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blacksamba
Apr 26, 2002, 1:01 AM
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When I finished my first big wall I thought
" nothing is a hard as this "
but then I went commercial fishing and I found out what true pain is.
IT was like spending all day hauling a thousand pound pig on a dead horizontal slab while standing in slime and getting yelled at to move faster, coz time is money!!!
wait i was hauling a thousand pounds horizontally all day, and then manually placing ten thousand pounds of sockeye in a brailer...
I laid in bed at night with the worse pump in my entire life!!!!!
I was so sore and my forearms hurt so much I had to open my beer with my teeth
SO
does anything else compare to the horrible drudgery we call big wall climbing?
ben
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blacksamba
Apr 26, 2002, 3:17 PM
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30 freeking views and no responses
doesnt anyone think there are worse things in the world?!
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tim
Apr 26, 2002, 4:00 PM
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Worse things than aid? Sure, although I've never done an El Cap-sized route so what the f--- do I know...
Only thing I can think of that's left me as tired as couriering/pasting is hiking in to Whitney with the express intention of doing the East Buttress, having to do a rescue of some blockhead who snapped his tibia (glissading down the Mountaineer's WITH CRAMPONS ON) while feebly attempting to 'acclimate', then spending the night in someone's discarded space blanket while stuffing my feet into my pack and insulating with the frame sheet. That sucked. Needless to say we did not do the Buttress (which was coated with verglas anyways) but full value was extracted by hiking down the long way. Conveniently we had run out of stove fuel the night before so we attempted to melt snow in my (black) water bladder thingy. It didn't work, but we found some giardia-infested glacial drip once we got down around 8,000'. Boy did my farts smell ripe on the way down!
I think my piss was either brown or 'light black' that night. I've done an awful lot of manual labor (no commercial fishing though) in my highschool and college years and nothing came close to our misadventures on Whitney. D'oh...
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kevinwaldock
Apr 26, 2002, 4:33 PM
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I've never climbed a big wall yet but i think blanching (making potatoes into fries) sucks big time. i used to do it in high school and man cutting up 1000 pounds of potatoes on a satarday can leave ya feeling pretty dam tried and sore.
kevin
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camhead
Apr 26, 2002, 4:47 PM
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Any type of work with livestock.
No, I am not a true 'cowboy', but I have done more than my share of branding, castration, preg-tests, vaccinations, and the like.
It sucks.
You get kicked, charged, defecated upon, and your whole body is EXHAUSTED at the day's end.
Anyone else second that opinion???
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rrrADAM
Apr 26, 2002, 5:13 PM
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Harder than Aiding up El Cap ???
I don't know... I would suppose that Freeing up El Cap is harder. Since I don't Aid climb, I don't know.
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krustyklimber
Apr 26, 2002, 5:31 PM
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Haven't you heard "The worst days climbin' are still better than the best days working"
I have had and done some lousy jobs, but I would rather climb big walls than do any of them again:
As a boy I grew up on a small farm, we had to (twice a year) shovel all the s**t out of the barn and roto-till it into the vegatable garden, along with a whole pick-up truck load of ash my father would get from the incinerator at the sawmill.
And as Camhead said, spring and fall round-up are also a lot of hardwork, a young steer will fight pretty hard after he sees what just happened to his buddies, not to mention what his mom will do if she doesn't want you to!
I worked at a job unloading produce from trucks, I was a non-union "swamper", a guy who comes in and unloads things the union boys refused to touch. Like 100lb boxes of lettuce, packed in melting crushed ice so they would actually weigh about 120lbs and take two of us to lift. But then having "gone to sea" you no what it's like to work soaked in cold water! I also "went to sea as a young man, on a crab tender/processor and worked in the freezer. Nothing quite like wrestling with an eight pound Alaskan Snow crab in a freezer that's 16 degrees below zero, eh?
But the worst was roofing!!! Back and forth, up and down, on SLABS with 15lbs of tools on your waist, and a sixty pound bundle on one shoulder, only to throw it down get down on your hands and knees and hammer it all in place... get up and do it again... over and over... day after day... house after house after house.... 'til your body breaks down or your mind wises up!
Jeff
Is that the kind of response you were looking for? I though you meant "what was better than aid climbing?"
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tim
Apr 26, 2002, 5:34 PM
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Ahh, roofing! Anyone else remember the Simpsons where Ralph falls in love with Lisa and says he would do ANYTHING to be near her?
So Homer has him tar the roof.
'Mr. Simpson, the fumes are making me dizzy!'
'yep, they'll do that...'
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blacksamba
Apr 26, 2002, 5:44 PM
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I love that episode!!!!!!!
I cho-cho-cho choose you
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krustyklimber
Apr 26, 2002, 5:52 PM
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I love the Simpsons, I base the philosophies of my life on episodes of the Simpsons!
And most of my route names come from the best lines of an episode;
The Smell of Justice
It Had to be Terror Sweat
Cheated, CHEATED, CHEATED!!!
and my favorite
Guatamalian Insanity Peppers!
Jeff
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rrrADAM
Apr 26, 2002, 5:54 PM
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I did some roofing... And "mopping and flopping" with asphalt and capsheet was definately the hardest work I've done.
I would wish it on my worst enemy.
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blacksamba
Apr 26, 2002, 6:03 PM
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I think I disagree with Russ Walling "Aid climbing is like working on a shipping dock with no floor..." or something like that.
Ive worked on a few shipping docks and they are a cake walk compared to big walling
oh...
crabbing is nasty nasty nasty work i think I got one upped, but i do think working on deck is worse then in the freezer, you dont get washed overboard in the freezer.
and btw i was serious I think fishing is a total pain in the a$$ but I wouldnt trade it for the world and am heading back for more pain this summer (especially painfull since the price of salmon has dropped from $2 to $0.25!!!)
and to end with a quote:
"but dad if you become a vigilante who will police the police?!"
"...dunno... the coast guard?"
ben
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cedk
Apr 26, 2002, 6:50 PM
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Registered: Oct 31, 2001
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Camhead. Sounds like you've earned the right to call yourself a cowboy. The cowboy and the climber are closely related. I think cowboy work is a lot like climbing. A great workout for the whole body. You get to work outdoors. Both cowboys and climbers seem to be perpetually broke. I'm sure there are more similarities.
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camhead
Apr 26, 2002, 8:01 PM
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Hey cedk,
I can think of a difference between climbing and cowboying, though: the rock never decides to buck you off!
Then again, maybe it does. And either way, your skills determine if you stay on.
Okay, they're similar.
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passthepitonspete
Apr 26, 2002, 8:21 PM
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Never in my life have I done anything as remotely difficult as soloing a hard big wall.
Nothing even comes close in my personal experience.
For some reason, I actually enjoy it, though - perhaps because it feels so damn good when I stop.
"Climbing big valls is just a different kind of suffering."
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atg200
Apr 27, 2002, 2:09 PM
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I'll add another vote for roofing houses - that is pretty damn miserable.
Postholing in deep snow with a not quite hard enough crust is character building. Especially because you usually run into it on the descent when it has warmed up.
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