Coolest thing that ever happened at your crag

I was starting a 5.8, maybe its a 5.7 that notoriously has some much harder moves right off the ground during a spell of nice weather in February, so I hadn't climbed much in a couple months. I'd make a move or 2 and lose the sequence and come back down, and then I'd make a move or 2 and lose the sequence and come back down. This repeated itself for 20-30 minutes while these 2 20-somethings looked on. They didn't say anything but you could tell that they were like "WTF bro can't even climb a 5.8"
I offered to let them have the route since I was obviously flailing but they declined.
Finally got it, my wife climbed and cleaned, and we jumped on the next route as the 2 bros were roping up on the route we just climbed. First bro walks up, makes a move or 2 and comes back down and does the same thing I did, except that his partner is giving him shit for not getting it.  So the first guy says fuck it, you try and they switch ends on the rope. The 2nd bro does the same thing while being harassed by first bro.
By this time my wife and I are warmed up and have ticked off 2 or 3 other routes on the same little wall.
The 2 bros end up giving up, packing up and walking away without the send.

Is it something that will change the world? No, but it made me feel better about myself.

hanging one night at the buttermilks with bachar with a generator firing up some amps jamming under the full moon near the dome.....

The Killer Condor. This photo was taken with a cell phone. I brought a friend to The High Peaks in Pinnacles National Park. We just summitted teapot dome, and three condors made an appearence and started flying around CLOSE. It was magical. Ten foot wingspans; you could hear the wind in their feathers like a low hum, as they flew by, sometimes within ten feet. So I get an idea: i had had a similar experience on a different pinnacle before, and i loved that route so i was like, "I know where we're going next." We hike up higher in the Peaks. Gain the Pinnacle and BAM. This condor lands barely fifteen feet away from me on the summit, while I'm bringing my friend up. A group of hikers was watching from below in amazement, and together, the condor and i made quite the spectacle. Then, as the group of spectators grew, the condor started waltzing up to me, slowly. Like a velociraptor stalking prey. Mind you, 'I'm sitting down, and with a gentle incline on the summit, I'm looking UP at this condor's head as hes now standing within arm's reach. WTF!? Then I notice he's she (id later learn the birds gender from the tag) is into my helmet; I had taken it off and set it down next to me. Its white. Condors often ingest white or milky plastic, mistaking it for bone. The bird looks at me, then at my helmet, then at me, and then helmet... And all the while I'm sizing this thing up, looking at her gigantic and formidable claws... I start to imagine having to go hand to hand combat with this thing... and losing. Sure as shit, it starts pecking my helmet, and I'm like "Nonono!" And i start swatting at it. Now, I could have easily grabbed it by its neck and... maybe get mauled by the raptor claws... and the hikers sure might not like seeing a rock climbers get into a fist fight with an endangered dino bird... so I just kinda swat my hand near its face and utter "Git!" Bird is unphased. All the while, I'm belaying my friend up. Her head pops over the rim and she's like !!!!. Then the condor flips the helmet over, and the loud plastic noise startles it, so it jumps back five feet with a magestic flap of its wings. Friend comes up. We sit next to it and it just stares at us for like fifteen minutes. Finally, we gotta rap off. So I stand up. Bird doesnt budge. I start threading and pulling rope. Bird just watches. I rap down to the halway ledge. Friend starts rapping, gets thirty feet down and a hiker shouts "He's pecking at your rope!" I look up and I can see some of the condor by the anchor and I yell to my partner "Go go go!" So she gets down to me and I pull the rope as fast as I can, startling the bird; I can sees some feather flap around and the bird jumps back. I'd like to say the bird then loomed over the summit, leering at us, but in reality it just stood like "My rock." We laughed about it, and went home.

^^^^ Great story!

This was pretty wild, I guess these guys didn’t receive the memo about no boom boxes at the crag...

The YDS was established...

Francesca Parratt wrote:

This was pretty wild, I guess these guys didn’t receive the memo about no boom boxes at the crag...

They totally got the memo :)

And that condor story is incredible!

I suppose it was when I stopped climbing there.

I had my first date with Isa

Here in Northern Utah we have a route called Super Tweak that was supposedly America's first 5.14b. Boone Speed did the FA and apparently whan sharma was a kid he came through and climbed it.

That one time Adam Ondra came to town and onsighted America's first 5.14c, Just Do It, and also onsighted I think three 14a's in as many days...unreal.

I set up a top rope for Devin Andretti on after six

Leading one of the WI 5 routes at Lee Vining and Jeff Lowe was over on the next route looks over and said " Hey you are looking good there".   That made my day.  The fact that he would say that to a complete stranger tells you what outstanding person he was.

RIP Jello

URN climbing club did a rock clean up of all the graffiti Dinosaur Rock

 

One of my favorite Devils Lake stories is Pete Cleveland doing the FA of Son of Great Chimney. He onsighted it and hammered in pins on lead. He did that in 1968. That climb still tests people now

. A Giant plane, jam packed with great smoke, landed in a nearby lake during a big storm. The storm kept the LEOs hunkered down for a week, while the plane was off loaded. This episode created the modern climbing industry that we have today. 

Several years ago, Honnold rolled up to a crag near GJ and onsight soloed up and down a 5.10+ offwidth.

Also, I saw Jim Donini solo Blue Sun at age 72.

That one time when Yvon Chouinard first learned how to climb there. 

Garry R wrote: Grunting while hauling myself over the lip, I came face to face with a father and his pre-school son. Kid looks at me, points over to the ski slope a couple hundred yards away, and dead seriously says, "you know mister, you can just walk up over there"

That needs to be a T-Shirt

Certainly not my local crag, but my buddy an I were 3/4 up the Nose on Sept. 11, 2002 when a NIAD American duo came cruising up behind us.  They were fairly spent so we combined forces for a bit, and a few pitches later some routes converge on the upper corner.  Smokes- all of a sudden we're hanging out with a trio from Mexico City, a Brit dude, and a couple of French guys.  Then around dusk comes a photographer rapping in to get some pics as a sorta 9-11 memorial on fixed lines.  Everyone aside from my buddy and I decided to jug the fixed lines from the photo guy to the top that night.  I'll never forget the stream of headlamps jugging those lines, especially the call from the Mexican posse when they were far above, 'no jumar la cuerda azul, jumar la rosa.  Jumar la Rosa!!'  It felt really cool to experience different languages and somewhat different cultures on that day, where everyone was mutually tripping cause we're way up a wall.  Then my friend and I were again alone on the Nose of El Cap.