Dispatches from Hoth

I thought winter climbing was all about finding the boulders that get sun and stay warm despite December's chill. Wrong. Winter climbing is about finding the rocks that never receive sunlight or solar warmth of any kind, and are accessible only by frozen river crossings.

Witness this recreation of a real photo of Lewis and Clark making their historic crossing of the Poudre River:

Photo: Sacagawea

The air was harsh and cold, the ice beneath our feet slippery. Nevertheless, we fastened our scarves tight about our necks and soldiered on.

 

 

Ryan received employee of the day honors for

a) his sick ice-ramp toe grab:

b) finding an amazing new crack project:

 

Seriously, Hayden, why do you drive all the way to Utah for this shit?

and c) discovering new, 5.9 beta for Ice 9:

 

There was also a new sport developed that day, but perhaps it's best to let the folks at Too Ugly for the Spot hash out those details.

The Feather

Not the Feather, alas. Instead, Red Feather. Which isn't a bad thing. Despite cool temps and a long walk on a snow-crusted road, we came to a climbable boulder called The Chopper.

B3PO, our guide and firestarter

 

Christ Craft

 

 

Despite being low to the ground, The Chopper is a remarkably good climb.  The first move, a powerful stab to a decent incut, is by far the crux, and after that come a few tenuous moves and a fun, Tigerstrike!!-approved mantle-press. We postulated that if it were on the boulder behind the Dali Wall, it would see more traffic than that boulder's namesake. Probably an exaggeration, but the point is that The Chopper, and Red Feather in general, is good. Very good.

To complete the day we saw a small herd (troop? gathering?) of deer, who seemed utterly uninterested in our activities. We joked that if it came down to it, none of us could cook, let alone capture, kill, and prepare, one of the deer. Grizzly Adams we ain't.

The Space

A tour of The Space, where bands play:

No pictures exist of the outside of the building, so that its location remains classified. Once you enter, though, make for B Stairs.

 

 

Head down the delightfully foreboding B Stairs into the basement.

Hang a quick left at the bottom, and pass through a thick, deadbolted door into the main hallwway.

At the end of this hall, take a right. Do not acknowledge Lord Vader; making eye contact is an invitation to be Force-choked.

Take another right and your there. That's us, first door on the left. Room S8(N).

 

 

 

Be careful, though, for if you make a wrong turn or go too far down a certain hallway, you'll have to face this beast:

An Unexpected Guest

Today, Lucas and I had a companion at Dark Waters:

We all got along well, even though she didn't bring a pad. Come to think of it, she wasn't too keen on spotting, either.

Made you look, Asher...

Neither of us had ever seen a black widow before, and we were both excited and terrified. Several things surprised me:
1) that she was at Dark Waters.
2) that she was so big.
3) that her hourglass was so vivd. I didn't adjust any settings on these photos; she's all natural.

It's great that climbing gives one the opportunity to be in the natural world (not that Clear Creek really exists in the natural world...) and come across such unexpected sights. Somehow, I don't think I'd have seen this if I was into racquetball.

Yellowhouse

Why, might you ask, does this post lack any new climbing media? Well, I'll tell you. This weekend, despite rather nice weather, I was busy preparing the house for occupation. Behold, the splendor of Yellowhouse:

 

Much work was done and much work remains. In the kitchen, especially:

beforeduring

In place of climbing photos, look upon these less exciting, less interesting shots, and despair:

 

 

 

While I'm excited to be moving into an actual house, the knowledge that my glorious November weekends will be spent working on said house and not climbing has me dangling on the brink of a total Jaegeresque depression. At least I'll be using a chainsaw soon.

In other news, I'm keeping a little log over here documenting my NaNoWriMo exploits. Warning: total waste of time.

Goals: Lifetime Ticklist Edition

Regardless of their devotion to climbing, everyone, I'm sure, has a ticklist of some sort. Inevitably, climbs make their way on to that list that are a) way too hard, b) way too far away, or c) way too blond. But therein lies the point of the ticklist: passing time thinking about amazing boulders (or routes, I guess). The classes I am currently enrolled in require a good deal of time sitting in the back thinking about problems I'd like to try, and today I came up with this, my North American All-Time Ticklist:

Slashface, 8B, Hueco Tanks.

Black Lung, 8B, Joe's Valley.

Nothing But Sunshine, 8B, RMNP.

Circadian Rhythm, 8B, Poudre Canyon.

No More Greener Grasses, 8A+, Mt. Evans.

The Shield, 8A+, Little Rock City.

Eclipse, 8A+, Little Cottonwood Canyon.

Wet Dream, 8A+, Red Rocks.

Right-Hand Mini Problem Sit, 8A+, CATS.

Something From Nothing, 8A, Great Barrington.

God Module, 8A, Horse Pens 40. Notice: video contains invalid ascent. Put them feet on the wall before the first move, son!

Haroun and the Sea of Stories, 8A, Bishop.

Drive On, 7C+, Yosemite.

Golden Harvest, 7C+, Rocktown.

Obviously, most of these climbs are far beyond my limit. Furthermore, it can be a heavy financial burden to take the necessary time off from work and school to travel to all of these areas, not to mention dealing with the swollen price of gasoline and data plans (for updating 8a from the iPhone, of course). I know that I’ll never see some of these climbs, and I’ll send fewer, but what matters is that making these ridiculous lists and thinking about these amazing climbs keeps me motivated, keeps the psyche level high. Why else spend so much time hunkered down under the steep wall at CATS, groping greasy pinches and fingering heinous crimps while spandexed children hurl themselves screaming down the runway and into the air with all manner of flips and spins and crash breathless onto the foam mats inches from the finish jug of Epic? That, and it also helps pass the time while the Professor explains multiplying fractions or details the many rules of run-on sentences. So win-win, really.

Ahhh, Noy...

...another Joe's Valley post. But this one's from a different weekend, so everything's cool. Justin Jaeger, and his wonderful dogs, were my companions as I pointed the Black Whale westward for a few days of sandstone.

Despite rolling in at 2:00AM and sleeping for just a few hours, Justin had already sent five problems before anyone else had awoken. I think he was psyched.

Notice the Shadow Hound behind him? 

He proceeded to have a pretty good day, firing Jitterbug Perfume in the morning and making quick work of Eden later in the afternoon. I'm sure all sorts of media of those climbs will appear on the pages of his blog for the next month or two, so here are a few pictures you might not see:

Of course, the highlight of the weekend was spending time with Brew and Kai, who, as usual, were on their best behavior.

He's very quiet. And calm. Quite docile, really.

Joe's continues to produce good times and great lines, and I hope to return soon. Several climbs weight heavily on my mind...

Impending Doom

Things have been going well lately. I'm psyched on climbing (as always), school is a breeze, work has been enjoyable, and I've had plenty of time to deal with all the responsibilities on my plate. Clearly, now would be the time to put all that in great jeopardy. Enter NaNoWriMo. Exit freetime. Perhaps I'm being overdramatic, but producing a 50,000+ word novel in thirty days isn't exactly easy. Though when broken down it doesn't seem too bad: 12,500 words per week or 1,666.67 words per day or 69.44 words per hour or 1.15 words per minute or .019 words per second. Of course, these words have to be somewhat intelligble, and have to have something that resembles a plot. Other than that, no big deal. Right?

A Brief Moment of Self Aggrandizing Glory

     Normally I try to keep the spray to a minimum here on the site, but today is different. Today (yesterday, actually) I sent Purity Control at the Millennium Boulder. Big deal, you might say. Quite a few people have done this problem, and the grade wasn't even cutting edge a decade ago. Well, I don’t care. To my best estimate, I have spent thirty days trying this boulder. Thirty days over three-ish years. And now it’s done. I used to have a piece of paper stapled to my wall that I would write on every time I tried the problem. After eighteen days I tore the paper off the wall, as every entry said something like “stuck first move two out of twenty tries then tore massive flappers.” Rage! Today, though, I stuck the first move seven out of eight times.

    Climbing can be such a difficult mental challenge and it is hard for me to be patient and really make every attempt count. Usually when I get remotely close to doing a problem I’ll go into attack mode and throw myself at the problem until it gives in, but today I knew I had to try a different approach. I told myself that if I was patient with the set-up for the second move and if I focused all my attention on the hold I was going for I’d do the problem. When I pulled on the wall for the eighth time I made sure my feet were in the proper location and my weight was balanced correctly before I moved to the left hand pocket. Amazingly, my hand hit the hold in the perfect position and I didn’t need to readjust. I brought my left foot up to the edge, making sure it was set before rolling my left hand into a crimp. I looked up at the right hand slot/edge and told myself to focus on that hold and that hold alone. An instant later I was watching my hand grab the edge and I continued to watch it as my legs swung out from the wall. The swing was greater than I expected but I knew there was no chance of falling. I brought my feet back onto the wall and had to push aside thoughts of relief and success so I could concentrate on the remaining easy moves. When I grabbed the lip I started laughing. I had imagined this moment for almost three years, and it felt better than I could ever have thought.

    Purity Control is neither the hardest nor the best problem I have done, but it does have a special place in my mind. It was the first legitimate hard climb I ever tried, years ago when it was well above my ability level. I’ve tried it in every season in all conditions imaginable, with too many different people to count. I’ve watched the segment in Colorado Daydream hundreds of times and dreamt about sticking the second move before I’d ever sent V8. I’ve watched Chuck Fryberger do the climb completely static two times in a row and I even (randomly) saw Fred Nicole fire the rig in the most graceful series of movements I’ve ever witnessed. And now it’s done. Sending the problem felt good, but I also felt that I did the problem well; that I executed as flawless an ascent as I could manage. I have never felt this much satisfaction from a climb, and the Pumpkin Pie ice cream cone I had from Red Trolley afterwords was well deserved.

Photos, Psych, and Tortas by Ash

Escape

Writing trip reports is not fun. But for Jaeger's sake, I'll do my best. Or rather, I'll do my best to write up the most ineffective, brief, and uninformative trip report I can manage. Here goes:

This past weekend yielded a quick trip to Joe's Valley, Utah. After a summer in the Park climbing mostly longer endurance problems, it was nice to get on short, powerful climbs, such as Skeleton Key.

 Many Bothans died to bring you this information

 
There was a good crew assembled, and many ridiculous discussions were had. Is it better to crimp with three fingers or four?

Flannery says four, Jamie says three, but I'll just let James be the judge of that.

Also present was Hayden Miller, who was quite psyched to get an early start Sunday morning. After a quick warm up of Breakfast Skittles and tea, Hayden sent some slab, then nearly did The Ghost King in twenty minutes. Impressive.

The drive home was uneventful, save for a pleasant and brief interaction with a polite young Emery County Sheriff's Deputy outside of Castle Dale. Suck.

I like Wrigley