The Brotherhood Of the Traveling Stopper...

S.Stelli wrote: Best story about a stopper in this thread yet?

Dude, NO MAGIC POWERS!!!

I was disappointed...

slk wrote:Bootied a stopper at Donner today, at the start of K.C., in my tennies, in 4 seconds. No magic powers :(

Can you go and booty my stopper that my friend couldn't get out of Corrugation Corner (2nd pitch bout 20-30 ft up)? :P

C Blank wrote: Can you go and booty my stopper that my friend couldn't get out of Corrugation Corner (2nd pitch bout 20-30 ft up)? :P

I don't know, does it have magic powers? Can I get it unstuck in 4 seconds? If so, let me go throw my tennies on...

hey everyone,

I just got the stopper in the mail, I'll work on getting out a getting a trip report up soon.

steitz wrote:hey everyone, I just got the stopper in the mail, I'll work on getting out a getting a trip report up soon.

The fellowship continues!

Colonel Mustard wrote: The fellowship continues!

I'll believe it when the stopper shows up as a picture IN THIS THREAD with a story to back it up... and is then in my mailbox.

Tony B wrote:I'm having this thread boiled down so that people that log on see movement and reports, not 4 pages of pre-start chatter. It's not censorship, it's a requested cleanup.

Really? I was thinking this thread was getting better since there has been no movement or trip reports...

This thread is from October for Christ's sake...

but I'll delete all my posts if I get the stopper next... I love to place them...

Wow, no TR or word on the stopper, what a surprise!!!

SEND ME THE STOPPER.

I want the stopper!! When this started I thought to myself, self you don't climb hard enough to participate in funnery like that. But now I have changed my mind. I have the perfect Climb to use it on. A wall that I can see from the freeway but the only approach is 3 hrs. As far as I know there are no known routes on it. Give me the stopper and I will do my best to put up my first FA. And even if I fail you will still get a TR.

Tony B wrote: Does this stopper attract lameness? How soon is soon?

It's like when friends borrow movies...a year later you see it still on their bookshelf.

Tony B wrote: Does this stopper attract lameness? How soon is soon?

Soon like in as this soon, Tony:

Hiking in tonight to check out my adventure wall... Somebody get me the stopper in the next couple weeks I will have pictures up within a week of recieving the stopper. Does not matter if my girlfriend(if I had one) trips and breaks her nose, or if it suddenly snows 10ft, or if I go bankrupt and break a leg. I will put that baddie in some rock!

SEND IT TO ME!!!!

Stich wrote: FACEPALMS X 1,000,000

+1

The traveling stopper needs a small bomb implanted in it that goes off after a month if it sits without being placed in rock.

Stich wrote:The traveling stopper needs a small bomb implanted in it that goes off after a month if it sits without being placed in rock.

Yes, some kind of stopperwatch............/facepalm

Ok, this thread is a fricken riot.

I just bagged my first Trad lead last month and have been amping up to go bigger and harder. I definitely want to take part in this if it ever becomes more than a hilarious thread.

Chapter 6 - Return of the Stopper

So here's the story of my adventures with the stopper. It's kind of convoluted, and involves some boats.



This is a boat.

Chapter One - Arrival

So I live in Maine and I work on boats. I love boats, I used to sail a lot as a racer, then I worked on sailboats for a long time, from yachts to square riggers, but these days I work in commercial shipping. In my free time I like to climb, which I also love. Way back in June the stopper hadn't moved in awhile, so I emailed Austin and said "Hey man, if you have the stopper why don't you send it along to me?" And he said "Okay" so he sent it. It arrived in mid to late June, and I was highly pysched. The very week it arrived though, I got a call from the office and I had to go to work, which is on the west coast. So I got on a plane.

Chapter Two - Work

I had to fly out to Seattle, on my way out I flew over a wildfire.



And some cool mountains too.

Then I got to Seattle and hopped on a boat, and we headed north for Alaska. Here's a view looking out from the galley.



We went up the south east coast, across the gulf of Alaska, and out the Aleutians to Dutch Harbor. Most of the time the weather was miserable, and once we headed into the Bering Sea we were in storms at least once every 3 days. I still got to play with rope on the boat, which was fun for me as I also love rigging and knots. Here's a stopper I made.



We'd pull into tiny Alaskan towns and work cargo.



And the scenery wasn't bad either. I found myself dying to get off the boat and go tear up some of the mountains we kept sailing past. (Motoring, technically). Check out this photo of us making up tow to a barge in a inlet on Unalaska Island.



The captain was great. Sometimes he'd say "fuck it" to the schedule and pull over to go fishing. In this photo it's sunny, but he'd do it even in the rain.



We caught a ton of Halibut. Here's a photo of the cook and the first mate.



It was pretty fun for what it was. Sometimes I even got myself up to the top of the stack of containers on the barge, which reminded me a bit of climbing, and going up in the rig on the old sailboats I used to work on. The whole time I was itching to climb, and get home and get that stopper in some rock.



After a couple months we eventually made it back to Seattle, which was awesome, and I could come home just in time to get some great climbing in, and not be totally slaughtered by black flies and other bugs.



Sweet Seattle.

Chapter Three - Home Again

So I was finally headed home. The trip to Alaska was only supposed to have been 4 weeks, but due to storms and delays and maybe a little bit of fishing it wound up being 7 weeks. This made me late for another job back in Maine, so as soon as I got off the plane I had to head to work, keeping me away from the climbing I had been dying to do.



On the clock.



Making it rain.



Hygiene.

Anyway, I got done with that job and it was finally time to get to some climbing!

Chapter Four - Time to Climb

So I dug out all my climbing gear from storage and got ready to get down to it. I was super pysched. First I did a little seaside bouldering to make sure I still remembered how to climb.



I didn't completely suck after all the time away from climbing, but I wasn't on my A-game yet, so I took out an old buddy of mine who I met when I was living in LA, but now he lives in Maine and rocks out here where life is good. We went to Camden Hills and did a few climbs, and he brought his buddy Logan, who scored his first trad lead ever, but sadly did not use the stopper.



Logan headed up on his first lead. The climb is Old Spice



Logan kicking ass.



Adam headed up.



Nailed it.

After a great day of climbing they had to head back to work, for they were bound for the sea as well, so I dropped them at their fly whip, the best boat in the fleet of Maine schooners.



The American Eagle, a beautiful wonderful boat.

And finally it was time for me to put the stopper to use and complete the brotherhood's mission, before passing it on. I was super pysched to do some good climbing, and luckily for me one of my awesome climbing buddies had just gotten back to shore after 14 months (14 months!) straight spent working on a yacht from the Caribbean to the South Pacific. We decided to meet up a couple days ago (Saturday) in North Conway at Cathedral and crush some rock. It was awesome to see him, but even more awesome to go climbing with him.

I have to apologize at this point in my account, I don't have too many pictures from our actual climbing until our last climb of the day, so there'll be a lot of text.

We met up around noon at the parking lot at the base of Cathedral, pysched to go climb some stuff. Charlie (my bud) was feeling like he wanted to do some moderate stuff because he hadn't climbed in awhile, so we were thinking about a quick lap on funhouse.

When we got there the climb was mobbed though, so we went left and found some Quebecois just clearing off Bombardment. "that's a good looking crack" we said to ourselves, so off we wen't. Charlie was feeling a little unpysched, so I started off on lead, scampering up Age Before Beauty a fun bolted slab. Chuck then decided to give leading Bombardment a go but decided he didn't feel pysched to lead it, so I gave it a go, getting the stopper it's first placement of the day in that awesome crack. (If you haven't climbed it, give it a shot, it's an awesome, awesome crack. Really moderate, and super fun).

After we got up that we decided to scamper up to the top of Cathedral just for laughs, so we simul-d up Upper Refuse which was a blast. Super enjoyable easy climbing, and a great view. We topped out in front of a mob of labor day tourists which was kind of embarrassing, then hitched a ride back to our cars. It was around 1430 (230) at this point, so we drank some water and tried to decide what to do with the rest of our day. We thought about heading to the north end to do something fun like They Died Laughing, or maybe something else. I mentioned Whitehorse which I've never climbed at though I've climbed at Cathedral a bunch now. Charlie hadn't climbed it either, and was pysched, so we decided to head over there and simul-climb the Standard Route.

Before we got going though, a party came down and was sorting out their gear at the car right next to ours. Turned out it was Mark Synnott and some clients who he had just guided on their first ever trad leads. The dude is super chill and polite, and even signed my guidebook after I embarrassed myself gushing about how cool his climbs were in Chad, Newfoundland, Baffin Island, you name it. Cool guy.

So we headed over to Whitehorse, and walked up to the slabs and decided to give it a go. Charlie's a solid climber, but wasn't pysched to lead so I wound up leading again. I told him to make sure he didn't fall (y'know, 'cause the second should really be the more solid climber when you're simuling) and off we went.



Chuck coming up behind



Moving up that large swooping arch. Having a great time.



Another view.

The climb's great. A good flow, and because we were simul-ing we could just get into it and really enjoy the climb. I threw the stopper in that swooping arch, and it placed like a charm. It was pretty cool to throw it in.

I headed up the 5.7 variation, but at one point I got a little off route from that and wound up going straight up over a 1/4" rusty bolt with a spinner, and then straight up past a bolt without even a hanger. The moves started to feel pretty hard, but I was pysched so I kept going, getting over a tricky bulge. Right in the crux of it, a dude above me through his rope down for rappel, and it fell right on top of me. It was pretty funny / stressful / funny, and the dude felt really bad and was super apologetic. I stuck the moves though, and came up to a little belay ledge. At this point I put Charlie on belay, and belayed him up to me.



After that we started simuling again the rest of the way. Getting to the top pretty quickly after that. It was an awesome climb, and it felt to get up both Cathedral and Whitehorse in an afternoon. We had a total blast.



View from the top



Here comes Charlie



Good climb!



The good old hike down.

Epilogue

So that was my adventure with the travelling stopper. Long delayed, but then a great day of climbing with an old buddy. It kept us safe, and we had a blast! Hope you guys enjoyed the story, I stepped out to do errands halfway through typing this up so it may be a bit rambly. Oh well.

Who do I send this to next?

Dibs! Send it my way! PM me for address
P.S. Great story and great pictures

Nick, know what would be really adventurous? Using the stopper to climb Birdsboro on gear :p

In seriousness, I'd like to get in on this, so if that sounds good, or climbing some other less trafficked areas (Delaware Water Gap, Pondbank, Chickie's Rock, Ralph Stover) send me a PM. I'm in Philly, down to climb whenever possible (mostly weekends).

Lars Torkelson wrote:Nick, know what would be really adventurous? Using the stopper to climb Birdsboro on gear :p In seriousness, I'd like to get in on this, so if that sounds good, or climbing some other less trafficked areas (Delaware Water Gap, Pondbank, Chickie's Rock, Ralph Stover) send me a PM. I'm in Philly, down to climb whenever possible (mostly weekends).

So I figure the only fair way to do this would be to do one of the 2 pitch slab climbs at birdsboro and swap leads on gear ;P. But seriously, if I get the stopper I'm gonna set up a trip to the gunks or seneca