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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Aug 24, 2013 - 01:18pm PT
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These three are from this morning.
Especially for you Taconians, unique in all the world.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Aug 24, 2013 - 01:53pm PT
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Da Rim Fire--BIG BAD VOODOO DADDY STAY OFFA MY CLOUD.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Aug 24, 2013 - 02:11pm PT
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I'd been planning to come out here again sooner or later to collect the last of the hills north of town.
After climbing this pimple, all of 405' in elevation, I decided to go on to another rise behind it and then to circle around the watercourse to the east, or right, and come back to the corral where I had left my mtn. bike chained to a cattle ramp.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Aug 24, 2013 - 02:18pm PT
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More to come. I need a break, a shower to wake myself up.
zzzzzzzzz....handing off.
Back by noon with some barbecue!
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Aug 24, 2013 - 09:00pm PT
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Quarter to five I started thinking this would be a good chance to eliminate distractions and to allow us to enjoy the beauty and awesome forces of nature at work.
Between the first and lasst shots the plume died down and then came right back as fierce and wildly changing as ever.
Downdrafts from these push the fire outwards and then the heat generated from this creates more updraft to carry more heat and smoke skyward, and then that plume collapses and repeats the process, so it's hard to tell what a fire of this energy will do.
You can predict that if the area burning is moisture-free then the fire will be much hotter, thus exacerbating the billows effect.
I was thinking of some powerful classical music to add to this, but you choose something. I wouldn't choose the Elvira Madigan piece. More like The Moldau by Smetana, from just before the river's passage through the rapids on through them...powerful and threatening.
when I finished and was walking back through the draw and came out from it, I found that I wasn't finished.
Not at all.
I left my car at the gate, took my Raleigh up La Paloma about 4/5ths of a mile in longer than a minute (low tyres suck eggs), and locked it in the corral. I went out the back gate and hiked the fence line.Then I contoured into the draw.
This was a total of maybe five miles max. I move slow. I can't tax my systems like a younger, healthier man. I have a camera around my neck and it keeps going off, slowing me down even more.
I spoke of a sub-alpine start, but I was loath to miss this opportunity presented by a monster fire to shoot its outer garb. And, as this is The Flames, I had to represent somehow, I felt.
I seriously thought of going up to visit/offer help, but I am not much of the latter, I'm sure. I felt great on the hike, all systems go, so long as I cruised slow, which is natural for a member of a ride-begging society.
I may like fencing with words but fence posting is better than birdwatching, IMO. Birds take way too much engerny, the lenses are just phallic symbols, and they sh#t white, which ruins fence-post photos half the time for me.
Some of you claim to like sheite. Mice schist ever-where and don't care who smells it, comes in contact with it, or gets "spells" from it. But it's definitely brown/hazel, not white.
Fence posts, on the other hand, and cobbles, too, for that matter, like the ones on the ground all around out there in yonder Dryland Hills:
don't shift around like feathery critters; never make any noise-you wont' hear a peep, a chime, and nary a whistle except the wind through the wire; are all different, noticeably, whereas...well, look at the Birds thread, some times it's all about this finch that finch and who cares just enjoy; then they conjoin with one another often. Just call it New Wave Fence Rock.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hully_Gully
And the milestone monument.
I admit that in addition to my ideel, DMT, even though my "thing" halts at cows and shrinks from sheep, my "suggested ideel" for a lot of you lay-abouts, has-beens, wanna-bees, and hermits, (get the f*#k off your duff and go huff and puff and stuff) is to look at Fritz.
Except he's a cat.
But what a guy. This is for all you day-trippin' bad-asses that inspired me. (Sounds like a thread I read but it might just be in my head and so to bed: it's been a long fortnight and the good old Gloaming is a-roaming, looking for me.)
Adieu.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Aug 24, 2013 - 10:16pm PT
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Feel free as a lost horseshoe to post posts on The Flames.
The more the Merrier.
And vintage photos of old rock stars, fencing masters, and muralists.
We love Fossils, especially those from the fifties.
An Oakdayle has its dirt, but ya gotta love cowboys.
David Bromberg/Ralph McTell's When I Was a Cowboy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQPJhqS0Ebk
"Always keep yer hat screwed on real tight..."
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Aug 24, 2013 - 10:37pm PT
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I was lurking just now on the Fird's thread.
I SAW A KOOKABURRA! I SHOT IT! :-)
"Better run, better take cover."
And the Youtube selection of the Kookaburra Song reminded me of what, for some strange reason, was Boomer's most-liked modern song. It was in the eighties and was modern then. It's still popular in South America. The geese always go gaga when they hear it.
This gem was in the mix. Take a gander, Fritz.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Aug 25, 2013 - 02:41pm PT
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Veronica.
Harmonica
Yarmulke.
Adam Sandler.
Bullfighter.
Fighter pilot.
Pilot Ridge on fire.
I count:
Six degrees of separation.
BACON!
Hamburger.
Lesterburger.
Lettuce.Ain't picketing your nose, senor! Honest!
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zBrown
Ice climber
Brujo de La Playa
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Aug 25, 2013 - 02:49pm PT
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It all seemed pretty and pretty normal to me.
Seamlessly, at one time reputed to be the longest bar in the world, we have The Long Bar, Tijuana. Not proudly sponsoring a little league team this year.
The rumours abound, but one was that some (heavy) consumers actually took a shot of tequila at each stool. The bar was 241 feet long. Three feet per stool? Eighty shots? Folks are said to have died trying.
I attended sessions there for a few years until it closed down and moved across the street, where I continued to attend. Never thought to weigh myself though.
To make a long story even longer, the washroom attendants were not Veronica and Vernon but rather Victoria and Victor and they did want a tip for handing you a paper towel (at least those of you who washed your hands).
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Aug 26, 2013 - 12:16am PT
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This man is the landlord for the bookstore which employed me. He is engaged in dealing with a situation which has a baby diaper at the bottom of it.
I am reminded of Tahquitz rock. Which climb am I thinking of?
In other words, of which climb am I thinking?
Hint: It was NOT one of Doctor Phil's FAs, were you thinking that.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Aug 26, 2013 - 06:30am PT
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Meanwhile, out in the Big Bottom of the Merced River below Merced Falls...
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Aug 26, 2013 - 07:22am PT
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Vain Hope
V, 5.7, A3. Royal Roggins, Kim Sxhmytz and Gym Bridewell, May 1970.
On the wall just to the right of the Ribbon-East Portal route...
--Roper Green
There is always hope, some forlorn, some vain.
Hope is built on both love and lust, love’s counterpoint.
Climbers hope for a summit, good cracks, and clean rock. I thrill to this dreamy, langorous sort of state when I thought the Gold Wall was worth my time. I've told how I failed to enjoy the first few pithces and came away from there with Bruce Price, both of us very disappointed. VERY BUMMED, in fact, not simply disappointed.
It is such a beautiful feature, the whole of Ribbon Falls. What a shame that I failed to enjoy it. I lacked perserverance. It happens to us all, even the best. Right, Kim? Jim, wake up. Oh, yeah, you were the one said to take the right book, right?
Olden days gold-seekers hoped for a payday, didn't seem to give-a-shift about leavings and environmental damage, and though some were hard-bitten, mean to their kin, and liked double-stamp whiskey way too much, they were only human.
I can hate what they did and I do.
Hoping for a good time, we lust after two very prominent, left-facing open books:
The left-hand one goes more or less straight up while the right-hand one slants to the right.
Vain Hope lies in the left book.
“It’s stupid to climb something of that magnitude, the outcome of which you cannot predict.”--Doc Werner Warner
“How do they know where to dig?”--a former tourist in the Mother Lode, Jack “Ass” Hill, who now runs a dredging operation which is just sitting useless
Were one to climb that corner, one would find an evil, overhanging, vegetable-stricken crack about 600 feet up.
Were one to avoid this (but I have Billy Shears, Steve, approved by the BSA, official, like)...a-hem...avoid this, one might nail a large, dog-leg overhangabang on the right-hand face of the book.
Did somebody say dog-leg?.......
Boo, dawgs!
"Gpld dredging in the area...ended about 1945 due to changes in the laws governing mining and environmental issues. Tailing from these dredges can still be seen along the road to the west [of Merced Falls]."
--Herb Wood, object numerator (accession clerk) for the Merced Co. Historical Society, author of Ghost Towns of Merced County
The route ends (Thank God, for reals!) 1,000 feet above the ground in a vegetated area known as SHERWOOD FOREST.
Walk right, through the Forest, to its east end, then make several rappels into the El Cap Gully.
Iron: 40 pins, up to 2.5” [for a 1,000-foot climb!]
"The rock is a field of battle between our weakness and our strength."
--Royal Robbins
"Rgold is where you find him."--Vitaly Mush-Fawcett
[Some ideal zen quote about love & stuff.]
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Aug 26, 2013 - 07:44am PT
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Should go into the Predictions thread.
"I predict Locker never will "say die."
Cora Larry Lee, I predict that Locker's gonna keep sayin' "Yer gonna die!" till the day he does die.
[Click to View YouTube Video]And yer socks don't match.
They match your breath, sorry.
Cue "The Man!"
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Aug 26, 2013 - 08:12am PT
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Meanwhile, in Portland, the left-most part of Bizzaro-Middle Earth, one of Eric's sons has a claim to the longest bar.
Loggers take no shite from large woody objects, from hops farmers, nor from Dredge Cruise, Veronica's abuela's sister's grandkidkid, a gang-banging punk who is now residing in the Merced County Juvenile Detention Center.
Aside to Nature Boy: Good luck with this punk-ass, dope-smokin', low-pants low-rider. Dredge's good Flames potential, though. I like his name. Just get him on the rock, Kauk.
And back in downtown Merced...
"Where It All Begins"...
there is now the 17th STreet Pubic House, adjoining arcade patio space with Boffee Candits coffee house.
I cruised into the place when they opened Sunday morning at eleven. John was on duty and showed me that they sell not only craft beers, but wine as well.
They have begun featuring a house wine of the month. This month it's a winery from Livermore, just a half-a-mile from the railroad tracks where Ed Harouni parks his van.
They kicked his wide, dirtbag ass out of the County Parks. :)
[BIG ED'S laughing his wide, dirtbag ass off, I HOPE!]
C.V.:
Abbreviation for the French term Coopérative de Vignerons that may appear on wine labels to denote that the wine has been made by a local cooperative.
Or Chula Veesta.
The 17th STreet Public House is owned and operated by the Essig boys, the Ahwahnichi descendants who also own the Partisan Bar, two blocks up Main STreet, which used to be 17th STreet.
"Now, where does Merced start? I mean 'It.'"--Perp, who got caught with no escape plan, Lex "Ed" Lee
It blows me away that Ericson's Cafe had a bar that more than tripled in length the height at which this photo was taken.
Do you realize it's almost sun-up?
I can't risk the roof today, there are people on duty taking out trash, mopping, all that early-morning gig.
THEIR name is John, just like the bartender at the Pubic House.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Aug 26, 2013 - 08:40am PT
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Sometimes the Land of Nod is not a Country for Old Men.
So we stay up reading all night.
Or used to do.
Now we stay up posting all night.
A fiery selection of reads from your Literary Laborer.
I told Nancy Smith, the owner of Second Time Around Used Books, on Main STreet, that I would pimp her shop one more time if she would let me photograph those pages from THE LOGGERS, part of the Old West series by Time/Life. I needed to give the book a credit, too.
Two birds, one stoned Mouse.
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