The Brotherhood Of the Traveling Stopper...

@mdl, your turn buddy.  The stopper is on its way!  Can't wait to read your trip report!!

Its lookin' like i may not be able to get out and use the aid stopper for awhile. if anyone wants it pm me otherwise i'll hang onto it until i can find some time to get out on a trip. 

Stopper received - thanks Daniel!

So once again, this thread has been dead for months... what's the status of the stoppers? There are several trip reports long overdue. Post up and get those stoppers moving!

Edit: I got the "This thread has been inactive for 115 days. Are you sure you want to resurrect it?" MP thinks the Brotherhood is dead!

Brotherhood of the Traveling Broken Promises

Tim Stich wrote: Brotherhood of the Traveling Broken Promises

Just like the Ted Rope is about to become

When I find a new spot to place one I’ll definitely take a stopper, until then I’d hate to be one of those that sits on one for months. But I’ll chime in when the time comes

Haven't gotten out to aid anything so aid stopper is up for grabs.

Sorry for the loooong delay. Trip report in the works. Got some good mileage on the stopper.

Traveling Stopper Goes to Standing Rock

Photo by Jacob Raab.

I’m the “ideas” man among my climbing buddies. I come up with the regrettable, why-would-we-do-that plans, and then recruit my pals to help me figure them out… I’m no good at the details.

Perusing MP, I came across Standing Rock, out in in Island in the Sky, Canyonlands. What a tower! I couldn't believe I’d never seen it before. Layton Kor made the FA in 1962 and supposedly described the rock as “layers of rye-krisp sandwiched between layers of kitty litter.”

I quickly realized my Subaru probably wouldn’t have enough clearance to get us out there, so recruited three buddies (let's call them M, B and J) - one of whom had a truck - reserved a campsite in Island in the Sky, and started dreaming of choss.

The drive out there was slow-going and heinous - took us over three hours to go maybe 25 miles? - but the views on their own were worth it. We camped near the Rim above Monument Basin on Saturday night, and Sunday morning booked it down to the base of the tower, getting there in about 30 minutes. We mull around, unhurried, gawping at the perfect, terrifying tower before us. We came extremely well prepared for the day. In addition to racks fit for a team sieging El Cap (“But what if that fourth #1 comes in handy??”), we brought a fifth of Jack Daniels and three PBRs (we had started the descent with four, but one popped on the way down...). We gulped down some liquid courage, and started gearing up.

Suddenly, M. chimed in matter-of-factly, “Ohhh my god. I’m an idiot…” Turns out M. was slightly less than extremely well prepared. “I forgot my shoes,” he said, a look of disbelief on his face. We burst into incredulous laughter, any annoyed feelings tempered by the whiskey. J., magnanimous beyond belief, offered to let M. use his shoes; said that he’d be happy to jug and photograph the climb; that the route was above his free-climbing ability to begin with, and he’d happily just capture some new material to sell to climbing companies. What a guy.

Pitch 1

M. and J. roped up as the first party, and B. and I went second. As I lead the first 5.10 dihedral, I found my legs shaking my nerves friable as the rock we were climbing… except the rock wasn’t that friable! Most of it was bomber. No worse than your average Eldo outing. “So why was I so nervous?” I thought. Maybe it was just the excitement, who knows…

I placed the traveling stopper on this first pitch. (No photo unfortunately, but we here’s a photo where it was placed again higher up the climb.)

Pitch 2

B.’s lead. He back cleaned the first 30 feet to prevent the heinous rope-drag that M. had created for himself. This pitch was more sustained, but still a pleasure to climb.

Pitch 3 + 4

M. - crusher that he is - managed to free the 11c crux. Me, not so much. I gave it my damndest but took a couple whippers on the shiny, new, confidence-inspiring bolts before I was able to string the moves together. I’ll come back for it.

I ran the third pitch into the fourth - supposedly a 5.7ish romp to the summit. Maybe I got off route, but I encountered the scariest section of rock I’d yet climbed on the route, with solid 5.10- moves. Run out 20 feet from my last piece, I groveled up an overhanging flare, the rock (er, mud) crumbling beneath my feet. J. was hanging beside me on a fixed line taking pictures (he and M. had topped out ahead of us) and said he got a short video of me at this point in which I repeated numerous times, “I’m dead. I’m gonna die.” I’ve yet to see it, but I hope it never sees the light of day… Anyway, I hung on - barely - and hauled my sorry ass the remaining 20 feet to the summit.

On top we reveled in the 360 degree view of Dante-esque cliff faces and towers - Staggering Rock and the Shark’s Fin the most impressive of all.



On the summit. Photo by Jacob Raab.

B. and I rapped the route behind M. and J. On one of the raps - I don’t recall which - our rope got stuck. We were dead tired at this point - despite being a short tower, the drive the day before and the heads-up climbing had sapped our energy - and the last thing we wanted to do was deal with a stuck rope or have to reclimb a pitch. We tried everything: flicking the rope everywhich way, but it wouldn’t budge. As a last resort, I clipped into a figure-eight-on-a-bight of the stuck end, clipped myself into the anchor with a leash of several feet from the extra slack, and lobbed myself off the belay ledge. I came to a brief stop three feet later when the stuck rope caught me and then - hallelujah! - dropped another two feet as it popped free from whatever obstacle or constriction had ensnared it above.

After reaching the ground, we chugged some water, hiked out three times as slowly as we had hiked in, made it back to the campground on the Rim avoiding the delicate crypto-biotic soil as best we could, cooked a pretty mediocre dinner back at the campsite, and promptly passed out.

An adventure for sure. Now time to think of the next brilliant idea…

Who's next?

Great story. Well done, and well told!

Best, OLH

But seriously, who's next...

If there is a non-aid stopper available, I'd take one.  Have some plans to get up into the N Cascades in a couple weeks...

Dude, that tower looks amazing! Nice TR.

I believe you have stopper #1, aka Resurrection, right? Nice to see that one is still going. Send it on to Paul, and let's see where it goes next!

It won't be as glorious as you guys' stuff, but if one is laying around, I'd take a shot at doing a "first time I've done this" thing with it.

Best, Helen

@Paul L - stopper #1 is on its way to you!

mdl wrote: @Paul L - stopper #1 is on its way to you!

! Sweet. I'll do my best to find something worthy of it.

Received #1 today.  Looking forward to getting it out on something soon, and will report back.

How's your summer been, Paul? Have you gotten the Stopper out on the rock yet?

No. 7 is up for grabs, sorry I hogged it for so long. Trip report coming soon