climbingtrash's blog

So I meant to blog about this last weekend but I didn't get around to it until now. I did a new multi-pitch free-climb on Mt.Johnson in Zion N.P., "The Tree House of Horror", with one of my buddies Joe French. Joe and a couple other locals put the route up this winter but we were the first to do the route in one single push from the ground to the top. The climb is 12 pitches long and it took us about 6 hours to get to the top of the route.

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I thought a few of you tradies out there might be interested in this. A couple climbing buddies of mine have made up topo-posters of Angels Landing in Zion National park. The picture of Angels was taken by Eric Draper and the topo was put together by Bryan Bird. Click on the image to visit their site if you're interested in buying one.

Smartly don ye eye patch and hoyst the Jolly Rodger for it be talk-like-a-pirate day! arrr...

I saw this on RC.com today...really funny!
The parlor Watch it, then come clean...all of you!

I took the day off wednesday because "White Gas" Willy was in town, and we climbed the Mrs. Butterworth tower. The route up the tower is a pretty fun 5.9, but it's still a loose, dirty, desert choss pile. The hike in took us about an hour and a half, and wasn't too bad, except for the steep trudge up to the base of the cliff. The Eagle Crags are typically windy, but there was a storm moving in, so the wind was especially bad that day. I think we lucked out though, because the winds really picked up on our hike out.

So I was out having a smoke this morning and a skunk came running down my fence line. I've already been having a problem with raccoons. Now skunks? It does remind me of a story that I must share. It's not climbing related but it was pretty funny.

I was working for a wilderness therapy program on the mountain above my home back in '89. We were getting skunks in our camp every morning and I even woke up with one trying to get into my pack. When I poked my head out of my bag to see what was making the noise, the little bastards butt was mere inches from my face.

The next day, just after breakfast, the students chased one of these skunks down and killed it with some rocks. Needs less to say, they all got sprayed in the chase and required a tomato juice bath and some new clothes. I decided to skin the skunk and tan his hide with the intentions of making a hat out of him. All was going well until I slipped with my knife and cut my finger, requiring stitches. When I went to the hospital and had to explain how I got my injury you can imagine the looks I got. Well, they stitched me up, but then, to my surprise, they told me I was going to have to start the RABIES shot series because skunks can carry it and I came in contact with the blood. Now if you don't know, the rabies treatment series are something like 16 shots to the stomach! And are pretty painful. I didn't think the skunk acted like it had rabies when we killed it, but the only way to test the animal was its brains and I had made that up into a tanning solution before I cut my finger. Luckily, the sheriff that came to the hospital when they reported my incident was a pretty common sense kind of guy. He let me leave the hospital without getting any shots but I did have to check in with the hospital once a week, for two months.

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So I heard about this film,The Great Global Warming Swindle, on the radio yesturday and then watched the film last night. It's about 70 minutes long but I think worth watching. Check it out and give me your input.

Saw this on supertaco this morning, seems there are some seismologists that think So. California is due for some Quake action in the next few days. Check it out, it's kinda freaky. syzygyjob.com

I've been meaning to tell this story for awhile now, but haven't had time until today and since it's too damn cold to do anything, here goes, but I'm not a very good writer so bear with me.

A few years ago I was putting up a new route in Maple Canyon on a new wall that didn't have any routes on it yet. I couldn't get on-top of the wall and place the bolts on rappel so I was using the Willy-stick to place the bolts on lead. I was with a friend that day but I decided to give her a break and instead of having her belay me I self belayed with a gri-gri and all was going well until I reached the spot where I wanted to place the anchor. I wanted the anchor to be just a little higher than I could reach so I placed a removable bolt to hang from and left the Willy-stick still hanging on the wall. I then started to drill the hole for the first anchor and with the hole half way drilled I stopped to rest and reposition myself a little on the RB.

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