Marathon

I'm a climber, not a runner. Sure I can slog up multi-day approaches to climbs or summit glaciered peaks, but usually I'm rewarded with accomplishment or a sweet climb at the end. Running for pleasure? Running just to run? uhm.... check please.

About 3 weeks ago my sister announced that she is going to run a half-marathon at the Long Branch Half Marathon, in Long Branch, New Jersey. My Brother in Law has run it a few times, and my aunt has run it 3 times. They invited her to join the escapade, since she's been looking for a good way to break down barriers and get in shape. She was hesitant at first, but after I said that I'd run it with her if she got in shape and trained for it, she agreed whole-heartedly.

But this means that I have to now run a half-marathon in May.

There is no sweet climb at the end... maybe just some GU packets and a t-shirt. And this is fun?

Breaking it all down, the good part is that I get to spend time with family during the event, and get in better cardio shape.

But the best part is that I get to watch my sister transform into an athlete again, take pride in her athletic abilities, looks, and health... something that she's wanted for many years.

Hell, I'd fly to Kenya and run a full marathon in summer for her to have that.

But, lucky for me, I can just run in New Jersey in May.

My sister and I ran together yesterday for the first time since she chased me around the yard when we were kids. It was great to see her try, struggle, and then step it up to push through. I'm incredibly proud of her and can't wait to see her skinny ass and big smile cross that finish line in May.

East Coast...

I'm spending some time back on the East Coast for the next week or so. It's a welcome change, as its giving my body a chance to recover from winter training, soak up some good food and spend time with family, old friends and new. I had an especially good evening with my father and sister at a restaurant last night that specializes in locally acquired food. It was incredible, and thanks to dad for paying the tab!

I'm heading to my old stomping grounds in Vermont on Friday, and hopefully getting some climbing in up there, either on icicles, or at my old climbing gym haunt.

In the past few weeks, trips have been planned, changed, canceled and created. Many things are up in the air, but one thing is for sure... my van is complete for the season and ready to travel. After Vermont, I'm hoping to be heading south for warmer stone, as I haven't climbed on real rock since Christmas Eve. The weather in Oregon has been atrocious, and I'm hoping SoCal is due for some high pressure.

Thanks to Bruce, John, Harry, Tony and Beth (a few of the East Coast climbing crew) for the company at the climbing gym here. It's good to always have a good belay wherever you go. (And good people to eat dinner with after...)

In an effort...

In an effort to provide more "pizazz" to this humorous attempt at a blog, I've added some photos of a recent climbing day at Smith Rock taken by photographer Tyler Roemer. (www.tylerroemer.com)





Go Dog Go, left dihedrals, Smith Rock State Park. ahhh, gotta love fall conditions.

Forever Ago

It's been a long time, but now that winter is approaching and my time will be spent traveling and adventuring, I'll try and keep this thing updated.

Since my last post....

Joshua Tree Bouldering and Cracks
Red Rocks shenanigans
Bishop Bouldering
Owens River Gorge sport clippin'
City of Rocks Idaho splitter Granite
North Umpqua River, Oregon towers
Leavenworth, WA mountain biking and climbing
Mt. Hood 'pine antics
Bugaboos - big balls on big walls (something like that)
Smith Rock sends
Was the cover photo for the new Smith Rock Climbing guide
Lost the spot as the cover of the Smith Rock Climbing guide =)
Route setting at the New Gym in Bend, InClimb
Bought a Van
Lots of New friends and re-acquaintances with old.

I'm skipping things that have happened like I'm skipping bolts, my apologies if your trip with me missed the list.

Like I said, I'll try and keep this going. More photos, stories and updates coming.

Lost Rocks, California

Mike Rougeux and I had decided a few weeks back to take a trip South to explore the climbing of Northern California. With a bunch of rumors "spraying" around about proud beach bouldering and long endurance test-pieces on fresh Limestone, we decided to check it out. The area is relatively untraveled, which only added to the excitement of the trip. With a hand-drawn map on the back of an envelope from one of my friends and a small ball-point pen guidebook that did little more than get us to the coast, we set out to see what Humboldt County, CA had to offer.

Driving south at break-neck speeds, weaving in and out of the largest redwood trees that I've ever seen, we landed in a small stone parking area overlooking the Pacific Ocean. About 400 Feet below, waves crashed against boulders with infinite climbing potential. Some of the place has been developed, some has not. We climbed whatever we could get our land-lover hands on, randomly naming problems that involved eloquent pirate-isms.
Because of the fluctuating tides and sand levels, some problems were possible to climb, others not. The sand can make a V4 into a V8, therefore no accurate guidebook exists for the beach boulders. No other medium in climbing besides ice changes as much as the water, sand and rock of bouldering on the coast.Mike and I also found (thanks to LarryB, Matt Battarbee, and Greg Garretson) a fantastic free campsite, complete with grass fields, picnic tables and a shitter. Granted "Samuel the lunatic" was also living there at the time. He wasn't a climber... but more of a drugged-out, homeless artist who lived on salmon, ice-house beer and pot. He was somewhat intelligent, rambling on about "regan-omics" and how we have to save all of our pre-1981 pennies. Apparently the copper in them is worth more than the actual piece of money. He told us to get all of our savings in pennies, bury it, and then dig it up and cash it in when we "wants" to retire. This leads me to believe that somewhere out there, on the California coast, there is a treasure chest buried with thousands of Samuels pennies.
The bouldering on the coast was one of the most beautiful settings that I've ever climbed in, aside from the Buttermilks of Bishop far to the South. Waves crashing, and not another climber in sight, we had the place to ourselves.

High-ball problems, sit starts... all of it was clean and new to us.

After we wiped out our fingertips on the boulders, we drove just under two hours inland to a magical place called the Trinity Aretes. Limestone, limestone, everywhere! We only had a few hours to sample the routes here, but immediately we found it to be steep, sharp and exciting. I'm currently trying to pull some people together to go back, as this is a place that will keep you strong and stoked for a while. It's true... Limestone does exist within an easy morning drive of Central Oregon!

Until next time...

Teddy Bear Picnic

Katy and I ventured out to Smith without a plan. For me, thats like going on a road trip without gas money. But, on this particular overcast day, since we didn't have a plan we decided to jump on a three pitch sport route that we had both wanted to do, but hadn't remembered or though about for a while. It's called "Teddy Bear Picnic" 5.10b/c. It's located on the massive Picnic Lunch Wall inside Smith Rock State Park. It's one of only a handful of routes on this wall because of the lack of solid rock. This route is the exception!

Ok, ok... 5.10b/c.... whopt-dee-doo.... but this three pitch climb really packs a punch. I've not yet felt exposure at Smith Rocks as I did on this climb. This climbing was sustained, long, and airy. The wind was blowing (which always seems to make exposure on a wall seem so much worse) and the air was cool. Coming from Las Vegas temps, I felt as though I was climbing in Siberia.

The first pitch was decent... sustained 5.10b knob pulling with some interesting moves. Katy led it fantastically well and with grace. I followed up behind, feeling somewhat less impressive. I was wearing my bigger "comfy" shoes, which make edging on small holds harder. I also forgot my chalk-bag at the climbing gym, which isn't detrimental but is somewhat inconvenient.

I led the second and third pitches, combining both of them into one long pitch. The third pitch is the MONEY pitch, putting you 250 feet off the deck on the very corner of a huge arete (a narrow spine of rock) From this position, I had to slap to micro-crimps and small pockets with minimal feet. The pitch was bolted, but not the kind of bolting that one wants to fall on. Any fall would have been at least 20 feet.

Rapping off, we both agreed that it wasn't the best route in the park, but it was one to write about! I highly recommend it. Bring plenty of draws to link the 2nd and 3rd pitches, and you only need to rappel twice to reach the ground.

Rockin' Red Rocks

From March 20-27 Katy Van Dis and myself ventured south to the Desert of Nevada to find some warm rock in this seemingly never-ending winter (My New England crew knows what I'm getting at... Spring is coming, hang in there). The climbing at home is good, but still somewhat unreliable in terms of temps.

In the past three years I've been to Red Rocks three times. This is partially because of the ease of getting there (flights into Las Vegas are always pretty cheap) and there is a veritable lifetime of climbing down there. The sandstone canyons have thousands of routes to challenge one's self... and after almost a month of my life spent there I feel as though I've barely scratched the surface.

If you're reading this entry to search for hard sends and groundbreaking ascents, read no further. This trip was more of a "get in shape again without hurting your knee" kind of trip. The days were long, but mellow. As sweet as the trip was, no 12's or 13's were sent, and no grade IV routes were completed. Just quantity and quality in the name of getting strong for the warm season. A handful of 11c sport climbs and 5.6-5.9 trad climbs.

The trip started out with a night slept in our Ford Edge rental car, as the Spring Breakers had staked their claim to all of the campsites. I awoke at 5:00 am the next morning and pushed our reservation paperwork into its proper place, successfully acquiring a 15x15 plot of desert to explode our gear on. A few hours later, we were dipping our hands in our chalkbags and stretching our weary ligaments on the warm, incut sandstone. After 6 pitches, we retired to Albertson's for amenities and shortly thereafter crashed hard onto our Thermarests.

Every morning we awoke to bright, hot sun and cool breezes. Hot enough to be wary of the sunburn that looms just outside of every shadow, but cool enough to still don insulated jackets and wool hats. I absolutely love the desert for its smells, its toughness and its incredible ecosystem. It seems as though everything is attempting to poke you.

My goal on the trip was to climb a lot and to climb at new crags that I'd never been to before. One specific wall was the Necromancer wall, which was recommended to me by a New England climbing partner, Chris Duca last year when we traveled to Red Rocks. The wall sits in the shade most of the day, and offers a nice moderate assortment of steep cracks. We did two routes here, both two pitches in length.

After completing "Fold Out" (5.8), we had to rap through a gully in order to get back to earth. Three mellow raps were all that separated us from the horizontal world. Starting the raps, I had a strange edginess about the decent. I wasn't scared, I wasn't nervous for our safety... I was just super thorough and extremely attentive. This isn't unlike my usual persona in the mountains, but in this specific instance I was "hyper" aware.

The first rap went smoothly, as did the second. Pulling the rope after the second rap, I made sure to pull slowly and make sure that I untied the knot in the end, which protected us from the all-too common climber error of rapping off the end of the rope into clean space. I then proceeded to tug the rope, which whipped through the webbing and quick-link at the top. The rope stopped. I gently tugged more.... nothing.

Swearing and pulling on the rope, I must have looked like an enraged gorilla trying to reach a Banana tied to the end of a rope. Yanking this way and that... that rope was stuck. We were one rap from the ground, our rope stuck about 50 feet above our heads, and no trail line to use. Not wanting to cut the rope, I then free soloed the 50 feet up (5.4) to get to the rope. A fall would have landed me scratched and bruised in a holly bush, no more.

Arriving at the stuck rope, I immediately swore as I gazed at a perfectly tied overhand knot that had lodged into a crack. I've only had two other times in my climbing career when I've had my ropes stuck, and none of them were instances when the rope tied itself into a knot. Something told me that the decent wouldn't be smooth... whatever it was, I'm glad that it didn't turn out worse. We continued the descent with no other abnormalities... although I gave our rope the hairy-eyeball for the next few days.

We climbed for 5 days, taking one rest day. We totaled two trad days and three sport days. Katy and I usually seem to travel with a large climbing crew, however this time it was just us. This gave us the opportunity to meet other climbers; some great and some complete assholes. It's my opinion that a climbing trip is more than the climbing; its the people, the place, and the experiences.

One such experience is when we met a group of climbers at the "Sweet Pain Wall" who had their ropes up on two climbs... but they weren't climbing. We asked if we could pull their rope and climb. One of them then yelled at us, "Our ropes 'er on the climbs... their ours!" Shaking my head, we moved onto another climb, and met a nice group of guys from Montana. After sharing a few routes with them, we all decided to head to Baja Fresh in town.

After arriving there, we quickly filled up six tables with a bunch of people, some we had met during the day, others that had arrived that knew the Montana crew. After a delicious taco dinner, a few of the guys left, and one guy (The Pharmacist, as we refer to him) told us that the guy that was sitting across from me was none other than Andy the Gladiator from the recent TV show American Gladiators. It was hilarious, seeing as the show is ridiculous and fantastic. He is apparently dating one of the female gladiators from the show as well. Helga maybe?

Other run-ins included at least six people from Bend, including Larry and Greg from PodClimber.com who were filming the Red Rock Rendezvous. Check out the website for the fantastic videos that they made from the trip.

The rest of the trip was filled with great sport climbing, long crack climbing, and lots of sunshine. Red rocks will continue to inspire; it's so close, so warm... and I am beginning to feel as though it's almost more of a home climbing crag than Smith Rocks! Ah... back to Smith we go.

Check out the small video below... we're talking about the color green and Kermit the Frog on one of the descents.