would run into acquaintances mutual to us and Napoleon, and hear them say "so Napoleon was talking about your guys' route. How is it going?", when Napoleon would have been months not climbing the route.
In the end, the route forged a much stronger and deeper bond between the Driller and I, who shared some hair-raising moments. It also taught me to aid-climb, to confront fear, and it showed me that small acts of selfishness (like showing up hours late for climbing days, and refusing to work, and assuming your partner will bring all of the stuff you forgot to pack cos you were out partying till 3 A.M. the night before) often portend much bigger ones.
So, yeah. Ya dance with them what brung ya. But not forever.
Showing posts with label The Driller. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Driller. Show all posts
Friday, May 4, 2012
Friday, July 23, 2010
Alphabet Soup
Climbers, like cats, are a territorial bunch. Woe unto them that piss on our territory, unless of course our territory is the Split Pillar on a hot Saturday in mid-August, at which point the Left Side becomes not just the Right Side's evil kid brother but also the route's outhouse.
Climbers are also a notoriously finicky bunch. Did it go free? How much aid was used? Did you French-free, fully free, aid, what? Is chalk aid? Yadda yadda. Now, these definitions are pretty clear, after fifty-plus years of campfire debates and Arcing Plot fistfights. There is another set of terms whose meaning also tends to be clear, and today I want to explore the meanings of the terms FA, FCA, FFA and FCFA.
After climbing, for the first time, our route from bottom to top in one go (the 5.11b A0 version), the Driller and I decided to publish the topo. We need feedback, it's dry right now, and hot (good weather for our route), the route needs traffic cos it's new, etc. Well after posting the topo, a bit of a shit-storm started. There was some dispute over the meaning of FA, FCA, FCFA, etc, and how these letters, strung by climbers after their names the way British astronomers hang FRC, D.Ph etc after theirs, should apply to various members of the team who put up La Gota Fria.
Well, as we well know, "FA" stands for nothing other than "first ass". This means, the first guy (or girl) to get their ass up a route. Or a pitch. The first time you go up a pitch, if nobody has done it (birds excluded) you get say "yea, I am the First Ass on that." Long-time hardmen (and women) get to say "I've had a lot of First Asses." It's kind of like a pedophile (or zoophile) having at the anus of a young boy or girl or Labrador Retriever (or sheep, if s/he is Scottish or from New Zealand)...ooooohh....mmmmmm...first ass....
Now, the next term of contention is "FCA," which as we well know stands for "First Complete Ass." Now this is a term used when you have a route that includes more than one pitch. So, you could have the First Ass on one (or more) pitches of a multi-pitch route, but when the route as a whole gets climbed in one go, from bottom to top, the person doing that qualifies as First Complete Ass.
"FCA" also stands for "First Colorado Ass," which refers to Indian Creek. You are camped at the Bridger Jacks, enjoying an evening of whiskey, bluegrass and pedophile jokes, when you hear the high-pitched whining sound of non-work-trucks in the distance. Then they come-- the Colorado Asses, loosed from their tedious nine-to-fives, and out to slay some 10- handcracks in gangs of seven-- and the first SUV to pull into the Jacks is the First Colorado Ass.
The, third but not forgotten, is FFA. This stands for First Full Ass. This refers to when a pitch (or problem) is first climbed in one go, no falls, without using gear to support the climber's bodyweight.
The last term of contention is "FCFA." This one, obviously, means "First Complete Full Ass." Now, this refers to the hard-person who first climbs a route, bottom to top, with no aid. You don't just want to be the First Ass, or the First Complete Ass...you want to be the First Complete Full Ass.
Just to be clear on this, I busted out Kevin Mclane's trusty "The Climbers' Guide to Squamish" to see how this worked. I asked the good Mr McLane how his book, which keeps track of who climbed what, and when, and how, and how hard, and how much whiskey they needed afterward, uses these various acronyms.
In his book, no acronym = FA = First Ass = the first guys/girls to go up a route, by whatever means, including helicopter, climbing gear and magic spells, though to be fair mostly climbing gear. Some routes-- let's take Freeway as an example-- are just loads of alphabet soup. The FA is Tom Gibson and Rob Rohn's, who used "some aid" to get their First Ass. Then, there are a buttload of individual pitches, variations, etc. Then we have this: and FFA (first full ass) of P1-6 by Mssrs. Hart, Atkinson, Eltis and Jones, all of whom had been involved in cleaning and projecting individual pitches. Finally, there is the FCFA-- First Complete Full Ass-- by Atkinson and Hart, where these two gentlemen hauled both their asses completely. and without aid, fully up the route.
So as we can see, you can be part of the FA of individual pitches, but not of the FCFA. You could be part of the FA of the whole thing, but not the FFA, or the FCFA.
As I contemplated this alphabet soup, I wondered how it applied to our route. And as nearly as I can tell, the First Ass of various pitches of route go 60% or so to Napoleon and others, and 40% to Driller and I and others. The First Complete Ass goes the the Driller and I, July 11, 2010. But the biggest prize of all-- the First Complete Full Ass-- is waiting to be claimed by Napoleon.
Climbers are also a notoriously finicky bunch. Did it go free? How much aid was used? Did you French-free, fully free, aid, what? Is chalk aid? Yadda yadda. Now, these definitions are pretty clear, after fifty-plus years of campfire debates and Arcing Plot fistfights. There is another set of terms whose meaning also tends to be clear, and today I want to explore the meanings of the terms FA, FCA, FFA and FCFA.
After climbing, for the first time, our route from bottom to top in one go (the 5.11b A0 version), the Driller and I decided to publish the topo. We need feedback, it's dry right now, and hot (good weather for our route), the route needs traffic cos it's new, etc. Well after posting the topo, a bit of a shit-storm started. There was some dispute over the meaning of FA, FCA, FCFA, etc, and how these letters, strung by climbers after their names the way British astronomers hang FRC, D.Ph etc after theirs, should apply to various members of the team who put up La Gota Fria.
Well, as we well know, "FA" stands for nothing other than "first ass". This means, the first guy (or girl) to get their ass up a route. Or a pitch. The first time you go up a pitch, if nobody has done it (birds excluded) you get say "yea, I am the First Ass on that." Long-time hardmen (and women) get to say "I've had a lot of First Asses." It's kind of like a pedophile (or zoophile) having at the anus of a young boy or girl or Labrador Retriever (or sheep, if s/he is Scottish or from New Zealand)...ooooohh....mmmmmm...first ass....
Now, the next term of contention is "FCA," which as we well know stands for "First Complete Ass." Now this is a term used when you have a route that includes more than one pitch. So, you could have the First Ass on one (or more) pitches of a multi-pitch route, but when the route as a whole gets climbed in one go, from bottom to top, the person doing that qualifies as First Complete Ass.
"FCA" also stands for "First Colorado Ass," which refers to Indian Creek. You are camped at the Bridger Jacks, enjoying an evening of whiskey, bluegrass and pedophile jokes, when you hear the high-pitched whining sound of non-work-trucks in the distance. Then they come-- the Colorado Asses, loosed from their tedious nine-to-fives, and out to slay some 10- handcracks in gangs of seven-- and the first SUV to pull into the Jacks is the First Colorado Ass.
The, third but not forgotten, is FFA. This stands for First Full Ass. This refers to when a pitch (or problem) is first climbed in one go, no falls, without using gear to support the climber's bodyweight.
The last term of contention is "FCFA." This one, obviously, means "First Complete Full Ass." Now, this refers to the hard-person who first climbs a route, bottom to top, with no aid. You don't just want to be the First Ass, or the First Complete Ass...you want to be the First Complete Full Ass.
Just to be clear on this, I busted out Kevin Mclane's trusty "The Climbers' Guide to Squamish" to see how this worked. I asked the good Mr McLane how his book, which keeps track of who climbed what, and when, and how, and how hard, and how much whiskey they needed afterward, uses these various acronyms.
In his book, no acronym = FA = First Ass = the first guys/girls to go up a route, by whatever means, including helicopter, climbing gear and magic spells, though to be fair mostly climbing gear. Some routes-- let's take Freeway as an example-- are just loads of alphabet soup. The FA is Tom Gibson and Rob Rohn's, who used "some aid" to get their First Ass. Then, there are a buttload of individual pitches, variations, etc. Then we have this: and FFA (first full ass) of P1-6 by Mssrs. Hart, Atkinson, Eltis and Jones, all of whom had been involved in cleaning and projecting individual pitches. Finally, there is the FCFA-- First Complete Full Ass-- by Atkinson and Hart, where these two gentlemen hauled both their asses completely. and without aid, fully up the route.
So as we can see, you can be part of the FA of individual pitches, but not of the FCFA. You could be part of the FA of the whole thing, but not the FFA, or the FCFA.
As I contemplated this alphabet soup, I wondered how it applied to our route. And as nearly as I can tell, the First Ass of various pitches of route go 60% or so to Napoleon and others, and 40% to Driller and I and others. The First Complete Ass goes the the Driller and I, July 11, 2010. But the biggest prize of all-- the First Complete Full Ass-- is waiting to be claimed by Napoleon.
Monday, July 12, 2010
The send!
Two years.
$1100.
65 man-days
3 pairs of pruning shears.
1 new rope.
10 fixed lines of varying lengths
1 almost-broken shin
Several hundred cups of coffee
Three near-death experiences
80 bolts
7 chopped bolts
None of this was in my mind as The Driller and I, at the crack of ten, left our little car on the Mamquam, giggled as we shoved headlamps into pockets, and ducked into the forest. Ahead of us lay more like a set of hypotheses to be tested: pitch X was 5.10a, confirm or deny; there were too many bolts on Pitch Y, confirm or deny.
It was a sweltering day, and, well let's not screw around-- blow-by-blows are bring, so here's the highlights. The route goes at 11b A0. You could reduce the grade further by French-freeing the first 15m of P3. We FINALLY sent P3. P8-- the "death block" pitch-- is 11a and may want another bolt. At one point as I was madly grasping at no-falling straws, Driller yelled "LEFT SIDE!" and I realised he was telling me where my chalk bag had rotated to. Now THAT is attentive belaying.
P11 went with one #5 Camalot, but may want another bolt. P14 has one hard 11a move (aidable) and may want another bolt. Driller began madly pawing the rest of my precious water as the cedars turned warmish yellow and the skies deepened in colour. The first ascent's great surprise was that P15-- the undercling-- is not only one of the nicest pitches (great position, hanging right over the entire route) but alos the easiest, at 5.8! The final V-slot pitch-- 55 meters-- took everything I had. Dehydrated, exhausted and deeply concerned that we wouldn't make Starbucks' closing time, I injdulged myself with a whole lot of stemming trickery and self-pitying grunts and made it up the awesome 10c pitch.
We topped out at 10pm exactly. 16 pitches, one 60-meter 5th-class scramble in the dark, and one utterly quiet Second Summit, wind whistling and stars mixed with glowing clouds, and the first ascent of La Gota Fria was complete.
I am still too fried to say anything much...except, thanks to the Driller, Napoleon, Mom, Larisa and Jen, and of course...GO CLIMB OUR ROUTE!
$1100.
65 man-days
3 pairs of pruning shears.
1 new rope.
10 fixed lines of varying lengths
1 almost-broken shin
Several hundred cups of coffee
Three near-death experiences
80 bolts
7 chopped bolts
None of this was in my mind as The Driller and I, at the crack of ten, left our little car on the Mamquam, giggled as we shoved headlamps into pockets, and ducked into the forest. Ahead of us lay more like a set of hypotheses to be tested: pitch X was 5.10a, confirm or deny; there were too many bolts on Pitch Y, confirm or deny.
It was a sweltering day, and, well let's not screw around-- blow-by-blows are bring, so here's the highlights. The route goes at 11b A0. You could reduce the grade further by French-freeing the first 15m of P3. We FINALLY sent P3. P8-- the "death block" pitch-- is 11a and may want another bolt. At one point as I was madly grasping at no-falling straws, Driller yelled "LEFT SIDE!" and I realised he was telling me where my chalk bag had rotated to. Now THAT is attentive belaying.
P11 went with one #5 Camalot, but may want another bolt. P14 has one hard 11a move (aidable) and may want another bolt. Driller began madly pawing the rest of my precious water as the cedars turned warmish yellow and the skies deepened in colour. The first ascent's great surprise was that P15-- the undercling-- is not only one of the nicest pitches (great position, hanging right over the entire route) but alos the easiest, at 5.8! The final V-slot pitch-- 55 meters-- took everything I had. Dehydrated, exhausted and deeply concerned that we wouldn't make Starbucks' closing time, I injdulged myself with a whole lot of stemming trickery and self-pitying grunts and made it up the awesome 10c pitch.
We topped out at 10pm exactly. 16 pitches, one 60-meter 5th-class scramble in the dark, and one utterly quiet Second Summit, wind whistling and stars mixed with glowing clouds, and the first ascent of La Gota Fria was complete.
I am still too fried to say anything much...except, thanks to the Driller, Napoleon, Mom, Larisa and Jen, and of course...GO CLIMB OUR ROUTE!
Thursday, June 10, 2010
If at first you don't succeed...
Well sometimes a weekend warrior gets to join the full-timers, so on Tuesday Ginger Slack and I went and had a go at the first four pitches of La Gota Fria, which is what our route (should we ever be men, err, I mean, courageous-- enough to actually climb the entire thing) is called.
Now Ginger Slack is a guy who knows what extreme sports are REALLY all about: meeting women and working as little as possible. When not modeling neural artchitecture, or discussing now neural networks' signal-to-noise ratios correlate with adaptivity to new challenges, you can find him with his slackline, which is basically a kind of fishing net for a certain kind of girl. For this, he is sponsored! Nice work, young man. Anyway, between his horrendously busy schedule of slacklining, sex and neural modeling (oh and selling clothes at M.E.C.), Slack sometimes climbs. So on Tuesday we huffed and puffed our way through the humidity to the base of the route.
I freed P1 which Slack thinks is 5.10d (it has one short bolted crux). I was psyched to free the pitch, and then I realised that Driller and I had fucked the bolts up AGAIN, being gumbies and all. The first is too high, the second too far right. There is a good reason why purists drill on lead...anyway, the thing is doable, but not ideal. Driller would later say "we are using oil to clean up water" which makes about as much sense as BP trying to stop an oil-well explosion with some nice mud, but was actually accurate.
Slack led P2 which is IMHO 5.9 but he says 10a...but then I have them mad face-hold-detection skillz. P3 was another story. I managed to fall off on lead, then on the yo-yo, and then again a whopping two feet higher than my first two tries. This thing is 5.11B for sure. Basically, it is two hard awkward fingery move, then either a solid rest, or a bomber handjam. It is like the Squamish Buttress crux pitch-- very easy to aid.
Slack led P4 which he thinks is 5.10b, then we rapped.
The good news is that while P1 and 2 need some cleaning, the route dries more quickly than we thought for a north-facing route. After one day of no rain, with +15 temps, it is climbable with the odd wet spot. If it has 2 dry days and is +10 (e.g. April, late Sept) it will go. Wind helps hugely. The nice thing is, since the route starts off Caramba Terrace, it escapes the summer humidity trap that affects the valley-floor-starts of routes, and it gets wind.
Anyway, I know this post is really boring. But...stay tuned. We are going for the FA of La Gota Fria (Lite) on Sunday, and we will have pictures and a good story for all ten of you. That's a 25% increase over two weeks ago...and all I had to do to get new followers was, try to kill Perry Beckham and Jia Condon, and then get trash-talked on the comments part of this blog. Maybe I should try to kill Peter Croft or Steph Davis (after Napoleon finishes with her, of course) that way I could up the readership to, say, 15 and Google would come running with offers of not just $$ but also hordes of nude willing women (invisible to Driller and my girlfriends), plus free Timmy Ho coffee forever, man oh man, I can see it now...
Now Ginger Slack is a guy who knows what extreme sports are REALLY all about: meeting women and working as little as possible. When not modeling neural artchitecture, or discussing now neural networks' signal-to-noise ratios correlate with adaptivity to new challenges, you can find him with his slackline, which is basically a kind of fishing net for a certain kind of girl. For this, he is sponsored! Nice work, young man. Anyway, between his horrendously busy schedule of slacklining, sex and neural modeling (oh and selling clothes at M.E.C.), Slack sometimes climbs. So on Tuesday we huffed and puffed our way through the humidity to the base of the route.
I freed P1 which Slack thinks is 5.10d (it has one short bolted crux). I was psyched to free the pitch, and then I realised that Driller and I had fucked the bolts up AGAIN, being gumbies and all. The first is too high, the second too far right. There is a good reason why purists drill on lead...anyway, the thing is doable, but not ideal. Driller would later say "we are using oil to clean up water" which makes about as much sense as BP trying to stop an oil-well explosion with some nice mud, but was actually accurate.
Slack led P2 which is IMHO 5.9 but he says 10a...but then I have them mad face-hold-detection skillz. P3 was another story. I managed to fall off on lead, then on the yo-yo, and then again a whopping two feet higher than my first two tries. This thing is 5.11B for sure. Basically, it is two hard awkward fingery move, then either a solid rest, or a bomber handjam. It is like the Squamish Buttress crux pitch-- very easy to aid.
Slack led P4 which he thinks is 5.10b, then we rapped.
The good news is that while P1 and 2 need some cleaning, the route dries more quickly than we thought for a north-facing route. After one day of no rain, with +15 temps, it is climbable with the odd wet spot. If it has 2 dry days and is +10 (e.g. April, late Sept) it will go. Wind helps hugely. The nice thing is, since the route starts off Caramba Terrace, it escapes the summer humidity trap that affects the valley-floor-starts of routes, and it gets wind.
Anyway, I know this post is really boring. But...stay tuned. We are going for the FA of La Gota Fria (Lite) on Sunday, and we will have pictures and a good story for all ten of you. That's a 25% increase over two weeks ago...and all I had to do to get new followers was, try to kill Perry Beckham and Jia Condon, and then get trash-talked on the comments part of this blog. Maybe I should try to kill Peter Croft or Steph Davis (after Napoleon finishes with her, of course) that way I could up the readership to, say, 15 and Google would come running with offers of not just $$ but also hordes of nude willing women (invisible to Driller and my girlfriends), plus free Timmy Ho coffee forever, man oh man, I can see it now...
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Freeing La Gota
As the soon-to-be-renamed Driller and I drove through the mist to Squamish on Sunday, we dismissed a barrage of weather reports that called for rain, mist, clouds and other staples of the Squamish climbing diet. "Fuck THAT," we said, echoing The Filth, who refers to anything other than a shower with his charming brilliant beautiful wife as "piss."
We squelched our way up to the base of The Proj and discussed the merits of bringing a rack and rock shoes. I thought we would finish re-bolting the dihedral, fix the Green Line traverse bolts, climb the bolt ladder, and chop the trees on P8. Then-- since that would only take three hours-- we could free a few more pitches.
We jugged to the base of the dihedral and the Driller set off, trying to see how French-freeable it was. It turned out that, well, "not so much" was the answer. At the mid-pitch flake, which you protect with a nut, the Driller yelled down "hey do we have any hooks?" and of course I said "Do I look liek an aid climber?" But not to worry: Driller got out his nut tool. Then, with the same kind of care that gay men use when selecting the morning's moisturising cream, or that I use when picking my excuse for not leading whatever pitch is in front of me, the Driller set up a bathook move off his nut tool and made the mantle onto the flake. The Driller was actually more like the Thriller with his awesome ball-out McGyverish aid moves.
The rest of the dihedral went fine, and we decided to chop one bolt, and move it a foot lower, and we would liek to remind you, dear readers (all 8 of you) that when YOU get on this pitch, bring a medium nut or two, or a .4 Camalot, if you want to French-free it.
I then had the privilege of trying to traverse the Green Line Ledge, aka The Electric Pepper Grinder pitch. Now Paul Cordy had been on our route a couple of months earlier, and had commented that our bolting was, well, not perfect. As I clambered past my second bolt and clipped the third, I realised what he was talking about. Looking back, this is what I saw:
This is the kind of drilling that happens when you have nothing too hook off, and when your toes are jammed into two feet of munge, and behind you is a 300 m fall to the deck, and you are pushng UP with your other arm to hold yourself on, whileyour drilling arm holds what feels like a bucking, rabid and steroidal ferret, out of sight and over your head.
Now here is a close-up of a Bad, Bad Bolt!
We chopped this one and re-did it. This is what a GOOD bolt looks like, for all those of you who have never clipped one.
The bolt itself should be sunk as far as you can get it. Basically the issue with these bolts was, they were not pounded in far enough, so I loosened the nuts and pounded them in more, and now they are bomber. The key to drilling (other than picking a proper spot, and having a good bit) is to make the hole super-deep, so that if you must chop, you just pound the end into the rock and epoxy the opening.
The bolt ladder saw its first "ascent" today and it works perfectly. I had been a bit apprehensive after climbing the Grand Wall, whose bolt ladder seemed sparser. Ours, is much longer, has bolts closer together, but is easier to get up. You can make "fake aiders" by clipping both a long and a short sling into one biener. The "Wet Like Your Wife" pitch was, well, wet. We added a bolt to the p7 belay, hung the saw, and rapped.
Down with the crowbars, the fixed ropes, the bolt-chopper, the hacksaw, the monster rack, the aiders...there is little work to be done and now it is time to try to climb the thing with hands and feet instead of aiders and jugs. We lefta pink ribbon on the project, and removed a couple of stations, to indicate that the poroject is not yet open. Here is us with the stuff we carried off the route:
On the way back, we pondered the Universe's manifold mysteries, like why our girlfriends want so much sex, and what exactly happened to The Filth and The Yankee in The Valley (apparently they hired a guide, who took them up a route called "Shirking Fear") that caused The Yankee to lose 25 pounds and The Filth to get a sprained ankle and three sprained ribs. No, no, I must confess, that last sentence was half shit-talk: they did in fact get up Lurking Fear under their own power-- awesome job, boys. Other mysteries included, where was Napoleon, who seems to have lost all interest in our route, and how bad-assed waas Driller-- aka Thriller.
Well it turns out there are three, count 'em, three kinds of accountants: chartered accountants, certified managerial accountants, certified financial accountants, and certified business accoutants. The Driller will soon be a C.A., which is the bad-assedest of all three kinds of accountant. How bad-assed, you ask is that? Well he will be able to not only climb the outside of any building, using only nut-tools and slings for pro, he will then be able to climb the inside, and audit you so hard it will feel like a rectal examaination by a drunken Filth. THAT, clearly, is why our girlfriends want so much sex from us.
Oh, wait-- what about me? I'm not an accoutnant. Hmm, another mystery. Well perhaps next weekend, when we start freeing La Gota, answers will come. Stay tuned...
We squelched our way up to the base of The Proj and discussed the merits of bringing a rack and rock shoes. I thought we would finish re-bolting the dihedral, fix the Green Line traverse bolts, climb the bolt ladder, and chop the trees on P8. Then-- since that would only take three hours-- we could free a few more pitches.
We jugged to the base of the dihedral and the Driller set off, trying to see how French-freeable it was. It turned out that, well, "not so much" was the answer. At the mid-pitch flake, which you protect with a nut, the Driller yelled down "hey do we have any hooks?" and of course I said "Do I look liek an aid climber?" But not to worry: Driller got out his nut tool. Then, with the same kind of care that gay men use when selecting the morning's moisturising cream, or that I use when picking my excuse for not leading whatever pitch is in front of me, the Driller set up a bathook move off his nut tool and made the mantle onto the flake. The Driller was actually more like the Thriller with his awesome ball-out McGyverish aid moves.
The rest of the dihedral went fine, and we decided to chop one bolt, and move it a foot lower, and we would liek to remind you, dear readers (all 8 of you) that when YOU get on this pitch, bring a medium nut or two, or a .4 Camalot, if you want to French-free it.
I then had the privilege of trying to traverse the Green Line Ledge, aka The Electric Pepper Grinder pitch. Now Paul Cordy had been on our route a couple of months earlier, and had commented that our bolting was, well, not perfect. As I clambered past my second bolt and clipped the third, I realised what he was talking about. Looking back, this is what I saw:
This is the kind of drilling that happens when you have nothing too hook off, and when your toes are jammed into two feet of munge, and behind you is a 300 m fall to the deck, and you are pushng UP with your other arm to hold yourself on, whileyour drilling arm holds what feels like a bucking, rabid and steroidal ferret, out of sight and over your head.
Now here is a close-up of a Bad, Bad Bolt!
We chopped this one and re-did it. This is what a GOOD bolt looks like, for all those of you who have never clipped one.
The bolt itself should be sunk as far as you can get it. Basically the issue with these bolts was, they were not pounded in far enough, so I loosened the nuts and pounded them in more, and now they are bomber. The key to drilling (other than picking a proper spot, and having a good bit) is to make the hole super-deep, so that if you must chop, you just pound the end into the rock and epoxy the opening.
The bolt ladder saw its first "ascent" today and it works perfectly. I had been a bit apprehensive after climbing the Grand Wall, whose bolt ladder seemed sparser. Ours, is much longer, has bolts closer together, but is easier to get up. You can make "fake aiders" by clipping both a long and a short sling into one biener. The "Wet Like Your Wife" pitch was, well, wet. We added a bolt to the p7 belay, hung the saw, and rapped.
Down with the crowbars, the fixed ropes, the bolt-chopper, the hacksaw, the monster rack, the aiders...there is little work to be done and now it is time to try to climb the thing with hands and feet instead of aiders and jugs. We lefta pink ribbon on the project, and removed a couple of stations, to indicate that the poroject is not yet open. Here is us with the stuff we carried off the route:
On the way back, we pondered the Universe's manifold mysteries, like why our girlfriends want so much sex, and what exactly happened to The Filth and The Yankee in The Valley (apparently they hired a guide, who took them up a route called "Shirking Fear") that caused The Yankee to lose 25 pounds and The Filth to get a sprained ankle and three sprained ribs. No, no, I must confess, that last sentence was half shit-talk: they did in fact get up Lurking Fear under their own power-- awesome job, boys. Other mysteries included, where was Napoleon, who seems to have lost all interest in our route, and how bad-assed waas Driller-- aka Thriller.
Well it turns out there are three, count 'em, three kinds of accountants: chartered accountants, certified managerial accountants, certified financial accountants, and certified business accoutants. The Driller will soon be a C.A., which is the bad-assedest of all three kinds of accountant. How bad-assed, you ask is that? Well he will be able to not only climb the outside of any building, using only nut-tools and slings for pro, he will then be able to climb the inside, and audit you so hard it will feel like a rectal examaination by a drunken Filth. THAT, clearly, is why our girlfriends want so much sex from us.
Oh, wait-- what about me? I'm not an accoutnant. Hmm, another mystery. Well perhaps next weekend, when we start freeing La Gota, answers will come. Stay tuned...
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Day 25
The Driller and I blasted up to Squamptown. We rehashed the week's events, including the missing Napoleon, whose campaign of rock conquest has taken him south to the Valley, along with The Filth and The Yankee, rumours of a dirtbag's newly-found riches, and of course sending in the Valley.
An email had come earlier in the week.
>Yea get the route done, I want to scrub
>some variations.
Now there are three problems with this sentence.
a) In order to scrub a variation, you need a route to vary from. We need to get on that.
b) In order to scrub, you have to scrub the route, which you cannot do when you are contemplating the hard-to-send treasures of Yosemite, like the newly-single Steph Davis' butt in her Pradaguccia tights, or the Harding Slit, or finding a 4th blue Alien in Camp Four at 3 A.M. on the day you are setting off to do a nude speed ascent of Iron Hawk.
c) In order to scrub, you have to scrub...
But then, the emailer has been to Yosemite, while I am scared shitless to go anywhere near the place, partly because I am like ice-cream on a warm summer's day-- soft-- and partly because I have been using my car to sun-dry beef jerky and to smoke salmon for nearly 25 years now, so the thing must smell like a little slice of ursal Heaven to the Valley bears.
On Sunday it was The Driller and I. Now you know you've been working too much when hauling 60 pounds of gear to the base, and spending a day hanging from ropes, scrubbing cracks and drilling bolts, is fun. Such is The Driller's life. He has learned the first lesson of yuppie cunt-hood: you take up either heavy drinking or a heavy physical sport so that you don't turn into a donut-pasty, muffin-and-coffee rounded algorithm during your nine to five. Basically you could call new-routing a version of midlife-crisis aversion. "I am still a MAN," one (mentally) roars, shirking from nightmare visions of cramming one's waist-donut behind the up-tilted wheel of a mall-parked minivan after bundling the three kids in.
We arrived at the base of the route, eight months after last being on it, and found our ropes still hanging, and a few new rocks on the ground. We ended up getting a fair bit done. We chopped one bolt on our first pitch's left-hand variation, moved it 2 feet left, which means that people shorter than the newly-single Dean Potter will be able to reach it. We added one more bolt, and then we scrubbed it like The Filth scrubs his ass before his wife gets busy on it with the 18-incher, which is to say, not that much, but to sendability. The scariest thing was an epic, enormous grating sound that tumbled down slowly toward us, the sound of a few thousand pounds of rock grating into a new position. There was utter silence and then we remembered to breathe.
Here is the Driller following P1. The blue rope is (I think) Myles Holt's, from an (abandoned?) project.
Here is The Driller, doing his thing.
No, that is NOT a cigarette. Recall that we gave up smoking, masturbation and alcohol till we send. No, really...Driller is cleaning drill-dust out of the hole.
Coincidentally, this was the day when Frimer finally climbed The Milk Road and I was cheering him on-- the thing looks like it totally rocks, but I was
made a bit self-conscious, cos Frimer is as anal as a new-router can possibly be, cleaning-wise. I mean, you could probably eat out of those handjams, store your bagels and lox in there, etc, they are so nice and white.
We then rapped, and climbed to the top of P2 the direct way, and moved the rap station to the left as Paul Cordy told us to. Driller successfully chopped one old bolt and successfully made another one spin on its axis. I know this belay is gonna look fucked-up when everybody else climbs this route, but we had little choice: when I drilled it, the now-huge-incut-white-spot was a set of leaning death flakes that bulged out, and it would have been insane to put a station in that stuff.
We jugged to the bottom of the dihedral, and I chopped The Driller's 2nd bolt, moved it down and right a foot (now you can fall without hitting the ledge) and added one more. it looks like the dihedral may need one more bolt-- it has to be French-freeable-- so next time we go there, The Driller, who is about 4 inches shorter than me, and has lots less ape, will see if he can French-free it.
It being Mother's Day, I spent off-moments, much to The Driller's delight, texting my girlfriend and telling her how awesome she was. 10 reasons. I got from 10 to 5, and 4 to 1 are going to be the M.I.L.F. reasons, which will remain au boudoir, which I believe is French for "let's talk about that over some poutine and a bottle or two of Cinquante.
At the end of the day, we sat and neither smoked nor drank (Napoleon, you better be holding up your end of the deal...I will station The Yankee outside your tent in Camp Four to ensure compliance) and catalogued what total gumbies we are.
a) We will have chopped six of our own bolts successfully, and two unsuccessfully, by the time we are done. So not only can we not really install them properly, we can't uninstall them either. WOOT!
b) We have built the longest bolt ladder in Squamish. But that one's for the punters, like us and the sub-12 crowd...and we know you are legion...
c) Our shoes. Have a look at how gumbies re-lace and life-lengthen their shoes. Can you spot the erratic brilliance of our solutions?
Next Sunday, we return to the project...to FINISH! We will move a station, chop two trees, add one bolt to P8 and then hopefully down with the fixed lines.
An email had come earlier in the week.
>Yea get the route done, I want to scrub
>some variations.
Now there are three problems with this sentence.
a) In order to scrub a variation, you need a route to vary from. We need to get on that.
b) In order to scrub, you have to scrub the route, which you cannot do when you are contemplating the hard-to-send treasures of Yosemite, like the newly-single Steph Davis' butt in her Pradaguccia tights, or the Harding Slit, or finding a 4th blue Alien in Camp Four at 3 A.M. on the day you are setting off to do a nude speed ascent of Iron Hawk.
c) In order to scrub, you have to scrub...
But then, the emailer has been to Yosemite, while I am scared shitless to go anywhere near the place, partly because I am like ice-cream on a warm summer's day-- soft-- and partly because I have been using my car to sun-dry beef jerky and to smoke salmon for nearly 25 years now, so the thing must smell like a little slice of ursal Heaven to the Valley bears.
On Sunday it was The Driller and I. Now you know you've been working too much when hauling 60 pounds of gear to the base, and spending a day hanging from ropes, scrubbing cracks and drilling bolts, is fun. Such is The Driller's life. He has learned the first lesson of yuppie cunt-hood: you take up either heavy drinking or a heavy physical sport so that you don't turn into a donut-pasty, muffin-and-coffee rounded algorithm during your nine to five. Basically you could call new-routing a version of midlife-crisis aversion. "I am still a MAN," one (mentally) roars, shirking from nightmare visions of cramming one's waist-donut behind the up-tilted wheel of a mall-parked minivan after bundling the three kids in.
We arrived at the base of the route, eight months after last being on it, and found our ropes still hanging, and a few new rocks on the ground. We ended up getting a fair bit done. We chopped one bolt on our first pitch's left-hand variation, moved it 2 feet left, which means that people shorter than the newly-single Dean Potter will be able to reach it. We added one more bolt, and then we scrubbed it like The Filth scrubs his ass before his wife gets busy on it with the 18-incher, which is to say, not that much, but to sendability. The scariest thing was an epic, enormous grating sound that tumbled down slowly toward us, the sound of a few thousand pounds of rock grating into a new position. There was utter silence and then we remembered to breathe.
Here is the Driller following P1. The blue rope is (I think) Myles Holt's, from an (abandoned?) project.
Here is The Driller, doing his thing.
No, that is NOT a cigarette. Recall that we gave up smoking, masturbation and alcohol till we send. No, really...Driller is cleaning drill-dust out of the hole.
Coincidentally, this was the day when Frimer finally climbed The Milk Road and I was cheering him on-- the thing looks like it totally rocks, but I was
made a bit self-conscious, cos Frimer is as anal as a new-router can possibly be, cleaning-wise. I mean, you could probably eat out of those handjams, store your bagels and lox in there, etc, they are so nice and white.
We then rapped, and climbed to the top of P2 the direct way, and moved the rap station to the left as Paul Cordy told us to. Driller successfully chopped one old bolt and successfully made another one spin on its axis. I know this belay is gonna look fucked-up when everybody else climbs this route, but we had little choice: when I drilled it, the now-huge-incut-white-spot was a set of leaning death flakes that bulged out, and it would have been insane to put a station in that stuff.
We jugged to the bottom of the dihedral, and I chopped The Driller's 2nd bolt, moved it down and right a foot (now you can fall without hitting the ledge) and added one more. it looks like the dihedral may need one more bolt-- it has to be French-freeable-- so next time we go there, The Driller, who is about 4 inches shorter than me, and has lots less ape, will see if he can French-free it.
It being Mother's Day, I spent off-moments, much to The Driller's delight, texting my girlfriend and telling her how awesome she was. 10 reasons. I got from 10 to 5, and 4 to 1 are going to be the M.I.L.F. reasons, which will remain au boudoir, which I believe is French for "let's talk about that over some poutine and a bottle or two of Cinquante.
At the end of the day, we sat and neither smoked nor drank (Napoleon, you better be holding up your end of the deal...I will station The Yankee outside your tent in Camp Four to ensure compliance) and catalogued what total gumbies we are.
a) We will have chopped six of our own bolts successfully, and two unsuccessfully, by the time we are done. So not only can we not really install them properly, we can't uninstall them either. WOOT!
b) We have built the longest bolt ladder in Squamish. But that one's for the punters, like us and the sub-12 crowd...and we know you are legion...
c) Our shoes. Have a look at how gumbies re-lace and life-lengthen their shoes. Can you spot the erratic brilliance of our solutions?
Next Sunday, we return to the project...to FINISH! We will move a station, chop two trees, add one bolt to P8 and then hopefully down with the fixed lines.
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