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Todd Eastman
climber
Bellingham, WA
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This is a great thread! So many of the epics and misadventures mirror our groveling, dirt digging, lichen scrubbing, and bug swatting in the Adirondacks, but especially with the crew at Pokomoonshine.
Thanks
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MH2
climber
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Whoa, David. That was a lonnnnggggg timeago. Back before kids from the gym were romping up the Towers of Paine. When there was still ice.
edit:
that must be reflection from the cornice glinting on my glasses
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thekidcormier
Gym climber
squamish, b.c.
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Ghost you sure got a lot of gear for burgers and fries.
Hip belays kick ass, 'specially when Simul climbing, you can feed the rope in and out so much faster
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hamish f
Social climber
squamish
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I just can't make it through a week without embarrassing myself on this site...
While we're on belay stories....
My first attempt on the mighty split pillar was with a buddy named Phil. We were both too young and useless to climb it but there we were anyway, fully psyched.
It was hot, no shirts weather up there. I was to give it a go first and I do recall that thing looking overwhelmingly steep and long. Up I go, easing myself up onto that little perch at the start of the laybacking. I wiggled in a couple of roped hexes, as friends hadn't been invented yet(or I couldn't afford them, or a combo), and they looked pretty good. A couple deep breaths and I start laybacking up, and up. Before too long I realize there's no way I'm going to be able to place any more gear, in fact there's no way I'm hanging on very much longer at all. I think I downclimbed a fair way back and took a fall on those hexes. Right on, another route that's way over my head. Dumbass.
Next it's Phil's turn. Phil was substantially bigger than me, not that that meant too much, so I clipped the rope through a biner on my Whillan's harness before passing it around my skinny little shirtless waist. Oh ya, I had all the tricks of a modern climber.
Phil had got himself a pair of Vasque ascenders for footwear and they were pretty firm, and not too sticky, to say the least. Up he goes, laybacking past my two hexes for all he was worth. About 10 or 15 feet above the nuts he starts moaning a lot and things are going bad at a fast pace. He's stuck in the layback position, unable to deal with any gear; unable to do anything, really.
He explodes off the rock and, screaming, flies past me, upside down. He landed way underneath me, on the bolt ladder, upside down. I had the hip belay on full lock mode but unfortunately a fold of my skin had gotten sucked through the biner with the rope. I can't express how much that hurt.
Phil is hanging upside down yelling and I'm in even worse pain with part of my stomach sucked through the biner and completely pinched by the rope still. I'm looking down at my poor stomach and it's bleeding all around the biner and man oh man, does it ever hurt.Thank god the bolt ladder was there so Phil could put his weight on a bolt while I extricated my stomach fold from the oval.
Somehow we untangled ourselves, left those two hexes, and got the hell outta there. Obviously way over our heads.
Another day with the hip belay...
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hamish f
Social climber
squamish
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That doesn't ring a bell Tami. 34 years later, some of those bells become pretty distant though. Couple of Hacks, that's for sure.
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hamish f
Social climber
squamish
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What an Epic pitch. Glad we finally figured it out.
Off topic but I did a new trail in Britannia ystrdy so when that tin can touches down in Canada, grab ur nomad and charge up the sound asap. It's 5 star.
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MH2
climber
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Hahahaha! It may have happened a while ago, Hamish, but it certainly hasn't gotten old. That's a great story grippingly told.
Not a Squamish story, but I got tested on the hip belay in 1968 in a park by the Sekonk river in Providence, Rhode Island. The university outing club had a letter of permission from the city to use a big tree. The system was to run the (goldline) rope through a biner attached to a high branch. For a test weight the club used 2, not 1 but 2 signs from a parking lot that were set in concrete bases. The new belayer was tied in to the tree trunk. A car was needed to haul up the weights, with the rope slip-knotted to a bumper. It was tricky to get the knot so that it would still release under tension.
When the car had lifted the weight high enough, the belayer was supposed to let out 10 feet of slack, catch the fall, and then escape the system by putting a prusik on the rope in front and clipping it to the tie-in behind them. It worked, but once a small woman got whipped up into the air and looked like she might get cut in half or pass out before following the proper procedure. She did fine. No wonder we always had a police car or two stop to see what was going on. That was what the city letter was for.
We all used hip belay for a few years, until the stich plate came along. We were pretty careful not to fall, though.
Goldline would stretch under body weight but the forces on a falling climber could be dangerously high if the stop came too abruptly. We wore a glove on the belay hand and the rope would run through it for a ways when catching a fall. That was the dynamic belay.
Years later I was told that someone from the club finally weighed the parking signs: 150 lbs.
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Big Mike
Trad climber
BC
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Topic Author's Reply - May 5, 2012 - 12:16pm PT
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Hahahaha! Glad im not the only person to dog his way up the pillar! ;) I thought i was ready for it at the time, til i got there and looked at the thing!
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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Ghost you sure got a lot of gear for burgers and fries.
Not me Kid. I just had a camera. It's that well-known gear freak MH2. Probably about to dog his way up Dusty Eyes or something, with Ed & Helen.
On the subject of the Pillar, my first go at it was pathetic, too. Climbed Cruel Shoes with Peter Shackleton and Chris Murrell. They were both climbing strongly at the time, and I think I was mostly changing diapers and not sleeping much. One of them led the Pillar, and then I started up. Chugged up the thin part thinking "I should have demanded the lead. This is cake." But as soon as it got too wide for my small hands...
Must have hung on that rope about fifty times on the rest of the way up.
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hamish f
Social climber
squamish
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As long as no one wants me to put the rope up, I'm in.
Why limit one's embarrassment to the computer.
That Rhode Island story pretty much takes the cake.
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Relic
Social climber
Vancouver, BC
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We should do a young/middle/older farts climbing day sometime. Big arsed hootenanny at the base of the Grand or something. Huh? Who's in say 'eye' !
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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We should do a young/middle/older farts climbing day sometime.
We're planning to be in Squamish next weekend. Either Thursday through Sunday or Friday through Monday. As long as the weather looks okay, that is.
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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The first time I did the Split Pillar I nailed the crap out of it. No problem, though it took a while.
Edit: OK, I used about 1/3 nuts. Wiggling in hexes and stuff.
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Relic
Social climber
Vancouver, BC
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I think STUCK should make Monday a split pillar day. Or tomorrow even. Bonus mini-chimney at top makes it a legit stuck event.
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RyanD
climber
Squamish
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Haha awesome FTOTSP stories everyone!! My first time up I was seconding & had no biz being there. A few yrs later I was back & I was bad ass. Ready to send the rig, as some would say. My friend Josh & I had already simul climbed the apron/butress that morning(pitched out the crux) & then chilled out until later in the afternoon in my backyard talking trash & generally feeling as though we were the coolest guys in town for we were about to do TWO routes up the chief in a day, y'know TC styles.
Anyways, at some point we headed up there & made it to the BOTSP in no time, I was Psyched & seeing as I had red pointed the butress @ 10c earlier that morning I figured that this should be a piece of piss, after all we were baddass, right?. I cruised up the start jamming away, having a good time for awhile. Placed my #3 when it got a little wide & got ready to start laybacking, i had a #4 with me but Josh-who crushes, had sprayed me down & told me to just gun it for the jug & that i shouldnt even have brought the #4, he said I would surely pump out if I tried to place it out of the layback & my chances of becoming famous would greatly decline. What if I fall from up there? I asked. You can't fall from up there was his reply, nobody falls from the jug.
I was pretty pumped at this point but still feeling fairly cool. Kinda like the kid in high school with the fake ID feels when he's in the booze store, he's the man- but deep down knows that he's getting away with some bullsh!t & could quite easily get caught if he doesn't play his cards right.
So I head up the layback section, running it out a good 25' or so to the jug which I latch victoriously, then simultaneously something strange happens..
For some reason I subconciously decide to paste my right foot up high & remove my left foot from the crack, effectively creating a wonderful barn door sensation which caused me to pop right off & proceed to take the biggest whipper of my life. Somehow I ended up about 15 feet above Josh who obviously had some rope out. He got slammed into the belay pretty good & I was miraculously unscathed besides a little pain in my shoulder & the immediate petrifying feeling that I would have to go back up there, that i did not send the rig, and that i was so far from badass or cool that it wasnt even funny, i had just spent about 2.5 seconds flying thru the air shrieking like a little girl with a spider on her arm. We hung out for a bit until I stopped trembling and Josh's knees were confirmed to be just a little banged up. I went back up there & at the not so surprisingly new advice of Josh smashed the #4 in midway thru the layback & finished the pitch.
What a ride that was. What a pitch. I always have a little chuckle when I'm in the boulders & hear that piercing shriek coming down thru the trees & know that someone else just got the same pleasure that I went through at one time.
Serious respect for any of u psychos who used to lap that thing with hexes & clipping rusty bolts.
edit: And a hip belay
Any story's from the pillar FFA???
That must have been quite a breakthrough at the time.
Please let me know if u guys are playing the Exasperator speed climbing game, I have no interest in top rope speed climbing but am a big enthusiast of throwing beer cans at people & can't say I've ever had the pleasure of doing it to someone who is climbing!
Enjoy the sun everyone!
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Relic
Social climber
Vancouver, BC
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Splitter pillar is just a mere warm up at Indian Creek. We are all light.
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Relic
Social climber
Vancouver, BC
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Hey RyanD, we should take bigmike and Thekidcorm for a session on Crackhead in the boulders. Their eyes lit up when I showed it to them before doing Exasperator the other day.
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RyanD
climber
Squamish
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That's a pretty good idea Relic, corrupt them with boulder problems that have the word "crack" in them! Before they know it they'll be addicted to the "practice" rocks! Stoned out of their skulls with dreadlocks & matresses strapped to their backs, various different toilet & denture brushes in their pockets & taped onto long sticks. After crackhead we can get them on quest for pain & buns up & squealing, all the traddy boulder problems, there's another roof crack problem in there too, can't remember the name though...let me know!
And though the climbing on the pillar may be a warmup in the creek, the position & exposure can't compare, Jim B nailed it with his comments -it's a whole different ball game when u grab the sharp end on the pillar for the first time & as shown by the stories here u are not likely to forget it!
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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And though the climbing on the pillar may be a warmup in the creek, the position & exposure can't compare
There are places where the Pillar wouldn't be the most amazing climb on the crag, but Indian Creek ain't one of them. Creek's just a silly outdoor crack gym. If the Split Pillar was at the Creek, it would be the most coveted climb there.
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