Whynot's trip reports

Name:
Location: ohio

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Clearcut

I got out for 2 days of climbing over the weekend and Dwayne came along. A crew of us was supposed to go to Clearcut and do Baptist Preacher but the others with big gear never showed so we went anyway and baked in the sun all day. Really took the joy out of climbing. The next day I decided I wanted to shoot video and went to Roadside. I got 3 minutes of choice footage of Eathan sending Jersey Connection 5.12. Then the batteries quit. Thanks go to Kenton for loaning me the ascenders. They worked fine. Saw a snake in a horizontal about 40 feet up. Right where I wanted to put a directional cam. Eathan and his crew took me on a tour of the Motherload. I had never been there. It's seriously steep and hard. I did make it to the third bolt of Chainsaw Massacre. It massacred me and my camera refused to work with the cheapo batteries we got at the beer trailer so I got a few seconds of footage. I was disapointed but made the best of it. Hanging with Eathan Dana and Adam was nice. I don't get out with the sport climbers much but I think I will and I'll bring extra rechargables next time fer sure.

Sunday, March 18, 2007

I'm a lumberjack and I'm OK

It was the ideal weekend to cut up the tree that fell in the ice storm we had.
First I had to fix the chainsaw I borrowed. A piece of wiper hose from the auto supply made a decent gas line and it fired right up. It's been cutting like a beaver since. I managed to get the biggest limb that fell in my yard all cut up without too much trouble. the next one fell on the nieghbors yard barn. I borrowed a nice step ladder, climbed up on the roof,and went to work on it. The wind kept blowing the sawdust back in my face and I got both eyes full of it before I had sense enough to go get my safty glasses. I tossed it all off into my yard and cut it up before it got dark on me. Bright and early Sunday I got up looking forward to the final limb.
(It was almost noon before I got motivated) This one was balanced across the top of the niegbors small flowering tree about 15 feet off the ground out of reach. I had thought about what to do with it the day before and was tempted to say to hell with it. I studied the problem from my backyard with a cup of coffee. Usually I just jump into things. I devised an ingenious plan. I'll hang a pulley from the rest of the tree and hook one end to the limb where it's resting on the other tree and use a gri-gri hooked to some anchor to control it just like a climber. I dug out my retired harness and my old rope and the pulley I bought for some reason when I was a gumby but never used. I knew that thing would be handy someday. I donned the harness, rigged my pulley and rope and a couple of my good slings and a daisy to hook myself up to the tree. I climbed up to where the base of the limb was hanging close to the tree I was climbing. I had already cut it loose the day before. I'm stemming with one foot on the fence and one on the stump of a limb and under this loose limb the size of a small persons waist. I gave it a push just to see what it would do and it falls off the top of the flower tree onto a lower limb. Perfect for cutting up from the niegbors yard. Dangit. So much for all my elaborate rigging plans. It was gonna be cool. Maybe I can donate that pulley I'm never going to use to the gear auction. Nah , I'll use for something. Some day.

Sunday, March 11, 2007

Gnomes and stuff


My yard Gnome must have went off Saturday night and tipped a few pints. He was still sleeping it off on Sunday morning. He was back to work bright and early on Monday morning. the fountain boy hasn't even had morning coffee yet.




We went out to Fortress on Saturday and got in a few good routes and enjoyed some good company, It was a bit overcast and started spitting rain every time we got up a route. I got some footage of Terri leading route 48 and some nice but short video from the top of Bonzo.Russ lead Calypso3 and I put up Snake. After climbing we had some pizza at Miguel's and went to the party for JB. Lots of hugs and handshakes from old friends and the cake was tasty. Terri I'm sorry I forgot to slide your carseat back. I really meant to. Sorta like getting in your car after a midget or a yard gnome has been driving it. Yeah that's what happened .My yard gnome was out cruising for honeys. At least he didn't get a DUI.