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madboIter1
Big Wall climber
Walla Walla, WA
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Topic Author's Original Post - May 16, 2012 - 06:20pm PT
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So, I'm starting the SA of "Look Out! Danger!" in the Fisher Towers. I have spotty Internet, and I'm trying to keep a blog going about it: www.conclusivesystems.com/danger.
I'm most of the way up the first pitch, almost to the infamous hook anchor, as soon as I can figure out where it is (the "topo" is almost useless!). I'll report on what I find.
I can say this much already: This is the most contrived, manufactured, worthless "line" I have ever even heard of, much less seen. The FA team apparently couldn't even reach more than about 18 inches, because that's about as far between placements as I've seen so far. And virtually every placement is heavily drilled/trenched!
I mean, these guys were drilling big trenches for bashies when you could easily get past using Peckers in the mud seams (which I often did). They were drilling huge (over 1 inch in diameter) holes in blank rock and then (I finally figured out) filling them with some sort of weird euro-bashies. Then when they cleaned these, they just blew open the edges of the holes (because this sandy crap is so fragile), leaving worthless, flared holes you can't do anything with. In short, to "follow" this manufactured pile, you have to be constantly re-drilling the garbage they left behind.
And there is SO much drilling! Every 18 inches there's a hole... a BIG hole. And one of the guys brags on his topo: "Only 33 mini bolts were used for progression on pitches." Uhhh... yeah, right! There are more holes than that on the first pitch alone! I've taken to bypassing the giant, flared holes with full-on rivets, which are at least sustainable. And so much mud flows down this wall that within a few more years the eyesore holes in blank rock will be filled naturally.
I guess that these goofballs figure that you don't have to consider all the drilling and trenching at ALL, as long as you only count "mini bolts" as your definition of greatness.
I literally cannot express what an utter botch job this thing is shaping up to be. Totally contrived and utterly artificial "difficulty."
Oh, and about that. The first pitch is rated A5. Not! I'm being generous to call it A3, and that's only because of the difficulty in manufacturing placements to "follow" what they did as closely as possible. You can't pound a giant euro-bashie into a huge hole every 18 inches and call that A5! What a complete joke this thing is.
Well, I'll try to get online now and then to keep ya'll abreast of the SA of "possibly the world's hardest aid route" (as it's been called, lol). It's dangerous, no doubt. Basically anything at the Fishers is dangerous. You are literally climbing on mud. But the initial report is that this thing is the most contrived and utter botch job imaginable.
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mooch
Trad climber
Old Climbers' Home (Adopted)
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May 16, 2012 - 08:24pm PT
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Off to FA this fun little tower
....A7 nailing????
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wildone
climber
EP
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May 17, 2012 - 11:32am PT
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Take some pics of the damage!
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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May 17, 2012 - 01:31pm PT
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A3? A5? No way. Fattrad told me he didn't find anything harder than 5.7 when he freed it last month.
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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May 17, 2012 - 02:02pm PT
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Spaniards???
Huh?
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zBrown
Ice climber
Chula Vista, CA
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May 17, 2012 - 03:04pm PT
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Could be watered down, but
Body Water Lost Symptoms:
1% Few symptoms or signs of any thirst present; however, there is a marked reduction in VO2 max.
2% Beginning to feel thirsty; loss of endurance capacity and appetite.
3% Dry mouth; performance impaired.
4% Increased effort for exercise, impatience, apathy, vague discomfort, loss of appetite.
5% Difficulty concentrating, increased pulse and breathing, slowing of pace.
6-7% Further impairment of temperature regulation, higher pulse and breathing, flushed skin, sleepiness, tingling, stumbling, headache.
8-9% Dizziness, labored breathing, mental confusion, further weakness.
10% Muscle spasms, loss of balance, swelling of tongue.
11% Heat Exhaustion, delirium, stroke, difficulty swallowing; death can occur.
Dehydration can cause any or all of the following:
• Increased heart rate (beats per minute)
• Increased lactate acid in muscles (increased blood acidity)
• Increased body temperature
• Decreased strength
• Any of the following medical conditions: heat cramping, heat exhaustion & heat stroke
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Plaidman
Trad climber
South Slope of Mt. Tabor, Portland, Oregon, USA
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May 17, 2012 - 07:59pm PT
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For perspective maybe Desert Towers by Steve "Crusher" Bartlett should be mandatory reading material before even venturing out to the Fisher Towers.
http://stores.sharpendbooks.com/-strse-13/Desert-Towers-%28call-to/Detail.bok
The style that these guys are doing according to your report so far is definitely not in keeping with the ethic of the area. The area is very fragile and you can really hose up a route out there. It would be nice if it could have been done cleaner even if it is aid. And 6+ doesn't even exist. I think that discussion has already been spoken of here on the TACO. Reading that Desert Towers book really goes to show what bad asses those guys were BITD. We have is so easy. So many tricks now it seems almost like cheating. But in their defense sandstone can be a scary medium. I much prefer granite. Although I think I hear Wingate sandstone towers calling to me. Hell according to Layton Kor a pinnacle is worth 5 Big Walls!
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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May 17, 2012 - 08:07pm PT
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What goes around comes around. Now Layton says that a good piss is worth five pinnacles.
So they were Spaniards? You mean like from Spanish Fork?
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Plaidman
Trad climber
South Slope of Mt. Tabor, Portland, Oregon, USA
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May 17, 2012 - 08:09pm PT
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Layton says that a good piss is worth five pinnacles.
Nice!
No from Spain. Which would make them .......... Spainards.
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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May 17, 2012 - 08:12pm PT
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So,.. it was Spanish f*#ks not Spanish Forkers.
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Gene
climber
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May 17, 2012 - 08:34pm PT
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A6 - It's all about the shoes the FA team wore and Google Translate.
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madboIter1
Big Wall climber
Walla Walla, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - May 17, 2012 - 08:54pm PT
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LOL, Russ, off route indeed. I was thinking the same thing at times so far on the first pitch. But, it only gets hard to follow when the mud flows obscure the huge bashie holes, so that it's not clear where to go.
Pics will be coming. I'm going to take tons when I clean. I'm 30 feet from the hook belay. Brutal hot! And I'm trying to turn the first pitch into something sustainable, which takes a lot of time. I don't have this sort of time to devote to the whole route, so I'm not sure how this is going to play out. But I'll get the first few pitches anyway.
So, the first pitch is this....
About 30 feet from the start, you have a small dihedral that takes peckers in places. Otherwise it's blank, and the FA team trenched big heads. I could get past several of their trenches with peckers.
After that dihedral ends, they just got straight to drilling. It just kills me that one of the guys bragged about how few "mini bolts" in the route. Literally every 18 to 24 inches there is a big hole drilled into blank "rock," and they are almost identical. These guys were custom drilling for a particular bashie, and there are a few that they couldn't even jerk out, so I'll get pics of those. I've seen at least 30 of those holes so far on the pitch, and there are a bunch more leading up to the horizontal thing I think is where they put the hook belay.
Now these bashies had to be pretty good, because the ones they could jerk out blew out the edges of the holes, and there are quite a few still fixed with cable damage. So, even "A5" for the first pitch is a complete joke. Basically these goofballs just drilled a bashie ladder. And I can see more such holes above the horizontal ledge, so it's just many more such "placements" until you finally get into another small dihedral about 100 feet above where I am now. Of course, there will be more trenched heads in that. It's like these guys never heard of peckers and the like.
Ok, so now, what to do? The current holes are useless. "Fixing" them to take the same bashies again will take a lot of time, and that assumes that you HAVE such bashies. Probably a euro-only item. And that's a stupid way to go, because each place/remove cycle just makes things worse.
Eventually these holes are going to take angle tips. But place/remove destroys those also, so people will just drill them deeper. Then it's a ladder of drilled angles.
So, for most of the pitch I've been drilling my own rivets beside the line of holes. Mud flows are starting to cover the holes already, so they will disappear eventually, and a like of rivets is at least HONEST about what's really there! It's basically a hole ladder of some sort. The only question is what's going to go into those holes and how sustainable the result will be.
Don't scream, but I'm using those Zamac rivets. They stay good for decades because they do not corrode (witness: holding Ammon's falls after 30 years). Also, you can't use the typical machine bolt rivet as you do in good rock, because this crap is just compressed sand. It's even worse "rcck" than Cottentail Tower. So, you need something that will go into a fairly shallow hole and then expand in place, like a Zamac does.
Of course, you could go with full-on bolts, but then it's not a rivet ladder, and there's no time to replace all these holes with full-on bolts. So, Zamacs are a decent compromise, they'll be solid for decades, and they are still rivets.
Also, I'm getting more than five feet between placements, instead of this 18 to 24 inch ridiculousness. It's like these guys never heard of second loops... sometimes not even third loops! But, if you sew it up with bashies, you can CLAIM A5 and even A6+ (!!!), while making it quite safe for yourself. You're simply not going to rip a string of drilled bashies that are 18 inches apart!
So, there will be far fewer holes when I'm done (and the mud does its inevitable work), and what will remain will be repeatable.
Problem is that I really have no interest in doing this for 1000 feet. And looking up, all I can see are strings of these stupid bashie holes! It's not a worthwhile use of time to just drill basically a rivet ladder up the side of the Titan, and there's precious little natural features to work with. So, this is going to be one amazingly drilled pile, with nothing CLOSE to the hyped rating.
In short, I'm really torn. I want to finish this thing just to have done it, but the prospect of weeks of drilling in the heat just makes me gag! And the truth about this overhyped pile is already known. I will certainly get at least the first few pitches just to see if things continue this way. But after that, I don't know.
It's so frustrating. This "rock" simply won't sustain a "blank" route without it just becoming a rivet ladder. Intifada actually followed a line of natural features. There are almost none on this "line" at all. And the endless euro-bashies are just maddening. Well, we'll see how it goes higher up. Maybe there will be a bit more natural to work with. Crap! I can't believe how many of their holes I've gotten past already. At least five with peckers and at least five more with better spaced rivets.
Hype, all hype. Nothing more than a manufactured route DESIGNED to be an ego-pumping hype for "Palut's" climbing career.
Wow, you cannot BELIEVE the mud flows! I have silt in places you don't even want to know about! I've pulled down hundreds of pounds of mud... most of it going to the side of me. You can't even FIND the "rock" without major effort. Much worse than Cottentail!
Babbling now... must be the heat. I'll post pictures to the blog in a day or two.
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Fritz
Trad climber
Choss Creek, ID
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May 17, 2012 - 09:45pm PT
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WOW!!!
Climbing controversy, on-site posting of the epic, and moral-downfall of the embellishing Dagos!
WOW!
Interesting reading on the links posted too!
This thread is going for at least 500 posts.
We just need the Dagos or their friends on it too!
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Salamanizer
Trad climber
The land of Fruits & Nuts!
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May 17, 2012 - 09:59pm PT
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Wow, sounds like a total joke to me. I can't wait for these pictures.
I'm with Jeremy, bail! Why even bother with the rest. Just take some photo evidence and save your hardware for something worthy.
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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May 18, 2012 - 12:49pm PT
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You want pictures?
Here's a picture of you guys and whoever it is that has you so well hooked.
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Plaidman
Trad climber
South Slope of Mt. Tabor, Portland, Oregon, USA
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May 18, 2012 - 04:50pm PT
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A-6 is a myth. And A-6+ must be in the land of unicorns and fairies.
Anything above A-3 is frightening.
Found this on one site. I think it is succinct and to the point:
"C6 or A6 does not exist, since the aid climbing scale was developed as discrete scale that is not open ended. Also, since C5 implies the death of both climber and belayer, a rating of C6 could not cause an increase in severity."
[quote]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grade_(climbing)#Aid_climbing[/quote]
Haven't we gone down this road of rating aid above A-5 and I think there was some discussion as to whether A-5 was even attainable. I wouldn't know as I am not stupid enough to try aid at that level. Like I said A-3 is red lining for me.
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j-tree
Big Wall climber
Classroom to crag to summer camp
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May 18, 2012 - 06:12pm PT
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Arrrgh! I thought it was the real Madbolter. It was in fact the MadboIter1. Still, I think the rating by the FAs is a bit silly, don't you?
Despite the screen name, the posting matches up with the posts on the external blog. Copyrighted to a Mr. Richard Jenson
http://www.conclusivesystems.com/danger/
and who is deleting posts? was 30 earlier today and 27 as of this posting.
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zip
Trad climber
pacific beach, ca
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May 18, 2012 - 06:16pm PT
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hmmm, very interesting.
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