ralph and bethel

over the past week i've been down to crank cave a bit. i've had some pretty good days, and i saw some things that kind of amazed me.

i guess the best part of it all was getting onto rock, or just feeling like myself again when i'm climbing. since the injury, a lot of climbing confidence was shaken up, combined with strength loss and boredom(emphasis! and i just ran out of episodes of the office....) basically, been a bit off lately. but i found myself runnin through some of my favorite routes and gettin psyched about friends finding projects to work on.

johann on 'riff raff' (12c?)

this past sunday, i was out there with my friends johann and tyson, and while we were trading laps on the routes, 'el jefe' and 'riff raff', i looked over and noticed two owls watching us, a good day to have brought my camera(sorry about the low quality). they were just chillin in the back of the cave. just watchin. at times we got within about 15 feet of them, screaming, grunting our way up climbs, and they still just watched us, all day. i've seen these owls during various trips down to the cave, usually flying in or out, rarely stationary, and never together (i believe most of us thought was that there was only one left out there).

 just one of those brilliant moments.

open project beta #2: cedarville canyon/the pod wall

the second installment of this series is once again not a single route; this time, it's a whole canyon.

upon a tip from our buddy marc, teNgaio and i headed out past the town of howe, idaho, to check out a potential new area: cedarville canyon. the road back in there isn't too bad, unless you drive an old sedan, such as a saab 900. i somehow broke one of my side mirrors and possibly damaged my exhaust system.... but if you have anything with decent clearance, no problem. to get there, drive to howe, and head out the only road(the one by the school and general store) for a few minutes and look for a sign on the left of the road that says "cedarville canyon". sorry about being so vague on the directions... 

the trail is really chill, and a little bit in, we saw this deceptively good looking wall up to the left, which we named "the pod wall". i went out on my own a few days later to check it out up close. the hillside is very steep, with no clear path at all. the wall looked ok, although i was probably just seeing what i wanted to rather than what was actually there. i found a rather sketchy way to get up on the left side, and get around the back and up to the top, which is very densely forested(the wall above in the photo is much bigger, and could be worth a look). if you look to the left of the cave/pod feature near the top of the wall, there is a tan streak with a somewhat visible roof (well "somewhat" in the photo). anywho, i decided to bolt a route right there. (i had a new harness with me that turned out to be a bit small, this is important) about half way down the wall, roughly 30 feet down, i could no longer stand the discomfort from the harness, and i lost my mojo for this route. so in terms of an "open project", this route is all i got. to anyone out there, feel free to bolt the bottom half and go for the send. 

on the other side of the canyon, there is a series of large red walls. they could be good, but the approach is a rather steep and loose hillside.

there is a cave up near this red wall, and it looks a lot better/bigger from the ground than it actually is. the roof part is roughly 8 feet, and it's not even 20 feet off the ground, plus it's pretty devoid of useful features to climb. 

upon further inspection, teNgaio and i decided that there really wasn't much potential to this area. there are maybe four lines that look ok/good, and with a lot of cleaning, maybe a few more. near the mouth of the canyon there is a larger wall up to the right that we didn't take pictures of, and it could be worth looking at. there is also a very very large wall way back in the canyon that goes all the way to the top of a mountain(don't know the name).

basically, we found it very hard to justify spending the time required for all of this when the fins are closer to IF, and much better. 
who knows, maybe someday we'll be back.

all photos by teNgaio. 

open project beta #1: "uber unagi" and "the basilisk"

the first installment of these articles is a double feature, as the two heavyweight projects are in all ways linked to one another. not only do they merge midway, both were bolted around the same time, and both developers participated with the bolting/cleaning of the two routes.

the routes: "uber unagi" and "the basilisk"

opened by: t-rock, aka me(unagi) and the teNgaiolator(basilisk)

crag: weeping cave, palisades creek, idaho

beta: "unagi" is named after the series of small tufas near the base of the climb about 10 feet off the deck. in the photo above, it begins at the black streaks directly above the backpack. in keeping with the serpent theme, matt named the right hand start "the basilisk", after the stone face looking feature of underclings that mark the start of the route. the cave seeps a bit, sometimes leaving the tufas a bit wet, but i believe both routes can be climbed in a light rain. both may require additional cleaning; beware of falling rock.

unagi: a few easy moves off the deck, into a beastly(emphasis on beastly, maybe even substitute the word "beastly" with "ridiculously heinous") crux bulge that still needs a bit of cleaning and possibly needs the bolts moved to better spots for clipping. this section comes to a close with a lunge to a sizeable pocket, another series of very difficult moves, though none are difficult in comparison to the bulge below. i believe there is a second crux around the sixth bolt, with some body tension moves that lead to a long pull off a very small crimp. the rest/finale isn't really of consequence in terms of difficulty, maybe 5.11 at most, and the anchor may be lowered to the seventh bolt to avoid this section and hopefully improve the overall quality of the route.

dean lords on the opening section of "the basilisk". the bolt to the left marks the end of the bulge of "uber unagi".

basilisk: start to the right of "unagi" on a face like feature of underclings. the opening moves are hard, maybe in the 5.12 range. then connects with "unagi". currently there are draws hanging on this route. please leave them in place.

the mid section of the two routes, just below the second crux.

difficulty suggestion: 

for unagi, i'm not sure. i'm not anywhere near strong enough to know. i've only done one or two of the moves through the bulge, and clipping is a huge problem as it is very difficult for me to let go when i pull onto the holds and actually take weight off the rope. so i'll just say, V-ridiculous, then maybe 5.13/+ after the bulge.

for the basilisk, it has been suggested to be anywhere from 5.13-5.14-. as far as i know, three people have tried it: dean, teNgaio, and myself.

basically, both routes are ridiculously hard.

photos by the teNgaiolator. for more info on the weeping cave, check out seiclimbing.com, also check out the link to dean's page.

I plan on updating these posts if there is progress on the routes. for easy access, look to the pages listed below the title photo(in the future) or the labels links to the side (open project beta).

headin south...

winter has come back to bozeman for the time being, and i found out last night that my windows leak like crazy... anyways, my time here is done and i'm psyched to head south(well sorta) and get after it in idaho.

and also, some bad assery went down in california recently, check out mr. fresh's trip to bishop.

so if you(anyone out there) happen to be in south eastern idaho over the summer, look me up and let's go climb!