Trip Reports

Desert Wonderings: Day 23-25. Red Rocks

2011-11-27T19:30:00.000-08:00

Caleb finally makes the blog after a long hiatus, "Caustic Cock, 5.11B" Red Rocks Nevada.

A bit of a condescend post without any pictures. My camera battery died a few days ago and I haven't had a chance to-recharge it.

Thursday morning I packed up my stuff at the Moab hostel and made the 7 hour drive down to Vegas. Being Thanksgiving I promptly went into town for a buffet at the Luxor. Good food but I felt really ill after eating so much pie. The last few days have been lost in boring sport climbing around Red Rocks. I say boring as after having been in Indian Creek for the last three weeks, everything feels a bit dull. Still it is fun to crank on some crisp edges without pain. That's the kick about Indian Creek, it is always painful!

Very mellow cruising around Calico basin with Caleb and crew. So good to see him! Climbed Cannibal boulder, Sunny and Steep, Sweet Pain wall, and the Black Corridor. I lost count of the route names we did and honestly I don't care. I've done most of these routes before and the rest were on-sight without looking at the guidebook. In a place like Red Rocks I'd rather not look at the guidebook and get annoyed with people that spend too much time pouring over the book. Tie in and just climb, if it is too hard jump off onto the shiny bolt, if it is too easy just enjoy movement. I went up a few routes this weekend that I had never heard about, just looked at them from the bottom and climbed. Seems like this is always the most fun and the best way to let go of the ego.

Overall I feel in awful sport climbing shape, my body ins't used to the movement after weeks of jams! Hopefully I can get some of it back this upcoming week.

Past three days (not all red points)
1x 5.9
3x 5.10s
3x 5.10+ish
14x 5.11s
1x 5.11+
5x 5.12s.

Desert Wonderings: Day 22: Indian Creek.

2011-11-25T19:41:00.000-08:00

Last day at the Creek. A great way to end this part of the trip. Myself leading the amazing "Anunnaki, 5.12" Got the send just as the sun was going down, really a special moment.

*Warm-up on "Neat 5.10" Hands and wide hands in a corner. Small roof at the top. Long route, classic.
* "Soul Fire, 5.11" Took me 2x tries to get the red-point. Perfect #2 jams until it pinches down to #1 and a few thumb stacks at the chains.
*Anunnaki, 5.12" 2x laps. Took two tries to get the send, five tries total. Love this route. Probably a tad soft compared to other Indian Creek .12s.

Desert Wonderings: Day 21: Indian Creek.

2011-11-25T19:25:00.001-08:00

Last two days at the Creek and of course I forgot my camera! I left my car at the Hostel and hitched a ride to the Creek. It was getting busy with perfect weather and hordes of Colorado climbers. After weeks of relative quiet, it feels strange to have people around the crag.

Got a late start out of Moab and went up the Scarface wall.

*Unknown 5.9+ left of Scareface wall. Short 40 feet.
*Unknown 5.10+ Why does such a good route have no name? On-sight send. Steep #1 hands in a corner up to a crazy chimney lay -bak thingy. To get around the chimney I ended up using this sideways knee bars kinda like I was on limestone. Flake and face climbing up high is a nice break from jamming. Long route. 1x laps on TR.
*Lieutenant Uhuru.5.11 Insanely good with a distinct crux roof traverse up high moving left to face holds. Bottom is #1 lay backing or jamming (many #1 BD's) Good hands free ledge below the roof, enough to get full recovery and get stoked. Thumb stacks below the roof make it hard to get set-up for the under-clings, once on the under clings swing widly left to jugs and get established. Really cool to climb these routes with a real crux!

Desert Wonderings: Day 20: Wall Street

2011-11-25T19:19:00.000-08:00

Short day as I had to "work" till about noon. Lost my camera so no pictures for a few days. :-(

*30 seconds over Potash, 5.8. Still fun as always.
*Lucy in the Sky, 5.10. Still same hard boulder move in the middle. Stand up young man!
*Baby Blue, 5.11. Short and amazing fingers. Came real close to a flash but missed the clipping jam at the chains.
*Flakes of Wrath, 5.9. Bring big nuts, which I never do.

Desert Wonderings: Day 19: Indian Creek.

2011-11-25T19:08:00.000-08:00

The King Cat "Micha" working on "Way Rambo, 5.12" Way Rambo Wall.

My first time to this wall, really nice sunshine and great views. Straight out of a Western. I didn't shoot many pictures but here is what took place.

*Warm-up on the "Fuzz, 5.10" Long route, 120 feet #2s and #3s (wide hands) to a bulge at the chains.
*Way Rambo 5.12. Flashed via TR and then 2x more laps on TR. I should have lead it. :-(

Way Rambo is amazing one of the better ones I've done. Very sport climbing like with these crazy "surf" moves where you hand traverse these jug rails as the crack zig zags back an forth. Crux is near the top where it pinches down to .75 thumb stacks. (Green BD C4 Cam) RIght when the stacks get desperate you can toss to the last jug rail. This should be easy but once on the rail the feet just skate around and it becomes a full on the thug-fest to transfer the rails and get at the chains. Right below the chains there is a great hand jam, you can't see it while surfing the rail but it is there. Have faith. So good!

Desert Wonderings: Day 18: Indian Creek.

2011-11-25T18:49:00.000-08:00

Micha on " Railroad Tracks, 5.10." Battle of the Bulge Wall. fun fact, everyone in this picture us from Oregon. Respect!

Warm day at the Bulge with Muicha, Cliff and Deniz. I'm not in love with this wall, too much mindless crack work, just plain tough.

*Railroad Tracks 5.11
*Swedin-Ringle 5.12. 2x top rope laps. Cliff comes close to flashing it!
* Pigs In Space 5.10+ Very soft, more like 5.10-. Good face holds and fun movement,
*Battle of the Bulge 5.11, 1x lead burn, 2x laps.

The Battle of the Bulge Route is a real a pain at the grade. Miles and miles of #1 jams in a corner. I can't jam it so I layback much of it, very thugy coming over the roof, maybe one of the hardest pure cracks I've done in Indian Creek.

Cliff leading "Swedin-Ringle, 5.12" Now that's a great looking route. Fingers to start, then tight hands to thumb stacks to perfect fingers with no feet. Painful!

Desert Wonderings: Day 17: Fine Jade

2011-11-19T17:17:00.000-08:00

Climbed the The Rectory via Fine Jade. (5.11 5 pitches) Really a lovely route, such a good position and every pitch was rad. We used the bolted 5.11 sports pitch to get to the summit. Cold and windy day, I was in full alpine kit and still chilly.

Desert Wonderings: Day 16: Indian Creek

2011-11-19T09:00:00.001-08:00

Micha is the "King Cat" The man himself making the moves on "King Cat, 5.11++++ Cat Wall.

Went up to the Cat Wall with Micha and Cliff. Really fun day, not a lot of routes but some great pictures and a lot of laughs with good friends.

*Tom Cat, 5.10. Warm-up. My 3rd or 4th time up this route, fun wide hands in a corner that goes on forever.
*Deseret moon. 5.11. 3rd time up this. I climbed first and shot some pictures from the the top looking down.
*King Cat. 5.11++. Micha leads and hangs the TR on this epic classic wide hands beast. I get smashed even on top rope.

King Cat details. I'm so proud of Micha for getting on this monster. He's my hero and is now known as "King Cat." Respect. I took a TR lap on it and got hammered, it is rare that I can't top rope a 5.11 but this one was too much. Bottom starts as thin hands and widens to #3s coming through a bulge. Too narrow to fist jam, to wide to hand-jam. Ugly. The roof proved to be the stopper for me, wide hands completely upside down, I was just sliding out taking all my skin with it. Blah. A real joy to watch everyone throw themselves (literally) at the roof move. Fist jams, heel hooks, dynos, laybacks, were all used to get over the roof. Good fun.

Micha on Tom Cat.

Myself leading the amazing upper section of " Deseret Moon."

Cliff leading the same amazing upper section of " Deseret Moon."

Cliff " Deseret Moon." That upper crack is so good!

Micha on the King Cat!

Our Swiss campmate leading "Puma Cat, 5.12"

Desert Wonderings: Day 15: Indian Creek

2011-11-19T08:01:00.000-08:00

The "King Cat" racking up at the Super Crack Parking lot, Indian Creek.

I forgot to shoot any pictures today. Oops! Downright warm in the sun today, shirtless climbing all day.

*Unknown 5.9 crack left of 3:00AM crack. TR lap to warm-up
*Koyne Crack 5.11+, One lead attmept and one TR. No red point. I can do it if I lay-back but this is ugly.
*3:00AM Crack, long sustained 3 inch crack for 120 feet. Shuffle upper hand till it hurts, wide cupped hands.
*TR lap on 5,11+ tips corner. 100 feet. Name unknown.

Desert Wonderings: Day 14: Rest Day Moab.

2011-11-19T07:57:00.001-08:00

Nothing much to say about today, spent most of the day around the Hostel working online. Good day for it to as it rained much of the day anyway. Took some time off to hit the rec center and lift. Man, I'm in bad gym shape, even my simple workout caused me to suffer.

On the upside Micha came into town later at night and oh my was I glad to see the "King Cat." More on that later.

Desert Wonderings: Day 13: Rope Swing

2011-11-15T09:52:00.001-08:00

Corona Arch

Rest day activity. Tie rope to waist and jump off 140' arch. Beautiful setting.

International team. An Englishman, Pakistani , Swedish, Turkish and a lone American.

Desert Wonderings: Day 12: Indian Creek.

2011-11-13T19:58:00.000-08:00

Myself leading "Wavy Gravy." 5.10. Scarface Wall.

Cold temps and a gray sky sapped the motivation, the least fun day of climbing I've had in a while. After much debate we went up to the Scarface wall in hopes of finding the sun. The sun never really came out and my partner and I stayed in a foul mood all day.
I'm a bit bummed because I'm not getting any hard routes done, hopefully my luck will change next week.

*Unknown 5.9 left of "Wavy Gravy" Ugly wide thrashing though some lose blocks. Awful route really.
*Wavy Gravy, hands to big hands through the roofs. Sort of like "Incredible Hand Crack" but a bit wider.
*Mantel Illness. 5.11. 2x laps. Unusual face climbing crux at the top on crimps and a high step.
*Scarface, 5.11. Classic and stiff at the start. Finger locks to tight hands to dreamy #2 hands. Cold!

Unknown climber leading "Scarface."

Desert Wonderings: Day 11: Indian Creek.

2011-11-12T10:15:00.001-08:00

One of the best day's I've had so far on the trip. Climbed seven pitches at Blue Gramma and I could have climbed way more but it got dark. Finally warm too, shirtless for a few pitches even.

*Note many of the routes here have no name.

*Unknown finger crack in corner. 5.10 2x laps. Low angle, my first "real" finger crack of this trip. Yellow Master cams size.
*Unknown corner crack. 5.10 2x laps. Hands to wide hands to OW. A real old-school fight. Very physical.
*Blue Gramma, 5.11. 3x laps. Incredible lay backing in a corner. One of the best I've ever done.

Blue Gramma details. Oh my it doesn't get any better. Unique in that it was a burly, pump fight but no pain at all. Often "hard" routes at the Creek are painful for me (.75 hands) but not pumpy. Blue Gramma had no pain, but buckets of pumpy climbing and lots of fun "I'm just going for it" movement.

Easy 5.9ish jugs and cracks for 40 feet get the route started proper. (no pain just fun romping) The business starts with full on laybacking with smooth feet. Usually lay-backing is what I do when I'm too lazy to jam it proper, or when I get scared and just resort to muscle. Oh this pitch you HAVE to lay-back, the guidebook even says so. On lead it was wild, I was smashing my feet at about the same height as my hands, just cranking for dear life. Putting the pro in blind turned out to be the crux, I botch my on-sight when I grabbed the wrong cam and slipped trying to hunt around for the right piece. I came back and got the red point with better gear beta.

Crux beta for this is turning the layback into straight-in jamming, there is a small notch during the .75 lay-back section thing that can be grabbed like a face hold and helps get out of the lay-back position. It might be possible to layback all 60' of the upper section but after so much lay backing I was glad to straighten it out and jam it even if was off-hands and ensure. Even a bad jam is less scary than laybacking on polished stone.

Really cool name plaque at the base of this route.

At the rest on "Blue Gramma" before launching into the laybacks.

Desert Wonderings: Day 10: Indian Creek.

2011-11-12T09:03:00.000-08:00

Moonrise over the Cat Wall, Indian Creek.

Back to the Creek today and specifically the Cat Wall. (Direct Sun)

Got a bit of a late start getting out of Moab so it was a short day.

*Tom Cat. 5.10 (Some books give it 5.10+) Wide hands in a corner.
* Wild Cat 5.11+++++ Rattly thumb stacks and .75. Rough! Aided most of it.
*Nine lives, 5.12 One hang, no on-sight. 140 feet of hands to thin hands to crux fingers. Soft for the grade.

Deniz on "Nine Lives" Cat Wall.

Wild Cat details. Brick hard, I do not know how to jam this size of crack. I talked to a local about it and he looked dialed on top-rope but refused to lead it, said it was just too tough. I feel his pain. On TR I could sort of make it work for a few minutes at a time but no chance of actually sending it. Funny thing, the bottom of the route has a bolt protected boulder problem on face holds. Many local aces claim this is the crux of the route. This would be true if you only climbed crack and never sport climbed, but for a sport wanker like me (ha yeah right) the boulder problem was trivial. Very wild route but I don't think I'll be back. Took TR lap on it.

*Nine Lives. Incredible and extremely intimidating from the ground. Note the grade is not right on this compared to other Indian Creek routes. One guide gives it 5.12, another 5.11+ but these are soft. Grades make no snese in the Creek anyway so I'll just leave it at that.

Open it with tight #1 hands and gradually widen to perfect #2 hands forever, and I mean forever. Although forever doesn't last and after 90 feet it pinches to #1 and .75. Things are looking grim in the .75 size but just about when the pump is going to kill me a nice jug ledge appears. {(Huge fall potential here as I bet most people are like me and punch it through the .75 section praying for mercy going to the jug ledge)

Hands free ledges big enough to sit on (lowers the grade) leads into some harsh lay backing off the ledge. After the layback, very airy (but easy) change over from right corner to wide hands crack and then to the anchor. Just plain fun. Very good route.

Nine Lives from the bottom.

Desert Wonderings: Day 9: Wall Street.

2011-11-09T07:26:00.000-08:00

Myself leading the roof, Wall Street. Note shirt is still on

Monday was sort of a rest day, hanging around the hostel and catching up on chores (Facebook counts as a chore) Snuck out for a few hours with this Swedish kid, (Pear) Nice dude, he was in love with my car an sprayed me down with all kinda of Saab trivia.

Went to Wall Street and did the usual moderates.
Flaks of Wrath, 5.9. Watched a kid from the UK deck on this from 30 feet up. My suspicion about the "bad" gear on Flakes of Wrath is confirmed. Be careful.

Random TR left of Flakes of Wrath, 5.11 2x laps. I would like to lead this, but it is for sure R rated on lead, no gear for face climbing crux near the end. You'd survive the fall, but it would be huge fall and end up very near the ground.

The roof, I'm not going to say what grade the book gives this pitch, let's just say that turning the roof is an awkward, sandy thrash.

El Cracko Diablo 5.10. Awkward flare to awkward layback.

Random TR to the right of this, 5.11 or it could be 5.12, sandy and crimpy, I was at full power to make the opening moves.

Heading out to Indian Creek today for a few more days or possibly a week. The weather is better now, still cold but clear. Time to get busy!

Thrashing out of the roof, Wall Street. Note shirt off, wouldn't want to botch my send because I was overheating ha!

Desert Wonderings: Day 8: Indian Creek snow-out.

2011-11-08T08:48:00.001-08:00

Deniz at the top of "Generic Crack, 5.10-"

Yes I skipped a day (day 7) but it was the same as the day before, hanging out in Durango watching the snow. After two days of down-time I was anxious to get back to the Creek and do some climbing. I left Durango early Monday morning and made the two hour drive down to Indian Creek. Unfortunately I was a bit too anxious, the weather still hadn't broken and I drove on snow most of the way to Indian Creek. When I got to the parking lot there was only two other cars there and for good reason, 35F and flurries. I really wanted to bail but I promised I'd climb with Deniz so reluctantly I put on every layer I owned and hiked up to
Donnelly Canyon.

Despite the cold and on aging off again snow flurries, it ended up being a good little session, four pitches total. This was the first time on this trip where I felt every route was "easy" and I wasn't struggling. Yay! Of course this will happen when you climb the four easiest pithes at Indian Creek. Ha!

Chocolate Corner- 5.9+. Tight hands in a corner. Took 2x laps. Might be more like 5.10 if you have big hands.
Elephant Man 5.10- Red rocks style with some face holds, fingers to hands through a roof flare and back to tight hands. Easy.
Generic Crack. Endless #2 and #3 jams mixed in with a few OW flare moves down low and again up high. For a bench mark, I thought this was very similar to "Gold Rush." at Trout Creek but just longer and the flared pods made for a bit of grunting.

Unknown girl leading "Chocolate Corner, 5.9+"

Random notes.
Tape. I haven't been using it. So far this hasn't been a problem, no cuts or scabs. I'm not trying to be macho (although true rats down here tell you that putting on tape gloves is the equivalent to having sex with a condom on) . The main reason is that I climb better without the tape, I can get into to thinner cracks and I don't have that annoying numb/pump feeling that I get from poorly made gloves. If I climb anything wide I'd tape up, and for thumb stacks I'd tape my thumbs.

Moab Hostel. My first time at the hostel in Moab and I'm really impressed! $9 gets you showers, a kitchen and a TV for Monday night football. Mostly climbers here so it is a good place to hang out and meet mates. Downside is that it is an hour drive from the hostel to Indian Creek, so the hostel is more useful on wet/cold days when it is miserable at Indian Creek. There is good climbing to be had right around Moab (hitting Wall Street later today) but the real goods are back at Indian Creek. Oh and my tent/camping gear has been sitting unattended out at Indian Creek for the last four days. Hopefully it is still there when I get back.

Desert Wonderings: Day 6: Durango snow-out.

2011-11-06T09:31:00.000-08:00

Friday night the weather came in, snow and wind out in the desert. Thankfully my friend Justin offered to let me stay at his place for a few days in Durango. No climbing to be had up here, but still a lovely place to sit and watch the snow fall. A bit bummed because I wanted to climb in Durango, the bouldering here is great, but oh well. Much thanks to Justin for putting me up, he's a great guy and has a good thing going in Durango. Oh and his dog is so cute! Went for 45 minute run in the snow on Saturday, man running is hard work at 6,500 feet!

Desert Wonderings: Day 5: Indian Creek

2011-11-06T07:29:00.000-08:00

Myself leading the bottom part of "Spaghetti Western, 5.11+" Pistol Whipped Wall.

Day started out fine at camp, but but the time we packed up and made the drive (river crossings in the Saab!) out the the Pistol Whipped Wall it was cold and windy. The six of us sat around the base trying to decide what to do, and how to keep warm. Eventually I got bored and grabbed a bunch of finger sized cams and went up "Steve's Wimpout, 5.10." I got 10' feet into it before my fingers went numb and I sat on the rope. To keep warm I aided the remaining 40' to the anchors so at least we'd have a TR up.

So we spent a few hours TRing this little finger crack, cursing our numb digits and thinking warm thoughts, food, women the comforts of home. We aided another finger crack to the left for the purpose of running TR laps and staying warm, I forgot the name but 5.10+ with a nightmare section of thumb stacks. How do thumb stacks only get 5.10+? Grim. I ran 3x laps and slowly figured out the thumb stack.

I was fixated with this beautiful over-hangging crack to the left, Spaghetti Western. The pitch looks like a smooth overhanging wave split by a crack in the corner, I was really drawn to it but also had that awful tummy feeling, I was intimidated and scarred. I kept egging others on with the hope the someone would lead it for me and I'd get a TR on it. Late in the day and still no takers. Now everyone was egging me on and I was feeling the pressure. After a bunch of excuses I had to do it. It is a crack after all, what's the worst that' going to happen, I fall? Maybe I French Free a few moves? I'm starting to realize in these situations that it isn't the route that I fear, it is fear of failure. This burning desire to only do things that I know I can do, and the fear of doing things that I might fail on. Wait a minute, this isn't the first time I've climbed a crack, I know how to make a hand jam.

Turned out to be one of the best lead experiences I've had in a long time, a real battle with a variety of sizes. I lay backed the bottom, this actually worked well as I was able to motor through the dreaded .75 and #1BD size and then right into the #2 Wave section of the pitch. The wave was a dream but super pumped, overhanging jams forever, so magical. The #2 Jams end at a roof and you exit to the left on off-fingers. This is where the rad gets super rad. I stood there a good while trying to man-up for a good 20 feet of .75 jams, a bit scared at this point as I had no more .75 gear. A few minutes of thinking and I pushed on, actually not bad at all as there is double cracks that can be bear hugged. A thrash for life squeeze chimney right below the chains finished the deal. Yay!

Spaghetti Western beta. Layback/thumb stack bottom 20 feet gradually widening to off-hands and then tight hands. Jam overhanging #2 hands for a long ways. Turn roof left using smaller crack protected by Orange Master cam. Turning the roof is actually easy as there is good feet to the left. Get established above roof on double crack system, jam or bear hug double .75 crack to where it widnes to #2 hands. Jam #2 hands till it gradually widens to squeeze chimney below chains. Squeeze chimney is protected by #3 BD at the bottom of it, no wide gear needed.

Gear Beta for bottom. 2x Orange Master Cam. 2X #.75 BD, 2x #1BD, 5x #2BD.
Gear for above the roof. 1x Yellow Master cam. 1X Orange master cam or Purple BD. 1x .75 BD, 1x #3 BD. Optional #2 BD.
70M rope barely makes it, belay from pedestal.
Grade???? Some say 5.11+ some say 5.11- This is the Creek so who knows. I like steep hands so at 5.11+ I thought it was soft.

Desert Wonderings: Day 4: Indian Creek

2011-11-05T10:17:00.000-07:00

I wish this one my pictures, but no just some random photo I stole from the internet. (sorry I couldn't find a photo credit) We had no camera for my send, but I have a good memory of it. It really is as good as the picture looks. "Deseret Moon, 5.11+, Cat Wall."

Finally starting to meet some people at the campsite and get some real climbing in. The crew went up to Cat Wall, nice big wall in direct sun. A bit hot but it felt good after a long cold night sleeping in the dirt.

Warmed-up on Tom Cat, 5.10. Warm-up my ass, even the warm-ups out here are a good workout. Sustained #2s and 3s in a corner for 90 feet. I got a tad pumped up high has it was cupped hands for me.

Next-up rather intimidating looking "Deseret Moon, 5.11+" The start is the most vicious flare I've ever been on, (or in as the case might be). Just smashing my back into the wall trying to get something to stick. No wide gear needed, the flare protects with micro cams, although you have to do the hardest part of the flare, (360 spin around in the slot" with a good chance of hitting the ledge. It took me 10 minutes to thrash through 15 feet of climbing, thought I was going to puke from the effort. My back is black and blue from the the thrashing.

After all that fuss, the upper 100 feet is a dream, I'm going to say it is the best hand-crack at IC but I'm sure I'll say that a lot on this trip. Starts out .75 size and widnes to perfect #2s, for real! So good but so pumped. No falls. Climb is 150 feet, one 70M rope isn't long enough as I found out.

Again another stolen picture. Damn it, I hate to do it but I needed something to remind myself of this climb. That upper section is so good. "Deseret Moon, 5.11+, Cat Wall."

Took a few laps on this via Tope rope. Also climbed this awful unnamed 5.10 on the far left side of Cat Wall. Only 70 feet long but grim. Starts out in a flared pod and goes to #1 hands. I fought very hard on this, almost as hard as any of the 5.11s I've done on this trip.

Ok finally an image that came from my camera. TR lap on "Deseret Moon" Wide flare that crushed my back visible at the bottom. Noel is getting into the upper parts in this picture. Oh and before I forget, that isn't a typo on the route name, that's how its spelled, really. French or some such shit.

Desert Wonderings: Day 3: Indian Creek

2011-11-05T10:03:00.000-07:00

Early morning view from the campground.

Late start, snow on the ground but sunny. Most folks went into town to thaw out. Around noon I hiked up to the Battle of the Bulge wall and again put out the tin cup in hopes of catching a belay. First up was the amazing "Three Strikes your out, 5.11" 90 feet of #1 cams in a corner. I tried to jam it straight in as best I could but ended up lay-backing the bottom 1/4th of the pitch, the #1 size is doable but lay-backing is sooo much faster. Old habits die hard.

Took 2x TR laps on "Sweedin-Ringle, 5.12" I got crushed, sustained .75 size for a long way. That size is gona kill me. The main problem the toe pain I'm having, I might need bigger shoes, way bigger shoes Even my Mocs cause my toes to curl and crush the big toe on these .75 size cracks.

TR lap on the "Battle of the Bulge, 5.11" Another sustained #1BD corner with a bugle in the middle. I was lazy and lay-backed the whole pitch. I'd say this is cheating, but I saw a local do the same thing and placed almost no gear. Bam!

Road life thoughts. My emotions are kinda up and down. Down right now as it 20F outside and it looks like the cold weather is here to stay. In the sun it isn't too bad, still climbable, but the rest of the time is kinda awful, just being cold and dealing with frozen gear. It is also a bit strange to have this much alone time, just lots of time in the tent with books etc. There is lots of folks around and people are nice but there is a limit to how time you can sit around the fire talking about how much you miss pussy. Like a damn ship at sea, some of these guys have been out here for months just smelling like death and thinking about girls. The good life!

Climber campgrounds are always the same, unemployed people living out of cars climbing and what not. Indian Creek is no different, but being so far from town makes it really feel like a refuge camp. In my urban life friends admire each other for a new car, nice apartment, big house etc. Out here the standards of "value" are low, I had four people come up to me in the last day and compliment me on my stove, a $60 camp stove makes me upper class here. Of course the big dogs here have vans, everyone is envious of them as we shiver in the wind cooking dinner. Only in this world would people be envious of someone living in a van, it is all relative I suppose.

Sweedin-Ringle

Desert Wonderings: Day 2: Indian Creek

2011-11-05T09:51:00.000-07:00

Spent the early part of the day running errands around Moab; bought some more food, crack tape, took a shower at the rec center. On a whim I made a quick stop out at Wall Street on the outskirts of town. I didn't really have any climbing plans, maybe self belay myself using the Saab for an anchor. Thankfully some nice kids took pity on me and gave me a belay on "flakes of wrath, 5.9" Super fun, just like I remember it from college. I climbed it kinda stiff like, more just nervous excitement of finally being on real sandstone. I sort of forgot that the gear on this route is kinda tricky, the flakes would take bomber hexes or big nuts but of course I didn't have those with me so I ended up with a few cams open like nuts and ran it out to the under-cling.

Got into Indian Creek around 3:00PM and made a quick hike up to the Supercrak buttress with hopes of stealing a belay. At first I wasn't getting much response to my "please can I get a belay?" but eventually some monkeys that were on "Coyne Crack, 511+" hooked me up with a TR. Ouch, rough intro to Indian Creek, even with the TR set-up I still flailed, the bottom is an awful off-hands/ring-locks nightmare. I'm going to have to get better at that size. Right at sunset a nice lady let me lead "Incredible Hand Crack," my first time up this mega classic. Sweet!

Night. Awful! Rain, snow and wind. Tried to sleep in the car but it wasn't very comfy. Eventually pitched tent in the middle of a blizzard. This could be a tough few weeks out here.

Desert Wonderings: Day 1: The Bend

2011-10-31T20:44:00.000-07:00

*I'm down in the desert, (Utah, Arizona, Nevada) for the next 4-6 weeks living out of my car and climbing a bit, or a lot as the case might be. I'll try to transcribe my hand written journal that I keep and post it here. We'll see how that goes given the lack of internet access in this part of the world.*

Sunday- Leave PDX, drive 11 hours or so and spend the night sleeping in the front seat at some rest-stop. Boring drive but easy.

Monday. Finish drive to Moab Utah. Only note worthy event is that a cop pulled me over for excessive window tint. (?) Sort of a lucky break for me as I got pulled over during one of the few times I wasn't speeding.

Got into Moab about 4:00ish and drove straight out to the Big Bend boulders. Not a huge area but fun and really nice views. I climbed for about 1.5 hours, mostly easy stuff. The heat made all of the well chalked holds feel a bit slick and I dry fired a few times off huge jugs. One really fun traverse problem on hugs jugs with no feet, just kind monkey swing left on good holds. Did 6-8 other easy routes and one sort of harder line with an optional crack ring lock finish. Camped out across the road from the boulders tonight.

Feels good to be back down here, my first time here was my freshmen year in college. I was awed by the amount of rock I saw, I thought this kind of scenery only existed in the Movies. I'm a little more jaded now but still find the stillness of the desert impressive, it is dark and quiet like no other.

Summer climbing wrap-up 2011.

2011-10-25T08:52:00.000-07:00

As always, way behind with the blog updates. I thought being jobless would give me lots of time to work on the blog but not so much. I always seem to find things to do, most of September and October was lost doing boat work, trying to prepare the boat for a trip to Mexico that never happened. That's all behind me now and I'm finally getting in some pitches. Thoughts on some routes I've done in the last few months.

Squamish- Angles Crest linked into High Plains Drifter.

Random internet photo of the incredible "High Plains Drifter."

Sort of a mini epic with this route. I've tried to do Angles Crest two other times with different partners but got lost both times trying to find the route. So silly as this one of the most well traveled routes in Squamish and even has signs at the road pointing to the route. I feel bad as I dragged Micha up the wrong gully system and climbed 1,000+ feet of dirt climbing before conceding that we were nowhere near Angles Crest and in fact were on some obscure ridge climb on the left side of the Chief.

With better beta (try looking at the sign in the parking lot) Dan and I started up the classic Angles Crest. Super classic and super crowded. There was 4 or 5 other parties in front of us despite it being a weekday and we spent more time on ledges waiting for crowds to thin. Eventually we made it up to pitch 15 where you can un-rope and move right to the base of "High Plains Drifter."

High Plains drifter is a 2 pitch variation to Angles Crest that the book describes as "The best hand-crack in the known Universe." That's a lofty claim, I pride myself on having climbed most of the classic hand cracks out there and was stoked to see if this pitch lived up to the hype. The hype is true, this pitch de-throwns all of the other classic hand-cracks that I've been on, truly the best of the best for that style of climbing! The pitch is 2,000 feet off the deck and very airy, just laser cut leaning to the left so it feels like your jamming on a blank wall, which you are.

This pitch is graded 5.11, at first I was surprised at the grade, how can a #2 hand-crack be 5.11? Usually a hand crack is going to be 5.10 at most. Before leading the route I was thinking this was another case of over-grading that is so common in Squamish. Nope, I had to fight to get the on-sight, very much a 5.11 crack. The jams are great but physical and deep, I was jammed up to my elbow most of the time. To further increase the pump, the crack learns to the left, so the left foot is just kinda skating around on a blank face much of the time. Amazing! So good.

Beta for High Plains Drifter.
Gear. 3x #2. 2x #3, 1x #4 for Pod up high. A few finger and .75 size pieces for the finish. The bottom 80 feet took 5 hand sized pieces, I unloaded all of my #2s and #3s at the bottom. The #4 will drop in 80 feet up at the pod, below the chains a finger sized piece will go in.

Tree climbing at the start of Angels Crest, we must be in Squamish.

Leading the Angle Crack pitch low on Angles Crest, 5.10.

Leading "High Plains Drifter." 5.11.

Post High Plains Drifter pump. I thought hand cracks were supposed to be easy?

Squamish- Milk Run, 7 or 8 pitches 5.10D.

Sort of a contrived and whacky route to gain access to one of the best corner pithes anywhere. The upper pitches are a dirty affair complete with a bolted squeeze chimney. We elected to to move left onto the last few pitches of "Freeway" bumping the grade up to low 5.11. The real reason you do this route is pitch 3 and 4. Pitch 4 is 180 feet of fingers layback, it just goes and goes. As always, you get some good feet on the face, but the business of the climb is just keeping moving and conserving your gear. Gear for pitch 4 is this: At least 4 Orange Master Cams or equivalent, 2 or 3 yellow master cams. Even with this rack you'll have to space the gear out. Save a hand sized piece for up high in the bulge.

Gunsight peak. North Cascades National Park With Doug, Chris, and Jaime.

Gunsight Range at sunrise, photo Jaime.

Chris wrote up a good report on his blog. Jaime has some great pictures here.

Long story short, I suffered on this trip. Proper suffering. I don't mind big days on the wall and pushing hard but this was different, the hike in was what killed me. Instead of climbing I became a human donkey hauling junk through a jungle of underbrush. I have lots I want to say about this but as whole this style of climbing is in conflict with how I like to climb. My ideal style of alpine climbing is to put on the running shoes, run the approach, solo the route and be down before dark. Obviously this method isn't going to work on peaks like Gunsight that are really remote, however as a whole I much prefer a faster style of climbing. This is one of many reason to get better at climbing without a rope; less junk, less work, more fun. One of the better alpine climbs I've been on was two years ago when I soloed Bugaboo spire, I tagged the summit in less then 3 hours from when I started. I did the same climb a year later with a partner and it took us 12 hours to cover the same ground.

All and all an experience I'm glad I had, just not sure that I'll be doing it again. Big props to Jaime, Chris and Doug. Those guys are nails strong and it really shows on these types of trips, I was always in the back trying to keep up with them.

Foot suffering, two days of wet feet and miles of hiking is no good for foot health.

Portland Cragging

Beacon Rock- Pipeline, 5.11B.
Got the red point with Micah on belay. The last time I tried this route with Chris (3 or 4 years ago) I got pushed around and pulled on gear. Felt much better (but still painful) this time around and I clipped the chains without too much fuss. One of my new fav routes at Beacon, kinda physical which is cool.

Trout Creek
I've only been down twice this fall, both times were just screw off times in 90F+ heat. Lots of fun but not productive. On the upside I tried Alchemy a few times. The only news to report on this is that I fell, a long way. This is actually good, I'm now to the point where the fall is normal and I'm starting to accept it. Better yet, I feel comfortable placing less gear and running it out, I think that's the only way this route will ever get done.

Smith Rock
I've been at Smith the last few weekends and really dig it, still a clown show there but a lot of fun climbing with Alex, Rachel and Jacob. Two weeks ago I red pointed "Bolt out of the Blue." on the Shipwreck wall. I really dig this route and it was the perfect mini project, took me 5 or 6 tries to get it. At 5.12 it isn't all that hard but it is 35M long an requires a bit of endurance to get to the chains. The bottom has a nice roof boulder problem at the third bolt, then easy scrambling to huge ledge that you can sit on. The upper section gradually over-hangs a bit and is sustained crisp edge work. No real crux but there is 3 -4 bolts in a row without any real resting holds. Beta spoiler. On the roof crux down low, keep right hand on under-cling and move left hand to jug hold. It feels natural to go up with the right hand but this makes the clip hard and puts you out of sequence for the moves going right.

Lucille is beautiful

2011-08-23T23:11:00.001-07:00

Lucille under sail North of Orca Island, San Juan's August 2011.

The people make the difference

2011-08-10T09:04:00.001-07:00

(I think the title of this post is a rip-off of some cheesy corporate slogan but my brain couldn't come up with a proper title)

I'm leaving Squamish in a few hours to begin the long sail back South. Leaving port is always an emotional thing, but more so when leaving such a lovely place like Squamish.

Of all the climbing, sailing, and silliness that took place, the things that I'll remember the most are the people I've met along the way and old friends that supported me on this trip. The long-run outs, red points, wet cracks, and brilliant sun, those things will fade from memory but the people will always stick with me. Thanks to everyone, especially all the kind Canadians, I love you all!

"And the Sea will grant each man new hope, as sleep brings dreams of home."

From Beneath you it Devours

2011-08-05T11:53:00.000-07:00

My good friend Micha about to start up the bolt ladder below Perry's Layback, Grand Wall Squamish. Micha's first time up the Grand, he crushed it!

From Beneath you it Devours 5.12C, Forgotten Wall.

In the time since I started this blog post, I red pointed this really fabulous crack roof at Check yesterday (see below for more details) I was thinking this would be a good summer's long project but it turns out it was only a two day project. Total of five tries over two days. Felt so good that after red pointing it I came back later in the day and lead it again. I'm going spray loud on this one and say this is the best single pitch sport climb I've ever done. Steep, burly jamming with some boulder problems thrown in. Maybe a tad soft for the grade but who cares, f***ing rad route! I'm very excited that I was able to do it and still have energy left in the tank, I want to find something really hard to work on next! Actually my new plan ( I woke up last night thinking about it) is to lead this route on gear, skipping the bolts. The gear looks mostly good, placing it might be tough but I'm thinking about it.

From Beneath you it Devours, 5.12C

*5.10B Warm-up
*5.11 Warm-up unkown
*Rug Munchers, 5.11D, 4x or 5x laps ( I lost count)
*From Beneath you it Devours 5.12C Red Point 2x laps.

The other day.. Sport climb with Jacob and Dana. Forgotten wall. Jacob red points 5.12D and 5.12C in a day! That man is on fire!

*Warm-up. Unknown 5.11.
*Rug Muncher 5.11D. Sort of like Overboard at Smith, this is the warm-up to do and pumpy at the grade.
*From Beneath you it Devours. 5.12C 4x laps, no red point. (see below)
*Creepy, 5.11.

From Beneath you it Devours. The most obvious line on the wall has gotten into my head and now I must send this route. Unlike the other 5.12s I've done this summer, this one is long and burly. Overhanging crack type feature with bolts. After sending Boiler Room (5.12D) last week I felt like this would be the next step up, not a just a 7 move boulder problem but a real battle of a route. So battle is what I did, the first two tries were working sessions, learning the moves. I was fist jamming and ring locking on overhanging terrain and just sliding around, trashing my skin even with tape gloves on (When's the last time you taped up for a sports climb?) I gave it two honest red point burns, both times messing up key beta, having problems sticking this slick one finger lock while moving up to a side pull. Maybe a few more days of working it.

Tuesday crack day with Micha, various Smoke Bluffs and Chief.

*5.9 by parking lot, nice fingers.
*5.10C left of Oregon Express. Trick slab moves. 30 foot run-out above the last piece
*5.10C shorty 30 foot tall over-hanging crack problem right of Oregon Express. Thug! Micah fights for the on-sight.
*Penny Lane. 5.9.
*Crime of the Century, 5.11C 2x laps.
*Seasoned in the sun 5.10B. Amazing tight hands and ring locks. Felt really secure, placed no gear for the upper section and

Seasoned in the sun 5.10B.

Wednesday: Grand Wall with Micha. 5.11 9 or 10 pitches.

I had to climb this route at least once this trip. No red point for me, had a little issue on the Sword pitch but overall it felt really chill. It is a real treat to get to a point in my climbing where I can do routes like the Grand without getting all worked up about it, just tie in and go. Micha led the Spit Pillar and Perry's layback and I lead the rest of the pitches. I had to climb through an awful wet patch on the slabs on Merci Me. The other head's up spot was the 5.10B traverse pitch going down to the base of the Pillar. Not super hard, but I elected not to place any gear once I turned the corner and was rather run-out on slab feet. Ugh.

Gear notes. We brought too much gear, this is what we should have brought.
Doubles Yellow Master Cam-#3 BD.
1x Red C3
Tripple Orange Master cam or Red Alien size piece for Sword Pitch.
Tripple #1 BD for Split Pillar.
No #4 needed. ( We placed it twice but could do without it.)
No nuts needed. Many runners for the aid ladder.

Weekend

2011-08-01T09:01:00.000-07:00

Rug munchers, 5.11D

Friday- Sport climbing at Check with Jacob and Dana

Sort of a goof off day, shot pictures of Jacob on "Boiler Room, 5.12D" and climbed a few routes myself. Dana came real close to a 5.11 red point of "caring is creepy"
*5.10 warm-up right side of wall. Down climb
*Rug Munchers 5.11D. 1x lap to warm-up.
*Unknown 5.11 left of Boiler Room.
*Caring is creepy, 5.11. No falls.
*3x attempts on Boiler Room, 5.12D. I just went up and did the dyno a few times and bailed, the upper boulder problem hurts my shoulder so no need to do it again.
*Rug Munchers 5.11D. ( get in position to shoot pictures)
*Rug Munchers 5.11D. 3x laps on TR. That's 5x times in a day on that route, I need a new route to work on.

Saturday.

Calculus Crack (5.8 5 pithes) with Michelle after wakeboarding in the AM with Frank.

Sunday
Rest day. Loggers festival and sailing in Howe Sound at night on Lucille. Checked out the deep water soloing.

Catching up...

2011-07-28T21:39:00.000-07:00

Blog is way past overdue but it is hard to keep up. I sailed my boat to Squamish about a month ago, just living on the boat and climbing a bunch. I'll try to transcribe my paper journal soon but anyway here's my stab at trying to keep up..

Yesterday- July-27th Sport climbing at Check.

Unknown 5.10A Forgotten Wall.
Rug Munchers. 5.11D 2x laps
Unknown 5.11 left of Rug Munchers, On-sight
Boiler Room, 5.12D. Once through working it, two times to red point. Happy times!
Caring is Creepy, 5.11. Hard crimps up top, no on-sight

So yeah I sent my hardest route yet, Boiler Room 5.12D. My previous best was 5.12B so hey, moving up in the world. Actually the number grade means nothing to me, I've fought way harder on wet 5.10 cracks and am more proud of other "easy" ascents then this one. Still, I'm just a weee bit stoked that I took down this route in about 1 hour from seeing it to clipping the chains. I'm even more stoked that I did it with my own beta. Although honestly Boiler Room feels soft compared to those thin Smith horror shows.

On my flash attempt I realized right away that I couldn't lock out the crimper and move to the jug. However I figured that I could dyno ( and I mean like dyno, all points off flying around) right past the crimper to the jug. The locals that were projecting claimed that the dyno made for good "spectating" Haha true enough, I took a few violent falls trying to stick the dyno, on my 5th or 6th try I got it and moved onto the other boulder problem. (Suck it to whoever says my beta doesn't work!) The other boulder problem was a shouldery nightmare and after a few hangs I figured it out as well. Pulled the rope, took a rest and sent the 2nd time around.

Always funny how these things are so anticlimactic, I guess because I didn't have a lot invested it and it just sort of fell in my lap. I'd be way more excited to send a hard route at Trout Creek but I'll take what I can get.

Bolier Room 5.12D.
Climb 4 bolts on well spaced jugs to huge edge. Make all points dyno to next jug ledge. OR crimp right hand, lock off and heel hook and move left to jug ( V5 or better) Rest on jug. Pinch on loaf above jug and do crazy hand foot match on jug. After hand foot matching move left to awful slap arete thing and slap up. (shoulder pain!) Make quick move to bad underling out right and stand up to better crimp jugs. Clip bolt, move up left and then right on easier terrain. Much thanks to Tanner from Vancouver for the beta and support, he's been working this line for two years and sent right before me. Way to crush it! Thanks for the belays Dana.

Today July 28th-Squamish Buttress with Jacob. 5.10C 14 pitches.

Yawn. It was fun to be out in the sun goofing off but I'm bored of this route. Simuled much of the route with a small rack. I forgot that there's no bolts on Saint Vitus and had to jig a belay with one bad nut. Yikes! No falls, passed a few parties and took a one hour lunch break. Five hours and change.

Spring Training

2011-05-27T10:42:00.000-07:00

Just got back from a two week trip to Morocco, it is going to take me a bit of time to process all of the pictures and gather my thoughts.

Before leaving for Morocco I went on 2-3 month training spree to get ready for some long bolted limestone routes in Morocco. This was the first big trip I've ever taken where the focus was on bolted sport routes, not long trad lines so I figured the best training was to get in really good sports climbing shape. Thankfully this isn't rocket science, pull a bunch of plastic and climb Smith on the weekends. My training plan sort of went off the rails (it always does) but at the end of all this nonsense I got in the best climbing shape of my life, my finger strength has never been better.

Unfortunately I didn't really do much with my new found strength; poor weather, work obligations and other BS prevented me from getting up any note-worthey projects at Smith. Still, there was a lot of good days in there and I enjoyed watching other folks crush it.

*Note I lost all of my pictures from this Spring during a data transfer glitch*

A few things that come to mind from this Spring at Smith.

*Watching Ryan send "To bolt or not to be." I'm sure Ryan has climbed harder routes, but this was a special send and I'm glad I got to see it. Oh sure, seems like everyone and their dog climbs 5.14 these days, however I feel like "To bolt" takes something more then big forearms. Wouldn't matter how strong I got, the complex beta and trickery would keep from ever getting up that thing. Truly and improbable looking route.

Ryan on To Bolt or Not to Be, Photo Kris Taylor.

*Alex sending "Darkness at Noon." I absolutely love this route and it was the first time I've ever seen anyone red point it. Super funny, poor Alex gets to the anchors on his send and realizes he's got nothing to clip the chains with and has to take the whipper. Alex is having a great Smith year, he is the smartest climber I know and figures out beta really quickly. I feel like I can climb a full number grade higher with him talking me through the moves.

As for myself, most of my Smith days were spent haphazardly running around the park trying to pack in as much milage as I could, so I never got any projects done. Boo. At some point in late April I did send "Panic Attack, 5.12" after two tries. Probably the easiest 5.12 in the park, however I was stoked to get it at the end of the day after climbing 8-10 other pitches in the 5.11-5.11+ range.

Training thoughts.

It would be hard for me to say if my training was effective or not, the acid test is what you did on the rock and I honestly didn't do a whole lot this Spring. However, in the gym I saw gains in my plastic skills, I finally got to a point where I can climb 5.12 routes back to back at the gym without too much fuss. Two nights ago I sent a .12+ at the gym on my second try, never done that before. So there, I suck at outdoor climbing but seem to have learned a few things about plastic pulling.

Climbing ropes at the gym doesn't make you stronger.

I finally realized it this year even though I've heard it forever , running laps at PRG will not make you stronger. The problem is this: even on a gym 5.12 the holds are still mostly jugs. Sure, you might get a little pumped or whatever but you're never having to bear down the way you would on Smith crimps. Climbing routes at PRG makes you good at climbing short jug hauls, but how many of those are there in the Northwest?

Now people will say, they climb ropes at PRG to get endurance. I say that is nonsense too. The routes are tool short to count as endurance, more like power endurance. You'd have to lap a route 2-3 times before you could call it endurance. Ok so yes I still get pumped while doing routes at PRG, but the fix is simple; move faster. With a bit of "hurry up and move" mentality, a 40 foot gym route breaks down into two boulder problems. Take one short break somewhere in the middle to chalk-up and shake but that's it. When I do it right, it takes about 2-3 minutes to do a gym route on lead, this ins't endurance but a sprint.

Bouldering is good.

I took 6-8 weeks off from indoor roped climbing and just bouldered. This is what everyone recommends doing and indeed it helps. It amazes me that people say they want to get better at climbing but refuse to boulder, bouldering makes the holds on long routes feel big. I got so used to pulling on small holds at the Circuit, that when I came back to roped climbing at PRG everything felt like jugs. Bouldering gives me a bit of mental boost too, I come into a move with the rope on and it feels kinda hard but I tell myself " this is probably a V2 move, no big deal."

The problem with the bouldering gym is that it is hard to be disciplined, it is very social and so hard to buckle down and actually get some climbing in. One method I came up with is to do a problem once every 2 minutes for an hour, plus warm-up/cool down. I try to keep every problem near my limit, 30 hard problems an hour. Ends up being 30 cut-off conversations every hour too, sorry about that.

Bouldering and fitness.

I cut back on lifting weights and running this Spring in favor of bouldering. My fingers got strong but my overall fitness is poor right now. I noticed it a bit on some of the big days we had in Morocco, I wasn't pumped but my legs were tired from the approaches and descents. So that is the downside with bouldering, make you a bit unbalanced. Climbing ropes at PRG sort of helps in this area, running laps on vertical routs helps keep the legs fresh.

My goal now is to retain some of my finger strength as I start working on some other areas, running, biking lifting weights. Getting back into all-day trad climbing shape in preparation for alpine rock season.

The crux here is will I be able to retain my finger strength if I cut back on bouldering? The easy answer is to do both: If time was unlimited a good alpine rock training schedule for me would look like this:

Monday-Weights/Cardio 3 hours

Tuesday- Boulder 2 hours

Wednesday- Weights/Cardio 3 hours

Thursday- Boulder 2 hours

Friday- Rest

Weekend-Outdoor climbing.

The problem here is that this type of schedule means you have no life, work and working out with no time to do dishes or have a beer. So this is a tough one. Most likely I'll do two days of cardio and weights, one day bouldering and try to sneak in 2x hang board sessions every week and try to keep up my usual 30 minute lunch runs every day.

The 2011 climbing season starts in Vegas

2011-03-10T15:14:00.000-08:00

Jaime excited for his first day of real rock climbing of the 2011 season. Smith Rock, early February.

The rock climbing season is heating up, actually it started way back in mid January with several weeks of warm weather. Shirtless climbing at Smith in January?! It did happen, I was there and it was lovely. We had a bit of the usual downtime in February when the awful weather returned, but for 2011 I've gotten on real rock eight days. Three days at Smith back in January/February and five days down at Red Rocks/LA County the end of February.

Red Rocks.

Red Rocks again, yep I should buy a car and just leave it down there for all the time I spend there. Nothing too exciting as the weather wasn't really fit for big routes, see a trip report of our climb up the Pink Tornado here. No big routes this time but I did get to goof off on the usual Red Rocks jug hauls with Caleb, super recreational to soak up the rays at the sunny and Steep Cave with a good friend.

The only real objective that I had in mind for my trip to Vegas took just a few minutes to climb. I really wanted to solo Atman (5.10, Kraft Mountain) and this is what I did on my very first route of the trip. Fly from PDX, drive on the freeway, hike-in, climb Atman without a rope, bam the trip was success for me and everything else is a freebie. I'm very excited about this route, it is difficult to find routes that are good to do without a rope and this one is perfect; locker jams, just hard enough to keep from being boring and a proper walk-off. The joy comes finding the perfect route and climbing it like you would if you were a kid out climbing trees.

Atman base, 40' of great jams.

A bit harder than I anticipated, the crack leans slightly to right and overhangs. Perfect #2 jams!

The top-out is the only tricky part, the jams get wide to rattly fists. I'm no good at fist jams and elected to monkey out some holds on the right which turned out to be a lot fun.

The other highlight of the trip was watching Caleb demolish just about everything we got on. He had never been to Red Rocks before so I made a point to take him to all the fun crags, Sunny and Steep the first day and another day up on the Sweet Pain wall. Caleb got the onsite of all the good ones, Sweet Pain (5.12-) Sunny and Steep (5.11+) and bunch of 5.11s, fun to watch him work. My climbing performance wasn't that great, I dogged on two of the 5.12s that I had red pointed previously and slopped around on some skanky 5.10+ in the Black Corridor.

Caleb, Sunny and Steep wall.

Climbing Southern California style
We left Red Rocks (or rather were blown out by a cold wind) heading back into LA with dreams of sun and warmth. My bad luck was holding as it snowed in LA during my first day in town, first time in 30 years I'm told. Still, it is LA so the snow didn't really amount to much and after sitting through a power outage at some trendy club and eating In and Out Burgers at 1:00 AM, we finally got to do some climbing at Stoney Point.

Stoney Point California. Truly a historic climbing spot, Royal Robbins, Yvon Chouinard, Lynn Hill, John Long etc, all of the original Stone Masters climbed here. Hard to imagine that given how ugly this place is. There is some fun boulder problems, but a lot of rock crumbles to the touch and the smell of horse manure from a nearby farm mixed with freeway noise makes for an interesting experience.

Caleb deploying Nate heel hook beta, so proud of myself, my beta NEVER works. Unfortunately neither one of us were able to stick the next hard move to a high left crimp. Hard and fun.

Zach going for the drop knee on a rather nice looking boulder a few feet from the highway. Again nobody was able to top this one out. Looked like just one or two hard moves coming off this drop kneed to a small drilled pocket. Double hard as the key foot was slick as snot from the recent rain.

Malibu Creek State Park.

Our last day in LA we made a quick stop at Malibu Creek State Park in the foothills above Malibu. For being so close to LA, this place has good scenery, the 30 minute hike-in through rolling hills felt like something out of a Steinbeck novel. Still being right outside of LA the place was crawling with hard core choppers and rich pricks in Maseratis. No joke, at the trail head an unbroken convoy of 20 cars drove by, not one of these cars cost less then 100K.

Zach about to take on the deep water solo on the approach to the Ghetto wall. For a sports crag, the hike in was full on. The stream that you normally cross was flooded preventing thwarting an easy crossing. To gain access to the first set of cliffs, a slippery 5th class solo above dirty water was required, kinda sketch as the rock was soaking wet from the rain and moss. Several folks fell in the drink, S&R came out and rescued some soaking wet climbers who were to afraid to risk going for a swim on the way back.

Zach unknown 5.10+. Many of the routes near the stream are short and overhanging on sharp jug pockets, vey much like limestone. Climbing here on a regular basis would give you big arms and horrible footwork.

Zach unknown 5.11bish

Could the holds be any bigger?

Post almost drowning on the way to the cliff.

All kinds of famous people in LA

Bouldering: The purest form of climbing.

2010-12-29T11:41:00.001-08:00

Caleb engaged in the most simplistic form of climbing. Black Magic V5, the Happys Bishop CA. Photo courtesy of Jaime Bohle

It has been 5 weeks since I touched real rock, the last time I climbed outdoors was over Thanksgiving break. A good crew of Portland folks made the trek down to Bishop for a few days of block climbing. My first time down to Bishop and my first ever bouldering trip. I was a bit skeptical going into this trip and had all the usual negative stereotypes about bouldering in my head. Why would you want to climb on little rocks when you can climb big rocks? All those bro-bras that boulder are so annoying, my clothes aren't cool enough to boulder in, there's no risk in it so it isn't exciting blah blah. After four days of fun routes and sore tips I'm starting to think that these little bouldering punks might be on to something.

Jodi climbing one of the tall ones at the Buttermilks. Don't even think about falling off this one, broken bones for sure.

Normally when I close my eyes and think of the the purest form of climbing I'm thinking of myself free climbing up a huge dihedral system on a remote wall far away from other people surrounded by unspoiled wilderness, that's my dream. This is in stark contrast to the typical scene in Bishop, I recall one problem had a gang of 20 teenagers standing around screaming (and I do mean screaming) beta as each person lined up to take a spin. Wow,that sounds like hell! My version of climbing (alpine rock climbing) is so much better. Maybe I've been taught that alpine climbing is the holly grail of climbing, or maybe just because I'm good at jamming cracks and bad at making dynos, but if I really had to think about it, perhaps bouldering (or free soloing/deep water soloing) is the most honest and pure form of climbing?

Risk
Typically we think of alpine climbing as being risky, I mean nobody writes books about people freezing to death while bouldering! Although I just about did freeze to death camping at Bishop. For some reason the fact that people die while doing an activity somehow makes it bad ass and more respected. I'm not aware of anyone that has died bouldering so it is "safe" and less bad ass. Certainly all the bouldering kids would say things like "Wow leading on gear looks so scary." Yes, for bouldering the really short problems, there isn't much risk with a good pad and spotter. However, once we start looking at the taller problems, and there is many of them at Bishop, the chances of getting injured are high. While climbing down there I often pussed out and jumped off before I got too high up. I enjoy soloing easy crack climbs, but the problems at Bishop are often at my limit with a slim chance of success. Exciting! Reminds me of my youth when I skated and snowboarded a lot, those brief flashes of adrenaline where the only thought is how much the ground is going to hurt if I botch this trick.

In the alpine realm the risks are often more sustained and subtle so it feels safer. (or maybe I've grown numb to the danger) Yeah getting hit by lighting on the summit would suck, but there is nothing exiting or bad ass about getting struck by lighting while eating lunch. Getting hit in the head with falling rock while slogging up an approach gully, ouch that would ruin the day but again there's no adrenaline there. So yes, there's tons of risk alpine climbing, lots of it you can't control so it doesn't feel exciting. Sort of like going through daily life, sure I might get hit by a bus but that's just part of life. On the tall boulders the danger is short lived and very real, I make this move or I hit the ground from way up here. The danger seems more amplified because I'm 100% at my limit making moves that seem impossible. Sure, I've had to red line it occasionally on a long alpine climb, but usually there's a rope and gear between me and the ground.

Two of the world's hardest and boldest boulder problems on full display. The Grandpa Peabody Boulder, home to "Lucid Dreaming" and the highball, "Ambrosia." At 45 feet tall, I'm not sure if you can really call this a boulder problem anymore but oh my what a thing of beauty.

Bouldering is for the proletariat, Alpinism is for the bourgeoisie.
Increasingly alpinism is becoming a sport for rich folks and kids living off the trust fund. The thought first hit me when I was in Bugs this summer packing my bag, when fully loaded my backpack contained about 5k in kit. (shit, I shouldn't brag on the internet, someone is going to rob me again) Most of this gear will last a few years before I break or lose it. Sure, you could climb with less fancy gear, hell people climbed Mt Hood in wool skirts 100+years ago, but let's face it climbing with crappy gear is no fun and might be unsafe. I'm not keen to run it out with a rack of Hexes while wearing leather boots. All this gear and the money is in conflict with why I go to to the mountains in the first place, to get away from all that crap.

The cost of gear is small potatoes compared to the cost of traveling to world class alpine climbing destinations. AK, Patagonia, the Himalayas, these places all cost thousands of dollars and require a job that would let you take off huge amounts of time. There is the rare soul that makes these trips happen with with a blue collar job, but mostly this is reserved for sponsored climbers and the rich. Now compare this to bouldering. I want to climb the best, most aesthetic boulder problem in the whole world! I'm going to train my ass off and be ready to crush it. Total cost: $120 in gas, $130 for climbing shoes, $250 for crash pad. Done! Bouldering seems like the American way, show up strong and try hard and you'll succeed. Whereas for alpine climbing it doesn't matter how fit you are, or what skills you have, you still needs lots of cash. There is significant barriers to entry for hard alpine climbing. Unless I win the lottery, I'm never going to climb the Rupal face.

The Portland crew watches Jaime taking a lap on the"Iron Monkey." Three dollar campsites and a few tanks of gas were the price of admission for this famous boulder problem.

Given a choice I'd rather make the 2nd ascent of the Rupal face then top out some ten foot boulder problem, however lately I've been thinking about the costs associated with my hobby, and the impact that climbing has on the environment. Every type of climbing has negative impacts, although I've always thought of alpine climbing as the low impact version of climbing. Certainly all of my partners practice leave no trace while alpine rock climbing, but even then the impact is there. That tat anchor I left behind while bailing, or how about my fancy tent that got destroyed the first day I used it and had to be thrown away? Thinking about the hundreds of climbers that go bouldering every day in Bishop, nobody is leaving behind webbing and I didn't see any garbage out there. The simplistic nature of bouldering makes it low impact.

I don't see myself trading in my rack for a crash pad anytime soon, all of my dreams for the upcoming year involve long routes away from the hordes. Still, at the end of it all climbing is just that, climbing. Going up a steep face, the sensation of moving my body above the ground, that feeling is the same no matter what I'm climbing. It is reassuring to know that when it all goes to hell, I lose my job and have to sell the rack, global warming melts off the glaciers, that I can keep a pair of climbing shoes and some chalk, go bouldering and feel that same rush. Yay!

You don't get to do fun moves like this while trad climbing! The Sads, Bishop CA. Photo courtesy of Jaime Bohle

2010 wrap up

2010-12-25T16:52:00.000-08:00

The sun sets on another Trout Creek Day.

Seems like this time of year the internet is awash in end of year "best of" or recaps of what happened during the past year. I'm not stooping so low on my blog, but at the very least I wanted to get few pictures up from the last bit of climbing I did this year. Overall the Fall in NW was a bust this year, looking at my notes there was only one truly dry weekend out of six during October and mid November. Lot of rain outs and indoor climbing on the weekends.

Trout Creek

Falling off the crux of Alchemy, this would be a common experience during the month of October.

October and November was all about one small section of rock at Trout Creek, Alchemy. I gave up meat, stopped drinking, doubled up on gym sessions, went to bed early and basically became a total square. The weather was awful but I went down every weekend to Trout and only worked on this one route, no fun routes or laps on JR. I recall one weekend going down there in the rain, my belayer hid under a tarp to stay dry while I ran TR laps on the route. I was thinking that a slow, methodical siege of this route would yield success but no luck. During the six weeks that I committed to this route I only got one day when the conditions were good for a lead and I botched it. All that work for one lead attempt and of course I so excited that I botched the footwork coming out of the crux near the top and hung on the rope. That was it, after that the wet/cold weather set-in and I never go a another chance to try it again.

So yeah that was a big let down but honestly my failure isn't a really big surprise, I mean weak climbers like me aren't supposed to get up hard crack climbs! Although I've spent a lot of time on this route (30-40 tries) I've only had a half dozen lead attempts, the rest has been on top rope. Most of the time this fall was spent on TR gaining fitness, learning moves and figuring out the trickery. Right before my only lead attempt, I came through on TR to learn the gear beta. Very useful, but I should have done this a long time ago, placing the gear on this route is just as the hard as the climbing itself. I just needed a few more good weekends to put all the pieces together but the season ended. Going forward I don't need any more TR sessions, just a big douse of fitness and multiple lead attempts.

On the upside, I made it to a new high point, just a few moves short of the horizontal jug rest. Six weeks of work to move the route up a few more feet? Yep, at this pace I'll clip the chains with just a few more years of work. Oh that makes it sound like working this route is all pain, but really the movement is pure joy despite bloody tips.

Guy working hard at Trout Creek. Although Guy appears to be a total slacker, he red pointed the extension above Gold Rush "Dame El Oro" this Fall. This has to be one of the best trad pitches anywhere, hard and wild right below the chains!

Trout Creek Geek out

2010-11-04T12:35:00.000-07:00

Up-close view of the crux on the route. Using the zoom tool I can almost see the smears I'm going to use for my feet.

Trout Creek is on my mind a lot lately, full on geek-out mode trying to finish the route before the Winter sets in. I've been working on this route on and off again for the past 2-3 years, I can look through my blog and see all kinds of posts about this route. Eery Fall and Spring I play around with it, sometimes it feels doable, other times I can't even do the moves. In past years I've successfully TR'd without falling, so I know the route is doable.

What is it going to take to be successful? I don't have any zen secrets so I just decided to go all in and focus on it. No drinking, no sport climbing, no fun. Every weekend that the weather is fit I'm going down to Trout to work on this till it gets done. Sounds a bit stubborn, but that's the only way this route is going to happen given my weak arms. Full-on geek out for 100 feet of rock. My friends are growing tired of belaying me, but hey what are friends for!

The geek out was in full effect this past weekend. Haydar and I drove down to Trout in the pouring rain, it was raining at the trail-head and raining at the wall. Still, Trout is steep enough that the rock stays mostly dry, only wet while belaying. We did a a few warm-ups and I ran 3 TR laps on the route. Very productive, I learned a few new sequences and figured out more of the gear. The beta for this route makes my head hurt, so many options and things to remember. I've been up this route 20+ times now and do the moves different every time. What I wonder is do I need to do the moves perfect to red point it? Normally for a sport red point, I have to hit the moves perfect or I'm going to fall. On this one it is possible to flub the beta and still stay on the wall (lay backing where you should be stemming) but of course with bad beta the pump factor is huge. Doh!

Aside from the fact that I suck at climbing, the other problem I've been having with this route is the miserable weather. Out of the past four weekends we've only had one really "nice" weekend. The rest have been rain outs or like last weekend, no good for leading. High hopes for this weekend.

The other route I'd like to do at some point is "Scott Free." East of Carver. Fun bolted route at 5.12B. Steep boulder problem with some really big moves. I've climbed it without falling several times, it is a perfect fit for my style of climbing. I'm thinking it might be possible to climb this route without using the bolts and placing gear instead. A gear lead would break-down like this.

*Boulder the bottom 25 feet route with no gear. The rock over move would be scary with no gear but possible. Full knee bar rest.

*Place 2x cams (green C3s) in pods. Not the best gear, horizontal flare and you'd want your fingers in there too.

*Do the crux with the 2x cams at your feet.

*Do the stupid dyno cross over throw.

*Climb upper 5.10 jug haul with no gear, ground-fall from 50 feet if you slip.

Kinda silly but I do like the idea, mostly because it is such a cool climb. I mean, how often do you do keen bars around Portland?

Barad-Dur

2010-10-07T15:08:00.000-07:00

"Hi everyone, my name is Micha and I'd like to give you a hug."

It has been 12+ months since I last tied in with Micha, far too long. I was a bit surprised when he called me up after many months of silence and asked if I wanted to go climbing. Oh course I do, always a treat. Micha is the real deal, strong, smart and full of laughs. Recently I've become picky about who I climb with, climbing is so much more fun when done with good friends vs the random rope holder at the crag. I get good vibes from Micha while climbing. Double plus, Micha is a professional witch doctor, if I break myself on lead he'll fix me right up. (After pick pocketing me for my insurance card, Micha won't touch anyone unless they have insurance.)

I was even more shocked when Micha suggested we climb a route on Wolf Rock called "Barad-Dur." I had never heard of Wolf Rock but Micha sprayed it down this way. "It is Oregon's Incredible Hulk, 1,000 feet tall pitches up to 5.11." What nonsense, Wolf Rock is nothing like Sierra Granite, but it is indeed 1,000 feet tall of volcanic choss an hour East of Eugene. Scenery is top-notch, with a strong feeling of solitude. Aside from the junky rock, this would be my ideal route. Multi-pitch, just hard enough to keep me awake, but not too long where I need to worry about logistics.

Funny as Micha correctly assumed that this route was a big under-taking. The guide book said something about "hard man route of Oregon." Usually when a guidebook says "hard man route" I know it is going to be doable. The routes to fear are the ones that say nothing as the climbing was too hard for the guidebook author to get on it. At the trail-head I was talking big about being down in time for lunch and not needing to carry much water as 1,000 feet was going to fly by. Doh! Got back to the car just before sunset so Nate was wrong on this one.

The miscalculation on my part came for the tedious/scary nature of the climbing. Normally 5.9 pitches go by quickly. On Barad-Dur much time was wasted wondering back and forth across the wall trying to figure where the route went and trying to estimate how many bones I'd break if a hold pulled off. I don't have much experience on that type of climbing, no features to follow just climbing by some notes on paper and my nose. Never getting pumped out, just standing on small ledge having that endless debate with myself, left or right? What happens if I get up there and I'm off route? Down climb this lose stuff? Thankfully we never got too far off route and all the drama was in my head. Thanks to Micha for putting up with me all day, I can't recall the last time I've been that rattled while climbing. I was needlessly scared during my block of leads, all in the head, the hard climbing has good gear on it.

Full pitch beta here

Wolf Rock from the road. Barad-Dur is left center through green roofs.

Belay ledge base of Pitch 4.

Micha getting wild and turning the corner on the 5.10D pitch. Very short crux here but made me gulp, very airy stepping around the corner with all that air.

Micha is out of sight around corner on Pitch 5. I really like this photo, captures this strange sense of feeding out rope and watching it dangle without seeing my partner. Oh please don't leave me alone on this wall.

Looking down from Pitch 6 going into the 5.11 roofs. Tons of rock down there!

Yummy! Oregon moss! Thankfully most of the rock wasn't this bad. Climbing pitch 7 on run-out, easy terrain. The topo said "crawl" across this ramp but I'm too proud to crawl and stayed up-right for the traverse. 5.4 on-sight!

Long ridge climb. I wasn't expecting such a long ridge and this section is no joke. Real 4th class terrain and junk rock.

The sunset was fantastic. I suspect the damp air helped out but everything had this soft orange glow to it. I've never done hard drugs, I wonder if this what things look like when doing acid?

Sunday-Trout Creek.

Trout Creek toys.

Drove to Trout Saturday night and had a much needed slumber under a juniper tree. The hike up Trout was sort of awful, really humid and warm. The humidity made the climbing feel a bit hard too, my first set of tape gloves fell off after one pitch. Having not climbed Trout in a long time, I forgot how painful that place is. I made a few jams and came back to the ground, I just wasn't ready for the pain. Once I stopped crying and my hands went numb the jams started to come back to me and it felt like home.

Jeff gave me tall person beta for the start of Fingerlings, (5.11 or 5.12 height dependent) that I was able to do after one false start. Strange to climb a V4 boulder problem into sustained 5.11 crack work. I think this will be a good mini project for me, I look forward to trying it on lead next time. Top is good hands but sort off angle and physical. Thanks Jeff! Dude is 40 years old and still slays it, a true roll model.

I'm feeling the crunch right now with the climbing season coming to an end. 4 weeks? 6 weeks? Not many. I'm debating trying to get in shape, do some training. For sure doing training this late in the season will be of limited value, a proper training cycle takes 6-8 weeks to see any real results. However, I've got a good base, I've been pulling a lot of plastic, running and just being a general spaz. Maybe just a few weeks of focused effort could help (?) It is hard to decide what kind of training to do, Trout Creek requires a special kind of fitness and skill that is hard to reproduce in a gym. Strong fingers, big forearms that'll help but the routes I want to do at Trout tax other parts of the body. At the crux I'm panting (anaerobic) my calves shake, my back burns from the lay backs. All these things you don't get in a normal climbing gym workout.

The ideal Trout Creek workout would need to have some weight lifting in there and some high output circuit routines. Maybe 4x4s and come right into the rowing machine or jump rope. (?) I've done these sort of things in the past, might have to bring them back. The weight lifting would be things like curls, rows, lat pulls, pull-ups. Things to build muscle mass that can be used to resist the lay backs and the locked-out jamming. Sometimes the locks are good but the arm can't be extended so my bicep gets pumped putting in gear. Or.. I could learn how to rock climb, like really learn it. I watch Jeff climb at Trout, he floats up the wall, getting lots of help from his feet to stave off a forearm pump. He's playing a different sport than me, his is the sport of efficiency and grace.

Oregon scenery

2010-10-01T11:07:00.000-07:00

North Face of Mount Hood as seen from Mount Hood Organic Farms

Two weeks ago everyone in Portland was thinking that Winter was here, it rained, we climbed indoors and drank a bunch. That is all in the past, since then it has been warm and sunny just about every day. The last week in September and we had a few days of temps in the upper 80s. What a change, first it was too wet and cold to climb, now Smith is baking and the friction is awful.

This past weekend was a bit different for me, I still climbed a few pitches but the climbing was really just a distraction from the beautiful scenery. I don't usually think of Smith as beautiful, but spending a day 500 feet off the deck with the Cascade crest in the distance and whole park spread below my feet reminded me of the beauty of central Oregon.

Saturday. Boat work with Dylan. Got cooked in the hot sun grinding out rotten wood. Poor Lucille, I'll fix that hole for you tomorrow. Afternoon, up to Hood River for a friend's wedding outside of Hood River. What a nice wedding, I was impressed and am very excited for them. Had a hard time paying attention to bride and groom with the North Face of Hood right in front of me. I'm looking forward to swinging tools up there as soon as it cools down. Drive way too fast up to Govy camp and do car swap with Dan, drive to Smith and camp.

Sunday. We bail on our plan for climbing "Abraxas" and instead hike to the top of the Monument and rap into pitch 5 of Abraxas called the "Tombstone pitch" 5.10D. Fun just being up there, feels sort of like a mini big wall with lots of views, nobody around oh and spitter crack. The Tombstone is rad, steep hand crack, a bit overhanging in spots with lots of air below. Crux is low on .75 and #1 hands. A bulge half way through the pitch is the endurance crux, good #2and # hands but sort of thuggy pulling over the roof. Gear is all hand sized, lots of hand sized cams with just a single .75BD.

I think Dan had a good time too, this might be the first time he's ever climbed in this style, hiking in and working a route from the top down. Always a treat to hang out with him, we were all laughs sitting at the belay stance BSing about life with air all around us.

Late on Sunday Dan red pointed his first 5.11 up in the Cocaine Gully. I'm really stoked for him. Grade chasing isn't cool, but pushing yourself is VERY respectful. Knocking off a grade is good for the head, opening your mind to what's possible if you push hard. I'm sure Dan will go onto other 11s at Smith and get smoked and other's he'll crush. Just knowing that he can climb that grade will open up all kinds of possibilities for him.

Speaking of getting smoked, I tried to run a few laps up in Cocaine late in the day and climbed awful. Had a little Nate fit that included me cursing and talking about how much I hate Smith. There isn't anything wrong with Smith, I'm just haven't sport climbed in a few months and it shows. Smith is an acquired taste and requires motivation, you have to really want to get up that wall to put up with the tiny holds covered in body oil from 10,000 climbers. I wasn't that motivated and punted.

Summit of the Monument.

Hiking along the backside of the Monument.

Dan summit of the Monument.

Dan red point of "Armageddon."

Clip stick!

TR lap on the "Tombstone."

Leavenworth

2010-09-15T12:49:00.000-07:00

House along Icicle Creek as seen from the hike in to Snow Creek Wall. I wonder if my imaginary lottery winnings would be enough to buy this place?

So what happens if you I were to win the lottery, 10 million bucks! Sweet. I go down to the lottery office to collect my cheque, when I get there, they tell me something got screwed up and I'm only getting 5 million instead. Would I be sad? Angry? Disappointed? Or excited because hey 5 million bucks is sweet!

This past weekend felt like that, months ago Jaime and I hatched plans to alpine climb this weekend. I've been getting unlucky this year with alpine climbing and was feeling this was my one and only chance to get something done. The perfect partner, a big route picked out that would be at our limit, everything would be perfect, like winning the lottery! Well that never happened, (rain and cold) so we had to settle for a smaller prize, Hyperspace on the Snow Creek Wall. Still a real treat, very excited.

Speaking of excited, I'm very excited about Jaime's photography, all of the great image here are his and the rest of the photos on his Flickr site are top-notch. Check them out.

Photography is a strange thing, when I was younger it used to be a very big part of my life. I recall staying up late at night in highschol working with my SLR (Pentex ZX 100, great body by the way) working on long exposures and burning through film, Many fond memories working in the darkroom and seeing the results. (Although I don't miss getting drenched in Dektol, that stuff is so toxic, I'm for sure going to grow a tumor because of it) During this time I shot a lot of photos and became very involed in the process of creating a "good" image, always striving to create the most technically accurate photo. This is still important to me and I'm never impressed when photographers get wrapped up in shooting a creative image but ignore the technical side of it. I saw a photo once where the guy was shoving negatives up his ass and using his butt-crack like a shutter to expose the film. Creative? Yes? Good picture? No! (and gross, I hope the lab tech wore gloves when handling those negatives)

Anyway, Jaime shoots great photos and has skills. He captured a few good ones this weekend and was kind enough to belay me all day on Hyperspace while I got to lead. Yay!

Weekend Recap.

*Hyperspace, Snow Creek Wall, 5.11 8 pitches.

Snow Creek Wall viewed from the hike in. Hyperspace runs up the left side of the shield.

Very much a traditional climb, all forms of trickery had to be deployed to get up this one. Finger jams, chimneys, run-out face climbing, flares, roofs, and no bolts. This feels more like trad climbing to me than a bunch of splitter cracks running like a ladder up the wall. I'm much better at straight-in crack climbing, but sometimes this is boring as I always have the knowledge that I can stick in a cam whenever I want and can just turn the brain off. Hyperspace had a lot of, "Oh shit this crack ends, now what am going to do?" Good holds and gear always appeared, but there were a few leaps of faith during the day where I had to move and hope that I'd end up somewhere safe. Cool!

Jaime making the log crossing at the base of the Snow Creek Wall.

Highlight for me was on-sighting P5 at 5.11. overhanging face climbing. I've heard a few people say this pitch might be as hard as 5.11C, but it wasn't too bad for me, like gym climbing on gear. I find it so much easier to commit to hard moves on this type of terrain, all I need to do is hold on and good things will happen. Stoked, maybe one of the harder gear pitches that I've on-sighted this summer.

The Pressure Chamber pitch was as bad (or worse) as I envisioned it. The bottom 100 feet is fun, physical crack work. The last 10-15 feet is the real heart-breaker. I got crushed! I'll need to think about what went wrong, however it is worth noting that just 10 feet of thrashing worked me so much that I was walking with a limp the following day. I laugh at the rumored 5.10+ grade of the pressure chamber. If the Pressure Chamber is 5.10+ then all of the terrain we climbed before it needs to be downgraded to 5.6. Burly, but fun.

Leading The Psychopath pitch (5.11) Beautiful finger crack to face climbing finish.

Leading the overhanging face climbing pitch (5.11). Yummy!

Cragging Sunday, Castle Rock.

Jaime's arm was giving him a lot of pain and couldn't climb. Being a kind soul he offered to hike up and belay me on whatever I wanted to get on. He's that kind of a guy, lots of love for him.

*Right side of the Nose, 5.8ish. Super fun, maybe the best 5.8 I've ever done. Steep, slighting overhanging jug haul on gear. Feels tough at the grade, feels like an Ozone 5.10 jug haul. Next time up I want to solo this.

*Angle 5.10 3 pitches solo.

Perfect in every way. Not hard at all, just more of "oh my this is fun" sensation, sometimes soloing isn't fun at all. Very enjoyable for me as I always feel so clumsy when I climb, on this one everything felt good and for once I felt like I knew how to rock climb. Normally when I solo I'm very static, too much of a wuss to make big moves and very cautious. On Angle I was able to let that go and commit to making big moves, high step on small crystals and generally just crank.

I had never been on the upper two pitches of Angle (5.7) and had some issues. There are many options up there with cracks and face holds all over, I was worried about getting off route. I was also surprised to find the 5.7 climbing to be "real" and had to stop a few times to slap myself to pay attention as I was already thinking of milk shakes. Even with a rope on, the 5.7 pitches would be good, steep and not a give-away at the grade.

Jaime's photos of Angle are excellent.

*Canary, 2 pitch 5.6 Solo.

Again, for 5.6 this has some "real" moves and some real air to it. On the first pitch I came up behind a new climber who was ranting about how he was so scared while following this pitch, he wasn't impressed when I quietly asked if I could pass him. Castle rock is fun but there are so many choppers there, I saw two different parties using aid ladders on 5.6 terrain to bypass hard moves.

And at the end of the day, I had a bit of mishap that made me think that perhaps roped climbing isn't safe...

Rope burn on my arm! I was trying to lead "The Nose, 5.10D." It is a gear protected face climb, my second piece (yellow master cam) got shoved up high into a flare well above my head. I got pumped out placing the piece and asked to sit on the rope. While sitting on the rope asking for beta from Jaime, the piece pulled out and I fell back down to my first piece getting the rope wrapped around my arm in the process. Lots of love for the #1 BD that stopped my descent, no love for the rope, that burn hurts.

Squamish Labor Day

2010-09-09T15:23:00.001-07:00

Dan* on sighting the upper pitch of "Up Up and Away" Smoke Bluffs, Squamish BC.

The worst(wettest) summer on record for the PNW ended the way it started, with rain. I think back to Memorial Day, almost the same pattern with showery weather all weekend and getting flat out soaked on the Monday. Makes you wonder what's the point of a three day weekend if you get to sit in a tent listening to the rain on my one day off. *massive pity party*

Bitching aside it was a really good weekend with the best of company. Nothing too wild, mostly just cragging and doing the classics. It has been a long time since I've done the "short stuff" around Squamish and oh my it is good. I took a few solo laps in the Smoke and soon came to the conclusion that Squmaish might be the best place in the world to solo. Secure with proper top-outs and locker jams. If I lived there I'd be afraid that I'd never use a rope, bouldering to get strong and just solo everything else.

Dan gave me a bit encouragement on this one. This is one of those pitches where it is significantly easier to climb without a rope, not stopping to put in gear allows all 4 parts of the body to be in full contact with the rock, except when chalking of course. ha!

Dan had a fantastic weekend, I'm really stoked on his progress. He lead 2x pitches that were the hardest he has ever done on trad. What stokes me out is his the good style, normally when people break into new trad grades they place too much gear, hang-dog and get sketched out. Not with Dan, both of his leads were calm, intelligent and smooth. I take a bit of pride in this, I can't claim I'm the best teacher (I recall telling him it was OK to unclip from the anchor at a stance so long as held onto something with his hand) but at the same time he's picked up on a lot of things that took me a long time to learn. His long reach is a real asset on granite, if a lock feels bad he just reaches higher till his mitts fit in. Were all good at something, Dan is good at granite crack climbing and that ain't a bad thing.

Dan on Pixie Corner. Foreshortened picture, he is placing gear every 7-12 feet and about to plug in another cam before he pulls the bulge. This is trad climbing perfection, placing gear where it needs to be, and none where it doesn't.

With perfect temps on Saturday and lots of wind, I thought things were looking up for burn on "Crime of the Century, 5.11+" It has been 4 years since I've been on it, I thought my skills would take me to the chains. No luck, I got crushed! I did get it clean on TR without much fuss, makes me wonder why it is so hard on lead. Easy answer is that I'm a sissy and need to just go for it on lead, full commitment. I wish it were that easy, but I found out on TR that success on this route comes from the ability to withstand the pain and also to balance up on tiny feet. On lead the locks are so much more painful and staying in place long enough to place the gear requires a stillness of body that is hard for me. Blink and I'm flying.

The other problem is how short the route is, there is hard climbing from move one and I have to put in gear to keep me off the ground, no running it out to a hand jam. In the first 15 feet, three pieces of gear go in. That's a lot of stopping and futzing around while hanging by two fingers.

Gear beta on this. Double green C3 to Red Orange Master cam. 1x .75BD for middle pod. Triple up on yellow Master Cam. Save Red C3 for the finish.

On Sunday we tried our hand at the Grand Wall, unfortunately so did every other person in Canada. We bailed a few pitches into it after getting stuck behind a party.

Leading Apron Strings after getting shut-down on the Grand Wall. Always a joy to climb this pitch, but still feels stiff at the grade. Very unusual climb, pure layback with no rest for 100 feet. Moving up is effortless, but stopping to plug a cam induces body shakes and a wicked pump. The easy fix is to place less gear, which I did and this made the climb much easier. At some point safety comes into play and I had to force myself to stop and put in some gear to protect the ground. With long arms I was covering huge spans of rock in a short time, a few seconds after placing a cam, I'm already a long way above it.

Pulling the crux on Apron Strings. I really can't think of a better finish to a route, crack ends and forces you out left via a boulder move to side-pull. Exciting for sure as my arms were feeling tired and there's no option for more gear, make that move or take a long ride. I often feel like such a timid climber, always conservative and wussing out. With a pitch like this it is much easier for me to be brave with all the hard climbing up high in the pitch, a big fall from that far up will be painless.

Mel pulling through the hard moves on "the shirtless" boulder problem. After crack climbing all day Dan and I joined Mel in the woods for a late night session. I've never bouldered in Squamish before and it was a real treat to work some problems with someone that knows what they're doing. For this problem I was having a horrible time getting off the ground, starting laying on my back and throwing a leg over the lip and moving across the boulder with my feet higher than my head is something I haven't done very often. Another girl was working the problem with us and gave me some better beta for getting started. The shirt came off and I sent the next go, fun thug problem with a lot of moves. Mel thought I was joking about climbing shirtless, but she pulled off her hoodie and sent.

Dan on a late night trip up "Paul's Crack." The original plan was to re con this with the rope and then solo it, but after a few PBRs I thought better of it and ended up doing it the old fashioned way with a belay. Still just as fun as the first time I did it four years ago.

Lotti and Mel on top of the Malamute on a stormy night. A special place to sit and watch the sunset

A few new ones at Beacon.

2010-08-31T11:54:00.001-07:00

I snuck out for one day of climbing this past weekend, yikes, my third weekend this month up at Beacon. Climbed with Jaime B on some new terrain, or at least new to me. I was a bit surprised, I thought I'd climbed just about everything out there worth climbing, but turns out not. In the course of the day I climbed 5 new routes that I've never been on. Jaime was nice enough to let me lead all the good stuff and I came away with a few good sends.

After traveling up some new routes this past weekend, I have new respect for Beacon. The first few times I went to Beacon(7 or 8 years ago) I recall thinking that the climbing was stiff, run-out and wild for the grade. I lost that feeling as I've gotten into the bad habit of running laps on the same 6 routes over and over again, the climbing feeling very easy now. Turns out the climbing isn't all that easy, only easier once you have the moves wired. On-sighting at Beacon is still tough stuff, more so on the less traveled routes. Jaime was nice enough to let me do some leading, what a nice guy! We both lead or followed everything clean, except for Borderline which was a cruel joke.

*Flying Dutchman.
Warm-up for the day. *laughs* I'm warm already. Movement notes. Strange underclings at the bottom that take forever to figure out, trusting the feet was hard. Run-out on easier terrain (ground fall possible) to a spot for a bomber purple nut. Thin crack high takes green and red C3s. #2 BD goes into a big pod 15 feet below anchor. Crux here is getting the feet high with left hand in very thin seam. Look left of seam for small mono pocket thing (nut or C3 can go in there) Once mono pocket is gained with left hand, move right on jug flakes to anchor.

Gear. Doubles from Green C3 to .75 BD. 1x #2 BD. Small wires and brass. Never used the #1 BD.

*Sufficiently Breathless.
Strange face climbing on jug flakes. First pieces of gear is a Purple C3 or Black Alien. (not great) A slight run-out to the first bolt on easy jugs. Whacky jams and stems above bolt, it helps to move far right and stem. Mantle the ledge. Short pitch, singe rack of small gear and draws will do.

*Bluebird.
Fantastic pitch! As good as "Blown out" or maybe even better. I got pumped from locking off at band stances and placing gear. This is very much like Blown out, if you stop at all the good rests you don't get pumped. Stem the first 40 feet with left foot on pillar while moving up, gear here is mostly yellow master cam and red C3s or nuts. Feels airy. I took a few minutes standing on top of the pillar shaking my feet out. Upper section is crux finger crack, I elected to jam it straight in but it looks like you could do some stemming as well. Key here is to not stop and place gear until you get to bomber locks, I stopped and placed gear from poor ring locks when I could have moved a few feet higher and placed from easy finger locks. Plow through the bush (yuck) and into 15-20 feet of perfect hand crack. (#3 BD and #2 BD protect this well)

Gear Double rack Red C3s to .75 BD. Take Tripple finger size gear and a #2 and a #3, never used the #1.

*Wild Turkeys.
Jaime gets his red point on. The business of this pitch is short, but tricky. You actually climb left of the seam most of the way with gear in the crack. Not pumpy, just very insecure as all the gear has to be placed from smear stances and there isn't really any positive holds to speak of. Gear is Purple C3 -.75 BD, brass nuts were nice and double up on the micro cams. One fixed pin.

*Borderline.
Erer we got crushed! The only useful beta I can recall is that there is a hard boulder move above bolt one, a big stab with the left hand, it is good but takes faith that you'll get there. After that, it gets wild. Bolts are new and shiny and then no more bolts.

Ahhh Beacon rock

2010-08-09T17:25:00.000-07:00

Climbed at Beacon this past weekend for the for the first time this year.(Has it really been 10 months since I climbed there last?) It is nice to have such a big chunk of rock close to home, however after spending a bunch of time on granite Beacon feels a bit dirty. Sorry, let's not say dirty, how about teetering pile of shit?

I wasn't feeling all that motivated but wanted to get out and stretch my legs after a week stuck inside. Couldn't find a partner on either of the days so just soloed some pitches. Self belayed about a dozen pitches in two days and went without the rope for about 25+/- pitches.

Felt good to move but running laps with the GriGri on is never that much fun. (The hang over on Saturday didn't help) I mostly just did laps on the easy pitches, although I mixed in one new ropeless pitch (Windsurfer) that I hadn't done before. I didn't feel that good on it (maybe it was the booze) so the next day I put a rope on it to practice the moves. I climbed it 4x times with a rope on, still doesn't feel dialed in so I'll to take that route off my circuit for the time being. Strange as I don't feel pumped and feel locked in the whole way, however every time up it I use different beta and find new footholds. I suppose this is inevitable when running laps, but in my ideal world I should be doing every sequence the same every time. I get flustered when I have to change things up mid pitch. Also did a quick caridio workout up the SE corner, a sub 10 minute time on that route is elusive, I suffer on the last bit of 4th class from breathing hard.

While taking many long breaks on Big Ledge, I took time to think think about soloing. First time I've done much of it in a long time so it was a good time to think. Conclusion.

Boring I passed some lady for nth time on Jills thrill. She said something like, "wow that must be a rush." I didn't say much to her but I wanted to tell her I was actually bored. If I had a TV I would have stayed at home and watched it instead of going to Beacon by myself. How awful to think these things! Maybe I'm just bummed because I couldn't find a partner, or because I had to climb the same damn pitches over and over. Why was I feeling bored? I think the reason is predictability. When soloing I know with 100% certainty what is going to happen, I will make it to the top. Unless the world blows up (like in 2012, awful movie) I will make it to the top of the pitch. The only thing more predictable in my life is my own heartbeat, I suppose if my heart were to fail, getting up the route might not be a sure thing.

Compare this with roped climbing, so many things to worry about. No guarantee of success on anything. Maybe I'll get pumped, place bad gear, botch the beta, take a fall. Maybe the climbing will be too hard to French Free and we'll have to bail and rap down. These are the things that make climbing exciting for me, not knowing what is going to happen. The unpredictability is what makes an adventure, how dull if you could foresee every event in your life!

(Although note that driving is very unpredictable, I could be killed at any second with no control over that fact. Driving is not an adventure, just plain dangerous. Same goes for roller coasters, damn things are unsafe.)

The other part of the boredom comes from the lack of dynamic movement. Many times this past weekend I'd make a few small moves where one big lunge would be less effort and faster. (The big lunge would also be more fun) I'm too much of wuss to make the lunge so I do a bunch of smaller "safe" moves to get to the same place. Tedious movement for sure. Feels like I'm moving at snails pace, which I am. Although even a slow pace while soloing is still faster than any roped team.

Bitching aside, I did make note of a few things I enjoyed. The intimacy with the rock is incredible while soling, I notice things about the rock and my body that I never notice with a rope on. Often while leading moderate terrain I daydream about girls, ice cream, boats and the latest book I read. I hardly notice the rock and have to get into harder terrain before I can regain some focus. Without the rope even the smallest things on the rock stand out and grab me, a crystal becomes the most important thing in my life.

I recall being mid-pitch and grabbing a slopper, it felt bad so I tried pinching it four or five different ways till I was satisfied. The rest of my body felt out of place so I shifted my weight around till I (literally) contracted the lower right part of my ab and made the move with ease. I don't notice these sort of things when I'm roped climbing, just pumped arms and sore feet. Sort of like in Yoga class when they tell you to use a muscle you've never felt before. Some people in class seem to get it, while I just stand there looking stupid. It is hard to get the mind to really notice the body, but my body speaks very clearly to me when I don't have the rope on.

Aside from that, climbing season is on hold for a while, or at least scaled back. No big trips, no big objectives makes it hard to motivate for any kind of training. Besides, there is only a few weeks of summer left and I want to enjoy all the warm weather stuff, mostly water. I am still doing a small amount of gym climbing, mostly to keep a base level of finger strength to make it easier to come back in the Fall. Fun to take time off and try to test the fitness with weak arms. I passed, flashed a 5.12 in the gym last night using good footwork and a horrible pump. So cool. Not really as a bit later I had to fight 100% to get up this 5.10 jug haul. hahaah well maybe I drank too much this week after all.

Alpinism Bugaboo style

2010-08-05T17:14:00.000-07:00

When we think of "alpine climbing" all these visions of exotic adventure, snow, cold and lots of miserable suffering come to mind. I mean nobody enjoys alpine climbing in the same way that you enjoy having a beer on the beach right? Smiles and fun are for sport wankers and pebble wrestlers. Maybe I'm doing it wrong, because in these two pictures I'm honestly having a blast. Having sex with all of the Victoria Secret models while eating jelly beans on a sailboat off the coast of Greece while shooting a machine gun, would still not be as much fun as this moment.

My two weeks in Bugs is over and I'm suffering from my usual post trip depression. Partly because that it is over, and partially because I didn't suffer enough (huh?) Ok maybe I suffered a few times, mostly while hiking, but mostly it was recreational climbing at it's finest. I trained hard this Spring and really expected some big days, the kind of days that make me want to quit climbing, but for a variety of reasons I never had any of those days. I guess that's good, but I like those types of days and was a bit sad that I never got a chance to tie-in for the big objective. Pout pout pout. . Such a hard thing to have your heart set on a route and not get to do it, that part of alpine climbing is always the hardest for me. Still, we did get in some fun routes.

Two weeks in the Bugs By the numbers.
7 successful routes on 4 spires.
3 bailed routes. (Poor weather for two of them, illness for another)
81 total pitches climbed (per the guidebook)
25+/- pitches soloed.
3 round trips back the car and camp.
1 round trip to East Creek Camp, (Two Cols and a glacier slog x2 in 24 hours)
1 rain out day.
2 rest days in Banff/Calgary.
1 rest day after moving camp to East Creek.
13 pounds of weight loss despite eating pounds of Jelly Beans.

Loading up the packs at Radium Hot Springs

So although we didn't climb anything too exciting or even climb that many routes, it was a very refreshing trip. The daily routine of City life falls away very quickly and instead of thumbing my iPhone (or playing with my widget as my girlfriend calls it) the daily routine constituted of hack steeping ice in tennis shoes in the dark, drying wet socks, making runs from the hut to high camp and the endless process of sorting gear. (Sorting the rack became the daily chore that we all hated) I was always envisioned these alpine trips as having lots of down time and book reading. Not so, any time not occupied by actual climbing was devoted to camp chores or getting ready for the next day's climbing. Many nights I was in bed by 8:00PM and had no problem sleeping, hard ground and all. It is a good, healthy pattern of hard work and fun.

Proper suffering. Hauling 70+ pounds of junk up to camp.

Base camp in the Bugs. Prime real estate for $10 a night.

Day or night? Night view from camp under a full-moon. The moon was so bright that I only had to open the shutter for a few seconds to capture this image.

The Plan

Week one. Met up with James from the UK in Portland. Good dude but we had a hard time communicating, I couldn't understand half of what he said. On the descents I'd call up "Off rap!" To which he'd always say "Rap?! Huh? Snoop Dog raps but he doesn't ab!" Ab being short for "abseil." Lots of laughs between the two of us and a very solid partner.

The first week we tried to climb as much as possible and on rest days I'd move gear up from the car or up from the hut to camp. I stayed in the hut the first few nights but quickly became annoyed with the people staying there, most of them were serious choppers (ha more English slang, chopper = bad climber) and so much spray. One frat boy type guy was trying to impress the only girl within 50 miles by showing off his rack of ball nuts. I actually heard him say. "my ball nuts are really small, take a look." I'm sure those tiny nuts came in handy for your 36 hour send of the Kain route the following day. Choppers!

Week two. Took a two day break and went down to Banff and Calgary to hang out, get more food, and pick Chris up from the airpot. Thankfully all of my gear was back up at the camp so the hike in with Chris was much less painful. Although as soon as we got to camp, we loaded up a massive pack(s) of gear and moved our camp to East Creek. Moving that load of junk up a Col and down another is something I won't forget soon. At least if I were to fall, the pack would tip me over backward so I'd have a nice upside down view of my death.

Evening commute across Vowell Glacier.

Climbing- Beckey Chouinard-South Howser Tower.

This is why you go to the Bugs. 5.10 A0 19 pitches. South Howser. Courtesy of Ontop Mountaineering

One of the better routes we did during the trip, the Beckey Chouinard is uber classic and much hyped. I talked to several people from Europe that claimed that this route was better than anything the Alps had to offer. Another guy claimed the Howser towers were as good as Patagonia. (?) Having never been to either of those places, I'll have to take their word. The BC route is marvelous, but not perfect. There is no perfect route and I'm always going to find something to complain about, or something that I would like to improve upon in the way I climbed it. I'll try write up a proper TR with beta at some-point (same for the rest of the routes I did) this below is the good and and bad of the BC Route.

The Good.

*Historic. I love climbing history and the name of this route says it all. Two of the best climbers from the Golden age teamed up to climb this rig. Sort of like if Kobe Bryant and Michelle Jordan teamed up, or if Lance Armstrong and Greg Lemond put a route up. All star team.

*Position. Viewed from East Creek, the South Howser tower is impressive, a huge wall of granite. The route slices the left shoulder taking an obvious line that begs to be climbed. Once on the ridge the exposure is fantastic, looking down and to the North the glaciers fall away thousands of feet below your shoes into the East Creek Basin.

Looking up from the base of the route 2,000+ feet of granite in front. Yum!

*Cracks, lots of it. Most of the whole route was cracking climbing, hands, fists, OWs. Very little slab or face climbing.

Leading a long pitch near near the summit, #3 size hands forever. Thinking we should have we brought two #3s for this route.

James leading a 5.10 pitch early in the day. Cracks everywhere! The route pulls a finger crack bulge about 50 feet above James. Laughable fun!

*Speed. I enjoy climbing fast and for the BC route you really need to rally to get up and down in one day. I was stoked, this is what I love. After a 2:00AM sprint up the Col, across the glacier and down the Col in East Creek, we got the rope out at 6:00AM. Climbing 13 or so pitches in 4 hours. Nice, route is almost done. Our pace slowed considerably as we hit several harder pitches and encountered snow and ice on the 4th class summit ridge. It took us two hours to cover about 300 feet of 4th class climbing below the summit. (This would be classic M graded mixed climbing if you had tools) Cutting steps into the ice with cams, spare shoes, and the bare hands is slow going. Still, despite getting lost on the rap down, we made it back to camp in time for a proper dinner.

Snow slopes below the summit ridge. Major pain in the ass without ice tools.

Myself making the last step to to the summit which was really nothing more than a big pile of snow.

*Pristine. No bolts, no radio reception, no signs of any human development. The East Creek basin has no road access, the trees in the valley have never been logged.

*Good rock. A few lose bits but mostly clean, especially up high.

The upper pitches from the bivy ledge, 5.10 flare. Perfect rock.

*Descent. Since when is a descent ever good? This one is actually sort of fun. The final rap over the bergschrund is not your normal rap. Fixed stations on the way down makes the process easy. (Although the anchors can be hard to find)

Last rap of the day on the BC route. Prepare to get to get soaked as snow comes pouring down from above.

The Bad.

My gripes with the BC route, is Nate ever satisfied?

*Speed. Although we moved well, we could have done better. The pack was too heavy, we brought layers of clothing we never wore and stove/pot that was unneeded with all the running water on the route. We also brought an ice ax which was of no use and got snagged in all the OW pitches. (Maybe a real ice tool might have helped us?) With the heavy pack, I felt very clumsy and had to rope up for pitches that I normally would have soloed. Lame. We also lost about 1.5 hours behind another party, and lots of time dealing with the snow/ice on the summit ridge. Oh well. At least we didn't have to spend the night out.

*Wide cracks. I didn't look at the topo very closely (er at all) and was surprised by all the wide climbing we encountered. There was a lot of flare (#4 size) and some full-on thrash for your life OW climbing. We went up a 2' wide chimney with no gear, scary while dragging a pack on lead. OW climbing is part of the deal while on big routes, doesn't mean I have to love doing it.

*Snow. The Bugs have lots of snow this year, ideally we should have waited a few more weeks for things to melt off. The upper 5.10 pitch and the 5.9 pitch were burly. I recall making a fist jam with the left side of the crack being wet and the right side being blue ice. You could have placed ice screws in the crack. We both freed this section but it was ugly stuff.

*No free ascent. We did the normal A0 pendulum on the last pitch to switch crack systems. We both wanted to free this bit, rumored to be 5.10+, but no luck. It is about 20 feet of traversing and down climbing from a fixed pin, a fall would be 30-40 foot swing into the corner. We both pussed out after a few tries and did the South Howser version of the King Swing to switch cracks. *laughs*

Coming up the frozen flare a few pithes below the summit. I had the worst case of the screaming barfies when I pulled into the belay.

Glacier walk back to camp after doing the descent.

Snow Patch Route, solo*

The Snow Patch routes follows the left hand ridge behind me staying left of the obvious snowfield before cutting right to gain the summit. 18 pitches 5.8

The other route that I 'm really stoked on is snow patch. Not a hard climb at all, just more stoked that I was able to turn a rest day around into a bunch of pitches. The day I climbed Snow Patch started out a bit slow, we tried to do Sunshine Crack but when we hiked up there it was misting and cold. We bailed and made the hike down to the hut to sit inside and play some cards. I was feeling antsy and had a hard time with the idea of sitting around all day. The weather started to clear around 1:00PM and I was off running. (literally) It was sort of a last minute descison to do the route and being so late in the day I told myself that if I ran out of time I'd down-climb. Soloing up there is always a treat, the terrain is perfect for it and it works much better than roped climbing. Perhaps roped climbing is best left for sport climbing? *

The approach is about as ugly as it gets, lose sand and melted out ice in a boulder field, I don't recall how many times I fell on my face, but by the time I got to the base of the route my hands were bleeding and I was covered in dirt. I took a 30 minute lunch break and stretched out. Around 3:00ish I started the first pitch. I moved quick but don't recall feeling rushed, the moderate pitches went by with ease, the only hard part being the lose rock that I had to touch softly. I got off route around pitch 4 and had to rap a pitch. Ooops. On pitch 5 I hit a seeping crack and moss, I clipped into a fixed pin with 10' of cord and self belayed around it. The slabs by the snow patch went quickly, felt like I was trail running with my hands thumping in time with my feet.

Looking down on the Kain hut from snow patch. Wave everyone!

Above the snow patch things went poorly. I got off route again on Pitch 12 ( I went up a lovely finger-crack that is not part of the route) and a few minutes later got off route for a third time and had to rap again. Blah! The day was getting late as I thrashed around a 5.8 chimney on pitch 16. After some tense moves there I got to stance below a flake thing, bottom of pitch 17. Looked like fun layback and jamming at 5.7 but I wasn't feeling it. I was already thinking of down-climbing the route instead of using the normal summit raps and I was nervous about having to down-climb something that involved laybacking.

So I bailed and started down climbing the previous 16 pitches. This was probably a mistake as the raps from the summit are super chill and I was just a few hundred feet below the summit. Seemed like the smart thing to do at the time but the down-climbing was harder than I expected and I had to rap a few times on the harder pitches with my tag line. To save time (again a mistake) I chose to go down this Col/gully around pitch 4 instead of doing the normal dirty scramble back to the hut. It saved me a bit of time but was horribly lose, the blocks in the gully were so unstable that I couldn't find anything to sling for a rap. This junk all ended in a 60 degree snow slope, my poor toes froze something awful kicking down that in my rock shoes.Ugly.

On the flip side I made it back to camp around 8:00ish which wasn't to bad considering I started hiking at 1:00PM. Decent route but not great, a bit of lose rock and some dirty pitches keep it from being classic. Soloing is always a special thing for me, I really wish I could do more of it, seems like the most natural thing to do in the mountains. All of the expensive gear we lugged around started to fill like a burden and put a barrier between me and the rock. I always like to think of alpine climbing as the "pure" form of climbing, but with all the gear, the expensive clothing, lightweight tent, ropes and the like, perhaps alpine climbing is the least pure form of climbing? Perhaps bouldering or deep water soloing is the purest form of climbing? The simple act of going up a steep face with just your hands and feet, isn't that the basis for all this? Or maybe I'm having buyers remorse after seeing my credit card bill filled with gear that I bought for this trip. More on that later.

*Self belayed twice on route, hung on fixed nut mid pitch to sort out a leaky water bladder.

*I've got a few more things to think about in regard to how soloing and alpine climbing go together, or maybe they don't

Chris and all that gear. Maybe we don't need any of that to have a good time in the hills?

Full pictures here.

A video taken from East Creek, South Howser Tower and the BC route shown.

Sunset over the Howser Towers. The BC route raps down the left tower in this picture.

Bugs Week one recap

2010-07-24T14:37:00.000-07:00

A few pictures from this past week in the Bugs. No specific order as my internet connection is a bit sketchy up here right now.

Week one of my two week trip into the Bugs is now over, were down in town getting more food and resting right now with plans on heading back in tonight. I left all of my kit up at camp so hopefully the hike in today won't be as bad.

The trip has been so-so. We've climbed some good stuff, but also dealt with some awful weather. Out of six days it snowed or rained on three of them. There is still a lot of snow and ice on the summits right now, icy cracks and big piles and ice gullies are present. Highlight of the week so far was a trip of the Beckey Chuinard. Often hyped as being the"best alpine climb in North America." It indeed was a lot of fun and a hard day. I was expecting an easy romp on 5.9 terrain but there is a lot of OW and flare climbing, and the OW stuff is icy at times. (Ice covered rock, snow, and wetness) Still what a day, put the rope on at 6:00 AM, hit the summit around 4:00PM. Did a crazy rap over the Bergschrund and had a easy trudge back to camp in time for a late dinner.

On our rest days we also climbed Paddle Flake and the East Ridge of Bugaboo Spire. I had soloed Bugaboo last year and thought we'd be in for a cruise as team of climbers. Ha! I wish, but Nate is soooo dumb. Started the route around noon (alpine style) and went up the 8 or 12 pitches in 1.5 hours. Hey that was fun, but this late in the day it was bound to be nasty and sure enough, the summit was a mess of lighting and snow/hail. In my haste I took the wrong rap and took us down the 2,000 foot east face with one rope and no clear way of getting off. Ended up leaving gear to get down.

Heading the the airport now to pick-up Chris. Let's hope the weather holds.

Summer Training.

2010-07-15T13:20:00.000-07:00

A long time with no blog updates. I swear 99% of every blogs you read start-out with the same thing. "Sorry I haven't posted in a while, been busy." I'll say the say the same thing, except that I'm not sorry, I've been too busy having fun.

The last few weeks haven't really seen much climbing but a fair amount of cross training. Grinding winches and drinking beers counts as training in my book.

July 10-11. Portland, climbed 10x pitches at Ozone in three hours -5.10 -5.11D no falls. Sailed twice, swam 1.5 hours, ran 7 miles 1,00 feet of elevation gain. Did a modified Murf workout. Run 5 miles, 100 pull-ups, 200 Squats, 200 push-ups, 200 sit-ups.

July 4th weekend. Denver. Road run 2x 4 miles each. Mountain Bike 3 hours 2,000 feet of gain. Climbed unknown 4 pitch 5.9 in Boulder and Athletes Feat, 5.11 5 pithes Boulder Canyon.

June 26th weekend. Climbed Prusik 5.9ish 6 pitches and 20 miles of hiking.

June 18th weekend. Climbed 3x pitches at Tieton, rained out. Rode my bike around naked in the cold with 13,000 other naked people.

Training.

The past few months I've been trying to get my body ready for a two week trip into the Bugs that starts this week. I put in some long hours, but as a whole I'm not real happy with the results of my training. I really wanted to put in more hours and stay on the "plan" but for me the summer is an awful time for training. Several factors conspire against to make me weak.

They are:

1.)Fun. Summer is eight weeks long in Portland. This is the only time of the year when I can swim, sail my boat and walk- around my house in my underwear without freezing. It is very hard to go into the gym and pull plastic when there is so many fun things to do.

2.) Hot. Many of my cross-trainiung workouts are done outside on pavement during my lunch-break. This is fine when it cool out, but there's no way I'm doing a dock workout when it is 100F out. Same goes for cargging, I'd rather be weak and fat than crag at Smith on a hot day.

So it has been hard to get the milage in that I wanted to this summer, but here's what I did the past eight weeks.

Gym Climbing
Once a week roped climbing, many laps mostly doubled up. 20 or so pitches most nights 5.10-5.11+ The heat often made this hard, holds were slick. Twice a week, 20 minute hang-board. Smallest holds on board dead-hang for 20 seconds on, 30 seconds off. Boulder 2x per week, Try for 4-6 hours of bouldering per weak, sometimes 4X4s, other nights it was projects in the V6 range.

Weights. Not very often, 1-2 per week. Squats, bench press, reverse curls, push-ups, knees to bar, sit-ups, thrusters. 2x times per week, 30 minutes.

Running/Swimming
I put them together as they are just an easy way to get the heart up. When it was too hot to run, I'd swim. 4-5 times a week, 30 minutes at a time.

Dock Workout
Not very often, once a week until it got too hot to do. Run 1 mile. 100 squats. 50 Pull-ups, 15 ramp runs, 100 bars to knee. Very hard now as the dock is low in the water, suffer. With a warm-up this is a 30 minute workout. Did this twice this week as it is cool.

Rowing
Normally used as a warm-up for main workout, sometimes done at max to elevate heart. Normally row 1000 Meters x 3 with breaks in between. Do this 2-3 times per week before and after a gym workout.

Results?
I think it is funny people try to quantify their fitness as it relates to sport, especially for climbing. Maybe for bikers this works, like hey I can put out 400 watts, I win the Tour. I recall reading an interview with Beth and she claimed she sent "To Bolt or Not to Be" 5.14 but at the point could not do a pull-up (?!) I can do pull-ups till the cows come home but can't climb 5.14. So fitness is just a small part of it.

Right now I feel so-so. I'd say my legs and cardio are slightly better than normal Nate shape, and my climbing strength is slightly lower than normal. My recovery time seems good, even after hard workouts I bounce back the next day without any ill effects.

My head on the other hand is unknown. When everyone talks about their head it sounds so new-age BS in need of a self-help book. (The rock warrior for instance) That's nonsense, climbing is a skill liking hitting a ball or perfecting a dance move. It has to be practiced over and over again. This is where I might be screwed. I haven't climbed much granite this year and in 6 weeks I've only lead a dozen gear pitches or so. Will I forget how to crack climb? Maybe. Although I should focus on the good, since February I've only had one weekend where I didn't climb outdoors. That should help.

Gulag Archipelago

2010-06-17T11:50:00.000-07:00

This past weekend Jaime and I were down at Smith. Very hot, spent a lot of time waiting around for the rock to go into the shade. Even in the shade things were hot and the friction poor.

On Saturday we climbed a four pitch route on the Red Wall called "Gulag Archipelago", 5.11C/D. This route is new and not in the old guidebook. Climbing new routes has pros and cons. The upside is that the holds are sharp and crisp, not the usual greasy mess you get at Smith. Downside is that with no chalked-up holds to guide you, figuring out the moves is tricky. Here is what we found.

Gulag Archipelago, bolted belays marked.

P1. 5.11B. Start 50 yards down hill and right of Super Slab. Crux is right in the middle working on thin edges. Classic Smith crimp climbing.

P2. 5.11C/D. Beautiful steep red rock, the best I've climbed at Smith. Pitch traverses left over a big arch making it feel airy. First Crux is at a bulge 50 feet above belay. Get established in an under-cling and clip left. There is a hidden pocked above the roof, put RIGHT hand in pocket and move far left of roof to pull it. Getting feet above the roof feels heady, get established and clip.

Second crux is where the angle kicks back to slab and the holds are nill. Move far right of bolt using a hidden crimper for the right hand. Use good feet out to the left to advance. There is no real holds by the next bolt, pinching rough spots on the wall is all you get. Grab these rough spots and move back left toward the bolt for a hard clip. Move left again for two more bolts. Lots of mini boulder problems on this pitch separated by good rests. (I botched my on-sight something awful. Pulled the rope and Jaime gave it a go, he cheated one clip but got the rest of it first go. Damn dude!)

P3. 5.11. Water streak pitch. Start in dark rock with a bit of dirt, run-out easy climbing. Crux is short, steep section on dark water streak. Full no hands rest before boulder problem. Going right does not work. Go straight up shooting for an obvious basketball sized hole. To get there, I had to use a deep mono, I see no other way to do it and the mono isn't too bad. Finish going through a bush alpine style.

P4. 5.9. Short pitch on steep arete. Very cool position, airy! The holds are all steep jugs but pumpy for the grade. Lose rock near the top. It got comical when I was following the pitch and pulled off a jug near the top. I shock loaded my other hand and dangled there still holding onto the the broken hold. Concerned for the parties below me, I made a quick decision to throw the rock UP to the top of the cliff. Poor Jaime, I'm throwing rocks at him. It would have been really silly if I had came up short on the toss and the rock hit me in the face.

Photography

2010-06-11T16:37:00.000-07:00

Sunset at Trout. All photos courtesy of Charlotte Marie Wood. Beautiful images.

The never ending rain plagued us again last weekend, the only sort of dry place we could go to climb was Trout and Smith. Honestly I'm a bit tired of cragging, I long for something longer and the peace of the mountains. The vibe at Smith wears on the nerves, all the people, the yelling, endless beta spraying and the greasy holds. Too many people in one area. Soon I hope the snow up North will melt out and we'll get a chance to scratch that itch.

Actually the big hang-up last weekend at Smith was the humidity, the light rain showers kept the temps lows but it was like climbing inside of a greenhouse. Every hold felt like it was coated with oil. Ugh. Same problem up at Trout Creek the day before. You know that fat man on the stairmaster at the gym and how he sweats, that was me while climbing at Trout in the afternoon.

A bit cooler, unknown route North face of Trout Creek.

Bitching aside we still had a good weekend. Saturday late (1:00ish) on the North side of Trout Creek. Climbed two really nice moderate routes, 5.10/5.9. I haven't done either of these in years and both were laughably fun. Sort of rare that I smile while climbing at Trout, the usual facial contractions are linked to the "This hurts so bad I want the pain to end" sensation. Later we moved to the front side and I took 2x tries at Alchemy on lead. (fail) Rested and took a TR burn in on it. Will that route ever go? No, but it is fun to try.

No smiling allowed at Trout Creek. Chris on Gold Rush.

The only climbing highlight of the day for me was a trip up JR. I've done this route at least a dozen times and it always feels desperate where it pinches down to .75 hands. I'm not alone here, I've seen 5.12 crack climbers pitch off that last bit, it just sneaks up on you with a really bad size of hands. I went up expecting to work hard and thrash through it like I always do, but this time around it felt easy in the same way a perfect #2 hand-crack feels. Sweet! I just learned how to jam .75 sized cracks. The world is right now. haha Actually the secret weapon aside from good technique is to take the tape gloves off and go raw dog. (Caleb's Mom prefers it this way) There is a bit of pain going tapeless, but not too bad if I'm very deliberate with my jams and don't thrash. On the upside I feel much more secure.

Nate vs Alchemy project

Smith on Sunday was so-so. We spent most of the day up in Cocaine working on Crack Babies, (5.12B) Caleb got the red-point on his second go, way to fight man. Having already sent this route a few years ago I wanted to get back up there and do it again. What a shit show, I climbed to the last bolt at least five times in an hour but never sent. I should have used Caleb's secret beta sooner. On the plus side I got to spend a lot of time on some steep climbing, like doing 4X4s on lead. Beta that is 100% perfect goes like this. I need to write this down so I can do this route every time.

Low Crux, Bolt 1. Left hand goes far right side of big pocket, right hand cross under. Jug. Left hand to crimp under bulge, long reach to shallow right rocket hand pocket, left to small edge, feet-up, lunge to jug pocket.

Crux 2. Hands on flake, left hands stays high on flake, right hand low. Right hand doesn't need to move higher on flake. Right foot on tiny ticket chip by bolt, left foot smears into shallow dish thingy left. Left hand Gaston, throw hard to right hand jug.

Crux 3. Resist urge to bump dyno to deep pocket, doesn't work. Instead move left head to bad side pull, left foot on tiny chip. Right foot up super high on jug, lots of core tension to get the foot up. Do crazy cross through with right hand into sinker pocket, clip. Left hand pinch, crossover with right to jug, done.

Myself always using the wrong beta, Crack Babies. Smith Rock

Caleb using the correct beta. Caleb is leaving me to be a Doctor. Without his beta, I might not ever get up another route.

Climb Hells Canyon

2010-06-04T15:02:00.001-07:00

Hells Canyon cragging. View from the base of the Flatiron looking South. Campsite is in lower right of this picture along the river.

This past weekend we spent three pleasant days out in Hells Canyon climbing steep limestone. There isn't much info out there about this place, (no guidebook, only a few bits on the Internet) so I wanted to post some beta based on what we climbed I hope this helps.

Location.

From Portland. Get off I-84 at exit 302 SR 86 to the town of Oxbow, Oregon. Go straight right through Oxbow and cross the Snake rive to the Idaho side. Turn left after crossing the Snake and go 15 miles. Note that once you leave the freeway you will be driving on a slow country (paved) road with no services, it takes a long time (1.5 hours) to work through this and get into the canyon.

At the 15 mile marker look left for a campground/boat launch that says "Big Bar." Dive .2 miles past this and look for some dirt roads going Left (West) down to the river. This is the camping and the parking for the climbing. It is really hard to see in the dark, we missed it several times. The big thing is to find "Big Bar" Once you're there, the camping is just a bit further to the North among tress and tall grass.

Camping.

Camping is deluxe and free. There is lots of sites mixed in the tress and few sites along the beach. Seems like the boaters take the spots by the beach. There is an outhouse but that's it, undeveloped and beautiful. There is water 6 miles South at an RV campground. Bring food and gas with you, the little country store back in Oxbow is useless, they stock candy bars and that's it.

Our Campsite. Notice the lack of crowds. The sites are spread apart so it is hard to even see your neighbor.

Climbing

The rock is limestone, lots of features. Most of the routes we did were vertical to overhanging. I didn't see a lot of the monster caves like you would at Rifle, however most of the routes are steep enough that you're getting pumped and engaging your fingers. The best rock is blue in color with pockets and water runnels. The lose stuff is orange. The walls are big, we didn't do any of the multi-pitch routes, but I would guess some of the walls to be 400 feet tall. (Perhaps up to 600 feet if you add on the blocky terrain)

The routes are heavily bolted, in many places the bolts are so close together you aid them, great place for a new leader to climb outside of their pay grade. The routes are long, a 70M rope would be nice to lower off. Some of the routes are too long to lower off, be prepared to have a second rope with you so that your second can bring it up, or bring some bail hardware (The first pitch we did on Saturday turned out to be 45M long, I had to down-climb to an alternate anchor for the lower off)

Very few people climb here it would seem as there is almost no chalk or tick marks. On sighting is just that, figure it out while moving up. I botched many of my climbs because I couldn't see what holds to use. With tick marks in place, many of the routes felt easy. Speaking of easy, lots of easy pitches here. Seems like most of the route development here has leaned toward the 5.8-5.10 range.

The climbs

Looking up from the campground the rock is obvious. In some cases we walked 3 minutes from camp to climb. Note that most of the cliffs have no trails to them, bushwhacking and following game trails is the norm. There was lots of poison ivy and thorny crap, boots and pants are a must.

This is the view from the start of the trail about 100 yards from camp. The large gold rock center and high is called the Flatiron. This wall seems to have the highest concentration of routes and is the tallest. Hike straight up Allison Creek trail, turn left on obvious steep trail to the base. 30 minutes steep uphill.

Chris climbing on the right center of the Flatiron, 5.10ish. Left of him we climbed a few long routes in the 5.10-5.11 range. The golden rock is steeper and a bit lose at times. I took a fall when I snapped a hold. There are many routes on this golden section, most are very long.

Chris on the right side of the flatiron. We climbed several good routes in this area in the 5.8-5.10 range. These routes are close together, in this image there are at least 6 routes. The rock here is perfect, blue limestone. Very clean.

Steep cave! This cave is on your left walking up from camp, 10 minute walk. The best route we found was a nice 5.11 going up the right edge of the cave, not over the lip unfortunately. Chris hung the draws for me and I got the on sight. Thanks Chris.

This bit of rock is five minutes from camp on the left side walking up Alison Creek. My favorite sector. The left side starts at 5.8 and keeps getting harder moving right among five routes all the way up to 5.12. I lead the far right route that I'm told is 5.12, not sure maybe 5.11ish. Either way, the movement is lovely. Technical slabs to a steep headwall. I was bummed to miss the on sight, but hey it was dark and raining.

Looking up and right from the campsite. Most of the routes are on the right (North facing, shade) wall.

Close-up view from the previous picture. Looking at the previous picture, this cliff is low and right. Chris snagged a good line that goes through the serious of roofs in this picture. 5.10+ish

Climbed a few routes just to the right of this arch in the 5.10 to 5.11 range. One route boulders out a cave to the first bolt at V4. I didn't see any routes up the arch, just a family of owls.

Life is full of hard choices. Getting ready for a late night sport wanking session.

Back on the crack.

2010-06-03T10:38:00.000-07:00

Rather excited to be back climbing some crack.

I just got back from a very relaxing climbing trip out to Hell's Canyon over the Memorial Day weekend. When I get time I want to write up a post with some beta and details of the place. Really good!

The past few weeks have been the worst weather I've ever seen in my six years in Portland. I'm going to write this down so next year when I look back at this blog I can remember how awful it was. No joke, I think were on week six of non-stop rain in Portland. On the plus side, the East crags (Smith, Trout) are staying cool, maybe even too cool as we went down to Trout the weekend before last and got rained out later in the afternoon.

All and all a good day down at Trout despite the dreary weather. Caleb got the on-sight of "Wonder Twins." Nice work! Not a hard climb, (although is there any easy ones at Trout?) but that last little pull around the roof at the end stumps many folks that aren't expecting it. Before getting rained out, we took laps up "Gateway" Although I still got crushed on lead, I am sort of understanding the ring-lock section but still feel like the lower angle thin stuff up high is going to be a problem for me on red point. (funny as everyone else down there thinks the top is easy) For the rings section it really helped to tape my pointer finger, and I mean tape it like use a whole roll of tape on one finger.

Team effort on the start of "Wonder Twins" with Caleb on belay. The start is a bit tricky for me as the hands are a bit tight.

Higher up going over the roof. One of the better finishes at Trout.

The plan is to go back down to Trout this weekend and try a few harder routes. My damaged finger is feeling better now so I'd like to start pulling hard again. Maybe another try on Alchemy? I don't remember if I wrote about my finger woes, but ever since Red Rocks my left index finger has been causing me pain. Some days it is just a mild throb, other days I can't sleep it aches so bad. I haven't been resting it like I should be and have been climbing like normal. (Stupid Nate!) Although the pain has been so bad that often I'm forced to rest from lack of motivation, I get up and grab a hold, it hurts so I let go and do something less painful. This method of "resting" seems to have worked as this past week the finger hasn't been hurting as much and I've been getting back on some harder routes.

Injury thoughts. Tweaked fingers are normal for climbers, I'm not unique. Although this one is whacky, it hurts when I grab jugs, but not crimps. It feels almost like the bone near the hand is bruised, when I hang on a big edge it puts pressure on it and aches. So much so that I've had to move my fingers back to the outside edge of the jug and crimp it. I don't know what this means but it is strange to grab a big hold and think "this hold hurts, I'm going to grab that bad crimper instead." The easy fix is lots of tape, but I can't move the finger when taped. Ooops.

Oh and in other news, I just booked a two week trip to the Bugs in late July to climb this:

Photo by John Scurlock, North Howser Tower West Face.

Red Rocks recap and the need for more bouldering

2010-05-18T09:28:00.001-07:00

Myself pretending I know something about bouldering by heel hooking the start of "Under the Boardwalk " The Pier, 2nd pull-out, Red Rocks Nevada.

Coming back form an objective oriented climbing trip is always depressing, even if I have a successful trip, there is always that post adventure let down. The "Ok I did that, now what?" This last trip down there I came home depressed because I got crushed on my main objective, Texas Hold Em. I've gotten humbled many times while climbing, getting crushed is part of the process of hard climbing. This particular failure really stung as I've been thinking about this route and training very hard for it for a long time.

Down in Red Rocks I've always been lucky and had a lot of success on bigger routes. (grades are soft right?) In the past two years I've done the Rainbow Wall, Levitation 29, and the Cloud Tower, all thought of as "hard" classic routes for the area. These were all good challenges and powerful experiences, but after each route I looked back and realized that they were pedestrian in nature. Hard move on the Rainbow Wall? Clip a blot and move up. Scared on the Cloud Tower? Perfect hand jam. Need to bail and get a beer on L-29 ? Rap the route. Thankfully I never had to bail on any of these routes but they all felt like I was cragging. (Ok Rainbow Wall is technically a grade 5 wall with long bits of .11 and .12 climbing, but still feels chill)

How's that for chill? Myself jamming the last pitch (5.11C perfect hands) of the Cloud Tower last Fall.

Texas Hold Em is the opposite of the other routes. On paper is easier (5.11C) and less sustained then The Rainbow Wall, however it is less traveled and thought of as being "hard." I can confirm that, the route went all on-sight until one boulder problem shut us down near the top. See the details here.

Looking up the crux pitch of "Texas Hold Em" This is as far as we got.

Yep we got crushed and I felt like crying. Actually bailing was a bit of relief, I hadn't been sleeping well leading up to that day, thinking about the route, the logistics and all that. So it felt good to give the middle finger and head-down (er up?) I felt bad for Sam as I purposely left the bail rope on the ground with the promise of "No matter what I can can get us up this." Well I couldn't live up to that promise and with no second rope to bail with, it was up to me to get us out of this jam. Although I'm a weak climber, I'm a master of of staying cool in these types of fixes and enjoy figuring it out. (Maybe I enjoy it in the same way I enjoy soloing, once you're there you've got to figure it out)

In this case Nate figured it out via traversing three pitches down and then rappelling into the chimney pitches of Epi. We always magically ended up at chain anchors but in between I was putting out huge loops of rope with no pro and the loosest rocks I've ever touched at Red Rocks. Breaking a hold would be a 100 footer right onto the belay, maybe not too bad as I'd be a 100 feet below the belay in the open air.

On the up-side of all this, once we got over to Epi I got to lead the upper 2/3rds of the route in a very quick burst. Those upper corners are truly hero movements, 2,000 feet of air on the most positive holds imaginable. The next trip down there I really want to solo Epi, the chimneys are still scary for me, but I think I'm ready. Even on lead I'm almost there in my mind. For the sake of speed and just because it is fun, I placed only two pieces of gear in a 180 foot pitch. Very chill. Much thanks and love to Sam for belaying me that day, sorry man next time I won't get us so lost on the descent.

Sam loving one of the upper pitches of Epi. From this angle looking down it makes the Black Velvet Wall look like the kids cragging wall.

What went wrong on Texas Hold Em?

1.)Weather. The day was windy, cold. If I had more time I would have waited for a better day but time was short and we went up. I was OK till we went in the shade, but after that I had numb hands the rest of the day. Was this a factor? Maybe. Although climbing walls you need to be prepared and I simply didn't have enough clothing on. The wind shouldn't be that big of a factor, all of El Cap free routes are windy as hell, but the wind makes me feel unstable, chills my body and rattles my nerves. Basically I'm a pussy. Although I will say that this the strongest wind I have ever been in, climbing or other wise. On one windy lead the cams (even the #4) would blow around on my rack like a wind chime. I had to hold the cams down to pull them off. Strange.

2.) Bouldering/training. I failed to get up this route because I could not do a 20 foot long boulder problem. (The distance between the bolts on the crux) This isn't an endurance thing or a red point thing, this is strictly I can't do the single hardest move on this pitch even while hangging from the bolt. To be fair, I've heard this crux is more like mid .12, but still. This hammers home what I know and now I really know, that bouldering is the key to big-wall free climbing. Seems backwards but if I can't boulder the single hardest move on a wall, I'm NOT getting up. End of story. That's what happened on Teaxas Hold Em.

During my Winter training cycle I was getting up V7 and could flash V5. I changed this out during the Spring to focus on endurance and routes. This is all good and well but my bouldering went downhill, the other night I was having problems getting up V5. My endurance is good, for my birthday (March 1st) I climbed 29 pitches at Smith in one day and didn't even feel that wrecked. That's all fine and well but again, what happens when I'm 1,800 feet off the deck and run into that V hard boulder problem? Sure having to hang on gear after every boulder problem isn't ideal, but hey at least I'd be getting up the wall and not have to risk my life bailing.

Side note. For endurance on easier routes, going for a run or a bike ride to get in shape. Any long routes below 5.10 doesn't require a lot of finger strength, only the ability to move fast for long periods of time and stand on your feet.

Happier Times at Red Rocks.

Stephanie, Sam and Mel. Belay top of pitch 4, Sour Mash. Black Velvet Wall.

Extreme foreshortening, Stephanie 300 feet off the deck on "The Gobbler" Black Velvet wall.

Portland has some rock too..

Got home from Red Rocks and was feeling mostly lazy. Still Caleb and I got out and did some new (new for me) stuff out at French's Dome. We spent a good chunk of time working on Pump-O-Rama 5.12B. It was the first time I've really worked on a route since March. By my 5th time up the route, the moves finally made sense. This is the joy of working routes, the rehearsal process and beta refinement allow me to climb at a much higher level. I can almost see why people get addicted to projecting routes. I'm not a 5.12 climber, but by laying siege to a route, I can do it. Always a treat to work routes with Caleb, hard to get stuff done because were laughing so much. Strong guy and I think he is going to have a good summer.

Astro Monkey: Smith Rock

2010-05-06T17:22:00.000-07:00

Trezlar,Smith Rock. 5.10b

I haven't updated the blog in a while as I've been climbing, a lot. Although it has mostly just been cragging Hard to write a good blog about running laps down at Smith. However this past weekend Caleb and I got on "Astro Monkey, 5.11+ 6 pitches, Monkey Face, Smith Rock." The details are here. All and all a very wild trip to the summit of Monkey Face with a lot of wind and cold temps, felt like were alpine climbing.

In the past six weeks I've done a lot of cragging, nothing too wild and no real success on anything hard. Just a lot of milage on good rock. Although there have been some interesting moments, skipping the bolts on Smith sport climbs and placing gear comes to mind. Most of the real excitement lately has been watching my friends get after it. Sometimes climbing feels so selfish and "me" oriented. I mean, it sort of has to be. There isn't nobody going to make that last hard move for you way above your gear. At the same time my favorite memories from climbing come from the people I share it with. With that in mind, here is some highlights of what my friends have been doing lately and a few pictures. (Ok there might be a few of me in here, it is my blog after-all) I'm heading to Red Rocks tonight and hope to make a few more memories, oh and climb hard too. Thanks for the friendship!

Highlights!

Brendan on-sighting "The Space Between" Trout Creek. Way to fight for it!
Rachel red pointing "Magic Light" Smith Rock.
Watching Caleb march up Trezlar like he was on a ladder
Stephanie leading long 5.9 crack at Teiton, I was nervous watching.
Winter almost flashing 5.11C at Tieton. He would have sent but I gave him bad beta. Ha!

Stephanie leading 5.9, Tieton. Brave!

Chris, 5.11 The Cave, Tieton.

Caleb on Trezlar,Smith Rock. 5.10b

Caleb on the last move below Summit of Monkey Face.

Me leading 5.10 The Bend, Tieton.

5.11C, The Bend, Tieton.

Failure

2010-03-22T17:06:00.000-07:00

Leading the Trout Creek project, at my current hight point about to fail and hang on the rope. Note the layback position that is causing problems.

In the past two weeks I've had some good failures (epic fail bro, haha) and few limited successes while out climbing. I should be grateful for the success I've had but no. The reason? What little success I've had has been easy, meaning that when I'm climbing smartly I'm not even having to work hard, just floating up the wall like I'm on a ladder. Cool stuff! Downside is that moving like this is a rarity for me, why can't I be more graceful more often? Here is the breakdown of fails from the past two weeks.

Fail. Onsite attempt, Gateway (5.11) Trout Creek. I've been saving this one for years with hopes of an on sight. I was told that it is endless finger lock climbing, pure endurance which is good for me. Whoever told me this must have been a giant because it was nothing but ring-locks, almost no finger locks. Miserable, painful and so insecure. I was reduced to French Freeing the route hanging all over. Very depressing. (Typical mother f***king Trout Creek sandbag)

Success. A few minutes later I took TR burn on Gateway. With the training wheels in front of me I scooted right up the endless ring-lock section without even a mild pump. WTF? How come I couldn't do that on lead? Well in my defense, I've never really climbed a pitch of sustained ring-locks before. Like many types of jamming, ring locks feel awful and until you learn to trust them. They still don't feel very secure to me, but at least now I might be able to lead it and stop to place some pro. Beta note. At least 6 Purple BD C4 Cams, hows that for a fun size of crack?

Success. At the end of the day I took a TR burn on my project (Alchemy) I was expecting to flail around like I always do. By some strange luck and some beta change, I cruised right up without falling and had gas left in the tank. I was mid crux on TR, casually chalking up and said out loud to my belayer " I should be leading this, feels really mellow."

Leading the bottom of Alchemy. Full-on layback.

First crux, changing out of the layback and into the ring locks. I can never stop here to place gear so I've just been punching it and going all out to get to dish stance above. Although note in this pic I'm trying to get some more gear in. I haven't fallen here (yet) but it makes me a bit nervous as a fall moving into the dish stance above might put me on the ground.

Fail. The whole crew egged my on after my successful TR lap and pressured me into giving Alchemy a shot on lead. I tried really hard but no luck, stuck in the same damn spot I was last year. Yes, it might have been foolish to get on this route at the end of the day but after such a good run on TR I felt that I could easily send it. This is so much like my last lead attempt.

What's going on up there? I did make one break-through and realized what I'm doing wrong on lead. I'm lay backing way too much, where on my TR lap I change between jams, laybacks and stems. So the simple thing would be to layback less of the route? The problem I'm hitting here is my desire to feel secure on lead, someone please give me a hug! The layback is desperately pumpy but allows me to always be locked in with my fingers. Switching out from a layback into a hands free stem and standing on NOTHING feels the opposite of secure (but note I don't get pumped)

Although I'm frustrated by all of this, I'm really enjoying the learning process. Unlike hard sports routes I've done where there is just a few moves that have to be memorized and figured out in detail, this pitch has 90 feet of techy movement. Moving a half inch there, dropping your elbow there, all these little things add up to a cumulative savings of lactic acid. If it were possible to figure out and memorize every last effort reducing movement, I feel like this pitch would go with ease and I'd be asking myself "Why am I not free soloing this pitch"

Success. This past weekend I took a break from traveling and instead hit Madrone East of Portland. Turned out to be a productive day. Caleb was looking strong and got the on-sight of two routes in the upper 5.11 range (Wild things and Paranoid Arachnid) Early in the day I took care of a mini project of mine and red pointed "Beam me up Scotty, 5.12.B" I've been on this route on TR a dozen times over the past 3-4 years. I was very close to getting it last time I was out there but couldn't figure out where to clip from.

I never figured it out so I just skipped the bolt at the crux and made a lunge move to the rail. The best part of this lead was how comfortable it felt, I had the beta dialed in my head and was in robot mode reciting the moves as I went along. Feels like a rehearsed dance routine. Although fun, I was a bit disappointed because I wasn't at all pumped. Sure it is a good thing to climb 5.12 with ease, but it only hammers the fact in that when I execute the moves correctly, climbing is easy. When done incorrectly, climbing is impossible. I'd love to execute the moves correctly more often....

Past two weekends of climbing...

Trout Creek with C. Winter
*Gold Rush. 5.10
*JR 5.10+
*U-4. 5.10-
*Gateway. 5.11 (x2 TR lap)
*Alchemy TR 5.12 ( Plus one failed lead attempt)

Madrone with Caleb
*Unknown 5.10B warm-up
*Beam Me up Scotty. 5.12B. (Red point, second try)
*Wild Things. 5.11D
*Unknown to the right of Wild Things, 5.10Bish R.
*Paranoid Arachnid. 5.11C. (x2, failed on-sight, red point on try #2)
*POS 5.9 R jug haul. Worst route in Portland. Sorry Caleb.

Birthday link-ups. Smith Rock

2010-03-08T16:34:00.000-08:00

Route number 23.

For my 29th Birthday I linked 29 routes down at Smith Rock this past weekend. A full list is below, forgive me if I'm wrong on any of the names/grades. The self-imposed rules of this challenge are simple: Every route has to be lead with no falls or hanging on the rope, no top-ropeing, and no repeating routes. Pink points, clipping pre-placed draws are all fair game.

Overall it was a lovely experience and I'm really humbled by all the help I got, I used 10 different belayers through-out the day. I'm really blown away by how supportive everyone was, I thought about quitting somewhere around route 20 after my feet started to scream but everyone kept pushing me hard. Thanks, I love you all!

There was a bunch of routes that I wanted to do but wasn't able to do for various reasons, crowds, me being a sissy etc. The hot weather was the big hurdle for me, in the later afternoon I felt dehydrated and had a hard time climbing on the Main wall because of the poor friction. Still, I climbed really fun routes and out of the 29, I only climbed a few routes that were "lame" that I was forced to do to rack up the mileage. (Sorry Gumby is still a POS route)

Highlights

*Blackened 5.11d. Such fun movement, like an outdoor gym route on crisp holds.

*Running out of draws on "Entering Relativity. 5.11" and having to skip the last three bolts.

*Pack Animal Direct 5.10b, finger locks feel so good on this one.

*Getting pumped out on "Magic Light. 5.11" and taking a fall 10 feet below the anchors at the end of the day. Sad as this route didn't get to count.

*The worst Elvis legs ever on the upper slabs of "The John Galt Line, 5.11b"

Update.

I've had a few people ask about the logistics of the day. I started climbing about 8:30 AM and finished up about 5:00PM. I didn't have any special routine or strategy, I started on the Phoenix wall and moved climbers right back toward the Morning Glory Wall. I had a few routes I really wanted to do do just because they are fun, but mostly I climbed whatever was open and wherever I could find a belayer ( I think I got belays from 10 different partners) I wanted to climb mostly routes that were harder than 5.10, in that area I failed. Aside from the physical difficulties of climbing harder routes, the main problem was the amount of time they ate up. On some of the easier routes, I was climbing and cleaning a pitch in less then 5 minutes. Some of the 5.11s would take 20 minutes to lead and clean. The only "trick" I used to speed up my climbing was jumping on other people's top ropes to clean a route. I'd lead a pitch, come off belay and rap a rope that was already hanging there, I did this 6-8 times through-out the day.

Earth boys 5.10b
Jete 5.8
Dancer 5.7
Scary Llamas 5.8
JT's Route 5.10a
Phoenix 5.10a
License To Bolt 5.11c
Wartley's Revenge 5.11a Trad
Right Side of the Beard 5.7 Trad
Revelations 5.9
Irreverence 5.10a
Wanabe Lamas 5.8
Blackened 5.11d
Entering Relativity 5.11a
Lama Enlightement 5.11a
John Galt Line 5.11b
Pack Animal Direct 5.10b Trad
No Golf Shoes 5.10d
Pop Goes the nubbin 5.10a
Snuffy Smith 5.9
Lion's Jaw 5.8 Trad
Anonymity 5.9
9 Gallon buckets 5.10c
Caffeine Free 5.10b
Purple Headed Warior 5.7
The outsiders 5.9
Light on the Path 5.10a
Gumby 5.10b
Five Gallon Buckets 5.8

An early Spring?

2010-03-01T17:47:00.000-08:00

Weather has been crazy warm the last few weeks! Climbing has been going off around Oregon. Very excited. Here's what we got on in the last two weekends.

Smith Rock Feb 21

Nine Gallon Buckets: 5.10C
Tuff it out: 5.10A
Pack Animal Direct: 5.10B (trad)
John Galt: 5.11B
Sunshine Dihedral: 5.12 (trad, broken hold, bailed)
Gumby: 5.10B
Zebra Seam: 5.11C
Nine Gallon Buckets. 5.10C

Trout Creek: Feb 28th

Gold Rush: 5.10
Unknown 4: 5.10
Mr Squiggles. 5.10+++++ (ha!)
JR Extension on TR: 5.10+
Alchemy TR. 5.12

Joshua Tree

2010-02-22T09:22:00.000-08:00

Just got back from a nice 4 day weekend down in Joshua Tree California. Pictures are here.

I have mixed feelings about J-tree that I'll need to think about before writing, in the meantime here's a few highlights (er lowlights?) from the weekend. Thanks to Stephanie, Andy and Brendan. Their generosity on this trip left an impression, I literally did nothing besides hangout, climb, eat amazing vegan food, drink Brendan's PBR and cruise around in Andy's rad truck. This trip was way too much fun, I need to go alpine climbing soon to suffer a bit to make up for it.

(Grade note. I'm going to sound like a wimp here but everything at J-Tree is hard, even the moderates. No, I don't think they are sandbags as everything there is graded like this, just stiff compared to Smith for instance. For many of these climbs you could tack on a full number grade to make it comparable to the local choss pile.)

Bearded Cabbage: 5.10C

This is what you dream about when you think of wild, fun climbing. Oddly enough this little gem was just 50 yards from the tent, you get to watch the show right from the picnic table. Although I didn't see any other parties try it while we were there. After a quick beer, Brendan wad kind enough to throw me a belay before it got dark (cold) The first bit of this route is where it gets crazy and potentially dangerous. The leader hand traverses this rail forever and a day, mostly open grip with no feet while the ground gets further away (first bolt is 20 at feet) I take a few breaks on the rail traverse to heel hook and de-pump, not too bad, but I'm thinking a fall here would surly break my head or worse.

I stay sort of cool (or maybe not, Stephanie claims she was nervous enough that she couldn't watch) clip the bolt and get set-up for this crazy barn-door throw to the far side of the crack. I was able to make the span all the way over to far side of the crack and into an unstable layback position before making a thug lunge to a perfect hand-jam on steep rock. Oh my, so fun, It stays good with another 50 feet of perfect #2 hands. I've heard for short people this route could be as hard as 5.12 as there is no intermediate holds between the jug-rail and the hand crack. I have long arms so it was just a nice long span and a bit of faith that I'd make it.

Milking a "rest" while moving across the hand rail heading toward the crack to the left. That bolt can not come soon enough.

Bolt clipped things are safe now, just need to work up the motivation to make the big move into the crack.

Cakewalk 5.8 (or 5.9 depending on which guide)

Just a nice fun cruiser on the Freeway, one of my favorite from the whole weekend. The memorable section is right in middle where the nice juggy crack ends and you're forced out left on on horizontal hand-crack traverse. I get a bit sketched out looking at this traverse as I'm a bit above my gear and the rail isn't feeling that positive. The trick beta here is to actually down-climb a few moves to some lower crystals and commit to stepping across the void. Long slings useful to keep the drag at bay.

Starting the traverse.

Post traverse, hunting around for pro.

Anacram: 5.10C

This route is just to the left of "Cake Walk" on the Freeway Wall. Brendan snagged the onsite of this this beauty. I'm really stoked for him, this rig was hard (for me) and very beta intensive, tough on-sight. Exciting to watch as once he got over the crux (bolted) and he was too gassed to place any gear and just ran it out till he got to a stance. Rad! My lead attempt was not so rad, I sat on the rope at the crux and pussed out on the run-out and placed a blue alien and hung again.

The route breaks down like this. Climb layback flake and slabs above micro nuts, runout, possible ground fall. Clip a bolt and set-up for the crux. The bulge here resists any attempt to use your feet and the finger locks you want are all too high and too low. (huh) The only useful beta I can give here is to get the left hand in the painful lock by your chest and go like hell to a high right hand finger-lock. There is another heady move up high that involves a stem bit on crimps above a poor wire. I stood here forever trying to man-up to make the move.

Above the crux, thin!

Small wire goes in here, committing moves and a bit of a run-out take you to the summit.

Clean and Jerk: 5.10C

Possibly one of the best single pitch trad pithes I've ever done. (Sorry we didn't shoot any pictures so I stole some. Double sorry to whoever I stole these pictures from.)

Unknown climber moving above the bouldery start.

Everything that I love about climbing and moving the body comes together here in one pitch. I love steep sport climbing, crack climbing and placing gear, Clean and jerk is a great mix of all these thing. Custom made for Nate.

The bottom part of this pitch is the crux, 20-30 feet of over hanging face climbing on good (but rounded edges) I'm told this start has broken several bones. The first piece of gear is high up above sharp boulders, the gear is good, #3 cam in horizontal crack. More thugey face climbing (feels like mid 5.11 if we were at Ozone) takes me to a must-do spot for a cam. On my on-sight attempt I try to force in a an Orange Alien with no luck, I pump out and am forced to down-climb back to the #3 cam to recover.

Unknown climber below the final roof. Good crimps the far left make this doable.

Blah! I go back to the ground and try again from the dirt, this time I go through all the hard moves and stick a bomber Red Alien in the slot, continue up on hand jams that should feel easy but are in fact physical ( overhanging and left leaning) Higher up I get shoved in below another roof, I finally get a shake-out shoved into this chimney position below the roof but have a hard time working back out to stem and grab some crimps to pull the roof. Airy!

O'kelley crack: Hurt feelings.

Brendan and I were both stoked to get on this classic crack. Unfortunately things didn't go our way and all we got was a close call and a swollen up knee. The short of it: Brendan pulled off a good sized block while leading and took a whipper. The block hit his knee and then almost took off my head at the belay. Were both lucky to be alive, I feel like had that block hit my head it would have surly killed me (belaying) and killed Brendan (falling climber) Thanks to the guys and gals that helped us get back to the car and clean our gear, very kind of you.

Tick list:

Dog Leg.5.8
Toe Jamb: 5.7 (Solo)
Unknown 5.8/5.9 crack. (Solo) Behind site #26 Hidden Valley Campground
Bearded Cabbage. 5.10C
Unknown 5.9 fist crack. Hidden Valley Campground
Illusion Dweller. 5.10B
Clean and Jerk. 510C
Unknown short 5.10C Finger Crack. Real Hidden Valley
Wild Wind.5.9
Anacram. 5.10c
Cake Walk. 5.9
White Lightning. 5.7 (Solo)
Overseer. 5.9
Frosty Cone 5.7 (Solo)
Hot Fudge. 5.9 R/X
Mr. Misty Kiss. 5.7

The off season becomes the on season.

2010-01-13T10:08:00.000-08:00

The offseason for me officially lasted seven weeks, that's how long it has been since I last climbed outdoor rock. A bit premature to say that the 2010 climbing season has started (It is the middle of January after all) but last Sunday I did climb three short routes outside before bailing and going to the Circuit to boulder. The wait is over! Real rock! OK so not a great day of climbing, but it felt good to be on the rock and reminded me that somewhere in the future, I might actually do some real climbing again.

Keeping with my desire to something "new" every time I climb outside, Jaime egged me on to climb this nasty looking 5.11C (R) at Madrone that lacked good pro and has bullet holes (as in the kind that come from guns) for feet. Can't say I've ever put my foot on a hold made by a .357, but hey I'm getting cabin fever and needed something to keep it fun. Worth breaking my head over for sure!

OK so this route (secret name) is silly. Two bolts long, first bolt spins and is half out, and the second bolt is so high-up that falling getting to it will put you on the deck from 30 feet out. There is a few hard moves getting to that 2nd bolt with no chance of the rope catching you, just move up and hope for good things and clip form this tiny side-pull. After that 2nd bolt you finally get to the crux of the climb with a short V4ish boulder problem and mantle to the anchors. Contrived, dangerous, and dirty, good on-sight fun!

Guy leading a nice crack, the "silly" 5.11C is that not so great looking wall of blankness to the left. Bullet holes for feet!

TrainingWow, I'm ashamed to say it, but I'm really stoked on training right now! Working out should never replace the desire to be in nature, but right now nature is just a soggy mess so I'm actually enjoying plastic pulling, weights, running everything! I've been thinking about the process a lot lately, here's a few things that come to mind.

*Rapid gains. In the last 2-3 weeks I've mostly been bouldering, hard bouldering that is. No 4x4s, no laps, no circuits, just climb the hardest routes I can get on over and over again till skin failure. Stupid but effective. The first week I could only get up a few V5s and no V6s, and my skin hurt after a short period. This week I'm flashing V5s, getting up most V6s and ticked a few V7s. This seems like some good progress ( a number grade up in two weeks) however there is a caveat to this. You don't get stronger in two weeks, but I think the body and mind start to get used to the sensation of pulling hard, muscle memory comes back and the pain threshold goes up.

That feeling when you move onto a tiny hold of "this hold is shitty, I'm letting go" is now gradually moving to "this hold is shitty, I'm going to pull harder." It is a subtle thing, that quick flash of pain going from fingers to brain, and your brain instantly reacting and saying "it hurts, but fuck it, you ain't coming off." I think this is what I've accomplished in the last few weeks more than any strength gains.

*Endurance. I'm not working on any kind of endurance right now, mostly power but oddly enough I've climbed a few roped routes this past week that used to be hard for me but now feel fairly mellow. I think I've been confused, I was thinking that climbing a single 40 foot pitch at PRG was an endurance activity, fight the pump clock and all that. Now I'm thinking that it might be a more power-endurnace thing, especially on a hard PRG route. On a hard burn I never even get a shake-out, fast movement and it is over in a few minutes. Not exactly a marathon.

So on my rest days I've been doing routes at PRG. Oddly enough even though I'm "resting" I still have been getting up some stuff. Finally sent that traversing, .12 last week and on-sighted 2x 5.11+s the other day Nothing too wild, but it is nice to do these routes and not feel wasted from the effort or have sore skin. I tried an extension to the traversing 5.12 that adds on a long V6 before starting the route. I was able to do the V6 and link into the first clip, but that's all I got. No stamina. This is more of a power-enruance thing maybe just plain old enduro as it is twice as long as your normal gym route. Oh and the 5.12+ grade might be a problem too. A good goal for sure!

New goals.. The poor weather forces me to look at guidebooks and think of routes I want to do. How about some cragging goals?

ROTC: 5.11C trad-Leavenworth
Iron Horse: 5.11D trad-Index
The North Face Monkey Face: 5.12 trad: Smith

The off season.

2009-12-28T13:09:00.001-08:00

The rock climbing season is over around Oregon, too cold. Still, in November I was able to sneak in a few days down at Smith. The great thing about this time of year in the NW is all the other things to do. One weekend it was sport climbing and snowboarding in and around Bend, the next it was ice climbing. Amazing what a car can do!

Myself on Overboard. 5.11 C Smith Rock. Thanksgiving 2009
Photo courtesy of Dan Mahr.

The day after sport climbing: Making turns in the backcountry. Mount Tumalo Oregon

Seven days later: Ice climbing Hyalite Montana. Bill on lead.

Training: I haven't been doing much of any kind of training lately. I've mostly been eating cookies and drinking wine. The logic for me on this is simple: I have a really hard time buckling down and training if there is no immediate goals in front me. Right now in the middle of Winter I have no outdoor climbing coming up so I've been slacking for the last 6-8 weeks. Still, even slacking can be useful for the body. On my slack time I've been logging a lot of time in the climbing gym, mostly doing routes and lifting weights with no goal in mind, just because I enjoy doing it.

I look at climbing gym routes almost as a separate sport from "real" climbing. The process of finding a hard gym route and working on it over and over again till it goes is actually a real joy. More so if I just ignore "real" climbing and focus on just the indoor routes. Lately it works like this: Go to gym, warm-up on jug hauls, jump on the hardest route in the gym and lay siege to the route till it goes clean. This isn't training, just fun to do. I suppose it helps to keep the forearms fresh but it doesn't count as training as there is no rhyme or reason to it.

I'm really weak right now but through brute force and a summer's worth of climbing behind me, I've been able to consistently send most of the .12s in the gym. This is a surprise for me as earlier this summer when I felt light and strong, the gym .12 was still hard for me to do ( well it still is, sort of) This makes me happy as I'm fat and out of shape now, gets me excited for what is possible for when I lose some weight and start training again. Yeah! (Eds note. There is one .12 in the gym that I still can't get after working on it 5-6 times. It'll go though, just need to work-out that last clip)

So aside from falling all over gym routes I've also been doing a bit more weight lifting and circuit training to keep fresh. The day normally looks something like this:

Lunch workout 4-5 times a week.
Run 5k for time. (Try to keep it under 24 minutes, 21-23 is normal)

OR

Dock workout: 5 rounds as fast as I can.
10X Pull-ups
3X Sprint up dock ramp: 20 Meters incline.
20X knees to bar
20x Push-ups
20x Squats.

Night: Lift wights in no order,and/or climb gym routes.

Next year: Starting in January I'm going to buckle down and start some training again. I'm actually really looking forward to it, nice to have a purpose even if it something so silly as just climbing. The first 1-2 months is going to be all bouldering for me to try and get some top-end power back. After that I'll be thinking of power endurance and come Spring back to PRG to climb routes for endurance. At the same time I want to lose some weight and get my running legs in top shape, I've always had weak legs and this is a problem for me on longer alpine routes.

This is what I need to look like....

Training for what? My tick list never seems to get any shorter but here is what comes to mind for this year.

Red Rocks:
*Speed Link-ups. L-29, Epi, Rainbow Wall in one day.(yeah right!)
*Solo a longer route or two. Tri Sands or Epi.
*Texas Hold em linked into Lone Star
*Solo. Atman (for fun of course)
*Mount Wilson: Any Route.

Squamish
*Freeway.
*Solo Squamish Buttres via Rock on.
*Grand Wall Red Point.

Alpine:
*Cascades: Solo link-up of NF of Stuart and Draggontail.
*Cascades: Tempest on Balanced Rock.
*Cascades: Slesse.
*Bugaboos: Solo Becky Chouinard link with Bugaboo Spire.

*Sierras: Solo sun ribbon Arete.

God, this list could go on forever. Lots of little carg pitches in mind too but cragging is mostly training for the long routes in my mind. I'll leave it at that and make sure to check back in 360 days and see how I did on this list. I might even find a partner for some of these solo routes I have in mind. *laughs*

Beacon Rock Solo

2009-11-04T17:07:00.000-08:00

The rock climbing season is about over, maybe just a few more days of climbing on cold rock before it is over all together. Many good memories from this season and some un-finished goals. The other weekend I came close to a goal of mine and made a few very good memories along the way, I don't forget days like this but feel compelled to write about it just in case my mind goes to mush over the the long Winter.

I showed up late in the day on Saturday, 4:00PM and in the course of an hour and a half, soloed some of my favorite routes. Some new, some not so new for soloing. I wasn't planing on working on the "goal" but I thought it'd be worth working on it by doing these routes.

*Blownout 5.10. 2 pitches. Down climb SE Corner* (First time solo)
*Jills Thrill 5.10 3 pitches, Down climb from P3, wet.(First time solo
*Fear of flying 5.10, 2 pitches. Down climb. Scary down climb. (First time solo
* Young Warriors, 5.10 4 pitches. Walk-off
*Crusin 5.7 P1, down climb SE corner.

* On Blownout I grabbed the anchor chains on P2 while moving onto the grass ledge for the walk off.

Overall I was happy with the day, the views were beautiful and everything was bathed in a hazy orange light of the late day. I felt at peace. The conditions weren't great for climbing, pitch 3 of Jills Thrill was wet, I stood there for a solid 15 minutes panicking and trying to get around this wet spot on the slab. I couldn't do it and had to down climb. I really didn't want to, I didn't feel at all confident down climbing the slabs, always a debate at times like that which is more risky? A wet flared finger jam or 200 feet of down climbing on slick rock? Because this pitch was wet I also had to down climb the other pitches that converge on this. I really hate down climbing, feels so contrived and it scares me.

Once I realized that I could not get off via Jills Thrill, I sat on the belay ledge and got pissed off at how stupid I had been getting stuck up here. I seriously thought about yelling for a recuse from some hikers I saw at the base. That only lasted a few minutes, then I stopped crying and committed to down climbing, turned out to be no big deal which is like most things in climbing. I did that down climb 2 more times.

The trip up Blownout was a real treat, I was nervous as there are several tricky spots on this pitch for me. I wasn't sure I could force myself to do the heel hook boulder beta on the end of the 2nd pitch. I got there and tried a few moves that are more static. In the end I gave-up and went with what I know, lunge for the belay ledge and then put in a heel hook where the hands are, punch for the chains. I just about came off I was giggling so much, really fun bouldering style climbing at the end of 200 feet of climbing. There must be better beta for this finish, but that heel hook feels good and I'm sticking with it.

Young Warriors was a bit wet and not that much fun, I like the position up there but the rock is lose in spots. I might not solo this again.

As for the goals.. Well I want to get strong enough to solo all the classic moderates out there. So far the only two that are left to do are Windsurfer and Dodd's Jam. I'm not sure when I'll do these routes, maybe never. Windsurfer feels mellow, but there is some lose rock on it and it is steep enough where down climbing would be risky. Dodd's is hard for me because of the hand size, that #1 size never feels that locker. Mostly I want to get these routes so dialed that I can run laps on them rope-less and feel comfortable. I'm not there yet, I still ket sketched at times so there is still work to be done. No rush, I have to chill out and wait...

Red Rocks

2009-11-04T17:05:00.001-08:00

One last big trip for the year to what feels like my local crag wall. Red Rocks.

A full TR is here

Trout Creek Love.

2009-10-15T12:28:00.000-07:00

Rachael crushing Gold Rush, Trout Creek Oregon.

I haven't been to Trout Creek at all this Fall so it was nice to get down there this past weekend and bloody my hands. Literally. I've climbed Trout dozens of times and every time I go there I'm shocked at how beautiful it is, that view will never get old. Speaking of shocked, Rachael shocked everyone (even herself) by snagging on-sights of a bunch of classic routes. Watching her fight through the bottom part of Suzuki on lead was very inspiring, that's a proud on-sight. (I'm envious, I got spanked on my on-sight attempt)

I took several TR laps on my "project" out there and made two lame attempts at leading it. I gave up on Alchemy a while back, just too hard for me. After a year long break from this route, I'm stoked to be working it again and can see the light at the end of the tunnel. The first two top-rope burns were awful, I couldn't even do the crux moves hanging on the rope. By the third time I was starting remember more of the beta and linked a few sections without falling. It is the feeling of doing the impossible that really sucks me in on this type of route. The first few goes I couldn't even dog up it, a few more laps and I have it all linked together. Time to lead it!

Bottom of Alchemy. Watch the rope Nate!

Sunday. I took one more TR lap to get the moves fresh. This may have been a mistake as I worn down my skin from the effort. Ouch. My lead attempt started out poorly, I fell on my ass trying to get to the first piece of gear in. Doh! After that I buckled down and lead the first 1/3 of the route to the rest dish.(first time I've done that without falling) Took a long break here, and motored up into the crux section. I was feeing good but sat on the rope when I got to the first pod. *sighs* The problem here is my head, the gear needs to go in where my fingers are. What needs to happen is that I need to be brave and not place any gear here, just go for it. The fall should be clean. More commitment is needed.

So yeah I was bit bummed. Although it was a high-point for me on that route, I can at least imagine that it will go on lead. Some day.

Sport Climbing Objective Hazard: Snakes!

2009-10-07T15:15:00.000-07:00

Yep, that's me and I'm sitting on the rope on a 5.8 sport climb! Everyone keeps talking about this so I may as well post the picture on my blog. Yep, Nate sucks at climbing, I know this but now everyone does.

Last weekend we ducked rain and cold weather with some sport climbing up in Tieton. It was a tad chilly and the days short but we still got some good routes in. I was finally feeling GOOD, no pain in my body. I've been training hard, so much so that I'm often sore and climb like ass. Of course the upside to all this soreness and fatigue is that when I take a rest (in my case 48 hours of no climbing and 9 hours of sleep) I feel really strong. I felt strong this weekend, finally. I didn't climb anything too hard (5.11D, 5.11C and a bunch of 10s/11s) but I didn't get pumped, even on my 4th lap up the 5.11D. *

It took 4 laps to figure out the beta on this route, brilliant line. Compared to other climbs at Tieton this could be 5.12 for sure. Name of route is Ice Cream Girl (?) The trick beta is to put a long runner on the last bolt, this makes for a sort of mellow clip compared to a desperate gripper. Route is technical!

So yeah training has been big for me the last 4 weeks and I'm starting to feel a bit of gain. No, I'm not climbing great (see above picture) but I feel stronger and not as pumped. This is good as I have high-hopes for my trip to Red Rocks that is coming up two weeks. But then again, showing up strong is about 10% of a successful send, getting my head in the game is the other 90%

And what about that snake infested 5.8 that I dogged up? This route had 4 rattle snakes in a pile right at the base! I stepped right to avoid them, blowing the first clip would be certain death as you'd land in that nest of snakes and would be devoured. So the snakes rattled my nerves! That's my excuse at least for why I dogged up this route.

Local Cragging

2009-09-28T14:45:00.000-07:00

Leading an unknown 5.11D at Madrone.

Sadly, the summer is over and with it the end of the Alpine Rock climbing season. I might get out once more this year to climb something tall, cold and beautiful, but I've changed gears and started thinking about doing, short, hard routes. Actually I miss working on routes, getting crushed and spending a whole afternoon trying to figure out just one 5 foot section of rock.

On Sunday we mostly goofed off in the sun out at Madrone, but I did spend some time working on a fun 5.12 b/c route. I'm so damn close I taste it! Funny as I can link all on TR, no problem. However on lead I can't figure out where to stop and make that second to last clip from. Way too pumped to lock off and clip! So the choice is to skip-it and risk a slightly longer fall, or bear down and clip from a horrible crimper. Eeeek! Basically I'm a sissy. However, once I got done working that route, I snagged a good red point of this really fun 5.11D route. The beta on that one is to move fast and it feels trivial, go slow and it is brick hard.

Right hand is now on a horrible sloper.

Crux Throw! Right hand is on horrible sloper of nothing, good feet but the second I move my left hand up, my right hand comes flying off. Timed cordination is key.

While I'm taking about Sport climbing, the previous weekend I was down at Smith for two days realizing my footwork sucks and listening to 500 other climbers yap while belaying. Oh Smith is fun but feels far removed from the type of climbing I've been doing this summer. Bitching aside, I did get a red point of Blackened on the first go of the day. Caleb was so close to the on sight of that route, I think it was my bad beta that ruined him. Caleb on the lead!

Hulk Smash!

2009-09-23T17:41:00.001-07:00

The Incredible Hulk in all her glory. That's one fine piece of rock, the best I've ever seen!

Over Labor Day I made a really good effort to climb Positive Vibrations on the Incredible Hulk. We tried very hard but the weather shut us down and we had to settle for climbing the lower half of Positive Vibes, and the upper half of The Red Dihedral via a scary three pitch traverse to join the two routes together. Combined these are great routes, the best of the best in Alpine rock climbing, but deep down I felt disappotinted that we didn't get the big tick, Positive Vibrations. On the upside, I successfully got us out of a very hairy situation when we reached the summit in darkness with only one headlamp and no idea where the rap anchors were. We worked well, making some scary down climbing and ridge climbing to get us off the summit. Although it wasn't ideal, we made it down safely. I kept thinking, I can't see anything so this isn't scary! Big thumbs up to Micha, he's a great climber and a lot of fun to travel with, I think we spent more time discussing our romantic adventures then actually climbing. Or at least I wore out my iPhone text messaging girls on the drive down.

Full details of the climb can be found here.

Aside from that we also had a good little vacation romping around Lover's Leap, doing the classic Travelers Buttress. There is some good pitches on that rig, although I'm not sure if it really needs to be on the 50 classics list. For added spice, we climbed a two pith sit-start to Travelers Buttress, Surrealistic Pillar Direct. A very stout 5.10b that would be 5.11 at any other crag in the PNW. The final tally for the route went like this. Surrealistic Pillar Direct 5.10b++ 100 feet, to 200 feet of 5.7 dkye hiking. Take off shoes, walk to base of Travelers Buttress, climb crazy 5.9 OW crack into steep hands. Belay. Climb 300 feet of run-out dyke hiking. The 5.8 section right off the belay on pitch 3 made my balls draw up, very positive holds but airy!

The 'Leap' is for Lovers

A really tall boulder problem or a short free solo?

2009-09-14T11:30:00.000-07:00

There is a strange pattern in my climbing lately, whenever I'm climbing and have partner issues (EX partner is tired, injured, forgot the rack etc) I end up soloing fun lines. Not sure what my problem is, mostly I'm hyper and driving up to the crag and NOT being able to climb makes me anxious. Like, well I'm here let's climb something! It also puts me into the right mind-set, if I go to the crag with the specific goal of soloing I get nervous, scared and climb poorly. For some reason, NOT thinking about soloing makes me much more relaxed.

This weekend was case in point. Partner gets stung by bees, I on-sight 5.11 without the rope. A true on-sight as I did not have the guide book or know anything about the route in advance. That sounds dangerous on paper, but really it was a fairly mellow outing and has more in common with bouldering then soloing.

As I recall. Route is 3 bolts long, 40 feet. At the 20 foot mark there is a roof crux with positive holds. I up and down-climbed the first 20 feet a few times, mostly just to get a workout as I had no intention of throwing over a roof onto unknown holds. The 4th lap I was shaking out and enjoying a nice pump when it occurred to me that these holds were very friendly,why not top it out. Long reaches on overhanging rock took me up onto a vertical slab, I had a brief moment of "oh shit" while padding around the slab trying to get some feet , but it didn't last long and soon I was at the chains. (eds notes, do the chains have any significance while soloing ?) Very cool route, perfect edges on a aesthetic boulder/block. The guide gives it 5.11, I'm going to say V2-V3 or upper 5.10ish. Landing is smooth sand climbers left, TV size rocks climbers right.

The grade is totally meaningless for such an experience, I'm glad I didn't know what the route was rated in advance as I would have never climbed it. Further proof of how useless grades are, about an hour before going up this "5.11", I backed off a 5.7 crack because it felt sketchy. I don't know how to explain that, but it didn't feel good and I got spooked. Moral of story? I suck at climbing and am OK with bailing off easy routes.

This was a good introduction to another route I'm thinking of bouldering. I want to try this line at 5.11C solo. Same style, crux low at 15 feet with another 30 feet of 5.10 to the top. The low crux is hard for me and really committing, no down climbing a dyno like that! The other problem is the fall potential. Falling 15 feet is not that big of a deal, broken leg/ankle but on this route the ground is a steep slope so that 15 foot fall might end up being a lot longer fall/roll down the gully. I'm thinking of using crash pads for it, but not sure what good a pad would do in such a situation.

Yeah!

Retro Trad.

2009-09-02T09:10:00.000-07:00

Almost a full month since I posted last. Yikes! I've posted a few TRs from on CC.com, links below. The most recent one being a blast up Colchuck Balanced Rock via the West Face with Caleb (5.12, 8 pitches)

New Trip Repots.

Colchuck Balanced Rock via the West Face 5.12- 8 pitches.
Squamish- Millennium Falcon- 5.11 12 pitches.
Bugaboos

Leading the best crack pitch in Washington, Pitch 6 Colchuck Balanced rock.

This past weekend I actually stayed around Portland and did a bit of local climbing. Whoa, who knew there was climbing to be had in Portland. I haven't been in town much this summer so it was actually a nice treat to hit the local crag scene. I tried a few new things including a retro trad ascent of of the "Rauch Factor" at Ozone and a 2 pitch link-up of Blownout at Beacon Rock.

One goal of mine for climbing is to make sure I do something new every single time I climb. New might be a new route, working a red-point linking up pitches, basically do something I've never done before no matter how insignificant. Outside of climbing this might be a good way to go through daily life, every day should be new and different .

Climbing at the local crag it can be hard to find new ways to climb, I've done most of the routes 10 times over. Lately I've been soloing a lot, ropeless on routes opens up all kinds of "new." The boring becomes a new adventure and that route I've done 10 times before become a new challenge. I feel like soloing is almost a different sport then roped climbing, instead of thinking about gear, belays, rope drag,clipping stance the mind switches gears into just moving the body from point A to B. Very liberating! I've got this idea to solo all of the classic cracks in the Portland area before the year is out.

This past weekend I had a partner ( I love you Micha) so we were thinking of new ways to climb with the rope. Saturday was a milage day at Beacon. The goal was training for our upcoming trip by climbing as many pitches at possible. We came up a bit short, but still climbed 12 pitches in the 5.10-5.11 range. I soloed some moderate routes at the end of the day to finish it up.

Start of Dastardly Crack, Beacon Rock.

What was new about this day? I lead the 2 pitch classic "Blownout" as one pitch instead of the normal two. Last year I saw Bob Graham do this, with a 70M rope, he was just barely able make the 2nd anchor. I thought Bob looked like a total stud jamming that corner 150+ feet above me with minimal gear. I did the same thing and sure enough, it feels rad! The crux is 70 M of rope weight pulling at the harness for that last boulder move to the anchors.

Sunday we did Ozone with Bob and Micha. How the hell do you do something exciting at Ozone with all of those bolts? Umh,how about skipping the bolts and placing natural gear instead? Ok skipping bolts and placing gear is little contrived, the term I've heard used for this style of climbing is retro-trad. Ha! Sounds trendy but in fact is a ton of fun. Again turning a mellow clip-up (Rauch Factor 5.10C) into an exciting gear lead.

On this route I got good gear in for most of the lower part of the route, very casual. The upper section has no gear so a bit of a runout. The climbing is straight forward 5.10 but a fall near the anchors would be 70 footer onto the slabs near the MD route. My Ozone goal is to climb all the classics out there with gear only. Wow, lots of goals at the junk crags of Portland.

And just for fun! Pictures of the boys in action at Ozone. I love taking pictures, more fun then climbing!

Freedom of the Hills: NE Ridge of Bugaboo Spire

2009-08-11T14:03:00.001-07:00

I was up at the Kain Hut last week eating my dinner and I over-heard someone mention that the picture on the cover of the classic instruction manual "Freedom of the Hills" was taken in the Bugaboos. I found a copy in the hut's library and indeed, the cover is a great shot of the summit of Bugaboo Spire. I haven't spent much time reading that book (I ought to, I still know nothing about glacier travel) but I did get a bit of satisfaction looking at that cover thinking that I was on "that" summit the day before.

My trip into the Bugaboos went well, and I'll try to write up some more TRs for the other routes we did. It is a special place and I really would be hard pressed to describe how I felt up there, climbing in a place that I only imagined in pictures. It doesn't really exist does it? Yes, the Bugaboos are very real and I feel lucky to have climbed four days our of four days on very good routes. The highlight of all this was a solo trip up the NE Ridge of Bugaboo Spire.

Bugaboo Spire was a special route for me, maybe the best day I've ever had climbing. The weather, the rock, the position, everything came together in a fine day. Before I even got to the Bugs I was thinking of soloing something, I hadn't picked out a route yet but anytime I get near granite I always think about soloing, how could you not? I didn't actually know there was a route on the NE corner of Bugaboo Spire it looked like an amazing line from the hut but I couldn't find any beta ( Duh, turns out be a 50 NA classic route, lots of beta out there) So it wasn't until I had been there for two days that a guide clued me in and said, "yeah it would be a great solo blah blah"

Thursday morning. The weather has been crappy all week, were packing up to hike back to the car. No wait it is sunny and blue-bird. I ditch the big pack, grab my day-pack and rush out the door at the early hour of 9:00 AM. I feel a bit rushed, everyone tells me that this peak lures many into overnight bivys and the other parties that went up to do it left the hut at 4:00AM. Please not another bivy! I figured if I moved fast I could be down in 12-14 hours.

The Route I took up the NE Ridge. Descent in Green.

The best part of getting off the rope is the pace, I get to decide how fast I want to move. Actually I get to decide everything, me me me. Sort of a selfish pursuit yeah? Well I didn't want to bivy so I moved a long quickly. Here is the time breaks when I checked my watch.

9:00AM. Leave Kain Hut jogging the approach trail.
9:45. Base of Col, can't breath. Start climbing low 5th approach stuff.
10:30. Base of route. 15-20 minute break waiting for another party.
12:00. South Summit. 3,200 vertical gain (?) from hut.
12:00-3:00. Slow Descent.
3:00. Two hour nap waiting for cluster at rap stations to clear out
6:00PM. Back at the hut.

The climb was truly amazing, I can't say enough good things about it. To elaborate a bit more about how it went...

Climbing the approach pitches. (maybe 500 feet of low 5th) I was nervous. The wall looked steeper then I imagined and very exposed. Breath Nate. At the base of the 5.8 pitch, I had time to think it over and dig right in. The first pitch was a real wake-up call. I thought at 5.8 the moves felt hard and sustained, mostly perfect fingers but steep and 100 feet of it with slick feet. The heavy pack made me feel clumsy and I was breathing hard by the time I pulled into some easier terrain. A sandbag at 5.8 or do I just suck at climbing? I hope this is the end of the "real" climbing.

Looking up the route. 8-12 pitches of great climbing above.

Looking up the first 5.8 pitch.

Things speed up after this, an airy 5.7 face pitch, some more long 5.6 cracks, the rocks moves by. Somewhere around pitch 4 or 5, I make the descison to bypass a long 5.6 crack via a nice 5.9 hands and fist crack. Sort of felt like climbing Gold Rush out at Trout Creek only with a better view. Pulling out of the 5.9 pitch I experience a brief moment of vertigo while looking down. The exposure and position is fantastic and I get a sense of nervousness realizing how far up I am. Thankfully I'm in a perfect hand-crack on clean granite. The 5.9 pitch is to die for. I pass a party and they take some pictures.

Looking up the 5.9 Pitch

I had to borrow a helmet as I forgot mine, a bit small.

After the 5.9 pitch things started to calm down and my pace again increases, I'm breathing hard (this is the theme of the day). I climb hundreds of feet of chimneys and cracks, mostly mid 5th class. These pitches are a little bit dirty and not as good as the lower pitches. Although the cracks are wide here, I mostly climb on the face or lug-up on chalkstones. Right below the final summit I encounter a final bit of difficulty, an overhanging crack thingy that takes a few minutes to solve, mostly fun. I flop onto the North summit and shake hands with another party that was up there.

North Summit

The traverse between the two summits was the best, and most exciting part of the day. For some reason sliding around on a 4th class ridge like that is more of a head-rush than actually climbing. This ridge makes The North Ridge of Stuart feel tame. I follow these two other guys across the ridge and we take turns shooting pictures as we inch across the ridge toward the South Summit. Below the South Summit I find a short 20-30 foot section of steep hand-crack that I up and down-climb for fun. The view from the South Summit is even better, I really can't believe it.

Looking back at the ridge between the summits

Myself on the South Summit.

The descent down was tedious, down climbing, raps, glacier walking, slow guides, groups wondering around the glacier, yep it was all there. The guide shows 8 total raps from the summit by I only do 4 of them. I find it quicker to downclimb some of the raps then to flake the skinny cord. I ended up not going down the Bugaboo Col, too scary. I did 6 raps near the icefalls of Pigeon Spire and made it back to the hut by 6:00PM. Sounds chill but I did see a climber in front of me fall into a crevasse, he was able to arrest himself before going all the way in. Scary stuff out there.

Climbers walking toward ice-cliff rap anchors.

I was very happy with how the day went and was a bit tired after the fact, I fell asleep at the dinner table that night. Very much a classic route, get on it!

Rest day?

2009-08-11T13:42:00.000-07:00

Maybe I should take one. Let's recap.

Friday: Drive to Squamish
Saturday: Climb Millennium Falcon: 14 pitches 5.11
Sunday. Climb First 3 pitch of Right Wing, 5.10+ Bail. Climb Jungle Warfare 6 pitches 5.10.
Monday. Drive to the Bugaboos, hike-in to hut.
Tuesday. Climb first pitches of Sunshine Crack, rained off bail
Wednesday. Climb Sunshine crack
Thursday. Free solo NE Ridge of Bugaboo Spire 5.8 or 5.9
Friday. Climb Mctech Arete 5 pitches 5.10
Saturday. Hike-out Drive to Portland
Sunday. Sport climb French's Dome. Routes to 5.11c

A nap? I fell asleep while driving the other night so I'm well rested.

Sick. Mount Stuart

2009-07-30T15:37:00.000-07:00

Another granite goal of mine went-down two weeks ago. The North Ridge of Mount Stuart finally got climbed. It took me three years and three partners, but finally it is in the bag. The short of it is that I on-sighted all pitches leading most of the route and taking no falls or takes. I'm such a sport wanker, thinking of alpine routes as "on sight" but even when your hurting and in the middle of nowhere, style still matters and I don't want to cheat myself by sitting on the rope or aiding anything. And why would you? Most of the climbing is piss easy and the few sections that are harder are just fun, clean climbing. I'm surprised more people don't solo this rig, the route begs to be soloed. I have a new goal for next year.

As always with such famous climbs it is never like I imagined it. Indeed it is well worth the hype. I've never climbed a ridge like this, exposed and wild. Describing it would be tough, but think of straddling a small boulder perched 2,000 feet above the glacier, sliding along with your legs on either side of the this little boulder. Do that all day, and for fun watch football stadium sized blocks of ice break off and fall down the wall. I kid not, on the hike in we saw a slab of ice that big break off the summit and fall all the way to the valley. The sound is like thunder and makes me think of nature and my place in it.

The long of it is that I got sick and nearly killed myself on several occasions. I suppose one might call this an epic, but I'll just call it a bit of suffering and a very nasty flu.

Friday. Hike in, set-up base camp at the base of the Sherpa Glacier. The hike-in is hot and bushey, sometimes there is a trail, sometimes not. I stop about noon to eat a warm subway sandwich. This is where it goes bad, boycott Subway! Go to bed feeling a bit feverish, I think it is just the heat and the work-load.

View of the North Ridge from camp.

Saturday-Wake-up feeling OK and hammer up the Stuart Glacier. A few jokers drop their climbing shoes into a crevasse and try to rescue it via sketchy glacier rescue technique. Were moving well and quickly get on the ridge after 600 feet of low 5th class soloing. Another bunch of jokers drops an ice ax from higher up and almost gives me the chop.

On the Stuart Glacier before getting on the ridge, Steep!

About noonish were moving along well and I'm about to get bored. I mean come-on this is just an easy fun romp? Wrong. I get sick (stomach flu) and start vomiting at every belay. On top of that,I have no clothing with me aside from a shirt and a wind-breaker. My fever gets up and I shiver non-stop. No matter, the climbing is rad and I just ignore it.

Higher up on the ridge, another party behind us.

The climbing is a bit tricky, endless blocks and ridges keep me from moving as fast as I want. I'm used to going up, going up and over rocks confuses me and slows my pace. Eventually we come into the good stuff, two pitches of 5.9 up this proud tower near the summit. Finally some actual climbing. At this point I feel like death, but once I stick my hands into the first 5.9 crack pitch and that all fades. It has come to my attention that I'm a rock climber, it is the most natural thing for me. I feel this when I'm sick as a dog and waltz up this steep crack placing very little gear and feel calm for the first time all day. 5.9 granite cracks feel so much easier than low 5th class climbing we've been doing all day. Yeah! The belay on this pitch is classic beyond words, a perfect little pedestal glued to the wall in the most beautiful of all settings.

Moira following the second 5.9 OW pitch.

This is where things go down-hill. I think I'm OK and climb the 5.9 OW pitch with ease. Turns out I was clipping my tag line into the pro, not the lead-line. The tag line isn't secured to anything, a fall onto it would have killed me. My mind is clearly not working well. I try to keep pushing the pace but keep making route finding mistakes near the top as I shiver and vomit. We top-out on the summit later then I would have liked in cold, windy weather. No summit pictures for us, we rush down to start the descent.

We don't get too far before I hit the wall. I'm moving slowly and am too sick to think, I keep falling asleep every time we stop. My partner gets worried and decides we can't go any further, we have to bivy. I try to argue that we should go down as I have no bivy gear and am worried I'll freeze to death in an open bivy. My protests are weak and my partner finds a bivy site below the summit where another party is hunkering down for the night.

I try to act cool when we first meet these guys (I'm not that sick right?) They don't buy it, and lay me down on the ground and cover me with jackets and feed me hot drinks. Their generosity makes a huge impression on me. These guys are also in a bad way with very little gear, but they take turns sharing jackets and spooning me to keep warm. I have no sleeping gear of my own but we find a garbage bag in the rocks (I even left my emergency bivy at home) so my partner and I rap up in this garbage bag and squeeze in next to these other guys. Cuddling with 4 people will keep you warm right?

Yes, my first forced bivy was a grim one. Temps were close to freezing that night and the wind never let-up. Oddly I was so sick I didn't care how cold or miserable I was, I just felt like ass and wanted to be left alone. Thankfully people are good and refused to let me die in peace, all night long I was fed drinks and rubbed to keep warm. The long night-wore on as we cursed the wind and I shivered. I'm not sure what to make of it all, but without help from my partner and these strangers we met, I may have been in very serious trouble up there. It was sobering to feel helpless and have to rely on other people.

The open bivy, I'm buried somewhere in the garbage bag.

The next morning I feel a tad better after sleeping for a total of 0 minutes. The descent down the Sherpa Glacier turns out to be steeper than I anticipated with numerous crevasses. Our pace is again a bit slow and I almost kill myself for the second time in 24 hours when I punch through a snow-bridge and catch myself by my arms. Holly shit, this mountain is mean! This lazy moderate route is turning out to be a real ass kicker.

Sherpa Glacier Descent.

The aftermath of all this was me being sick for a full 7 days, losing a bunch of weight, and getting a trip to the ER for dehydration. From now on, I'm only eating Jelly Beans.

The Passenger

2009-07-07T16:52:00.000-07:00

My weekly road-trips up North to Washington to climb on granite continued this past weekend. Took three days off from Portland to climb two amazing routes around Washington Pass. Another granite goal of mine went down as we climbed the Passenger (5.12) on South Early Winter. This route has been on my mind for a while and I had high hopes of crushing it. This route is new ground for me in terms of difficulty, I've never tried to climb a multi-pitch route at this grade (well half-lie, climbed Cloud Tower last year but come on, that's Red Rocks!)

Long story short, the route went down. No, I missed the on-sight. Actually I fell more than once. However I was stoked to do such a route without too much drama and actually enjoyed the moves, even the 5.12 slab shit.(Ok another lie, there was some drama when the fixed pin we were using for a belay fell out) I have a lot to think about after doing this route, maybe in another post I'll go into it. To read all the spray details go here.

Aside from that, we also climbed West face of North Early Winter (5.10+), easily marching up one of the best crack pitches in the State of Washington for my third time up this routes.

On Monday we took a day off from Alpine bush whacking and sport climbed around Mazama in the blazing heat. Too damn hot so I went for a swim in the best swimming hole in the PNW!

How about a slide show of the great North?

Index- Lovin' Arms

2009-07-02T12:49:00.001-07:00

I've been in need of some love lately, thankfully Micah came up big for a partner and we climbed the classic "Lovin' Arms." Like many classic routes that I dream about, the end experience is never like I imagined it. It is fun to fulfill fantasies, we all want this. But can the real experience ever be as good as imagined? Maybe we have the power to imagine things more vividly then we can ever possibly experience? Or maybe I suffer from post adventure depression, what's next to dream about? Thankfully it only lasts a day and my mind is onto other adventures that all look super good in my mind, you know in my mind I'm just walking up these perfect cracks and it is sunny and 60,cold beers by the river. Oh wait, that actually did happen at Index!

Climbed the route on-sight with no falls just as planed. The climbing is memorable with every pitch being unique. The one big surprise I had was, that it felt easy. (Index is hard right?) and b) The upper town wall is STEEP and mean looking. The fact that a moderate free route cuts right up this wall is a gift from God.

TR from last week is up here.

My feet are tired

2009-06-18T12:00:00.000-07:00

Mdway crux on King Tut's Tomb, 5.11. Tieton River, the Oasis.

My little legs got a good workout this past weekend up at Tieton. Eds note. I love Tieton, the camping is perfect, the crowds are nill and the energy is good. I was lucky enough to reconnect with an old friend (Brendan) for his first trip to Tieton. I love showing friends new climbing areas, it reminds me of how stoked I was the first time I got on some of these classic cracks. Brendan was working with a bum ankle all weekend but still hiked the shit out of a bunch of 5 star routes at the Bend. Yeah for him!

Saturday-Bend Tieton.
(tick list, I forgot the guidebook, guessing at grades)

5.9 right of of Pure Joy
5.7 further right(Brendan leads)
5.10c Pure Joy (red-point, finally!)
5.10b (on sight, right of Pure Joy)
5.11+ish (first go flash, flash as I checked out the moves on rap on a another trip up there)
5.10bish (on sight, thin feet)
5.8 (Eds Jam two pitches. Brendan leads the 2nd pitch, lucky bastard)
5.10c (Twice, once lead, once TR)
5.12 TR flail (Huh? No crack, no holds. Maybe not even a route)

Overall Saturday turned out to be a banner day. I'm going to thank Brendan for that. A belayer is so much more than the person that holds your rope. They are your friend, coach, critic, partner, paramedic and maybe even the guy that gets to tell your Mother what went wrong. I'm just learning how important the belayer is to success in climbing. Positive energy goes a long way. The day went well and I was marching up routes that used to pump me out.

We ended up on the North side looking at this thin seam that goes for 70 feet. (route name?) I saw this route a month ago and deemed it too hard, bad gear and too foot intensive for my tiny legs. Jaime had the guide and pegged it at .11+ No idea why this seemed like a good idea, but I grabbed a pile of little cams and got to it. Right away things went poorly. No jams and feet smeared on nothing. I wasted much time in the first 20-30 feet wiggling in micro cams that never got set right.
I finally got to the last option for gear, a flared RP and a cam with two lobes sticking out. My feet were starting to convulsive on me so I ended up screaming and making desperate stabs, using the seam like a micro crimp edge to move me to a good stance. Sort of a head problem for me, committing to these horrible feet above questionable gear. Oddly enough the thought of "taking" never crossed my mind, I honestly didn't want to even body-weight test some of those pieces. Oops.

The upper part of the route is a bit safer with 2x bomber Aliens, but the climbing is still these long moves of smears and too small to jam finger crack. One desperate piece of gear near the end and it was onto the anchors. My poor calves were worked, that was a long lead and the cruxes were all off smears. Damn! One of the hardest crack pitches that I've ever sent.

Other notes. Pure Joy finally went clean. For some reason I used to have BIG problems with that route. This time it felt mellow and just fun (joy?) No idea what I was doing wrong.

Saturday night. Camping, too much beer with Onie, Kim an Moira. Thanks for the hangover ladies.

Sunday. Sport Wanking at the Oasis.

A break off from my legs. Climbed 4 routes on decent rock before getting rained out. Not a huge area, but some fun lines.

I got the on sight this short 5.11 called King Tut. Fun route out of a cave. Custom made for Nate, a few small moves separated by huge jug shake-outs. Slightly overhanging.

Out of the Cave on King Tut's Tomb. Fun!

Filling the void

2009-06-08T15:20:00.000-07:00

I once heard someone describe crack climbing as climbing what isn't there, climbing a void. This is very true, unlike other styles of climbing, there is nothing to grab, pull, or pinch. Just an empty space, your hands and feet fill this space to become the holds that allow movement up the wall. There must be a metaphor somewhere in here related to life, but for now let's just say that climbing steep cracks is badass.

Smith Rock Lower Gorge-Saturday.

Jaime, Jodi and Moira offered to take me down for an easy weekend of cragging at Smith and Trout Creek. Due to some domestic issues, I haven't been climbing much, and the little bit of climbing I've done in the last few weeks have been all sport (Ozone, Carver, Gym etc) I'm feeling like a skinny sport wanker with no skills. Hopefully a weekend of crack climbing would awaken me and get me re-motivated for trad climbing.

My motivation goes way up when I sees new routes, the thought of moving onto new rock with no idea what might be ahead really excites me so much more than doing the same routes I've done before. Even more so if done on natural gear. Having only climbed the Lower Gorge once before, the routes were all new to me (mostly) and the temps were perfect for cranking. We ended up doing about 7 routes total, 5 of those were on-sight for me with one repeat from years past. (redpoint on this) The highlight of the day was the last route we did, On the Road. (5.11)

On the Road is something I read about before, the guide description calls it one of the "first 5.11s" at Smith, "classic" and "mows down unfit climbers." I haven't been feeling too fit lately, so I assumed I'd be joining that group of pumped climbers. The wind was blowing and the rock was cool to the touch, a few tricky moves and bit of jamming and I was clipping the anchors of one of the best crack lines I've ever done. The route might have been hard, I honestly don't recall feeling pumped or scared, just flowing through moves and really enjoying the experience. I kept thinking, I should be getting pumped by now, or I should be nervous, but it never happened, just 90 feet of peace. If God was designing a single pitch crack climb, it would feel something like this.

On the Road Beta.
Rack. Micro Cams for the crux (blue and green alien) 3x cams fingers to .75. 2x #1 BD and #2BD. No nuts.

Crux is low, 15-20 feet off the deck there is a bulge flared pod. Blue and Green Aliens fit here but my fingers couldn't get in. I ended up bouldering the crux via a tiny right hand thumb catch gaston. Smear feet left on bad holds and make a punch move to a high finger lock with left hand, cut feet and steep up into the finger crack. Finger crack is perfect yellow Alien size till about the 50 foot mark. Here a a horizontal roof blocks the way. This bulge/roof is a bad size for men, #1 and .75 to pull it. Keep climbing above bulge on steep #1 and .75 crack til the 75 foot mark. Here another steep bulge on #2 and #1 hands. Yeah! Cruise to the anchor on perfect hands above the roof.

On the Road was good, but honestly all of the routes we did that day were 5 star cracks. Almost just as good. Last Chance (5.10C) ended up giving me a solid pump after 80 feet of perfect finger locks, no crux there just a nice long enduro pitch. * ( I cheated the last move at the chains, the ledge to clip from was wet)

Sunday we did a short day at Trout Creek to round off our crack weekend. No new routes for me, but I did snag a nice redpoint of "diminishing returns" 5.10+ and about 5 other nice lines there. My calves are so weak right now, I was getting type writher legs on every pitch we did out there Ooops. To finish off the weekend we spent Sunday afternoon drinking beer and swimming in the Deschutes River. Thanks Jaime!