Burnside

... for our friends - some R.L. to end the year... crank 'em up...

... 'Let My Baby Ride'...

... 'It's Bad You Know'...

... Bad Luck City...

... encore...

... 'Goin' Down South'...

... double encore (hey, it's Burnside)...

... 'Nothin' Man'...

... Happy New Year - thanks for viewing...

Off-Width

... came across this on-line video a few weeks back that we like a lot, primarily for the climbing effort...

... 'Brother From Another Planet'...

... very good work on the gals part - jamming and arm barring out that wide inverted horizontal crack, with somewhat airy exposure (to say the least) looks horrendous - they're certainly (for the most part) comfortable with their situation - would be quite the predicament for many... if we were some anal, pseudo-intellectual film critic we'd comment to the positive "Aristotles Philosophy of Being in motion"... but we're not, so we'll just say "wish we had at least three of those big-ass f*k'n cams back in the day"...*

... nice job...

*... we also like their "crack machine" - we had fabricated our own vertically inclined crack machine years back (training for a planned trip to Yosemite which never materialized - splitter jam cracks in the local PA sedimentary sandstone are few and far between), built from wood 2x12's - 12ft tall - adjustable from finger to fist width - you could taper the width and practice jamming while placing nuts/hexes/cams - thinned some body primer, mixed in some coarse sand and coated the interior for grip - worked great and was pretty difficult... eventually needed a few 2x12's, 12ft length to brace a sagging rear porch roof while being rebuilt, so sacrificed the assembly to that project...

------------

... old Hollywood mountain climbing films ('Eiger Sanction', 'White Tower' etc..) always had the requisite sequence with the hero inching his way unprotected up some long body-width chimney, so when we first started out (and had little idea as to what we were doing) we were on the lookout for stuff like that... we soon found out that most everything we found (around here) less than body-width could usually be ascended lay-back technique at considerable less effort than trying to wedge and jam asses and elbows while worming your way up some heinous misshapen constriction...  

... there's a few local off-width's here-bout that are always overlooked and never worked (as such), definitely a divergent from the norm - nothing near a desert off-width experience, though... no specific photos but these will do...

...(T. Anderson photo)...

... this route 'Eclipse' located at 'Breakneck Rocks' was actually done originally by jamming the difficult off-width crack - is an easy layback bottom to top otherwise...

... a nice squeeze chimney up at 'Stairway to Heaven', though it's usually climbed by laybacking or stemming technique - a "Good-man"** stemming here...

... a young 'Strongman Matt' bouldering about on the wall adjacent to this (typical) wide crack at 'Stairway to Heaven'...

... off-width to hand-jams here - 'Stewarton Rocks'...there's another off-width up there (no photo available) that we lugged several 8"-12" rounded river stones to and wedged in the crack to be permanent chockstones for slinging when protecting on lead - led the thing 2-3 times to test out the chockstones (worked great) - returned maybe two weeks later and no chockstones - !!?? - to this day no ones ever fessed up to removing them (though there's only one possible culprit)... we had also farmed (by digging a diversion drainage ditch and installing a 4" drain pipe we found) a nearby solitary ice climb that forms on the wall for the purpose of enhancing it's formation - that pipe was gone too - ???...

... a few more locations of note would be a wide chimney along the main wall at 'Colls Cove' (recall another wide crack to a small roof there as well - may be wrong) and a (short) body-width crack at 'Spruce Hollow'... also recall one other good one at an obscure location that we haven't visited in many moons - Uncle Joes? Bidwell? Jumonsville? - don't remember exactly...

**... he had a good story he related more than once wherein he was a pitch or two off the ground and in the throes of complete exhaustion while leading a difficult wide crack (up in New Hampshire?) when the metal climbing helmet he'd been wearing got wedged chockstone-like in the crack - he couldn't move his head left nor right, up or down - and he's well above his last placement of sketchy gear - out of desperation he pulled straight backward with about everything he had left in 'em, nearly sailing off into space... Ha!...

Get Dicked...

... Dale, that is...

... Unknown Territory...

... Tribal Thunder...

... encore...

... Third Stone From The Sun...
... ("Jimmy, I'm still here - wish you were")...

©http://www.cmphoto.co.nz/about/

... Dale's one badass M-F...

Woodland Stones IV

... been havin' Friday fun all summer long workin' out our gal Muscle Girl Sarah on the local boulders...

... she showed up last spring totin' a new crash pad and wantin' to get back to crankin' on some rock - hadn't gripped a stone for at least ten years... heres an old shot from back in the 90's...

... didn't miss a beat...

... been workin' on a mix of things - maybe 20% old established stuff and 80% new... prefer the new...

... but all is good...

... ZMan along too when not working...

... 'Kryptonite' boulder...

... was a new project for a few weeks until worked out... from a series of small crimps and off terrible feet is a long dyno to a sloping rail... gave it an old school either ya' can do it or ya' can't rating...

... some old secret stuff too...

... hidden in plain sight...

 
... on a rainy day we found some stuff we called the 'Bantams'...

... well, always knew they were there - a jumble of low boulders that now sport sit-starts to gain some difficult mantles or low pumpy traverses...

... quite a few routes there...

... found lots of "new" stuff - no such thing as sit-starts back in the day...

... so been walkin' right by this stuff for forty years...

... last Friday killin' a few hours...

... 'Apes, Men and Morons'...

... a bit off the beaten path here - we're figurin' no ones done the routes on this stone considering all the holds that broke off...

... two lines and a new project...

... final shot from back in the day...

------------------

... training days - found a few old 'ice bouldering' images from inside the archives...

... there's an old and abandoned small quarry nearby that was a source for track ballast for the P&LE Railroad back during the formation of the local rail lines - the many water seeps flowing through and small spring flowing over the quarry walls produce some decent low height (maybe 20ft at it's highest point) ice bouldering during a cold winter...

... had just read an article by the influential Colorado ice climber 'Duncan Ferguson' regarding ice bouldering and his techniques for climbing thin and verglas ice, so had to rush right out to this thin smear... 80's leather boots, Footfangs, combo Lowe Hummingbird and Forrest hammers...

... boy is that hairy - you don't take ground falls at all wearing crampons - luckily only ever took one (from around 10ft) which was enough - concentrated like a M-F after that...

... ha-ha - this guy has read Ullman's 'Straight Up - the Life and Death of Mountaineer John Harlin' one too many times... was a warm early spring day - but we would copy his training techniques such as going without gloves when climbing or skiing until our hands were about frozen off (he would carry snowballs ta' boot) and carrying stone or boulder ballast in our packs if we felt them to be too light - our buddy Rob Goodman was a good one for loading your pack with extra stones when ya' weren't looking...

(Very) Hard Work

... always pays off...

... IFBB PRO Tom DeFloria...

... we get it... good work brother, good work...

... images ©️Salomon Urraca Photography - great photography by this guy... we get that too...

(Near) LA Woman

... while on the subject...

... back in the day practically every guy owned a performance driver - was just as common as carrying a Smart Phone today - even to this day we associate most guys to the car they drove back then "...yea, I remember him, he drove that black '69 El Camino with the Playboy Bunny emblem on the hood..."

... so viewing this 1969 Pontiac GTO put the memory wheels in reverse ...

... summer '71 - a beautiful Saturday evening... was a few months away from applying for a drivers license so was on foot and headin' downtown to see what was brewing for the night with the boys at the usual main street hangout... the sudden rumble of twin Cherry Bomb's and we turn to greet a good (slightly older) friend who pulls over to the curb in his '69 GTO - very nice - 400 cubic inch V8, four speed on the floor - he'd just painted it a very cool candy lacquer raspberry/purple paint scheme, and along with the Cragar S/S custom chrome wheels and tires was a very sharp car... he was sportin' a jaunty driving cap (worn backward) the color of which exactly matched the car (he always claimed that he owned the cap first and painted the car to match the lid)... best girl settin' tight alongside... "Hey - we're goin' to the Drive-In movie, come on, jump in!"... "Awww - I don't know"... 'Come on, man (gesturing toward the back seat) - Luscious Linda's* cousin is in town and doesn't want to go with us alone!"... "Man - I don't know, I..." and out of the rear window appears one of the most gorgeous gals we've ever viewed, beautiful smile ear to ear "... don't have a thing planned" (learned later that we were targeted right from the start)... 

... a quick introduction and we're Drive-In bound - a few beers (and what not) for the show - this is turnin' into a good evening... he's got the 'Doors' newly released album, 'LA Woman', crankin' on the 8-Track (first time we heard it - an icon of road music) - coincidentally, turns out the 'gorgeous cousin' is visiting from (Barstow) Southern California, on vacation for the week... add some nuts and put a cherry on top - the main feature is this (now classic) hot rod flick titled 'Vanishing Point'... and we always thought a jackpot was just cash!... then the next thing ya' know ol' Jed's a millionaire - the 'gorgeous cousin' wants nothin' ta' do with watchin' the movie (if ya' know what we mean) - she's on vacation and a long way from home...

... returned the following Saturday evening with the regular girlfriend and watched the flick...

*... names have been changed to protect the (somewhat) innocent...                                      

Noise, Smoke and Speed

... lots of fun last Saturday - annual nostalgia weekend drag racing at 'Keystone Raceway Park'...

..."Old Glory" raised proudly... the sky spirits were generous with the cloud cover providing great diffused lighting and cool temperatures throughout the day... 

... a good crowd and lots of race cars... many images this day - too many to pick and choose, so unless something really caught our eye we threw darts... all images are from the track unless noted otherwise...

... didn't caption most of the images (somethin' we don't like doin') - they speak for themselves...

... a few shots from the burn pit - always a crowd favorite...

... a few wheelie shots, another crowd pleaser...

... around the grounds...

... they had a custom car show happening as well - we didn't concentrate a whole lot on that event - we do like this "surf van" with the faux patina paint scheme....

... wow - nice Chevy CST/10... don't see too many of those...

... lurking amongst the pits...

... nice paint on this 40's 'Willys' coupe...

... can never have too many...

... a blown 390...

... in this very cool (57?) 'Ford Fairlane'...

... (69?) Plymouth Barracuda...

... staging lanes... those drag bike racers are BMF's...

... big daddy...

... how cool is this guest appearance...

... the father of drag racing, "Big Daddy" Don Garlits along with the latest version of his "Swamp Rat" drag car...

... " the total price of my car and the trailer it was on cost less than $1,000 to make... I ran a whole year on the same engine, clutch, same tires, same everything. It was very inexpensive... That's why drag racing appealed back then to so many youngsters because it was something they could dream about and actually do..."

- Don Garlits reflecting on the "old days"

... track action from various angles...

... we usually gotta' go thru a several week period of withdrawal after attending this event - mildly battling the old addiction while usually spending a few spare hours here and there searching what's up for sale on line and thru Craig's List, eBay and such... but we recover...

---------------------------

... although long departed, we owned several mean machines "back in the day" - used to buy 'em, sell 'em, trade 'em, race 'em, soup 'em up, blow 'em up and crash 'em when not cruise'n 'em... wished we'd had known their eventual worth now'days ($30k - $50k price range) - would of just put 'em in the garage and parked 'em (maybe)...

(internet image)

... we searched on line for images identical or similar to cars we owned - here's a 1970 Chevy Nova SS, black, factory 396 cubic inch engine, four barrel carb, dual exhaust, bucket seats, standard four speed on the floor transmission - fast car - paid $1,500 for it used...

(internet image)

... traded it to a guy for a 1967 Chevelle SS and $300 - acquired it gray primered and ready to paint - color scheme we had planned was identical to this image right down to the racing stripes - we wanted to go with a white pearl paint job, which was gonna cost a fortune (close to $3k - and that's in 1975)... 327 cubic inch engine, four barrel carb, performance 30-30 racing cam, headers, dual exhaust, bucket seats, standard four speed transmission, cragar mags - never kept it long enough to save up for the paint job....

... once we found a 1971 Chevelle SS built ready to race...

(internet image)

... identical to this image - red, black racing stripes, jet black interior, bucket seats, full instrumentation, three speed automatic on the floor, big block 454 cubic inch engine, dual quad holley intake, racing cam, headers, dual exhaust, 4:11/12 bolt rear differential, TH400 transmission with performance stall converter and shift kit, which was the most impressive thing about this car - would chirp the tires shifting from 1st to 2nd - that car was wound tighter than a fifty dollar watch - figured it was pushin' over 400hp and a race engine builder we knew agreed... wasn't a street cruiser, though (had to buy a sticker for it) - ran some time trials with it at the track... it eventually developed a compression issue about the time we were losing interest in this stuff so sold it to a guy for $800 (we originally paid $1,700 for it - $700 + trade for that '67 Chevelle)... the guy repaired the engine but eventually rolled the car and totaled it (we almost cried - for the car) and then later put the engine in a Corvette he bought... one car we really regret parting with...

(internet image)

... owned a 1967 Chevy Impala SS similar to this (minus the white hood striping) only because it was an SS... paid $500... bucket seats, three speed automatic transmission with floor shift, factory 327 cubic inch engine, dual exhaust - it would go but was like driving a big boat - was never that crazy about it - the gals always thought we were drivin' the "old mans" car ("Is this your dads car?")... sold it to a friend for $300 - he gave us $200 ("I'll owe ya' the rest") which we never saw - he died quite a while back, taking the $100 with him...

(internet image - Bill Truby Collection from PID website)

... last car we owned - 1973 Chevy Nova SS - was identical to the one pictured, right down to the slotted wheels (although ours were aluminum ET's)... purchased used for around $1,800... 1972 was officially the last year for the classic Chevy Nova in our opinion - not much performance option beginning in '73 - stock factory 350 cubic inch engine, two barrel carb, three speed automatic transmission, single exhaust - the air cleaner cover was emblemed 250hp, power wise it was pretty weak... bought it for a daily driver but quickly tired of wompin' on the gas pedal and not goin' anywhere... souped up the engine with a performance camshaft, Holley four barrel carb and intake, some electronics and set of headers - added some traction bars mainly for looks... was lookin' around for a four speed standard transmission and tighter rear end (we were gettin' to be half decent mechanic-wise by this time and wanted to do some building ourselves - also had a garage to work in) when the engine blew... had enough - put another stock 350 we picked up at the junk yard in it and soon traded it in for a new 1976 Dodge 4WD pickup and overnight we went from street rodders to off roaders...

... 1972 was pretty much the end of the muscle car production era (1964 - 1972 our opinion) - our personal era was 1974 - 1976, a short three years - subsequent to which they were pretty much regulated off the street - inspection stations were gettin' stricter than usual as well - guys who used to let (all but open) headers and such slide during inspection (they were illegal on the street back then) were now rejecting them altogether as well as gettin' pretty nit-picky on tire/fender clearance, rear end height and even calling shackles illegal - don't blame 'em, who needs the hassle for a couple dollar profit (was gettin' written up constantly by the state police, who would then run right to the inspection station, for the lift and L60's on the rear of that Nova)... rising gas prices were murder too when you're gettin' 6 to 12 miles per gallon... lookin' back we probably could have benefitted from a bit more maturity as well...