The Brotherhood Of the Traveling Stopper...

Pm’d

Wow, it's been forever since there was any activity on this thread... Did anyone get out with the Stopper this year? Despite COVID causing us to cancel multiple big trips, we still managed to tick more pitches this year than we ever have.

Where is the Stopper?

During the crazy year we’ve had I forgot about that stopper. Just dug it up. You want me to send it your way? I’m assuming I meant to take it on one of the few big trips I had cancelled, so it never sent.

Ben Molloywrote:

During the crazy year we’ve had I forgot about that stopper. Just dug it up. You want me to send it your way? I’m assuming I meant to take it on one of the few big trips I had cancelled, so it never sent.

I've had 3 trips with Travelling Stoppers; 2 with "Resurrection" (RIP), and one with the Stopper you have. I mean, if no one else wants to take it, I'll gladly go another round, but I was more interested in keeping it moving so that it doesn't fade into obscurity, like so many Stoppers before it. Seriously, I think Tony has sent 7 or 8 different Stoppers into the wild, and this is the only one that we still have a definitive location for.

Do you have any climbing planned in the near future? I'd recommend getting it out there, posting up a trip report, and seeing who wants to claim it next. Otherwise, send it my way, and I'll get it on something.

The first two weeks of March I'll be climbing at Red Rock.  I know just the placement for that stopper!  Send it my way when available.

Andrew Krajnikwrote:

I've had 3 trips with Travelling Stoppers; 2 with "Resurrection" (RIP), and one with the Stopper you have. I mean, if no one else wants to take it, I'll gladly go another round, but I was more interested in keeping it moving so that it doesn't fade into obscurity, like so many Stoppers before it. Seriously, I think Tony has sent 7 or 8 different Stoppers into the wild, and this is the only one that we still have a definitive location for.

Do you have any climbing planned in the near future? I'd recommend getting it out there, posting up a trip report, and seeing who wants to claim it next. Otherwise, send it my way, and I'll get it on something.

Friday the weather looks doable, I’ll head to the gunks and try to get it up some fun climbing. I’ll ship it out Saturday to Andrew. I appreciate keeping the thread alive, I’d be remiss if I cause it to fade to obscurity. If I don’t post a trip report by Saturday morning, just shoot me another message reminding me. Thanks again and sorry for holding it for so long.

Idaho Bobwrote:

The first two weeks of March I'll be climbing at Red Rock.  I know just the placement for that stopper!  Send it my way when available.

Asking for it 4 months in advance is a good way to make sure things never happen.

There are actually rules for the thing, all posted in the O.P.:
(...) 
6) If you have not used it and posted within 4 weeks, expect to be harassed. This ain't the "Brotherhood Of the Sittin-In-The-Closet Stopper."

An unexpected doctors trip prevented the measly crag day, so to avoid the pitfall I fell in to of waiting for the next adventure, I’m passing it off to you Andrew. I PM’d you for an address, sending it out tonight if you respond. 

Follow 

Let me know if you’re looking for somewhere to send this? Following for now. 

Would love to take a Stopper out for a spin! Any available??

I have the only Stopper that's still accounted for. I'm in the process of writing my trip report, and then it'll be up for grabs. I hope to have the TR posted tomorrow, and the first person to chime in after that post will get it, per the rules.

Wow, this was a weird TR to write... I debated whether to address the COVID elephant in the room, and ended up deciding that it loomed so large in 2020, that I had to mention it. 

Well, 2020 was not the year we expected it to be, but we made the most of it. We originally had plans to travel to Hawaii for Spring Break to visit close friends who lived there. Of course, this was to be in late March, and as anyone who lived on Earth knows, late March was not a good time for travel. COVID hit, and everything got locked down.. School switched to remote learning, with no time for teachers or students to prepare. People who had never before been allowed to work from home were now required to do so.

As the Pandemic dragged on, we stayed active. With our climbing gym closed, we hit our home gym in the basement. P90X3 workouts became our regular family routine, so that we could maintain our fitness levels. Our family's main outdoor pursuit is climbing, but we also enjoy kayaking. As the weather warmed, our kayaks got more use than ever; nearly every weekend, we were out paddling the rivers in our area. (There's no better place to maintain social distance than in individual boats on the water!)

Our climbing plans, however, did not pan out the way we had planned. We had originally intended to climb while we were in Hawaii, then follow up with an easter trip to the Red, and once school was out, we were going to head to Utah. None of these came to pass.

Still, we did manage to get out on the rock. It just ended up being shorter trips to closer crags, so that we could limit our chances of catching or spreading the virus.

The virus did end up visiting our house, though, just before Thanksgiving. One of my wife's coworkers caught COVID from a friend, and my wife caught it from him. Once the virus had been through our house (with no lasting effects, thankfully), we started thinking about plans for the Holiday Break. We decided to reschedule our trip to Hawaii. Our thinking was thus:

• Hawaii has very strict quarantine rules. Anyone entering the state either needs to quarantine upon arrival or have a negative COVID test less than 72 hours before boarding the plane.
• We had just dealt with COVID at home, so our antibodies were likely to be at their highest.
• We have N95's that we wore for the travel portion, just as an extra precaution while moving through the airport, which we deemed to be the highest-risk portion of the vacation.
• Our planned activities in Hawaii consisted mainly of hiking and climbing, so social distancing would be easy to achieve.
• We would be staying with friends and borrowing a car, so there were no hotels or rental car to worry about.
• I would be cooking most of our meals.
• I had just been sent the Travelling Stopper and had a sacred duty to place it as soon as possible. (OK, that one didn't factor into our thinking at all; we were already planning the trip when I agreed to take the Stopper.)

I realize that everyone may not agree with our decisions on this, but we felt there was minimal risk of our travel spreading the virus, and our friends were comfortable with us visiting, so we booked the trip.

It turned out to be an fantastic trip. We did some amazing hikes, spent a day at the beach, got to see whales and sea turtles, and of course, climbed.

Despite an abundance of rock (the islands were formed by volcanoes, after all), there’s not actually a ton of established climbing in Hawaii. Oahu has 2 main crags, at opposite ends of the island. The climb pictured above is at Makapu’u, which is actually a small crag. It consists of 12 lines set at the top 30 or so feet of a 500-foot sea cliff. So in that pic, I’m actually only about 25 feet off the “deck”, even though the ocean is 500 feet below. The climbing is fine, but the setting is, of course, amazing. Our second day climbing there, we heard a loud splash from the water below. There was a whale playing around, breaching repeatedly. I didn't have my long telephoto lens with me, but still managed to get a few shots.

And there are a couple of trad lines to be had, as well, so the Stopper did get deployed. (It’s not the best placement I’ve ever plugged, but there’s no way I wasn’t going to place that Stopper!)

It was certainly a strange year, but we made the best of it. Here’s hoping this year will end better than it started!

Who’s next?

Incredible journey Andrew!! I could only hope to live up to the adventures that you’ve brought the stopper on, but I’d be glad to take up the helm.

I bet those ocean views were even more beautiful than they look in photos

Will Murdockwrote:

Incredible journey Andrew!! I could only hope to live up to the adventures that you’ve brought the stopper on, but I’d be glad to take up the helm.

I bet those ocean views were even more beautiful than they look in photos

The sacred duty is yours! I sent you a PM. Respond with your address, and I'll get it mailed ASAP.

The Stopper is on its way to Will. Looking forward to seeing where it ends up next!

Stopper has been received- it will be taking a short layover in Colorado with Michael (see pg. 22) so that he can document it properly for a story that he is writing. Then, he will send it back to me. I plan on putting up some FAs in the Binghamton/PA area.

Will keep you all posted

yessssssss

I just spent some time re-reading a bunch of these trip reports, and I have to say, this is one of my all-time favorite threads on MP.

As I was reading, I was reminded ot all of the fallen Stoppers that have been lost by the wayside. I still hold out hope that eventually Tyler Newcomb will check in, and return the Stopper he has absconded with. He had been dormant for several months at one point, but it appears he was last logged into MP a few days ago. Does anyone know him personally? Has anyone corresponded with him? I've sent him a couple of PM's over hte past 2+ years since he received the Stopper, but he's never responded.

Presumably, Paul L should have Tyler's email address, since he's the one who sent the Stopper to Tyler, but Paul hasn't responded to PM's either. Anyone know him?

That Stopper is the one that rebooted the Brotherhood, so it'd be cool to get it back into circulation!

Most images on the first couple pages are broken. What was the brand/size of the original?