Spray On

I'm just back home after climbing the coolest ice I've ever seen or climbed, anywhere in the world. Tim Emmett and I had a great trip, during which we climbed some insanely challenging and fun spray ice behind Helmcken Falls. There, I've said it, the rest is details in some ways, but here they are. It's a long read, but I'm just so psyched! I have seen the future of ice climbing, and it is sprayed on.

About ten or so years ago David Dornian and I started using the internet to look for big waterfalls. That's how we found Hunlen, which EJ and I climbed last spring (and that is the coolest waterfall I'll never want to climb again). I also saw a lot of photos of Helmcken Falls, in Wells Grey provincial park in BC. A huge quantity of water blasted off the lip of a supposedly 140M cave. Sick, but no way was that going to freeze, ever. But I found one winter photo, with the comment under it, "Helmcken Falls in Wells Gray Provincial Park. Even when it's -30C out this waterfall is too high-volume to freeze. The spray that turns to hoarfrost on the overhanging amphitheater walls could probably be climbed to give a really hard route though! (not by me) ." Drew B. posted that photo and caption, so in some ways he is responsible for the seed in the back of my mind.

But it's a long way out of the way to Wells Grey provincial park, and Helmcken. I just never got there, and didn't really believe the hype on the height anyhow. Finally, after years of scheming and thinking it could be worth checking out but not right now, my mostly English but slightly hybridized Canadian friend (he stole one of our women through marriage or the other way around, not sure) Tim Emmett showed up in Canmore (a day late--he seriously missed his flight by a complete day, amazing for someone who travels so much) and we were off at 4:30 a.m. to get to the falls in time to climb the route if there was a route. At 1:00 we stood on the rim and dropped our jaws. Helmcken is a stunning, complete bad-ass of a waterfall. There wasn't much white ice stuff on the back walls, but Tim and I sorted out a route down to check it out involving rapping over a really nice 20M column of ice. At least we'd have something to do on the way out.

As soon as were down at the bottom of the canyon our minds just flipped out. The scale is so hard to fathom in the pictures and even in person until you're down in the canyon. A pretty good-sized river rips off the edge of a massive cave and falls 141M (about 500 feet) to a pool below. You could play soccer (football if you're Tim) on the ice shelf behind the falling water. And the lower 100 feet or so were covered in the most insane ice formations I've ever seen. Have a look at a few of the photos and make up your own mind, but we were blown away.

But it's not all happy land; sharp daggers of ice line the ceiling of the cave, and the huge blocks of debris on the ice ledge along the wall told of serious death missiles falling from above. We sat on the edge of the huge (stadium sized, really!) cave and freaked out on the roar of the water, the mist, the ice along the bottom edge, the icicles in the roof, the whole scene. It was way too overwhelming to even think of climbing; we were afraid at first to even go into the cave. Or Tim was, I was up for it but Tim whined a lot. It would be funny if that were true, but if you know Tim at all then you know that hanging with Tim is like hanging out with the best dog in the world, a Labrador. And there was a very tasty stick to be had... An enthused Emmett is a dangerous thing, and he's always enthused. Soon we were moving again.

After figuring out a path on the ground through the dangers from above we headed in. It was warm, maybe minus two, and we found out right away that the huge spray ice formations were really unstable. If you just nudged them they fell off. We could push the little ones off the wall to make forward progress along an ice ledge on the side of the cave, but the big ones blocking our way forward were too scary to touch. We quickly figured out that a soft-ball sized piece of ice would knock multi-ton stalactites down, and carnage ensued as progress was made.

Eventually we were in the back of the cave in a relative safe zone. Huge banana-shaped icicles littered the walls and ground, and in fact blocked us from even getting to the back wall. It would have been suicided to walk under the danglers, but more thrown ice (Tim favored something called a, "Cricket Bowl Hurler" shot, while I was more of basketball shot kinda guy) cleared a path through the Indian Jones terrain traps and back to the wall. At that point we both sort of ran out of energy; how to climb the ice? For there was ice, but it was on a 45-degree or steeper wall, and not anywhere thick or strong enough to hold a screw...

I've put up a lot of mixed climbs on lead, and after a while the solution became obvious if not really what I wanted: Bolt it. I wanted it to go on natural gear and screws, but the compact volcanic rock wasn't having any of that. I stood on a huge fallen stalactite and the first bolt went in. The next one went in while I was hanging on two equalized ice tools in the soft ice, as did the third bolt. I got the fourth in after ripping a tool and slamming violently off the wall when I fell. Did I mention that Tim is an experienced British "trad" belayer? Good thing, as I would have decked it hard without him being on the rope. Nice one Tim, thanks.

After that Tim and I sat on the ice and looked up; the fourth bolt was directly overhead, and they were spaced well enough to prevent a groundfall while climbing but barely. We climbed out of the canyon by headlamp that night with smiles, and the realization that there was no way in hell we were getting to the lip without a week's worth of effort and time, likely more. Our psyche was massive, just running around in circles massive. Now I know how Labradors feel all the time, it was just awesome to discover something so damn cool!

In the morning we were back at it. I got about four more bolts in then turned the sharp end over to Mr. Emmett, who was nearly ready to levitate up and help out. Despite never having aided off ice tools before (Tip: put short tie-offs around the upper grip of the new Fusions for extra reach) he did a great job and got us to an alcove at the end of the continuos spray ice, about 90 feet of climbing from the back wall, but only about 40 feet off the ground!

And then it was time to send. Our fallen pillar had unfortunately broken, so you had to stand on the stump end and literally jump through space to latch a couple of blobs on the wall. Seriously, that was the mandatory start! I have never had so much fun climbing ice; sometimes you'll get a big roof from a broken off pillar or something, but this was just mental. You had to be really careful to swing accurately in the blobs of ice, and test the placement each time. This is incredibly strenuous when hanging locked-off on a 45-degree wall. Poor placements would rip, which was funny if you were belaying but not so funny on the lead. I've been doing a lot of endurance training this year but not so much power training... I got so damn pumped my forearms are still hurting, but a combination of desperate tricks (hooking an elbow on my ice tools) and a really wild stemming rest at the mid-point got me to the anchor, and then Tim had a nice battle but pulled it off (nice work for your second ice route of the year amigo!). We sat around eating and talking about the grade; it is a whole hell of a lot harder than anything I've ever climbed on ice. The only thing I could compare it too is M10 or harder drytooling, but you have to swing for placements instead of just hook. WI 10 is the lowest grade I can give it with a straight face; many people who can drytool M10 will find the ice climbing a lot harder I think, it's real, honest, cuts-on-your face ice climbing. Not one single drytool move in the whole pitch; pull up, lock off, work for a placement. Just like normal ice but on a 45-degree wall. So much fun!

On day three we were back in the stadium to see what we could see, but the temperatures were jumping every hour, and massive danglers were cratering into the floor of the cave like something out of a bad movie where the whole evil-guy palace blows up and the heroes run away. Or something like that, it was sketchy and we ran away.

It's been a very warm year in Clearwater and Wells Grey Park, so apparently the spray ice is a lot smaller than it normally is. It may all re-form, or the sun may be too high already for it to come back, nobody knows. What I do know is that I'm going to be back next year for sure. You could theoretically do a drytool route with the odd bit of spray ice to the lip right now, but there are pictures where the whole thing is spray ice... That's the future to me; another hard drytooling route is just that, but a 500-foot route on the spray ice? Magic.

I'm always looking for evolutions in my favorite sport, ice climbing. Mixed climbing was one step for me, now I've seen the possibilities for another development. Thanks for a great trip Tim, yeah!!!

Notes:

In winter the Helmcken Falls lodge offers rooms for two people (two beds) with breakfast and a hearty dinner for $125 (total--not each, total. $62.50 per person per night with food). It's a really cool lodge, friendly owners, and a great place to base out of. There are other possibilities in the area for climbing that warrant a visit, let's leave it at that... Happy Exploring!

PS: The height of most waterfalls is exaggerated. Helmcken is supposed to be 141M high, but I figured that was an exaggeration. In the photo it looks about 100 feet high. But those trees on the lip are BC trees, not spindly little Alberta trees... It's fucking huge. Cool photo here.

Endless Analysis #3:Nutrition

Stuff I ate: 1/6 of an amazing, salty, peppery, mouth-savoring steak. One slice of pizza. About 10 or 15 Clif Blok packages (love the 3x Sodium!). Two or five Clif Bars of various types, maybe more. A nice pastry or two (thanks Matti and Ines!). A french fry or two. Maybe 5,000 calories all-in with the breakfast on the day of the event?

Stuff I drank: Eight Red Bulls. 18 liters of water/electrolyte mix plus another six or so after the event. An entire tub of Clif Electrolyte mix. Two coffees (thanks Java for the java!). One small but real hit of single malt scotch in honor of Guy Lacelle (who didn't drink so that's kinda funny, thanks Bill B., I took the bottle to the memorial in Canmore and shared it out).

Successes: Bloks, RB, electrolyte mix.

Failures: Steak (puked it up on the bottom of the canyon, no big thing, I was impressed with the color at the time...).

What could have been better: Fresh fruit, more simple sugars in the form of minty stuff, more simple sugars in general. The protein and fat are critical for me after about six hours, but I over-planned that and didn't have enough super-simple sugars on hand. When you're burning a whole truckload of calories every hour you need incredibly simple sugars, or at least I sure do. Because I was often on the edge of puking (anaerobic burns or close to it each time, a sure way to get close to your puking limit) I had to be very careful with what I ate and drank. A Clif Blok a lap, solid food at the start of the rest period every hour (about ten minutes if I was doing OK), just riding the edge of calorie absorption and intake vs. rejection. I'm stoked I only puked once, and it was pretty benign really.

What I did right:

Thanks to Dave Marvin, Aaron Batte and Jim Nowak I drank enough liquids in general. They had the bottle on top, I hit it up every lap pretty much, slightly warm water with lots of electrolyte mix in it. I am certain, based on past experience with long climbs and some really stupid planning that I would have imploded without the electrolyte mix in the water. That is critical. I was sweating despite the freezing temps, I wanted salt a lot, which for me is a sure sign that I need to drink more sodium...

I quit almost all caffeine and RB for two weeks before the event, and didn't take my first RB until at least four hours into the ascent. Every single can I drank had a strong impact on my performance, it just works, that's why so many guides are carting around cans in the mountains for both themselves and their clients. I buy the stuff when I travel, hundreds of dollars every year just so people are clear that I do fully use and believe in the stuff, it's not just a logo on my head.

I had a whole whack of different boxes of Clif Bars (I paid for these, pro deal, but I have no deal with Clif), the different flavours, products and tastes really worked for me.

What I learned that applies to other super-endurance stuff:

More heavy-sugar liquids. This was working well for me, I'd up my intake of those. Fudge, cheese, peppermint patties. I wanted each one of these "foods" so much at various points! More of an effort to consume "X calories/hour," and have that tracked by someone. I really blew it a couple of times, and while I never bonked I did lose my focus until I got a 100 or so calories back into the system. That's all it takes to get back into the game, kinda cool... I figure I must have burned at least 10,000 calories in the 24 hours, quite likely a lot more based on my heart rate and time spent climbing vs. resting. Who knows, hard to figure out, but interesting to guess.

I'd also pay more attention to how I was loading my energy systems in the days leading up to the race. I think I was likely taking in too much carbohydrate and not enough high-quality protein and fat, especially in the morning of the event. I've found over the years that I perform better when I'm careful with my diet in general, and especially in the few days leading up to a huge push or whatever physical torture I'm enmeshed with. I was a bit distracted in Ouray, and got hungrier than I should have a few times before the Endless Ascent started. I also had the stomach flu two weeks before the ascent; I honestly think that hurt me. Little things matter.

But, given my lack of adventure or 24-hour racing experience, it worked out pretty well thanks to everyone who helped directly or indirectly. You can't measure words of encouragement in calories, but they are just as important. Thanks.

Endless Analysis #2:Training

Training for dZi Endless Ascent

First off, today was my first day back on the ice, two weeks to the day since we finished Endless Ascent. I'm losing one fingernail, and the soles of my feet are still bruised. No more cheap socks ever!!!!! Other than that I'm OK, and it sure was fun to mixed climb today!

So how do you train to climb ice for 24 hours? That was the question I started asking myself in about June, and for once the internet was short of answers. I had a further problem in that I had some elbow tendonitis that was still clearing up. Or not clearing up, depending on the day... But the idea slowly took over my head, and the following is how I trained.

In April and May I rock climbed a ton, then had some elbow problems... In June and early July I was primarily kayaking with a few rock sessions mixed in, but paddling always starts the healing process in my body. I got way into kayaking again, great sport! Rodeo sessions, big days on the river, beating about in the woods but always going at it pretty hard. I reached a level of skill in kayaking I hadn't had since about 1999, which was a ton of fun. Thanks to Patch, Becky and many others for the motivation.

Around the middle of July I added in the Crossfit main site (www.crossfit.com) workout of the day or "WOD." I'd been messing with the WODs for a while and done CF cycles in the past, but in July I'd do these workouts on the days when I wasn't too worked from paddling, mountain biking, hiking and flying or whatever, and do "catch-up" workouts as part of the warmup if I missed a session. Just the standard CF warmup is a lot of work, and the improvements in my ability to handle the sessions came quickly. Plus it's a whole lot of fun! Lacking direct coaching I put in a lot of time looking at the exercises on the web videos etc, and learned a tremendous amount.

In August I was still kayaking some, but put more of my emphasis into Crossfit. My elbow was steadily improving--unless I went rock climbing and pulled on ropes to belay... For some reason that was guaranteed to set me back a week's worth of careful icing and rehab. I was also doing once or twice weekly sessions of ART with Torben in Canmore, that felt effective to me (ART seems to work the best for me, thanks to James McIntyre in Calary for the original rehab). I primarily trained Crossfit at Athletic Evolution in Canmore, thanks to Brad for the motivation. Athletic Evolution isn't a CF affiliate, but they had the bars and bumper plates, it's a damn good traditional gym. Ya gott love a place where the owner gets psyched to blast the WOD with you.

In early September we did the first descent of the Atnarko, a tough river that flows from Charlotte Lake down toward Bella Coola. It was a real bitch of a run, four days instead of the planned two, and a lot of very difficult boat wrestling around log jams, etc. etc. Magical place, great trip! I felt a lot stronger even after only a couple of months of Crossfit--I think that at my advanced age (42) I had a host of weaknesses in my body's basic function (jumping, squats, presses, etc. etc). Crossfit put the light on those weaknesses, and helped correct them. CF isn't perfect, but it's damn effective for general physical fitness. I have no affiliation with CF.

In mid-September I fully committed to the 24-hour ice climbing idea. My elbow wasn't perfect, but it was holding up with regular maintenance and careful use. I wasn't sure it would hold up for 24 hours, but if you don't commit you don't find out.

Kayaking and ice climbing share a surprising amount of movements; hanging onto a paddle isn't wildly different than hanging onto a modern leashless ice tool, and repeatedly pulling and pushing on the paddle is a lot like doing the same with ice tools. Crossfit was taking care of my legs and the rest of my body, as was all the hiking I was also doing. Although I didn't know it at the time, I think those long river paddling sessions built a huge endurance base in my upper body and even mind.

From mid-Septmber to mid October I just did Crossfit, but added some specific climbing exericses (flicking tools overhead, subbing one-arm pulldowns for pullups, a few other additions) that fit into my Crossfit warmups. I also did a lot of hiking up hills and wrestling a two-year old at night to work on my sleep deprivation. Seriously.

In late-October we were having real problems with ice here in the Rockies; normally there's lots, but it just wasn't happening. I further tuned my Crossfit workouts to reflect the sort of workload I thought I might experience climbing for 24 hours. One-arm lat pulldowns on a rope (my elbow was doing well enough to handle this load) in sets of 50 (that sure is fun...), lots more air squats. The basic move of ice climbing is a staggered hands low-weight pull-up with the balance of your weight in a basic air squat. Feet at the same level (this is the most common mistake in ice climbing--your feet should always be at very close to the same level), hike feet up with straight arms, push up with legs, place high tool, repeat to the top. Feet always at the same level, tools never at the same level, twice as many foot placements at least as tool placements...

In early November I got out on the ice a little, but there just wasn't that much that was in that was steep enough for good training. I hit what there was (Nemesis, etc. etc.), but doing a three-pitch route just does not offer the required volume of movement, nor does it take enough time (with modern tools and gear Nemesis can be done pack to pack in under two hours, with only about 30 minutes of actual climbing--the hiking likely provides more training, as does climbing mixed routes in the area). I moved farther away from Crossfit and more toward developing the specific strength of vertical or near-vertical ice climbing (hanging onto my tools for long periods in my garage, calf raises, etc). I then built the Plice (http://gravsports.blogspot.com/2009/11/its-come-to-this-plice.html), which was great, and did more specific workouts in Texas during US thanksgiving. I was also doing some very long days out in the woods hunting for ice and generally beating around. Lots and lots of early starts, late nights, long walks.

By the last few days of November I was finally able to run laps in Haffner and Marble Canyon. Initially 1,000M (3,000 feet) was all we were hitting. Temperatures were really, really cold, so we were doing 20 minutes on and 20 minutes off. This meant basically sprinting on top rope for 20 minutes, climbing anywhere from 300 to 700 feet as we got better at climbing fast for 20 minutes. Without Brad, EJ, Gordon, Scott, Ian, Keith and everyone else who sessioned the Endless Ascent would never have happened! Having good training partners is truly essential to success.

I tried for a basic day on/day off schedule as my body allowed or felt good about, and got a solid 12 ice sessions in by Dec 31 plus a lot more on the Plice. The Crossfit and Plice were savagely effective; I wasn't getting sore on the ice at all, even as we bumped the days toward 6,000 feet of climbing. The 20 on/20 off was fair to my partner and me; if I were going well I could pump out 6 and sometimes 7 laps before the alarm on my phone went off... I would be thrashed after each of these sessions, truly sick of climbing, cold, and just done. This was not a comforting realization when contemplating climbing for 24 hours. I was also worried that the 20 on/20 off format would not be effective for long-duration climbing. But you simply can't climb slowly enough on vertical ice to make it "easy aerobic," your arms and calves pump out. You need to climb, rest, repeat. In retrospect I worried way too much about the lack of long-duration low-intensity climbing-specific movement, doing 20 on/20 off was excellent. Or maybe it was the long kayaking days in the summer that provided the base? Hmmm...

I learned a lot about ice climbing fast and efficiently through all of these thousands and thousands of feet. When you're doing huge volumes of ice little differences in movement patterns add up quickly. I developed huge calluses on my little fingers from hanging onto the Cobras and new Fusions. I learned so much about dynamic movement on ice, momentum, and a subtle hip push very similar to the finish of a good squat that, when combined, really helped a tremendous amount. I've now been ice climbing for over 25 years off and on, and perhaps the most important thing I've learned is that being a good ice climber is all about mileage on ice. This training program took my mileage and understanding of movement on ice to a whole new level for sure. I was never bored while running laps believe it or not, it was always a game to climb better and better, and figure out what that meant. I know my heart rates pretty well from years of wearing a monitor, the spikes were violent.

On January 1st I did some easy solo laps then some TR laps in Ouray, followed by bigger sessions on roughly January 3, 5 and 6th. I rested on the 7th and 8th except for teaching a clinic (thanks for the fun to all who came!) and a bit of media posing. On January 9th I went into the hole and had at it. I figured I'd done more than 150,000 feet of ice and Plice plus all the off-season training, long kayaking days and Crossfit.

On January 10th at noon we all (THANKS!) finished. 194 Laps, 13 or 14 in the last hour thanks to a "bonus" offer for the dZi foundation. I kept moving for an average of at least 50 minutes an hour for the entire 24 hours. My longest break came when I attended Guy Lacelle's memorial.

I know I could have trained better, but I think my biggest mistakes came during the actual climb, not in training for it. This was a complete stab in the dark, a total shot into the unknown for me, and broadly I was able to hit my goal and keep climbing. So, in short, the physical training worked. It wasn't easy, and more on that later, but my body did its job far better than I thought it would. I wanted to climb about 11,500 feet, and by a conservative estimate did at least 25,000. I was amazed at what my body could do, I genuinely never thought that possible. And my arms are still smaller than my wife's for Christ's sake!

My mental training consisted primarily of visualizing horrid situations, and how I would deal with them. If I broke my ankle and could still hop I visualized how I would do my best to keep climbing. I practiced climbing with one tool in case I hurt a hand or arm, and with my elbow locked in case my tendonitis got so bad I couldn't bend my arm. I hopped some pitches on one foot to simulate climbing with a minor or serious broken lower leg. My one over-riding mental image was that, unless I was unconscious or totally unable to function in the opinion of those around me, I would keep climbing no matter what. I spent so much time visualizing moving in extreme pain, with bad stomach cramps, with injuries, and wanting to quit but punching through anyhow that during the actual climb I always felt sort of OK. Yeah, I puked, yeah, I wasn't all there mentally and it sucked at times, but I had put so much mental prep into deciding that no matter what happened I was going to keep moving that I never seriously doubted I could keep going for one more lap, and those laps added up. Plus I could never have looked any of the great people who were helping out, cheering, heckling or just being there in the eye and quit. No way.

I often thought that it would be very pleasant to stop and stop hurting, to get some sleep, to slow down, but my mental state was always based around the basic premise that unless I was seriously injured or completely out of it that I was going to keep climbing. So I did, that was my standard.

I always put a tremendous amount of negative thinking into my gear, nutrition/hydration, clothing, etc. etc. I'm going to write about what I used for all of that in future pieces, but I solved a lot of potential problems by running really negative scenarios and then solving the wild problems my mind could come up with. In my shows I talk about the "Positive Power of Negative Thinking," and I really believe in doing just that. Yeah, think positive, but only after a tremendous amount of critical and detailed preparation. Negative thought and planning yields positive outcomes in critical situations.

I have some designs on other 24-hour stuff unrelated to roped climbing, and writing this stuff down now may help me in planning that. More to come, this is one epic blog post!

Stretching: It's all changing again.

I'm supposed to be writing about the Endless Ascent, and will get back to that, but I keep getting off on tangents. One thing I'm very interested in is stretching, and how to stretch effectively. Many of the same questions that plague/make "fitness" interesting are also in the mix for "stretching" and flexibility.

What is our goal with our stretching? Do we want to be more "flexible?" Have a better range of useful motion (meaning the athlete can move his or her body through the range, not just sag with gravity as is commonly done)? Prevent injury? Be able to do the splits like Jean Claude Van Damm (Bloodsport: if you haven't seen it and are an athlete you have to watch this movie, Van Damm was rad back in the day!). What does it mean to be adequately flexible? These are all good questions that I don't think I've asked myself enough.

I alway start with my personal experience when evaluating any protocol. I've done static stretching (hold a position for some time between five seconds and minutes), yoga (interesting), and some dynamic stretching.

My personal results can be summed up like this: Dynamic stretching seems to result in increased useful range of motion. Very long (two or more minutes) static stretches seem to result in increased range of motion, but not as clearly ROM that I can control. My current version of speed yoga seems to result in feeling better and more conscious of my body, but without huge increases in ROM. I hurt myself too quickly in ashtanga Yoga classes to judge how well that worked, but it was fun playing until I got hurt repeatedly. Bikram didn't put me in a position where I injured myself, but I don't have regular access to Bikram.

We were all told not to "Bounce" (dynamic stretch), that long static stretches were the way to warm up and be stronger come game time, and that static stretching reduces injures. Just in: All of this is likely bullshit. More on this here.

The most flexible people I watch, at least in terms of ROM that I'd like to have, are dancers (ballet, break and modern), gymnasts and various martial artists. All do a lot of dynamic stretching (and also have a lot of injuries, but I suspect those injuries have more to do with massive over-use than stretching). Yoga people are often flexible and some are very strong (doing L-sit to handstand or various plange maneuvers), but often as a group that I've seen relatively weak at holding a limb up or in a stressed position. Not all, and all you Yogis are going to get your matts in a bunch, but compare Bruce Lee to any sort of Yoga type--who would you want to be? I thought so, but peace, let's do a few sun salutations, I'm into to it too.

After watching a lot of climbers, kayakers, and other athletes I'm starting to think that "flexibility" (ROM in a non-muscle activated position) has little to do with either one's skill at most mountain sports or direct injury avoidance if done shortly before the game/event. I'm starting to think that training useful range of motion dynamically may be the way forward based on the two articles above and a bunch more research I've done. And this is a huge departure from how I've been looking at stretching over the years...

What this means for me personally is that I've got to learn some new information on stretching, really think about it, and modify my habits to be more effective. I am holding my range of motion as I age, but it's sure not increasing. I also think some of my injures of late (adductor groin pull, leg flexor pull) have been due to poor range of motion, and muscle imbalances brought on by weight/gym training to fix muscle imbalances...

The more I train and act on goals the more I learn about what doesn't work, but the more I also learn to trust what I see works, and what I see the best athletes in a given sport doing to succeed. I know of no better principle than "Specific Adaption to Imposed Demand." Even for stretching.... Makes sense: if you want to increase the range of motion in movement then do the movement to the point where it stops, repeat. Interesting idea, it just goes against 20+ years of training. I love it when I think I understand something and then it changes. This is the moment when faith gives way to searching for a deeper understanding of a problem. I've got a problem with stretching, time to figure out how to do better.

Mountain Movement

In the last 25 years I've spent a lot of time formally and informally teaching climbing, kayaking, paragliding and a few other sports. I've taught some very diverse groups, ranging from the very unfit to the uber-fit. I also do some sports performance coaching, and enjoy the hell out of that. I really love seeing and helping people with both the mental and physical gymnastics of sports on a competitive or recreational level.

Out of all this I've come to realize that fast and safe non-technical movement in the mountains is not all that basic, nor instinctive for most people. Relatively few people can move well across a chossy hillside, over talus, across a rounded and slippery river bed, or feel secure on a short step of higher-angle loose terrain. But the acquisition of these skills can be sped up immensely with a little coaching. I'm now working (slowly) on a book about mountain movement that covers pretty much everything from running talus to staying warm in winter. I want to test some of my theories and ideas this spring, and this is where you may come in...

Want to spend five days in the Canadian Rockies in early July having a lot of fun, falling down, getting wet, suffering and generally being outside a lot? I'm going to run a five-day mountain movement course, open to anyone but aimed mostly at the relatively new outdoor sports enthusiast. No more than five people, five days, either bare-bones or you arrive at the Calgary Airport and stop thinking about anything but movement. I'm working up a syllabus based on my book right now, drop me an email and I'll send it out if you're interested.

Also, if you have good tricks for helping people move in the mountains (non-technical movement) I'd love to hear them, thanks!

Endless Analysis #1: The Damage Done

It's Thursday, and I'm feeling halfway decent after the Endless Ascent. Over the next week or two I'm going to go through a few different categories of experience I had during the recent 24-hour climb for the dZi foundation: Damage, Math, Nutrition, Training, Gear, and other stuff as I think it through. The whole experience was one of the best of my life, and one of the worst (funny how the two ends of the experience spectrum are so close sometimes...). I can't stop thinking about it! Again, a huge thanks to everyone one who helped out, from the people on the bridge at single-digit hours in the morning to belayers to friends to the dZi, thanks! James Biessel photo to left, thanks!

Anyhow, here's a list of the damage done:

Lungs/Nose

I keep having bad nosebleeds, and my lungs are still sore. After about 12 hours of climbing I started nose-breathing a lot, a trick I learned from Kim years ago. Breathing only through your nose is a way to stay roughly below your anaerobic threshold, and it moisturizes the air going into your lungs a lot more. I did this from about hour 16 on because I was already coughing some; I've noticed this problem before when going really hard in the winter for more an hour or two, but it was worse in Ouray than I've ever experienced, likely due to the huge load and time span I was asking out of my body. So I started nose-breathing, which worked great, but the high-altitude cold air really thrashed my nose and lungs instead of just my lungs... I think that although the relative humidity in Ouray is probably pretty close to the relative humidity in Canmore the actual quantity of moisture molecules available is likely lower due to less oxygen etc. to hold moisture in the air... Someone with better science than me feel free to step in, but the end result is that my nose and lungs are seriously thrashed. Both are improving, but still a little annoying. Interestingly, I found this on the New York Time site today.

Feet

No blisters! I climbed for about the first 16 or 18 hours in my Scarpa Phantom Lite boots. I've used these boots a lot, they are super warm and comfortable for me. But the soles of my feet started to hurt a lot after about 14 hours. I'm mostly blaming my sock selection; I normally wear these reasonably thick socks, but for some reason I wore a little thinner and lower quality socks, which compressed out more. I switched them out after 16 hours and put on the fruit boots and new socks. After the event I couldn't walk in my bare feet on hard floors, it was just too painful. Still hurts, but not too bad.

Fingernail

Yeah, I'm gonna lose a fingernail. It makes typing painful. Whine, whine, but it's funny how much much one fingernail can hurt! I don't remember what I did to cause the blister disaster that's seeping out from under the nail but there it is.

Hand blisters

I have never, ever heard of anyone getting blisters on their hands ice climbing. I switched gloves something like nine times in 24 hours, maybe more, but I've got blisters from ice climbing. I never would have believed it possible.

Harness rash

Not too bad, but tight pants are out for a bit. I think I did most of the damage in the last hour, when I wasn't taking the time to adjust my clothing properly. That's really important! I have had worse rash aid climbing for a few hours really.

Calves

Bloated, painful and hard like rocks for two days after the climb. OK now, but I'm not going to be doing calf raises or climbing ice for a few more days. Nope.

Sore hands

Back in the day when I was sport climbing a lot I had a sure-fire system to figure out how messed up my hands were: if I couldn't close the pads on my tips to the joints on my palms I was over-trained. I still can't do this. Creaky tendons, no "injury" pain, but seriously worked.

Right Knee

I was asking for a pretty quick lower when possible, and boy was I getting it! Amazingly, 194 laps I only had one "bad" drop moment, and I banged my knee pretty good during that moment. It's OK, but I feel it walking around for sure.

Neck

I think I looked up for tool placements and down for foot placements so many times that I just wore my rubberneck out. Better, but I had about the range of motion of a lineman for a few days.

Weird eyeball ding

During a training session a guy unintentionally knocked a small piece of ice down, and I looked up just as it hit on the white part of my eye. That's still hurting, but getting better.

Dehydration: I drank at least 18 liters of water during the event and four more after, but I wasn't even close to hydrated until 24 hours after the event... More on this in the nutrition section, I think I blew the hydration thing a bit.

General

Sore pretty much everywhere! I waddled through DIA on the way home on Monday, but I always feel like this after pushing too hard.

But I'm definitely "OK" overall, which surprises me. I have had some chronic problems with my elbows over the years for sure, and I was icing every night for months before this event. I was mentally completely prepared to tape my elbow at 90 degrees and keep climbing, or do anything it took to keep moving. In fact, while training I repeatedly thought about how I was going to keep moving on one foot, with one arm, whatever I had to do. When I could just keep climbing with no deep chronic pain or shooting new pain I was really psyched! More on training in a later piece, but it worked well enough to keep me moving, and I don't think I did any lasting damage to my body on this effort, or at least nothing new.

I hit the gym last night for a light workout (ten minutes rowing then 30 of yoga stretching, followed by five rounds of thrusters, pullups and situps, a combo I like), and then a slow skin up a local ski hill this morning before taking a few runs. So I'm OK.

http://www.alpinist.com/doc/web10w/wfeature-gadd-endless-ascent-ouray

PS on the Math--My personal belief is that Pic of the Vic, the route I was on, is at least 40M high as Vince Anderson's excellent guidebook suggests and my personal experience backs up (you couldn't TR it with a single 70, the rope is well past 1/2 when lowering in on a 70M). Others think it's 45M or maybe a bit more. Me, I'm going with the lower number of 40M until someone actually measures it. It's better to err on the low side than the high side in this sort of thing I think.

Endless Ascent Ends

I'm back home, sitting at a desk and trying to type with (seriously) blisters on my hands and a fingernail on my right hand that protests every time I use it to hit a key... Who gets blisters on their hands ice climbing? I've never heard of it before, and would not have thought it possible...

But the 24-hour push is done. Over the next few days I'm going to write more about different portions of the climb, from the nutrition successes and failures to the physical damage to the training and so on. There's just too much to put into one post, and I had a lot of time to think about things while doing the climb...

The main thing I'm feeling this morning is that I was incredibly lucky to be involved with such a fantastic group of people. Twenty three belayers, three "team managers," the dZi, the hundreds of people who showed up in small or large groups to cheer and keep me moving, so much incredibly positive energy from so many people. Today there is just no room for anything but an incredible sense of appreciation for everyone who was even in the smallest way involved with the Endless Ascent. What I'm going to remember most about the whole experience is not how much ice I climbed (I'm actually not at all sure about that number, lots of different route height guesses, comedy), how much it all hurt, but how lucky I am to be part of the community of people who came together for the dZi and the climb. It was a swirling mix of enthusiasm, support, shared love for the Ouray Ice Park, and excitement. I am deeply humbled and thankful for the experience, it will effect me for the rest of my life.

Here's a fun video clip from the Endless Ascent, thanks Yuieno!! And some nice pictures...

More later, my finger has had it with typing and it's time for another liter of water and another nap. Thanks, thanks, and THANKS!

No More Training

In two and a half hours I'm going over the edge of the canyon at the Ouray Ice Park. In the 24 hours after that I'm going to climb out as many times as I can, belayed by 24 great people, helped by dozens more, and motivated by all of you who have made a donation to the dZi foundation, sent encouraging words, and just plain old been enthusiastic. Thanks!

We think we've sorted a live web cam on the https://www.endlessascent.org/ site so you can follow along with the battle. There's a functioning donation button there even if you're Canadian (postal codes threw it for a loop initially).

I just finished a huge breakfast after an early breakfast. Calories in, effort out. Here we go!!

Better...

The Ice Park emptied out yesterday--I always see the park in the midst of the ice festival, when hundreds of climbers attack the hundreds of routes (Hundred? There sure are a lot!). But by about 2:00 yesterday things were slowing down, and Jason N. and I got in there for some speed laps. 20 minutes on, 20 off, giving it! Three sets of that, then I did a solo session into the dark for a bit to up the distance. I bought a new ascender thing from Ouray Mountain Sports which made the whole process much smoother. Did about 30 laps again, but the difference in how I felt from the last session was huge.

For starters, don't dry your socks with fabric softener--this makes them incredibly slippery in your boots, which sucks when standing on frontpoints... Figuring out why my heels were lifting so much and why my calfs were cramping so bad in the last session was positive, way better to figure that out now than during the climb! I was also low on calories last session I think, but a huge burger the night before along with some other food plus a concerted effort to get a whack of calories down my throat during the day. In the last week I've been sick, traveling, eating irregularly, it just hasn't been that good. But it doesn't take all that long to put the pieces back together if given some time and quality food (I don't normally eat hamburgers, but the burger at Drake's in Ridgway is the absolute best thing I've eaten in months, insane!). I'm also already much better adapted to the altitude--you wouldn't think going to 8,5000 feet from 4,500 would make that big a difference, but it does when you're going hard. Plus seeing more friends and just getting the mojo going is worth a lot, the energy is building.

I'm training today and Wednesday and then I'm done with that, it's game time on Saturday at high noon.

Ouray!

I'm back in Ouray, Colorado, home to the most extensive collection of ice climbs in the smallest area anywhere in the world. And the approaches are under ten minutes from the town! The Ouray Ice Park is the best place to climb a lot of ice in the world I think, a truly remarkable expression of ice and human enterprise coming together. Plus the San Juans spike above the town into the blue sky, it's just a stellar place to be and one of my favorite spots of all time both for the geography and people who live here. I have a lot of history here over the last 15 years or so both from the ice festival and summer outings, it's a home away from home for me really.

Anyhow, yesterday I went out and ran solo laps on the route I'll be climbing during the endless ascent effort, Pic of the Vic. It's a great line, everything a good ice climb should be. Bit of a shaky pillar start, varied, just really nice climbing. I only did 30 laps, but the climb is about 140 or 150 feet high so that's around 4,000+ feet (I'm going to use imperial units 'cause this is the USA). I felt lousy. No way around it. Every athlete has good and bad days, for me yesterday was brutal. My feet kept blowing, everything hurt, it was a sucker punch to the head kinda day as far as the climbing went. But it was good to see some old friends, and it's hard to maintain a bad attitude in such a beautiful place, with so many psyched people swinging tools. By the middle of the session I'd just accepted that today I was going to suck, and sucked it up. As the park emptied of people my headlamp and I moved through the darkness on our own yo-yo path, and there was some peace. I was surprised when I hit the top of the canyon a couple of times; I'd just been climbing, moving, not thinking too much. I was on a self-belay so there was no one to talk to once the last people were gone, just the canyon and me. It hit me that I'd never been in the canyon without lots of people; in the darkness it felt different, closer, larger. Yet another side of a special place.

I walked home in the dark a happy man. A bad day of training in a beautiful place beats hell out of a good day of just about anything else. I have seven days before I try and climb as much ice as I can in 24 hours. The thought is, honestly, horrifying. I know that special circumstances bring forth special efforts, but yesterday's effort took me about four hours give or take. That's one sixth of what I'm up against in terms of time. As I sat in a nice restaurant eating shrimp with a glass of wine last night I thought about the fact that I'd still be climbing if yesterday were the first 12 hours of the climb. As I lay in bed with a small child jumping on my head I thought about the fact that I'd still be climbing. Hell, as I'm writing this it's less than 24 hours after I was climbing yesterday. I simply can't imagine what the Endless Ascent is going to feel like. Bring it.

Unknown: Endless Ascent Math

Unknown. I love that word. The pursuit of the "unknown" keeps me interested in life, getting out of bed in the morning, and motivated to sleep fast so I can get back at it in the morning. First ascents of climbs, first descents of rivers, attempts to do things differently (climb icebergs, fly over a big ditch on my paraglider), it's all about getting off the square of my mind that is "known" and setting a course for the place where things get weird.

Which brings me to the endless ascent. The goal is to climb as much ice as I can in 24 hours, and raise money for something that matters, the dZi foundation. Why climb ice for 24 hours? Because I don't know what will happen. I know what will happen when I go out ice climbing in general, but I have no idea what's going to happen after about 12 hours of ice climbing.

Everyone wants to know, "How much ice do you think you can climb?" Warning, longer answer ahead... In my training I've done some days around 2,100M/6600 feet, or roughly two El Capitans. I've been training in mostly 20-minute blocks; longer blocks would be better probably, but when it's butt cold 20 minutes is long enough to get your heart rate way up, and your belayer to still be warm. So I go like hell for 20 minutes, the belayer stays warm pulling rope in, we switch as fast as reasonably possible, repeat for up to eight hours. Plus the Plice sessions...

In roughly ten or tweleve 20-minute sessions with some bonus laps I have done 50+ laps on a 35M/120 foot grade 5+ climb (Tokkum Pole). But that's spread out over roughly seven hours, so that's a little under 300M/an hour when counted against the total time. It's about twice that on an "hourly" basis. This is of course extrapolation; the difference between doing 20-minute blocks for eight hours and climbing for 24 hours is of course HUGE.

I've spent a lot of time looking at the results for 24-hour ski races, mountain bike races and other 24-hour events. Things definitely slow way down after about 12 hours (with rare exceptions from people who really, really know how to pace themselves). And that's going to be the trick--pacing myself so I go slow enough at the start. I'll really want to go hard, but that will NOT be helpful. I've done a lot of very long "days" in the mountains, it's definitely a rule that the slower you go at the start the faster you go at the end. Even going too hard for an hour or two early in the day will ruin you late in the day...

So how much vertical is possible? My biggest training day so far has been about 3100M/6600 feet. Double that would be about 150M/500 feet an hour for 24 hours. That's my first goal: 3800M, or about 12,000 feet. That would be a HUGE day in my book. I've never heard of anyone climbing that much. Someone probably has, and that's cool 'cause it would be big. Skiing, sure, I've done close to that, and done easy climb/scrambles/traverses that had around 3,000M of vertical gain (that took 12 hours just to go up...). Vertical water ice is a lot more intense than skiing up or even easy mountaineering style climbing/scrambling. I often hike 1,000M/3000 feet to the paraglider launch behind my house; that's casual compared to climbing near-vertical ice. I didn't think the difference would be so large to be honest, but it is. The unknown strikes again.

So there's the math. I figure I can do 3,000M most likely. It will hurt, and that's something like 70 laps out of the canyon. Ouray is obviously in the USA, so you in feet I'd be stoked to do 12,000 feet measured in local units. 15,000 would be huge I think, but that's almost triple my biggest training day...

And when I run all these numbers and think about the unknown it always comes down to this: if I'm not moving I'm not moving. All the "exterior" numbers are just that, and in a way irrelevant. What matters is pacing myself well, working with the great group of people I've got helping, and grinding away. I know I'm going to feel lousy, my tendons will hurt, my shoulders will ache, everything is going to suck so bad at some point that I'm going to want to quit so much... The trick will be to keep grinding. The math? Can't control that. Move.

My life on TR

My friend Ian made this, didn't even know it... Kinda cool to see, need to work on my form. 50+ laps in one day, 115/35M high, so blasted, yeah! It's all about this now... If you're Canadian and have tried to make a donation I'm sorry about the hassle, postal codes should be sorted out pretty quick.

"Secure" vs. OFF!

"Secure." This is a common word here in Canada meaning some version of "off belay." Or it can mean, "keep me on belay here, but I'm OK for now." Or maybe it can mean, "I don't have a clue what I'm doing and neither do you so let's both be confused about what we're doing/not doing." I've seen it used for all three of these scenarios and a few where I had no idea what was going on at all. Now let's contrast this with the command, "OFF!' I don't think I've ever seen the meaning of that one screwed up.

To me belaying is binary. On/off. Black and white. I much, much prefer the words "ON!" and "OFF!" to this "Secure..." business, and I really wish Canadian climbing schools and guides would stop using "Secure." I have simply seen too many climbers arrive at a belay, clip into it, say "Secure" and then expect to be lowered off while their belayers are off having a smoke or whatever. "Secure" also sounds a lot like "need beer," "send gear," "Oh Dear," "Can't hear," etc. etc. "OFF!" is a terse, single-word sound that's hard to confuse with anything, and has only one meaning, ever.

"Secure" has an implied meaning; the belayer has to figure out what the climber means. "OFF!" from the climber means he's OFF, no more belay required. The meaning is clear in the word. Saying "Secure" is like yelling, "Falling Object!" Yelling, "ROCK!" makes a hell of a lot more sense, and that's why we use it. "OFF!" is like "ROCK!" The meaning is clear in the word, you don't have to ponder what is meant (unless you're a linguistics nerd or philosopher).

Safe climbing with a partner is often about communication, and many climbing accidents occur because of poor communication. Why use a vague word when there is a concise alternative?

"Secure" is also rather wussy, a sort of Morrisey-style word that sounds kinda whiny and unsure of itself, like a self-help session for insecure leaders. I mean, if you're "secure" now then you must have been "insecure" earlier, yeah? Sorry about that, get over it and use "ON!" and "OFF!" for god's sake.

I'm on a mission to get this word chucked out of our Canadian climbing lexicon. "Secure" is a word thought up by an verbally insecure desk-riding bureaucrat. "OFF!" is a word thought up by a climber 'cause it works.

OFF!

PS--and, if in doubt, always leave the climber on belay. Worst-case scenario you have to feed the entire rope through your belay device. That's a much better worst-case scenario than taking the climber off because he or she uses some BS "secure..." and then gets dropped on his not-so-secure head.

Lacelle, Laps and Ice Climbing (edited with link )

Yesterday morning was really dark for me. Another friend gone. This shit is getting really old. But we went out anyhow, and used black humor, sarcasm, anger, and physical effort to burn away some of the black cloud. I would not have gone yesterday without Guy in my head; he wouldn't even have bitched about the temperature. I tried not to. I'll write more about Guy Lacelle eventually, but not right now. The man deserves some thoughtful words and not my usual slap-the-spaghetti-on-the-wall-and-see-what sticks writing style (holy hyphen, don't think I needed all those). Here is a video about Guy's accident scene primarily from a snow-science standpoint, but very well done. Thanks to Doug and the others for doing this video.

The temperatures here in Canmore have been cold. Cars won't start, dogs refuse to leave the house, small children rebel at the quantity of clothing they have to put on to go outside kinda cold. But we've been training. The best system so far seems to be 20 minutes on, then the timer on the phone (gotta keep it in an inside pocket) goes off, switch. Everybody stays warm and gets the same climbing time.

I've been training with a horde of different people; one of the things I love about climbing is going out with a crew of people and having fun. Doing long climbs with just one person is great too, but there's something to be said for the social aspect of climbing and bullshitting summer or winter.

Today is a "reset" day. My house, garage, truck, business, and pretty much anything else I can think of or see from this table is a complete gong show. Nothing really bad, it's just that from where I sit I can see three duffels from three different trips that need unpacking, there are four ropes and three pairs of boots (all mine, crazy!) drying by the fire, and I can't count how many jackets, gloves and hats are loose, along with empty single malt bottles and RB shots. It's like a delivery truck to MEC (REI for y'all down south) crashed and was raided by tribe of feral drunk monkeys. I gotta get this scene back under control before the rest of the family comes home.

It sounded so simple...

Most of the really good ideas I've ever had in life are simple. Climbing for 24 hours seemed like a good idea, and it is simple. But in the last week I've discovered that doing anything for 24 hours is, ah, more difficult than anticipated, and ice climbing for 24 hours is a lot more difficult. In the last 24 hours I've done about 5,000 feet of ice and plice. I could have done a lot more I think, but at the end of every training session I've thought, "Gee, it's nice to be done with that."

Today it was -23 when we left the house, and I don't think it warmed up much. If I didn't have the endlessascent.org goal for the dZi I would not have gone climbing, it's just too cold. But in one month it's game on in Ouray, and I do not want to be found lacking. So I trained, fortunately with a great crew of motivated people. But around 5:00 in the evening it was getting dark, it was cold, and I'd pretty much had enough fun. We started running laps and climbing around 12:30 (we wanted to let it warm up some, it's COLD here lately!). So, after four and half hours, I was feeling like a warm fire and a cold beer would be a great combo. In Ouray I'm going to have to go for another 19 or so hours. Not to whine, but I'm scared of what's gonna happen. Can't imagine how ice climbing is going to feel after even 12 hours...

I've done some big links of ice climbs, but a lot of the time on those links you're resting. Belaying, eating, driving, hiking, reasonably simple stuff. In Ouray it's going to be climb, lower back down, climb, repeat for 24 hours. I'll take some breaks to eat and whatever, but damn is that going to be hard! Fortunately I have some good people to help out from the dZi Foundation and around the world, but I just feel the weight of it all. This is good I think, pressure is motivational for me even when it's mainly self-produced pressure...

I've done a fair amount of "crazy" stuff in life, but this is a whole new level of personal abuse. The only thing to do is to keep training, ice the damaged parts regularly, and do my best. Yeah!

Training in Texas, Endless Ascent

I spent a few days down in the heat of central Texas. The locals were calling it cold, but it was T-shirt weather for any ice climber. I could have trained in a gym and did a little bit of that, but I really need the specific movements of ice climbing, and a lot of 'em. The video below shows the depths I had to sink to. Combined with a ring workout it was pretty good training.

The reason for all of this specific training is the Endless Ascent effort, to benefit the dZi foundation. The site is live, very nice work from Faction Media, thanks!

I'm in Whistler briefly for a show then back home to train more. 36 days to go, yeah!

It's come to this: The "Plice"

Normally there's a lot of ice in the Canadian Rockies by this time of year. And, in general, there is enough now for most people. But I need dead-vertical big chunks of it, and there's not much of that around yet. The normal pillars haven't formed, and most of the bigger routes aren't that steep or are under some horrendous avi hazard. But I'm on this 24-hour ice climbing kick at the moment, and I need to climb a lot of vertical ice... Bitch bitch, solve the problem: my own ice training wall in the backyard!!

Now I could have hung hoses and messed about, which might have been neater looking and cooler, but I wanted to train later that day and it was nine in the morning. The solution was to bust out some power tools, duct tape and go-juice. My dad helped, and I was training on this thing by noon. Ten laps, swing at one round of wood, repeat.

If I get my butt on the ground (literally) and climb a little into the tree at the top so my hips get over the top of the wall I'm doing 16 feet up and 16 feet down, or 32 feet a lap. Thirty two laps is pretty close to 1,000 feet... I'm up to about 60 laps a session at the moment. It's incredibly, no, stunningly boring to do that much climbing in my backyard, but I can see the mountains the whole time, and it's pretty exciting when the wind blows really hard and my tree starts swaying around.

I am so stoked! Especially after driving for eight hours in the last two days and climbing exactly two meters of ice. There's lots of ice out there, but I'm after something specific...

Total cost of the Plywood Ice wall? $76. Love it.

Thanks to Margo Talbot for the iPhone camera work!

See ya Tomaz!

Tomaz Humar recently died in Nepal. He was a character. Some of my friends thought little of him, others quite a lot, and both were right. A good obituary is found here. My friend Bernadette MacDonald wrote an engaging biography of Tomaz as well, interesting man and read.

Me, I'll remember him dancing on legs still so weak from multiple breaks that he could barely stand. I had been warned about his aggressive handshake, but I didn't have the heart to yank a man out of a wheelchair so I just fell on him... Those who knew him will know what I mean.

One night, after a few beverages, he spent an hour in a locked room grilling me about dry-tooling training and hard rock climbing. It was all very secretive, maybe reflecting his origins. When I asked him about high-altitude training he told me to run down from every climb like an animal, never once slowing down until I hit the road. And some other stuff that seemed crazy but somehow made sense. He went hard.

I wish his family the very best, my profound sympathies to them. Tomaz was never an easy man, but he was definitely a man charging at life for all he was worth.

This is also good.

It's official: Let the 24 hours of ice suffering commence..

Climbing a lot of routes in a day is fun. I've done some engaging one-day linkups over the years, ranging from climbing the Diamond on Long's Peak and paddling Gore Canyon in a day to climbing an alpine route, an ice route and a rock route in a day, but I've never done one sport for 24 hours straight. How much ice could I climb in 24 hours (on a TR, no need to die here)? Well, I'm going to get to find out, and raise some money with the dZi foundation, which does great work in the mountains. I look at my daughter and think of her in a very, very poor village; basic health and schooling would be a real help. If I can help the dZi foundation provide some of that help then I'll be proud to. I've know the dZi's director, Jim Nowak, for years and trust him. We'll have a fundraising site up in the next couple of weeks called "Endless Ascent," which I'm sure this is going to feel like by about the second hour.

So I'm heading down to Ouray December 26th to train until January 8th, then it's game on for 24 hours. Over the years I've spent a lot of time in Ouray; I like the people, the place, the climbing and the scene that develops around the Ouray Ice Festival. Positive people are a great force in the world, Ouray has more than its share.

Thanks to everyone who is helping on this, I'll do my best!

Now it's maybe clear what I've been training for.... With my dang elbow injury I couldn't train as I "normally" would, but I spent all summer paddling long distances and beating around in the mountains a fair amount, then the late summer and fall doing CF to strengthen my legs and continue elbow rehab. Now my training is getting very specific--lots of ice climbing, lots of time out in the mountains. My elbow is good to go for ice climbing, my legs can bang out squats for a long time (a squat is pretty much exactly the stand-up part of an ice climbing move), and I've take some other radical training steps including getting a heart rate monitor, drinking electrobytes and even cutting down on scotch. Hell, I even gave up all forms of nicotine (I was a Nicorette fiend for years plus snuss) six months ago to help my body recover faster... I feel pretty fit, I just need to get very specific about my fitness for the next two months and then grind for 24 hours. I have no idea what's going to happen, but I sure am fired up to find out!!!

Best,

WG

Congrats to GM, Crossfit Training from a personal perspective

First off, congrats to GM, who just won a drytooling competition down in Colorado Springs. Nice one. I've been heckling/coaching GM a bit over the last few months, nice to see him succeed.

Now on to training:

I've spent a lot of time on here talking about training in general. Now I'm going to get specific about what I've been up to, which has generally been Crossfit for the last three months and lots of kayaking before that. I'm now in the midst of training for the rest of 2009/2010, which will be a lot more sport-specific.

Right now I have three big goals: A 24-hour climbing session in early January (more on that soon), then trips to Norway and Japan. This is all ice. I also have a far-off goal in June involving a whole lot of uphill hiking.

First off, here are my thoughts on Crossfit based on several less-than-committed go-arounds over the last five years, and the last three months of full-on committed Crossfit. If you've never heard of CF you might find some of the following difficult.

Positive Observations

-I was able to train through CF with some elbow issues, and those healed up during the program.

-Overall, my body feels far better today than it has in the last couple of years. Despite lots of squats, deadlifts, shoulder presses, etc. etc. I feel damn good.

- Progress at Crossfit workouts is measurable, and fun.

-I am a classic "ectomorph," meaning I don't gain muscle easily. I'm 12-15 pounds heavier after the last three months of going at CF, and almost all of this is muscle. I'm not sure this is a positive, but as someone who generally doesn't gain much muscle at all this has been really interesting to me. My body has changed a lot.

-I have a more engaged perspective on moving heavy weights in space. Doing Olympic lifts changes your viewpoint. Throwing a kayak on top of my truck is now a lot simpler both because I understand the motion and am stronger at that movement. This is very useful, and I'm grateful to understand more about moving weights. Not lifting, moving. Big difference, and cool.

-Crossfit is big on "general physical preparedness." This means throw any physical challenge at a Crossfitter and he or shell will be OK with it. Broadly, I agree that CF does this. Lift a box of books, move a set of snowtires, chase after someone, lift an axle, whatever, CF is great for general life stuff. I'd say CF kicks ass on anything else I've ever done for general life fitness. If I only had six hours a week to train and no idea what I was training for I'd chose CF. It's effective. I can honestly say that I will never go into a gym and do five sets of five exercises and think I'm working out. If I ever get stuck in a 60-hour a week desk job I will still CF, it works.

-There is great community of people involved with CF. The videos, forums (main site and Brand X), it's all bit Apple-like in terms of support and openness.

-CF is "agnostic," meaning that it encourages examination, discussion, and experimentation. Many fitness routines are monotheistic, meaning you MUST DO 5 SETS or whatever the deity of the month is or something like that. I like the introspective, questioning nature of CF.

-CF is inclusive; it doesn't matter if you're 75 or 15, male or female, fat or ripped, you can get in and get it on. That's cool.

-You can do CF with very little equipment. I did a month-long cycle with rocks and playgrounds. It worked. Most gyms are full of equipment that just isn't all that useful compared to what could be done with the space the equipment occupies.

The above are the general "plus" points I see out of CF. Below are "neutral" observations:

-CF is not sport-specific, nor does it claim to be. Doing CF to be a better sport climber, runner, swimmer, kayaker, or whatever is a waste of time. Doing each individual sport will produce better results for that sport. Overall, CF is not about sport-specific training at all, nor does it claim to be--Glassman makes this point repeatedly. Some adherents try to make CF sport-specific, but that's fitting a round peg in a square hole. You're always better off training specifically if specificity is your goal.

-You need to drink the Kool-Aid and do several cycles of CF to get the point. It's very, very different than working out in a "normal" gym. Sometimes things seem very weird, but it's very hard for me to argue with the results. It's hard to do CF and also do sports specific training.

-Many CFers start to think CF is a sport in its own right. They may actually be right, but it's kinda funny that training becomes a sport. Or is it? I'm still not sure how I feel about the CF games (I am impressed with the athletes, holy shit!).

And here are the negatives as I see them:

-CF needs more agility exercises to be considered complete GPP. Why are we always running in a straight line? Why don't we do some old-school wind sprints with direction changes? Lateral box jumps? Side lunges? I guarantee that these basic dry-land ski training exercises would severely destroy most CFers, and that is something we all enjoy so why not include them?Gymnastics is only one form of body-weight training...

-Almost every single exercise in CF is a "split down the middle movement." By this I mean most movements are balanced on either side of the mid-line in nice organized manner. This is not life. We don't always lift straight on. We don't alway sprint in a straight line. Often we have to pick things up and throw them to one side or the other. We do pullups with our hands staggered. In keeping with the randomness of life I'd think doing more near-random movement in CF would be a very good thing. I see sandbags and so on in the CF games; why not take the creativity I see in the CF games and apply this to the workouts? How about a lateral wall-ball throw? So many options, and I may put some of this into my next CF cycle (I'm going to use CF as my bridge workout between seasons for the future).

-CF is based around the idea that most people are solid, decent people, and will do a good job if given the opportunity. This is a positive actually, as I believe it too. But, unfortunately, I do not think one weekend of coaching is going to produce people with a solid enough knowledge base to effectively program workouts and coach others. Maybe if they have gone through ten years of intensive training for their own sports and now want to coach others, but all you need to open a CF "box" is your level one certification. I don' think this is very good quality control. That said, I haven't gone to a level one certification and could be wrong.

-There is a serious quantity of pretentious bullshit in various aspects of CF. "Forging Elite Fitness" is a great tagline, but come on. People with Elite Fitness win medals and set records. Doing Fran in ten minutes is not "Elite" except in reference to other CF athletes... I would put a good runner up against most any CF athlete in a run, no contest. Same with skier, climber, boxer, gymnast, etc. etc. A true elite athlete has many years of dedicated training and competing behind him or her; there are very few CFers with more than five years of CF behind them. Claiming to possess elite fitness is bullshit without a long chain of results that support the claim. CF is becoming its own sport, like the firefighter games or the logger games...

-I am concerned about shoulder injures and CF. I do not have any good scientific study to base this on, but I know a lot of people who do CF for a year or so and then have shoulder surgery. Maybe hard training promotes shoulder problems; if so this is a problem. I'm not sure CF is any worse than other protocols, but this needs to be studied at some point.

So there's my thoughts on my own CF training for the past three months. I am going to go and do a level-one CF cert this spring after I finish up some of my own projects. Broadly, I believe in CF and think it's effective for what it promises to be. That's incredibly rare in the training world. Over the last five years I've inserted some of CF's main principles into my own sport-specific workouts with very good results. Now I've done a relatively short but definitely full-on go-around with it, and I'm stoked. If nothing else it's damn cool to have a clue what those Olympic guys are doing with the weights. Now I'm moving into a sport-specific training cycle. I sure am going miss the WOD. Might sneak it in occasionally...

Next: Training for a 24-hour suffer fest...