Dandelions - part two

The ongoing saga of dandelion madness. So, your front lawn is sprouting those pesky little bright  yellow things again lately? Let me guess...you live somewhere in that ridiculously rainy, often foggy, often cloudy, western Oregon zone — the land of lush green foliage madness that explodes every Spring season beginning in the month of April.

And today is your lawn mowing day...again...and you'll be doing it now every five days, all summer long, because those cute little bright yellow colored, down right fast growing, quickly re-seeding, fast-blooming dandelions, sure do keep your rumpsky quite busy, pretty much for ALL of the coming summer...and the whole entire saga begins afresh mainly because your beloved wife tells you, in no uncertain terms, to get out there and do something with all that "yellow".

So, as you did last year, and the year before that, you grab the lawn mower and zoom, zoom zoom, all across the lawn-skie, and before ya know it, the lawn is remarkably pristinely cut, like the top crisp thinly cut haircut on the head of a gang of "navy-seals men". And your lawn looks just like your neighbors lawn, all perfectly cut, all pristine. And your neighbors lawn looks just like the neighbors lawn on the other side of their residence. Oh boy....and your summer of fun has just begun.

Or...you can be like some of those other crazies out there, and march off to the local farm store, and grab a push cart and stroll on over to the "pesticide aisle", and load up on some spray chemicals to dump onto your front lawn. Clue: I have seen strangers there in the farm store toss heaps of containers into a push cart, darn near filling up the push cart with nothing but lawn chemicals (no box of cereal, no snacks, no Pepsi — just chemicals). 

So there you are staring at the long shelf in the farm store gazing at all the array of week killer, knowing that it'll all likely to a stout job of taking it all down. Yep, that'll git them bright yeller critters for sure. Make that lawn of yours so potent that even you can't touch it for a week or two because the smell is so overpowering that it hits your nose bud senses like a brick wall. I can imagine there ain't no live bugs on that front lawn of yours either. And there might even be one or two overdosed neighbors kids laying on the lawn somewhere too....well...you get the idea.

So...rather than juice up the old Mudder Earth planet with all that stupid pesticide weed killer just to stop some of those pesky little fast growing dandelions in your front lawn, try something completely new for a change this year.

Try doing "nothing" about the little pesky yellow things. Yep, it will likely disappoint your wife a bit (just slack it all off claiming you'll eventually get around to it cause your busy at the moment), and let the bloody lawn grow a bit taller. Let all those pesky yellow fast blooming flowers just do their madding best to your green front lawn. Then, when the lawn is...oh, about six or seven inches tall (of grass), after about two solid weeks or so...then go out there and zoom, zoom, zoom the entire lawn crisp.

Thus, your summer chores have been notably reduced. The work load is far far easier. The neighbors kids playing on your front lawn will appreciate the luxuriant grass, and the lack of toxic poisons hidden amongst the grass blades, the bugs will sure be thankful, the dandelions will go on doing their "thing"...and let those dandelions grow.....

...and suddenly you're free to focus more of your special weekend (or weekday evening) time on...yep you got that right...bouldering at your favorite easily accessible local bouldering haven near Troutdale.

The Video Angle

Dave and I were out rock climbing at Rat Cave that weekend day. I had just climbed a 5.12- route and had reached the belay station and was preparing to set it up for a rappel.

I glanced down and noticed that Ryan Palo, who also just happened to be there that same day, was just tying into his lead rope and was about to start leading another 5.12 route next to me.

So I called down to my belay partner, "Tie on my camera." He did, and I hoisted the camera up to my position. While Ryan led the entire route, I switched the camera into video mode and pressed the shutter. I just happened to be in the perfect position, watching from above, high at the belay station, where I could video his entire ascent of that route.

Later when I posted the video on the internet it near instantly became a well trending viral popular video for a brief time. My blog got a boost in users, though I did not spend time actual climbing 'with' Ryan -- just happened to be in the right spot to video him lead climbing. No pre-planning, just random lucky moment in the right place.

Now days though, I do considerable high-end photography while out bouldering, and will follow a set of key steps to get the best shots, at the ideal angle, for my photos and videos.

Crashpad Toss

Do you know how we get from the paved road down to the really big monster boulder at the base of the talus slope at our favorite eastside bouldering site?

It's a steep very rough talus field slope with ankle breaker sized rough blocks of basalt rock, somewhat difficult to negotiate on foot loaded down with an awkward hefty crashpad or daypack. And of course, the descent lacks a people path. So...instead of bearing the entire load on our backs....

We walk a few yards along the paved road near the guard rail away from the parking area pullout, then where the really skinny narrow deer path descends down slope, we take each of our crashpads off from our backs, and send each crashpad spinning end-over-end downhill at the speed of airborne flight down that long steep  basalt talus field.

First one is a full blazing color red (that's my pad), then next there is a full blazing vibrant green pad (that's my partners pad), then there's the full blazing majestic deep dark blue pad (my other climbing partners pad) -- all crashpads, one right after the other, each being chased by the next color behind it, all rushing madly headlong down that long very rough blocky talus basaltic boulder field to the very bottom of the slope....

Where each crashpad comes to a rolling halt, falls over onto its side in stillness, and silently lays there in the open grassy flats just a few yards from the mega big boulder...our favorite bouldering stone at that site.

BUT...we only do this sporting thing in the winter months, for right about now (in spring season) that other radiant green leafy stuff is popping out just about now, and ya don't wanna git none of that itchy** oily stuff clinging to your crashpad, or on your hands.

** poison oak.

House Rules

"We don't talk politics in our house."

Yep, those were the words of his wife spoken to us all -- his climbing buddies who were there at their residence visiting that day. 

Several of his climbing buddies came over to chat, and to watch a few of the latest climbing action videos, just for an hour or two, while sucking down our favorite long-neck bottled ice cold beers.

Hmmm? I thought to myself. So, where does my climbing buddy and his wife (or even their neighbors) go to chat about worldviews and politics?

Outside on the paved side street in front of your property in that cute little quiet residential neighborhood of yours where everyone can stand on the pavement looking across at each other, griping, barking, or hollering at each other from fifteen feet away about politics.  Out there maybe?

Or, you'll set up lawn chairs in your grassy front yard, array the chairs in two or three large arcs, all in a loop, where each group can team up, and start tossing political verbalisms over at the other team in debate, constructs, assumptions, or ideals.  Perhaps maybe that's how you do it? 

Or in your large grassy well-mowed backyard you will set up a badminton net, give everyone a large flyswatter (the racket!), and let everyone swat the political objective back and forth over the mesh net till one side 'wins' one discussion and the other side 'loses'. Then the next political topic starts and everyone starts madly swinging again at the flying political object.

So, if this big country that you reside in (a country that has a tangled mess of odd legislated rules) appears to be caving in on itself, or comes crashing down while your doing your dishes, or is imminently destined to, or your dollar instantly becomes worthless -- you still refuse to talk about politics and worldviews effecting your lives, willingly letting it all just crash and burn down around you, but still no discussion on where the system may have gotten a wee bit off track. 

And that's my climbing buddy for ya . . . we could talk all of the "climbing jingo lingo nonsense" we want to at his house, because in the long run that kind of sports debate has no real effect arcing over the culture you live in . . . but there's to be no discussion on worldview* politics in her house -- by jingle....

* A worldview is a set of presuppositions (assumptions which may be true, false, or somewhere in-between) which a person believes about the makeup of existence and/or universe.

Windy Beacon

Some odd years ago a friend and I went rock climbing at Beacon Rock during the windier non-summer season. The weather that day was clear skies but quite windy. Upon arrival at the parking lot we realized just how windy it was...virtually gale force winds were hammering the trees surrounding the parking lot and the monolith.

Being determined dedicated climbers fixated upon the game with an ardent passion - never willing to admit defeat - we shouldered our day packs and ropes and dashed on down the leeside climbers path, curved around the base of the SE Face route, and marched a few yards up to the first tunnel hangout spot, where we dropped our loads of gear.

As we stood there sorting our gear and contemplating our desired goals that morning (we had the entire crag to ourselves that morning!) . . . the surrounding lightly forested terrain between the cliff and the railroad tracks kept getting pummeled and smacked with a random but steady supply of wind blown pebbles and smaller stones.

We had our helmets snuggly fastened to our keenoggins, yet the steady drone of projectiles coming down from above - in just the few ten minutes that we were there making our plans and shuffling gear - had quickly dissuaded us from continuing to test the ripe edge of risk that morning day.

So we hustled back up the leeside trail to the parking lot, then backtracked a few miles in our vehicle to the west, to the locally 'famous' Ozone Wall climbing crag to do a bit 'safer' less windy, at a more tree canopy protected zone, where the rock climbing risks pelting down out of the blue from above weren't a factor.

DNA

Each human body has roughly 100 trillion cells and each cell in that body contains within its nucleus thin strands of DNA. Unravel all the DNA strands from all of those cells (in one human) and string each of those strands altogether end-to-end ... it would reach from the earth to the moon roughly over 473,000 times.

My own bodies got a 100 trillion cells? Woah!

Lemme see...in numbers that is something like: 100,000,000,000,000 

For example....

A million is 1,000,000

A hundred million is 100,000,000

A hundred trillion is 100,000,000,000,000

Woah!

Problems galore

It has been stated before — that over the vast span of mankind's civilizing efforts — human beings have encountered more than enough time consuming "problems" in this wild and crazy world without the need to be adding even more troubling "problems" to the already lengthy list of existing troubles. So...do bouldering "problems" fit within the same category?

Normal Normie

My sister and I were chatting by phone with each other recently. We were talking about a variety of random topics that came to the forefront that month. One topic rolled around the premise that certain people prefer to blend in to the general masses rather than to stand out. Somewhere in the heat of that topic I summed it up as....

"...but even I would, in that particular instance, prefer to fit in with the general masses, and aim to be normal."

She, in her usual snappy responsive way, instantly replied, "Don't worry, Norman, you're anything but normal!"

....which begs the question: "Are climber's normal?"

Columbia Gorge Basalt formations

 The Columbia River Basalt Group formations are spread across northwestern US states.

The basalt flows have been gradually exposed in the Columbia Gorge over eons of time by ancient river floods and other weathering processes. The Gorge cliffs visible today are prominent steep eroded rock cliffs several hundreds of feet high (such as Crown Point), while some notably taller basalt rock formations exist, such as seen near St Peters Dome (ranging several thousands of feet tall).

Much of it is unclimbable, or its barely climbable (at least in the normal sense of the word, where today's rock climber generally desires some sense of 'security'). Where the steep cliffs are utilized for rock climbing purposes it's always prudent to wear a helmet, whether ice climbing or adventure climbing. In those rare key lucky spots the rock can be reasonably stable (again, in a relative sort of way).

Geology books have their own unique coded way of describing this crazy rock structure type. 

Yet climbers usually need their own specialized kind of phrase-ology. A more descriptive phrase for adventure climbing spots like Crown Point would be....

"...Vertical cliffs composed of cube-ish rectangular blocky cobblestone hunk-ish chunks of detached, or hollow sounding rock, mostly variable fractured 4-8" sized cobble blocks, infrequently in rare locations as taller columnar jointed blocks, weathered exfoliating stone (split by numerous seams or cracks), vegetated (i.e. brush, grass, etc), mossy in spots, lichen in spots, some notably chossy aspects where the weathering process is vigorous, random stone rubble heaped ledges, with certain few rare parts of steep cliff surprisingly solidly connected (yep solid enough for bolts!), yet due to the nature of the pig its always adventure-ish entertainment helmet recommended terrain provided it fits your key rock climbing skill set caliber..."

Hmmm....guess its time to do a repeat fun run up West Chimney!