Cathedral Ledge - North Conway

Ever since we met up in the Adirondacks over Memorial Day weekend, "Jello" and I have been discussing a potential trip that would allow us to tackle some trad, multi-pitch routes over the course of several days. We discussed two different weekends in July, one weekend in August and the possibility of meeting up either in the 'Gunks or 'Dacks, but we couldn't piece a trip together. First it was my inability to get time off from work. Then it was him getting laid off from work. He had a wedding to attend. I was going home for a week to visit family. His girlfriend was to fly out of Philadelphia on a day we wanted to climb. I was concerned about being out of the office at the same time as my boss (well, not really), and he was to start a new job sooner than expected. It didn't matter what our plans were in the end; time wouldn't let us meet up and we were both getting frustrated.

And then the stars came together.

Finally, we were able to piece together two days at the end of last week where we could camp right across the street from the crag at our super-secret camp site, get up early, and get on the choicest meat before anyone else was even thinking beyond their morning coffee. While we didn't get to do as much as hoped, we still had a great time trying. Thursday provided more opportunities than Friday did, but the route we did on Friday was enough to leave a taste in our mouths to do more. To go bigger. Longer. Badder and radder (OK, so maybe I'm exaggerating here, but only just a little). Below is what we did, how we did it and what the routes are like.

Thursday - North End and Lower Left Wall

Child's Play (5.6) - 1 Pitch of Trad with slings at the top - North End - This was our first route of the trip because we wanted to start on something easy as a warm up. That and we had heard Cathedral was stiff in the grading, so we also wanted to get a feel for what the routes were going to be like: stiff or honest? This route was a little sandbagged, but only just a little. The start was probably a 5.7+ layback with no feet on the first two moves, but once we got past that section, it was pretty easy to string the route together
the rest of the way. This route has excellent pro in the vertical crack just about anywhere on the climb. The finish has a bit too much lichen for my liken', but there was never a tense moment until "Jello" came down after TR'ing the route. It was a normal belay. He got to the top, removed our anchor, set himself up on the rap anchor already in place, and I lowered him. About half-way down, "Jello" saw a horizontal dihedral that he wanted to avoid and pushed his feet outward so that he'd land right on the top edge and step down from there. Unfortunately, his foot missed the edge and his shin caught it instead. It was a helluva scratch that I honestly thought for a few moments would end our climbing before it had hardly started. But he shook it off and we TR'd the next route over from Child's Play.

The Mantleshelf Problem (5.7) - 1 Pitch of TR with slings at the top - North End - This route is not really leadable. One could certainly free-solo it, but it is a face climb with no sign of a crack until about 30 feet off the ground. The start is nice. It has two palm-sized ledges for mantling, and these first two moves lead to a series of jugs just to the right of the Child's Play crack. The top runs up a face of flakey lichen that is way more slippery when wet
than one would think.

Kiddy Crack(5.7) - 1 Pitch of Trad with slings at the top - North End - Another solid route that is more consistent than Child's Play is. It is just to the right of The Mantleshelf Problem and follows a vertical crack upward to the same anchors as the first two climbs did. "Jello" led this route, and I was happy that he was going to be strong enough to continue. Still, these first few routes were too easy. We wanted more.

Bird's Nest (5.9-) - 1 Pitch of Trad with slings at the top - North End - And we got it. This was a stiff route that was very thin and slick at the bottom, especially since it had rained the night before and the jug of water I had bought for the weekend sprung a leak in my trunk and soaked my shoes.
When people tell you that Cathedral can be sandbagged, this is proof that is true. I think this was a 5.10, not a 5.9-. But I hate vertical cracks, so maybe that's just me (I also hate creepy looking spiders that look more poisonous than I'd care to learn the truth about). In any case, it has great pro all the way up that doesn't get in the way of where you want to put your hands. I tried jamming the first 20 feet or so, but I fell twice (the gear held, thank God) and found that a layback worked much better until I could hand jam through the middle (To be honest, I fell more because I was trying to avoid the damn spider than due to the difficulty of the climb. I swear, the fucker was sitting right on a jug that I needed and never moved despite my trying to nudge him along. "Jello" kept yelling 'Kill it! Kill it!', but I didn't want to get that crap all over my gear. I have standards you know).

I finally made it past the spider and into what I thought was the best part of the climb, a series of good hand and fist jams leading to a nice rest on a shelf below a small roof. The upper-middle section had an awkward high-step, sloper, mantle move that made me pause for a couple of minutes to figure out. The move is much easier than it looks, but that doesn't make it less scary. The top was pretty smooth. I'd even call it a 5.6 runout. This route is highly recommended.

After we finished on the North End Wall, we went back down to the car (less than 45 seconds of walking - damn, that's a tough approach), had lunch and decided to try out two routes on the Lower Left Wall that sounded intriguing. Both shared the same first pitch and split into different directions. Both were fantastically different from each other, almost so that it made us feel like we were on different walls.

Bombardment (5.8 - 5.6R) - 2 pitches of trad with no gear at the top - Lower Left Wall - "Jello" led the first pitch of this route: a one-piece 5.6 runout that goes up about 35 feet, with 25 of those feet above the only piece of gear the entire pitch. Still, it's a 5.6 that starts below the obvious rap anchors
at the bottom of pitch two, and winds right up a dike and touch-and-go smear section before an easy hike brings one back to the anchors. Pitch two juts out to the right with a high-step onto a flaring vertical crack that winds left as one goes up. Pro is scant early on this pitch, but it gets better as the crack fades. I'd definitely brings cams for this section. Nuts won't go until you're too high. At that point, decking out isn't just a reality for the start of the second pitch, but maybe the bottom of the first pitch, too. There weren't any anchors at the top, so bring some small nuts to make an anchor in the horizontal crack. There's also a good tree to rap off. And if you venture higher and find what seems to be a soft spot in the ground, don't step there. That's "Jello"'s "I'moffbelaygottarunI'vegottatakeacrapholySHIT!" hole. He was missing for several minutes when we finally rapped down to the bottom of the second pitch, which was also the start of the second pitch of Pleasant Street.

Pleasant Street (5.7 - 5.6R) - 2 pitches of trad with no gear at the top - Lower Left Wall - This route, instead of having a crack that sunk into the wall, featured an under cling flake that arched left to an easy but thick roof near the top. "Jello" led this pitch, and had a lot of fun with it. I don't know about
this guy, to tell the truth. He seems to really like sticking his hands in places
where you don't know what's hiding inside. He just sticks them in there and smiles, albeit not without bitching about all the cobwebs that had formed on the way up. If you don't appreciate cobwebs, make your partner lead this one. It'll be nice and clean for you on the way up. The pro is excellent and the footing is solid as well. One could probably climb the face, but all the pro is in the flake. Use long slings at the bottom to avoid rope drag. One thing to note, however, is that the top of this route is very, very rough. "Jello" stopped short of the top because he couldn't see that the route went any further. From where he set the anchor, everything above was a slopey, lichenfest with no easy, 5.7 moves. He built an anchor in the horizontal crack where he stopped and recommended we traverse over to the top of Bombardment to rap down. However, when I got to the top I discovered three bolts in the rock that led to a very precarious, slippery and slopey section up to a large tree (I aided this part - the lichen was just too touch-and-go). I anchored off the stout branch that hung out over the cliff, sat on the top of it, let him rap down and then I rapped down after him (just to be sure, swinging from a seated position on top of a tree branch onto rappel below a tree branch, and hoping one's weight doesn't snap the branch one is rappelling off of is no treat. I admit, I was afraid. Very, very afraid). Still, the rap was easy and went directly down to a rap anchor that is not in the same spot as the start of the second pitch. If you rap off, rap straight down from the top. You may need two ropes to rap back to the second-pitch belay station. The rap anchors half-way down are good enough to use, but as always, check first.

Friday - Thin Air Face

Standard Route (5.6) - 4 Pitches of Trad with slings for anchors on pitches two and three, and bolts for pitch four - Toe Crack Variation (5.7) on first two pitches - Thin Air Face - Our plan on Friday was to do Thin Air (5.6 - 4 pitches) and then do some of the climbs on the Upper Left Wall such as Upper Refuse (5.6) and various 5.9s and / or 5.8s. Unfortunately, we got up way, way too late in the morning to beat the crowds, and by the time we got to the bottom of Thin Air, there was already a disappointed father and his young daughter holding up the climb (he asked the party behind them to get a tri-cam out for him because his daughter, who couldn't have been more than ten years old, "had a meltdown trying to get the cam out". The whole crowd below heard him say that. You'd think he'd show a bit more support), a group of four waiting to get on the climb and "Jello" forgot his climbing shoes in the car. By the time he got back, Thin Air was as crowded as it usually is. And why not? It's one of New England's most classic climbs. Everyone has to do this route once. It's absolutely fantastic.

Because of the long queue and our desire to get as much climbing in as we possibly could before his girlfriend called for a ride back from shopping in North Conway all day, we decided to do the Toe Crack variation of the Standard route, a long, four-pitch route that requires two ropes if one is going to rap down from the top. "Jello" led the first three pitches mainly because I was now battling two damaged thumbs. The first one you've heard about in my other posts (canoeing accident). The second was a much more traumatic injury: I cut a massive gash in my thumb whilst trying to open a can of freaking blueberries for the pancakes that didn't cook well earlier that morning. Not only did we not get pancakes, but I was stuck fiddling with gear with a two-inch thick wrap of tape and gauze around my thumb all day. The damn thumb just wouldn't stop bleeding. When I finally took the wrapping off later that day, the gauze was stuck to my thumb thanks to all the blood. I thought I was going to die. Seriously.

OK, so maybe I am exaggerating again, but having two bum thumbs and an intense displeasure for vertical cracks (love, love, love horizontal cracks and face climbs. Despise vertical cracks), I let "Jello" have all the fun on the first three pitches.

Pitch One - "Jello" followed the dike at the bottom of the cliff (I mean, who wouldn't? She was HOT! - OK, bad joke, sorry, sorry) to the small chimney that is the Standard Route. However, what he needed to do was not climb all the way up to the chimney because Toe Crack starts to the left of a very slick traverse from the chimney. What he should have done was approach via a tricky slab below the crack. Don't go too high here. The slab is easier than the traverse is, and if you get your feet up high, the move across the slab is pretty basic. From there, follow the vertical crack up, place as much gear as you want (because it's more bomber than a B-52 is, and that's a real bomber) and finish to the
right, at the top of the chimney if one had climbed that instead. There are slings at the top, but these looked worn. I mostly climbed the face here, mainly because that is what I prefer, but you'll need to get your feet twisted in the crack a few times to get up. This was a beautiful pitch. I can't wait to get back on it again, except next time I want to lead it...sans blood.

Pitch Two - We stepped back out onto the face and finished the crack before again fading right to another tree above the Standard Route. Be careful on this belay ledge. There is a lot of loose dirt, sticks, debris, etc that can be easily knocked down to a heavily-used path below. It is the specific belay station that I use as an example of why one should not rap off this route.

You can probably string the first two pitches together in one go, but I'd use only 60m meter or longer ropes for that. If you fall short, there are plenty of places to fix an anchor in the crack below the belay station. That is what a cute blond named Brooke did below us so that she and her guide could traverse to the top of the second pitch of Thin Air and rap down. Hehe. A cute girl talked to us. We felt like men. Grrr...

Pitch Three - "Jello" was disappointed that Toe Crack was now finished and was slightly unnerved by the massive runout face / chimney the rest of the way. We were already swearing like cowboys (we were pretending to be motherfucking, cocksucking actors from the cocksucking, motherfucking cockcucker of a show on HBO called 'Deadwood'), and this pitch didn't help matters. It was a stiff climb that would have been disastrous had he fallen - at least thirty feet of unprotected climbing above a steep, rocky gully that would have shot him straight past me and down toward the lower pitches. I even felt the strain while on second, and gave him big kudos for being both "bold and old" at the top of the pitch.

The belay ledge here is huge. In fact, I may do a night climb of this route someday just so I can sleep on the ledge and wake up to shout "I'M THE FIRST FUCKING CLIMBER ON THIS CRAG TODAY!!! ... ... because I never left."

There are hangers for belaying. Don't use the tree.

Pitch Four - Because "Jello" practically crapped his pants on the previous pitch and partially because the crack was finished and I didn't need my thumb as much, he deferred the lead of the fourth pitch to me. Yippee. He likes cracks and I like stemming chimneys. It was a match made in heaven. Or not. This was the crappiest pitch by far. It was probably 5.6 all the way up, but it clearly was not a popular option. The cave / chimney at the start was easy enough (hint: go fairly deep in, stem across, and then come back out to the edge and below the roof). It was the rest of the climb that sucked. Firstly, there were some route finding difficulties. Once one comes over the roof, one finds a gully with high enough walls on either side to keep one from seeing the best line to the top. I chose carefully. I chose wisely. I chose luckily: to the left up a thin, lichen-covered crack that eventually leads to a slopey slab just below the last belay station of Thin Air. I chose this route because it offered far better protection that the right side did, and because I knew there was a 5.11 lurking somewhere around where I was. I figured it wasn't where Thin Air was anyway. Be forewarned, however. A fifty-meter rope won't make it to the top and there aren't many good anchors spots along the way. I had about ten feet of rope left when I finally got to the top. Thankfully the top ledge has plenty of good belay options (large tree, plenty of room, horizontal cracks, etc) to choose from. That made using what little rope I had left that much easier.

Once at the top, we though about rappelling down either Thin Air or Miss Saigon, but we were told that we needed two ropes to make it the belay stations on both routes. We decided to take the short, one-minute-hike path to our right and walk down the road that goes to the top of the cliff. We talked about night climbing Thin Air, but that was the end of our day and we knew it. We were tired, happy to have climbed what we did and began to talk feverishly of doing big climbs on Cannon and other routes in the 'Dacks. It was a good couple of days, and while "Jello" and his girlfriend had a nine-hour drive to Philadelphia ahead of them, I had a trip to Rumney the next day that would finish off my climbing weekend.

North Conway Trip

I've been back one day and I'm taking off again for the rest of the week. What a life! After spending a week in Bar Harbor (Acadia) sipping Mudslides, eating out, jet-skiing, reading, writing, relaxing and basically being a bum, the time has finally come for me to put away the awkward inflexibility in my thumb and put it to the test on Cathedral Ledge.

I'm meeting "Jello" and his girlfriend there. We're camping just down the road from the base of the cliff, so that will be nice. It will also be nice to be up there during the week as opposed to the busy weekend.

I'm not sure what "Jello" has in mind, but he has mentioned Upper Refuse (5.6) and Recompense (5.9). If you remember, Recompense is the route I damn near died on a couple of years ago. Oddly, I can't wait to get back on it. In fact, I haven't been able to wait until I came down that day. The only disappointment is that I won't be climbing it with the guy I tried to climb it with last time. I'm a sucker for punishing myself (note: I am not a sucker for other people's punishment). I just want to do things the hard way sometimes. Climbing this route with my other friend instead of "Jello" would just add more stress to the head-game equation. Still, "Jello" has knack for adventure, so maybe I'm speaking too soon.

Anyway, I'll report back when I get home. That looks like Saturday instead of Sunday. What a bummer. I knew "Jello" was going to cut his trip short due his girlfriend having to fly out of Philadelphia early Sunday morning, but I was hoping someone would go to Rumney this weekend. Alas, it does not seem to be the case. Maybe Labor Day? Maybe the Gunks? I need better partners.

Great Head - Acadia

I grew up in Bar Harbor, Maine and went climbing only once while growing up. It was during one of my summer day camp outings, when I was six or seven years old, and I cried like a baby because I was so afraid of letting go of the rock. Ten feet off the ground was a long way for me then (still is a bit today). My death grip may have left a permanent impression on the rock. It was a bit embarrassing, too, because I was bragging (read: lying) to a cute counselor about how I was a great climber and had done a lot whilst living in Hawaii. She found out that it wasn't true as soon as I got to the "crux" of the climb. I'm not sure how much she liked me bragging to her after that. I didn't climb again until I "learned" in Scotland many years later (grad school), and wouldn't climb in Acadia again until I came home from school.

Even then, I haven't climbed much in my hometown. It's odd because there is so much climbing here. I just haven't had the opportunities or partners either willing to come here or living here already. When I come home, I'm usually here to visit family and go on hikes and stuff (that's what my current vacation is like). I've always wanted to explore more, and yesterday I did just that.

When I came back from school, a friend from the UK (Kevin - the gentleman with whom I learned to climb with), flew over and visited for a few weeks. The goal was to climb, a lot, and we did. We hit Otter Cliffs, Precipice and South Bubble nearly every day. But that was before the "new" Acadia guide by Jeff Butterfield came out. I'm not sure who wrote the old one, but I don't remember being able to find much information on Great Head Promontory. I knew the cliff was high, but I had always believed it was slopey from the top to the sea. I honestly thought there wasn't a spot on Great Head where one couldn't walk from the top down to the water. This is so odd because I used to help my uncle from time to time on his lobster boat. We certainly fished around Sand Beach and Great Head. I know we fished off Egg Rock Lighthouse (an island just across from Great Head), and yet I never gathered the information I was seeing: a tall, burly 100-foot tall cliff rising right out of the cold Atlantic Ocean.

I set out yesterday to find this cliff, and not get lost trying to do so (if anyone knows the Great Head trails - stop laughing. I've honestly gotten lost looking for these cliffs before. I've always ended up at Sand Beach. I can't explain it. I'm local to the area, and can't explain it). My cousin and her husband were up from Providence visiting and wanted to tag along (I've just recently found out that they have discovered climbing as well, and was going to take them out. They had to leave early that afternoon, however, so scouting was going to be it that day). Despite both of them growing up in Bar Harbor as well, neither of them had climbed in Acadia either. For certain, they had seen the climbing at Otter Cliffs, have hiked the Precipice and South Bubble (oh yeah, those rungs on South Bubble that are all rusted out mid-way up the cliff, that used to be a hiking trail. I did that for the first time with my dog when I was three or four years old. It wasn't a scary hike then, but today it looks as if it was back then). It is easy to see climbers on those cliffs because they are all high-profile locations. For one, all three are, for the most part viewable from the Park Loop Road. They are also high-visit areas. This is mainly because of the views they offer, though accessibility doesn't hurt either. Great Head, on the other hand, despite it's prominence along the coast and viewability from the Park Loop Road, isn't really as accessible. It is somewhat off the beaten trail, and the cliffs are not viewable from Sand Beach, the most common place from which to view and / or approach Great Head.

Another thing to consider is the fact that, as a kid growing up, I've always been familiar with the hike on Great Head to and from its parking lot to Sand Beach. This is because this approach to the beach is a back way in when the beach is crowded and you don't feel like paying the tolls just before the beach's entrance. In other words, the Great Head trail has always been a means to an end: getting to the beach (because who in their right mind would go swimming at Great Head?).

Anyway, we got to the Great Head parking lot and headed in. Within ten minutes we were sitting on top of the cliffs and all three of us were questioning our identities because, as I said, these cliffs have been here all along and we had no clue. But there they were, and we were rather excited to see them, even if discovering the cliffs made us feel a little like tourists, if only for a few moments.

There are three main areas to Great Head: Left Wall, Cavern and Alcove. The latter two are accessible only by rappel, and one must take care to watch the tides because the belay area is either underwater at high tide or is so damn close to being underwater that one might get washed out to see by a rouge wave (See Michael Reardon). But Left Wall seems to be pretty accessible during all tides and has quite a range of climbing (5.7-5.11). The Cavern is mostly advanced climbing with most routes being in the hard 5.10 to 5.11 range. The Alcove has some easier routes, but it is also on the harder end of the spectrum. We found that the area is mostly mixed in terms of pro; some routes are bolted, some are not and some are bolted only where needed. There are many bolts at the top of the routes for top-belaying and / or rappelling. The Left Wall is approachable by walking down the slabs to the right (if on top of the cliff facing the sea). We were amazed at what we were seeing. The routes simply looked stunning, clean and obvious.

One thing to always consider, however, is just how intimidating the rock and ocean are. Even on easy climbs, the rock always has this feel of the elements polishing it off. Stability is something I've always feared whilst climbing the sea cliffs of Acadia. Maybe, however, that's because I wasn't a very strong climber when I first and last climbed here. But the roar of the sea against the shore? That never goes away. And yes, rogue waves are common here. They do wash people out to see. It's happened many times in my lifetime. One almost feels better climbing than on belay. I remember belaying at Otter Cliffs for the first time with one eye on my climber and another on the waves crashing behind me, and that was at low tide when the waves were a good twenty feet away from the base of the cliff. Great Head is much more intimidating than Otter Cliffs are, so understand that you've been warned.

In any case, no climbing for me this week, but I'm glad I got out to scout and see the routes. I've been doing a bit of that lately, and it feels good. I feel as if I'm taking another step toward advancing my climbing skills. I'm not sure what it means now that I'm taking day or side trips to scout crags and not climb them, but I'm happy with the development. I hope to be climbing Great Head for the first time soon.

Rumney - Taking the Injured Thumb Outside and On Lead

Yesterday was my first day testing my recovering thumb both outside and on lead, and I have to say that I think I did fairly well. I was nervous, and my leg shook like crazy at times to prove that was true - even on easy routes I had climbed clean before.

The day started with "Cody" picking me up at 7am in an attempt to get to Rumney by 9am. We were to meet "Sherpa", who, by the way, requested a new nickname but won't get one because, to be honest, has a pretty good story to back her nickname up. As it turned out, our timing was perfect. As we drove into the parking lot, "Sherpa" was just getting out of her car. A few minutes later, we were on our way to Upper Vader to warm up on a few easy routes before hitting Jimmy Cliff later in the day.

The long hike up to Upper Vader wasn't as bad as it has been in the past. I think I'm getting used to hitting that section of the mountain. I've been to Rumney several times this year and have hit Upper Vader and Jimmy Cliff two or three times. This is because each cliff has some of the best easy to moderate climbing at Rumney, and neither are guaranteed to busy like the Meadows and 5.8 Crag are.

No one was there when we arrived, so we had our choice of routes and started on a nice 5.6 called Blustery Day that leads up to the right of the pumpy roof climb, Squall (5.10d). All three of us led the route, despite "Sherpa"'s initial reluctance, and then we moved on to Frosted Flakes (5.7) and Victim of Love (5.8) before deciding to hit Lower Vader where Yoda (5.9) and Obi Wan Ryobi (5.9) awaited. (as an aside, both "Sherpa" and "Cody" ran up Pee Wee (5.4) and had a fun time doing different variations). I felt fine on all three routes, but I definitely felt nervous once above the clip on all three routes. I think that despite the pain in my thumb having left, I am still suffering from a lack of squeezing strength. It is this lack of confidence that freaked me out. Still, the top part of Victim of Love has always stumped me. It is slightly overhanging with a series of slopers for hand holds and no feet. Not having a strong thumb worried me, but for some reason I found a sequence this time that allowed me to fly through the top better than I ever have before. It turns out that there is a high step that changes one of the slopers into a sort of lieback / Gaston. One pump up with a little pressure from the left toes, and the top ledge is very easily gained. I was nervous, but surprised and happy at the same time.

As I mentioned above, "Cody" wanted to hit Lower Vader to jump specifically on Obi Wan Ryobi, which I don't think I have done yet. I have done Yoda, and was a little nervous about getting on something so awkward and steep. I really felt that Yoda was going to require a gripping strength I wasn't sure I possessed yet. But, luck was on my side. As we were heading down, a few of "Cody"'s friends, whom we were to have met up with at some point in the day, heard her voice through the trees and called out. After a brief discussion, the two guys headed down to Waimea and we decided to go up to Jimmy Cliff so that I could take another run at Lonesome Dove (5.10a - my first outdoor 5.10 lead). I had climbed Lonesome Dove clean the first time, but I wanted to see how I'd do as an injured bird. As time would have it, we didn't make it to the phenomenal arrete on the right side, and I was a bit bummed about that. Instead, "Cody" and I ran up Junco (5.8 - probably the best 5.8 at Rumney) and traversed across to set up a top rope of Hammond Organ (5.10d). In the meantime, "Sherpa" ran out of draws on a 5.7 chimney that is not in the guidebook, and had to rerun the route just to get to the top. Her partner, who needs a nickname, hmmm... "Video" (because she's a video editor), made for a nice foursome in the group while "Cody" and I worked Hammond Organ (to be clear, "Sherpa" and "Video" also ran the route).

"Cody" was really pushing me to lead Hammond Organ, and I was really thinking about it. But I'm glad I top roped it first. There are two or three hidden moves on the route at crucial moments. Now that I know how to climb the route, I don't think it will be a big deal to lead. The holds are all there, it's just that it took some playing to find where they were. There is definitely a sequence all the way through the route, so I recommend that you study it well before jumping on it.

Because we had to get back early, that ended our day. "Cody" and "Sherpa" then jumped in the Baker River at the bottom of the mountain while I waded out and sunned on a rock. "Video" met up with her friends and took off. We grabbed dinner, hit traffic and were late getting in despite our attempts to get in early. All in all, it was a good day.

Getting Stronger

On Sunday, I climbed for the first time since injuring my thumb while paddling out to an island in Maine on a camping trip. The injury was a contusion (bruise) on the bones around the top of my thumb. The past couple of weeks have been wrought with wearing a stinky, neoprene SPICA splint (to keep my thumb from doing things when it isn't doing anything), keeping ibuprofen in my bloodstream to limit inflammation around the nerves, and me trying to pop my thumb joint out like I used to be able to do (I'm double jointed in both thumbs, but can't pop left thumb like I can my right. This is really a comfort thing. Kind of like sitting in one position for eight hours and needing to stretch. Well, I've been instinctively popping my thumbs all my life, just to give them a breather from being in the same position for hours on end - this doesn't hurt, by the way - and now my left thumb is begging me to let me pop it. I feel badly about this because I can't. Anyway).

I went to the gym on Sunday to test my thumb to see if I could grip, put weight on it, pinch, hook, grab, etc. It really hurt on some climbs, particularly ones where I had to wrap my thumb around the hold for balance, even when the weight was on my fingers. This was a concern for me because I really wanted this bruise to be something that just went away. Unfortunately, it felt as if it was going to linger for months, as had a fellow MassClimber has had happen to her contusion on her wrist. I felt stupid for climbing Sunday and figured that I had two choices: either shut down for six months and let it heal properly, or climb easy grades and extend the recovery period out several months more (maybe even up to a full year). I still haven't made a choice, but I did go climbing last night.

In truth, I think I had a date, but I'm not sure. I met her online, but only because she recognized my picture as someone from the gym. So I don't know what that means (I had a good time, by the way, so maybe it was a date. I don't know. We'll see). I digress. I ended up climbing Thursday because I was meeting someone, not because I had decided to climb easy climbs and let the recovery period linger. But still, my thumb was sore Monday morning and I was curious just how much climbing was going to hurt me (read: hurt me more than I'm already hurt). So I used last night as another testing night. All week I've been wearing my splint regularly during the day (should wear it at night too) and taking my ibuprofen. I've been somewhat careful with not using my thumb for things like unscrewing bottles of OJ or opening bags of chips (it's the squeezing that hurts). It was sore on Monday, but not so much more than it has been the past week on Tuesday. Wednesday was fine, and so was Thursday.

Once at the gym, I started slowly. I stretched, which I always do anyway, and, upon meeting the person I was supposed to meet, I got on 5.8s and 5.7s to start. The thumb felt fine. I then got on a couple of 5.8+ and 5.9s. Again, it was fine. I think that if I felt any soreness or pain at all, then it was anticipated. In other words, I created the pain because I thought it should have been there. But I'm not 100% sure of that, so maybe the pain was real. In any case, I really struggled on a 5.10c on Sunday that I had been cruising in previous weeks (pre-injury). There were some holds on that particular route that really sent my nerves around the joint into a frenzy. I took twice and was frustrated. Last night, however, I ran up it with no takes, and didn't feel any pain. Soreness? Yes. Pain? No. Is that a big difference? I don't know.

Later in the evening, I decided to jump on a 5.11, which really isn't an 11, but I've already discussed this in another post. The point was that I wanted to see just how much I needed my thumb to get up a harder route. I ran up it clean and had no problems doing so.

I don't think I'm back, but I getting stronger and feeling better. I'm not sure when I'll be able to pop my thumb again, and I'm not sure when I'll take the splint off for good, but as long as I'm not feeling pain while climbing I should be on the mend. I'm glad it doesn't hurt so much that I can't climb at all. Then I wouldn't be able to post this unread drivel on the web for all to see. God forbid.

Thumb Update

As I've mentioned before, I whacked my thumb in between a paddle and canoe a few weeks ago whilst paddling out to an island on a camping trip. That was on a Friday, about 17 days ago. That night, my thumb was HUGE - about four to five times larger than normal. It was still very swollen the next couple of days, but I iced it and took enough ibuprofen to calm the swelling down and allow me to actually use my thumb for simple tasks such as holding a water bottle, standing up from a seated position and, at times, opening a bag of chips. But after a few days, the soreness remained, and so I sought out my doctor.

He sent me to get a wet scan and thankfully told me that all I had was a contusion (bruise) and not a hairline fracture (phew). Still, this was somewhat troublesome because "JoJo" has had a contusion on her hand since this past winter (just from bumping the back of her hand on a staircase railing), and that has kept her out of climbing since then. This, as I have heard, is despite the fact that her doctor has told her that she should be fine to climb on a couple of occasions. I think she even had a cortisone shot or two in there somewhere.

My doc told me to buy a Spica splint and take enough ibuprofen throughout the day to keep it in my bloodstream, and so I have. The splint really helped keep my thumb in a good, resting position when I wasn't using it. This, in my mind, meant that things were on the up and up. This was so much so that I decided to test my thumb by climbing yesterday, and I'm not sure if that was a mistake or not.

I jumped on some pretty easy climbs to start, and, for the most part, the thumb was a little sore, but not so much that it would keep me from putting weight on it. There were a few, specific-type holds, however, that kept me from putting too much weight on my thumb, but on the easy climbs, I was able shift my feet so that the weight went to my feet instead of my hands (don't think for an instant that I haven't thought this is a good thing. I typically have great footwork, but I could always get better). But when I got on a 10b that I have led well in the past, the thumb hurt like hell.

Anyway, I guess i have a decision to make - climb easy grades and extend my recovery period out several months or shut everything down for a month or so to see if I recover more quickly. I can climb. I can probably even climb hard routes, but pinches and thumb-wraps are painful; not just sore, but painful. If it really is a bruise, it's in a damn-unfortunate place. I'm climbing again Thursday. We'll see how it goes.

Another Weekend Blown - But Good Scouting Results

Damn! This weekend provided near perfect conditions for getting outside in general, but I haven't climbed in about a week-and-a-half because of this stupid contusion on my thumb. I keep telling myself that I'm just resting up so that I can hit the Gunks this weekend, but I'm not sure how well I'm going to do. The thumb feels fine and fairly well-rested, but earlier today I walked out of my work area and went to open a latched door handle and felt a sharp pain shoot up my thumb. The odd part is that the contusion is on the outer part of the thumb and I pressed down on the latch with the bottom part of my thumb. Does that mean I have more wrong than initially thought? Here's hoping the answer is "no".

I still made it outside this weekend, however. I wanted to get out and explore / scout a local climbing area that I had not been to before. It is called Black and White Rocks and is in the Fellsway park just north of Boston. I had a very nice hike checking the different places out. It was warm, sunny and I saw nearly no one else on the trails. I like solitude sometimes. It really helps to clear my mind of the stresses I've been dealing with lately. I also liked that I was able to see a crag first before actually climbing it. I found most of the crags in this area, and was able to find most of the routes as well. Next time I go, I'll know what to do and where to go. That way I'll save from setting up and will actually get to climb.

Below is what I wrote up on my climbing group -

These crags are a mixed bag of good climbing, poor belay positioning and ease /
difficulty in finding. This area is not made for climbers as, say Crow Hill or
Rumney are, but there are some worthy climbs off the East Fellsway road that are
worth the afternoon jaunt if one gets a chance.

You may be able to set topropes on some of the crags (such as crags 1-4), but
others will require trad lead gear (crag 2, 3 and 6 most likely). I would
consider crags 2, 3 and 4 as highball boulders more than anything.

There are several crags, some of which I have not been able to find, but the ones
I was able to find were a mix of excellent easy to moderate routes with a few,
difficult-to-find harder routes. I'm only going to break down the crags that I
have visited. For more information, consult the Boston Rocks guide book. However,
I believe my directions for finding the crags are a bit easier that what the
book offers.

There is also a substantial amount of bouldering in the area. Just walk along
the main paths and keep an eye out for small outcrops. I'm sure you'll find
something, somewhere.

DIRECTIONS:

The easiest way to all the crags is to take exit 32 off I-93 and head on 60
East. Drive about 1 mile until you get to Fellsway East, then take a left. By
the way, you'll come to Fellsway West first, and it will not have a sign saying
that it is Fellsway West. Fellsway East is a bit down the road from Fellsway
West, and it has a sign, albeit a small one. Just in case you're wondering, no,
Fellsway West is not just the westbound side of a road. Both Fellsway East and
Fellsway West are roads with traffic going in both directions. The difference
is that Fellsway East is literally east of Fellsway West.

In any case, follow Fellsway East for about two miles. You'll pass a cemetary
on the left and will go uphill. The road will change from two lanes on either
side to one lane on either side. Soon after, there will be a parking lot on the
left. Just down the road from gates #52 and #53. Park there and walk back up
the road whence you came and cross the street toward gate #52. It will be
directly across from Gate #53.

The Rock Circuit Trail goes directly up to the right of the gate (the trail is
marked with white marks on trees and / or rocks). This is the easiest way to
get to all crags. It may not be the fastest way to get to some of the crags,
but it is the easiest. If you follow this path, eventually you will come to
a "fire road" (more of an overgrown grassy path). Take a left. A minute or so
down the road and you will find, if you are looking, on the right, a sign
facing in the opposite direction that says Pinnacle Rock. Take this path to
Crag 1. You may also see before taking a left on the fire road a sign for the
Pinnacle Path to the right. Don't take this.

CRAGS 1-5:

I visited crags 1-4 because they were very easy to find; so much so that upon
seeing them I did not actually believe I had found them. There is one trail
that is called the Rock Circuit Trail that pretty much leads you to crags 1-5,
with Crags 5 and 54 (don't ask) a bit off the trail. As I noted, Crag 1 is on
the Pinnacle Rock trail off the Rock Circuit Trail.

Crag 1 is probably the best of all the crags that I saw. There are clear lines
all over the face. It rises about 40 feet with easy climbs to the left and
harder climbs on the right (near the small roof at the bottom). It is probably
toprope ready, but I'd be prepared to have to lead the routes. There is decent
protection on most routes.

Crags 2-4 are easily found by heading back out the Pinnacle Rock path back
towardthe fire road. Once at the fire road, across the way will be the
continuation of the Rock Circuit Road. Follow this, and when you get to the top
of a small hill, that will be the top of Crag 2. Keep on the path and, at the
bottom of that small hill you'll have two choices: keep following the white
markings up the sloped rock face in front, or head on the fire road to the
right. If you head to the right, you'll see the Crag 2 on your right. Also, if
you follow a hidden path a bit to the right from there you'll find some more
climbs, but these don't appear to be apart of the crags listed, so I would
avoid them unless you find out that these are, in fact, Crag 2. I don't think
this is very toprope friendly.

After taking a right on the fire road, and keeping Crag 2 to your right, there
is another path that is straight ahead, that will lead you to Crag 4. This may
have toprope options.

If, instead of going right to Crag 2 or straight to Crag 4, you take a left,
that will lead you to Crag 3. Oddly, if you don't take a right onto the fire
road from the top of Crag 2, and go up the slab directly in front (following
the white paint marks on the rock), this will lead you to the top of Crag 3.
When coming back down the other side of Crag 3, you'll intersect with the left
hand turn off the fire road had you taken a right at the fire road instead
(confused yet?).

All of these crags are very easily found, however, as they are all pretty much
in the same area. All crags also appear to be pretty ease face or slab climbs
of about 20-30 feet in height. I thought Crag 4 offered the best climbing of
the three.

For access to Crags 5 and 54, you'll have to consult Boston Rocks. I was too
dehydrated to search for them, and I had spent a considerable amount of time
searching for Crag 6, which, in the end, I managed to find (except for the
curious fixed pin that Boston Rocks talks about. It may have been removed).

CRAG 6:
Crag 6 can be reached one of two ways. The first is off Goodyear Avenue, as
Boston Rocks suggests. This is a very easy way to approach the crag, but I
think the drive to Goodyear Ave may be difficult for those who don't know
Malden that well. Also, the parking there is not really set aside for the
Fellsway. It is more residential, and parking is sparce.

The other way to reach Crag 6 is to actually continue on the Rock Circuit Trail.
It is about 25-30 minutes from the parking lot used to access crags 1-5. You
will need to have some decent eyes to follow this trail. If you are lucky,
you'll see all the white markings. If not, you'll get lost as I did. Still, if
you follow the white markings, Crag 6 is not that hard to find. At some point,
you'll come to two hills that will offer views of the town below (I'm not sure
if this is Melrose or Malden). Each hill will essentially be bald rock and both
hills will offer a view of what appears to be a school with athletic fields
attached. On top of the first hill, the fields will only be partially visible,
but you will feel as if you are on top of a large crag. Even when you walk to
the edge, you'll think that you've found Crag 6. Alas, you are not there yet.
These cliffs that you see are more high-ball bouldering than anything else.

Continue on the path until you come to another fire road. Take a brief left and
you'll see the Rock Circuit Trail continue up the hill a bit on the right.
Follow this trail up to the left to the top of the other bald rock area. Here,
you'll have a much better view of the athletic fields as well as a residential
area (probably the neighborhood near Goodyear Ave). This is the top of Crag 6.

To get to Crag 6, follow the white marks back down the other side of the top of
the hill. Again, I can't stress enough that the white marks go to the left of
the top of the hill, not the right. If you go to the right, you'll find the
crag eventually, but it won't be nearly as obvious or easy.

You'll walk downhill a slight ways until you get to a point where there is a
sort of rock step just before where the path levels off and becomes a dirt
path. Immediately after that step, look to your right and you'll see a vague
path that leads into a small clearing. Walk only about 20 feet into the
clearing and look for a path that somewhat hugs the rocks to the right. Don't
follow the path that goes downhill, as this will lead you away from the crag.
Once you follow the path, you'll see the bottom of the crag very easily. At the
end of this small trail, you should easily find the routes that are listed on
the left of the crag in Boston Rocks.

The great thing about Crag 6? It is about 80 feet tall. Another great thing
about it? At the top of the crag looking down you'll say, "wow, this looks like
great rock!" The bad thing about it? At the bottom you'll look up into the
various trees and ask "where did all that great climbing I saw at the top go?"
From the bottom, Crag 6 doesn't look like much. But there is substantial
climbing above where you can see.

Contusion, not a Sprain or Hairline Fracture

I'm out seven to ten days as opposed to six weeks. Thank. God.

The Art of Disinformation, and the Needs for Debate and Clarification

I'll start off by posting the link here so that you can judge for yourself the content and tone of this conversation. Basically, however, the general story line is that a girl in a camp group fell a long way in Rumney this week, and details were hard to come by.

I first caught wind of it when a friend sent a copy of the Boston Globe story to me and another friend. It was a scary story that told of how a girl fell forty feet and had to be carried out of the area. Forty feet is a long way down, and to add to the interest of the story, she was only eleven years old. Naturally, I was concerned and wanted to know what happened to her, both in terms of injuries and what could have caused such a fall. I posted the question to the MassClimbers thread on RockClimbing.com and no one answered. I then went to the forums and found the slug fest in the link above going on. From what I can gather, there are three concerns: one is about how the facts are relayed, one is that that there are some reporting credibility issues, and one is the actual health of the girls. This post is about the concept of debate and facts.

Firstly, I want to clarify that I know that newspapers don't always get the story straight. I both majored (stupidly) in Journalism and worked in the Massachusetts State House. I've seen misreporting on both sides. That said, whether or not there was misreporting is beside the point. The issue that I'm concerned about is the notion of not revealing information as a point of ensuring all the facts are straight first. This is a serious ethical question that news organizations must deal with on a regular basis. On the one hand, they want to be the first to report the story (because, human nature being what it is, people will want to know as soon as they hear about it - I fit directly into that category myself), and on the other hand news organizations need to be accurate in their reporting. If they are wrong, then they lose credibility. By the way, they also lose credibility by being late too. Being first to break the story isn't always about being first, it's also about having reporters who actually gather the information that is reported. Organizations that are continually slow are often looked upon as "piggybackers", or organizations that feed off other organizations' hard work.

Now, for news organizations, this is a serious issue because they are the ones delivering the news. There is no discussion. They state the facts and we take them in. But for forums, this is still a serious issue but less so. I do not say that this is less of an issue because facts are less worthy in a forum; certainly this is not true. Instead, however, facts are less important from one source because a discussion will ensue from the rest of the forum to get to the truth. This is how forums work. And I'm not just talking about on-line forums, but the real or even academic world (OK, that was an opinionated remark, sorry) work like this too. Everyday, ideas are tossed around in meetings, talks over the backyard fence, between Little League coaches and parents, in scientific journals, diplomacy, etc. Someone makes a point, and others debate it. Speculation almost always ensues. In fact, it has to ensue.

Imagine what Isaac thought when the apple bonked his head. He didn't say to himself, "let's just wait for the facts to reveal themselves before we jump to any conclusions." No, instead, he speculated as to how this might have happened. Then he tested his speculation to see if he was correct. When he got to a point where he did feel correct, he tested it by publishing his calculations for the world to test on its own. Some agreed and some did not. He was right about a lot, but also wrong about a lot too. Without his contribution, however, we never would have thought about the things he brought up. (clarifying point - Newton didn't publish his calculations on gravity until much later in life simply because he wanted to keep this information to himself. My example is ironic, I know, but it was not intended to be).

I once had an astronomy professor in school who said on the first day of class that ninety percent of everything we know in the universe today is wrong. Think about that for a minute. What he was saying is that every few years, fundamental beliefs that have driven much of the science they have worked with to come up with quantum solutions change so much that it makes past work nearly irrelevant. That's absolutely amazing.

And let's think about whether or not Andrei Lugovi is really the person who killed Alexander Litvinenko. I know, this sounds a bit of a stretch here, but the British probably feel that Lugovi is far more valuable in thier custody than the real murderer is (I don't know who the real murderer is, but it makes sense that when dealing with spies that a more valuable source would be worth indicting just because of the excess information that could be won instead). The point here is this, that disinformation can be used to gain something, and that the only cure to this is the truth. I am speculating, as I am certain the international intelligence community is doing (and probably many newspaper reporters and editors, too), that what is seen is not always the truth, and that there are likely reasons for that. If we didn't engage in debate, then this proverbial wool would be pulled over our eyes on a regular basis. Lugovi may very well be the assasin, but what if he is not and we never question it? Further more, would the truth ever come if it weren't questioned at all? It very well may, but it also may not as well. If you know something, share this information and educate the rest of us. Don't sit by and let people make up thier own minds.

So what's my point? My point is that speculation is not always a bad thing. Even if it is wrong, it increases awareness and presents an opportunity to educate people. Discussion and debate will always be important tools to weed out the bad from the good, because how else is one going to know the difference? When it comes to safety in the climbing world, I can't think of anything more important than sharing mistakes so that others can learn from it. It is too dangerous of a sport to let this slide.

First 5.11 Lead - Update On Previous Post

I went back and nailed it. I still don't think it is a 5.11, but I got up it clean without using the top of the wall. I'm pretty happy about that. I thought I'd share it.

Sigh...

Just when I thought I was in a position to finally catapult my way above 5.11, I went out and injured my thumb. This is my first injury since the winter of 2006, and I am bummed.

It happened Friday afternoon while paddling across a bay in Maine to an island that I and several friends were to camp on. The camping weekend was a great weekend, but on one of the traverses across from the mainland to the island I walloped my thumb in between my paddle and the boat. I didn't really feel it at first (well, that's not true, I totally felt the impact, but I didn't feel the sprain until much later). The initial impact certainly hurt, but I didn't notice the swelling until much later in the evening. At first, I thought I had broken it, but I was relieved to be able to move my thumb, which told me it was probably just a sprain. Still, the swelling was pretty severe. I think my sprained thumb was three times as large as my healthy thumb, and I believed that couldn't have been good.

I iced it a little Friday evening and took an ibuprofen to ease the swelling, which I was told I shouldn't have done. Apparently for sprains, ibuprofen should be avoided in the first twenty-four hours. Oops. The swelling did go down with each icing, however, which I did a lot of on both Saturday and Sunday. In any case, I could hardly hold items in my hand all day Saturday. If I wanted to open my water bottle then I needed to place the bottle between my knees and twist the cap with my healthy hand. It was so bad that I needed someone to open a package of chocolate for s'mores Saturday night.

But by Saturday evening I was able to pick up things and open my water bottle, even if there was a little bit of pain. The overall soreness had decreased a little as well. By Sunday morning, I was able to open my bottle without wincing, and also pick up moderately heavy or awkward items (logs and sticks for the fire, orange juice, etc). The swelling had pretty much gone away yesterday, and it has stayed away today. I'm still taking ibuprofen and have iced it a couple of times the past two days as well, but the soreness is still there. Mobility is returning slowly, so that is a good sign, but I'm really concerned I could be out for a couple of weeks. "Jello" is coming back to climbing for a week or so this weekend, and I'd really like to get outside with him. I'd also like to get an indoor session in before going to Rumney, Cannon or North Conway (depending on where we decide to go), just to test the thumb and get some of my form back (which I'm sure I'm missing by not climbing since last Thursday).

Anyway, I've had a good stretch and I can say that this injury was not because of overuse or because I was too heavy. I've taken good care of myself the past eighteen months and am really starting feel as if I am in good shape. This kind of injury isn't because of overuse or being overweight; I hit my thumb. It's the same as slipping on ice - and that could happen to the fittest of athletes. Still, I'm concerned I'll be out longer than I want to be. Only time will tell how I get through this. Here's hoping I don't do something stupid and start climbing earlier than I should. One never knows with me...

First 5.11 Lead?

Believe it or not, after my not-so-positive previous post, I had a really good night last night at the gym. For once, I enjoyed myself, laughed and climbed hard, even making it up a tough 5.12 (not cleanly) and 5.11 (again, not clean) to finish off the night. This was on top of a 5.8+ lead to start, 5.9 (and that grade is way off) lead, 5.11 lead (cleanish - get to that in a moment), 5.10b/c (harder than the 5.11 lead in my mind - had one take), and a 5.9 TR mixed in there somewhere. I might have done another climb too, but I can't think of which one I would have done (oh yeah, a 5.11b/c that I damn near flashed, but I was too tired at that point. It was a real bummer too). Anyway, I had a good night except I'm not sure just how solid it was.

You see, a couple of posts ago I talked about flashing my first 5.11 at the gym. My problem was that I wasn't convinced (and am still not convinced) that this was, in fact, a 5.11. But since others have told me that they think at least one of the moves at the start is a 5.11 move, I'm somewhat inclined to accept the fact that maybe I'm getting better. This inclination follows "Geneva"'s explanation that as one gets better, one starts to downgrade climbs that are now much easier than one's base. I think he's right in some regard, but I still think there are harder 5.10 climbs in the gym than this 5.11. (I also want to point out here that I'm not a "grade chaser". While it may seem that way according to my posts, the grades and success with those grades are merely a measuring tool for me. I don't care how hard I climb versus anyone else. I just climb for my own benefit. The main benefit being stress release. Climbing to me is a way to forget about the world, not about chasing grades, but it is nice to see progress, and I would also like to be able to go outside and give myself access to climbs that aren't crowded). Anyway...

As I noted in a previous post, I had thought of leading a bunch of harder climbs, and that included the so-called 5.11 (OK, it's an 11. I'll stop there and call it what it's been called). On my third climb of the night, I climbed it without falling and didn't need any other holds (otherwise known as cheating) to make it. I did, however, at the very top, use the top of the wall to gain the last hold. I'm not sure I can duplicate the top, but here is an attempt -

I know, it's small, but you can just barely see what I'm talking about. The final move is a bit of a dicey crossover from the left hand to the right that goes across the body. As you can see, this move is above clips. I didn't put the feet on here, but they are small jibs without an edge. The grey hold is a decent crimp and the pink hold is a total jug. What I did, and this is where I'm leaning toward not giving myself this route, is go with my right hand to the top of the wall instead of to the pink and then bring my left hand to the pink hold, which I would have needed to do anyway at some point because the clips are too far to the right at this point to clip across my body.

So I'm not giving it to myself. I can do this route straight up and that's what I'm going to do. I won't take credit until I do it correctly. Still, I climbed hard and well, so I am satisfied. And for "Jesus"'s sake, I had fun and yes, it was enjoyable.

Bummer - In Need Of Consistent, Dependable Climbing Partner

Didn't get out again this weekend. Kind of bummed about that. I had a couple of different options but both bailed. Even worse, only one had the decency to actually notify me that climbing was going to be out. The other just, well, never even called. Sigh.

I used to have a great climbing partner in Edinburgh. While Mat was the one who brought me into the climbing world, so to speak, it was Kevin who suggested the idea of climbing and became a loyal partner for about a year-and-a-half. Naturally, however, we all move on. Kevin met his future wife and I moved back home to the United States. Mat, unfortunately, died in France last summer on a climbing trip.

Still, I remember those days fondly because, not only was I having the time of my life in wonderful Edinburgh, I also knew that I was going to go climbing two to three days per week - guaranteed. Since I've moved home, however, things have not quite worked out as I would have hoped. Granted, it took me time to establish myself (personally, not climbing-wise) before I started climbing again. But while I lived in New Hampshire (my first real residence after school), the partners I had were sporadic at best, and that was likely because I wasn't as active as I could have been (low-paying job, high stress living conditions, etc).

When I moved to Massachusetts I had more opportunities to meet people, or so I thought. I started up my climbing group (see links) and it started with me and another girl ("Russia") who joined shortly after we met at the gym one day. It was actually kind of nice because I thought I had scored a partner finally, but she got sick for several months and didn't see her again until we after she had found new partners on her own (maybe it's me? *shrugs*). Still, at this point my group was growing, albeit slowly, and I was putting together regular gym and outdoor sessions that, while they weren't always dependable, were greater in frequency than I had climbed since my time in Scotland.

This pattern has pretty much continued until the present time. Each time I've wanted to go climbing, I've posted on my site and waited for people to respond. Generally speaking, this has worked well. I do have my regular partners who do respond on a regular basis, and sometimes they post if they are interested in going climbing and want a partner. However, 90% of the time it is me who initiates the climbing, and sometimes, despite an affirmative response, I get stiffed.

That's what happened to me this weekend. To be fair, one of the people who I was going to climb with was courteous enough to let me know in advance that he wasn't going to make it. But on both Saturday and Sunday I was somewhat expecting a call to go climbing either or both afternoons, and received no notification whatsoever. I know nothing was set in stone, but what was I supposed to do? I was told that I could go possibly go climbing both afternoons. Does that mean I should keep that time open? Or does it mean nothing and that I should have just planned to do something otherwise despite the possibility of going? It seems to me that the second option shows a lack of faith, so I waited. I learned my lesson.

I'm not normally this quick to judge, but I've been in a vulnerable position of late and am in need of some stability. I don't know, but I've always been the guy who gives and gives and gives and gives just because I'm the one who's always seeking instead of being sought. It would be nice to not have to worry about whether or not I can trust people for once. I'm a trusting person by nature, but when that trust goes away, it tends to go away forever. I'm in a bad state, and need someone I can trust; someone I can rely on to the point of not having to worry. We say we're going climbing, and we go. And if we don't, that gets communicated respectfully. Do you know anyone like that?

Felt Strong Last Night - May Have Flashed First 5.11

Boo-hiss to the threat of rain on the days I'd prefer to be outside, but that's only in general. Sometimes, blessings occur that turn things around without knowing why. While my climbing has not suffered at all this spring and summer (in fact, I think I've improved quite a bit), I haven't felt particularly ambitious of late; a fact that I attribute to several non-climbing stresses that have been dragging me down the past couple of months.

But last night proved to be a good night at the gym. Firstly, it was busy, and while people might think that is bad thing, it really wasn't. You see, on busy nights, people need to climb whatever is available. As it turned out, what was available were hard routes that I hadn't climbed yet. Almost all of these routes were on the prow in the back of the gym.

First, there was a new 5.11 that looked juggy and balancy at the same time. If I hadn't looked at it first, it could have been my first 5.11 onsite, but I had to settle for the flash instead (sigh). It was a very nice route where all the proper holds were there, but I can't say for certain that I have, in fact, flashed my first 5.11. Even though that was the given grade, I have doubts as to whether or not it really is that hard. I think it should have gone 5.10b/c. Yes, it was balancy, but it wasn't very difficult to navigate or stay on the wall.

After that I ran up a couple of moderate routes that happened to be open next to the 5.11 before turning the corner and spying a 5.10b/c that goes up the tallest section of the prow. Having done the 5.11 around the corner, which was a shorter route and less overhanging, I felt that the 10b/c would be a harder challenge as I drew near the end of my night (it was something like climb #6 or 7 - almost all above 5.10b - so I was kind of tired). It was a challenge, but I got up it on one take near where there is a series of really pumpy Gastons going up through the overhang. As I came down, I felt that I could pretty easily lead this and the 5.11 I was on earlier. I may even go back tonight to see if I can lead them (though two nights of climbing in a row almost never works for me, so if I do go tonight, I bet I flail).

Anyway, after that I jumped on a 5.12 comp route that was left up after the last comp a month ago. I was pretty tired by the end of the night, but I got up it, albeit with several falls and takes. I think I can do this route, but it will take some time and work. The thing I like about comp routes is that they are so well set that the moves and feet are all there. What makes them hard is actually moving through the sequence. They are refreshing climbs because they actually feel they grade yet the moves and sequence are pretty obvious at the same time.

On another note, I plan on joining a regular gym for the first time in a couple of years. I'd really like to improve my core strength, and I just feel I need to hit the gym in order to do that well; or at least do it in a way that I am familiar with.

No Climbing This Weekend - BOOO!!!

Eh, it's not that bad. I was hoping to hit the 'Gunks this weekend with a few people who have been there relatively recently, but I ended up spending a fair amount of time working around moving issues. I also went for a nice bike ride yesterday afternoon. Back to the gym tonight, and hopefully outside again next week.

Good Leads This Weekend

I sport led my first 5.10 this weekend, and tacked on two 5.9+s as well. While I've trad led 5.9 in the Gunks before, and possibly elsewhere (Pawtuckaway?, Crow Hill?, Acadia? North Conway?, Switzerland? - I can't remember exactly), today was the first day that I've led 5.10 outside. I've led 5.11 inside before (though how clean is still up for debate) and am not afraid of hard 5.10s in the gym either, but outside is different altogether.

It started yesterday when I went to Red Rocks in Gloucester with "Chuck" and "Softspeak" to have an easy day outside in the sun. The forecast called for sunny skies all day with temps in the 70s, and it did not disappoint. There were four routes at RR that I knew I wanted to do: one was a stiff 5.8, another was a stiff 5.9+ that I think is actually a 5.10a, a fly-up-the-wall 5.6 called Zipper and an incredibly slopey 5.11 to the right of zipper that "Ashmont" and I worked last year but couldn't get past the S-curves about a quarter of the way up the climb.

As can be expected, Zipper went easily and quickly, then Zits (the stiff 5.8 that pulls back against some slopey laybacks and off-balanced slab steps off slick, granite crystals), and then we took on Morning Glory (5.9+) on top rope. Morning Glory, which requires a dyno onto a foot-long crimp before burning out the calves on a nothing-to-hold face, is definitely somebody's ego playing games with everyone else. I can see it being 5.9+ twenty years ago when the climb wasn't as polished as it is now, but it is definitely harder than 5.9+ at this stage of the game. Still, it was a fun toprope, and before I had reached the ground after topping out, I was contemplating leading it to get my nerves up for climbing at Rumney the next day.

I then jumped on what I thought was a damn near impossible 5.11 and worked the hell out of it until I finally figured out the moves. I fell like crazy all over the place, but I made each move and felt as if I really had improved my climbing over the past year or so. I didn't stick it pretty, but I'm finding that my grades are getting higher and higher now, and I'm feeling a lot more solid on routes that I would have flailed on in year's past. This was part of the reason why I wanted to lead Morning Glory, to see if I really had improved enough to be confident in my abilities to make certain, dynamic or committing moves. It was my last climb of the day, and I was tired, but I got up through it clean and felt good about leading at Rumney on Sunday.

Rumney, on the other hand, has not always been friendly to me. I'm not sure why. The routes don't seem to be sandbagged at all. In fact, they may even be soft, but for some reason I've always had a hard time leading there. Part of the reason I wanted to lead Morning Glory was because I figured that I would be doing a lot of leading on Sunday. I wanted to get my head into the idea of climbing 5.10 on the sharp end for once. I mean, it's about time that I finally got up the nerve to climb something hard, even if "hard" means 5.10, which, in the gym, is well within my range.

I knew we were heading to Jimmy Cliff first thing in the morning. I knew that there was a fantastic 5.8 called Junco on the right side of the cliff that I had climbed well last time (and I climbed it well this time too, so no worries about taking steps back). But I also knew that the last time I was there I saw a group climbing this 5.10a on the far right of Jimmy Cliff called Lonesome Dove. I heard so many great things about it and had keeping it in my mind all year long. It was my goal to do this route this year, and I finally got my chance to do so.

"Wrongway" was my partner yet again, and this is something I'm becoming comfortable with. He's a good climber, smart, knows his limits and can pull off a tough move if he needs to. It's nice to know there is a person I can climb with who is at or above my own ability who does not get heady on tough stretches. Again, he was a good partner, as he was in the 'Dacks. We started on Drilling For Dollars (5.8 with a really sketchy move at the top, just below the anchors) and moved on to a 5.7 chimney that is not in the book (to the right of the 5.9 that is to the right of Drilling For Dollars and to the left of a 5.10d that's called Hammond something or other). We took a bit of a rest and then it was my turn to run up this 5.10a that I've been thinking so much about for the past year.

You'd think that I was nervous considering the fact that this was going to be my hardest lead climb outside ever, but I wasn't nervous at all. I was a little worried about not finding the route easily, but not worried about the climb itself. I guess in some respects climbing Morning Glory the day before really helped me get my head into shape. I felt fine and, despite not reading the route clearly in a couple of spots the first go around on each move, I flashed my first ever 5.10 outside. People had told me beforehand that the moves were really balancy and that they required hugging the rock a lot (it was a bit of an arrete), but I didn't find that to be the case at all. I felt the holds were all really solid and were easily gained with just a little technique and boldness. I think "Wrongway" said it best however, for some people, 510 slab climbs are easier than 5.10 pumpy climbs. This would ring true later in the day.

After climbing at Jimmy Cliff, "Wrongway" and I headed down to Bonsai to do a couple of recommended climbs: Masterpiece (5.10a) and War And Peace (5.9+). Both of these climbs were overhanging jug-fests, but Masterpiece was much harder for me because I was tired and because I need feet on overhangs, and my feet were never settled enough to make me feel confidant. I took three times on the same move and did the rest relatively well (I may have taken one more time before finishing up). I was really tired after that and was worried about leading War And Peace, especially since the difference in the grades was less than a full grade. But War And Peace was a much easier climb for me. It was still overhanging and very pumpy, but the jugs were the same as on Masterpiece and the feet were much better. I sent it, my last route of the day, with ease. It was funny because "Wrongway" felt the 5.10a was much better and cleaner than the 5.9+, while I thought the 5.9+ may have been a little soft. It's all preference, I guess, but it is still something to be happy about.

I keep thinking, however, about how I took a nasty fall on an overhanging finish on a 5.10 in the Meadows only a month or so earlier. It is a route that I've been thinking about and working for a couple of years now (it has a tough roof section that I just can't get at this point). In April or May, when I was last at the cliff with "Gammie", "Chuck" and crew, I took a big fall and swung pretty hard. It was scary, so much so that I made "Chuck" pull me off so that I would actually fall. I didn't feel that fear today. I had no problem falling. I almost fell on Morning Glory the day before, and that was almost an intentional fall, something that I never do. But this weekend, for some reason, I felt fine. I'm not sure why, but I think maybe it is because I'm getting stronger and better. This is a long time coming. I hope it continues.

Adirondacks - Sunday: Rain and The Rest of the Trip

We awoke to dry skies on Sunday, and that perculated our hopes enough that we felt we stood a good chance of beating the weather and getting a good, day-two of climbing in. The desired destination was Washbowl Cliff in Keene Valley, which was essentially across the street from where we parked the day before at Beer Walls.

Screw it, there's just too damn much to write. It rained. We climbed a bit in the rain at Beer Walls and then went to Lake Placid. "Jello" and I sat in the rain later on at his place with a good-sized fire roaring and chicken breasts cooking on a stone that we threw into the fire. It was good chicken, and I'm damn surprised at how fires can survive even with steady downpours. That fire didn't go out until the next day.

Anyway, we bouldered again at Mackenzie Boulders on Monday before heading back. Our trip back was easier and, despite the slow driving, we made good time on Route 2 from Troy, NY. I'll be going back in September to do a 12-pitch 5.7 with "Jello" if we can get the same time off. I really looking forward to it.

Adirondacks - Saturday: Part Four: Midnight Bouldering

There's always one in every group. It's not a bad thing. In fact, it can be a good thing, but it is always both predictable and unpredictable at the same time: extra energy in youth will always have to find a way out of the body and into some adventure that makes one scratch his head. "Jello" is "that guy" in our group.

He got his nickname by wearing a Dead Kennedy's shirt to the gym (Jello Biafra being the energetic lead singer) the second time we climbed with him, and almost had his name changed to "Macchio" after refusing to stop doing the classic Karate Kid kick over and over again (which, by the way, he's so young that he really didn't even remember that there was a movie called "The Karate Kid", let alone know who Pat Morita and Ralph Macchio were - the bastard). Throwing kicks and punches into the air is his modus operandi. Leading whatever is in front of him comes a close second, then throwing large stones into fire pits (I'll get to that in another post) and the like come in third. The kid just does things, and I presume that's because he has so much damn energy that he simply doesn't know what to do with it.

Well, that last sentence isn't exactly true. At one point, at 10:34pm (not to be specific or anything), he decides he wants to go bouldering...at that moment, with headlamps, mattresses stolen from the bunk beds in the house we're staying in, and a suspected mountain lion on the loose near Lake Placid. I, being a humble thirty-two years old, question the kid's sensibility, mainly, also, because I'm thirty-two, and ideas such as this don't make as much sense to me as they might have when I was his age (go on, I can hear the "Old Man Burns" taunts percolating. Just do it and get it over with!). But naturally, what I think is irrelevant. The next thing I know "Jello" is throwing mattresses into the back seat and trunk of my car (need a better lock system, I guess) and "Unity" is searching for an extra headlamp for me to use.

"There's one particular climb," he tells me, "where we'll need the mattresses. I hope they work." I think he also hoped that his boss didn't come home that night to see the empty bunk beds. But whatever. I believe him when he says this and I drag my old bones to the driver's seat before heading off to Mackenzie Boulders in nearby Saranac Lake.

I park on the side of the road and we head into the woods. The path in is obvious and easy; no bushwhacking today. It's a good thing, too, because even with the headlamps, it is difficult to see anything other than what is lit up by the lamps. When we approach the first boulder, a pristine, lemon-shaped chunk of granite that rises about fifteen feet above the clean, pine-needle floor, I am shocked at how enticing the rock looks. This isn't just some random rock sticking out of the trees with moss all over the unclimbable sections. This is what I expect to see in a climbing video somewhere in Fountain Bleu, France: with all the brush meticulously pushed aside (as if it was landscaped), leaving several feet all around the boulder for ease of movement; clear, white marks on the usable holds only; and a perfect canopy of leafy and needled tree branches thirty feet up, which provide the kind of roof you dreamed of as kids whilst looking for a natural tree-house. It's just so perfect here. I'm actually glad that I came.

We walk deeper into the woods with the path never becoming overgrown or difficult the deeper we go. We pass through what seem to be little, intimate rooms of more boulders. Each room seems to have its own decor: the interior decorator choosing to blend the entire house with pines and maples but making each room different enough to fit the personality of the kid living in that room at that given time. There is one, tall boulder right in the middle of one room, and the path circumvents the rock in such a way as to casually deflect the passersby past anyone trying to climb and into the next room a few yards down the path. In tghe next room, the path splits several boulders on each side of the room; allowing the kids to feel hidden from view on the edges as thier parents walk from room to room looking for them. Finally, we stop at one room where nature has built us a jungle-gym of bouldering options. I am both nervous and oddly excited. My arms are shaking and I can feel my breath getting heavier. I say "oddly" because I don't boulder. In fact, until this moment I haven't bouldered more than once in at least three or four years.

I gave bouldering a shot a few weeks before at the gym and did OK, but not great. It was fun, but not as fun as roping up. The truth is, I've always had the this notion that I'll get hurt, and that notion is partially true. Bouldering is just a jerky sport. I obviously don't mean that boulderers are jerks. What I mean is that the moves are jerky; they require either a solid amount of core strength or dynamic moves that snap the joints and tendons upon landing. Naturally, the static moves are the way to go, but dumb people like me, until I bouldered at the at the gym a few weeks ago, tend to jerk our bodies around just so we can show how manly we really aren't. I also weighed an unhealthy twenty pounds more that I do now when I was bouldering, thus making those hard landings even more severe (by the way, by "landing" I mean finishing a move, not falling to the ground. Picture a dynamic, two-point move where the climber is moving through the air toward the next hold, and the he or she "lands" on that hold). It was always that landing that pulled a muscle, strained a joint or seriously pissed off a nerve. Because of this, I've been leery of bouldering since I began climbing.

But these boulders are different. I don't know what it is, but I've never seen such obvious lines and opportunities. Everywhere else I've been outside, and seen bouldering, it's as if the bouldering is some made up route on a mossy, short cliff hidden in the woods. Either that that, or it's a traverse that cuts across the bottom of a series of roped climbs (probably first climbed when some poor chap forgot his harness). This place, Mackenzie Boulders, isn't like that at all. These are boulders. Real boulders. Not the bottom-of-the-cliff kind of stuff you find elsewhere. They look like Hershey's Kisses that have fallen from the sky. On top of that, I think I can climb these!

But then I get on the first climb, a V0 (maybe - even that looks soft). It's a simple crack with a face move out to the right. The first five feet? Easy laybacking. The next three feet? Moderate face climbing. The next five feet (already eight feet in the air, at night, and with mattresses for pads)? A footless dyno off a tiny crimp to an unseen jug at the top. Uh-huh. "What am I doing?" I get through the dyno, however, and feel the adrenaline drain into my swelling chest. Sigh. And that was, as I said, only a V0.

We look around for more opportunities to climb and see a lot of problems, but we're tired and don't feel like doing anything where we actually have to read the route. Remember, it is dark outside, and the only light available to us is the direct beam emanating from our heads.

Finally, we settle on a deep, traversing crack that finishes, or so we think, on a roof with a sketchy move that leaves our backs parallel with the ground...a good ten feet in the air. The book says it is a V3. I'm not sure I feel like doing something this hard, but I have no choice in the matter. "Jello" and "Unity" are already on the route.

We start by working the roof, and jumping on the traverse a little below the roof to do so. It's a juggy start, with a crack so deep I can wrap my knuckles in it. But the crack ends about four feet below the start of the roof, and the roof itself extends outward from the face about three-and-a-half feet. Getting there requires leveraging our bodies with a series of dead-arms against a flat, upward facing panel with only a couple of nubbin slopers to hold onto.

After several tries, we manage to wrap our fingers around the flat edge that is the roof. It requires starting from the juggy crack, and then moving to a controlled barn-door off two or three slopers (depending on how one does it) before the the feet go up into a heel hook that allows for just enough leverage to swing out wide to the edge. If the edge isn't gained, well, a ten foot drop onto bed mattresses covering medium-sized, round rocks below awaits. These round rocks, to be clear, are right under the landing spot and can certainly be felt through the mattresses. I'm worried about sprained ankles. It turns out there's other ways to get hurt, too. But more on that in a moment.

After gaining the roof from the middle of the climb, it's time to link the whole traverse together. We disappear around the corner and discover a sit-start, and immediately avoid it. My old bones don't like moves that jerk the ligaments, and "Jello"'s and "Unity"'s lazy bones don't feel like doing it either. The rest of the route is smooth, however. Each hold is a jug where the hand can get buried deep enough to not be seen. The feet aren't great, but who cares. It's just a jug-fest where the hands and legs jump over each other with every move. I'm beginning to think the name of the route should have been "Crossover Heaven". It's called the "Great Wall of Taiwan" instead. Interesting.

In any case, "Jello" managed to get to the roof first again, and once "Unity" and I each reached the roof, all three of us headed back to figure out the sit-start. With "Jello" and "Unity" being years younger than me, they make the pumpy, dynamic move with little grunting and greater fluidity than I do, but they tire out quickly and come off somewhere in the middle of the route. Me? I can't even do the sit-start they way they are doing it. My feet are too spread out, the hand-hold is too low for me to utilize it well and my center of gravity as I pull and push upward is square on my elbows and chest. The move hurts, and I can already feel the strain on my elbow. As I mentioned before, I bouldered for the first time in years a few weeks before this. I was hesitant then, but my friend, the one who convinced me to go bouldering that night, kept telling me to stop making "big boy" moves and work on making static moves instead. "Static?" I wondered. "Not everything can be done static." But she was correct in the end. I bouldered the entire evening statically (if that's a word), and never felt an instant of potential bodily injury creeping up on me. So as I flew through this sit-start, I kept thinking of her advice. "There has to be a way," I thought. Three tries in and I found a way up.

The starting hand hold is only about three feet off the ground. If one spread-eagles the feet, then one can get four solid points on for nearly the entire start. But that's hard, and it doesn't feel solid while the move is being made. To me, I feel like I want to shift the pressure from my arms to my legs, but with my legs so far out from each other, it is difficult to do this. I look around and spy a long, sloping face to my right, about five feet above the ground and two feet above the starting hand hold. Perfect! It's as good a heel hook as I've ever seen. For an old man like me, getting into it is as ungraceful as carrying a refrigerator up a spiral staircase, but I get my heel up and my arms breathe an immediate sigh of relief. All the weight has now been shifted to my legs, which are holding my drooping buttocks as I chalk up my happy fingers.

Pulling all my upper body parts from my upper hamstrings to my Achilles tendon, I rise from the start hold and snare the second hold with ease. I smile as I realize that I'm not even tired. It's a cruise from that point on: right hand over left, swing the feet, cross left hand over right, right foot over left foot, and so on. By now, even the roof is easy. I gain it will only a minimal amount of god-I'm-old-and-its-fucking-late grunting, swing my feet out to the boulder behind me and drop down. Success...until I hear "Jello" say, "Now we have to link the top." The TOP?!?!?

Sure enough, the roof isn't the finish. As it appears to me, there is a dangling-feet campus move where one has to squeeze the roof hold with the left hand and throw the right hand out about two feet back toward the traverse. From there, it is a near impossible (OK, really fucking scary as I was imagining it) crossover with the left hand to a crimp, all this with no feet. I never got that far, and "Jello" never got that far. Only "Unity" was able to grab the next hold after the roof, and then she fell...into my spotting hands...and never got her feet under her. PHOOOSH! She hits the mattresses on her back, her neck slams the round rocks underneath and she sits still for a few moments while "Jello" and I nervously wait to hear if she's OK. When she stands up, "Jello" and I are relieved that she can actually walk. We were done. She's hurt, we're nervous about her being hurt, and it's way past midnight. A 10am rendezvous back at the campground awaits us. We pack up and leave, and "Unity" seems to be OK.

Adirondacks - Saturday: Part Three: Ski Jumping and How It Relates To Climbing

Not every trip of mine is feted through an obsession of some sort, but this trip did have one element that caught my fascination more than climbing itself: ski jumping.

As I noted on Friday's post, I was driving to "Jello"'s when I came around a corner and saw these tall, dark structures rising above the trees and towering into the dark, late-night sky. My first reaction to these "things" was, "What the fuck is that?" In my mind, there shouldn't have been anything that tall out in the middle of nowhere. I was surrounded by rows of trees that filled in the valley I was driving through. On either side, at any moment on the drive from North Hudson to Ray Brook, there were mountains (soon to be seen in daylight with cliffs dripping from the summits) and / or lakes filling out the wilderness that made the drive so dark and enthralling. I knew Lake Placid was nearby, but I also knew it wasn't a city. There shouldn't have been anything more than a few stories high, and certainly nothing a few minutes drive from the downtown area itself. If anything, I figured I would have seen the lights of Lake Placid itself rising up from the town before I saw any towering structures in the dark.

To be clear, these towers could not have been confused with the normal things you'd see rising above the treetops. These were much taller and leaner than a water tower, but denser than cellphone towers at the same time. They weren't radio antennas either, though they did have blinking, red lights at the top. And the vertical section of the towers, if they were alone in their secrecy, would have come across as something that was probably easily explained during the day as "the thing the weird guy on that farm built twenty years before". But what made the whole thing so intriguing was the sharp slope that ran downward from the peak of each tower to the disappearing point of the tree line. It got my blood simmering and I couldn't wait to find out what I was looking at. It was then that I saw the sign: "Olympic Ski Jump Facility Ahead". At once, my simmering blood stimulated my brain cells and asexual endorphins began spewing thoughts of amazement that sent a shiver through the rest of my body. What a thrill! I couldn't believe that I was not only driving past an Olympic landmark, which is exciting in itself because I have always been enamored by the spirit and competition of the Olympics, but past one of the most exciting venues in the Olympics as well.

I don't know what it is, but there is something about watching these competitors, all with a story or a geographic or emotional place whence they came from, as they try to reach the top of the medal strand with flowers in hand, medals dangling around their necks, and anthems making their hearts bleed and eyes swell. Think about the fact that they only get this shot once every four years. If they are hurt, there's no "next year", it's all about that moment in time and no other time else wise. If they fail; if they twist wrong, run too slow, trip or jump to early; if the conditions are poorer for them than they were for their rivals; if somehow the wind blows at the wrong moment, then they'll have to watch the awards ceremony from afar; their dreams crushed; their moment lost - and they'll have to wait another four years to regain just the possibility of that moment again.

Maybe they won't be in their prime by the time the next Olympics rolls around. Or maybe some sixteen year-old who was on the cusp of greatness the first time around will have grown, matured and catapulted to the top of the betting slips as the the new, potential gold medalist. In essence, what makes the Olympics exciting for me is the moment. Much like American sports in general, it's all about that one instant before the action takes place: when the pitcher comes to the set, the quarterback steps under center, as the defender takes on step backward too many away from the two-guard with a hot hand in the closing seconds, when the goalie steps out of goal to meet the rushing skater or dribbler. We live for the moment in American sports, and I think that perspective has translated well into climbing. When I'm on the wall, my entire focus is on that one moment and my emotions range according to the situation I'm in. Is anyone actually afraid of the fall itself? No. They're afraid of that split second before the fall when all these thoughts rush into the brain: where's my last piece, how much rope is out, will the rope hold, is my belayor capable of catching me, will I deck out? It's always about the next move and sometimes what the next hold will bring. It's always about next.

Anyway, I was clearly excited to see the towers in the daylight for the first time. I'm not sure why, but I've always been in love with the risk, power, speed and grace of ski jumping. I know many people think it is a boring sport, but not I. There is something about the fear of plummeting one's body toward the earth on boards strapped to one's feet and ultimately being catapulted into what should be an open space but is actually like a large box that gets smaller and smaller the closer one gets to the ground. Imagine standing at the top and seeing in front of you a long, direct route to an unforgiving edge that leads out to empty space, eventually ending on the white earth that you'll be landing on shortly. Imagine seeing the crowd forming a "U" around the landing site. Imagine the rush of having the courage to compete in such sports. It is why I climb. I can imagine the ski jumper thinking of nothing but the next step, the next move in the process. He sits on the bar, lets go and disembarks downward. He reaches the edge and jumps, lifting his heels backward and shoving his chin toward the tips of his skis, floating, floating, floating until it is time to land; gently settling the skis on the wet snow, one in front of the other for just a long enough time period for the judges to access your style as well as your distance. It gives me shivers just thinking about it.

For me, when I climb, I think of nothing else in the world and all my stresses disappear. It becomes a survival moment for me, as if I'm playing a game that gives my life meaning away from the corporate cubicle and spreadsheets. It's no different than a man in a suit sometimes wishing it were he digging the ditch, only if because it would make him feel like a man for just a few moments. It's a do or die moment. Each move is meticulous. Each position is pushing me to think of only me and nothing else.

Sometimes when I reflect, I can think of myself on the wall as a jumper who is floating through the air with one goal on his mind: to land well enough to be satisfied with the endeavour. To see the steep drop of the ramp melt into the slope of the landing ground below. To look up at the scary crimps above me and realize, once I've reached the top, that the bottom has become the top in one, full swoosh of the body moving the mind upward. It became an obsession of mine every time I drove past the site, probably to the dismay of my passengers because I was the one driving. My heart still races when I think of it.

Ahem, I notice that this post has gone long as well. Midnight bouldering will come in the next post. Sorry!