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Fritz
Trad climber
Choss Creek, ID
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 7, 2014 - 10:47pm PT
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mechrist: We are downstream a couple hundred miles from Lake Bonneville, and our wandering boulder relates to local lava flows, a one-time Pliocene lake in this area of the Snake River, and then the Lake Bonneville flood rearranging stuff in a major way.
Mike M, re your question: Most precarious boulder ever climbed?
I doubt if it is that unstable, but I am haunted by the memory of a Cadillic-sized outcrop of limestone in 3/4 Couloir on the way up to the Chouinard Route on the North Face of Mt. Fay in Canada about 1979.
My climbing partner Mark hadn’t done enough Canadian climbing to be at ease on wet, loose, steep limestone swept by rock-fall.
Somehow the romance of it all, just didn’t seize his imagination in a positive way.)
Near the top of 3-4 Couloir: the loose, wet limestone blocks finally gave way to a high angle scree slope. At the end of my last lead I suggested un-roping, but without comment Mark continued past me roped-up. Halfway up his scree lead he pounded a piton into a Cadillac-size rock buried in the now gravel like surrounding rock. Fifty feet higher, Mark just flopped down in the gravel and told me, “on belay.”
When I got to Mark’s piton, I removed it. Rather than slog through the steep gravel around the Cadillac-sized rock, I simply stepped up onto the rock. As I stood on the rock, arms akimbo, catching my breath; it suddenly rolled out from under me! I jumped into the air: landing on my feet in the scree, as Mark pulled me up tight with the rope.
Let me repeat myself: the Cadillac-size chunk of rock that we had both assumed was bedrock, or at least damned solid, rolled out from under me like a log in water, when I stood on it!
To make a classic understatement: I’m still glad I removed Mark’s piton, before I climbed up on the rock it was in.
I was so rattled by the near fatal event, I didn’t even enjoy the noise the Cadillac rock made clearing out debris in 3-4 Couloir.
Good thing no one was below us.
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Chewybacca
Trad climber
Montana, Whitefish
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I think I feel a fever comin' on, Gold Fever that is...
Break out the gold pan, the wandering boulder may have revealed the mother lode.
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Fritz
Trad climber
Choss Creek, ID
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 7, 2014 - 11:01pm PT
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Since Jgill asks the very pertinent question and retort!
Is that all you have to climb on?
Take up golf
I do agree! We don't climb much on our ranchette, but
We do have a higher, better, and so-far more stable basalt cliff.
Rocky Point ain't perfect, but it is 200 ft. from our house, and varies from user-friendly 20' high solid bouldering routes, to a more challenging over-hangin face. So far------it has not shown signs of roll-over problems.
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Edge
Trad climber
Boulder, CO
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There didn't happen to be any Boy Scout leaders in the area prior to it's tipping, did there?
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Fritz
Trad climber
Choss Creek, ID
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 7, 2014 - 11:20pm PT
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Edge! Perhaps the best question so far!
There didn't happen to be any Boy Scout leaders in the area prior to it's tipping, did there?
I do need to post some signs on the boundary of our 5 acre Ranchette.
NO TRESSPASSING! BOY SCOUT LEADERS AND OTHER VARMINTS SHOT ON SIGHT!
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Todd Eastman
climber
Bellingham, WA
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Looks better than the Gendarme at Seneca after it danced with gravity...
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
Nothing creative to say
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Looks like a turd. A nice turd tho...
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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We last stood on top of it two weeks ago.
What's next?
ROFL....
Okay, first, yeah, sorry for your loss. But....
"What's next?" Well, I suggest that you start with assuming whatever position of worship is appropriate for your chosen "higher power" and then begin offering long and profuse thanks! For your lives, that is. If a sense of gratitude is not immediately forthcoming, you should be able to arouse that sense by imagining the sensations produced by being "rolled."
Next, see if you get any impressions that you owe the "higher power" any sacrifices of thanks. You almost certainly WILL get such impressions, particularly if your imagination of being "rolled" was vivid.
Your left nut might be in order, or perhaps a goat. If you get any such impressions, I would certainly follow through on them. This is not the time to skimp and thereby piss off an entity that might not be so kind to you next time.
While you're contemplating whether or not to sacrifice your left nut on a vague impression, again bring up a vivid picture of yourself being "rolled" by that boulder, which didn't happen almost certainly due to the intervention of the "higher power."
Then, DO what you've gotta do.
Finally, do some double and triple checks of the monster in its current position to determine if further rollage might be upcoming, as you might want to offer some preemptive sacrifices if such rollage looks even remotely possible. Perhaps your right nut. Gotta take such things seriously, after all.
Now, with (likely) only 1/3 of your cluster remaining, you'll likely be thinking (and feeling) much differently than you do now, and you might not even give a rip about that boulder anymore.
If, however, you still do give a rip at this point, I suggest dynamite as a logical next step toward reorienting the mass along your preferred axis.
You asked "What's next?" So, I've done what I can to be helpful. I hope I have been!
Cheers!
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Fritz.
The traverse from the SE Ridge around the Eastern wall to the North wall looks promising. You need to dig a hole in the ground under the overhanging Eastern wall. You have left a chalk mark close to the Eastern part of the summit. I think that's where you'll find the crux section.
And the North Wall should be a thrill given the deep water soloing.
Is there something sacred about the place?
Is the chalk mark poff?
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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You may recall---at one time "Hot Henry" Barber advocated inverted, or "upside down" climbing?
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martygarrison
Trad climber
Washington DC
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Looks like something Munge would climb
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phylp
Trad climber
Millbrae, CA
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You people are all so darn cute...
and funny.
Glad you weren't on the downside of that boulder when it went, Fritz!
xoxo Phyl
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fluffy
Trad climber
Colorado
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Great pic NZskier! Right through the fuggin back door.
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Fritz
Trad climber
Choss Creek, ID
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 8, 2014 - 01:47pm PT
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I have carefully read & contemplated the suggestions made up-thread.
It looks like my old climbing-pal Stein is going to cooperate in a 1st ascent of newly named TAC Rock (upside down CAT Rock). I offered to handle the difficult and dangerous job of belaying the leader. I will be well upslope, tied off safely to a large Sagebrush, & will be using the "Modified Austrian Death-Route Belay", where, the rope is all in front of me, and not connected to a harness, or my body. It is "perfectly-safe" in many conditions, especially for the belayer.
RE suggestions that the local powers need to be proprieted. There may well be something out of balance. A big chunk of a Spruce tree blew onto our garage a couple weeks back, then this rock thing happens.
Water is running downhill at the ranchette. No unusual animal or bird behavior. Maybe I need to slip into my Shaman mode & sit down and have some wine again with the guardian Inukshuks. They have obviously failed in their watchfulness.
It makes me proud of my fellow ST pundits, when folks pull together as a community like this! Keep the helpful advice coming!
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Doing the HOT Henry thing, start at the top and climb the routes down...headfirst, of course. After several bottles of fine Columbia River Cabernet, it'll seem completely natural. Go have some wine and think about it, Fritz! ;)
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pyro
Big Wall climber
Calabasas
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Pour some white gas on it, New Year's Eve, light it up, take pics and post here
who's the pyro!!!
sorry about the boulder falling over!
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Fritz
Trad climber
Choss Creek, ID
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 9, 2014 - 12:23pm PT
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Took some more photos yesterday.
This one from the base of our spring creek waterfall shows the wayward boulder looming. Obviously, it can roll a lot more if the large pieces of alluvial rock under it collapse. The spring creek goes underground for about 20 feet and emerges to form the waterfall, so the ground is certainly porous just below the boulder.
This photo from above shows where it broke away and the path of squished sagebrush left behind.
What to do? and where should we climb it for the first ascent?
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Come on Fritz....get on the job! You and Heidi have a unique trundling opportunity.
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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hey there say, fritz... fun share, as to seeing old things from a new angle, ;)
nice pics, too... :)
of the before and after, :)
wow, wonder if it will ever, change position again, and show yet another
'thus far hidden facet' ;)
edit:
wow, saw the newer pics:
must add:
LOVELY photos... not just nice... :)
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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That thing is not done rolling until it reaches the sea.
Repeat after me: left nut, right nut, perhaps a goat, and THEN proceed to climb (from top down, of course).
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