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cyaniderush
Apr 15, 2005, 1:23 AM
Post #26 of 122
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You guys would not believe how hard it is to find something as simple as a suction cup. Lowes, home depot, sears, none of them had any. We had to improvise with a plunger head(sorry honey, I'll get a new one) :wink:
Here's a shot of the "Suction Pro"
With a price tag, bag and receipt from EMS(thanks dude behind the counter!)
http://img35.echo.cx/...5/74/dsc017949mf.jpg
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climb_in
Apr 15, 2005, 1:26 PM
Post #27 of 122
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oh my god, this entire thread is the funniest thing i've seen on this site so far. . .
hope the mark stays into it long enough to get plenty of incriminating pictures. and this guy was an eagle scout? that's the best part!!!
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clmbr121
Apr 15, 2005, 2:07 PM
Post #28 of 122
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Part III: The Peterskill Plan
I had to stop for a moment and take stock of what we were doing. Was I taking this too far? Was I taking unfair advantage of a friend’s overly trusting nature? I mean, he has only limited exposure to rock climbing, has never been on a multipitch…perhaps I should just call the whole thing off and confess the whole ruse.
I pondered this as Chuck and I wandered the hallowed halls of the King of Prussia Mall, the largest mall on the east coast, searching for an apparatus that would meet our needs to continue the charade. I think if we had found a suction cup right away that I wouldn’t have had as much time to really think this over; alas, none of the stores we searched had the equipment we required. But the longer we searched, the more I thought, “Should we go through with this?” But then the little devil that sits on my other shoulder put the image of the look on Frenchie’s face while trying to stick this thing to the rock wall and I bust out laughing. The people around me starting giving me strange looks…and who wouldn’t give a strange look to the guy laughing at nothing in particular. They lock those kind of people away for a while. At any rate, the Plan was on.
I am sure you have all been waiting with baited breath to hear about the Plan. Pay attention now, because this is as fine a piece of subterfuge mastery, planning and execution as there ever was that involved suction cups. And there will be a quiz later.
The Plan required timing, convincing acting, diversion, and all around sneakiness. Fortunately, I have been trained in the mystical arts of Ken-Fu-Do and vampire hunting by none other than South Jersey’s Master Hunter, Monsignor Ken T. Saverece. Armed with this sagely wisdom, a Farmer’s Almanac, and a computer with a high-speed internet connection, executing the Plan would be possible.
A good plan is a simple one, one that can be easily executed and can be adapted when the inevitable wrench is thrown in. While keeping it flavored with intrigue and subterfuge, overly complicated plans tend to fail, or even worse, backfire. So when we putting the infrastructure of the Plan together, we had to constantly reign ourselves back in to keep it from spinning wildly out of control.
The first obstacle we needed to clear was having someone else ruin the Plan by telling Frenchie the Truth. He was heading to Evil Green Empire East to pick up his helmet and to check to see if they carried any suction cups. Ah, the first wrench was thrown.
Not to worry, though. I called up a friend who still worked for Evil Green. After explaining the situation, and determining that the manager of the store in question had no known sense of humor other than firing people (“You’re fired! Ha ha!”), a manager at a different store offered that if we could get a suction cup to him, he would tag it and put it in his store to sell to our unsuspecting victim. The ball was rolling once again.
Now a new issue arose: how to lure Frenchie to come out to King of Prussia from Center City Philadelphia (about an hour drive during rush hour, further exasperated by the fact that Frenchie took Inepta to his place of work). I emailed him:
I just got off the phone with Evil Green…the KoP store has some suction cups in stock, but apparently they’re the only store in the area with any left…probably because the manager climbs and always has the place stocked…they called over to UPenn to see if they had any close to you, but they usually don’t carry them. The manager at KoP said he can only hold them for tonight…can you get there, or do you want me to swing by to pick them up for you? Let me know.
Wrench #2: he couldn’t make it out there until the day we were supposed to leave, so could I pick one up for him. This was a little damaging to the illusion; had he gone into an outdoor gear store and seen one for sale, the idea would be firmly planted that this was a “legitimate” piece of gear. Now, we would be handing him something that we “bought”, and the seed of doubt could still be there.
Plans, good plans, require time to put together. Chuck and I were certainly at a disadvantage trying to direct someone’s behavior on such short notice. Had we more time, even another day or so, things would not have been as rushed and we could have spent the time truly polishing the illusion to a gleaming luster. But being that we were making all of this up on the fly, it was going rather well, albeit a little nerve racking that his more sensible side would finally come to from its NyQuil and Sudefed-induced coma.
This could still work. The “inside man” at Evil Green had agreed to put a store-made price tag on it regardless and hook us up with a bag to make the apparatus more authentic. Now, we needed to build.
It comes with some degree of shock exactly how difficult it is to find a suction cup when you need one. Apparently there are only a few esoteric, exotic dealers that actually manufacture or carry such devices; I can only imagine that this is because while making legitimate devices for moving glass and tile, they must also have a side business or illegally producing those fancy suction cup/glass cutter combination contraptions that ever cat burglar in every movie seems to own. However, not being a cat burglar or having any ties to the underworld at all, we knew not where to find such a simple device. We made several calls, but to no avail. So a sacrifice had to be made.
http://img35.echo.cx/...5/74/dsc017949mf.jpg
R.I.P. Sammy the Plunger and 1 Mammut runner. Sammy is survived by a 2 foot pole and one night of bad fajitas.
It was a scene of epic macabre, seeing Chuck enter the room with the plunger head in one hand (which I certainly hoped he washed before feeding me those peeled grapes) and a power drill in the other. After some minor surgery, the “pro” was ready to go.
Later that evening, Frenchie called. By the initial tone in his voice, I was almost sure he was on to me.
“Joanne told me to call you…”
No sooner did these words exit his mouth than I was sure the gig was up. I, in a truly male moment, had run late that evening trying to gather the needed parts to construct the Bushido Climbing Suction Pro™ (soon at a store near you), and had not been able to get back home in time to meet my fiancé at the gym as I had promised. This was compounded by the fact that I was leaving the next night for said trip, and we miss each other terribly when I’m gone. So I was thinking to myself that because I had broken my promise and missed our date, she had told Frenchie (who swims at the same gym) about our plot.
“…to harass you about not coming to the gym tonight.” Call me Neo, ‘cause I just dodged a bullet. The Plan was still a go.
But would he actually believe us when we showed this thing to him? Would some unsuspecting soul make mention to him while hiking to the climb of the suction cup he had racked up? How long could we keep this going? And when were we to finally let him in on this?
All questions to be answered soon, my interesting cragging friends, as we leave tonight for the Gunks. Stay tuned for on Monday, we will conclude our tale.
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taualum23
Apr 15, 2005, 2:20 PM
Post #29 of 122
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I am seriously considering blowing off the bachelor party in DC this weekend to hit th gunks to look for the kid with the plunger-top hanging off his harness. "Dude...is the the new Bushido Suction Pro? Sweet...I can't find one anywhere."
I can barely wait till monday.
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cerikpete
Apr 15, 2005, 2:50 PM
Post #30 of 122
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And me with no rate button. :evil:
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clmbr121
Apr 15, 2005, 3:07 PM
Post #31 of 122
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Wrench #3: When a friend writes in an email:
"By the way, heard you were climbing this weekend, don’t forget your suction cups for climbing"
It is astounding the possible reprecussions that 5 little words can have...kind of like, "Brian, we need to talk." 5 words have torn down entire worlds.
We will have to see if this little slip of the tongue will derail the whole operation. Hopefully we have seeded this idea enough that he doesn't suspect that we are baiting him on this. We do have going for us that he believed us with very little prodding when this all started.
There is a bright side...if he buys this, I will be much more comfortable that he won't call bullshit when we hand him the plunger with a runner through it.
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clmbr121
Apr 18, 2005, 1:20 PM
Post #33 of 122
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Part IV: French Aiding
The universe is a very comforting place. Karma has a way of keeping the balance of things intact, or righting wrongs and making sure that, even if in small measure, people get what they deserve. In other words: Karma is a bitch. More on that later.
So, to answer the question that has been burning in the back of your mind all weekend, the thing that kept you up at night I’m sure:
He bought it.
We arrived up at the multi-use camp site around 11:00 on Friday night to find that the parking lot was very full. He got the tents pitched, and because dumb-ass that I am I forgot my sleeping bag, I slept in the truck. Nice early start the next morning, and we were at the base of Frog’s Head before 8:00 am. First ones.
As we began to rack up, I handed him the “Suction Pro” and he took it without blinking. He strapped the thing on to his harness, ready to go. I was about halfway up Frog’s Head (5.6) when another wayward climber asked him about the suction cup on his harness, and Frenchie told them about how it was for hanging gear off of the rock face. The other climber looked like he was about to say something to the contrary when Chuck quietly interceded.
About 30 minutes later, Frenchie joined us at the first belay at Frog’s Head. He was clipped in to the anchor and off belay.
“Uh, Frenchie,” Chuck said, trying to contain his grin, “we have a little confession to make.”
“What” he asked.
“You know that suction cup you just carried up?” I said. “Yeah, that doesn’t actually do anything.” Silence, nothing but the sound of other climbers clanking around the crag. “We’ve been leading you on for the last week.”
More silence.
Finally: “You assholes!”
He repeated this several more times, even as I began the second pitch. All in all, he took it very well.
So how does karma play a role in all of this?
High E made me its bitch.
We finished Frog’s Head, during which my route finding left something to be desired and I accidentally did a few moves on Sunshine (5.9). No biggie, we rapped back down and decided to hike on over to High Exposure. I was very much looking forward to taking them out on the stellar second pitch. It was not to be.
After a quick lunch, I started up Psychedelic. This is a great pitch, easy holds the whole way but with some interesting but subtle route finding.
(It was during this time that someone climbing a few routes over rapped off the ends of their ropes and dropped the last 8 feet to the ground right on his ass. After which he was heard to comment that he still wasn’t going to tie knots in the end of his ropes. Be sure to look for him in next year’s “Accidents in North American Mountaineering. I’m sure he’ll be there.)
After getting everyone up (I now owed Chuck a beer, as I promised him one if he could get all of my gear out), we traversed over to the belay ledge for High E. Frenchie dropped a bomb, an SBD that had Chuck seriously considering jumping and even bothered another climber on the ledge 30 feet away. Fortunately for me, a sinus infection had set in and I could barely smell a thing. The duo ahead of us made their way up, and then it was our turn.
I made my way up the right facing corner and traversed out to the edge of the ledge. It was starting to cool off as we were in the shade of the buttress and there was a breeze blowing, and I was pretty tired after leading the long first pitch up. Note to self: get my ass to the gym more. What ever the case was, I just couldn’t find any place to take pro. I know that its there, I’ve seen people place there, and I had gear that would go. But I couldn’t find anywhere to place.
It was during this time where karma decided to look my way. And unlike times where good karma is coming back to you and wraps you in her warm embrace, this was a vengeful karma, righting the wrong of having duped my poor noob friend. This was an icy stare, her frigid arms draped over my shoulders, and all I could hear was this frosty whisper in my ear, as intimate as a lover but as menacing as blood-starved wolf saying one thing: get down.
I couldn’t get the image out of my head of falling, of my gear ripping out, of falling further, of how the cliff would look as it grew further and further away, the feeling of weightlessness. I couldn’t stop thinking about Joanne (my fiancé) and me breaking my promise to her, the one I make every time I go climbing that I would always come back to her.
So, for the first time ever, I back off of a climb. I down climbed, pulled my gear, and we traversed to the nearest belay station and rapped down. Ooh, my injured pride.
I have climbed High E before (though never lead), I know the moves to get around the crux lip, and the exposure isn’t beyond anything I can handle. I know that I will go back and complete this climb on lead. But that day…karma had its way with me. I feel so used.
The rest of the weekend passed without incident, save someone lighting the forest on fire on Sunday morning due to a wayward camp fire. Hopefully this doesn't result in more camp ground closures, there are barely enough there now at the multi-use site as it is.
So if there is a lesson to be learned here, it is don’t make your friend think that they can use a suction cup to climb. And certainly don’t go as far as to actually give them a plunger on a runner to convince them of this. Because if you do, High E will make you its bitch.
And tie knots in your rap ropes.
And that only you can prevent forest fires.
(We are having a busy morning here at work, Chuck and I, but don’t worry…pictures are on their way. Come on, if I’m going to get scared off of a climb, I had better at least have pictures of a guy with a suction cup, right?)
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taualum23
Apr 18, 2005, 1:40 PM
Post #34 of 122
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Awesome. SImply Awesome. The most important words in the whole post:
"he bought it."
Nice. And no worries about High E. She has made many a man (most likely stronger than you, surely stronger than me) back off. ANd Ms. Karma, she can be rough on you. Like a bipolar mistress with an alternating rage and nymphomanic mood swings, she will always keep you ion your toes and in your place. if she told you to back off a 5.6 (especially one like high e), then it was probably a damned good idea to do so.
I can't wait for the pics.
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tradman
Apr 18, 2005, 2:14 PM
Post #36 of 122
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Funny!
But I'm still really glad that you're not my "friend", and I wouldn't climb with you in a million years! Not even if I was paid!
:lol:
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cyaniderush
Apr 18, 2005, 2:36 PM
Post #37 of 122
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In reply to: Funny! But I'm still really glad that you're not my "friend", and I wouldn't climb with you in a million years! Not even if I was paid! :lol:
If it makes you feel better, I'm the more vendictive one who moved this joke along when Brian thought we should stop. So by all means climb with him, he's very competent. Just put me on your "do not climb with or befriend for fear of falling victim to a wacky joke" List. :lol: :wink:
Anyway, I'm currently working new student registration and I'll post the pictures in the early afternoon, when I'm back at my desk.
-Cheers!
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all_that_is_rock
Apr 18, 2005, 10:44 PM
Post #39 of 122
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not to take anything away from your story, but Frogs Head is a 5.5...... at least in the Swain guide book
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curt
Apr 19, 2005, 1:05 AM
Post #41 of 122
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In reply to: In reply to: not to take anything away from your story, but Frogs Head is a 5.5...... at least in the Swain guide book wich was written 15 years ago, before that climb got all polished, it usually gets a 6-.
6- ? No fucking way, 5+ tops!!!1111 Hahahahahaha
Curt
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nmoroder
Apr 19, 2005, 1:42 AM
Post #42 of 122
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Are you really arguing a route being 5.5+ or 5.6-???
and I thought the plunger was stupid...
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off_center
Apr 19, 2005, 3:09 AM
Post #43 of 122
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Outstanding. Looking forward to the pics where the suction cup is being used.
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clmbr121
Apr 19, 2005, 1:48 PM
Post #44 of 122
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I will have more pictures soon. I still have a few pictures left on the disposable camera before I can take it in. Patience...I should hopefully have it all squared away by tomorrow.
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vertk8r
Apr 19, 2005, 2:02 PM
Post #45 of 122
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Fabulous pics!!!
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taualum23
Apr 19, 2005, 2:29 PM
Post #46 of 122
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Nice!!!!
I love the pic when it's being pointed to!
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slablizard
Apr 19, 2005, 3:00 PM
Post #47 of 122
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Priceless:
Full-safety climbing: This is a lot like climbing a wall at the gym. You climb using existing grips while someone on the ground pulls on your rope to make it easier for you.
Bouldering: This method consists of climbing small boulders without any equipment. Basically, it's like hiking with some obstacles thrown in.
Free climbing: With this most common style of climbing, the equipment you use is for safety only -- not to facilitate the process. This is the method you see in movies.
Aid climbing: When the face of the mountain doesn't offer any more grips and holds, some experienced climbers pull out tools like hooks, nuts, camming devices, ascenders, hauling pulleys, aiders, and wall hammers to climb up. This is a very dangerous method.
Soloing: Definitely the most hazardous climbing style, soloing consists of climbing an entire wall or mountain with absolutely no safety equipment. Many of the best climbers don't even do it.
Belaying: This is not really a style but rather a technique that can be used in both free climbing and aid climbing. Two climbers hook up a rope between them and climb in succession, anchoring the cable along the way. This keeps you from falling all the way to the ground.
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onsight_endorphines
Apr 19, 2005, 3:07 PM
Post #48 of 122
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That is TOO GOOD!!!
I got enough weird ass looks today at work to last the rest of the year.
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amber
Apr 19, 2005, 3:30 PM
Post #49 of 122
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Registered: Oct 15, 2004
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excellent writing. thanks for the narrative and pics.
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philbox
Moderator
Apr 20, 2005, 5:18 AM
Post #50 of 122
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Registered: Jun 27, 2002
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Gold trophies all round. Excellent prank.
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