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hamie
Social climber
Thekoots
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Jeez guys, I was only kidding. I've had that name for 70 years and counting. Although it's Gaelic, many people think it's German or Jewish, which can be an advantage, or not....... When harassed by persistent touts or other undesirables I often claim to be Russian. "Me Rusky, no spick Ingleese," usually works. Since the touts can never speak Russian, they always go away.
Best slab routes:
1. Snake/Diedre [tied]
2. Slab Alley
3. Gringo-a-go-go [ha ha]
4. South Arete [joke for Anders only]
Hamish M.
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Scrubber
climber
Straight outta Squampton
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Every time we have a big block of dry weather late in the summer the number of Yellow-Jacket wasp nests, AKA ground bees seems to spike. When we have regular wettings of the ground throughout the season, they seem to be far less common.
I've never found any nests while excavating cracks, but I have found several on treed ledges while developing new routes. I usually just try to give them a wide margin unless absolutely necessary to eliminate them. It's hard to run very far after spraying the nest with RAID when you're hangin' on a rope!
K
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MH2
climber
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A suggestion
Last year we were walking off an Apron climb. I noticed something taped to a tree. It turned out to be a hand-written sign pointing downhill saying "BEES!!!" Looking down around my feet, sure enough, bees.
Next time, please orient a warning for passersby as well as climbers.
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hamish f
Social climber
squamish
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I might require a few extra stellas as this quick story is more embarassing than the others.
About twenty five (or thirty) years ago a bunch of us Canucks were hanging out in Yosemite. Gas was cheap, beer was cheap, and we were deinitely cheap, and broke. Boy, we knew how how to have fun though.
I had my heart set on the rostrum and fellow Canuck (and budwieser enthusiast) Randy was keen to join me. I think this was to be my second multipitch climb in the valley, I'd already done the royal arches. Randy was substantially older than me but was nursing a terrible wound on his leg. He'd been impaled by a stick, it had become infected, poor guy was in rough shape.
We head out, hiking down from the highway pullout. We did get a little confused, trying to find that faint little trail, but eventually we got on the right track. Pretty soon we're about half way down, ready for the rapells.
I'm sure I'd asked Peter lots of questions regarding the route but I'm not sure we ever talked about the rapells. I was so convinced we'd climb the route, I only brought one rope. Not a whole lot going on between my ears in those days. We fed our rope through the anchor, tied a knot in the end, and blindly threw it over a big, rounded edge. I hooked up my biner brake and started making my way down.
At the edge I could see down to the end of the rope and it seemed to stop in mid air. Oh well, I guess you're supposed to swing into a station or something. Down I go, looking all around, but nothings really popping out at me. I spot the next rap anchor; it's way down underneath me. This would be a double-rope rapell, you idiot. I'm stuck in space and the options are fairly grim. Randy can't hear me because he's so far back from the rounded lip up there. I try swinging around but there really isn't anywhere to swing to. Eventually I settle for the bat-man plan.
I'm wearing runners, of course, and start hand over handing up the rope, trying to hook my feet on the rope. This trick with the feet isn't really working out very well and it's all taking way too much energy.
Up I go, progress is slow, I'm just starting to scrape at the granite with my feet but, boy, am I ever getting pumped. Too pumped! My poor little arms are busting at their seams and it's all too overwhelming for me. Oh man, I've really screwed this up. There is a massive loop of rope underneath me and the knot is already jammed against my biner-brake.
My good pal Jim has just healed his hands from terrible rope burns and this image is front and center in my pea-sized brain. The other image filling in the rest of my brain is the forces those biners in the biner-brake are about to encounter. I keep telling myself there's no way those biners are going to brake. Is there?
Son of a bi#ch, I'm starting to slide down the rope and my hands are burning already. I let go. Twaaaaaang. Oh my god, it actually held. Lucky guy, sort of. Now I'm hanging in space, back where I had been several minutes earlier. I'm just thrashed from my bat-manning nightmare.
The only other option was to start swinging and try to get way over to the right. Hopefully something would emerge for me. I swung and swung and swung, it took forever but eventually I managed to get on the rock and plant myself in a dirty, steep corner crack. I grovelled up that corner crack, bleeding a lot on my hands, and the whole pitch got more desperate as I got higher. My loop of rope was huge and I was over to the right quite some distance so a fall would have been just terrible. I barely flopped back up onto the ledge where Randy was waiting. We hung out there for awhile, thinking perhaps we should call it good for the day. Beer in the meadows? That was sounding awfully good at that point.
I eventually perked up and left to borrow a rope. Randy stayed at the rapell and I hiked out, drove to camp 4, grabbed a rope from Dean, drove back, hiked down, got a little lost, again, trying to find that little trail. Oh man, I popped out of the bush and was getting over toward elephant rock. Oh geez, just not my day. I backtracked and found the rostrum trail, hiked down and there was Randy, fast asleep.
No problem on the route, but what an epic getting there.
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bmacd
Boulder climber
100% Canadian
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PA showed me how to ascend a rope with a half hitch around your foot and one prusik.
Still waiting for the Humpty Dumpty solo epic story Hamish ...
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thekidcormier
Trad climber
squamish, b.c.
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Another epic story! thanks for the awesome reads hamish, keep them commin
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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(OK, it's not soloing, but it's a story.)
It is May 1973. Yet another rainy spring day in Squamish. Eric and I went up anyway. First we did Sunshine Chimneys - as much of it is in the dry innards of the cliff, that went OK. Then we went to Nightmare Rock, because at least part of the climbs was under overhangs and dry, and also because we'd done Sentry Box (properly, Artificial Land) there and it was known ground.
This is BITGOD, so we had swami belts, a 150' perlon rope, hand-tied etriers, a mixture of (pre-Chouinard) nuts and pitons, hip belays, and hammers. And a copy of Glenn's 1967 guide. We decided to do Big Daddy Overhang, of which there are photos somewhere on this thread. At the time, an aid climb, with a bit of free at the start. Eric had the lead - up a crack on a narrow wall/slab under the overhang, straight right to the edge of the overhang, then up a face crack about 8 m to a belay niche. This took quite a while, but he was dry until he emerged onto the face after the traverse.
So I followed, also using etriers - we didn't have jumars. Communications were non-existent for most of the way. By the time I got to Eric, we were both soaked, and it wasn't clear whether to go right or left. Probably simple if dry, but it wasn't. It looked to me as if you could make an aid move or two to the right, and be at the top of Sentry Box. So I whacked in a bong (my first - from REI mail order), clipped in my slings, and stood in it. While leaning to the right to place the next piece, it pulled. I went flying, and ended up at the lip of the overhang. Eric was eventually able to hold the rope - maybe the water made it slipperier, but also prevented him from burning his hands? But there wasn't much he could do for me. Maybe he tied me off to a prussik or something?
(I was left hanging, 10 m below the belay in mid air and a long way off the ground, so you will be for a while also.)
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NigelSSI
Trad climber
B.C.
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Hee Hee...
Last year at the smoke bluffs I watched a single yellow jacket sting the 2 climbers on either side of me for a total of 5 jabs. Up a pant leg... got slapped at, escaped, flew straight to another victim, and went to town on the arm before nonchalantly buzzing away. I was sitting, and laughing away as chaos ensued. That single bee was a WARRIOR. One sting on a kneecap resulted in 4 rest days for the swelling to go down.
Bug: 5 Climbers: 0
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hamish f
Social climber
squamish
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trying my best to keep you laughing, Bruce.
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RyanD
climber
Squamish
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This thread is so awesome, i stopped in @ the Whistler gym today & saw this hanging up in there. Snapped a shot of it with my phone so you all could see. It may be related to a story that was told here earlier..
So awesome!
If for any reason it's not cool that i posted this just let me know & i can tear it down
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Scrubber
climber
Straight outta Squampton
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Last year we were walking off an Apron climb. I noticed something taped to a tree. It turned out to be a hand-written sign pointing downhill saying "BEES!!!" Looking down around my feet, sure enough, bees.
Next time, please orient a warning for passersby as well as climbers.
Hee-hee, that sign was mine... It was intended not so much for passers-by on their way down, but for folks coming up from Banana Peel, Sparrow, etc. in hopes they would avoid my situation.
I popped up from my ten-zillionth lap up Banana Peel, quickly wipped a cord around the standard, largest tree at the top and leaned back to bring up my partner. After getting all the slack out, putting them on, and finally taking a breath while they were fiddling with a piece of gear below, I look up at the base of the tree I'm anchored to, (for those of you who don't know the spot, you are standing with your face at ground-level to the stump, about three feet downhill), to discover yellow jackets pouring out of a wee hole under the stump and having a parade on my cord anchor! OH FUQ!!! Stay calm.....stay calm... meeeellllloooowwww...
Well it somehow actually worked. I tried to belay without a single quick movement, didn't rock the tree, and pretended to show no fear. I had to warn another passer-by not to touch that tree under any circumstances!!! We snuck off to the left and around the tree, then gave the little partiers a chance to calm down before sneaking my anchor off the tree.
After a lunch break under Boomstick Crack I tiptoed back over and stealthly applied the warning sign from the opposite side of the tree. Sorry, but it was the only piece of paper I had!
K
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Scrubber
climber
Straight outta Squampton
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I can't see the Bear getting too peeved about sharing a pic of that poster.
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Fish Boy
Trad climber
Vancouver
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Did somebody say Humpty Dumpty story? Please tell!
That goes with any aiding stories of the harder routes, we all want to read about that gnar!
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Mimi
climber
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Great thread! Thanks for posting those pics. What great looking rock and lines.
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hamish f
Social climber
squamish
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Oh god, no wonder I couldn't attract any girls. Those sweat pants look like they were from the $4.00 bin at fields. Oh ya, they were. It's too bad you can't see Eddie at the base; he was the good-looking one.
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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Oh god, no wonder I couldn't attract any girls.
Reminds me of when Sig climbed the three long routes in a day, and got interviewed by some climbing magazine, and they were telling him how amazing he must be to have done that, and he said something like "Yeah, but I still don't have a girlfriend."
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thekidcormier
Trad climber
squamish, b.c.
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Anders; the suspense is unbearable what happened next!?!
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bmacd
Boulder climber
100% Canadian
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Smart clothing is important, I've noticed in videos and photos. Trotter always has a freshly pressed short sleeve sport shirt, matching pants, & GQ haircut, looking like he's just stepped off of a super yacht, not out of a Value Village discount clothing store ... we should all take note !
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hamish f
Social climber
squamish
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I'm sorry but there really isn't any story to tell about humpty dumpty.
The climbing highlight was cleaning the white sickle pitch. That pitch traversed a fair bit and I recall most of my pins falling out except, of course, the one I was at on my jumars.
There was no way I was leaving any pitons behind, as they were mostly borrowed. I tied some extra knots in the rope and gave that pin one good belt with the hammer. Massive pendulum; pretty scary, but clean.
I spent a night up there in a hammock (also borrowed), 15 or 16, overlooking the bright yellow lights of the chemical plant and breathing in that stench from the pulp mill. It was an awesome experience.
The next day, when I hit bellygood, the Chief was there to greet me, with beer. Am I allowed to write that?
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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And you think the suspense was unbearable!
So I was hanging there at the end of my fine bright yellow MSR rope. Eric was probably not enjoying the experience either, although he may have tied me off, or found some other way to relieve the pressure. Luckily, I had most of the gear, and had learned about stuff like crevasse rescue. So with the gear I had, I made up prussiks, and climbed back up the rope. I might have climbed the fixed part of the rope, while Eric belayed me - can't remember. Probably passed the prussiks through my swami, to provide a bit of security. Once I could touch the rock, I might even have used some gear.
So eventually I got back to the belay, but we were no further ahead than we'd been. What next?
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