Today I wasted 6 hours of my life trying to buy some new clothes. I have an upcoming conference that I'm presenting at, and have no idea what to wear. Also, I have a gig at the white house. And Jeffy would probably appreciate it if I didn't wear the same t-shirt every time we go out.
First I went to Nordstrom's. It was scary. How can so many people be shopping when the economy is bad? All the clothes I saw were weird. I tried on 8 t-shirts but didn't like any of them.
Then I went to Sak's. More weird clothes, but at least they were better organized. I tried on the same shirt in two sizes. I looked like a hippy so I didn't buy either.
I went to an electronics store and bought head phones and a movie. That didn't really count as clothes so I went to two other stores but didn't even find anything to try on.
I wish someone with really good taste would go shopping for me. I could sit in the dressing room eating cookies and reading the New Yorker until my shopper found some cute outfits for me. With any luck my shopper would be the same size as me so I wouldn't even have to try the clothes on. I wonder why all the movies I watch have great clothes that no store seems to sell. Even Blush down the street has had yuck clothes in the windows for the past 6 months.
If anyone wants to shop for me, send me an email. I'm serious. I'll even take you to dinner afterwards and buy you what ever bottle of wine you want. This offer excludes Jeffy who would order something that costs more than my mortgage.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Friday, March 6, 2009
rock and soul rememberances
Last night Luis, Jeffy, and my climbing partner Dr. Jay went to see my cousin Andrew play at the Rock 'n Soul cafe. I got there early to help set up but all that was left to do was the sound check.
Some kid opened for Andrew but he really sucked. He said, after the second song "It's really hard for me to play if everyone is talking". Yeah kid, you have a great career in music. People probably wouldn't have been talking if he hadn't sucked.
I was laughing to myself about that kid because the last time I went to see Andrew there was a suck band that opened for him also. The lead singer was there with his mom, was not old enough to drink alcohol, and made out with his girlfriend up until the minute he went on stage. I was stuck sitting in front of him because I hadn't realized he was on first and there was no way to move away from the stage without some serious furniture rearrangement.
After suck band was done playing I went outside to smoke while waiting for Andrew to go on. The lead singer of suck band followed me outside and was trying to talk to me. I was standing at the railing, staring out into the parking lot, acting like I didn't speak english. So he came over and stood right next to me and said "I saw you staring at me". I was like what EVER dude! If I was staring it was because your band SUCKED. Then he grabbed the yellow bracelet on my wrist and asked me what it was. I said "it's a wish bracelet". Why do I talk to idiots when I know they are going to do something stupid?
He hooked his pinky under my wish bracelet while at the same time grabbing me and, I'm NOT making this up, saying "well, your wishes are about to come true, baby". He pushed his lips towards me at high velocity. I, in reaction, leaned way back and opened my mouth to say "what the fuck?" but before I could do that his upper lip made contact with the corner of my front tooth, which is a veneer, and it split open and started bleeding. He pulled away from me and grabbed his mouth while I in turn felt my tooth, which cost $1,000 to fix after I broke it in a bike accident, to make sure it wasn't damaged.
Then we both turned as the door to RNS opened. Dumb ass had failed to notice that the front of the cafe is a plate glass WINDOW. Anyone inside could see EVERYTHING going on outside. His girlfriend had been watching as he walked out and then saw him try to kiss me. Needless to say, it was pandemonium. She, being a typical female and therefore an idiot, started screaming at ME. I was like yeah, I really wanted to kiss a guy young enough to be my kid. I love guys with newly sprouted pubic hair. They left immediately afterwards, mother in tow. And I went in to see Andrew but had missed part of the first song.
Jeffy was not happy with the drink selections (and I quote "organic wine? that sucks!"). He was in a pretty good mood overall though because the cover to his book is almost done. He's in Montana next week to ski, I mean, um, go to a conference for work, and he's going to meet up with my publisher Joe for a beer. I don't know how safe that's going to be. I asked him if they were planning to sit around making fun of me all night and he said "Not everything revolves around you".
But, I bet they will make fun of me.
Dr. Jay played with Jeffy's iPhone. Jeffy kept lighting the fake zippo lighter and holding it up while Andrew was playing. Luis had brought out some serious representation from Outward Bound so there was a good audience. Afterwards we were talking about how I need to have a party at my house so everyone could get together. My other cousin Chris, Andrew's twin, is going to be working for Outward Bound this summer so Luis introduced him to a bunch of people. Also, he knows some people that he wants to introduce Andrew to that might be able to help with his music career. I thought that was really great of him to help them.
Today I was walking around down town trying to wake up, or at least waste time until it got dark enough to watch a movie, and I was thinking about how much fun I've been having the past few months skiing and climbing. This week I went out almost every night.
Some kid opened for Andrew but he really sucked. He said, after the second song "It's really hard for me to play if everyone is talking". Yeah kid, you have a great career in music. People probably wouldn't have been talking if he hadn't sucked.
I was laughing to myself about that kid because the last time I went to see Andrew there was a suck band that opened for him also. The lead singer was there with his mom, was not old enough to drink alcohol, and made out with his girlfriend up until the minute he went on stage. I was stuck sitting in front of him because I hadn't realized he was on first and there was no way to move away from the stage without some serious furniture rearrangement.
After suck band was done playing I went outside to smoke while waiting for Andrew to go on. The lead singer of suck band followed me outside and was trying to talk to me. I was standing at the railing, staring out into the parking lot, acting like I didn't speak english. So he came over and stood right next to me and said "I saw you staring at me". I was like what EVER dude! If I was staring it was because your band SUCKED. Then he grabbed the yellow bracelet on my wrist and asked me what it was. I said "it's a wish bracelet". Why do I talk to idiots when I know they are going to do something stupid?
He hooked his pinky under my wish bracelet while at the same time grabbing me and, I'm NOT making this up, saying "well, your wishes are about to come true, baby". He pushed his lips towards me at high velocity. I, in reaction, leaned way back and opened my mouth to say "what the fuck?" but before I could do that his upper lip made contact with the corner of my front tooth, which is a veneer, and it split open and started bleeding. He pulled away from me and grabbed his mouth while I in turn felt my tooth, which cost $1,000 to fix after I broke it in a bike accident, to make sure it wasn't damaged.
Then we both turned as the door to RNS opened. Dumb ass had failed to notice that the front of the cafe is a plate glass WINDOW. Anyone inside could see EVERYTHING going on outside. His girlfriend had been watching as he walked out and then saw him try to kiss me. Needless to say, it was pandemonium. She, being a typical female and therefore an idiot, started screaming at ME. I was like yeah, I really wanted to kiss a guy young enough to be my kid. I love guys with newly sprouted pubic hair. They left immediately afterwards, mother in tow. And I went in to see Andrew but had missed part of the first song.
Jeffy was not happy with the drink selections (and I quote "organic wine? that sucks!"). He was in a pretty good mood overall though because the cover to his book is almost done. He's in Montana next week to ski, I mean, um, go to a conference for work, and he's going to meet up with my publisher Joe for a beer. I don't know how safe that's going to be. I asked him if they were planning to sit around making fun of me all night and he said "Not everything revolves around you".
But, I bet they will make fun of me.
Dr. Jay played with Jeffy's iPhone. Jeffy kept lighting the fake zippo lighter and holding it up while Andrew was playing. Luis had brought out some serious representation from Outward Bound so there was a good audience. Afterwards we were talking about how I need to have a party at my house so everyone could get together. My other cousin Chris, Andrew's twin, is going to be working for Outward Bound this summer so Luis introduced him to a bunch of people. Also, he knows some people that he wants to introduce Andrew to that might be able to help with his music career. I thought that was really great of him to help them.
Today I was walking around down town trying to wake up, or at least waste time until it got dark enough to watch a movie, and I was thinking about how much fun I've been having the past few months skiing and climbing. This week I went out almost every night.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
rebuttal - by Joe Josephson
Franki's Fact Fix
A rebuttal.
My Week With Franki
A few days later I found another empty bottle out on the back porch. That makes the end count an even 12 bottles in 6 days.
Where the Hell is Roscoe?
The bumper sticker wasn't actually in my house. They were at the legendary Grizzly Bar in Roscoe, Montana. You can also get a classic T-Shirt with the same saying. Franki is correct about the size of this quaint local on the East Rosebud River.
http://www.montanataverns.com/_tavern.asp?id=21
And for the record, the directions I sent Franki were directly from Google Maps. I didn't double check them, however. If I'd spelled them out myself, it would have worked since she got lost exactly where my spidey senses told me she would. But hell, I figured she's got graduate degrees in science, protects us all from terrorists and God knows what else, and should be able to figure it out. Guess not.
Franki says: my degrees are actually in engineering, rendering me worthless in situations requiring, oh, what do they call it, "common sense". And, there was a Roscoe bumper sticker in your dad's house. In the basement. Go ahead and look, I'll wait right here.
The cabin is at the end of the road surrounded by almost a million acres of the Absaroka/Beartooth Wilderness about 40 miles from the Northeast corner of Yellowstone National Park. Franki has it backwards about the cabin. The original part, built in 1924, is the larger part and the smaller addition was built in the mid 1970s. This newer addition is much easier to heat and the part we use in winter.
My Grandmother's name was Harriet. She hated anyone to use the word "Grandmother" or "Nana" or anything similar. It was always just Harriet.
Pushing the Bush
To be technical about it, Franki's crampons weren't exactly "hiking crampons." They are simply a bit older than the specialized ones now used for steep water ice. As Franki proved all week, they climb just fine and the over-hyped, new tricked-out versions that all these wankers use today.
The ice on Hellroaring Falls actually never got in the sun all day. It came close near the end of the day. It was just that warm out.
In regards to "not climbing rotty ice," the conversation went more like this,
"What do you do about climbing this chandeliery, hollow stuff?"
"You avoid it."
And finally. They aren't steel. 'Dems brass.
Franki says: my apologies about your balls. Hard to believe I have a dad who is a metallurgist.
A Tiny Trip to Tickle Town
Mmmm.... pretty accurate. However, I don't remember yelling, "god damn fucking fuck!" and "fucking fuck!" and "this is fucking bullshit fuck fuck fuck! fucking god damn fuck! ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! this is shit fucking fuck!" as quoted by Franki. I was more muttering about it. Stuff like, "I can't believe it."
Franki says: Uh huh. I guess you are forgetting the part where you were trying to take the lug nuts off the first time with that limp wristed wrench that came with your vulva. Because I'm PRETTY SURE you said the F word. And the S word. A lot.
When telling the story later, no less than two friends told me, "I thought that was your car out there on the Freeway. I stopped but you weren't around." Great small town I live in here.
In the wake of the "Tiny Trip" comment at the checkout, I was not imagining running Franki over. I was just too numb to find a pithy come back. I was just shocked.
Franki says: That was a pretty scary beast trying to tickle you. I actually felt bad for you for the first time that day.
Creamed Cooch
I never said or thought there is "no bush in Canada" although there are lots of big fluffy beavers.
http://www.zazzle.com/home_of_the_furry_beaver_poster-228447757655386102
Any respecting Bushman (or whatever the fuck he called himself) should have been able to handle 45 degree weather (7 degrees Centigrade for you Canuks) without a fire built in the middle of a bunch of dried out trees. In over 20 years of climbing in Canada (including more -40 days than I care to admit), I have never seen nor ever heard of anyone building a fire while ice climbing. What have people come to these days? Now that I think about it, no respecting "bushman" would ever actually call himself a bushman. That's worse than ice instructors saying to guys, "push your hips into the ice like you are making love."
With all due respect to the other "groupies," they were sincere enough and I don't think they actually followed us to Chico. It is simply the place to go after ice climbing in Paradise Valley or Yellowstone Park. It's like the must stops at Laggan's Deli in Lake Louise or Orvis/City Pool in Ouray.
Franki says: you're being nice now that they aren't trying to have sex with you.
Not the Kind of Ice we Like
G1 is technically called "Genesis." G1 indicates the lower cliff band while G2 is the pitch up the hill a few hundred yards. G1 is a wide cliff band with a wide variety of pillars and curtains offering great, if not convenient, top roping on steep ice. It is the most climbed piece of ice in between Ouray and Canmore.
Franki says: Proof I don't exaggerate in my blog. If I did, I would have called it G11. And, thanks for taking me on the Montana whore of ice climbs.
I never yelled at the climbers about their anchor. In fact, I can't remember the last time I yelled at anyone I wasn't married too. I politely asked the dude to not put his top rope directly through the quick link on the slings as a community service to all the people that climb here. He indignantly went on about how he always does that, as if I've never really climbed before. I dropped it and just focused on belaying Franki. But he kept at it and after a few moments piped up, "It would take a while before it wore through the link." He was fishing for a fight. I just ignored him. No yelling. I told him to "Have a good one" when he left.
My friends we ran into in the parking lot weren't sponsored by Coors. They are athletes for The North Face and where there on a gig taking corporate employees ice climbing. One of them, Peter Croft, I hadn't seen in years and I was reminiscing how the last time I think I say Peter we were drinking Coors together while waiting for a plane in Reno, NV.
I actually have a photo somewhere of Peter with a cube of Coors under his arm from that day. Unfortunately I can't find it. When we left, I asked Franki if she knew who that was and she said she didn't know who Peter Croft is. That is one of the reasons I like Franki.
And about lighting Franki's cigarettes, it's true. Indeed I was concerned about Franki keeping both hands on the wheel. But also, I had offered several times over the week to be her house/errand boy. I'm underemployed. I guess wasn't very good at lighting her cigs because she never answered me about my offer.
Franki says: Dude, all I need is to be accused of causing you to start smoking cowboy killers. I would be banned from all future Rock & Ice parties. Which, come to think of it, is not a bad thing.
Eggs
Pika doesn't chew on heads (http://www.kookycatguy.com/). He has this way of placing his paw on you and holding it there. It would be cuter-than-shit if it wasn't usually against some skin a bit more tender than most and his claws not so sharp. Plus, Pika is polydactyl like Hemingway's famous cats in Key West. Look it up. So I can see how it might have felt like chewing. It's a sign of affection as far as I can tell. That, or "feed me."
Unlike Franki, who brought only one pair of anything on the trip, I had an advantage. I had a clean layer to put on by Friday. So I didn't smell quite so bad, at least for a few hours anyway.
She has the route we did on Friday a bit mixed up. We climbed Mummy 2. Mummy 1 is lower in the gully and a very short WI 2. The spectacular routes we were looking up at far above us were Mummy III and Mummy IV (a WI 6).
Franki says: Maybe it has less to do with under exaggerating. Maybe I just can't count.
When writing guidebooks, and encountering established routes with no name (usually smaller routes that no one knows who did it), I tend to give them a name and a grade anyway. It never ceases to amaze me how people will not climb something if it's not in the guidebook. Put a name and a grade on it, and no matter how crappy it is, it will get regular ascents. This particular piece of snot pouring out of the moss over a big phallic dead log (now there is an image) is about 50 yards left of Mummy 2. I thought we agreed to call it "Combat Jack" not "My Legs Are My Albatross" although upon retrospect I think the latter is more fitting.
Franki says: You said it was too pussy of a route to call it "combat jack".
Franki forgot to mention the well-known bumper sticker I told her about that is frequently sighted around Salt Lake City. "I (heart) Mormon Pussy".
I didn't give Franki a Grivel T-Shirt although it has a Grivel logo on the front (they were a long-time sponsor of mine so I put it there as a shout out to them). It is a First Ascent Press T-shirt with Randy Rackliff wood block art work and a hit list of the best routes in Hyalite and the Beartooths. Buy them here if you want, http://www.firstascentpress.com/buy.html (scroll down to the bottom of the page). I only have a few left! Since it doesn't look like my career as a house boy is going to work out, I need you all to buy my shit.
Franki says: Oops. If it had been a hit list of your Montana groupies I bet I would have gotten the t-shirt story straight.
The wine was called "The Guilty".
I didn't find Physics course work boring. Not at all. There were two reasons I quit Physics and switched to Philosophy. First was that I sucked at Calculus. Thus I would end up scoring 50s and 60s on these bi-weekly exams. They were just brutal. But thanks to the Bell Curve I was a B+ student. The second reason was this was during the Reagan era. If you'll recall, physicists during the time in the Cold War tended to graduate to work on missile systems. The first day of one semester I sat there thinking, I'm learning half the material, am considered above average and my future will be going to work on WMDs. It wasn't my idea of a career (still isn't). I dropped all my science that very day.
I had to get some of those homogeneous, amorphous, white, pasty, convenience store dumpties because I wasn't sure if I had enough of the home-grown, neighbor eggs left. Turns out I had two left. Just what we needed. The ones from the Town Pump (Seriously that is what it is called. Now contemplate that one -- getting eggs at the Town Pump) are still in the fridge with their peeling, individual ".99" orange price tags and will probably go into the compost if I can soon score some more better ones from one of my friends with chickens.
Franki says: but are you going to write on them first? why not write "organic" on them and eat them. It will be just like the ones Jen decorated.
The Hot Cakes were perfect.
Franki says: concur, and I appreciated not being ridiculed because I don't eat the crust.
Shakey Jakey
Go ahead and make fun of my Volvo or my Vulva all you want Franki. Those heated seats are great way to keep the bucket of KFC warm on long road trips.
Franki says: What's KFC? Is that like Climb On balm? Could I put it on my injured rotator cuff?
The headdress is not worth much actually, other than sentimental value. It's pretty beat up and far from museum quality. My great grandfather was a lawyer in Billings and did work with the Northern Cheyenne tribe back in the 1910s and 20s. The native stuff was a gift to him and definitely shows the generations of family enjoyment.
And regarding the swimsuit, my text to Franki read verbatim, "I found your swimsuit this morn. I can say a chica left her panties. Nice..."
Franki, "How embarrassing :D good thing it was you who found it.
Me, "Oh ya! I have SOOO many other girls filing through that would discover it."
Franki, "Dude, are you wearing it right now?
Me, "When you get them back, the bottom might be a bit stretched out. If u know what i mean"
Franki, "Gross :D"
Franki says: wait until the crotch blows out, and then you can wear it climbing
I don't have a guest room in my house but for the record, I offered my room to Franki and that I would take the couch. I tried to insist but she wouldn't have anything of it. You can't accuse me of not being a good host.
And in closing, while you are at it, have your boys send over some "little groupies." I've been waiting for them to show up for years.
Thanks Franki for immortalization of the week. It was great fun. I miss you having you around.
Love,
The Kid
Franki says: so you're actually going to admit I'm older and wiser?
Back to the Sopranos. I hate you for getting me hooked.
A rebuttal.
My Week With Franki
A few days later I found another empty bottle out on the back porch. That makes the end count an even 12 bottles in 6 days.
Where the Hell is Roscoe?
The bumper sticker wasn't actually in my house. They were at the legendary Grizzly Bar in Roscoe, Montana. You can also get a classic T-Shirt with the same saying. Franki is correct about the size of this quaint local on the East Rosebud River.
http://www.montanataverns.com/_tavern.asp?id=21
And for the record, the directions I sent Franki were directly from Google Maps. I didn't double check them, however. If I'd spelled them out myself, it would have worked since she got lost exactly where my spidey senses told me she would. But hell, I figured she's got graduate degrees in science, protects us all from terrorists and God knows what else, and should be able to figure it out. Guess not.
Franki says: my degrees are actually in engineering, rendering me worthless in situations requiring, oh, what do they call it, "common sense". And, there was a Roscoe bumper sticker in your dad's house. In the basement. Go ahead and look, I'll wait right here.
The cabin is at the end of the road surrounded by almost a million acres of the Absaroka/Beartooth Wilderness about 40 miles from the Northeast corner of Yellowstone National Park. Franki has it backwards about the cabin. The original part, built in 1924, is the larger part and the smaller addition was built in the mid 1970s. This newer addition is much easier to heat and the part we use in winter.
My Grandmother's name was Harriet. She hated anyone to use the word "Grandmother" or "Nana" or anything similar. It was always just Harriet.
Pushing the Bush
To be technical about it, Franki's crampons weren't exactly "hiking crampons." They are simply a bit older than the specialized ones now used for steep water ice. As Franki proved all week, they climb just fine and the over-hyped, new tricked-out versions that all these wankers use today.
The ice on Hellroaring Falls actually never got in the sun all day. It came close near the end of the day. It was just that warm out.
In regards to "not climbing rotty ice," the conversation went more like this,
"What do you do about climbing this chandeliery, hollow stuff?"
"You avoid it."
And finally. They aren't steel. 'Dems brass.
Franki says: my apologies about your balls. Hard to believe I have a dad who is a metallurgist.
A Tiny Trip to Tickle Town
Mmmm.... pretty accurate. However, I don't remember yelling, "god damn fucking fuck!" and "fucking fuck!" and "this is fucking bullshit fuck fuck fuck! fucking god damn fuck! ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! this is shit fucking fuck!" as quoted by Franki. I was more muttering about it. Stuff like, "I can't believe it."
Franki says: Uh huh. I guess you are forgetting the part where you were trying to take the lug nuts off the first time with that limp wristed wrench that came with your vulva. Because I'm PRETTY SURE you said the F word. And the S word. A lot.
When telling the story later, no less than two friends told me, "I thought that was your car out there on the Freeway. I stopped but you weren't around." Great small town I live in here.
In the wake of the "Tiny Trip" comment at the checkout, I was not imagining running Franki over. I was just too numb to find a pithy come back. I was just shocked.
Franki says: That was a pretty scary beast trying to tickle you. I actually felt bad for you for the first time that day.
Creamed Cooch
I never said or thought there is "no bush in Canada" although there are lots of big fluffy beavers.
http://www.zazzle.com/home_of_the_furry_beaver_poster-228447757655386102
Any respecting Bushman (or whatever the fuck he called himself) should have been able to handle 45 degree weather (7 degrees Centigrade for you Canuks) without a fire built in the middle of a bunch of dried out trees. In over 20 years of climbing in Canada (including more -40 days than I care to admit), I have never seen nor ever heard of anyone building a fire while ice climbing. What have people come to these days? Now that I think about it, no respecting "bushman" would ever actually call himself a bushman. That's worse than ice instructors saying to guys, "push your hips into the ice like you are making love."
With all due respect to the other "groupies," they were sincere enough and I don't think they actually followed us to Chico. It is simply the place to go after ice climbing in Paradise Valley or Yellowstone Park. It's like the must stops at Laggan's Deli in Lake Louise or Orvis/City Pool in Ouray.
Franki says: you're being nice now that they aren't trying to have sex with you.
Not the Kind of Ice we Like
G1 is technically called "Genesis." G1 indicates the lower cliff band while G2 is the pitch up the hill a few hundred yards. G1 is a wide cliff band with a wide variety of pillars and curtains offering great, if not convenient, top roping on steep ice. It is the most climbed piece of ice in between Ouray and Canmore.
Franki says: Proof I don't exaggerate in my blog. If I did, I would have called it G11. And, thanks for taking me on the Montana whore of ice climbs.
I never yelled at the climbers about their anchor. In fact, I can't remember the last time I yelled at anyone I wasn't married too. I politely asked the dude to not put his top rope directly through the quick link on the slings as a community service to all the people that climb here. He indignantly went on about how he always does that, as if I've never really climbed before. I dropped it and just focused on belaying Franki. But he kept at it and after a few moments piped up, "It would take a while before it wore through the link." He was fishing for a fight. I just ignored him. No yelling. I told him to "Have a good one" when he left.
My friends we ran into in the parking lot weren't sponsored by Coors. They are athletes for The North Face and where there on a gig taking corporate employees ice climbing. One of them, Peter Croft, I hadn't seen in years and I was reminiscing how the last time I think I say Peter we were drinking Coors together while waiting for a plane in Reno, NV.
I actually have a photo somewhere of Peter with a cube of Coors under his arm from that day. Unfortunately I can't find it. When we left, I asked Franki if she knew who that was and she said she didn't know who Peter Croft is. That is one of the reasons I like Franki.
And about lighting Franki's cigarettes, it's true. Indeed I was concerned about Franki keeping both hands on the wheel. But also, I had offered several times over the week to be her house/errand boy. I'm underemployed. I guess wasn't very good at lighting her cigs because she never answered me about my offer.
Franki says: Dude, all I need is to be accused of causing you to start smoking cowboy killers. I would be banned from all future Rock & Ice parties. Which, come to think of it, is not a bad thing.
Eggs
Pika doesn't chew on heads (http://www.kookycatguy.com/). He has this way of placing his paw on you and holding it there. It would be cuter-than-shit if it wasn't usually against some skin a bit more tender than most and his claws not so sharp. Plus, Pika is polydactyl like Hemingway's famous cats in Key West. Look it up. So I can see how it might have felt like chewing. It's a sign of affection as far as I can tell. That, or "feed me."
Unlike Franki, who brought only one pair of anything on the trip, I had an advantage. I had a clean layer to put on by Friday. So I didn't smell quite so bad, at least for a few hours anyway.
She has the route we did on Friday a bit mixed up. We climbed Mummy 2. Mummy 1 is lower in the gully and a very short WI 2. The spectacular routes we were looking up at far above us were Mummy III and Mummy IV (a WI 6).
Franki says: Maybe it has less to do with under exaggerating. Maybe I just can't count.
When writing guidebooks, and encountering established routes with no name (usually smaller routes that no one knows who did it), I tend to give them a name and a grade anyway. It never ceases to amaze me how people will not climb something if it's not in the guidebook. Put a name and a grade on it, and no matter how crappy it is, it will get regular ascents. This particular piece of snot pouring out of the moss over a big phallic dead log (now there is an image) is about 50 yards left of Mummy 2. I thought we agreed to call it "Combat Jack" not "My Legs Are My Albatross" although upon retrospect I think the latter is more fitting.
Franki says: You said it was too pussy of a route to call it "combat jack".
Franki forgot to mention the well-known bumper sticker I told her about that is frequently sighted around Salt Lake City. "I (heart) Mormon Pussy".
I didn't give Franki a Grivel T-Shirt although it has a Grivel logo on the front (they were a long-time sponsor of mine so I put it there as a shout out to them). It is a First Ascent Press T-shirt with Randy Rackliff wood block art work and a hit list of the best routes in Hyalite and the Beartooths. Buy them here if you want, http://www.firstascentpress.com/buy.html (scroll down to the bottom of the page). I only have a few left! Since it doesn't look like my career as a house boy is going to work out, I need you all to buy my shit.
Franki says: Oops. If it had been a hit list of your Montana groupies I bet I would have gotten the t-shirt story straight.
The wine was called "The Guilty".
I didn't find Physics course work boring. Not at all. There were two reasons I quit Physics and switched to Philosophy. First was that I sucked at Calculus. Thus I would end up scoring 50s and 60s on these bi-weekly exams. They were just brutal. But thanks to the Bell Curve I was a B+ student. The second reason was this was during the Reagan era. If you'll recall, physicists during the time in the Cold War tended to graduate to work on missile systems. The first day of one semester I sat there thinking, I'm learning half the material, am considered above average and my future will be going to work on WMDs. It wasn't my idea of a career (still isn't). I dropped all my science that very day.
I had to get some of those homogeneous, amorphous, white, pasty, convenience store dumpties because I wasn't sure if I had enough of the home-grown, neighbor eggs left. Turns out I had two left. Just what we needed. The ones from the Town Pump (Seriously that is what it is called. Now contemplate that one -- getting eggs at the Town Pump) are still in the fridge with their peeling, individual ".99" orange price tags and will probably go into the compost if I can soon score some more better ones from one of my friends with chickens.
Franki says: but are you going to write on them first? why not write "organic" on them and eat them. It will be just like the ones Jen decorated.
The Hot Cakes were perfect.
Franki says: concur, and I appreciated not being ridiculed because I don't eat the crust.
Shakey Jakey
Go ahead and make fun of my Volvo or my Vulva all you want Franki. Those heated seats are great way to keep the bucket of KFC warm on long road trips.
Franki says: What's KFC? Is that like Climb On balm? Could I put it on my injured rotator cuff?
The headdress is not worth much actually, other than sentimental value. It's pretty beat up and far from museum quality. My great grandfather was a lawyer in Billings and did work with the Northern Cheyenne tribe back in the 1910s and 20s. The native stuff was a gift to him and definitely shows the generations of family enjoyment.
And regarding the swimsuit, my text to Franki read verbatim, "I found your swimsuit this morn. I can say a chica left her panties. Nice..."
Franki, "How embarrassing :D good thing it was you who found it.
Me, "Oh ya! I have SOOO many other girls filing through that would discover it."
Franki, "Dude, are you wearing it right now?
Me, "When you get them back, the bottom might be a bit stretched out. If u know what i mean"
Franki, "Gross :D"
Franki says: wait until the crotch blows out, and then you can wear it climbing
I don't have a guest room in my house but for the record, I offered my room to Franki and that I would take the couch. I tried to insist but she wouldn't have anything of it. You can't accuse me of not being a good host.
And in closing, while you are at it, have your boys send over some "little groupies." I've been waiting for them to show up for years.
Thanks Franki for immortalization of the week. It was great fun. I miss you having you around.
Love,
The Kid
Franki says: so you're actually going to admit I'm older and wiser?
Back to the Sopranos. I hate you for getting me hooked.
shaky jakey
On Saturday, after pancakes, I packed Jake and then we went with Joe to the car wash. Jakey had so much snow still in his wheel wells that the tires were rubbing, and two had gone a little flat. Also, he was so mud covered I couldn't see out the windows. It seemed like some water was in order to correct both problems.
Joe wisely stood really far away while I attempted to wash Jakey in one of those do it yourself car washes. Suffice it to say if I worked at a car wash I would probably get fired. I managed to get as much water on myself as Jake. The floor of the car wash was covered in ice so every time I sprayed water out of the high pressure hose I would go sliding across the floor. And my hands were cold so I had a hard time controlling the hose.
We then went to a gas station and I filled Jakey's tires. We got on the highway headed for home by way of Big Timber. I was taking Joe by his dad's house to get a truck so he'd have a car to drive until his volvo is fixed (who ever heard of an ice climber that owns an expensive car with leather seats? and not just that, but you can heat the seats up - okay, done making fun of your car, Joe, though I should mention every time I type "volvo" I really want to type "vulva").
As soon as I got Jakey up to 45 MPH on the service road to the highway he started shaking. Badly. I was like what the FUCK is wrong with my car???? The highway was even worse. At only 60 MPH Jake was shaking so bad that he knocked two cigarettes out of the pack that I was holding against the steering wheel.
I didn't want to scare Joe, but I was thinking to turn around and head back to Livingston. I knew there was no way I could drive Jakey like that for 8 hours. Not just because my forearms were worked like little bitches. I was worried I was going to hurt Jake.
A short discussion ensued about my car. We were both kind of nervous since, earlier in the week, the same kind of scenario played out with Joe's car. First the tire, then the car went to shit. I wondered if I had screwed something up when I was putting air in his tires, or if I had screwed up his alignment driving too fast over bumps on the road to Hyalite (I did that just so I could hear the panic in Joe's voice when he said "there's a big bump coming up RIGHT THERE" as I would plow through a pot hole the size of one of the new england states without slowing down).
We got to Joe's dad's house, actually Joe's childhood home. I got to see paintings his grandmother Harriet had done, miniatures his mom painted, and more cool indian artifacts, including a head dress made with eagle feathers that's worth a million billion dollars that Joe's dad keeps in the basement. I would have enjoyed it all a lot more if I wasn't worried about Jake.
Joe got the truck out of the garage and said he would follow me out to the highway. I told him that if I was having problems I would take Jake back to Livingston. Joe surmised that Jake just had some ice or shit caught in the wheel well and that he would be okay. I was also nervous because my new crackberry battery has the life span of a gnat. If I ran into problems I would likely be in the middle of no where with a dying phone.
But, surprisingly, I got on the highway and Jakey was his usual sled dog self, running along at 85 MPH like it was nothing. I sent Joe a text to let him know he wouldn't have to put up with me sleeping on his couch for another night, though, I don't think he would have minded. He even said to me, when we were driving to his dad's house "I'm kind of surprised that I'm not sick of you yet". I made it home by 10ish, watched a movie, and then passed out.
Sunday morning I got a text message from Joe that said "I found your swimsuit this morn". Then he made a joke about me leaving my panties at his house, though, technically, they are aren't really panties. I had forgotten, after the hot springs, that I had hung my bathing suit up in his front foyer under a down jacket (classy). Luckily he found my suit before one of his little groupies did. And I feel bad that I hung a wet bathing suit under his down jacket. Oops.
He also said that everyone in the restaurant that he cooks at (where we were on Friday) refers to me as "the spy that smokes marlboro reds". For the record, my boys have a satellite trained right on Joe's house, at this very moment, to see if he's running around in my bathing suit.
And so ends the story of my ice climbing vacation with Joe. Stay tuned for the corrections. Joe is working on them as I write this.
Joe wisely stood really far away while I attempted to wash Jakey in one of those do it yourself car washes. Suffice it to say if I worked at a car wash I would probably get fired. I managed to get as much water on myself as Jake. The floor of the car wash was covered in ice so every time I sprayed water out of the high pressure hose I would go sliding across the floor. And my hands were cold so I had a hard time controlling the hose.
We then went to a gas station and I filled Jakey's tires. We got on the highway headed for home by way of Big Timber. I was taking Joe by his dad's house to get a truck so he'd have a car to drive until his volvo is fixed (who ever heard of an ice climber that owns an expensive car with leather seats? and not just that, but you can heat the seats up - okay, done making fun of your car, Joe, though I should mention every time I type "volvo" I really want to type "vulva").
As soon as I got Jakey up to 45 MPH on the service road to the highway he started shaking. Badly. I was like what the FUCK is wrong with my car???? The highway was even worse. At only 60 MPH Jake was shaking so bad that he knocked two cigarettes out of the pack that I was holding against the steering wheel.
I didn't want to scare Joe, but I was thinking to turn around and head back to Livingston. I knew there was no way I could drive Jakey like that for 8 hours. Not just because my forearms were worked like little bitches. I was worried I was going to hurt Jake.
A short discussion ensued about my car. We were both kind of nervous since, earlier in the week, the same kind of scenario played out with Joe's car. First the tire, then the car went to shit. I wondered if I had screwed something up when I was putting air in his tires, or if I had screwed up his alignment driving too fast over bumps on the road to Hyalite (I did that just so I could hear the panic in Joe's voice when he said "there's a big bump coming up RIGHT THERE" as I would plow through a pot hole the size of one of the new england states without slowing down).
We got to Joe's dad's house, actually Joe's childhood home. I got to see paintings his grandmother Harriet had done, miniatures his mom painted, and more cool indian artifacts, including a head dress made with eagle feathers that's worth a million billion dollars that Joe's dad keeps in the basement. I would have enjoyed it all a lot more if I wasn't worried about Jake.
Joe got the truck out of the garage and said he would follow me out to the highway. I told him that if I was having problems I would take Jake back to Livingston. Joe surmised that Jake just had some ice or shit caught in the wheel well and that he would be okay. I was also nervous because my new crackberry battery has the life span of a gnat. If I ran into problems I would likely be in the middle of no where with a dying phone.
But, surprisingly, I got on the highway and Jakey was his usual sled dog self, running along at 85 MPH like it was nothing. I sent Joe a text to let him know he wouldn't have to put up with me sleeping on his couch for another night, though, I don't think he would have minded. He even said to me, when we were driving to his dad's house "I'm kind of surprised that I'm not sick of you yet". I made it home by 10ish, watched a movie, and then passed out.
Sunday morning I got a text message from Joe that said "I found your swimsuit this morn". Then he made a joke about me leaving my panties at his house, though, technically, they are aren't really panties. I had forgotten, after the hot springs, that I had hung my bathing suit up in his front foyer under a down jacket (classy). Luckily he found my suit before one of his little groupies did. And I feel bad that I hung a wet bathing suit under his down jacket. Oops.
He also said that everyone in the restaurant that he cooks at (where we were on Friday) refers to me as "the spy that smokes marlboro reds". For the record, my boys have a satellite trained right on Joe's house, at this very moment, to see if he's running around in my bathing suit.
And so ends the story of my ice climbing vacation with Joe. Stay tuned for the corrections. Joe is working on them as I write this.
levels
Last night I had a dream that I was in a video game that involved house pest 2.0 and Joe. In the game I had to follow Joe up this never ending set of stairs that were in this rickety wooden structure. We hiked up the stairs for a while. I was behind Joe, and he was wearing his ice climbing gear. Then we got to a floor and HP2.0 was there. I was like "Hey, what are you doing here?" and Joe was like "Look out, he's trying to kill you!"
HP2.0 started swinging an ice ax at me. I was like "what the fuck are you doing?" and Joe yelled "you have to hit the V with your ice ax!" I realized I had an ice ax and that HP2.0 was wearing jeans with a glowing V on the back pocket. I was also wearing jeans with the same V. So we ran around for a while swinging at each other with our ice axes and then I hit HP2.0's V and he disappeared.
Then Joe started walking up more steps that had appeared. I followed him again and then we got to another floor. This time HP2.0 was holding a 2 x 4 and the room was stacked with lumber. He said "you have to hit me". I picked up a 2 x 4 too and started trying to hit HP2.0 in the head with it. I finally did and instead of his head exploding he just disappeared. Joe said "you're doing very good at this game" and I tried to tell him I'm horrible at video games but he wasn't listening to me. He had already turned around and was hiking up the next flight of stairs. I started thinking about how Colin at work used to make me play this helicopter flying game just because I always crashed my helicopter after about 15 seconds and that made him laugh. I started laughing and Joe turned around and said "do you want to make the stairs disappear?" and I said "no" so he said "then stop laughing".
Then we got to the third floor and it was a swamp with this really gross water that had oil spilled in it. Joe was like "you have to get in the water" and I didn't want to so he pushed me in. Then I realized HP2.0 was in the water and that he was going to try to drown me. So I was flailing around and then the water got really deep and I realized I was holding my ice axes. Joe started yelling at me to drop my ice axes but I didn't want to lose them in the water so I was trying to tread at the surface with my axes. HP2.0 pulled me about 5 feet under the water, and the water was pitch black, but I could see the light from the surface. Then the oil on the surface of the water started to form a crust and close up. I couldn't breathe and knew that if I didn't get to the surface before the oil finished crusting up that I would be trapped under water. I tried to swim to the surface but HP2.0 was holding my legs. And I had dropped my ice axes. I started thrashing around in the water because I couldn't breathe at all.
Then I woke up.
HP2.0 started swinging an ice ax at me. I was like "what the fuck are you doing?" and Joe yelled "you have to hit the V with your ice ax!" I realized I had an ice ax and that HP2.0 was wearing jeans with a glowing V on the back pocket. I was also wearing jeans with the same V. So we ran around for a while swinging at each other with our ice axes and then I hit HP2.0's V and he disappeared.
Then Joe started walking up more steps that had appeared. I followed him again and then we got to another floor. This time HP2.0 was holding a 2 x 4 and the room was stacked with lumber. He said "you have to hit me". I picked up a 2 x 4 too and started trying to hit HP2.0 in the head with it. I finally did and instead of his head exploding he just disappeared. Joe said "you're doing very good at this game" and I tried to tell him I'm horrible at video games but he wasn't listening to me. He had already turned around and was hiking up the next flight of stairs. I started thinking about how Colin at work used to make me play this helicopter flying game just because I always crashed my helicopter after about 15 seconds and that made him laugh. I started laughing and Joe turned around and said "do you want to make the stairs disappear?" and I said "no" so he said "then stop laughing".
Then we got to the third floor and it was a swamp with this really gross water that had oil spilled in it. Joe was like "you have to get in the water" and I didn't want to so he pushed me in. Then I realized HP2.0 was in the water and that he was going to try to drown me. So I was flailing around and then the water got really deep and I realized I was holding my ice axes. Joe started yelling at me to drop my ice axes but I didn't want to lose them in the water so I was trying to tread at the surface with my axes. HP2.0 pulled me about 5 feet under the water, and the water was pitch black, but I could see the light from the surface. Then the oil on the surface of the water started to form a crust and close up. I couldn't breathe and knew that if I didn't get to the surface before the oil finished crusting up that I would be trapped under water. I tried to swim to the surface but HP2.0 was holding my legs. And I had dropped my ice axes. I started thrashing around in the water because I couldn't breathe at all.
Then I woke up.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
eggs
Friday I woke up with yet another hang over. In our inebriated state the night before we had decided that, if the weather was still bad we would fore go climbing and watch the Sopranos all day. I was pretty worked from so much outdoor activity, and I told Joe the thought of climbing made me want to cry. He said "If you leave Montana crying I'll be very happy".
But, at 8 am Friday the sun was shining. Pika, one of Joe's cats, was chewing on my head. And Joe was wandering around the kitchen with his climbing clothes on. I contemplated faking death until it was too late for us to climb but then decided that I really wanted to go climbing instead.
I put on my clothes, the same ones I had been wearing all week. They smelled bad. Eye wateringly bad. When I'm on vacation I'm not about taking showers and being clean so I only brought one set of clothes to climb in. Joe's clothes smelled bad too. As we were hiking in to Mummy 1, back in Hyalite, I kept getting a whiff of my shirt through my down parka. I wanted to puke every time I smelled it. Also my boots were soaked, as were my mittens. And it was cold outside, probably around 5 degrees F.
That was my favorite approach, even though it was long and steep. You go around this bend, thinking the uphill will never ever stop, and suddenly there's the climb, all blue and shiny in the sun. It's like walking into your house after a long flight and finding someone has set up all your favorite sushi rolls on the kitchen table and you can't wait to sit down and eat them.
I should mention that we stopped half way up the approach because, shock and surprise, these two girls started yelling "Joe! Joe!" as we were walking by, and he stopped to talk to them. They were some girls he knows from town.
While we were getting our harnesses and crampons on Joe offered me a piece of a skor bar, which I've never had before. I ate it and Joe was immediately like "you don't really like it, do you?" I guess after a week of hanging out with me I'm pretty easy to read.
Mummy 1 wasn't a super hard climb, but I was tired and there were steep sections where my crampons were just shit. Also, it was covered with snow so it was hard to see where I was putting my feet. The first section was about 15 feet of vertical and I had to pull a screw out. I tried to get my feet in a good place but my left crampon kept blowing. I was cold and getting colder by the second. I couldn't get the fucking screw out easily because it had iced over on the top. My arms felt like ragged bath mats that someone should have throw away long ago.
After clearing that section I got into some super shit ice. Joe had warned me it was plating and to check my tools before I weighted them. I was trying to pull out the third screw on the route, and had my left ax in a pocket that was covered in snow so I couldn't really see the placement. My left crampon came out of the ice and I grabbed my left tool. Something tweaked in my shoulder and then the fucking ice plated out. I almost dropped my ice ax. My hands were so cold I could hardly close them but I managed to catch my tool.
When I got to the top of the climb Joe told me to look up. A big hawk of some kind was flying right over my head. It was beautiful. It reminded me of the time I saw a hawk climbing Power Play with Mayo. The wing span of the bird was huge.
I stumbled over to the anchor and looked out over the valley. Joe was pointing out ice climbs on the other side of the canyon and we could see two guys climbing over there. Then I looked behind me and saw Mummy 2 and the mountains. It's hard to exactly explain what that felt like but it's kind of like being at the airport waiting for a friend and suddenly you see them walking towards you and you're incredibly happy. So even though I climbed like shit I was very grateful to be standing on top of Mummy 1, seeing all the stuff that you can see from up there, and it was still more fun than anything else you can do.
After we rapped down we walked around so Joe could take pictures of some of the other climbs. We went into this super cool ice cave. Joe was thinking to climb the curtain that made up one wall of the ice cave but I was like I think my arms are going to fall off. He took a picture of one unnamed climb and then we talked about calling it "my legs are my albatross", a quote from an email
I got from Gadd. He's going to put it in the next guide book.
On the way down we, shock and surprise, ran into a group of four guys who knew Joe. He gave them recommendations on where to take some mormon girls climbing. I've never fucked a mormon but I might so I could steal his underwear. They have secret underwear that no one is supposed to see. Then we talked about women who have bushy bushes that hang out the sides of their underwear. Joe said that is the ultimate boner shrinker.
When we got back to Joe's he gave me a grivel t-shirt. I suspect it's because the t-shirt I had been wearing while we weren't climbing was starting to smell. He also gave me these cool little rubber things that you use with a carabiner to provide an easy way to hook screws when you're cleaning a route.
That night we went to a restaurant where Joe is learning to cook. I had a bit of a crisis trying to find something to wear as I had driven out to Montana in a pajama top and didn't bring any non climbing clothes except for one shirt that got wet and gross at Chico hot springs. I ended up wearing my pajama top.
We sat at the bar. We ran into, shock and surprise, a bunch of people who know Joe. We picked a wine called guilty off the list and it was excellent and appropriate.
We were being kind of tired and low key until the restaurant owner's girlfriend Jen showed up. Joe said he thought we were similar characters. I agreed when, five minutes into the conversation, she executed the perfect insertion of the word "cunt" in an otherwise innocuous sentence.
I mentioned that I thought people should use the words cunt, twat, and pussy more often, as people usually just say dick, and look where that's gotten the world. Then she brought up the Imoto water study and how she thought it was shit that words can change things. Then I tried to remember the name of the movie about the Imoto water study and the bartender Nathaniel said "it's what the bleep do we know?". He really likes physics. I should mention here that Joe thought about getting a degree in physics but he found the course work boring. But he talks like an engineer which is funny. He was going on with this technical explanation about this ice curtain we were looking at climbing and finally I was like "so Joe, what you are saying is the ice is cracked?" What a geek.
I attempted to have a side conversation with Nathaniel about quantum physics and karate (he does muay thai which is similar to the karate form I studied, hisardut) while also talking to Jen about her chickens.
Until I had an organic egg, resulting in a discussion about eggs with Joe, I didn't realize a chicken doesn't have to get fucked to lay an egg. And then I found out from Jen you can buy eggs of any kind of chicken you want and put them in this machine that makes them hatch. I suggested that she write words on the eggs to test Imoto's theory. At first I was thinking "happy" and "sad" but then thought it wouldn't be good to have sad chickens. So I suggested she draw a penis on a few eggs and see if they came out roosters. She said that was manipulation and she didn't want to do that. And the eggs she has are expensive because they are an almost extinct breed, so we were thinking she should do the experiment with cheap eggs.
Then I went out and smoked and while doing that started thinking about the crystalline structures of ice and chaos theory and when I got back inside tried to explain a poorly expressed idea about studying chaos with ice so you could get a PhD but the whole time you would be ice climbing. Jen said my idea sucked. Then I started talking to Nathaniel about chaos and a tangent about how differential equations are fun but by that point we had finished the bottle of guilty and I don't remember what the fuck I was saying. I do remember Joe telling me that I should stop ordering my eggs by saying "I want them to be flat and cooked at the yellow part and not mixed in all together" and instead say "I want my eggs over hard" and me saying something inappropriate about over hard right as the chef that's teaching Joe how to cook walked out of the kitchen. He laughed and walked back in and Joe said "that was perfect timing".
Joe drove us home since I was kind of liquidated, but first we stopped by a gas station to get ingredients so Joe could make us Harriet's hot cakes, which is a special recipe his grandmother made up. We had to buy two eggs and some milk. Joe put the eggs in his down jacket pocket, which I wasn't sure was a great idea, especially when he was putting his seat belt on, but the eggs didn't break. I vaguely remember saying something about burned pancakes and how I would be really depressed if the pancakes were burned. I think we watched some sopranos when we got home, and we finished the bottle of red wine with the lady in the red dress on the label.
And Joe, ha ha, told me that night he was worried I was going to get bored hanging out with him.
Joe made hotcakes Saturday morning and they were perfect.
But, at 8 am Friday the sun was shining. Pika, one of Joe's cats, was chewing on my head. And Joe was wandering around the kitchen with his climbing clothes on. I contemplated faking death until it was too late for us to climb but then decided that I really wanted to go climbing instead.
I put on my clothes, the same ones I had been wearing all week. They smelled bad. Eye wateringly bad. When I'm on vacation I'm not about taking showers and being clean so I only brought one set of clothes to climb in. Joe's clothes smelled bad too. As we were hiking in to Mummy 1, back in Hyalite, I kept getting a whiff of my shirt through my down parka. I wanted to puke every time I smelled it. Also my boots were soaked, as were my mittens. And it was cold outside, probably around 5 degrees F.
That was my favorite approach, even though it was long and steep. You go around this bend, thinking the uphill will never ever stop, and suddenly there's the climb, all blue and shiny in the sun. It's like walking into your house after a long flight and finding someone has set up all your favorite sushi rolls on the kitchen table and you can't wait to sit down and eat them.
I should mention that we stopped half way up the approach because, shock and surprise, these two girls started yelling "Joe! Joe!" as we were walking by, and he stopped to talk to them. They were some girls he knows from town.
While we were getting our harnesses and crampons on Joe offered me a piece of a skor bar, which I've never had before. I ate it and Joe was immediately like "you don't really like it, do you?" I guess after a week of hanging out with me I'm pretty easy to read.
Mummy 1 wasn't a super hard climb, but I was tired and there were steep sections where my crampons were just shit. Also, it was covered with snow so it was hard to see where I was putting my feet. The first section was about 15 feet of vertical and I had to pull a screw out. I tried to get my feet in a good place but my left crampon kept blowing. I was cold and getting colder by the second. I couldn't get the fucking screw out easily because it had iced over on the top. My arms felt like ragged bath mats that someone should have throw away long ago.
After clearing that section I got into some super shit ice. Joe had warned me it was plating and to check my tools before I weighted them. I was trying to pull out the third screw on the route, and had my left ax in a pocket that was covered in snow so I couldn't really see the placement. My left crampon came out of the ice and I grabbed my left tool. Something tweaked in my shoulder and then the fucking ice plated out. I almost dropped my ice ax. My hands were so cold I could hardly close them but I managed to catch my tool.
When I got to the top of the climb Joe told me to look up. A big hawk of some kind was flying right over my head. It was beautiful. It reminded me of the time I saw a hawk climbing Power Play with Mayo. The wing span of the bird was huge.
I stumbled over to the anchor and looked out over the valley. Joe was pointing out ice climbs on the other side of the canyon and we could see two guys climbing over there. Then I looked behind me and saw Mummy 2 and the mountains. It's hard to exactly explain what that felt like but it's kind of like being at the airport waiting for a friend and suddenly you see them walking towards you and you're incredibly happy. So even though I climbed like shit I was very grateful to be standing on top of Mummy 1, seeing all the stuff that you can see from up there, and it was still more fun than anything else you can do.
After we rapped down we walked around so Joe could take pictures of some of the other climbs. We went into this super cool ice cave. Joe was thinking to climb the curtain that made up one wall of the ice cave but I was like I think my arms are going to fall off. He took a picture of one unnamed climb and then we talked about calling it "my legs are my albatross", a quote from an email
I got from Gadd. He's going to put it in the next guide book.On the way down we, shock and surprise, ran into a group of four guys who knew Joe. He gave them recommendations on where to take some mormon girls climbing. I've never fucked a mormon but I might so I could steal his underwear. They have secret underwear that no one is supposed to see. Then we talked about women who have bushy bushes that hang out the sides of their underwear. Joe said that is the ultimate boner shrinker.
When we got back to Joe's he gave me a grivel t-shirt. I suspect it's because the t-shirt I had been wearing while we weren't climbing was starting to smell. He also gave me these cool little rubber things that you use with a carabiner to provide an easy way to hook screws when you're cleaning a route.
That night we went to a restaurant where Joe is learning to cook. I had a bit of a crisis trying to find something to wear as I had driven out to Montana in a pajama top and didn't bring any non climbing clothes except for one shirt that got wet and gross at Chico hot springs. I ended up wearing my pajama top.
We sat at the bar. We ran into, shock and surprise, a bunch of people who know Joe. We picked a wine called guilty off the list and it was excellent and appropriate.
We were being kind of tired and low key until the restaurant owner's girlfriend Jen showed up. Joe said he thought we were similar characters. I agreed when, five minutes into the conversation, she executed the perfect insertion of the word "cunt" in an otherwise innocuous sentence.
I mentioned that I thought people should use the words cunt, twat, and pussy more often, as people usually just say dick, and look where that's gotten the world. Then she brought up the Imoto water study and how she thought it was shit that words can change things. Then I tried to remember the name of the movie about the Imoto water study and the bartender Nathaniel said "it's what the bleep do we know?". He really likes physics. I should mention here that Joe thought about getting a degree in physics but he found the course work boring. But he talks like an engineer which is funny. He was going on with this technical explanation about this ice curtain we were looking at climbing and finally I was like "so Joe, what you are saying is the ice is cracked?" What a geek.
I attempted to have a side conversation with Nathaniel about quantum physics and karate (he does muay thai which is similar to the karate form I studied, hisardut) while also talking to Jen about her chickens.
Until I had an organic egg, resulting in a discussion about eggs with Joe, I didn't realize a chicken doesn't have to get fucked to lay an egg. And then I found out from Jen you can buy eggs of any kind of chicken you want and put them in this machine that makes them hatch. I suggested that she write words on the eggs to test Imoto's theory. At first I was thinking "happy" and "sad" but then thought it wouldn't be good to have sad chickens. So I suggested she draw a penis on a few eggs and see if they came out roosters. She said that was manipulation and she didn't want to do that. And the eggs she has are expensive because they are an almost extinct breed, so we were thinking she should do the experiment with cheap eggs.
Then I went out and smoked and while doing that started thinking about the crystalline structures of ice and chaos theory and when I got back inside tried to explain a poorly expressed idea about studying chaos with ice so you could get a PhD but the whole time you would be ice climbing. Jen said my idea sucked. Then I started talking to Nathaniel about chaos and a tangent about how differential equations are fun but by that point we had finished the bottle of guilty and I don't remember what the fuck I was saying. I do remember Joe telling me that I should stop ordering my eggs by saying "I want them to be flat and cooked at the yellow part and not mixed in all together" and instead say "I want my eggs over hard" and me saying something inappropriate about over hard right as the chef that's teaching Joe how to cook walked out of the kitchen. He laughed and walked back in and Joe said "that was perfect timing".
Joe drove us home since I was kind of liquidated, but first we stopped by a gas station to get ingredients so Joe could make us Harriet's hot cakes, which is a special recipe his grandmother made up. We had to buy two eggs and some milk. Joe put the eggs in his down jacket pocket, which I wasn't sure was a great idea, especially when he was putting his seat belt on, but the eggs didn't break. I vaguely remember saying something about burned pancakes and how I would be really depressed if the pancakes were burned. I think we watched some sopranos when we got home, and we finished the bottle of red wine with the lady in the red dress on the label.
And Joe, ha ha, told me that night he was worried I was going to get bored hanging out with him.
Joe made hotcakes Saturday morning and they were perfect.
not the kind of ice we like
Thursday we climbed in Hyalite at an area called G1. As we pulled onto the access road going into the park I started to get worried because there was a sign saying that cars should use chains. Joe said "oh that's just to keep the yahoos out". Hm.
Joe spent 3 years trying to get the access road open in the winter. They plow it now when it snows. Anyone who climbs there should show their gratitude to Joe by buying his guide book Winter Dance. In fact, buy 10 copies and give them as gifts.
I only made Joe a little nervous with my driving. He only stomped his foot on the floor a few times when he thought I should slow down. The road was icy and I couldn't go more than 15 MPH. We finally arrived at the parking area and I climbed over some snow banks to pee. There are bathrooms in Hyalite but they are scary. When I got back to the car I was laughing because there was a tent pitched right behind a sign that said "no camping". Joe laughed to because the tent was pitched in the area where everyone goes to the bathroom.
G1 was a really cool collection of ice. We decided to climb there the whole day because there were so many lines. Two other groups were climbing there. One group was two guys who were kind of suck climbers. They were timing how long it was taking them to climb things. It was pretty gay. The belayer started yelling up to his friend climbing that he was going to lead some really hard pitch elsewhere in the park when his friend was done climbing. I had to stifle a laugh. Joe yelled at them because they set up their anchor wrong, and the belayer kid started trying to argue with Joe rather than learn something.
I was walking over to climb a pitch when the suck climber kid was getting lowered. He wanted to leave because it had started snowing and it was getting cold. The belayer said he wanted to stay and watch me (probably to look at my ass) and the suck climber said "who wants to watch a girl climb".
There were two other guys climbing there, who were pretty cool. They both knew who Joe was but they weren't being obnoxious groupies but they were listening in our our conversations. When I started telling Joe a story of an expression "warm bowl of soup", which is what a kid I knew in Ouray called a vagina they started laughing. When I said "my cat crap (gel used to clean glasses that keeps them from fogging, you buy it at REI) dried out and now it isn't working (because my glasses kept fogging)" and Joe thought I said "my cat crack dried up and now it isn't working" he turned to the other climbers and said "there's nothing at this point that could come out of her mouth that would surprise me". The other climbers also thought I said "cat crack".
As the day went on it started snowing harder. Then the wind picked up and it was getting cold. The last climb I did was a corner route. The snow was blowing so hard I couldn't see where I was putting my tools. Joe was standing 40 feet below me and could barely see me. When I got down we decided to pack it in and Joe went up the same route to clean the anchor. As he was climbing he knocked down a suit case sized piece of ice. He yelled as it was falling but I couldn't hear him in the wind. The ice landed an inch away from where I was standing. I had been about to move to that spot seconds before the ice fell because it was next to a tree and I thought it might block some of the wind and snow. Meanwhile Joe thought he had hit me with the ice, and that I was laying unconscious in the snow because he was yelling to me and I wasn't answering. So he cleaned the anchor and rapped down. I guess he was happy to find me alive and in one piece.
In the parking lot we ran into some of his climbing friends and he talked to them for a while. One is apparently sponsored by Coors. They were making a movie or something.
Then we started the epic drive out of Hyalite. Joe was really nervous so he said he would light my cigarettes for me. I thought that was funny because the past two days we had been around all these people that see Joe as a climbing god, and he was lighting my cigarettes.
We got out on the main road and the conditions weren't any better. We kept having to stop to clear the ice of the wipers. Sometimes I couldn't see out my part of the windshield at all so Joe had to tell me where to go. We got on the highway right before they closed it and crawled back to Livingston where we procured more wine and a pizza. We both needed a drink after that drive. While we were driving through the parking lot Joe had to grab the steering wheel a few times because I couldn't see where all the parking lot bumps were and kept almost running over them.
When we got back to his house with our pizza we decided to watch the Sopranos because I've never seen it. Some how we managed to stay up until 1 in the morning, and drink almost two bottles of wine. And now I'm hooked on the Sopranos.
Joe spent 3 years trying to get the access road open in the winter. They plow it now when it snows. Anyone who climbs there should show their gratitude to Joe by buying his guide book Winter Dance. In fact, buy 10 copies and give them as gifts.
I only made Joe a little nervous with my driving. He only stomped his foot on the floor a few times when he thought I should slow down. The road was icy and I couldn't go more than 15 MPH. We finally arrived at the parking area and I climbed over some snow banks to pee. There are bathrooms in Hyalite but they are scary. When I got back to the car I was laughing because there was a tent pitched right behind a sign that said "no camping". Joe laughed to because the tent was pitched in the area where everyone goes to the bathroom.
G1 was a really cool collection of ice. We decided to climb there the whole day because there were so many lines. Two other groups were climbing there. One group was two guys who were kind of suck climbers. They were timing how long it was taking them to climb things. It was pretty gay. The belayer started yelling up to his friend climbing that he was going to lead some really hard pitch elsewhere in the park when his friend was done climbing. I had to stifle a laugh. Joe yelled at them because they set up their anchor wrong, and the belayer kid started trying to argue with Joe rather than learn something.
I was walking over to climb a pitch when the suck climber kid was getting lowered. He wanted to leave because it had started snowing and it was getting cold. The belayer said he wanted to stay and watch me (probably to look at my ass) and the suck climber said "who wants to watch a girl climb".
There were two other guys climbing there, who were pretty cool. They both knew who Joe was but they weren't being obnoxious groupies but they were listening in our our conversations. When I started telling Joe a story of an expression "warm bowl of soup", which is what a kid I knew in Ouray called a vagina they started laughing. When I said "my cat crap (gel used to clean glasses that keeps them from fogging, you buy it at REI) dried out and now it isn't working (because my glasses kept fogging)" and Joe thought I said "my cat crack dried up and now it isn't working" he turned to the other climbers and said "there's nothing at this point that could come out of her mouth that would surprise me". The other climbers also thought I said "cat crack".
As the day went on it started snowing harder. Then the wind picked up and it was getting cold. The last climb I did was a corner route. The snow was blowing so hard I couldn't see where I was putting my tools. Joe was standing 40 feet below me and could barely see me. When I got down we decided to pack it in and Joe went up the same route to clean the anchor. As he was climbing he knocked down a suit case sized piece of ice. He yelled as it was falling but I couldn't hear him in the wind. The ice landed an inch away from where I was standing. I had been about to move to that spot seconds before the ice fell because it was next to a tree and I thought it might block some of the wind and snow. Meanwhile Joe thought he had hit me with the ice, and that I was laying unconscious in the snow because he was yelling to me and I wasn't answering. So he cleaned the anchor and rapped down. I guess he was happy to find me alive and in one piece.
In the parking lot we ran into some of his climbing friends and he talked to them for a while. One is apparently sponsored by Coors. They were making a movie or something.
Then we started the epic drive out of Hyalite. Joe was really nervous so he said he would light my cigarettes for me. I thought that was funny because the past two days we had been around all these people that see Joe as a climbing god, and he was lighting my cigarettes.
We got out on the main road and the conditions weren't any better. We kept having to stop to clear the ice of the wipers. Sometimes I couldn't see out my part of the windshield at all so Joe had to tell me where to go. We got on the highway right before they closed it and crawled back to Livingston where we procured more wine and a pizza. We both needed a drink after that drive. While we were driving through the parking lot Joe had to grab the steering wheel a few times because I couldn't see where all the parking lot bumps were and kept almost running over them.
When we got back to his house with our pizza we decided to watch the Sopranos because I've never seen it. Some how we managed to stay up until 1 in the morning, and drink almost two bottles of wine. And now I'm hooked on the Sopranos.
creamed cooch
Wednesday morning we decided to forget about the whole car drama of the previous day and climb at Pine Creek.
We hiked up to green gully, one of the classic climbs there. It was a little harder than it looked from the bottom, but it was lots of fun to climb. As I was half way up a group of four guys came up to the bottom of the climb. When I lowered off one of them said to me "wow, you climbed that really good", "for a girl" being the unspoken part of his comment.
Then we did blue gully, which was a lot easier. Joe rapped off and then I followed. I had forgotten my daisy chain and was using a sling to clip in to the anchor. The sling was a lot shorter than my daisy but, out of habit, I passed the carabiner between my legs and clipped it to the back loop on my harness. I always do that with my daisy chain because it keeps it out of my way.
The top part of blue gully is not steep so I walked down it for the most part. The ropes were snowy so they were kind of hard to feed through my ATC. I have a hard time rapping anyway because I need to weigh more. I felt something kind of weird against the back of my ass but figured I had gotten my leg loop twisted.
But as I started rapping down the steep part of blue gully I felt a really bad pain suddenly shoot through my chop chop. It was like someone had kicked me right between the legs. After a second I realized that the sling was what was causing the pain. It was like the worst thong ever. I decided to keep rapping rather than trying to fix it, though by the time I was on the ground I felt like I was going to pass out. As soon as I was off rappel I dropped the rope, grabbed my crotch, and screamed. Joe was like "what the fuck is wrong with you?" and I said the first thing that came to mind which was "I just creamed my cooch". Through the tears in my eyes I could see Joe laughing. For the record, it bruised, prompting Joe to remark "too bad you didn't hurt it doing something good".
We hiked back by green gully and found an idiot from Calgary sitting next to a pretty big fire under a group of trees. There have been a lot of fires in Pine Creek and Joe was pissed. He asked the guy to put the fire out and the little moron said "I've been in the bush my whole life and I know how to control a fire". Joe was like if your so smart why did you build a fire under a bunch of fucking trees? Also, it wasn't cold enough outside to even warrant a fire.
The guys who had climbed green gully were milling around waiting for Joe, and as soon as he was close to the group they were like "Are you Joe Josephson?" Then they started asking him about climbs in the Yukon and what it was like doing long routes, and basically bugging the shit out of him, though Joe was very nice about it. Those guys were so excited to meet him that they practically offered up their daughters for Joe to fuck. As Joe said later "I don't know if their daughters would have fucked me, but I bet one of those guys would have".
It's kind of the way things are with Joe. Every time we would go somewhere he would run into someone he knew or he would get accosted by groupies. Joe doesn't brag about climbing and most of the stories he told me were about climbing trips gone bad. I only learned about the other epic shit he did listening to the groupies, who seem to have memorized his entire life.
We got back to the car and the guys obviously wanted Joe to talk to them for forever, except for the calgarian who was hiding in the car because Joe yelled at him. But we were going to go to Chico hot springs so we made a hasty get away, but not before I accidentally said "I can't wait to get to the hot springs". When we got in the car we made more fun of the calgarian, especially the comment about being in the bush. I said "I have a bush so I should be able to start a fire anywhere". Joe was like "there's no fucking bush in canada", resulting in an unrepeatable conversation that also had some jokes about the big fluffy beaver.
The groupies followed us to the hot springs so we had to hide in the hot pool until they went away. Then we had dinner at the bar and had to listen to this little drunk idiot talk about how it was his birthday and did anyone want to buy him a drink.
We got home and drank a bottle of wine. Joe showed me a book his mom put together about his family. I started reading the story of his great grandfather, who grew up in an orphanage and then had this little life of crime before settling down. It was amazing. His mom put pictures in the book too. I was going to write in my blog that night but decided I was too tired. Joe was like thank god.
He, for some reason, was worried I would make fun of him in my blog.
Instead we decided, at 1 in the morning, to watch North by Northwest. Went to bed around 330 and got up at 8 to go climb.
We hiked up to green gully, one of the classic climbs there. It was a little harder than it looked from the bottom, but it was lots of fun to climb. As I was half way up a group of four guys came up to the bottom of the climb. When I lowered off one of them said to me "wow, you climbed that really good", "for a girl" being the unspoken part of his comment.
Then we did blue gully, which was a lot easier. Joe rapped off and then I followed. I had forgotten my daisy chain and was using a sling to clip in to the anchor. The sling was a lot shorter than my daisy but, out of habit, I passed the carabiner between my legs and clipped it to the back loop on my harness. I always do that with my daisy chain because it keeps it out of my way.
The top part of blue gully is not steep so I walked down it for the most part. The ropes were snowy so they were kind of hard to feed through my ATC. I have a hard time rapping anyway because I need to weigh more. I felt something kind of weird against the back of my ass but figured I had gotten my leg loop twisted.
But as I started rapping down the steep part of blue gully I felt a really bad pain suddenly shoot through my chop chop. It was like someone had kicked me right between the legs. After a second I realized that the sling was what was causing the pain. It was like the worst thong ever. I decided to keep rapping rather than trying to fix it, though by the time I was on the ground I felt like I was going to pass out. As soon as I was off rappel I dropped the rope, grabbed my crotch, and screamed. Joe was like "what the fuck is wrong with you?" and I said the first thing that came to mind which was "I just creamed my cooch". Through the tears in my eyes I could see Joe laughing. For the record, it bruised, prompting Joe to remark "too bad you didn't hurt it doing something good".
We hiked back by green gully and found an idiot from Calgary sitting next to a pretty big fire under a group of trees. There have been a lot of fires in Pine Creek and Joe was pissed. He asked the guy to put the fire out and the little moron said "I've been in the bush my whole life and I know how to control a fire". Joe was like if your so smart why did you build a fire under a bunch of fucking trees? Also, it wasn't cold enough outside to even warrant a fire.
The guys who had climbed green gully were milling around waiting for Joe, and as soon as he was close to the group they were like "Are you Joe Josephson?" Then they started asking him about climbs in the Yukon and what it was like doing long routes, and basically bugging the shit out of him, though Joe was very nice about it. Those guys were so excited to meet him that they practically offered up their daughters for Joe to fuck. As Joe said later "I don't know if their daughters would have fucked me, but I bet one of those guys would have".
It's kind of the way things are with Joe. Every time we would go somewhere he would run into someone he knew or he would get accosted by groupies. Joe doesn't brag about climbing and most of the stories he told me were about climbing trips gone bad. I only learned about the other epic shit he did listening to the groupies, who seem to have memorized his entire life.
We got back to the car and the guys obviously wanted Joe to talk to them for forever, except for the calgarian who was hiding in the car because Joe yelled at him. But we were going to go to Chico hot springs so we made a hasty get away, but not before I accidentally said "I can't wait to get to the hot springs". When we got in the car we made more fun of the calgarian, especially the comment about being in the bush. I said "I have a bush so I should be able to start a fire anywhere". Joe was like "there's no fucking bush in canada", resulting in an unrepeatable conversation that also had some jokes about the big fluffy beaver.
The groupies followed us to the hot springs so we had to hide in the hot pool until they went away. Then we had dinner at the bar and had to listen to this little drunk idiot talk about how it was his birthday and did anyone want to buy him a drink.
We got home and drank a bottle of wine. Joe showed me a book his mom put together about his family. I started reading the story of his great grandfather, who grew up in an orphanage and then had this little life of crime before settling down. It was amazing. His mom put pictures in the book too. I was going to write in my blog that night but decided I was too tired. Joe was like thank god.
He, for some reason, was worried I would make fun of him in my blog.
Instead we decided, at 1 in the morning, to watch North by Northwest. Went to bed around 330 and got up at 8 to go climb.
a tiny trip to tickle town
I woke up at 6 Tuesday morning and there was no sunlight. I looked out at the mountains around the cabin and they were socked in with clouds. Joe got up and made a fire while I hauled water into the cabin. The temperature outside had taken a noticeable drop.
Joe made me an organic egg that he got from his neighbor's chicken and then we got dressed. The cabin was toasty by that point and the weather outside seemed to get worse by the second. My boots were wet from the previous day's hike when I jumped into some puddles because I like to do that. Though, I learned my lesson and won't do that any more on an ice climbing trip because wet boots suck in the cold.
At 7 am we put on our packs and started for California Ice. About 2 minutes into our hike the sky, which had just been spitting drops, launched a full scale sleety rain attack on us. We were both drenched by the time we got back to the cabin. We decided it would be bad to continue in that weather considering Joe didn't have any waterproof pants. Also, we were worried about being able to get back to civilization if the weather got much worse. We packed up the cabin and headed to Livingston with the thought that we could get an afternoon in at Hyalite.
But then disaster struck. About 2 miles outside of Big Timber Joe's rear left tire blew out. I was following him in Jake and all I saw was a big cloud of dust and then Joe pulling over to the side of the road. The tire was completely flat by the time he came to a stop. I don't know how he didn't wreck his car as we were going about 85 mph. My dad said that Joe must be an amazing driver.
The side wall was completely blown apart. There was obviously going to be no patching that tire. We tried to get the lug nuts off and they were on so tight that even with Joe completely standing on the wrench and bouncing they wouldn't budge So we packed everything into my car and headed to Big Timber, where Joe's brother lives. He gave us WD-40, a heavy duty wrench, and a pipe. We went back to the car and tried to remove the lug nuts. No such luck.
So we went back to Big Timber again, to a tire shop, and they lent us an impact wrench and a mongo super heavy duty wrench. As we were driving back to Joe's car he was stressing about having to buy new tires and possibly having to get his car towed if we couldn't get the lug nuts off. Then he said "oh well, at least it's not raining".
Moments later, it started to rain.
With the impact wrench we were able to remove the tire. Joe put on the spare and then we returned the stuff to the tire shop. They kindly refused to take the $20 Joe offered them for lending us the tools. Then we headed to Livingston, going 40 MPH on a 75 MPH highway.
Since I was behind Joe I had a few scary moments when, for example, a truck hauled up on us, apparently not noticing my flashers or the fact that I was going 40 MPH. He had a bunch of timber on his truck and was literally only inches from Jake as he passed into the other lane.
Around that time I noticed smoke coming out from under Joe's car. It looked to be from the area of the spare tire. I tried to call Joe but my crackberry was dying and didn't have enough power to make a call. I tried to text him and as I was doing that he pulled over to the side of the road.
I got out of my car, not easy to do since the wind was blowing really hard and every time I got my door cracked open it would blow shut. It was really cold.
Joe was standing by the spare tire yelling "WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG NOW???" He looked like he was going to kill his car with his bare hands. As he had been driving along he heard a horrible clunk noise and then the car just got all fucked up, which is when he pulled to the side of the road. We tried to diagnose the problem but couldn't figure out what it was. While we were doing that Joe was saying "god damn fucking fuck!" and "fucking fuck!" and "this is fucking bullshit fuck fuck fuck! fucking god damn fuck! ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! this is shit fucking fuck!" Etc. We were 13 miles from Livingston.
So we put the rest of his stuff in my car and left his car with the flashers on the side of the road and headed to his house to make calls since his phone had also died and neither of us could make calls. I called USAA and they agreed to tow Joe's car and pay for half the cost since he had to have it towed 35 miles away from where it broke down. Joe called around until he found a shop that would work on his car. It was going to be an hour until the tow truck could get his car so we decided to go to a grocery store, procure food and lots of wine, and then to drink heavily for the rest of the evening after his car was squared away.
Joe ran into a neighbor so I took the groceries over to check out. Our check out clerk made a comment about the amount of wine we were buying (but seriously, is three bottles a lot? I normally buy it by the case and no one says shit about that). Then she tried to scan a container of salsa that Joe had picked out and the bar code didn't work. It was around this time that Joe walked back over to me, so I said "You know, I wanted to get the salsa with the bar code that scanned. But Joe insisted we get this one." Poor Joe just looked so depressed and worried about his car I figured I would tease him to cheer him up. I told the check out clerk he was having a bad day so I was doing what I could to make it worse.
So she said to Joe, and I am NOT making this up, "I think someone needs a tiny trip to tickle town". Then she kind of poked her fingers out at Joe as if she were actually going to tickle him! Joe stood there with a look of absolute horror on his face. It was all I could do to keep from laughing. I said "Yes, you should definitely tickle him!" Joe looked at me as if he was imagining running me over in his car, if his car had been working, that is.
We dropped the groceries off and headed out to Joe's car to meet the tow truck. I had a weird conversation with my dad, who for some reason was convinced that someone had shot out Joe's tire.
Finally we got home, ate, built a big fire in Joe's chiminea, and drank 3 bottles of wine. I don't know if that made Joe feel better, but I'm pretty sure he at least didn't feel anything. I passed out on the couch around 3 am and woke up the next morning at 830 with a screaming thumping hangover.
Joe made me an organic egg that he got from his neighbor's chicken and then we got dressed. The cabin was toasty by that point and the weather outside seemed to get worse by the second. My boots were wet from the previous day's hike when I jumped into some puddles because I like to do that. Though, I learned my lesson and won't do that any more on an ice climbing trip because wet boots suck in the cold.
At 7 am we put on our packs and started for California Ice. About 2 minutes into our hike the sky, which had just been spitting drops, launched a full scale sleety rain attack on us. We were both drenched by the time we got back to the cabin. We decided it would be bad to continue in that weather considering Joe didn't have any waterproof pants. Also, we were worried about being able to get back to civilization if the weather got much worse. We packed up the cabin and headed to Livingston with the thought that we could get an afternoon in at Hyalite.
But then disaster struck. About 2 miles outside of Big Timber Joe's rear left tire blew out. I was following him in Jake and all I saw was a big cloud of dust and then Joe pulling over to the side of the road. The tire was completely flat by the time he came to a stop. I don't know how he didn't wreck his car as we were going about 85 mph. My dad said that Joe must be an amazing driver.
The side wall was completely blown apart. There was obviously going to be no patching that tire. We tried to get the lug nuts off and they were on so tight that even with Joe completely standing on the wrench and bouncing they wouldn't budge So we packed everything into my car and headed to Big Timber, where Joe's brother lives. He gave us WD-40, a heavy duty wrench, and a pipe. We went back to the car and tried to remove the lug nuts. No such luck.
So we went back to Big Timber again, to a tire shop, and they lent us an impact wrench and a mongo super heavy duty wrench. As we were driving back to Joe's car he was stressing about having to buy new tires and possibly having to get his car towed if we couldn't get the lug nuts off. Then he said "oh well, at least it's not raining".
Moments later, it started to rain.
With the impact wrench we were able to remove the tire. Joe put on the spare and then we returned the stuff to the tire shop. They kindly refused to take the $20 Joe offered them for lending us the tools. Then we headed to Livingston, going 40 MPH on a 75 MPH highway.
Since I was behind Joe I had a few scary moments when, for example, a truck hauled up on us, apparently not noticing my flashers or the fact that I was going 40 MPH. He had a bunch of timber on his truck and was literally only inches from Jake as he passed into the other lane.
Around that time I noticed smoke coming out from under Joe's car. It looked to be from the area of the spare tire. I tried to call Joe but my crackberry was dying and didn't have enough power to make a call. I tried to text him and as I was doing that he pulled over to the side of the road.
I got out of my car, not easy to do since the wind was blowing really hard and every time I got my door cracked open it would blow shut. It was really cold.
Joe was standing by the spare tire yelling "WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG NOW???" He looked like he was going to kill his car with his bare hands. As he had been driving along he heard a horrible clunk noise and then the car just got all fucked up, which is when he pulled to the side of the road. We tried to diagnose the problem but couldn't figure out what it was. While we were doing that Joe was saying "god damn fucking fuck!" and "fucking fuck!" and "this is fucking bullshit fuck fuck fuck! fucking god damn fuck! ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! this is shit fucking fuck!" Etc. We were 13 miles from Livingston.
So we put the rest of his stuff in my car and left his car with the flashers on the side of the road and headed to his house to make calls since his phone had also died and neither of us could make calls. I called USAA and they agreed to tow Joe's car and pay for half the cost since he had to have it towed 35 miles away from where it broke down. Joe called around until he found a shop that would work on his car. It was going to be an hour until the tow truck could get his car so we decided to go to a grocery store, procure food and lots of wine, and then to drink heavily for the rest of the evening after his car was squared away.
Joe ran into a neighbor so I took the groceries over to check out. Our check out clerk made a comment about the amount of wine we were buying (but seriously, is three bottles a lot? I normally buy it by the case and no one says shit about that). Then she tried to scan a container of salsa that Joe had picked out and the bar code didn't work. It was around this time that Joe walked back over to me, so I said "You know, I wanted to get the salsa with the bar code that scanned. But Joe insisted we get this one." Poor Joe just looked so depressed and worried about his car I figured I would tease him to cheer him up. I told the check out clerk he was having a bad day so I was doing what I could to make it worse.
So she said to Joe, and I am NOT making this up, "I think someone needs a tiny trip to tickle town". Then she kind of poked her fingers out at Joe as if she were actually going to tickle him! Joe stood there with a look of absolute horror on his face. It was all I could do to keep from laughing. I said "Yes, you should definitely tickle him!" Joe looked at me as if he was imagining running me over in his car, if his car had been working, that is.
We dropped the groceries off and headed out to Joe's car to meet the tow truck. I had a weird conversation with my dad, who for some reason was convinced that someone had shot out Joe's tire.
Finally we got home, ate, built a big fire in Joe's chiminea, and drank 3 bottles of wine. I don't know if that made Joe feel better, but I'm pretty sure he at least didn't feel anything. I passed out on the couch around 3 am and woke up the next morning at 830 with a screaming thumping hangover.
pushing the bush
The next day we woke up around 8 and were trying to decide what to climb. It was a balmy 50 degrees outside. We were thinking to do California Ice when we both discovered that we had made a few mistakes packing. I had brought the wrong crampons and Joe forgot his climbing pants. We decided to do Hellroaring Falls instead so I could see how things would go with my hiking crampons. Joe wore his carhartts that he had been cooking in the previous day. They were covered with french fry grease so he figured they would be pretty waterproof.
Hellroaring Falls has the easiest approach in East Rosebud. You just get out of your car and climb up a drainage ditch. Joe climbed up the falls to set an anchor up and we decided to just climb there all day as there was enough ice to do a number of lines. As Joe was climbing I noticed he had a huge hole in the crotch of his carhartts. At first I wasn't going to say anything, but, after he got off lead, I couldn't resist so I said "Joe, I can see your balls". That prompted a short diatribe about how all his pants are crotchless (I can verify that is a true statement - his jeans were worse than his carhartts). He said he wears out the crotch in his pants because of the size of his legs, but I think maybe it's because he has steel balls.
After I lowered Joe I took a lap up the ice. The day was getting warmer and the ice was in the sun so it was pretty sloppy up there. At one point I yelled down to Joe "The ice is so wet I feel like I'm climbing in a vagina!" I heard him make a noise that I usually only hear when I punch someone in the stomach. At that moment I thought back to some advice my co-author had given me about toning down my personality around Joe so as to not offend him. I sometimes forget that not everyone talks like Jeffy and me. But by the end of the day Joe was taking my bon mots in stride, and by Tuesday I realized that nothing I could think of to say would shock him and worse, that he was saying the same horrible stuff I say.
In fact, while I was climbing I asked him to yell up coaching advice about anything I was doing wrong and he said "you need to push the bush!" This means, in climbing parlance, pushing your hips against the ice so that your stance is more solid and so that you have a better reach for tool placements. I asked him what he said to guys since they don't have a "bush" per se (although some guys never trim their pubic hair, which is annoying - like I want to be pulling hair out of my teeth after I blow someone).
Anyway, Joe said there wasn't a good expression for guys. Then he said he thought it was really gay when instructors would tell people to push their hips against the ice like they were "making love with the ice". I've heard an instructor say that myself. I told Joe that might not be a great thing to tell guys because most climbers aren't good at fucking, so telling them that would make them a worse climber. A short discussion ensued about sex with climbers, my conclusion being "If the climbers I've fucked climbed like they fuck I wouldn't have fucked them".
Other things I learned from Joe include not climbing rotty ice, how to keep my tool steady when I only had a few teeth in, and how to tap my crap crampons into the ice so I could get a good foothold on the more vertical sections of ice (the crampons I was wearing only had really short triangular front points and so were kind of shit). Luckily the ice was super sticky so I was able to practice this technique, which served me later in the week when the weather was not so nice.
We climbed until we were both soaking wet and then we decided to go for a hike to check out California Ice. We went on this beautiful trail around the lake and back into a canyon. California Ice was blue and glittery in the setting sun. It looked like a big blob of icing on a mountain cake. I immediately wanted to smash my ice axes into it. It's kind of the same compulsion I have when I'm in the grocery store and see all these decorated birthday cakes and I imagine putting them on the floor and then jumping on them.
For dinner Joe made a beef stew dish and garlic bread even though I told him that some times garlic makes me fart. He said "oh, well, that's okay". It's kind of weird the way he talks like a Canadian but isn't. He lived in Calgary for a long time. Every time he said "eh?" it made me want to laugh.
We went to bed pretty early so we could get up at 6 for our climb. I did not see any ghosts. We saw Venus and Joe saw a shooting star.
Hellroaring Falls has the easiest approach in East Rosebud. You just get out of your car and climb up a drainage ditch. Joe climbed up the falls to set an anchor up and we decided to just climb there all day as there was enough ice to do a number of lines. As Joe was climbing I noticed he had a huge hole in the crotch of his carhartts. At first I wasn't going to say anything, but, after he got off lead, I couldn't resist so I said "Joe, I can see your balls". That prompted a short diatribe about how all his pants are crotchless (I can verify that is a true statement - his jeans were worse than his carhartts). He said he wears out the crotch in his pants because of the size of his legs, but I think maybe it's because he has steel balls.
After I lowered Joe I took a lap up the ice. The day was getting warmer and the ice was in the sun so it was pretty sloppy up there. At one point I yelled down to Joe "The ice is so wet I feel like I'm climbing in a vagina!" I heard him make a noise that I usually only hear when I punch someone in the stomach. At that moment I thought back to some advice my co-author had given me about toning down my personality around Joe so as to not offend him. I sometimes forget that not everyone talks like Jeffy and me. But by the end of the day Joe was taking my bon mots in stride, and by Tuesday I realized that nothing I could think of to say would shock him and worse, that he was saying the same horrible stuff I say.
In fact, while I was climbing I asked him to yell up coaching advice about anything I was doing wrong and he said "you need to push the bush!" This means, in climbing parlance, pushing your hips against the ice so that your stance is more solid and so that you have a better reach for tool placements. I asked him what he said to guys since they don't have a "bush" per se (although some guys never trim their pubic hair, which is annoying - like I want to be pulling hair out of my teeth after I blow someone).
Anyway, Joe said there wasn't a good expression for guys. Then he said he thought it was really gay when instructors would tell people to push their hips against the ice like they were "making love with the ice". I've heard an instructor say that myself. I told Joe that might not be a great thing to tell guys because most climbers aren't good at fucking, so telling them that would make them a worse climber. A short discussion ensued about sex with climbers, my conclusion being "If the climbers I've fucked climbed like they fuck I wouldn't have fucked them".
Other things I learned from Joe include not climbing rotty ice, how to keep my tool steady when I only had a few teeth in, and how to tap my crap crampons into the ice so I could get a good foothold on the more vertical sections of ice (the crampons I was wearing only had really short triangular front points and so were kind of shit). Luckily the ice was super sticky so I was able to practice this technique, which served me later in the week when the weather was not so nice.
We climbed until we were both soaking wet and then we decided to go for a hike to check out California Ice. We went on this beautiful trail around the lake and back into a canyon. California Ice was blue and glittery in the setting sun. It looked like a big blob of icing on a mountain cake. I immediately wanted to smash my ice axes into it. It's kind of the same compulsion I have when I'm in the grocery store and see all these decorated birthday cakes and I imagine putting them on the floor and then jumping on them.
For dinner Joe made a beef stew dish and garlic bread even though I told him that some times garlic makes me fart. He said "oh, well, that's okay". It's kind of weird the way he talks like a Canadian but isn't. He lived in Calgary for a long time. Every time he said "eh?" it made me want to laugh.
We went to bed pretty early so we could get up at 6 for our climb. I did not see any ghosts. We saw Venus and Joe saw a shooting star.
where the hell is Roscoe?
Somewhere in Joe's house is a bumper sticker that says "where the hell is Roscoe?". Even Yahoo maps doesn't know where it is. I know this because Joe sent me directions to Roscoe and they were wrong.
I drove up to Montana on Sunday. My timing was good because the weather was great the whole drive up. I arrived at my destination around 6, only to discover that I wasn't at my destination because the directions were wrong. After a brief call to Joe I back tracked and met him at a gas station, moved all my stuff into his car, and we drove up to his cabin in East Rosebud. I will readily admit even with good directions I doubt I could have found Roscoe, a small town that consists of maybe 5 buildings on this little back road.
On the way up we ran into two climbing friends of Joe's. They gave us some screws because we were going to do a long route called California Ice and Joe wanted to make sure he had enough. He invited them to crash at the cabin but they didn't want to wait for us to eat dinner so they left to sleep in a tent somewhere.
Joe's cabin is up by a lake literally in the middle of nowhere. It has electricity in the winter, but no running water. Joe got water from the well so we could flush the toilet and have something to drink. There's an outhouse but Joe said not to use it because it was "scary". I kept offering to help him because I thought it was a real well that he was pulling water from. The next morning, in the day light, I discovered the "well" was actually just a spigot sticking out of the snow.
While Joe was starting a fire inside the cabin I stood outside and looked up at the stars. The sky was a little cloudy at first, but it's very windy in East Rosebud so they soon blew away and there were lots to look at.
Then something strange happened. The cabin used to be a little one room deal, and then Joe's family added onto it, building a second section on to the cabin that is twice as big as the original, and that goes up two stories. From where I was standing, outside the original cabin door, I could look directly into the second story windows. That room is a loft. It was back lit by lights on in the down stairs. As I looked at the windows I saw a person walk in front of them. At first I thought it was Joe, but then I realized the person was too small. The person turned as if to look out the window and disappeared.
Right after that happened Joe came out of the cabin. I told him what happened. He said that right after his grandmother, who lived up at the cabin every summer, died he was walking towards the cabin one day and saw her standing at a window looking out at him. So I think the person was probably his grandmother. Her presence is all over the cabin. She saved every letter she ever sent or received, and after we opened a bottle of wine I read through some of her books. She also painted and wrote poetry. It was very cool to read letters from back in the day.
After we killed the wine Joe decided it would be good for us to walk out to see the lake. I almost broke my ass walking around the side of the cabin as there was a huge build up of ice and we couldn't see anything because it was dark with barely any moon. The lake was covered in snow drifts. I wanted to run through them but the ice was too slippery. So instead I smoked one last cigarette and we went to sleep.
I drove up to Montana on Sunday. My timing was good because the weather was great the whole drive up. I arrived at my destination around 6, only to discover that I wasn't at my destination because the directions were wrong. After a brief call to Joe I back tracked and met him at a gas station, moved all my stuff into his car, and we drove up to his cabin in East Rosebud. I will readily admit even with good directions I doubt I could have found Roscoe, a small town that consists of maybe 5 buildings on this little back road.
On the way up we ran into two climbing friends of Joe's. They gave us some screws because we were going to do a long route called California Ice and Joe wanted to make sure he had enough. He invited them to crash at the cabin but they didn't want to wait for us to eat dinner so they left to sleep in a tent somewhere.
Joe's cabin is up by a lake literally in the middle of nowhere. It has electricity in the winter, but no running water. Joe got water from the well so we could flush the toilet and have something to drink. There's an outhouse but Joe said not to use it because it was "scary". I kept offering to help him because I thought it was a real well that he was pulling water from. The next morning, in the day light, I discovered the "well" was actually just a spigot sticking out of the snow.
While Joe was starting a fire inside the cabin I stood outside and looked up at the stars. The sky was a little cloudy at first, but it's very windy in East Rosebud so they soon blew away and there were lots to look at.
Then something strange happened. The cabin used to be a little one room deal, and then Joe's family added onto it, building a second section on to the cabin that is twice as big as the original, and that goes up two stories. From where I was standing, outside the original cabin door, I could look directly into the second story windows. That room is a loft. It was back lit by lights on in the down stairs. As I looked at the windows I saw a person walk in front of them. At first I thought it was Joe, but then I realized the person was too small. The person turned as if to look out the window and disappeared.
Right after that happened Joe came out of the cabin. I told him what happened. He said that right after his grandmother, who lived up at the cabin every summer, died he was walking towards the cabin one day and saw her standing at a window looking out at him. So I think the person was probably his grandmother. Her presence is all over the cabin. She saved every letter she ever sent or received, and after we opened a bottle of wine I read through some of her books. She also painted and wrote poetry. It was very cool to read letters from back in the day.
After we killed the wine Joe decided it would be good for us to walk out to see the lake. I almost broke my ass walking around the side of the cabin as there was a huge build up of ice and we couldn't see anything because it was dark with barely any moon. The lake was covered in snow drifts. I wanted to run through them but the ice was too slippery. So instead I smoked one last cigarette and we went to sleep.
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