City, Smith and a leather hat

Posted by on September 27th, 2020  •  0 Comments  •  Full Article

Sue and I had planned to leave for Lovers Leap on the 18th after getting our new canopy installed. We were going to hook up with Chad who would have just finished up a week at Yosemite with Annie, Brian and Liz.  However, Chad was on his way down two weeks ago and couldn’t get past Centralia due to bad smoke from the Eugene Oregon fires.

He stopped by our house to drop off a coat of mine. I was sewing my new leather hat and we discussed options. I mentioned that the City looked relatively smoke free…and we could possibly bring our plans back to life by going there. I had plans to climb with Kena on Sunday but was free after that.

So off we went Sunday night, crashing at midnight up a dirt road on Swauk pass, then getting to the City Monday at 6pm. Highlights of the City were my cruise up Private Idaho, and a couple 9 and 10b slab leads at Lost World. Sun and smoke were a problem, but it was still awesome as always.

We climbed hard until we woke up Wednesday, 9 days later and realized we needed a rest day, plus that  BLM road was getting irritating in my two wheel truck. The ruts are a full two feet deep. But rather than a rest day, we decided to spend it driving closer to home. We drove to Smith, arriving at 10pm to a half empty Grasslands. I led Outsider and second pitch of Pack Animal while Chad led two 11’s at Morning Glory: Zebra seam and Lion’s Chair. Not sure of those names…

He also led Pack Animal Direct, which I fell off of at the top. It was totally covered in Guano. The Covid shutdown has brought back the nesting birds. I had to rest following him up Karate before the traverse. I blame that on the lack of gym power. Can’t be that I’m getting older.

I got home Friday. Today I sewed a beaded hat band for my new leather hat, which survived the two week road trip in perfect shape. I chose to use a pattern size of Medium, since I was in the low side of that hat size at: 22.6 inches. Turns out, that made a hat too small. But my experience with leather phone cases told me that leather can always stretch…though shrinking is less likely. Almost twice a day I had to sponge water on the hat opening and wear it too tight. Finally, it is starting to remember my big head.

Just in case though, I ordered a hat stretcher from Amazon. It was really awesome seeing Sue today. We are both very independent people…but absence does make the heart grow fonder. I wish dad was alive to see my hat and hear all the family news. He would be proud. Pictures to follow later .

Storage Bin

Posted by on September 8th, 2020  •  0 Comments  •  Full Article

I bought a new rubbermaid bin recently and it only lasted 3 months. I suppose it might have frozen in the bitter jtree snow storm, but still, I’ve had them last 10 years.

I bought some nice plywood from Architectural Woods downtown: #2500, 1/4 x 4 x 8, C2 white maple appleply 5 ply NAUF carb 9310 phase 2 compliant

The key to a tight box seems to be to cut  the bottom and long sides same measurements. Then cut the short end pieces 0.5″ shorter. Assemble it with the short sides attached to the longer bottom first, using temporary shim pieces for alignment. It’s kind of a no brainer…but it took me 4 bad wood boxes to figure this out.

Cheap DIY tonneau cover

Posted by on September 8th, 2020  •  0 Comments  •  Full Article

Our new custom contractor canopy from canopy-world.com won’t be here until October-ish. Our trucks been sitting since it’s useless for camping without a storage area.

I decided to build a DIY tonneau cover from 3/4 inch plywood. I can re-purpose the plywood later into ourcanopy bed…and it was a fun project. Total cost was around $200.

Because I built it on a Sunday, the metal shops were closed. I mickey moused the C channel with some drilled square pipe cut in half. If I was going to use this long term I’d cut the post 2 inches taller and mount proper 8′ long C channel directly to the posts, thereby skipping the 2 x 2 and all the leaks inherent in my current system of partial coverage C channel.

There was one major problem. Once I started measuring for the proper panel widths I discovered that the post holes in the bed are not in a straight line. They curve. This made the C channel curve caused fit problems. I solved that by redrilling the last post off center to true the 2 x 2.

 

Back from a week at the Leap

Posted by on September 8th, 2020  •  0 Comments  •  Full Article

I’ve been having some challenges finding partners who have more one or two days available. But bless the stars above, out of the blue I heard from James. We’ve been on many the long trip over the 14 years since we took that first Jtree trip with Austin and Brett.

We left on Sunday around 10 and arrived at 1pm the next day. We stopped to sleep near Shasta Lake in a city park outside of Redding. It was sketchy, but at least there were no signs forbidding camping. I might of slept a couple hours….kept worrying about getting busted.

We did some exploratory hiking the next day. I’ve been there 3 times but could barely remember anything other than Bears Reach, Corrugation and Haystack Crack.

We ended up climbing all of those plus East Crack, which is a much safer start to Bears Reach. We discovered a ton of stuff over on the Hogsback. Ham and Eggs was a standout with 4 pitches at 5.6.

I backed off Corrugation Corner 40 years ago but got it clean this trip. It’s a 5.7 that feels like 10B due to exposure and runnouts. 50 year old bent pitons are considered ‘good protection’. The trad ethic is in full swing down there. They don’t even allow bolted anchors or rap stations.

I’ve had a few nibbles on my blue car. We parked it in front of the house with a for sale sign. Someone test drove it today and seemed to like it.