RRC Archives

FYI, while climbing a popular route this weekend at the Red I encountered a wood rat nest with a resident. I'd climbed this route several times, but never noticed a nest. However, yesterday there was a nest AND a rat. While cleaning the anchors I had the camera attached to the rope and I pulled it up to take some photos of the guy and the nest while I rapped off. It's easy to miss, but if you look into one of the horizontals you could see a head poking out, an ear, a nose and a beady black eye. He didn't seem too upset by me and I also noticed that he had some tp mixed into his nest too!

Not to hijack this thread or anything, but how do you mean you had the camera "attached to the rope"? I still shoot with an slr with a sort of bulky all-purpose lens (28-150, IIRC). It's tough to carry on trad without beating the crap out of it. In that vein, does anyone ever carry a camera on lead?

Kato, I think he meant "while he was clipped to the anchors/cleaning, he asked his belayer to clip the camera (we keep ours in a chalkbag) to the end of the rope and then he pulled it up." I don't think he carried it on lead. Although he could, if he wanted to. We have a fairly inexpensive point-and-shoot digital that fits in a chalkbag which can easily be clipped to a gear loop... None of that fancy SLRs....

I carry my camera on lead, but it's a small, compact digital (Kyocera Finecam S3). Keep in in a spare chalk bag to keep it safe.

There is a little mouse on Monkey Bars at The Playground. He left a fresh puddle of pee and some droppings to greet me with as I headed for the rest jug past the third bolt.

Awwwww. Cute.

I actually killed the rat this past week, Smashed his head with my stick clip

New story from last weekend: True story - While sleeping in a friend's cabin that was under construction I was awoken by a rustling sound. I'd left some maple nut goodies next to my sleeping bag. Those things are delicious. I opened my eyes and saw the thief trying to take the whole bag! He kept dropping it. I tried to wake up Karla and tell her, "Hey a woodrat is taking my maple nut goodies! Stop him!" She ignored my desperate pleas and went back to sleep. He continued to struggle with the package and was oblvious to the fact that I was awake and didn't want to loose my precious snacks. Finally I told him to take a couple if he was hungry, but the rest were mine. He still didn't stop. Then I said that I was bigger and stronger than him, therefore I needed more and if he continued to steal the entire bag then I would eat him. (Of course, I didn't really mean this), I just said it to scare him. Well, it worked! He took one and then scurried away. I put the rest of them in Karla's sleeping bag so he wouldn't find them if he tried again. Then I ate them for breakfast (the maple nut goodies, not the wood rat).

Oh yeah, we also found another woodrat nest while we were climbing again.

Whoa! A scary encounter witha dangerous predator! Cool story.

I see thar's anotha tall tale from J-Rock posted here. Thet boy's a piece o' work, ain't he?

Now, here's somethin' y'all should find interestin' about my woodrat kinfolk. Recently, a feller by the name of Steven Mithen wrote a book called "After the Ice" about the last ice age. Here's what he had to say about woodrats:

"A curiously large number of intact Archaic-period sandals have been found by archaeologists in the caves of the Colorado plateau, preserved by the bone-dry conditions and because they were made of tough materials. Other organic remains include fragments of clothing, bags, and baskets. We must also thank the pack-rats that still flourish in the caves today. The large nest of twigs and leaves built by these hairy rodents have done an immeasurable service for archaeology. When building their nests they made use of human debris that would otherwise have decayed. in Sandal Shelter they dragged no fewer than nineteen abandoned, forgotten or simply mysteriously lost sandals into their nests.
"In 1997 Philip Geib of Northern Arizona University had gone to investigate, after finding a forgotten shelf of sandals in his local museum which had once been collected from a pack-rat midden in the cave. he secured radiocarbon dates which covered the period of almost 1,500 years, the earliest dating to 7500 B.C. The sandals were so well preserved that Geib could reconstruct exactly how they had been made, and compare them with sandals from caves further north..."

Rizzo