Gumbies! On! Crack!, like Napoleon in Starbucks, Ian Bennett at an organic vegetable stand, or Butch in his girlfriend's underwear drawer, has been somewhat sidetracked of late. This is because
a) It rains-- weird, I know; you would think we were living on the Coast or something
b) A bunch of us went to Indian Crack, Utah, the most addictive place in the world, other than Pornhub or BikesnobNYC or a White Sale at your local Army and Navy.
c) I have so many blog entry ideas, that, like a kind of really retarded Hamlet, I don't know where to start. Between David Bloom's Indian Crock guidebook (which is to real guidebooks what Homer's Odyssey is to GPS navigation) to Napoleon's battles with rabbits, Digital Readout and coffee-makers, to Tony McLane's imminent hair sponsorship, to Sarah Panofsky's human bouldering, I've been swamped.
Stay tuned, folks...like a finely-tuned toilet, Gumbies!On!Crack! will be back, transporting the goods you want, exactly where you want 'em.
Showing posts with label Tony McLane. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tony McLane. Show all posts
Monday, November 23, 2009
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Day 13
I didn't think one bit about possible bad luck this morning as I raced up to Squamish to meet-- wait for it-- Napoleon! The man has finally learned a few things about priorities. He spent yesterday pos-- err, I mean, climbing, on The Opal, which would be a great route to pose on except only people climbing Rock On can see you, and they are usually busy doing things like fighting with their significant other who is also (unfortunately) their climbing partner, or dealing with serious rope drag, or freaking out cos the end of the crux pitch is wet. (I have been involved in all of these activities and a few more). So Napoleon's posing strategy failed. Well, not quite, his buddy Neil saw him take a big one...raising the question of what exactly Neil was doing on Rock On, he having neither climbing-partner-girlfriend, rope-drag issues or fear of water...was he perhaps having a thoroughly enjoyable time of it? Hmmm...
Really you want to pose at, say, Zombie Roof (5.13a) which has become the new must-do route in Squamish, now that hard gear climbing, thanks to Sonny T and Will S and that Scottish cunt, is cool again after taking a 20-year bolt-induced vacation. It must suck to be a sport climber these days (who is Dave Graham again?) cos seriously, what is cooler-- 5.14 with 50 foot whippers onto ripping stacks of shaky blue Aliens, or 5.14 with "take" hissed at the camera? See, at Zombie Roof, you can breathe in the vapour trail of Peter Croft (50 this year and still putting up 12+ routes ground up), shred your fingers, grunt massively as you try to be a combination of Dean Potter, Spiderman and Captain Kirk from Star Trek 3 (?) with the free-solo-El-Cap-safely-in-gravity-boots, and, best of all, YOU CAN TRY TO IMPRRESS ALL THE GUMBIE CHICKS ON THEIR WAY TO BELAY THEIR BOYFRIENDS ON MOSQUITO. Or you could be Katy Holm and impress all the gumbie boys going to belay/impress their girlfriends on Mosquito (and you could do this either with your mad climbing skillz, or your amazing arms...but only if you were Katy). You sit there, suck-- err, I mean, massaging bloody knuckles, saying "yea feels soft for 13a" or perhaps "I used too much gear on that burn, maybe I'll just use the one fixed nut when I send." And the women, well, "da bitches go nutz when I walk in da room" or on the Roof as the case may be.
Anyway, where was I? Oh yea, Napoleon. So Napoleon got the first part of his posing out of the way Friday, the same day that I did some posing, err, climbing of my own at Nightmare Rock, with Jewels the Chick, of the famous Jewelz and Fergie, uhh, fame. Anyway I WANTED to pose but I was so soft, weak and timid-- like a plastic fork in piping hot pie, or icecream on a baking summer day-- that I couldn't manage anything like a decent pose, especially after watching some hardman throw himself at a 13c while being videotaped. No, I was a model climber-- scared, shaky and hanging off every piece and bolt I could find; you couldn't have taken a decent photo of me doing anything other than attentively belaying Jewels.
(Speaking of filming climbing, has anybody noticed how people being filmed while climbing don't swear? The work is all "sh*t!f*ck!c*unt-*ssed motherf*cker!" then on video it's all "ujm, urgh, HUNH! gosh, I really need to, you know, focus my fifth chakra's energy" Hindu yadda yadda rama rama harihari...at least Chris Sharma is smrt, oops, I mean, SMART enough to include himself cracking up while making one of his Mystical Reflections On Climbing in the DVD extras section of "King Lines") So like I said, I was a green toy made of Plasticene that you could have (and Squamish did) drape over a chair like a blanket or one of those idiotic Dali watches.
So anyway, where was I? Oh yes, Napoleon. Napoleon has arrangments to Take A Girl CLimbing on Sunday, so today he deigned to help do some gardening. So we hung off P1, and of course everything fucked up. Napoleon fucked up one bolt, so we now have a total of FOUR of our own bolts we need to chop on this route. You know you're a gumbie when... Then I nearly killed Napoleon with a rock. Then at day's end we discovered that jugging on my rope had worn through the sheath: bye bye, oddly bland blue-grey 70. At day's end, thanks to Napoleon, and Tony McLane in May, we have 90% of P1 cleaned, 1.5 bolts drilled, and plans to go and work on the top of the Chief-- we will try to hang that 200m static line off the right end of the High Ledge and then connect to Driller and my high point. If we do a really good job, we should have a spectacular place to pose near the tourist chicks...and a good view of Zombie Roof.
Really you want to pose at, say, Zombie Roof (5.13a) which has become the new must-do route in Squamish, now that hard gear climbing, thanks to Sonny T and Will S and that Scottish cunt, is cool again after taking a 20-year bolt-induced vacation. It must suck to be a sport climber these days (who is Dave Graham again?) cos seriously, what is cooler-- 5.14 with 50 foot whippers onto ripping stacks of shaky blue Aliens, or 5.14 with "take" hissed at the camera? See, at Zombie Roof, you can breathe in the vapour trail of Peter Croft (50 this year and still putting up 12+ routes ground up), shred your fingers, grunt massively as you try to be a combination of Dean Potter, Spiderman and Captain Kirk from Star Trek 3 (?) with the free-solo-El-Cap-safely-in-gravity-boots, and, best of all, YOU CAN TRY TO IMPRRESS ALL THE GUMBIE CHICKS ON THEIR WAY TO BELAY THEIR BOYFRIENDS ON MOSQUITO. Or you could be Katy Holm and impress all the gumbie boys going to belay/impress their girlfriends on Mosquito (and you could do this either with your mad climbing skillz, or your amazing arms...but only if you were Katy). You sit there, suck-- err, I mean, massaging bloody knuckles, saying "yea feels soft for 13a" or perhaps "I used too much gear on that burn, maybe I'll just use the one fixed nut when I send." And the women, well, "da bitches go nutz when I walk in da room" or on the Roof as the case may be.
Anyway, where was I? Oh yea, Napoleon. So Napoleon got the first part of his posing out of the way Friday, the same day that I did some posing, err, climbing of my own at Nightmare Rock, with Jewels the Chick, of the famous Jewelz and Fergie, uhh, fame. Anyway I WANTED to pose but I was so soft, weak and timid-- like a plastic fork in piping hot pie, or icecream on a baking summer day-- that I couldn't manage anything like a decent pose, especially after watching some hardman throw himself at a 13c while being videotaped. No, I was a model climber-- scared, shaky and hanging off every piece and bolt I could find; you couldn't have taken a decent photo of me doing anything other than attentively belaying Jewels.
(Speaking of filming climbing, has anybody noticed how people being filmed while climbing don't swear? The work is all "sh*t!f*ck!c*unt-*ssed motherf*cker!" then on video it's all "ujm, urgh, HUNH! gosh, I really need to, you know, focus my fifth chakra's energy" Hindu yadda yadda rama rama harihari...at least Chris Sharma is smrt, oops, I mean, SMART enough to include himself cracking up while making one of his Mystical Reflections On Climbing in the DVD extras section of "King Lines") So like I said, I was a green toy made of Plasticene that you could have (and Squamish did) drape over a chair like a blanket or one of those idiotic Dali watches.
So anyway, where was I? Oh yes, Napoleon. Napoleon has arrangments to Take A Girl CLimbing on Sunday, so today he deigned to help do some gardening. So we hung off P1, and of course everything fucked up. Napoleon fucked up one bolt, so we now have a total of FOUR of our own bolts we need to chop on this route. You know you're a gumbie when... Then I nearly killed Napoleon with a rock. Then at day's end we discovered that jugging on my rope had worn through the sheath: bye bye, oddly bland blue-grey 70. At day's end, thanks to Napoleon, and Tony McLane in May, we have 90% of P1 cleaned, 1.5 bolts drilled, and plans to go and work on the top of the Chief-- we will try to hang that 200m static line off the right end of the High Ledge and then connect to Driller and my high point. If we do a really good job, we should have a spectacular place to pose near the tourist chicks...and a good view of Zombie Roof.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Day Four: Onward & Upward
OK Day 4 was surprising because...Napoleon was almost on time and he actually had his stuff ready. Today we also had the pleasure of a new team member, one Tony McLane.
Now if you don't know Tony, you really must meet him. He comes from a wonderful lineage of climbers. His father, Kevin, a Brit, arrived in Canada in 1973, after a summer in the Valley, and never left. Tony put up his first route at age 10 or so. When I met him, he wore a shredded brown corduroys, a headband, and had long hair. His rack was a bunch of ancient Aliens most likely stolen from Dad. He rocked Yosemite 1977. I see Tony every winter in the U.S. He is generally unemployed, filthy, and broke...making his father very proud. Like a monk, the man has dedicated his life not to women, wine or work, but to climbing. He currently lives in a car in the yard of a tire shop.
Anyway Tony showed up on his bike and we hacked our way up to the route. Tony agreed to clean our alternative first pitch and jumped on the fixed blue lines, while Napoleon and I jugged up to our former high point. When Napoleon arrived at the tree to which I'd anchored the rope, he freaked. CEdars are generally deep-rooted and solid but Napoleon was NOT happy. So we argued for awhile. I was OK with the cedar but Blicker pointed out that there was no way we were going to be able to move up-- any rockfall woudl drop directly onto the tree. He was right, and we were therefore forced to drill two bolts off to the side of the crack to get the belayer out of the way of the inevitable bombing.
We thrashed around between the tree and the bolts for awhile, Napoleon sternly warning me not to drop big bombs on him. I moved up the final eight or so meters of crack, which were again oddly clean. At the ledge, I reached up to grab a small pillar...and the entire thing shifted. I stepped back down into my aiders. I had to move up and sideways, bypassing this potential 9 foot 500 pound missile which was about to obliterate first me and then Napoleon, who even from 30 feet away I could tell was sweating. I pawed at a couple of crimps, stood up on the ledge...and then realised I'd forgotten to unclip from my aiders. Now I had to down-climb four feet past the Leaning Pillar of Death. The LEPOD groaned as I pinched and squirmed myself into a pretzel shape, unclipped my aiders, and basically jumped sideways onto the muddy shelf. I fired in one bolt and breathed out. The ledge was good-- two feet wide, a comfy stance, you could sit, and the belayer would be out of the line of fire for the next pitch.
"I'm getting the fuck OUT of here!" yelled Napoleon. Although sympathetic to his cause, I thought that we had better get the LEPOD out of the way otherwise we would have to do the same thing next time. So we bickered a bit and then Napoleon jugged up.
When he arrived we started to reef on the LEPOD which shifted and ground ominously. Then some folks walked by and I, panicking, yelled "get the fuck out of the way!" to which they yelled "shut the fuck up and stop for a minute!" which was exactly what rude me deserved.
When the LEPOD finally came off-- it is odd how you can use a nut-tool to shift a 500-pound rock-- it blasted past the fixed lines and thundered down the face. We could feel its progress through our feet and the rope. The 150 meters of cliff shook and the smell of crushed rock wafter up along with Tony's "HOLY FUUUUUUUUCK!"
The real joy however was in seeing the next pitch. You climb about ten feet up and left along our ledge, then it is a shallow slabby dihedral that leads up to the Green Line ledge. Clean, smooth. It will make for some friction climbing and stemming, with possibly gear in its final third. All we need are a 1/4" drill and some of those aid devices that go in rivet holes. The next pitch, we will install one bolt at the lefthand top of our ledge. The we will stand on the bolt (or rock), drill a 1/4" rivet, clip that, move up, and drill antoher bolt. The 1/4" holes will be filled in with epoxy.
We fixed and retreated. Next weekend hopefully Napoleon and Tony will do P5. One person leads and drills, the other is on jugs and is cleaning P4. And then it's decision time...many options for moving up. Lots of cracks up there; we just need to make sure we are on the right one. Anyway thanks Tony for joining the team and stay tuned, folks. More cracks to come.
Now if you don't know Tony, you really must meet him. He comes from a wonderful lineage of climbers. His father, Kevin, a Brit, arrived in Canada in 1973, after a summer in the Valley, and never left. Tony put up his first route at age 10 or so. When I met him, he wore a shredded brown corduroys, a headband, and had long hair. His rack was a bunch of ancient Aliens most likely stolen from Dad. He rocked Yosemite 1977. I see Tony every winter in the U.S. He is generally unemployed, filthy, and broke...making his father very proud. Like a monk, the man has dedicated his life not to women, wine or work, but to climbing. He currently lives in a car in the yard of a tire shop.
Anyway Tony showed up on his bike and we hacked our way up to the route. Tony agreed to clean our alternative first pitch and jumped on the fixed blue lines, while Napoleon and I jugged up to our former high point. When Napoleon arrived at the tree to which I'd anchored the rope, he freaked. CEdars are generally deep-rooted and solid but Napoleon was NOT happy. So we argued for awhile. I was OK with the cedar but Blicker pointed out that there was no way we were going to be able to move up-- any rockfall woudl drop directly onto the tree. He was right, and we were therefore forced to drill two bolts off to the side of the crack to get the belayer out of the way of the inevitable bombing.
We thrashed around between the tree and the bolts for awhile, Napoleon sternly warning me not to drop big bombs on him. I moved up the final eight or so meters of crack, which were again oddly clean. At the ledge, I reached up to grab a small pillar...and the entire thing shifted. I stepped back down into my aiders. I had to move up and sideways, bypassing this potential 9 foot 500 pound missile which was about to obliterate first me and then Napoleon, who even from 30 feet away I could tell was sweating. I pawed at a couple of crimps, stood up on the ledge...and then realised I'd forgotten to unclip from my aiders. Now I had to down-climb four feet past the Leaning Pillar of Death. The LEPOD groaned as I pinched and squirmed myself into a pretzel shape, unclipped my aiders, and basically jumped sideways onto the muddy shelf. I fired in one bolt and breathed out. The ledge was good-- two feet wide, a comfy stance, you could sit, and the belayer would be out of the line of fire for the next pitch.
"I'm getting the fuck OUT of here!" yelled Napoleon. Although sympathetic to his cause, I thought that we had better get the LEPOD out of the way otherwise we would have to do the same thing next time. So we bickered a bit and then Napoleon jugged up.
When he arrived we started to reef on the LEPOD which shifted and ground ominously. Then some folks walked by and I, panicking, yelled "get the fuck out of the way!" to which they yelled "shut the fuck up and stop for a minute!" which was exactly what rude me deserved.
When the LEPOD finally came off-- it is odd how you can use a nut-tool to shift a 500-pound rock-- it blasted past the fixed lines and thundered down the face. We could feel its progress through our feet and the rope. The 150 meters of cliff shook and the smell of crushed rock wafter up along with Tony's "HOLY FUUUUUUUUCK!"
The real joy however was in seeing the next pitch. You climb about ten feet up and left along our ledge, then it is a shallow slabby dihedral that leads up to the Green Line ledge. Clean, smooth. It will make for some friction climbing and stemming, with possibly gear in its final third. All we need are a 1/4" drill and some of those aid devices that go in rivet holes. The next pitch, we will install one bolt at the lefthand top of our ledge. The we will stand on the bolt (or rock), drill a 1/4" rivet, clip that, move up, and drill antoher bolt. The 1/4" holes will be filled in with epoxy.
We fixed and retreated. Next weekend hopefully Napoleon and Tony will do P5. One person leads and drills, the other is on jugs and is cleaning P4. And then it's decision time...many options for moving up. Lots of cracks up there; we just need to make sure we are on the right one. Anyway thanks Tony for joining the team and stay tuned, folks. More cracks to come.
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