Kris and I made some really good progress on our little camper this weekend. We're definitely nearing the end now!
I finished the rubberized undercoating...
Our plan to laminate formica to the insulating foam inside backfired...the plastic sheeting on the outside of the foam delaminated, leaving us with formica glued to a thin sheet of plastic...plan B...1/8" masonite. MUCH BETTER!
While I was at my nephew, Jake, 7th birthday party, Kris kicked some serious ass! He traced and cut out the masonite inner wall pieces and screwed 'em in place. Then he finished off the roof braces.
We made the frame for the hatch on Saturday...that proved to be the trickiest part so for. Making the curve right was a bit frustrating at first, but after enough tracing and cuttings, we finally got a template close enough to cut from.
This shot is from the very front center, looking into the cabin. You can see the dog bunk that is still open to the back. One more wall piece will separate that from the rear hatch. We still need to insulate and masonite this back wall, stain the thing, put on the hatch, roof and doors and we're done! I can't even think of how many tubes of water-tight glue we've put into this thing so far...but we're not done yet, and there will be several tubes of silicone added to that as well!
So after last years less-than-comfortable couple of weeks in Hueco, we decided to go to Bishop this year in style! We got these really simple plans off the internet to build one...here's what we've done so far....
Here's Kris installing some conduit for the wiring to the lights to go through...
Here's the bed platform, upside-down, getting it's rubber bed liner. We're building it 5ft wide on a 4ft wide trailer, so we had to build a 4ft wide box to raise up our floor over the fenders. The inside of the box is insulated and sealed...
Next we put the bed on the trailer and bolted it down...
Then we cut out the side walls and attached them too, also using water sealer! We're not getting wet in this baby, no matter what my dad says...When Kris and I build stuff, it seems to get well over built...
Then the other side...
Then we started doing some work on the back wall and shelf/dog bed, but we ran out of plywood...building in 5ft widths tends to waste a bit of 4ft wide plywood. They need to make plywood in 5ft widths so that this project would go easier...
That's it so far...we're gonna be the coolest and comfiest kids in Bishop!
I guess it's Nic's fault that we all optimistically headed up north to Sawmill this last weekend. It was freezing when we left the cities, I don't know what made us think it would be any warmer up there...Jim, Nic, Scott and I crammed into Jim's Subie Impreza, and with only room for two pads and ourselves, headed north.
After the hike in we were all quite warm. After a half hour, we were all quite cold. Jim and I warmed up on Luke Warm Persistence...I came close to doing the stand start, but never did. It wasn't very long after putting on your shoes that you'd lose all sensitivity in your feet. Not long after that your fingers start to fumble just trying to FEEL anything!
Jim asked me how cold I thought it was. I was like, "Oh, I don't know...35?" He laughed..."Really? I feels a lot colder than that!" Well, it was. We're not sure, but it was definitely below freezing. There was a 1/4 dusting of snow on the top of everything, so top outs probably weren't an option today.
Scott cuddled up under his southwestern blanket between tries on Payback, which he would have sent had the proper beta been spewed at him...here's a video of Scott pretty much sending Payback. Listen for Jim at the end...
Jim and Nic were working on Ametuer next to me on Sticky Icky. I landed the first hold a couple of times, but refused to keep going due to the distinct pain in my feet. After taking your shoes off and on again several times, you're feet just stay frozen. It was so cold out the rubber on our shoes had lost its friction! But the friction on the rock...oh...it was sooo amazing! Like velcro! Very, very cold velcro.
Jim watched Nic try to pull in the lock-off on Ametuer several times, getting more and more squirrely with each attempt. Finally he was like, "Aren't you psyched? I'm so psyched watching!" Right after that, he jumped on, and just missing my head, pumped Ametuer out to the lip; snow preventing the top-out. That was really cool...here's that video...
Then Jim started working the sit start project that flows into that. He came very close to connecting the two halves, but in the end, no go. Here's the video of the first half of the Amateur sit start project.
We ended up staying out in the freezing woods for 4 hours! By the end we were all silly with freezing appendages, jumping around, doing jazz hands, anything to get the blood flowing. And yes, Nic burnt a hole in his sock...
After watching Scotts last attempts on Payback, Jim and Nic jumped on a stupid, dinky,little crack to the left of the tall, (not so tall looking now that I've been to the cabin boulder) highball, Absolution. They were climbing in their tennis shoes, slipping off the biggest foot hold ever, Jim spotting with his "prison shiv" urging Nic to climb. "You'd better not fall!.....Cuz I'll shiv ya!" Jim's the next best thing to a Soviet coaching you. Jim did it first and called it "Blaze Orange", tributing the orange vests we were all wearing, and hoping, not to get shot on the last, trigger-happy day of hunting season. Not that this little line hasn't been climbed before, but I think that name will stick to it, no matter how lame and small it is...
On the way back we stopped at Betty's pies and ate until we hurt. Mmm, bumbleberry. I slept most of the way home. I slept most of the way up there also....I got off pretty easy. Thanks for driving, Jim!
This last weekend we headed up north 4 hours to Eric's family cabin near Orr, MN to check out this new boulder he had finally found last winter. It's a short 7-8 minute hike from the cabin to the boulder, shortest approach besides the minnesota side of Taylors! The cabin was warm and the temps were cool...we'd wake up to Eric cooking us breakfast, wait for some of the frost to clear, and then hike out.
The boulder is HUGE! Kris and I discussed it, and including the basement of our house, we figure they're the same size. I think the boulder might be bigger. It's cracked in half, and every portion of the boulder, even inside the crack, has awesome problems!
I started working on this V2-3 call the 10th Plauge...super fun climb....perfect movement, if I wasn't so short, I probably would have flashed it, but the second to last move had me stretched to my limit, and taking quite a few 10+ foot falls. The falls were actually really fun!
We cleaned off a lot more problems, and there's still more to do. Nic put up a nice slab he calls Coffee & Cocaine, he says because he had the shakes something awful near the top. Then there were a few put up on the backside of the boulder, Squeaky Clean, a tall, sketchy V1 arete that moves into the crack between the boulders before the top out. Then there's Mr. Clean, a slopey arete that tops out at around 12 feet. Next to that is Sneaky Pete, a few slopey crimps to the 12 foot top out.
The top of the boulder was still heavy with moss, so Kris and Nic did a bit of work pushing it off, along with a large loose boulder.
Kris really did more cleaning than climbing...his hand is full of blood blisters from the board he was using to shovel moss, not from the problems he was climbing. He did send Dragon Fruit, a couple moves on tiny little slot crimps, and the 10th Plauge, but he spent most of his time on top of the boulder. Wish I could get that to translate to our house!
This is the "skyway" at the top of the boulder...
This is the last side to get cleaned...I'm super psyched, cuz there's already a couple really fun looking lines! One goes from the bottom left corner on the big chalked up jug, to the right across the bottom, then up into the arching crack! I wanna climb it and call it "C is for Cookie", even though it's a backwards C...
This is definately going to be a destination for a while! It's really nice to be off in the woods, where no one else is going to show up, AND still being a short hike from the warmth of the cabin! Not to mention, the cleanest, brightest, whitest Out House I've ever pooped in!
I don't know how to edit videos yet, so here's 2 of me on 10th Plauge...The first one isn't the send, but you can see what the bottom of the problem looks like...the second on is from above, and topping out...I sent it my first go on Sunday...
Then here's one of The Sycamore, a 20ft tall slabby arete.
To see Kris doing Dragon Fruit in a really cool video put together by Niel, check out his blog post @ http://borntobreathe.blogspot.com/2007/10/cabin-boulder-weekend-1026-1028-2007.html#links
I'm soooo slooow at posting stuff. Anyways, a couple weekends ago, when it WASN'T continuously raining...Kris and I headed to the Wisco side of Taylors to both work on the cave traverse. It was pretty warm out, close to 80, and humid. I was working out the hard drop move in the middle to connect the two halves, and Kris was complaining about having forgotten his beta. He hadn't been to the boulder for over a year now. He'd been building our boulder wall from early July on, so he hadn't even been climbing for months. He'd only worked on cave a few times before, and was never that inspired by the line. But being that it is kinda the testpiece of Taylors, he worked it with me. After a few goes, we got his first half of the problem worked out. He was feeling a little more interested in working the problem now. My skin was peeling off, and we were both a bit tired, but he sat down at the start one last time. I grabbed my camera, just cuz something made me, and I caught his unexpected ascent. He was good and strong through the whole hard part of the problem. Then, once on the jugs, he started to pump out quick. But he held on and finished it. I was quite proud. I love it when the problems go unexpectedly, and you fight to stay with it. Good work Kris...the video is too big to post on Youtube right now, so until Neil can compress it for me, you'll all be held in suspense!
So for those of you out there in the state who might actually climb on our wall...it's done. Climb-ready, anyways...There's a few more details to finish up.
- Need to fill cracks between boards - Texturize - Put roof on back side - Lay rubber mulch or something
But no one here cares about those details anyways....
So the rain kept us from finishing the wall in time for the wedding, but the first 8 feet of the right side were done and climbable. It was fun, except for all the kids there thinking the crash pads were for jumping on. Well there's no kids here now, and there never will be, so the landing is good.
Kris and I finished off the in a few hours. Dang, one day without rain and we'd have finished in time...oh,well.
I climbed in between hammering bolts into the plywood...
Did I mention the wall is big enough to fit Kris' truck AND crazy under it at the same time! WOW!
Truck did make an awesome ladder for putting up those top 4x8's!
It's finally September, and the temps are dropping...ready to go out back and climb?
The concrete finally starting showing up on Wednesday....FREE CONCRETE! The best kind...We had rented a power buggy(fancy automatic wheelbarrow) for a week to port the conrete from the trucks on the street in front, all the way back of the yard to the wall. Our next door neighbor, Denny, was more than happy to help drive the power buggy for us while we were at work. In three days we topped off the holes with what is about 15 tons of commercial, high grade cee-ment!
Then the dirt piles were hauled away and the steel started going up...
As well as other important parts, like the lip...gotta have something to grab at the top! Thing is, our center truss ended up a few inches higher than the two on either side, so we had to do some creative "bending" to get the 2x8 to be flush to the bottom edge....Wood Bending Tools: 2 Adult Men, 2x4, ability to hang on 2x4...
Now we're on the the reinforcing of the structure...finding all the wiggle spots and tightening them up. We will need to put two front supports on, angled into the wall....after 35W we're all about over engineering!
So this is how she looks today...
well, there maybe more steel in there now...but close enough...here she is from the front...
She's not done yet...but she still holds weight!
The plywood should go on this weekend! We can't wait to have one of the most bad ass outdoor home walls...in the country, probably! Sweeeeet....
