[cofe]

anyone been?

august looks like an ok time to be there. is it worth it? is it relatively close to tokyo - seems to 3-4 hours drive but i can't find where the kerfuck it actually is.

[unclesomebody]

i've only ever been to ogawayama moor.

details of the real thing are available at http://www.ogawayama.com/ including directions on how to get there etc.

and on a map it's nearly here;

[jwi]

This reply may well be a bit to late, but send me an email and I'll mail you a pdf with an accessmap I have drawn to go with the directions on Neil Harrisons ogawayama.com.

There should be an article bout bouldering in Ogawayama up on ukclimbing soon as well, I can mail you the piece as well. Another area close to Tokyo is Mitake.

I have some pics from my trip there this spring on my flickr account:

[r-man]

Just out of curiousity, do you know anything about this?

Banshousha    V15/8C    Ogawayama Crystal Slab    Tokyo Mourai

The problem, Banshousha, was opened by Tokio Muroi on 9th December last year. The problem checks in at 8C and is a SLAB, yes, your eyes are not deceiving you. The problem was climbed with no pad and could almost be considered a highball. It can be found on a boulder called the Ogawayama Crystal Slab. Sick! The name Banshousha means "The Accompanist", which is someone who plays or sings the accompaniement, accompanying a violin or piano for example.

Do you know anything more about Banshousha or Tokio Muroi - both are mysterious entities to the majority of the climbing world. Do you happen to have any pics of the slab? I'm sure lots of people would be intrigued to see what a V15 slab looks like...

[jwi]

Tokio Mourai seems to have put up hard slabs all over the place.  He's not exactly unknown. He's the author of the guidebook for Ogawayama, Mitake, and Mitsumine.

Fukakai slab,  or “Mystery Slab” have two really hard problems. One of them (don't have the guidebook handy, but you may be right about the name, it seems to be a word anyway) is 5-dan which equates to 8b+ or 8c depending on whether it's hard or easy for the grade. It is a straight up version of a 3-dan (7c+ to 8a) slab. When I went up there to worship and admire the slab, there was a lot of chalk on the 3-dan, so it seems to recieve some attention, but I don't know anyone who've done it.

[dontfollowme]

Blimey that grading system doesn't do much for ones ego eh! What happens If you can't climb 1 dan?

[a dense loner]

r-man this slab was discussed at length in previous posts, will be more fun for you to find it

[jwi]

Blimey that grading system doesn't do much for ones ego eh! What happens If you can't climb 1 dan?

1-dan (shodan) is from 7a+ to 7b. But before that they have grades from 9 kyu (=supereasy) down to 1 kyu (=6c+ or 7a)

[mark]

Do Japanese boulderers get coloured belts to show off the grade they climb? That would be great. Though everyone would laugh me off the crag when I turned up at Remergence and was the only one without a black belt.

[a dense loner]

people who turn up to remergence deserve to be laughed at regardless of belt colour

[Johnny Brown]

What belt do you get if you do Danny's problem?

[SA Chris]

Hernia Belt?

[Somebody's Fool]

May be you should be sealed in a barrel and fired through the Van Allen belt.

[Bonjoy]

This barrel would be fired using what sort of cannon exactly?

[cofe]

This barrel would be fired using what sort of cannon exactly?

canon jeffry smith of course!

[Somebody's Fool]

Good idea cOfe but i'm nOt convinced that'S the kind of cannon hE meant.

[cofe]

Get real yOOt. what elSe could he mEan???

[Somebody's Fool]

GOOdness me. Do I have to SpEll it out?

[cofe]

GO On then geniuS boy. sock it to mE.

[Bonjoy]

[Somebody's Fool]

I assume that is the kind of Goose cannon that is made of goose, rather than those inferior types that merely fire geese.  That's a top notch arsenal you've got on display there.

[Bonjoy]

This particular model has been designed to fire purpose bred pygmy greylags. With favorable atmospheric conditions it has proved capable of firing geese into the outer reaches of the troposphere from where they can be programmed to  strike targets half a continent away!

[SA Chris]

How do you know these wild geese go that far? Do you chase them?

[Jim]

Do they undergo a rigorous training regime to strengthen there neck muscles to deal with the recoil or are they one shot disposable geese cannons?

[Somebody's Fool]

I believe the plural of goose cannon is goose cannons.  Maybe an automatic weapon of this ilk could be refered to as a geese cannon but don't quote me on that.

[Johnny Brown]

This is the kind of shit I signed up for.

[SA Chris]

Isn't there a gosling gun too?

[BenF]

Isn't there a gosling gun too?

Yeah, it's a small hand gun that can be hidden in a handbag etc.

[webbo]

Isn't there a gosling gun too?

wasn't that used in the 60s for firing pegs in to peak grit.

[Scouse D]

On a historical note, the goose cannon was introduced in the early 20th century, replacing the outdated technology of the Cat-a-pult. The Cat-a-pult (often written as catapult, by those too lazy to put the effort in, usually fast-talking cockney types), was an effective weapon, especially when used in conjunction with a Ram.
Animal rights activists put paid to the use of these weapons by staging mass protests in 1910 and 1912.

[Johnny Brown]

Cat-a-pult itself obviously being a contraction of 'Cat-and-Pullet', the vowels believed to have been lost near the wirral in the 1870s.

[BenF]

Cat-a-pult of course being a derivative of cat-a-pelt; the original term for a feline skin firing device.

[Somebody's Fool]

I see you use the word 'lost'.  Is this to defend the sticky-fingered local who actually made off with the vowels.  Are you a descendant of his?  I believe he used the proceeds from the vowels to reform himself by setting up a monastery in Knutsford in 1892.

[Johnny Brown]

That's the fella. Nowadays he is best remembered for his kindly act in arranging an M-C consonant transfer for Congleton. Despite the original name being almost forgotten its raison-d'etre is still writ large on the faces of the locals.

[SA Chris]

a monastery in Knutsford in 1892.

As an aside, a compay i worked for had a customer in Knutsford. The address was on the accounts system as Kuntsford, I'm not sure if it was done deliberately, but no-one ever picked up on it, and it never got corrected.

[Somebody's Fool]

a monastery in Knutsford in 1892.

As an aside, a compay i worked for had a customer in Knutsford. The address was on the accounts system as Kuntsford, I'm not sure if it was done deliberately, but no-one ever picked up on it, and it never got corrected.

I think your accounts system was probably pre-1892.

Well, well, well...
It seems Mongleton wasn't the only place getting it's name changed.  The delightful Hamlet of Kuntsford also went under a transformation.  Spawned Brown, attracted Barlow, you couldn't make it up.

[Johnny Brown]

When I first registered at the foundry in 1994 the stoned hippy behind the desk too thought it hilarious to enter said spelling 'mistake' into the computer. Far out.

[jwi]

This is all very interesting. But, as much as it pains me, I must most unfortunately bring this back to topic for a second. They have put up a short piece I wrote about Ogawayama on ukclimbing.com.

[andy popp]

One hardly need add that the goose cannon was a clear advance on the blunderbuzzard, with which it was barely possible to hit even a sitting duck.

[BenF]

Good article jwi, thanks for posting that link.

And nice one Andy for getting back off topic.  I was going to give you a wad point for doing so, but then I realised that I was being even more stupid than usual.   

[andy popp]

I felt it was of vital importance that JWI's blatant, nay shameless, attempt to hijack this thread be resisted at all cost. Thrice huzzah to all involved in the genuis that unfolded on Mon/Tues, which I somehow missed until this morning.

[BenF]

Yeah, I too was disappointed to see the thread returning to it's original theme; quite unheard of on these boards.

I've always considered it a point of honour to send a thread sideways right from the start... despite Fiend's cruel smiting of me due to my services to the art of tangents.  But I'm not bitter.

[r-man]

Nice article about Japan here. Not much about Ogawayama, but an interesting glimpse of Japanese climbing culture.

http://climbing.com/current/japan235/index.html

[SA Chris]

Stoppit! Or i'll blitz you with my new swan gun.

[r-man]

But could you kill two stones with one bird?

[Jim]

how about a boar god?
what film did I just watch?
too easy.
what about a double barrel, barrel gun, confused?
try being me.
fish fodder.


hahahahahaha
 

[Somebody's Fool]

What the fuck are you on about?

[Nigel]

what about a double barrel, barrel gun, confused?

Think its fair to say he's got a barrel in.

[BenF]

Fuckin' hell it's a barrel of laughs on here at the moment.  We're all having so much pun.


Sorry.

[SA Chris]

Aye, making jokes on this thread is like shooting fish in a .........

Never mind.

[andy_e]

 

Is bonjoy's avatar a Gosling then?

[Bonjoy]

"?"