The Brotherhood Of the Traveling Stopper...

Well I will tell you guys for sure that you'll have a TR from seeing as my 2 week Sierra trip in May is set in stone.

You'll have to put up with some "classics" in there. But shit at least it's a TR, and I'll try to throw in a twist or two.

NorCal- it looks like I'm going to use this thing before passing it on, as opposed to sending it right out and having it sent back.
Where will you be the week after the 12th? If you're on the road I can get it to a PO on your route.

The whole "obscure route" requirement is a red herring. Just do some climbs. That the stopper goes to different places around the country is the cool part.

Stich wrote:The whole "obscure route" requirement is a red herring. Just do some climbs. That the stopper goes to different places around the country is the cool part.

BZZZZZT. Wrong!
The one ring can't be tossed into just any old hole in the ground, it goes to Mordor. If Mordor isn't your thing, you don;t ask to carry the ring.

youtube.com/watch?v=YFtHjV4…

rogerbenton wrote:NorCal- it looks like I'm going to use this thing before passing it on, as opposed to sending it right out and having it sent back. Where will you be the week after the 12th? If you're on the road I can get it to a PO on your route.

We are heading out the 21st (if I don't have my dates mixed up). I could toss you a few bucks to send it in a priority envelope if it makes it easier.

NorCalNomad wrote: We are heading out the 21st (if I don't have my dates mixed up). I could toss you a few bucks to send it in a priority envelope if it makes it easier.

No worries, ill get it there.

I'm kinda hoping someone takes the sucker, solo, up some extreme aid route on El Cap. One that never gets done. Now there's a good story waiting to happen.

Update-

Got rained out last weekend, going back up this Sunday.

TR to follow...

Rained out again this past weekend. That's three in a row, lucky me.

Got a plan for this sunday, just keeping the updates going so you all know i'm itching to get out with it...

Tony B wrote: BZZZZZT. Wrong! The one ring can't be tossed into just any old hole in the ground, it goes to Mordor. If Mordor isn't your thing, you don;t ask to carry the ring.

WUT EV R!!!

It hasn't exactly been fast and furious in this thread. More like a litany of disappointments.

Fuck! 2011?

The plane has crashed into the mountain.

As I watch the weather forecast slowly change from great this weekend to terrible this weekend and dwell on the fact that this will be the FOURTH weekend in a row that the promise of climbing weather has turned to shit, I begin to loose whatever internal misgivings I may at any point have had about ignoring gripes from those in the desert about slow progress on the TR front.

While its raining, run on sentences are the new black- go!

The T.S. got out yesterday on some undocumented rock in the gunks. Check the Trip Report forum for details.

Norcal nomad is in the middle of a trip but had wanted it next. if i hear from him by friday it's going to him, if not to whoever is next.

So who's next?

Even Better, for the crazy lazy, it's right here:

SO the weather here in New York FINALLY let up. It's been raining every weekend for the past month. It was raining for three days leading up to yesterday and I was still looking at the forecast at 9pm the night before deciding whether or not to go ahead with the trip.

I decided to go for it, and the weather turned out to be great, the rock dry.

The Gunks is my home crag and of the popular cliffs a great deal of beta is available - whether from people, a bunch of guide books, here on MP, etc.

But there are just as many "outlaying" cliffs that are traditionally undocumented, a decision made by locals BITD to preserve a sense of adventure when climbing there. This ethos is held onto today and reinforced at least partially by the Mohonk Preserve itself as these areas are considered to be more environmentally delicate; the lack of guidebooks and written beta keeps the traffic down.

For my turn with the Travelling Stopper it only made sense to embark on an unknown route (so to speak) so my partner Juliana and I set off for a crag neither of us knew a damn thing about: Bonticou. I knew where to park, and had half an idea of how to hike in- and that was it.

The approach was long for gunks standards but a nice hike.

the trail in

After a while the trail got steep and we were huffing and puffing a bit but it finally spit us out onto a carriage road and the path leveled out.

Juliana, caffinating

After a while, the imposing darkness behing the trees on our right started to become more and more evident and as we got closer and the trees thinned out a bit the cliff began to peek through the greenery.

there it is

We found the footpath off the carriage road leading to the cliff and soon found a path along the base of an enormous talus field. Right away, we spotted a clean white face with a nice triangular roof that we decided would have to be our first stop.

Scrambling over the enormous talus was interesting. There are boulders the size of cars nestled among boulders the size of small houses. I can't imaging what it would be like to see one of these things part ways with the cliff 150' above and come crashing down.

We worked or way to the base of the arete/roof/clean face and began to rack up.

through the monster talus

definitely do-able

The arete and roof

The first line we took was up the aret a bit, onto the right face, and up to the top. A fun warmup lead. Second to last piece placed was the subject of our cause, the traveling stopper itself.

sinker T.S.

The view from the top is worth the effort to get there.

catskills

Juliana on the way up, T.S. second piece from top. (I know the draw on the yellow cam looks like it's facing the wrong way- I came up on the other side of it).

Later in the day we came back to this spot and my friend Ian decided to go up the dihedral to the left then under the roof to the headwall on the right. This was an easy line made exciting by all the giant loose blocks that were wobbly enough to be "off".

carefully up the loose dihedral

around the point

On the way down we spied another good looking line that wound up looking super thin on gear for the first 20' or so so we set up a quick toprope and took turns lapping that.

Then we came across a shorter (50-60'?) line that starts with a big step across with hands in a flared crack. Spicy for the first piece or two, then it mellowed out to the top.

On the opposite side of the cliff we saw what turned out to be my favorite line of the day.
Best I could do was the pic below. If you locate the pine tree bottom left, you'll see the top of the tree points directly to a crack. We went up that crack to the white rock under the first roof on the left, exit roof right, up to the little triangular roof, exit right, up to the big triangular roof (top right), exit left and to the top. This was ~130' of fun climbing with good gear. Unfortunately I didn't find a place for the T.S. on this one.

from the crack near the top of the pine tree, up to the small triangular roof, left to the top.

After a bit more poking around we decided to head over to another crag, Lost City. Lots of hiking and scrambling got us through more extraordinary talus field and to the cliff. Gorgeous pink and orange rock with an uncharacteristically high volume of vertical cracks for the gunks.

With daylight waning we finally settled on a line that looked doable for us. Hand crack up about 15', to a flared offwidth about another 15-20' to a stance, finger crack for 10-12' then some easy jugs to stout tree for belay/rap.

No pics of the route, sorry for that. However, while betting directions to this crag while packing the car back at Bont, I managed to throw my harness in the back seat instead of my pack. Figured that out after getting to the route. So with only one harness, Juliana brilliantly belayed my lead off a tree.

tree belay. it was bomber.

The flared OW scraped me up and almost spit me out and the finger crack threatened to do the same. With a .75 C4 in at my knees and another 12' of jamming to go and a pump starting to set in and a complete lack of crack technique or confidence (we don't have many vertical cracks out here) I decided to just go for it. There was a sort of mini-jug at the top of the crack and I just made it. Would have been an ugly whip but I'm glad I went for it.

We got back to the car just as it was getting dark, very pleased with the day.

The T.S. only got placed once, but it was the first pitch of the day, it was a crucial piece on that route and it was totally bomber.

So, first to ask for this thing gets in line behind NorcalNomad, who is in the middle of a trip now. If I can contact him and get an address it's going that way.

If I can't get hold of him by the end of this week I'll send it to whoever queues up next.

Offical request for the TS to come out to basce camp in Boulder for adventure planning.

Sorry I was off in Tahoe and Yosemite, still down to get it though.

Nice TR Roger! I got out to the Gunks finally for the fist time last September. Lost City used to be a secret crag there of course.

Peteoria wins with the first request off the TR post, it's going out tomorrow morning. Apologies for the delay, ill post up when it's been shipped.

FYI-

The stopper was sent out a week and a half ago, according to the tracking Peteoria got it last Wednesday 6/19.