Spent the last two days teaching and being taught at the Rjukan ice festival, clinics and a slideshow. Thanks to Adam and both Peters from the Swedish Club, and the many people from the Rjukan ice festival who have become friends over the last three years. One great thing about my "job" is that I get to meet good people all over the world at these ice events year after year, it makes travel less of an alien experience for sure. I'm even starting to learn some really basic Norwegian words, the language is starting to sound less like a malfunctioning blender when I hear it.
I always find it inspiring and motivational to teach ice and mixed clinics--the "students" always have the fire, and that lights me up too. On the first day I was teaching a mixed clinic--several of the students asked me to put a top rope up on a local M8+ that my bud Robert Jasper had opened a few years back, so straight out of the car it was onto a rather blind and testy piece, but I managed to send it and keep my reputation intact, grin. By the end of the day at least three of the students were also leading it, awesome! Slideshow Saturday night, a packed house for two shows. I went last and did my show in English, amazingly everyone understood. I can never get over the level of English education in Norway, a guy picked me up as I hitchiked down to town to get ready from my show. He had a job fixing beer kegs and cranes, not sure exactly how that worked, but he had excellent English, most of Norway is like that. We really need to do a better job on language education in North America, French for Canada and Spanish for the US, no excuses when you see how the Norwegians and Swedes deal. Sunday was ice clinic day, and I had a hard time devising suitable tortures for the crew, they were good. I finally had to load a backpack up with about 20K of ice blocks to make the route hard enough, an old training trick that forces you to climb with straight arms as much as possible, it's just too hard to get up using the old lock-off style.
Now it's on the train/bus/plan dance, but it's been a great trip! Thanks to Andreas for the last week in Norway, we barely scratched the surface of the place as usual, there's LOTS left to do. It's almost like being at a huge buffet with all your fav foods--after stuffing yourself you need a rest...
Monday, February 27, 2006
Sunday, February 26, 2006
Norway
Back in Rjukan after the last couple of days in "The Motherlode,' the real name of which is Eidfjord, in the west of Norway. There, now you've got the info! I think Eidfjord is going to become world famous, there's just way too much good ice for any sane person to deal with. The area is well-known for having one of the many "biggest/highest" waterfalls in Europe, a thing called Voringfossen. The canyon below Voringfossen has around 20 high quality lines ranging from WI 3 to WI psycho. The actual falls of Voringfossen itself is kind of funky due to the volume of water, but could certainly be climbed... Spak and I climbed two new lines in the Voringfossen canyon and bailed off a third in one of the weirder ice experiences I've ever had.
We went to do the "first choice" line in the canyon despite a sudden surge in temperature. It offers about 300M of very steep ice, with the upper half getting sun. The rock on the side was sending down some missiles as the ice melted off of it, but the centre seemed solid enough so we blasted up an 80M pitch of WI5 to get to the business. Andreas belayed behind the pillar on good screws, and I started up the very wild ice on the front. As soon as I crossed onto the ice that had been getting sun things got extremly funky, and when I got into the sun things got even more funky. The climbing wasn't too bad, but small missiles were falling past and it was only getting warmer. I figured that if we could get up on the upper third it was all good to go, so I kept climbing on some barely frozen slush. It was sketchy but I got some increasingly marginal screws and figured I'd just gun it for cave and belay there. Unfortunately the ice in the cave was shit also, despite digging down through the top 40cm, which took me to the rock. Why was thing still even standing? After 50M of not being able to get a belay and no better ice in sight I was in a predictament. The solution was to downclimb the pillar... It was engaging, as was rapping back down the approach pitch and gully. I sacrificed a screw to get off really fast, better gear than me or Andreas.
I was too pounded to climb a fourth day, so Andreas and I called it good. Eidfjord gets some serious temperature fluctuations--Andreas thinks it's good a lot of the time, and we're already planning a return mission next year. A dozen climbers could have at the place for month and not get everything done, it's just silly for that much ice to be in one place. The lines are far steeper and bigger than any other area I've ever seen, never mind the gully routes and various bits hanging about...
So, two and a half new routes done in three days, not bad! For me it's almost as exciting discovering a new area as climbing the routes, send me an email if you do something cool!
Taught clinics and gave a show here in Rjukan over the last few days with Adam and the Rjukan team, there's lots of great ice here too. My flight from Scotland to Norway was about one third Brits coming over here to climb, Rjukan is sort of the Ouray of Europe--super reliable ice conditions, lots of it. Beer is expensive but the ice is free.
Heading back to Canada over the next couple of days, it's been a hell of a trip overall, lots of good fun with good people and even some decent climbing. I'm starting to feel a little burned on winter, that shows how lucky I am, no complaints.
wg
We went to do the "first choice" line in the canyon despite a sudden surge in temperature. It offers about 300M of very steep ice, with the upper half getting sun. The rock on the side was sending down some missiles as the ice melted off of it, but the centre seemed solid enough so we blasted up an 80M pitch of WI5 to get to the business. Andreas belayed behind the pillar on good screws, and I started up the very wild ice on the front. As soon as I crossed onto the ice that had been getting sun things got extremly funky, and when I got into the sun things got even more funky. The climbing wasn't too bad, but small missiles were falling past and it was only getting warmer. I figured that if we could get up on the upper third it was all good to go, so I kept climbing on some barely frozen slush. It was sketchy but I got some increasingly marginal screws and figured I'd just gun it for cave and belay there. Unfortunately the ice in the cave was shit also, despite digging down through the top 40cm, which took me to the rock. Why was thing still even standing? After 50M of not being able to get a belay and no better ice in sight I was in a predictament. The solution was to downclimb the pillar... It was engaging, as was rapping back down the approach pitch and gully. I sacrificed a screw to get off really fast, better gear than me or Andreas.
I was too pounded to climb a fourth day, so Andreas and I called it good. Eidfjord gets some serious temperature fluctuations--Andreas thinks it's good a lot of the time, and we're already planning a return mission next year. A dozen climbers could have at the place for month and not get everything done, it's just silly for that much ice to be in one place. The lines are far steeper and bigger than any other area I've ever seen, never mind the gully routes and various bits hanging about...
So, two and a half new routes done in three days, not bad! For me it's almost as exciting discovering a new area as climbing the routes, send me an email if you do something cool!
Taught clinics and gave a show here in Rjukan over the last few days with Adam and the Rjukan team, there's lots of great ice here too. My flight from Scotland to Norway was about one third Brits coming over here to climb, Rjukan is sort of the Ouray of Europe--super reliable ice conditions, lots of it. Beer is expensive but the ice is free.
Heading back to Canada over the next couple of days, it's been a hell of a trip overall, lots of good fun with good people and even some decent climbing. I'm starting to feel a little burned on winter, that shows how lucky I am, no complaints.
wg
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Icicle whacking in Norway
The last two days have been action packed here at the Motherlode in the west of Norway. So much ice, so little time. Yesterday we headed down into the canyon with the intention of climbing the biggest rig in there but found it too dangerous, sun baking off ice on slabs and trying to kill us. Run away...
Tuesday: Second Choice, WI7+, 300+ Meters.
The second most tasty-looking line looked like an easy approach to a very steep wall with icicles. We had no rock gear, but headed up anyhow. The approach alone was 200M, and lots steeper than it looked--we roped up in a hurry, the overhanging wall above made the angle very deceptive down low. The icicle wall was a rare thing in ice climbing--a steep, gymnastic wall but with only natural ice gear (we didn't have any rock gear). It started with a small steep roof with screws low enough that you'd bounce hard off the ledge if you fell, then more stubbie screws and onto a frightening hanger with more groundfall potential. For some reason I was fired up on it and had a go while Andreas offered useful advice. After an hour of climbing up and down to unlock the opening crux moves and make very shallow ice placements while hanging in space later it was done. I'd call it WI7+, I don't think I've ever used that grade except as a joke before, but this was the real deal. Powerful, delicate, intense, it made every other "WI7" I've ever climbed irrelevant. Many mixed routes call the icicle at the end WI7, but the reality is that the icicle usually isn't very hard and has good bolts to protect the climber if it breaks. This didn't. It was cool to be doing dry-tooling style moves on ice (only one drytool move). A figure four would have been useful, but I didn't want to fall 6M onto the ledge in a figure-four position so burned a stupid amount of energy locking off. The last three pitches were all fantastic--a highlight was a belay on a rock spike (good cracks for rock gear too, we just didn't have any, so the spike was some sort of gift!) behind a huge sunlit curtain, then punching a hole out of it to climb on up. As my friend Chris Santa says, "Today was one of those days where some stuff fell off the all-time top ten list." Andreas followed it all without falls, he's climbing well.
I think my week in Scotland fired up me up climbing something like this with only ice gear. Bolted it would be just another route--a lot of climbing this grade with some safety margin comes from having the fitness to climb solidly in control on powerful, technical terrain. I felt like I was using my drytooling fitness developed over the winter to keep things sort of sane. I don't generally like climbing dangerous routes, but the wall was so very cool that it seemed worth it. There are hundreds of potential mixed lines here to bolt, but it's relatively rare to find a wild ice climb that can be done on pure ice gear. With rock gear you could make it a little bit safer, but unless a pillar of ice forms it will always be sporty. I'll post location details later.
Wednesday: "Insant Classic, WI5, 300+Meters"
We rapped back into the canyon for another go at the sun-baked rig, but Andreas wasn't feeling well and I was feeling worked from yesterday's sports action so we ended up doing a fantastic 300+M line at about WI 4+/5 (Andreas rated it Norwegian 5+, I think Canadians are generally conservative on their water ice grades). It was the kind of line you know people will groove on in the future, it's well-protected with good positioning, we dubbed it an "Instant Classic" and laughed all the way up it...
We only have one more day here, and the choices are just so damn hard. There's a big Polar Circus style line up the valley that needs to be done, as well as numerous other lines up to 600M anywhere between WI3 and WI?? We heard from a near-local that some of the easier lines in the lower canyon have been climbed, which is good to know--this place has more good ice climbs within 20K than the entire Parkway in Canada, I fully expect it to become a destination spot in the future. I'm already planning my next trip, yeah!
Tuesday: Second Choice, WI7+, 300+ Meters.
The second most tasty-looking line looked like an easy approach to a very steep wall with icicles. We had no rock gear, but headed up anyhow. The approach alone was 200M, and lots steeper than it looked--we roped up in a hurry, the overhanging wall above made the angle very deceptive down low. The icicle wall was a rare thing in ice climbing--a steep, gymnastic wall but with only natural ice gear (we didn't have any rock gear). It started with a small steep roof with screws low enough that you'd bounce hard off the ledge if you fell, then more stubbie screws and onto a frightening hanger with more groundfall potential. For some reason I was fired up on it and had a go while Andreas offered useful advice. After an hour of climbing up and down to unlock the opening crux moves and make very shallow ice placements while hanging in space later it was done. I'd call it WI7+, I don't think I've ever used that grade except as a joke before, but this was the real deal. Powerful, delicate, intense, it made every other "WI7" I've ever climbed irrelevant. Many mixed routes call the icicle at the end WI7, but the reality is that the icicle usually isn't very hard and has good bolts to protect the climber if it breaks. This didn't. It was cool to be doing dry-tooling style moves on ice (only one drytool move). A figure four would have been useful, but I didn't want to fall 6M onto the ledge in a figure-four position so burned a stupid amount of energy locking off. The last three pitches were all fantastic--a highlight was a belay on a rock spike (good cracks for rock gear too, we just didn't have any, so the spike was some sort of gift!) behind a huge sunlit curtain, then punching a hole out of it to climb on up. As my friend Chris Santa says, "Today was one of those days where some stuff fell off the all-time top ten list." Andreas followed it all without falls, he's climbing well.
I think my week in Scotland fired up me up climbing something like this with only ice gear. Bolted it would be just another route--a lot of climbing this grade with some safety margin comes from having the fitness to climb solidly in control on powerful, technical terrain. I felt like I was using my drytooling fitness developed over the winter to keep things sort of sane. I don't generally like climbing dangerous routes, but the wall was so very cool that it seemed worth it. There are hundreds of potential mixed lines here to bolt, but it's relatively rare to find a wild ice climb that can be done on pure ice gear. With rock gear you could make it a little bit safer, but unless a pillar of ice forms it will always be sporty. I'll post location details later.
Wednesday: "Insant Classic, WI5, 300+Meters"
We rapped back into the canyon for another go at the sun-baked rig, but Andreas wasn't feeling well and I was feeling worked from yesterday's sports action so we ended up doing a fantastic 300+M line at about WI 4+/5 (Andreas rated it Norwegian 5+, I think Canadians are generally conservative on their water ice grades). It was the kind of line you know people will groove on in the future, it's well-protected with good positioning, we dubbed it an "Instant Classic" and laughed all the way up it...
We only have one more day here, and the choices are just so damn hard. There's a big Polar Circus style line up the valley that needs to be done, as well as numerous other lines up to 600M anywhere between WI3 and WI?? We heard from a near-local that some of the easier lines in the lower canyon have been climbed, which is good to know--this place has more good ice climbs within 20K than the entire Parkway in Canada, I fully expect it to become a destination spot in the future. I'm already planning my next trip, yeah!
Monday, February 20, 2006
The "Motherlode," Scotland
Miners talk about the "Motherlode," the place where all the gold comes from. We just found that place in Norway. Today I saw a dozen ice routes between 3 and 15 pitches long, none more than an hour from the road, and none reportedly climbed. Yep, I'm totally floored. Stellar blue ice, that wild yellish stuff, ice everywhere. It's insane. Spak got a tip on this place a week ago from a friend, he (and I) owe that guy a bottle of fine Scotch at a minimum. There are simply too many routes to even think of climbing in the four days that we have. I always wondered about finding a place like this, where the challenge is to figure out what to climb first... Not to gloat, but goddamn am I psyched!
It's all ice. No mixed, just ice everywhere. I'm often quoted as saying, "fat ice is boring," and while I did say that I've since refined the idea a bit. I said that when I was primarily interested in horrendous technical gymnastic difficulty, which ice does not offer. Ice climbing is more like surfing--it's a style sport, about doing something fun and very engaging with the medium, grooving on the positition and the ride more than the physical desperate pump (although that can be found, if you're stupid over-trained it's unlikely). Surfing also has areas that aren't novice friendly, meaning big waves and serious reef breaks, same as ice climbing... I now climb ice because I just like doing it, it's not about the hardest or the steepest but climbing the coolest thing I can see. This new place offers that in unbelievable quantities, from 2,000 foot lower angle rigs that would be insane classics back home in Canada to skinny pencils only Guy Lacelle would even think of trying, and combinations of both that I have never seen anywhere in the world. And I'm typing this at a frigging hotel less than 15 minutes from the climbs, I thought I'd find this place in Mongolia or something, nope, it's right beside the road!! So game on for the morning, Andreas has even agreed to get up early, that's how good this stuff is.
Scotland
The more I think about Scotland the more I realize that it's a special place. The freeze/thaw conditions and wild rime snow just aren't found any other place I've ever climbed. It's a bit like gritstone, with ethics that may seem bizzare to an outsider but grew on an isolated island and make sense there. In the Rockies our problem is too much climbing for too few climbers, in Britain it's more about loads of climbers making the most of what they have. If every line were bolted on either rock or winter lines then the country would sink under the weight of the metal... Dave Macleod's ethics and the Scottish scene also inspired me in a different way, I've always put routes up with the idea of making them fun for those that follow, but there are many kinds of "fun," some of which would seem a sure path to the mental hospital to the outsider. Regardless of the ethics, the Scottish mountains are a special place, and I definitely want to return one day for either rock or mixed. The light and space of the mountains there is different and worthy to see again, I could see getting addicted to it.
Time for bed, there's climbs to be done in the morning!
It's all ice. No mixed, just ice everywhere. I'm often quoted as saying, "fat ice is boring," and while I did say that I've since refined the idea a bit. I said that when I was primarily interested in horrendous technical gymnastic difficulty, which ice does not offer. Ice climbing is more like surfing--it's a style sport, about doing something fun and very engaging with the medium, grooving on the positition and the ride more than the physical desperate pump (although that can be found, if you're stupid over-trained it's unlikely). Surfing also has areas that aren't novice friendly, meaning big waves and serious reef breaks, same as ice climbing... I now climb ice because I just like doing it, it's not about the hardest or the steepest but climbing the coolest thing I can see. This new place offers that in unbelievable quantities, from 2,000 foot lower angle rigs that would be insane classics back home in Canada to skinny pencils only Guy Lacelle would even think of trying, and combinations of both that I have never seen anywhere in the world. And I'm typing this at a frigging hotel less than 15 minutes from the climbs, I thought I'd find this place in Mongolia or something, nope, it's right beside the road!! So game on for the morning, Andreas has even agreed to get up early, that's how good this stuff is.
Scotland
The more I think about Scotland the more I realize that it's a special place. The freeze/thaw conditions and wild rime snow just aren't found any other place I've ever climbed. It's a bit like gritstone, with ethics that may seem bizzare to an outsider but grew on an isolated island and make sense there. In the Rockies our problem is too much climbing for too few climbers, in Britain it's more about loads of climbers making the most of what they have. If every line were bolted on either rock or winter lines then the country would sink under the weight of the metal... Dave Macleod's ethics and the Scottish scene also inspired me in a different way, I've always put routes up with the idea of making them fun for those that follow, but there are many kinds of "fun," some of which would seem a sure path to the mental hospital to the outsider. Regardless of the ethics, the Scottish mountains are a special place, and I definitely want to return one day for either rock or mixed. The light and space of the mountains there is different and worthy to see again, I could see getting addicted to it.
Time for bed, there's climbs to be done in the morning!
Sunday, February 19, 2006
Scotland Dry, Ben Nevis
Headed back ino the Quarry, and had some more fun including discussing grades. It's an interesting discussion--Fast and Furious is an M10+ bareback, spurs likely drop that grade only a bit, call it M10ish. The continuation of Fast and Furious is Too Fast and Furious, which is much steeper but still on bomber drilled hooks (no issue with that, we're talking a rather swampy hole in the ground totally created by man, there are old bore holes all over the routes anyhow). You can spur the drilled holes very easily on Too Fast, I don't see it being much harder than Fast if done Comp style, I'd guess a max of 10+. Bareback I'd say M11+, there are two no-hands rests and some good footcams when needed. There are no "hard" moves, just pulling along bomber pick holes.
We were supposed to head up to Ben Nevis, but the weather was still too warm so we continued to session in the quarry, along with Kevin. Kevin sports two unique characteristics: one hell of a thick Scottish accent, and a left hand that's not all there. Kevin's modified a BD fusion to work as a prosthetic, and he sent Fast and Furious in a super-intense battle. Imagine only being able to clip with with your right hand, and relying on a prosthetic joint for the left while clipping... His effort fired us all up, and Dave and I ended up working Scott Muir's abandoned (at least according to the locals, I hope Scott feels the same way) project. It's a long trek out steep wall on the side of the cave, with the usual drilled pockets because the rock is total shite in the crack. Dave found a really creative off-width rest near the top that both made the climbing more fun, and the route very reasonable. It was wild to suddenly stuff your body up into a crack and get a "rest;" not really a rest as the position felt like a 5.11 offwidth move, but definitely cool. You had to move out of the rest by snaking upwards, then the route joins Too Fast to the chains. Dave and I both sent it. I'd rate it 11+ bareback also, probably not much different comp style. The quarry is a great place to train, and one of us said something about the route we'd just done being, "Good training for something." The name stuck.
So that was the end of all the routes in the quarry. Fiona (Dave's partner) is also very close to Fast and Furious, she's fired up to get what my girlfriend, Kim, calls a "dickless" ascent, meaning first female ascent. Anyone who has seen the Hot Aches film "Fools with Tools" will recognize the fun that climbing rock in the back of a hole in the ground with tools can generate--I came to Scotland to climb big mixed winter routes, ended up in a hole in the ground drytooling around, still loads of fun.
On Thursday we finally made the walk into the Ben on the basis of a falling forecast and lots of snow, and Tim Emmitt joined us--he always ups the psyche factor, and upped his own by lugging a BASE rig into the Ben... It was bizzare to start walking beside green grass and ferns, up through a hillside bog (how the hell does water turn into a bog on a hillside?), through pouring rain and then suddenly be in the snow and full winter. MacLeod had wrangled us space in the Ben Nevis hut, which was great as we were fully soaked from the hike--I can't fathom the hard-asses who camp in winter Scottish conditions, full respect to them. I was thrilled with a warm, dry hut with a drying room--these rooms are regulation in Scottish huts, it's a room with a heater and a fan to suck the moist air out. That says a lot about Scottish conditions right there, I've never seen a "Drying Room" in Canada or the Alps, you just hang the stuff up in a warm place and it dries. There were some other people in the hut with us, the evening passed pleasantly with their tales of spawning up neck-deep powder gullies and so on. Staying in huts is a gamble--sometimes you get a hut full of idiots, sometimes a group of people who are friends for a fine evening, fortunately we had the latter experience.
In the morning I got my first full view of "the Ben," the legend. It's one hell of a wild cliff--it's not that high or long by Canadian standards, but it's absolutely convoluted and featured, like ten miles of Canadian cliffs crunched up into one cliff. I've read so many stories about the Ben and its legendary climbers that I was totally fired up to do something, but going anywhere turned into an slog fest due to all the wet snow. We ended up below a very steep chunk of rock with bits of snow on the opening 20 feet but none on the overhaning bit. I was immediately fired up, but Dave looked pained and explained that he couldn't climb it because it wasn't white. You could see him just lusting after the climbing, but he respects the long-standing Scottish winter ethic that there has to be rime snow on the rock so you can scrape the rime off as you climb up the rock. I always assumed from the pictures that the rime snow on the Ben was solid enough to climb and thereby protected the rock underneath, but the rime isn't at all solid, you just scrape it off and then climb the rock. In Canada we avoid snow on the rock, it's annoying, but in Scotland it's important that winter routes look "wintry..." An hour-long discussion ensued...
Very steep routes, meaning harder routes, aren't going to have snow on them, so what's the point of requiring snow on them? Dave was really torn, but in the end decided that he wasn't up for doing the route--but he was all for Tim and me having a go. After more endless discussion I started climbing up, only to find large patches of moss absolutely running with water. I'm not down with destroying an entire moss garden that took hundreds of years to grow just so I can climb something, so I retreated and the big ethics discussion was decided for us. My opinion is that Scottish routes should be frozen--there was snow on the moss so it looked wintry, but the standard of "looking wintry" seems to miss the real point, which is that the cliff should be frozen up. In fact, I'm not sure there is a real point, climbing ethics tend to be pissing contests more than "ethics." My standard is to try not to screw the environment up too much and leave the place cleaner than I found it. I'll be watching winter climbing on the Ben in the future, some people are going to push the "looking wintry" litmus test and that's going to wind other people up a fair amount. I just hope people don't destroy the moss/turf in order to do routes, that would be as wrong as drytooling existing rock routes (wait, that's allowed on the Ben, but only when the rock routes are hidden under rime...). Even if people only climb the moss on the Ben when it's frozen it will still mean it gets destroyed over time (as has happened on many routes involving "turf"), so it's all a cluster anyhow.
We then then did a human snow plow stunt for a while before giving up on the new routing and wandering up a really fun set of ledges called "the Ledge Route." It was basically a scramble so we soloed, but it had great position, big drops on both sides of a ridge at the top, nice snow conditions near the top when it finally really froze up. We had gone from wanting to do a hard new route to just touring up the Ben, and it was great. Almost windless conditions on top, fantastic views out across the snow-capped mountains, a very memorable day and place for sure. The winters in Scotland haven't been what they used to be by all reports, meaning the number of freezing days is really low. There was only real water ice on the top 100M or so of Ben Nevis, each additional meter of altitude really matters this close to the ocean. The locals are sarcastically fired up on reports that the Gulf Stream, a warm ocean current that keeps Britian looking like Britain and not Labrador, may soon stop due to global warming--paradoxically, global warming may save Scottish climbing.
In any case, getting to the top of Ben Nevis with Tim and Dave was a fun way to end my first winter climbing trip to Scotland. If the Gulf Stream fails then I might be back, but the conditions are so completely whacky for winter climbing that I can't see investing the required time and resources to climb there. The "Miss and Miss a lot more before climbing something" nature of winter climbing in Scotland is part of the charm for those who live there, but I don't think I could handle it. The Brits definitely work really hard to get their winter climbing in, loads of respect to anyone who climbs something frozen in Scotland in winter, it's an accomplishment.
Thanks to Dave, Fiona, Paul, MacLeod and Kevin for the great week, and good luck to MacLeod on his current rock project--a French 8C with the crux something like 35 feet above the last gear, which may or may not hold. That's bold, he's been working on it (and taking the fall) for a while now, I hope to hear the yell of success in Canada when he sends.
Just arrived in Norway to climb with Andreas Spak, should be fun!
We were supposed to head up to Ben Nevis, but the weather was still too warm so we continued to session in the quarry, along with Kevin. Kevin sports two unique characteristics: one hell of a thick Scottish accent, and a left hand that's not all there. Kevin's modified a BD fusion to work as a prosthetic, and he sent Fast and Furious in a super-intense battle. Imagine only being able to clip with with your right hand, and relying on a prosthetic joint for the left while clipping... His effort fired us all up, and Dave and I ended up working Scott Muir's abandoned (at least according to the locals, I hope Scott feels the same way) project. It's a long trek out steep wall on the side of the cave, with the usual drilled pockets because the rock is total shite in the crack. Dave found a really creative off-width rest near the top that both made the climbing more fun, and the route very reasonable. It was wild to suddenly stuff your body up into a crack and get a "rest;" not really a rest as the position felt like a 5.11 offwidth move, but definitely cool. You had to move out of the rest by snaking upwards, then the route joins Too Fast to the chains. Dave and I both sent it. I'd rate it 11+ bareback also, probably not much different comp style. The quarry is a great place to train, and one of us said something about the route we'd just done being, "Good training for something." The name stuck.
So that was the end of all the routes in the quarry. Fiona (Dave's partner) is also very close to Fast and Furious, she's fired up to get what my girlfriend, Kim, calls a "dickless" ascent, meaning first female ascent. Anyone who has seen the Hot Aches film "Fools with Tools" will recognize the fun that climbing rock in the back of a hole in the ground with tools can generate--I came to Scotland to climb big mixed winter routes, ended up in a hole in the ground drytooling around, still loads of fun.
On Thursday we finally made the walk into the Ben on the basis of a falling forecast and lots of snow, and Tim Emmitt joined us--he always ups the psyche factor, and upped his own by lugging a BASE rig into the Ben... It was bizzare to start walking beside green grass and ferns, up through a hillside bog (how the hell does water turn into a bog on a hillside?), through pouring rain and then suddenly be in the snow and full winter. MacLeod had wrangled us space in the Ben Nevis hut, which was great as we were fully soaked from the hike--I can't fathom the hard-asses who camp in winter Scottish conditions, full respect to them. I was thrilled with a warm, dry hut with a drying room--these rooms are regulation in Scottish huts, it's a room with a heater and a fan to suck the moist air out. That says a lot about Scottish conditions right there, I've never seen a "Drying Room" in Canada or the Alps, you just hang the stuff up in a warm place and it dries. There were some other people in the hut with us, the evening passed pleasantly with their tales of spawning up neck-deep powder gullies and so on. Staying in huts is a gamble--sometimes you get a hut full of idiots, sometimes a group of people who are friends for a fine evening, fortunately we had the latter experience.
In the morning I got my first full view of "the Ben," the legend. It's one hell of a wild cliff--it's not that high or long by Canadian standards, but it's absolutely convoluted and featured, like ten miles of Canadian cliffs crunched up into one cliff. I've read so many stories about the Ben and its legendary climbers that I was totally fired up to do something, but going anywhere turned into an slog fest due to all the wet snow. We ended up below a very steep chunk of rock with bits of snow on the opening 20 feet but none on the overhaning bit. I was immediately fired up, but Dave looked pained and explained that he couldn't climb it because it wasn't white. You could see him just lusting after the climbing, but he respects the long-standing Scottish winter ethic that there has to be rime snow on the rock so you can scrape the rime off as you climb up the rock. I always assumed from the pictures that the rime snow on the Ben was solid enough to climb and thereby protected the rock underneath, but the rime isn't at all solid, you just scrape it off and then climb the rock. In Canada we avoid snow on the rock, it's annoying, but in Scotland it's important that winter routes look "wintry..." An hour-long discussion ensued...
Very steep routes, meaning harder routes, aren't going to have snow on them, so what's the point of requiring snow on them? Dave was really torn, but in the end decided that he wasn't up for doing the route--but he was all for Tim and me having a go. After more endless discussion I started climbing up, only to find large patches of moss absolutely running with water. I'm not down with destroying an entire moss garden that took hundreds of years to grow just so I can climb something, so I retreated and the big ethics discussion was decided for us. My opinion is that Scottish routes should be frozen--there was snow on the moss so it looked wintry, but the standard of "looking wintry" seems to miss the real point, which is that the cliff should be frozen up. In fact, I'm not sure there is a real point, climbing ethics tend to be pissing contests more than "ethics." My standard is to try not to screw the environment up too much and leave the place cleaner than I found it. I'll be watching winter climbing on the Ben in the future, some people are going to push the "looking wintry" litmus test and that's going to wind other people up a fair amount. I just hope people don't destroy the moss/turf in order to do routes, that would be as wrong as drytooling existing rock routes (wait, that's allowed on the Ben, but only when the rock routes are hidden under rime...). Even if people only climb the moss on the Ben when it's frozen it will still mean it gets destroyed over time (as has happened on many routes involving "turf"), so it's all a cluster anyhow.
We then then did a human snow plow stunt for a while before giving up on the new routing and wandering up a really fun set of ledges called "the Ledge Route." It was basically a scramble so we soloed, but it had great position, big drops on both sides of a ridge at the top, nice snow conditions near the top when it finally really froze up. We had gone from wanting to do a hard new route to just touring up the Ben, and it was great. Almost windless conditions on top, fantastic views out across the snow-capped mountains, a very memorable day and place for sure. The winters in Scotland haven't been what they used to be by all reports, meaning the number of freezing days is really low. There was only real water ice on the top 100M or so of Ben Nevis, each additional meter of altitude really matters this close to the ocean. The locals are sarcastically fired up on reports that the Gulf Stream, a warm ocean current that keeps Britian looking like Britain and not Labrador, may soon stop due to global warming--paradoxically, global warming may save Scottish climbing.
In any case, getting to the top of Ben Nevis with Tim and Dave was a fun way to end my first winter climbing trip to Scotland. If the Gulf Stream fails then I might be back, but the conditions are so completely whacky for winter climbing that I can't see investing the required time and resources to climb there. The "Miss and Miss a lot more before climbing something" nature of winter climbing in Scotland is part of the charm for those who live there, but I don't think I could handle it. The Brits definitely work really hard to get their winter climbing in, loads of respect to anyone who climbs something frozen in Scotland in winter, it's an accomplishment.
Thanks to Dave, Fiona, Paul, MacLeod and Kevin for the great week, and good luck to MacLeod on his current rock project--a French 8C with the crux something like 35 feet above the last gear, which may or may not hold. That's bold, he's been working on it (and taking the fall) for a while now, I hope to hear the yell of success in Canada when he sends.
Just arrived in Norway to climb with Andreas Spak, should be fun!
Sunday, February 12, 2006
Scotland
I've been in Scotland climbing with the Hot Aches crew (Fools with Tools film etc). Got here Saturday, on Sunday Dave, Fiona, Paul, Tony and I climbed a classic "Tech 6" up Corrie Lochen or some such spelling, great fun. Morning started cold and clear then turned into raining and not sunny by the time we topped out. I'm not exactly clear on how it all works, but routes here need to be covered in snow to be in ethical conditions--no ice whatsoever, but rime snow is very important. If you climb the route without snow it's not a real ascent. There's some other rules that I missed or forgot, but a great day out with good people, these mountains aren't all that high but they are definitely wild. Dry tooling on good granite was a joy--the route was only three short pitches, but it was solid, fun and felt more remote than the hour walk in would suggest. Until large groups of snow rescue/skills groups showed up, amazing quantity of people. Anyhow, a good day out in a good place, and the forecast is for better weather after Tuesday. Right now it's raining in Edinbur (that's how they say it here), just as well as I'm thrashed but enjoying the scene here.
Monday's weather was really, really warm, so the Ben was out, and we ended up in an abandoned Quarry (not to be confused, as I did, with Corrie) on Scott Muir's Fast and Furious, D10+. Weird to be pulling on drytooling gear at +10C, but great fun climbing the drilled route. I haven't done much drytooling in a month, been more into beating around in the mountains plus sick and so on, so I got my ass kicked. Blew the flash when I got pumped out at the anchor, oh well, sent it second try, then started playing with the extension, Too Fast and Too Furious, M12 or so. Fun climbing all the way out this sort of mine shaft of a cave. Quite pumpy without spurs---it's a horizontal traverse across the lip of a roof on drilled pockets and pockets left over from the quarry days. No hard moves, but lots of 'em with poor feet on continuously steep terrain. Got pumped silly but fun. Today I'm beat up, not really in prime shape for this sort of climbing (I thought I'd be up on the Ben in a howling blizzard, not dangling on M, or as they say here, D 12). Too warm today to go up on the Ben so we're going back into the quarry cave for more of the same, not too confident of sending but looking forward to a good workout in a unique setting. Plans are to hike into the Ben Wed. morning and see if it comes in, Scotland's strong man, Dave Macleod, says it will be and he's the expert so hopefully it will be game on. I've wanted to climb on the Ben for decades, it's where the madness all started....
Likely no net access until Friday.
Likely no net access until Friday.
Monday's weather was really, really warm, so the Ben was out, and we ended up in an abandoned Quarry (not to be confused, as I did, with Corrie) on Scott Muir's Fast and Furious, D10+. Weird to be pulling on drytooling gear at +10C, but great fun climbing the drilled route. I haven't done much drytooling in a month, been more into beating around in the mountains plus sick and so on, so I got my ass kicked. Blew the flash when I got pumped out at the anchor, oh well, sent it second try, then started playing with the extension, Too Fast and Too Furious, M12 or so. Fun climbing all the way out this sort of mine shaft of a cave. Quite pumpy without spurs---it's a horizontal traverse across the lip of a roof on drilled pockets and pockets left over from the quarry days. No hard moves, but lots of 'em with poor feet on continuously steep terrain. Got pumped silly but fun. Today I'm beat up, not really in prime shape for this sort of climbing (I thought I'd be up on the Ben in a howling blizzard, not dangling on M, or as they say here, D 12). Too warm today to go up on the Ben so we're going back into the quarry cave for more of the same, not too confident of sending but looking forward to a good workout in a unique setting. Plans are to hike into the Ben Wed. morning and see if it comes in, Scotland's strong man, Dave Macleod, says it will be and he's the expert so hopefully it will be game on. I've wanted to climb on the Ben for decades, it's where the madness all started....
Likely no net access until Friday.
Likely no net access until Friday.
Thursday, February 09, 2006
Jasper, Travel Time
I had to go up to Jasper for the last few days to work on an ARD (German TV) documentary on the Canadian Rockies with Pat Morrow, so we made the most out of it by stopping at the Cineplex along with Andy. I've been doing more aerobic stuff and so on, but jumped on Musashi for training, found it still hard. I've lost some of my fitness for really hard routes over the last month, I timed a good physical peak for the Ouray comp and have slid down from that. It's to be expected, without any clear-cut goals I can't hold a peak fitness level for all that long. Still did some good laps on Musashi (with hangs to figure out moves, that route is always changing but always good), and Andy did the M7 a couple of times, not bad for a self-described "out of shape painter." Right.
Tuesday I got to climb in Maligne Canyon with my dad for the camera, that was great fun. My dad recently had some medical issues sorted out and is still recovering, but fired the Queen first go. We first climbed the 100-foot Queen in about 1980 together and last did it maybe six years ago, good to see Ben still getting after it. I feel pretty lucky to be able to do a TV show with my dad, and my mom, Cia also came out and threatened to climb it, plus Pat Morrow on camera. My dad of course bitched about his fitness level, but he's a much better athlete than he'll give himself credit for, give him a couple of weeks and he'd be leading it. He hadn't ice climbed in a couple of years but still hiked the Queen for his first route...
The drive back to Canmore down the Parkway yesterday was fantastic, about a foot of new snow in places with wild winds blowing the snow off the tops of the peaks--I get gripped even watching the wind loading from the car, things will be interesting in the alpine avalanche-wise for a while after that storm I bet. No matter how many times I drive the Parkway I still get fired up by the mountains, there's just nothing like it anywhere else that I've seen. The avi hazard did look high, but it doesn't matter as I'm off to Scotland in the morning, then Norway, then back home at the end of Feb, things should have shaken out by then.
The plan is to climb "classic" Scottish mixed routes, as well as some new-wave stuff with a leading local activist over there, Dave Macleod. He specializes in really run-out "old school" mixed climbing during the winter and super-hard bouldering the rest of the time, should be entertaining, plus doing some filming with the Hot Aches crew, drinking a lot of scotch and just soaking up the scene that started this whole mixed climbing madness. I've heard about Ben Nevis climbing for decades, going to be fun to finally climb there and see the legend in person... Then it's off to Norway to hook it up with my bud Andreas Spak, climb some huge new ice routes, then back home. Yeah!!!
Workouts:
Monday: Cineplex. Enough said.
Tuesday: Laps in Maligne Canyon, pretty relaxing day.
Wed: I hadn't done any Yoga in about a week and was stiff like a dead dog so had at that, then went for a run that ended at the Vsion, just rock-bouldered then did some pegboard training, somewhat relaxed but fun session.
Tuesday I got to climb in Maligne Canyon with my dad for the camera, that was great fun. My dad recently had some medical issues sorted out and is still recovering, but fired the Queen first go. We first climbed the 100-foot Queen in about 1980 together and last did it maybe six years ago, good to see Ben still getting after it. I feel pretty lucky to be able to do a TV show with my dad, and my mom, Cia also came out and threatened to climb it, plus Pat Morrow on camera. My dad of course bitched about his fitness level, but he's a much better athlete than he'll give himself credit for, give him a couple of weeks and he'd be leading it. He hadn't ice climbed in a couple of years but still hiked the Queen for his first route...
The drive back to Canmore down the Parkway yesterday was fantastic, about a foot of new snow in places with wild winds blowing the snow off the tops of the peaks--I get gripped even watching the wind loading from the car, things will be interesting in the alpine avalanche-wise for a while after that storm I bet. No matter how many times I drive the Parkway I still get fired up by the mountains, there's just nothing like it anywhere else that I've seen. The avi hazard did look high, but it doesn't matter as I'm off to Scotland in the morning, then Norway, then back home at the end of Feb, things should have shaken out by then.
The plan is to climb "classic" Scottish mixed routes, as well as some new-wave stuff with a leading local activist over there, Dave Macleod. He specializes in really run-out "old school" mixed climbing during the winter and super-hard bouldering the rest of the time, should be entertaining, plus doing some filming with the Hot Aches crew, drinking a lot of scotch and just soaking up the scene that started this whole mixed climbing madness. I've heard about Ben Nevis climbing for decades, going to be fun to finally climb there and see the legend in person... Then it's off to Norway to hook it up with my bud Andreas Spak, climb some huge new ice routes, then back home. Yeah!!!
Workouts:
Monday: Cineplex. Enough said.
Tuesday: Laps in Maligne Canyon, pretty relaxing day.
Wed: I hadn't done any Yoga in about a week and was stiff like a dead dog so had at that, then went for a run that ended at the Vsion, just rock-bouldered then did some pegboard training, somewhat relaxed but fun session.
Sunday, February 05, 2006
Sunshine 5000 Report
One of the things I love most about outdoor sports is trying new ones that I suck at. Yesterday I did the Sunshine 5000, which is a "rando" race up Sunshine ski area, down part of the area, up, etc, for a total of somewhere around 4,000 feet of climbing. Josh convinced me to do it Friday night, and after putting good skins on my new (used a few times for going to ice climbs) AT skis I found myself at the start line Saturday morning with Josh, Darryl and around 40 other people. I've been a telemark skier for 20 years--the only times I've skied with my heals locked down was coming out of ice climbs. I had fresh Scarpa Matrix boots on my feet, super fat skins (who knew you had to cut them to size these days) and fat BD skis with Fritschi bindings. It was all basically wrapper-fresh, I hadn't even formed the boot liners to my feet... Perfect, an opportunity to try something completely new...
The first half of the course was a gasp-fest to the top of Delerium dive. I tried to keep the heart rate reasonable but didn't as Josh and I race up the hill for 2000+ feet around mid-pack. Near the top people started to blow up, so Josh and I were able to gain a few places. Josh had a tricky way of taking his skins off with the skis still on, but I tried that and fell over, so I took my skis off which was OK as we had to walk down the stairs to the top of the much-vaunted "Delerium Dive." It took me an extra minute to figure out how to lock my heels down on the Fritschis, then it was point 'em and rip. I was a little worried about this run from its reputation and 'cause I hadn't skied in real AT boots ever, or even downhill boots since about 1984, but it was OK, this AT gear rips. I only had to stop once to let my shaking quads recover before reaching the "skins on" transition to the second climb, boom, back up. Josh caught up to me at the transition--I'd been ahead of him by a bit at the top, he'd made that up by nuking the downhill. There was a guy with big hair I'd passed just at the top of the run, he too caught up to me at the transition. I often find aerobic races turn into a sub-race between me and a couple of other people once the leaders are gone, it makes it more fun. We could still see the leaders busting ass up the hill, and off we went to catch 'em (right...).
The second climb was short, and I managed to keep my "mini-race" guy close as we pulled over the top. I'd assumed we would take our skins off for every descent, but the guy just in front of me kept skiing with his on so I did too, we dropped down another 500 feet with our skins on, just point 'em and go, it was faster than taking the skins off, good tactics. We could see the lead "pack" busting up the third climb. I could feel the load of the last hour so I deliberately slowed down and chewed down a gel and tried to drink some water, but my hose was frozen solid so I was now in "camel" mode, oh well. The gel hit almost immediately, funny how that works, and we blasted up the third climb relatively well, the gap on the guys behind us grew. Another bud from Canmore, Heath, yelled, "skins on as he went down by me on the third descent while I was still skinning up it, so I knew the "keep the skins on" tactic was in force, thanks Heath! I yelled the same to Josh as I went by him. My legs were just worked as we dropped around 500 more feet, I lost all ability to turn and skied into a small tree at the bottom of the third downhill, which was useful for hanging onto as I changed the bindings over to uphill mode. As soon as I started skinning up I felt a blister bust on my right heel, which hurt like hell, but that's racing.
The fourth climb hurt, and my lack of aerobic training started to show. The leaders blasted by on their final descent as I grunted up, fast bastards. I saw Josh come down the third descent as well, he had taken his skins off and was hauling ass as he actually knows how to ski. Unfortunately he missed the turnaround and went all the way to the base of the ski hill, bummer! My friend Ryan was running the checkpoint at the top of the fourth climb, good to see a friendly face there. I had a slow transition but stayed ahead of my mini-race crew behind me, then dropped off down the last downhill with Jello legs and brain. I only crashed once before finally making it to the finish line in one hour 47 minutes. The winner did it in 1: 34 or so, good effort! Josh skied all the way back up from the finish line to the top of the climb he missed, good effort!
So that was a Rando race, pretty fun. I'd planned to ski some more with heals locked down for practice after the race, but my heals were hammered with blisters and I really didn't feel like skiing at all so we ate big and drank in the bar until the awards, which we didn't get any of but still had a really fun time. Thanks to Greg Hill for putting the race on, Arcteryx, Ortovox, Life Link and the other sponsors for the Swag (everybody got something pretty nice who went to the race!), and Josh and Darryl for the motivation. I'll do more of these races in the future, it's a fun format. I'd like to know how I actually placed but the official results aren't done yet, I'll post a link when they go up. Even if I suck I always want to know exactly how much I suck... A four-month pregnant woman did the race, and a woman from Golden skied the full "race" course we did in 2:02 I think, pretty damn impressive (there were two courses, the full "race" course, and "rec" race that missed the last climb, that's what likely confused Josh).
Aerobic racing is painful, but this race inspired me to go backcountry skiing more, the new AT gear is wicked. It's lighter than my tele gear, gives a lot more control and is even better on the flats. The stiff plastic tongues on tele boots really screw your kick and glide up, the stiff tongues drive the toe of the ski into the snow every stride. If the AT gear is lighter, skis downhill and even flats better, well, I think my telemark days are done. I'll still use relatively light XC gear for doing big traverses like the Wapta where it works really well (did that a couple of years ago in a day on nordic gear, definitely a better choice than the relatively heavy AT or tele gear), but I'm starting to think modern tele gear has just reinvented alpine gear without the heal piece--? I ski a lot with a pack in variable snow conditions, I'm just too damn old to face plant hard anymore, power to the tele beasts but I'm over it.
Today I'm worked, so not much is getting done beyond cleaning up and getting ready to head up to Jasper in the morning for an ARD (German TV) shoot with Pat Morrow and my dad, we're going to climb the Queen of Maligne as a father/son team, shoud be fun. Maligne Canyon is where I learned to ice climb way back in the day.
WG
The first half of the course was a gasp-fest to the top of Delerium dive. I tried to keep the heart rate reasonable but didn't as Josh and I race up the hill for 2000+ feet around mid-pack. Near the top people started to blow up, so Josh and I were able to gain a few places. Josh had a tricky way of taking his skins off with the skis still on, but I tried that and fell over, so I took my skis off which was OK as we had to walk down the stairs to the top of the much-vaunted "Delerium Dive." It took me an extra minute to figure out how to lock my heels down on the Fritschis, then it was point 'em and rip. I was a little worried about this run from its reputation and 'cause I hadn't skied in real AT boots ever, or even downhill boots since about 1984, but it was OK, this AT gear rips. I only had to stop once to let my shaking quads recover before reaching the "skins on" transition to the second climb, boom, back up. Josh caught up to me at the transition--I'd been ahead of him by a bit at the top, he'd made that up by nuking the downhill. There was a guy with big hair I'd passed just at the top of the run, he too caught up to me at the transition. I often find aerobic races turn into a sub-race between me and a couple of other people once the leaders are gone, it makes it more fun. We could still see the leaders busting ass up the hill, and off we went to catch 'em (right...).
The second climb was short, and I managed to keep my "mini-race" guy close as we pulled over the top. I'd assumed we would take our skins off for every descent, but the guy just in front of me kept skiing with his on so I did too, we dropped down another 500 feet with our skins on, just point 'em and go, it was faster than taking the skins off, good tactics. We could see the lead "pack" busting up the third climb. I could feel the load of the last hour so I deliberately slowed down and chewed down a gel and tried to drink some water, but my hose was frozen solid so I was now in "camel" mode, oh well. The gel hit almost immediately, funny how that works, and we blasted up the third climb relatively well, the gap on the guys behind us grew. Another bud from Canmore, Heath, yelled, "skins on as he went down by me on the third descent while I was still skinning up it, so I knew the "keep the skins on" tactic was in force, thanks Heath! I yelled the same to Josh as I went by him. My legs were just worked as we dropped around 500 more feet, I lost all ability to turn and skied into a small tree at the bottom of the third downhill, which was useful for hanging onto as I changed the bindings over to uphill mode. As soon as I started skinning up I felt a blister bust on my right heel, which hurt like hell, but that's racing.
The fourth climb hurt, and my lack of aerobic training started to show. The leaders blasted by on their final descent as I grunted up, fast bastards. I saw Josh come down the third descent as well, he had taken his skins off and was hauling ass as he actually knows how to ski. Unfortunately he missed the turnaround and went all the way to the base of the ski hill, bummer! My friend Ryan was running the checkpoint at the top of the fourth climb, good to see a friendly face there. I had a slow transition but stayed ahead of my mini-race crew behind me, then dropped off down the last downhill with Jello legs and brain. I only crashed once before finally making it to the finish line in one hour 47 minutes. The winner did it in 1: 34 or so, good effort! Josh skied all the way back up from the finish line to the top of the climb he missed, good effort!
So that was a Rando race, pretty fun. I'd planned to ski some more with heals locked down for practice after the race, but my heals were hammered with blisters and I really didn't feel like skiing at all so we ate big and drank in the bar until the awards, which we didn't get any of but still had a really fun time. Thanks to Greg Hill for putting the race on, Arcteryx, Ortovox, Life Link and the other sponsors for the Swag (everybody got something pretty nice who went to the race!), and Josh and Darryl for the motivation. I'll do more of these races in the future, it's a fun format. I'd like to know how I actually placed but the official results aren't done yet, I'll post a link when they go up. Even if I suck I always want to know exactly how much I suck... A four-month pregnant woman did the race, and a woman from Golden skied the full "race" course we did in 2:02 I think, pretty damn impressive (there were two courses, the full "race" course, and "rec" race that missed the last climb, that's what likely confused Josh).
Aerobic racing is painful, but this race inspired me to go backcountry skiing more, the new AT gear is wicked. It's lighter than my tele gear, gives a lot more control and is even better on the flats. The stiff plastic tongues on tele boots really screw your kick and glide up, the stiff tongues drive the toe of the ski into the snow every stride. If the AT gear is lighter, skis downhill and even flats better, well, I think my telemark days are done. I'll still use relatively light XC gear for doing big traverses like the Wapta where it works really well (did that a couple of years ago in a day on nordic gear, definitely a better choice than the relatively heavy AT or tele gear), but I'm starting to think modern tele gear has just reinvented alpine gear without the heal piece--? I ski a lot with a pack in variable snow conditions, I'm just too damn old to face plant hard anymore, power to the tele beasts but I'm over it.
Today I'm worked, so not much is getting done beyond cleaning up and getting ready to head up to Jasper in the morning for an ARD (German TV) shoot with Pat Morrow and my dad, we're going to climb the Queen of Maligne as a father/son team, shoud be fun. Maligne Canyon is where I learned to ice climb way back in the day.
WG
Friday, February 03, 2006
Climbing, Skiing, Travel
I've been under the gun a bit lately trying to finish everything up before heading to Scotland and Norway, plus there's a German TV show shoot in there and some other stuff, hence the lax bloggage.
Tonight I was planning to just chill out and write a bit after a solid day of training, but then Josh showed up and heckled me into doing some crazy ski moutaineering AT race tomorrow morning. Something like 3800 feet of up and then down with some more up and down in the middle at a local ski area. Lasty year I switched to ancient AT gear because it was easier than using my tele gear for skiing into ice climbs, but I haven't skied in real AT boots with my heels locked down in at least 20 years--I've been a "meadow skipper" telemarker for the last 20. This year I scored some new BD skis, AT bindings and Scarpa boots--it was all in boxes in my garage until Josh showed up, a frantic couple of hours later we had it all put together. My first run with real AT gear will be after I finish the first "up" bit of tomorrow's race, should be pretty comical. All my normal ski gear is vintage tele gear from the late 90s--now I'm looking at fat skis, new skins, new boots, it's like Christmas but I really don't have a clue how to use any of it. Josh gave me the crash course in fat skin removal (sticky bastards) and so on, but my experience with AT gear could be charitably described as minimal. But I'll bet racing will be more fun than not racing, plus it should be a savage aerobic death fest. I'm fired up to gasp like a goldfish for a few hours, the experience should be interesting and tomorrow is an upper-body rest day anyhow. We'll see how it goes...
Workouts:
Had a great day out today with JD in Hafner Cave. This is the "default" climbing area for me, it's the fastest access around for fun, hard climbing. We did laps on the new M9 (?) to the right of Fire Roasted. Fell off the very top on the big flat blocks on the on-sight, always annoying but I got careless. After getting really pumped running up and down laps we then drove back to Canmore and hit the Vsion for some "Power," and it did indeed take all the power away as planned. I set a new "tracking" drytool problem (30 move problem, longer than many routes) in there last week, it's got a lot of "Steel Koan" style hard climbing, big moves and dangling. Worked on that a bit then did front levers and campus action, I love days like this, just giving it, I feel like I've done something worthwhile with the day.
The workouts for the last few days haven been consistent if not inspired. I'm missing a big goal, a route or a comp or something coming up, so I'm training until that happens. Scotland and Norway should be more about long days out, so I've been running and skate skiing a bit too to build some sort of cardio base. The workload with non-climbing projects has really bitten into my "long day out time," but the results of the desk time are satisfying too. My pinkie fingers are also pretty mangled right now, the swings on Steel Koan put high loads on them. I've got about a half inch of dead skin padding on each little finger but think I've bruised the bone underneath, it's really sore. Maybe this means my training has been more intense than I realized...
Tonight I was planning to just chill out and write a bit after a solid day of training, but then Josh showed up and heckled me into doing some crazy ski moutaineering AT race tomorrow morning. Something like 3800 feet of up and then down with some more up and down in the middle at a local ski area. Lasty year I switched to ancient AT gear because it was easier than using my tele gear for skiing into ice climbs, but I haven't skied in real AT boots with my heels locked down in at least 20 years--I've been a "meadow skipper" telemarker for the last 20. This year I scored some new BD skis, AT bindings and Scarpa boots--it was all in boxes in my garage until Josh showed up, a frantic couple of hours later we had it all put together. My first run with real AT gear will be after I finish the first "up" bit of tomorrow's race, should be pretty comical. All my normal ski gear is vintage tele gear from the late 90s--now I'm looking at fat skis, new skins, new boots, it's like Christmas but I really don't have a clue how to use any of it. Josh gave me the crash course in fat skin removal (sticky bastards) and so on, but my experience with AT gear could be charitably described as minimal. But I'll bet racing will be more fun than not racing, plus it should be a savage aerobic death fest. I'm fired up to gasp like a goldfish for a few hours, the experience should be interesting and tomorrow is an upper-body rest day anyhow. We'll see how it goes...
Workouts:
Had a great day out today with JD in Hafner Cave. This is the "default" climbing area for me, it's the fastest access around for fun, hard climbing. We did laps on the new M9 (?) to the right of Fire Roasted. Fell off the very top on the big flat blocks on the on-sight, always annoying but I got careless. After getting really pumped running up and down laps we then drove back to Canmore and hit the Vsion for some "Power," and it did indeed take all the power away as planned. I set a new "tracking" drytool problem (30 move problem, longer than many routes) in there last week, it's got a lot of "Steel Koan" style hard climbing, big moves and dangling. Worked on that a bit then did front levers and campus action, I love days like this, just giving it, I feel like I've done something worthwhile with the day.
The workouts for the last few days haven been consistent if not inspired. I'm missing a big goal, a route or a comp or something coming up, so I'm training until that happens. Scotland and Norway should be more about long days out, so I've been running and skate skiing a bit too to build some sort of cardio base. The workload with non-climbing projects has really bitten into my "long day out time," but the results of the desk time are satisfying too. My pinkie fingers are also pretty mangled right now, the swings on Steel Koan put high loads on them. I've got about a half inch of dead skin padding on each little finger but think I've bruised the bone underneath, it's really sore. Maybe this means my training has been more intense than I realized...
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Sad News on JC Lafaille?
The energetic, motivated and super-talented French alpinist JC LaFaille is missing and presumed dead on Makalu. This one tears at me, I've enjoyed meeting and climbing with him in a few different places. The first time I met him was in a gym in France--for some reason a few of us were climbing in a gym in winter, and this rather short guy shows up and starts just hiking the hardest routes in the place. We struck up a funny conversation and had some fun yanking on the plastic. I finally figured out who he was, a true legend in climbing for so many years, starting way back in the 80s with sport climbing and switching it up when he started climbing what I consider to be the boldest Himalayan alpine climbs of the last 10 years. I can think of no other climber, ever, who was so good at all aspects of climbing. 5.13 solo, big new routes in the Himalaya, hard dry tooling, he did it all. He was relatively unknown in the US and Canada, but he was a hero of mine for many reasons. A year or so ago I was cimbing in the Vsion in Canmore and who should show up but this rather short guy, you know the rest of the story. Chance meetings like that always made me smile, he was game for anything involving climbing, and I just kept running into him in Europe and North America. The media is not holding out much hope (story in French here, "pas de trace" says it all), but I'm not going to totally write him off just yet, he's come back from some pretty far out places before.
It always stops me in my tracks when one my heroes turns up missing. The Himalaya extracts everything from people all too often, it's just such a huge range--figuring out what's really happening on a 3,000 foot face at low altitude is difficult, figuring out what's happening in a range the size of the Himalaya, while at altitude, is about impossible judging from the number of super-competent people who have died there. It's not generally the climbing that kills people in the Himalaya, but the cold, mental collapse, bad systems, etc. JC was trying to solo a route in winter--this is closer to polar exploration than climbing in my mind, it just shows how far out of the box JC could think. How do you go from being a child sport climbing prodigy in France to suiting up for winter solo in the Himalaya? Amazing.
It always stops me in my tracks when one my heroes turns up missing. The Himalaya extracts everything from people all too often, it's just such a huge range--figuring out what's really happening on a 3,000 foot face at low altitude is difficult, figuring out what's happening in a range the size of the Himalaya, while at altitude, is about impossible judging from the number of super-competent people who have died there. It's not generally the climbing that kills people in the Himalaya, but the cold, mental collapse, bad systems, etc. JC was trying to solo a route in winter--this is closer to polar exploration than climbing in my mind, it just shows how far out of the box JC could think. How do you go from being a child sport climbing prodigy in France to suiting up for winter solo in the Himalaya? Amazing.
Monday, January 30, 2006
Life, Training
Life
Being sick all of last week and the week in Ouray has combined into a cluster of "get it done yesterday" stuff. I'm not climbing outside much right now and am starting to get a bit annoyed about it, but sometimes work has to come first. Writing, emailing, booking travel, wasting time on the internet, training, it all adds up to some full days right now. No complaints but I wish there was more time in the day sometimes, or that I didn't waste as much of it as I do. Whine whine enough.
The "Aweberg" ice berg climbing video is finally near completion, Martina and Graham down at Emerge have done a great job of what's become known as "Gadd-wrangling," or getting what they needs from me to do their jobs. I did a combination video/slide show Saturday night for the ACC Rocky Mountain Section meeting, thanks very much to everyone who came out for it. I showed the standard definition (it was all shot in HD, we've edited in SD) version of the Aweberg show there to a packed house, the feedback was really positive. It was encouraging to see the video with a group of people and listen to them as they took it in, Emerge has done a great job putting it together. I saw the near-final HD version today in Calgary, the video looks so much better in HD, plus with the final music and so on it's going to be a show everybody who worked on it can be proud of.
Bed.
Workouts:
Monday
Rest and work, short Yoga session. Was going to train in the evening but got back from Calgary late and didn't, still felt sore from Saturday, some other excuses... I'll train harder tomorrow.
Sunday
Stretching and a 45-minute run pre-slideshow, stress out about slideshow, do slideshow. Wasn't planning to do anything after the show but then Ben Firth got into a hockey mood and we ended up sprinting up and down the ice for an hour chasing the puck until they turned the lights off on us, hockey is such a wicked workout! I thought I had an OK shot until Firth showed me I didn't know jack about shooting a hockey puck...
Saturday
Felt a little worked after yesterday's session at the Vsion but went and did it again. Felt much better (goes to show you never know how a workout is going to go until you do it, so do it), made progress on my "normal" boulder problem (the blue one in the corner, it's nasty for me right now), then did tool laps in the cave, including trying a new drytool route I set, it's nasty too. Finished out with front levers, handstand pushups and offset pullups, best workout I've had in a long time. I don't think I lost as much as I thought I did during the week in Ouray and the sick week after Ouray, but I didn't gain anything either, time to put the energy there and build.
Being sick all of last week and the week in Ouray has combined into a cluster of "get it done yesterday" stuff. I'm not climbing outside much right now and am starting to get a bit annoyed about it, but sometimes work has to come first. Writing, emailing, booking travel, wasting time on the internet, training, it all adds up to some full days right now. No complaints but I wish there was more time in the day sometimes, or that I didn't waste as much of it as I do. Whine whine enough.
The "Aweberg" ice berg climbing video is finally near completion, Martina and Graham down at Emerge have done a great job of what's become known as "Gadd-wrangling," or getting what they needs from me to do their jobs. I did a combination video/slide show Saturday night for the ACC Rocky Mountain Section meeting, thanks very much to everyone who came out for it. I showed the standard definition (it was all shot in HD, we've edited in SD) version of the Aweberg show there to a packed house, the feedback was really positive. It was encouraging to see the video with a group of people and listen to them as they took it in, Emerge has done a great job putting it together. I saw the near-final HD version today in Calgary, the video looks so much better in HD, plus with the final music and so on it's going to be a show everybody who worked on it can be proud of.
Bed.
Workouts:
Monday
Rest and work, short Yoga session. Was going to train in the evening but got back from Calgary late and didn't, still felt sore from Saturday, some other excuses... I'll train harder tomorrow.
Sunday
Stretching and a 45-minute run pre-slideshow, stress out about slideshow, do slideshow. Wasn't planning to do anything after the show but then Ben Firth got into a hockey mood and we ended up sprinting up and down the ice for an hour chasing the puck until they turned the lights off on us, hockey is such a wicked workout! I thought I had an OK shot until Firth showed me I didn't know jack about shooting a hockey puck...
Saturday
Felt a little worked after yesterday's session at the Vsion but went and did it again. Felt much better (goes to show you never know how a workout is going to go until you do it, so do it), made progress on my "normal" boulder problem (the blue one in the corner, it's nasty for me right now), then did tool laps in the cave, including trying a new drytool route I set, it's nasty too. Finished out with front levers, handstand pushups and offset pullups, best workout I've had in a long time. I don't think I lost as much as I thought I did during the week in Ouray and the sick week after Ouray, but I didn't gain anything either, time to put the energy there and build.
Saturday, January 28, 2006
Privacy, Cars (Bought one), training
Privacy: Dd sends this--frightening only because it's not far from the truth already...
Cars: Thanks to everyone who sent suggestions and comments on cars and car shopping, some funny stuff for sure. In the end we went with the Matrix. Better fuel economy than the Subaru, cheaper to buy, own and operate in the short and long run. If this link works it’s pretty cool to check out ownership costs, basically my spreadsheet but smarter.
Suddenly I'm seeing these cars everywhere--met a friend while getting lunch today, she had one, another couple of friends emailed to say they have 'em, it's an epidemic of Matrix/Vibe owners. I also liked the people at Charlesglen Toyota--the Subaru salesman might have been able to get me fired up on a Subaru, but I disliked the feel of the dealership and Subaru's pricing tactics. I was half expecting to get worked at the closing of the Matrix deal ("Oh, we under-coated the car and did out standard 602-point inspection, that's an additional $1100, " I've had that happen in the past), but it was again straight up and friendly. The car actually ended up costing a hundred bucks less 'cause I forgot about the GST credit on the Saab. So, all in all a good experience, I'd recommend Charlesglen to anyone looking for a Toyota.
Quick Review: just drove the Matrix up to Shark Mountain (about 45 minutes of iced-up dirt each way) to go skate skiing, it did very well, much more solid on the snow and dirt than I expected despite the “all season” stock tires. The big thing with the Matrix is that each gear is about one gear "higher" than I'm used to with a truck. Fifth gear on the Matrix is basically only useful for driving along a flat highway. If you encounter a steep hill in 5th it's often better to shift straight to third to keep the RPMs up--if the RPMs aren't over about 3,300 the car has no torque. But keep the revs over about 3,600 and there's lots there. We've put 250K onto the car in the last 24 hours, and the gas gauge is still well above half, and that's with the engine still breaking in. I haven't really driven the engine yet as you're not supposed to hammer on it during the first 1000K, but it sure does feel solid and smooth so far. I haven’t driven a high-revving four-cylinder in a few years so it’s going to take some time to get used to, but I like working with the engine, it’s a much more “connected” feeling than just relying on a V6 to pull.
The braking is very good and balanced—one problem I’ve had lately with cars is that the front wheels seem to loose traction well before the rear wheels, that’s disconcerting on snowy roads. The Matrix braking feels well-balanced.
Buying a smaller, more fuel-efficient car makes a lot of sense, especially with gas prices over $3/gallon (85 cents per liter). Ninety nine percent of the time I'm just driving to Calgary or to go climbing on the Parkway or somewhere, there's no point in spending twice the money on gas (and polluting the planet) by driving my truck. That's probably not a popular view here in oil-mad Alberta, but I've spent enough time in Europe where people just make smaller cars work. We had enough $ to basically buy whatever car or truck we wanted to without it breaking the bank, buying a smaller car is a choice. Yeah, we could have gone hybrid, but hybrids cost a lot more at this point and I live in Alberta where not using some gas is a provincial crime punishable by exile to Toronto... Diesel was another option, but diesel can be nasty on the environment. When bio-diesel becomes more plentiful that will be a good choice, I expect my next vehicle will be a diesel (the town of Canmore runs all their trucks on a bio diesel mix already), especially if it's a truck. Europeans can never get their heads around the fact that our trucks and SUVs run on gas, it just makes no sense. We had a diesel motorhome last year in Europe, it got better fuel economy than my smaller gas trucks ever did. There's probably a conspiracy theory about US manufacturers and diesel engines in there somewhere.
Workouts:
Friday: Good skate ski session at Shark (well, only 50 minutes, but slow going with the new snow and Sara Renner I’m not), nothing beats skate skiing for aerobic death, all four limbs going at once up a hill, boom, one aerobic death unit served up. Then quick yoga and a good session at the Vsion. Really hard mixed climbing is likely over for me this season, I want to develop some better cardio and focus more on a longer new routes. I still want to be able to climb hard mixed, just not bleeding edge. Fell off while doing my usual drytool circuit and landed flat on my back on the padded carpet, like a pancake, splat. It hurt and my ice tool ripped up my elbow a bit. Finished the lap once I could breathe again. Almost didn’t go and train because I didn’t want to push it after the Ouray crud, but I think I’m back up to speed, feel great this morning finally.
Thursday: yoga and an easy 30-minute run. I don't want to push too hard with the remnants of the Ouray crud in my system.
Cars: Thanks to everyone who sent suggestions and comments on cars and car shopping, some funny stuff for sure. In the end we went with the Matrix. Better fuel economy than the Subaru, cheaper to buy, own and operate in the short and long run. If this link works it’s pretty cool to check out ownership costs, basically my spreadsheet but smarter.
Suddenly I'm seeing these cars everywhere--met a friend while getting lunch today, she had one, another couple of friends emailed to say they have 'em, it's an epidemic of Matrix/Vibe owners. I also liked the people at Charlesglen Toyota--the Subaru salesman might have been able to get me fired up on a Subaru, but I disliked the feel of the dealership and Subaru's pricing tactics. I was half expecting to get worked at the closing of the Matrix deal ("Oh, we under-coated the car and did out standard 602-point inspection, that's an additional $1100, " I've had that happen in the past), but it was again straight up and friendly. The car actually ended up costing a hundred bucks less 'cause I forgot about the GST credit on the Saab. So, all in all a good experience, I'd recommend Charlesglen to anyone looking for a Toyota.
Quick Review: just drove the Matrix up to Shark Mountain (about 45 minutes of iced-up dirt each way) to go skate skiing, it did very well, much more solid on the snow and dirt than I expected despite the “all season” stock tires. The big thing with the Matrix is that each gear is about one gear "higher" than I'm used to with a truck. Fifth gear on the Matrix is basically only useful for driving along a flat highway. If you encounter a steep hill in 5th it's often better to shift straight to third to keep the RPMs up--if the RPMs aren't over about 3,300 the car has no torque. But keep the revs over about 3,600 and there's lots there. We've put 250K onto the car in the last 24 hours, and the gas gauge is still well above half, and that's with the engine still breaking in. I haven't really driven the engine yet as you're not supposed to hammer on it during the first 1000K, but it sure does feel solid and smooth so far. I haven’t driven a high-revving four-cylinder in a few years so it’s going to take some time to get used to, but I like working with the engine, it’s a much more “connected” feeling than just relying on a V6 to pull.
The braking is very good and balanced—one problem I’ve had lately with cars is that the front wheels seem to loose traction well before the rear wheels, that’s disconcerting on snowy roads. The Matrix braking feels well-balanced.
Buying a smaller, more fuel-efficient car makes a lot of sense, especially with gas prices over $3/gallon (85 cents per liter). Ninety nine percent of the time I'm just driving to Calgary or to go climbing on the Parkway or somewhere, there's no point in spending twice the money on gas (and polluting the planet) by driving my truck. That's probably not a popular view here in oil-mad Alberta, but I've spent enough time in Europe where people just make smaller cars work. We had enough $ to basically buy whatever car or truck we wanted to without it breaking the bank, buying a smaller car is a choice. Yeah, we could have gone hybrid, but hybrids cost a lot more at this point and I live in Alberta where not using some gas is a provincial crime punishable by exile to Toronto... Diesel was another option, but diesel can be nasty on the environment. When bio-diesel becomes more plentiful that will be a good choice, I expect my next vehicle will be a diesel (the town of Canmore runs all their trucks on a bio diesel mix already), especially if it's a truck. Europeans can never get their heads around the fact that our trucks and SUVs run on gas, it just makes no sense. We had a diesel motorhome last year in Europe, it got better fuel economy than my smaller gas trucks ever did. There's probably a conspiracy theory about US manufacturers and diesel engines in there somewhere.
Workouts:
Friday: Good skate ski session at Shark (well, only 50 minutes, but slow going with the new snow and Sara Renner I’m not), nothing beats skate skiing for aerobic death, all four limbs going at once up a hill, boom, one aerobic death unit served up. Then quick yoga and a good session at the Vsion. Really hard mixed climbing is likely over for me this season, I want to develop some better cardio and focus more on a longer new routes. I still want to be able to climb hard mixed, just not bleeding edge. Fell off while doing my usual drytool circuit and landed flat on my back on the padded carpet, like a pancake, splat. It hurt and my ice tool ripped up my elbow a bit. Finished the lap once I could breathe again. Almost didn’t go and train because I didn’t want to push it after the Ouray crud, but I think I’m back up to speed, feel great this morning finally.
Thursday: yoga and an easy 30-minute run. I don't want to push too hard with the remnants of the Ouray crud in my system.
Thursday, January 26, 2006
New Route in Italy, Canadians in Mex, Oil in Iran
Canadians in Mexico
Are kicking ass en masse at the paragliding comp down in Valley, very cool. Nicole Mclearn is providing updates here.
Big New Mixed New Route in Italy
Albert Leichtfriend just emailed me a description of a wicked new 5-pitch mixed route he did in Italy's Dolomites, crazy ice and mixed from M8-M11+ ("real" grades, not trickery grades, he did it bareback as usual). He's having a great year, I'll see if he's OK with posting
details/photos.
Hard New Route in Austria
Marcus Bindler is really, really strong... I bet this is hard.
Iran and Oil
Here's an interesting perspective (thanks to Stoltz for sending it) on Iran, or rather why the US is really all wound up about Iran (it's not nukes..). Yep, it's all about oil. I've read this theory a lot over the last five years, the summary is that oil is traded in dollars, and this provides a huge free line of credit to the US. If oil were traded in something other thna $, like the Euro, that line of credit would come due in a nasty way.
Cars:
Decided to go with the Toyota Matrix, it's time to get a good little Japanese econo box and stop spending so much money driving around in circles... Thanks to everyone who sent notes and such, fun readin.g
Workouts:
FINALLY back in the game after a full week of death-by-cold suffering. Went for a good walk up the hill behind the house, then got it on at the climbing gym late in the evening. Bouldered for a while with actual shoes and chalk, it's clear that mixed climbing does nothing for finger power... Then did laps in the drytool cave (well, only three, but that's a start) followed by a brief power session. I don't want to get sick again so I didn't push hard, but for the first time in a week I did not get weaker yesterday. From what I can figure training is kind of like alcoholism--one day at a time, get back on the horse if you can't stay there for some reason. OK, shite analogy, grin.
Are kicking ass en masse at the paragliding comp down in Valley, very cool. Nicole Mclearn is providing updates here.
Big New Mixed New Route in Italy
Albert Leichtfriend just emailed me a description of a wicked new 5-pitch mixed route he did in Italy's Dolomites, crazy ice and mixed from M8-M11+ ("real" grades, not trickery grades, he did it bareback as usual). He's having a great year, I'll see if he's OK with posting
details/photos.
Hard New Route in Austria
Marcus Bindler is really, really strong... I bet this is hard.
Iran and Oil
Here's an interesting perspective (thanks to Stoltz for sending it) on Iran, or rather why the US is really all wound up about Iran (it's not nukes..). Yep, it's all about oil. I've read this theory a lot over the last five years, the summary is that oil is traded in dollars, and this provides a huge free line of credit to the US. If oil were traded in something other thna $, like the Euro, that line of credit would come due in a nasty way.
Cars:
Decided to go with the Toyota Matrix, it's time to get a good little Japanese econo box and stop spending so much money driving around in circles... Thanks to everyone who sent notes and such, fun readin.g
Workouts:
FINALLY back in the game after a full week of death-by-cold suffering. Went for a good walk up the hill behind the house, then got it on at the climbing gym late in the evening. Bouldered for a while with actual shoes and chalk, it's clear that mixed climbing does nothing for finger power... Then did laps in the drytool cave (well, only three, but that's a start) followed by a brief power session. I don't want to get sick again so I didn't push hard, but for the first time in a week I did not get weaker yesterday. From what I can figure training is kind of like alcoholism--one day at a time, get back on the horse if you can't stay there for some reason. OK, shite analogy, grin.
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
I'm back! Plus Euro News etc.
OK, the fish bowl is off my head and the fish out of my lungs. Amazing how hard a disease can take you down, I've been totally worthless of late due to some heinous "ice lung" disease contracted on the Ouray trip.
Sports:
Albert Leichtfried sends an article in German on the spur thing. I don't read German well enough, but in case anyone does the article is here.
The Val D'Aone Ice World Cup is done, check their site out for results, video, good writing, photos etc. The site the best sports event web site I've seen in long time, something to emulate in the future. I really enjoy looking at stuff like this when it's done well. Too many sites are high-tech Flash disasters that load slowly and have lousy navigation. The D'Aone site isn't perfect, but they didn't spend the bank yet produced something cool.
Cars:
We currently have three vehicles in the driveway: An aging and near-dead Saab, a 4Runner I got on a great deal, and an old Aerostar van. None of them gets very good gas mileage, and with the exception of the 4Runner require more repair bills than I want. Yesterday I was full of snot, surly and running an attention span that makes George Bush look quick. I figured I was in perfect condition to go car shopping...
After spending dozens of hours on the web I'd narrowed possible replacements down to three cars: Toyota Matrix, Subaru Impreza and Volkswagen Golf. Here's a spreadsheet I did with all the variables, I'm a geek sometimes, but it helps me think. Kim and I headed into Calgary and got at it. We started with Charlesglen Toyota, which was hopping, but we got some good service right away from Ellery. No bullshit, just information and a test drive. No, "What do you want to pay a month" and other junk lines, just "Here's what it costs, here's what it does, how can I help?" The Matrix seems like a good car, 48MPG (all MPG Canadian--I hate this L/100K junk, it's totally counter-intuitive to me). It's got a surprising amount of room in the back and just seems like a well-designed car. We want good gas economy in one of our cars, even if it only got 40MPG it would be a lot better than any other car in the fleet, like twice as good (I drive fast, no way am I going to get the "stated" gas mileage." Ellery got us a fast, fair evaluation on the Saab, no BS again, no issues.
We walked out of the Toyota dealership pleased with our time, although I about fell asleep on the drive over to the Subaru dealership...
At the Subaru of Calgary dealership we got some "help" from a guy named "Joe." Now Joe is a "nice" guy, but he was a classic car salesman with all kinds of little bullshit tricks. "Are you in a positin to buy today? Because I can work my manager if you are." Yeah, right, Joe, tell me the damn price please. Or I'll cough in your face... None of the stickers were on the cars, so you can't get a real idea of MSRP, just what the guy says. Subaru's website sucks compares to Toyota's--Toyota gives you the total cost with all charges, GST, etc. factored in. Subaru's doesn't. I think they deliberately want to keep that information away from the consumer. The show room mirrored the web site--I wanted a number, Joe wanted a monthly payment number, eventually we got into a test drive.
The Impreza wagon kicks ass on the Toyota Matrix as far as being fun to drive, and it has 4WD. It also costs about $4,000 more, and gets about 30 percent worse gas economy. You can just tell that the Subaru was built to really drive, the Matrix is OK but it's basically a Corollla wagon. Matrix=super reliable, super solid, vanilla. Impreza=fun driving. The Impreza has about 40 more horses and is just locked down on the road, it felt like a fresh version of my all-time fav car, an Audi 4000Q I had way back in the day. Unfortunately Kim didn't like the seats, and we are looking for something to go to the airport in Calgary and over to Golden in, the Matrix is good on that. Same basic cargo space. I wanted Subaru to also evaluate my trade, Joe wanted us to "select a color" before he would even do that, eventually got it done... Then the "worksheet" came out. I hate worksheets, it's a ploy by the dealer to work payments and such, when all that really matters to me is, "How much does the car cost, how much will you give me for my POS Saab?" I finally got that clear to Joe, and the "worksheet" did reveal how hard the dealership was stacking MSRP with additional charges, thanks Joe... Car dealers often want to overwhelm you with bullshit until you feel like you're getting what you want, but I know what I want so stop with the BS already. I got trained for negotiation in Morocco, that trip has saved me many thousands of dollars since I took it 15 years ago--car dealers are flat-out amateurs compared to the Moroccans. Seriously--emotional blackmail just will not work on me anymore, nor will financial junk shows ("I'm doing everything I can here to make this work for you, help me out a bit." Bullshit, your average Moroccan has way more advanced tactics...).
Next door to the Subaru of Calgary dealership was Fifth Avenue VW, in we went. We promptly took the Golf apart (cargo cover off, headrests off, etc) in the showroom, and a guy named Byron came over and asked if we needed help. Yep, in a minute, thanks. He retreated but pointed out his office. Perfect. Eventually we needed help and Byron did a good job, no sales BS, just info, here's the sticker price, here's what we have. That is good service. He just gave us the Golf to test drive instead of riding with us, again a nice difference compared to the Subaru lot, and Bryon was pleasant and informative upon our return. I've rented Golfs a lot in Europe, they are good basic cars but feel softer in Canada, and I'm suspect of VW's reliability and re-sale. But the dealership experience was very good.
Kim wanted to test drive the Matrix again, so back to Ellery and Toyota. This time I drove the Matrix hard, but Ellery had no issues--he races bikes, so sliding the Matrix a bit on gravel didn't faze him too much, although Kim got car sick on the second test drive. The Matrix is a pretty fun little car--it's a well thought-out, simple and economical rig. Not as much fun as the Subaru, but cheaper to buy and cheaper to own for sure. Then my cold really fired up and the day was done, I almost fell asleep on the way home...
All three of these cars are good cars, and with the exception of the VW depreciate very slowly, making buying used ones a bad deal until they have 100+K on them. I also want to get rid of this Saab and can't sell it to an individual with a straight face unless they're a Saab freak or something, so new is the way to go for now. So what are we going to buy? Kim is all for the Matrix, I guess I am too, but the Subaru is a lot more fun and much better in the winter than the Matrix. Overall I'd say the odds are good for the Matrix, I can always buy an old Audi and trick it out again or something, we need a "commuter" style rig and the Matrix is definitely good for that. And it's time to reduce the fleet in the driveway, the 4runner is for sale (and likely already sold), we'll keep the van as it's great for "cargo," and be back to a two-car driveway.
Back to "real" work.
Workouts:
Coming soon! One week with nothing, biggest break from training years, but I just did not feel up to it.
Sports:
Albert Leichtfried sends an article in German on the spur thing. I don't read German well enough, but in case anyone does the article is here.
The Val D'Aone Ice World Cup is done, check their site out for results, video, good writing, photos etc. The site the best sports event web site I've seen in long time, something to emulate in the future. I really enjoy looking at stuff like this when it's done well. Too many sites are high-tech Flash disasters that load slowly and have lousy navigation. The D'Aone site isn't perfect, but they didn't spend the bank yet produced something cool.
Cars:
We currently have three vehicles in the driveway: An aging and near-dead Saab, a 4Runner I got on a great deal, and an old Aerostar van. None of them gets very good gas mileage, and with the exception of the 4Runner require more repair bills than I want. Yesterday I was full of snot, surly and running an attention span that makes George Bush look quick. I figured I was in perfect condition to go car shopping...After spending dozens of hours on the web I'd narrowed possible replacements down to three cars: Toyota Matrix, Subaru Impreza and Volkswagen Golf. Here's a spreadsheet I did with all the variables, I'm a geek sometimes, but it helps me think. Kim and I headed into Calgary and got at it. We started with Charlesglen Toyota, which was hopping, but we got some good service right away from Ellery. No bullshit, just information and a test drive. No, "What do you want to pay a month" and other junk lines, just "Here's what it costs, here's what it does, how can I help?" The Matrix seems like a good car, 48MPG (all MPG Canadian--I hate this L/100K junk, it's totally counter-intuitive to me). It's got a surprising amount of room in the back and just seems like a well-designed car. We want good gas economy in one of our cars, even if it only got 40MPG it would be a lot better than any other car in the fleet, like twice as good (I drive fast, no way am I going to get the "stated" gas mileage." Ellery got us a fast, fair evaluation on the Saab, no BS again, no issues.
We walked out of the Toyota dealership pleased with our time, although I about fell asleep on the drive over to the Subaru dealership...
At the Subaru of Calgary dealership we got some "help" from a guy named "Joe." Now Joe is a "nice" guy, but he was a classic car salesman with all kinds of little bullshit tricks. "Are you in a positin to buy today? Because I can work my manager if you are." Yeah, right, Joe, tell me the damn price please. Or I'll cough in your face... None of the stickers were on the cars, so you can't get a real idea of MSRP, just what the guy says. Subaru's website sucks compares to Toyota's--Toyota gives you the total cost with all charges, GST, etc. factored in. Subaru's doesn't. I think they deliberately want to keep that information away from the consumer. The show room mirrored the web site--I wanted a number, Joe wanted a monthly payment number, eventually we got into a test drive.
The Impreza wagon kicks ass on the Toyota Matrix as far as being fun to drive, and it has 4WD. It also costs about $4,000 more, and gets about 30 percent worse gas economy. You can just tell that the Subaru was built to really drive, the Matrix is OK but it's basically a Corollla wagon. Matrix=super reliable, super solid, vanilla. Impreza=fun driving. The Impreza has about 40 more horses and is just locked down on the road, it felt like a fresh version of my all-time fav car, an Audi 4000Q I had way back in the day. Unfortunately Kim didn't like the seats, and we are looking for something to go to the airport in Calgary and over to Golden in, the Matrix is good on that. Same basic cargo space. I wanted Subaru to also evaluate my trade, Joe wanted us to "select a color" before he would even do that, eventually got it done... Then the "worksheet" came out. I hate worksheets, it's a ploy by the dealer to work payments and such, when all that really matters to me is, "How much does the car cost, how much will you give me for my POS Saab?" I finally got that clear to Joe, and the "worksheet" did reveal how hard the dealership was stacking MSRP with additional charges, thanks Joe... Car dealers often want to overwhelm you with bullshit until you feel like you're getting what you want, but I know what I want so stop with the BS already. I got trained for negotiation in Morocco, that trip has saved me many thousands of dollars since I took it 15 years ago--car dealers are flat-out amateurs compared to the Moroccans. Seriously--emotional blackmail just will not work on me anymore, nor will financial junk shows ("I'm doing everything I can here to make this work for you, help me out a bit." Bullshit, your average Moroccan has way more advanced tactics...).
Next door to the Subaru of Calgary dealership was Fifth Avenue VW, in we went. We promptly took the Golf apart (cargo cover off, headrests off, etc) in the showroom, and a guy named Byron came over and asked if we needed help. Yep, in a minute, thanks. He retreated but pointed out his office. Perfect. Eventually we needed help and Byron did a good job, no sales BS, just info, here's the sticker price, here's what we have. That is good service. He just gave us the Golf to test drive instead of riding with us, again a nice difference compared to the Subaru lot, and Bryon was pleasant and informative upon our return. I've rented Golfs a lot in Europe, they are good basic cars but feel softer in Canada, and I'm suspect of VW's reliability and re-sale. But the dealership experience was very good.
Kim wanted to test drive the Matrix again, so back to Ellery and Toyota. This time I drove the Matrix hard, but Ellery had no issues--he races bikes, so sliding the Matrix a bit on gravel didn't faze him too much, although Kim got car sick on the second test drive. The Matrix is a pretty fun little car--it's a well thought-out, simple and economical rig. Not as much fun as the Subaru, but cheaper to buy and cheaper to own for sure. Then my cold really fired up and the day was done, I almost fell asleep on the way home...
All three of these cars are good cars, and with the exception of the VW depreciate very slowly, making buying used ones a bad deal until they have 100+K on them. I also want to get rid of this Saab and can't sell it to an individual with a straight face unless they're a Saab freak or something, so new is the way to go for now. So what are we going to buy? Kim is all for the Matrix, I guess I am too, but the Subaru is a lot more fun and much better in the winter than the Matrix. Overall I'd say the odds are good for the Matrix, I can always buy an old Audi and trick it out again or something, we need a "commuter" style rig and the Matrix is definitely good for that. And it's time to reduce the fleet in the driveway, the 4runner is for sale (and likely already sold), we'll keep the van as it's great for "cargo," and be back to a two-car driveway.
Back to "real" work.
Workouts:
Coming soon! One week with nothing, biggest break from training years, but I just did not feel up to it.
Saturday, January 21, 2006
Lung Crud
Not much to write, as I'm down with some sort of lung and sinus-filling disease, as are many of the crew that went to Ouray. Good luck to everyone competing in the first world cup of the year in Val D'Aone, that's a really fun comp, kind of wish I was there!
A small west-coast mag just ran a nice piece on the berging trip Ben and I did last spring, check it out.
This is also coolif you're into climbing, bondage or whatever with knots, thanks to Senor Stoltz for link.
Workouts:
Nothing useful. Drinking water. Not happy about it.
A small west-coast mag just ran a nice piece on the berging trip Ben and I did last spring, check it out.
This is also coolif you're into climbing, bondage or whatever with knots, thanks to Senor Stoltz for link.
Workouts:
Nothing useful. Drinking water. Not happy about it.
Thursday, January 19, 2006
Back to Canmore
First place trophy thanks to Jeff Skoloda.After a wicked week at the Ouray Ice Festival Kim and I have made it back home to Canmore. The mutt (chili dog) was excited to see us, thanks to Jen for taking care of her.
Kim and I stayed an extra couple of days after Ouray to visit with friends and do a little climbing. After so many visits, Ouray is starting to feel like a second home, and that's a good thing. It's a huge gathering of climbers also, I saw a lot of friends I hadn't seen in years (or at least since the last Ouray). I'm definitely planning on going next year.
I often feel a bit down after a good win or big trip, but Ouary has left me fired up. Maybe it's all the Mexican food I ate down south? I start eating Mex at the Que Bueno in the Denver Airport on the way south (near gate B55 if you're in the DIA, I think it's pretty good, especially the Tamales). I always eat there on the way through DIA, it's the first sign of Mexican civilization on the way south. The main problem with Canada is the serious lack of Mexicans--I've yet to find any good Mexican food here, I always bring bottles of salsa and jars of chile stuff back with me, but it just isn't the same as a big old plate of Mexican food... Maybe Mexicans don't like cold weather or something, but I'd sure appreciate it if a few more would move up here and bring their food along. Maybe beer and some sun too... Although I'm off beer for a while--Michael Gilbert (Ice Fester Local and comp organizer) remarked, "You know, we're not all alocholics here" after another night of debauchery at Ouray...
It was a trick to get back from Ouray with the trophy--I don't keep many trophies from events, but the Ouray trophy isn't just a piece of tin with a plaque on it, it's a piece of art that I'm very happy to have won. I think it's the coolest ice trophy I've ever received, so I packed it all up carefully and it made it home to take pride of place among the other Ouray trophies Kim and I have won. I'm going to try and get some more information about it, but Jeff Skoloda was the main artist along with an Ouray glass blower (send me the name and I'll add it here).
So it's good to be back home and de-toxing from a great event.
Workouts:
I had to take a rest day after the comp on Monday, I often feel beat up and just generally worked after a big event.
On Tuedsay Jason Nelson (of Lisa and Zane fame in Ouray) and I headed up the Camp Bird road for some climbing. Harry Berger had gone up there on Sunday during the speed comp and done something like 10 laps on Goldline (M10+) in an hour, pretty impressive, Jason and I were considering trying to match that action but got distracted as usual. We warmed up on Jason's new M8 on the side of Slip Sliding Away, (forgot the name as usual), great route for the grade--nice drytooling to a thin pillar, good fun. I was going to try for the second ascent of his M9 to the right of Slip, but it was pouring water. The sun in Colorado is just crazy strong, as soon as it touches ice it's like sun on a vampire.
We then headed to the Poser Cave, home to the classics such as Goldline (m10+) and Jason's new route, which I again forget the name of. I had a go at it onsight but broke a hold about halfway up, then dogged the rest of it with Jason's enthusiastic beta. It's a bit harder than the rest of the routes in the Poser cave, but I was able to get it second try then started the training action by downclimbing it while Jason added difficulty with appropriate heckling. Jason also did a lap on it, then we had at Gold Line for a while, doing up and down laps before finishing the session by doing a pullup every time we used a new hold on the way up. That hurt. Thanks to Jason for a wicked session!
Wednesday was a travel day, just did some quick Yoga as some sort of cold settled in and we got home too late to do antything useful.
Got back last night and had to get up early (well, 8:00) to go and work on the "How to Ice Climb" DVD project with Pat Morrow as well as Chris and Scott, thanks to them for making my technique tips look like they work.
Monday, January 16, 2006
Ouray Ice Festival 2006
I’ve been off the net traveling to and competing in the 2006 Ouray Ice Festival, so sorry for the lack of verbage.
The Ouray Ice Festival is likely the largest ice festival in the US (Conway and Keene might be bigger, they are both good "big" festivals too). I first attended the Ouray Ice Festival back in about 1996 when I was living in Colorado, so this was my “decade" anniversary for the ice fest. I always try to make it to Ouray, but often can't--I think I've only made about five festivals over the years, although things have gotten a bit fuzzy. The festival is a gathering of ice freaks, gear freaks, and the town of Ouray around the Ouray Ice Park, a deep narrow gorge with a fat pipe full of water running along the top. The fat pipe of water is critical, as the Ice Park taps into that water and creates more ice along the mile-long length of the gorge than all the rest of the ice in the state of Colorado put together. There are hundreds of fantastic ice climbs, and an increasing number of entertaining mixed climbs. Gear manufacturers lend out all the latest ice toys, clothing, boots and whatever else is related to climbing--one booth this year even had a very cool folding kayak (they did not offer demos in the gorge), so the "try this out" section of the show is pretty broad.
THE COMP
2006 Ouray Ice Festival Comp results here:
I usually compete in the "difficulty" and "speed" competitions, held on Saturday and Sunday respectively. I've competed a lot over the years in ice/mixed climbing, and now regard myself as "semi-retired." It takes a special comp to get me motivated to strap on a bib and get amongst it all, but Ouray is definitely special. For starters, most of my ice-related friends show up here, and with the nightly dinners, slideshows and parties, the opportunities for serious debauchery are pretty good. I'm hung over for the second day in a row, but back to the comp.
Normally Ouray is an invitational event, meaning the organizers only invite whomever they feel are the top climbers around. This year Michael Gilbert and the rest of the crew here added an "open," meaning anyone who wanted to could compete for a space in the finals. Those of us who had either won the event or done well in the past had a "bye" into the big show on Saturday. Men and women compete on the same route in the final, which is cool as it can show exactly how strong women have gotten at mixed climbing--especially Ines Papert. Last year she, Harry Berger and I were the only people to complete the final route, and Ines did it the fastest for the overall win. All three of us were back again this year, and as we were seeded to climb last due to our places last year we warmed up together. It felt more like any day out mixed climbing with friends. Eventually Harry headed off to compete, while Ines and I continued warming up. Ines and I did a very, very thin mixed line called "Seamstress," and it was just nasty thin climbing complicated by the fact that Ines and I had taken off our crampons to get a better pump. I got stupid pumped finding the micro flakes, and it took a little bit longer to climb the line than I thought so I had to rush right off and rap down into the canyon.
It's always a bit intimidating rapping into the bottom of the Canyon to wait your turn to do battle on the route. The noise from the huge crowd reverberates dully over the rush of the water, and the sky is only a sliver of blue above the dark walls. I always feel like I'm on a mission to escape back to the sun...If you climb the route then you get to untie in the sun, but if you fall off then you have to do what the competitors were calling "The Walk of Shame" out the bottom of the canyon. I wanted no part of the walk of shame... I told Harry, "Good luck" as he left our small alcove and started up the ice to the start of the mixed route. He didn't get lowered back down, so I figured he had managed to avoid the walk of shame, which meant he had done the route. My turn.
I still felt a bit pumped from my "warm-up," but I often climb better a little pumped than cold, and the opening 50 feet of ice was pretty casual and got me into a climbing groove. There was a small wooden platform where you switched belayers before starting about 40 feet of overhanging rock to an ice curtain and the sun, and at the platform I suddenly noticed the massive crowd lining the viewing stands. The crowd was loud and positive, I could hear a lot of my friends yelling and it fired me up. Belayers at many comps are kind of stern and objective, but at Ouray they always have a smile and a "good luck," it makes things feel a lot friendlier. The opening hooks on the mixed section were bomber--I'd just done battle with micro hooks on the warmup, so this just felt super casual and solid in comparison. I had a good time pulling from jug to jug to about the halfway point on the route, where things got a bit steeper. I knew I had to climb fast to beat Harry, but I was having so much fun I totally forgot about Harry. The music and the crowd were going off, it was a hell of a lot of fun and totally motivational. I got a bit confused just past halfway up the route and wasted some juice, but eventually found a hidden hold. I could hear the crowd laughing when I finally spotted it and pointed it out with my finger. I looked back at my belayer and he was laughing with me too, it was a moment. The last 20 feet of the route went well, I had to do the "hug a tool" trick (elbows wrapped around a cammed tool instead of hands to take a load off the forearms), but made it onto the ice without too much of a battle. On the ice I could hear the crowd yelling, "Go, go!" and remembered that I was in a comp and raced to the clip the final draw. My time was faster than Harry's, he came up to me and said, "Damn on-sight mixed climbing..." It's really hard to find the folds on natural rock compared to most artificial comp routes. Harry is likely stronger than me, but I had read the holds faster, probably because I've spent so much more time on natural routes than comp routes in the last few years. Harry had redpointed Alcatraz, M12, on his second try last week, bareback style. He can remember sequences better than anyone I know and is very fit this year.
Last year we had both sent the route and then watched Ines climb it faster, so we found a spot to watch Ines, climbing last. She, Harry, Louis-Julien Roy, Jay Audenart, and a bunch of other people were all climbing sans spurs. The rules this year banned "trickery" such as leg hooks over tools and so on but spurs were allowed, it takes some commitment to just head up a mixed competition route without spurs when many of your fellow competitors are using them. Ines had a hard time finding some sequences low on the mixed section, but as usual climbed smoothly and cleanly up to the hidden hold move that had baffled me. She is clearly a lot stronger than almost all of the male competitors, and has put tremendous time into her climbing--despite climbing with no spurs and on a still-broken ankle she made it look smooth. I respect that a lot. Unfortunately she just missed a small ice hold and put her pick in a bad spot. Without spurs to hold her feet onto the rock she had to do a swing out onto the ice hold and it blew when she loaded the swing, dropping her back into the canyon. She still handily won the women's division, and would have placed fourth overall against the men. Harry and I were the only two to climb the route, and I found the sequences a couple of minutes faster so I won.
I sometimes start to feel a bit old at 38, but then guys like Guy Lacelle (over 50) remind me that age doesn't automatically mean dysfunction. Guy placed a strong 8th! My bud Rich Marshall, now 42, placed a very strong third. It's good to see my friends rip it up, especially those older than I am--I'm not going away anytime soon, grin... The "Eh Team" was well-represented in the finals, with Canadians taking 7 of the top 15 places. Jason Nelson, a local, was the top-placing American. He's going to show me some of his new routes tomorrow, fired up for that! There was a bit of a judging cluster on the final route. One of the reasons I really don't compete much is that I hate scoring/rules clusters. Kim C. shot video of almost everybody in the finals and took some from various vantage points--based on this video I don't think the judges had a very good view of the route, and the confusion with the results reflect this (nothing huge, but every place is meaningful for the competitors). In Ouray ties are also broken by time--if two competitors reach the same vertical height then whomever fell off the hold first wins... Most of us at the competitor meeting wanted this changed, but it stayed the same. I try to basically ignore the rules and just climb the routes in competitions, it's more fun for me that way, but I have an over-developed sense of fair play and seeing some of the scoring issues takes a bit away from the overall stellar event that Ouray is. I'll continue to compete and am getting together with some of the officials tonight to talk judging/rules; hopefully this will be sorted for next year.
Sunday's speed event was fast and, for me in my hung-over state, brutal. Sean Isaac and I went head to head, but it was Vince Anderson, fresh from climbing a big new route in Pakistan with Steve House, who put the heat on me, coming to within two seconds of my combined time. I respect Vince and Steve, two "Alpine Style" mountaineers, for competing in a mixed competition, good style. A lot of mountaineers won't compete in Ouray for various reasons, but Steve and Vince showed that there are at least two alpine climbers in North America who can climb technically hard outside magazine writing. Scott Semple deserves some respect as well, I tried to kill him a week ago while training (dropped a block of ice on his arm), he qualified through the open then landed on his bad arm while walking out after the open, and felt it crunch some more... An X-Ray confirmed that he had indeed broken it (likely the week before). So, despite climbing with a broken arm in the Open he still made the finals... Tough. He couldn't climb in the finals due to pain but wanted too.
The more times I visit Ouray and climb here the more I like it. If you've never been here it's absolutely worth a trip, the easy access, sunny skies and most of all the great community make it a "must climb" place. There's really no other place in the world with such easy access supported by a great town. I'll be back.
Some good photos up here
wg
The Ouray Ice Festival is likely the largest ice festival in the US (Conway and Keene might be bigger, they are both good "big" festivals too). I first attended the Ouray Ice Festival back in about 1996 when I was living in Colorado, so this was my “decade" anniversary for the ice fest. I always try to make it to Ouray, but often can't--I think I've only made about five festivals over the years, although things have gotten a bit fuzzy. The festival is a gathering of ice freaks, gear freaks, and the town of Ouray around the Ouray Ice Park, a deep narrow gorge with a fat pipe full of water running along the top. The fat pipe of water is critical, as the Ice Park taps into that water and creates more ice along the mile-long length of the gorge than all the rest of the ice in the state of Colorado put together. There are hundreds of fantastic ice climbs, and an increasing number of entertaining mixed climbs. Gear manufacturers lend out all the latest ice toys, clothing, boots and whatever else is related to climbing--one booth this year even had a very cool folding kayak (they did not offer demos in the gorge), so the "try this out" section of the show is pretty broad.
THE COMP
2006 Ouray Ice Festival Comp results here:
I usually compete in the "difficulty" and "speed" competitions, held on Saturday and Sunday respectively. I've competed a lot over the years in ice/mixed climbing, and now regard myself as "semi-retired." It takes a special comp to get me motivated to strap on a bib and get amongst it all, but Ouray is definitely special. For starters, most of my ice-related friends show up here, and with the nightly dinners, slideshows and parties, the opportunities for serious debauchery are pretty good. I'm hung over for the second day in a row, but back to the comp.
Normally Ouray is an invitational event, meaning the organizers only invite whomever they feel are the top climbers around. This year Michael Gilbert and the rest of the crew here added an "open," meaning anyone who wanted to could compete for a space in the finals. Those of us who had either won the event or done well in the past had a "bye" into the big show on Saturday. Men and women compete on the same route in the final, which is cool as it can show exactly how strong women have gotten at mixed climbing--especially Ines Papert. Last year she, Harry Berger and I were the only people to complete the final route, and Ines did it the fastest for the overall win. All three of us were back again this year, and as we were seeded to climb last due to our places last year we warmed up together. It felt more like any day out mixed climbing with friends. Eventually Harry headed off to compete, while Ines and I continued warming up. Ines and I did a very, very thin mixed line called "Seamstress," and it was just nasty thin climbing complicated by the fact that Ines and I had taken off our crampons to get a better pump. I got stupid pumped finding the micro flakes, and it took a little bit longer to climb the line than I thought so I had to rush right off and rap down into the canyon.
It's always a bit intimidating rapping into the bottom of the Canyon to wait your turn to do battle on the route. The noise from the huge crowd reverberates dully over the rush of the water, and the sky is only a sliver of blue above the dark walls. I always feel like I'm on a mission to escape back to the sun...If you climb the route then you get to untie in the sun, but if you fall off then you have to do what the competitors were calling "The Walk of Shame" out the bottom of the canyon. I wanted no part of the walk of shame... I told Harry, "Good luck" as he left our small alcove and started up the ice to the start of the mixed route. He didn't get lowered back down, so I figured he had managed to avoid the walk of shame, which meant he had done the route. My turn.
I still felt a bit pumped from my "warm-up," but I often climb better a little pumped than cold, and the opening 50 feet of ice was pretty casual and got me into a climbing groove. There was a small wooden platform where you switched belayers before starting about 40 feet of overhanging rock to an ice curtain and the sun, and at the platform I suddenly noticed the massive crowd lining the viewing stands. The crowd was loud and positive, I could hear a lot of my friends yelling and it fired me up. Belayers at many comps are kind of stern and objective, but at Ouray they always have a smile and a "good luck," it makes things feel a lot friendlier. The opening hooks on the mixed section were bomber--I'd just done battle with micro hooks on the warmup, so this just felt super casual and solid in comparison. I had a good time pulling from jug to jug to about the halfway point on the route, where things got a bit steeper. I knew I had to climb fast to beat Harry, but I was having so much fun I totally forgot about Harry. The music and the crowd were going off, it was a hell of a lot of fun and totally motivational. I got a bit confused just past halfway up the route and wasted some juice, but eventually found a hidden hold. I could hear the crowd laughing when I finally spotted it and pointed it out with my finger. I looked back at my belayer and he was laughing with me too, it was a moment. The last 20 feet of the route went well, I had to do the "hug a tool" trick (elbows wrapped around a cammed tool instead of hands to take a load off the forearms), but made it onto the ice without too much of a battle. On the ice I could hear the crowd yelling, "Go, go!" and remembered that I was in a comp and raced to the clip the final draw. My time was faster than Harry's, he came up to me and said, "Damn on-sight mixed climbing..." It's really hard to find the folds on natural rock compared to most artificial comp routes. Harry is likely stronger than me, but I had read the holds faster, probably because I've spent so much more time on natural routes than comp routes in the last few years. Harry had redpointed Alcatraz, M12, on his second try last week, bareback style. He can remember sequences better than anyone I know and is very fit this year.
Last year we had both sent the route and then watched Ines climb it faster, so we found a spot to watch Ines, climbing last. She, Harry, Louis-Julien Roy, Jay Audenart, and a bunch of other people were all climbing sans spurs. The rules this year banned "trickery" such as leg hooks over tools and so on but spurs were allowed, it takes some commitment to just head up a mixed competition route without spurs when many of your fellow competitors are using them. Ines had a hard time finding some sequences low on the mixed section, but as usual climbed smoothly and cleanly up to the hidden hold move that had baffled me. She is clearly a lot stronger than almost all of the male competitors, and has put tremendous time into her climbing--despite climbing with no spurs and on a still-broken ankle she made it look smooth. I respect that a lot. Unfortunately she just missed a small ice hold and put her pick in a bad spot. Without spurs to hold her feet onto the rock she had to do a swing out onto the ice hold and it blew when she loaded the swing, dropping her back into the canyon. She still handily won the women's division, and would have placed fourth overall against the men. Harry and I were the only two to climb the route, and I found the sequences a couple of minutes faster so I won.
I sometimes start to feel a bit old at 38, but then guys like Guy Lacelle (over 50) remind me that age doesn't automatically mean dysfunction. Guy placed a strong 8th! My bud Rich Marshall, now 42, placed a very strong third. It's good to see my friends rip it up, especially those older than I am--I'm not going away anytime soon, grin... The "Eh Team" was well-represented in the finals, with Canadians taking 7 of the top 15 places. Jason Nelson, a local, was the top-placing American. He's going to show me some of his new routes tomorrow, fired up for that! There was a bit of a judging cluster on the final route. One of the reasons I really don't compete much is that I hate scoring/rules clusters. Kim C. shot video of almost everybody in the finals and took some from various vantage points--based on this video I don't think the judges had a very good view of the route, and the confusion with the results reflect this (nothing huge, but every place is meaningful for the competitors). In Ouray ties are also broken by time--if two competitors reach the same vertical height then whomever fell off the hold first wins... Most of us at the competitor meeting wanted this changed, but it stayed the same. I try to basically ignore the rules and just climb the routes in competitions, it's more fun for me that way, but I have an over-developed sense of fair play and seeing some of the scoring issues takes a bit away from the overall stellar event that Ouray is. I'll continue to compete and am getting together with some of the officials tonight to talk judging/rules; hopefully this will be sorted for next year.
Sunday's speed event was fast and, for me in my hung-over state, brutal. Sean Isaac and I went head to head, but it was Vince Anderson, fresh from climbing a big new route in Pakistan with Steve House, who put the heat on me, coming to within two seconds of my combined time. I respect Vince and Steve, two "Alpine Style" mountaineers, for competing in a mixed competition, good style. A lot of mountaineers won't compete in Ouray for various reasons, but Steve and Vince showed that there are at least two alpine climbers in North America who can climb technically hard outside magazine writing. Scott Semple deserves some respect as well, I tried to kill him a week ago while training (dropped a block of ice on his arm), he qualified through the open then landed on his bad arm while walking out after the open, and felt it crunch some more... An X-Ray confirmed that he had indeed broken it (likely the week before). So, despite climbing with a broken arm in the Open he still made the finals... Tough. He couldn't climb in the finals due to pain but wanted too.
The more times I visit Ouray and climb here the more I like it. If you've never been here it's absolutely worth a trip, the easy access, sunny skies and most of all the great community make it a "must climb" place. There's really no other place in the world with such easy access supported by a great town. I'll be back.
Some good photos up here
wg
Monday, January 09, 2006
Steel Koan: Cineplex route sent
On Saturday I sent the hardest mixed climb I've ever done--Steel Koan, in the Cineplex. It was a good day to send, -1C with a full crew of friends out giving it in the depths of the Cineplex. I'm always amazed how much energy a good group of people can add to climbing, so thanks to everyone who was up there (Raph, Scott, Rich and Steve, who almost all took a turn holding the rope, and everyone else who worked on the route with me (The Guys, Barfy, etc). It's been a long time coming--Steel Koan took many days of effort to figure out--drilling, cleaning, frigging, it all adds up to one sore back and a lot of trips up the Parkway. I did it on my second day of redpoint attempts, but I spent a half-dozen days unearthing the route before attempting to redpoint it. The climbing is dynamic and aggressive, more of a power outing than a long endurance route, although climbing 25 feet of very steep terrain followed by 30+ feet across a dead-horizontal roof and then some hard ice does demand endurance. I learned a lot on this route, and that's where the name "Steel Koan" came from. Initially the route seemed incomprehensible, but as my front lever strength came back (spending October in Nepal didn't help with my fitness) the moves started coming. There is no one crux, just powerful and intricate body movement for many moves in a row. Big "Game Style" swings, dynos, body tension, and an intricate finish on a wild ice curtain protected by screws driven straight up into the ice add up to something totally different and fun. It seems as hard as the extension I added to the Game Last year, but the movement is much more technical. I'll just rate it plenty hard enough for me. I'm actually bummed out today, this project gave shape to my fall and early winter, what now? I'm planning on visiting Austria to try Albert's "Game Over," and then Scotland and Norway, but the Cineplex beast was what I've been training for and thinking about for a long time. It's like the end of a good relationship or something, I really liked it! On the other hand my back, arms and fingers rejoice that I don't have to do the swings anymore!
Explanation for the name: If you've ever read any Zen philosophy you've probably come across a "Koan." Koans are hard to define--they are questions that Zen followers consider, such as:
Two hands clap and there is a sound. What is the sound of one hand?
-Hakuin Ekaku
More on this Koan from Wikpedia:
"...in the beginning a monk first thinks a koan is an inert object upon which to focus attention; after a long period of consecutive repetition, one realizes that the koan is also a dynamic activity, the very activity of seeking an answer to the koan. The koan is both the object being sought and the relentless seeking itself. In a koan, the self sees the self not directly but under the guise of the koan...When one realizes ("makes real") this identity, then two hands have become one. The practitioner becomes the koan that he or she is trying to understand. That is the sound of one hand." - G. Victor Sogen Hori, Translating the Zen Phrase Book 11.
The traditional answer to this koan is " ", or possibly to thrust out one's hand. The reference to two hands is understood as a metaphor for dualism (yin/yang, subject/object, etc) and intellectual discrimination, while the reference to one hand is a metaphor for nondualism. But more irreverent and humorous answers have been proffered, involving various ways of slapping the fingers of one hand against its own palm. It might be as simple as "the whole is greater than the sum of the parts".
Style: "Bareback, no trickery." Doing this route comp style would still be solid M12, there aren't many features to hook a spur on. Body tension is everything, a lot of the moves are horizontal laybacking along thin seam across a roof. With full trickery it would be relatively easy, and a offer a very fast but less interesting answer to the Koan. Many of the holds broke repeatedly, and to stay honest I have to say that the line between cleaning and flat-out hold chipping is getting very blurry on high-end mixed climbs done on shite rock. I am unsure what the future of very hard mixed climbing will be due to this dilemma, here's a koan to play with: "If one tap is cleaning, how many taps are chipping?" As a sponsored climber I'm supposed to just spew about how bad-ass the climb is (and I am spewing, grin), but that's the complete picture of this route, I can look at myself and you in the eye if I tell it like it is.
That about sums up the experience of climbing this route. That journey seems far more relevant than success, although success is always satisfying--for about 24 hours.
Description:
Start right of The Game, climb big overlaps with swings, cross the Game, continue across thin crack in huge roof, pull techie ice curtain at the end
Explanation for the name: If you've ever read any Zen philosophy you've probably come across a "Koan." Koans are hard to define--they are questions that Zen followers consider, such as:
Two hands clap and there is a sound. What is the sound of one hand?
-Hakuin Ekaku
More on this Koan from Wikpedia:
"...in the beginning a monk first thinks a koan is an inert object upon which to focus attention; after a long period of consecutive repetition, one realizes that the koan is also a dynamic activity, the very activity of seeking an answer to the koan. The koan is both the object being sought and the relentless seeking itself. In a koan, the self sees the self not directly but under the guise of the koan...When one realizes ("makes real") this identity, then two hands have become one. The practitioner becomes the koan that he or she is trying to understand. That is the sound of one hand." - G. Victor Sogen Hori, Translating the Zen Phrase Book 11.
The traditional answer to this koan is " ", or possibly to thrust out one's hand. The reference to two hands is understood as a metaphor for dualism (yin/yang, subject/object, etc) and intellectual discrimination, while the reference to one hand is a metaphor for nondualism. But more irreverent and humorous answers have been proffered, involving various ways of slapping the fingers of one hand against its own palm. It might be as simple as "the whole is greater than the sum of the parts".
Style: "Bareback, no trickery." Doing this route comp style would still be solid M12, there aren't many features to hook a spur on. Body tension is everything, a lot of the moves are horizontal laybacking along thin seam across a roof. With full trickery it would be relatively easy, and a offer a very fast but less interesting answer to the Koan. Many of the holds broke repeatedly, and to stay honest I have to say that the line between cleaning and flat-out hold chipping is getting very blurry on high-end mixed climbs done on shite rock. I am unsure what the future of very hard mixed climbing will be due to this dilemma, here's a koan to play with: "If one tap is cleaning, how many taps are chipping?" As a sponsored climber I'm supposed to just spew about how bad-ass the climb is (and I am spewing, grin), but that's the complete picture of this route, I can look at myself and you in the eye if I tell it like it is.
That about sums up the experience of climbing this route. That journey seems far more relevant than success, although success is always satisfying--for about 24 hours.
Description:
Start right of The Game, climb big overlaps with swings, cross the Game, continue across thin crack in huge roof, pull techie ice curtain at the end
Friday, January 06, 2006
Hockey "cross training," Hafner, training
Yesterday I went into Hafner with Pat Morrow and a group of willing victims to do some test-shooting on a DVD Pat and I are working on. About half of Canmore later showed up to train for Ouray, it was an entertaining spectacle as everyone was going for it. Dale Robotham took the "best whip" award not once but several times, this guy really goes for it despite not fitting into the "spring chicken" category anymore, good on him. One of the great things about living in the Bow Valley is that many of my friends go climbing when they want to, not just on the odd weekend. A Thursday in Hafner may be more packed than a weekend day, that's the sign of a healthy attitude toward "work" I think.
All the people we had out to play "students"for the DVD ripped it up, always fun to see people progress quickly, it's one of the best things about teaching ice climbing. We'll see what happens with the DVD. Lisa Paulson and Glen from the Warden Service were out cutting logs on the trail on the way in, thanks. The Wardens around here are good people, I hope I continue to meet them while having fun and not when I'm getting yanked off a climb in a rescue--although I'm glad to have them as a last-resort back up, few places in the world have such competent rescue.
Workouts:
Thursday (yesterday): Supposed to be a rest day after yesterday's efforts, but ended up running a bunch of speed laps and actually kind of getting worked... I hadn't speed climbed since Ouray last year, it takes a lot of juice as fast speed technique is nothing like "normal" ice cimbing, 50 percent of your weight is on your arms.
In the evening I ended up playing shinny (pond-style hockey for those not from Canada) with a bunch of other climbers, it was pretty clear who the climbers were on the ice and not because of their stellar skating. Good fun, all ages, but I got WORKED sprinting up and down the ice and trying not to get smoked every single time by teenagers and their younger brothers. Hockey is a wicked sprint workout, left me gasping and with sore muscles not used to the motions, I haven't played ice hockey in, oh, about 20 years. Some of my favorite workouts are spontaneous fun, just saying "yes" to something different instead of being a lazy-ass.
On Wednesday I went for an hour run, then went to the Vsion with Josh Briggs. We trained power first, and I was actually able to hold a full front lever for about .5 seconds, still a hell of an improvement! Handstand pushups went well too, Briggs is strong on those, then we did some fun lock-off training, painful, followed by some drytools laps in the Vsion cave. Five of those after power training was really more than enough...
All the people we had out to play "students"for the DVD ripped it up, always fun to see people progress quickly, it's one of the best things about teaching ice climbing. We'll see what happens with the DVD. Lisa Paulson and Glen from the Warden Service were out cutting logs on the trail on the way in, thanks. The Wardens around here are good people, I hope I continue to meet them while having fun and not when I'm getting yanked off a climb in a rescue--although I'm glad to have them as a last-resort back up, few places in the world have such competent rescue.
Workouts:
Thursday (yesterday): Supposed to be a rest day after yesterday's efforts, but ended up running a bunch of speed laps and actually kind of getting worked... I hadn't speed climbed since Ouray last year, it takes a lot of juice as fast speed technique is nothing like "normal" ice cimbing, 50 percent of your weight is on your arms.
In the evening I ended up playing shinny (pond-style hockey for those not from Canada) with a bunch of other climbers, it was pretty clear who the climbers were on the ice and not because of their stellar skating. Good fun, all ages, but I got WORKED sprinting up and down the ice and trying not to get smoked every single time by teenagers and their younger brothers. Hockey is a wicked sprint workout, left me gasping and with sore muscles not used to the motions, I haven't played ice hockey in, oh, about 20 years. Some of my favorite workouts are spontaneous fun, just saying "yes" to something different instead of being a lazy-ass.
On Wednesday I went for an hour run, then went to the Vsion with Josh Briggs. We trained power first, and I was actually able to hold a full front lever for about .5 seconds, still a hell of an improvement! Handstand pushups went well too, Briggs is strong on those, then we did some fun lock-off training, painful, followed by some drytools laps in the Vsion cave. Five of those after power training was really more than enough...
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
Iceberg Video Project
Last spring I went to Labrador with Ben Firth and climbed bergs near Makkovik. Randy and Lorie from the Adlavik Inn took care of us, and were great to work with. Randy is a fun and very competent guy who brings his native knowledge of the area along. Anyhow, we went and climbed some bergs in a really wild place. The bergs were terrifying--we wanted grounded bergs close to shore but there weren't any ("Should have been here last year, they were on the beach in front Makkovik!), so we wound up climbing drifting bergs way off-shore. This was very engaging and definitely the most dangerous thing I've ever done, but also very cool. Anyhow, I've spent the last week doing a revised cut of this film (shot by my buds Scott Simper and Pat Morrow), it's back with Emerge Media in Calgary now, we worked on it again last night. Emerge Media has done the "real" edit on my last two films, Martina and Graham are super solid to work with. One of the things I like about making films is that I get to work with good people of my own choosing. Anyhow, spent all day yesterday working on the film, then Calgary in the evening, the film is looking much better. Discovery also ran a piece from the trip, a good six minutes on the experiences Ben and I had.
Workouts Jan 3:
Nothing. Nada. Computer ass all the way.
Workouts Jan 3:
Nothing. Nada. Computer ass all the way.
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
Canadian Election
As of today the Conservatives are ahead of the Liberals in the polls here in Canada, followed by the NDP and the Quebec Bloc. This just amazes me--the Conservative leader, Stephen Harper, is an idiot, yet he's very popular here in Alberta. Just to make it clear on why Harper is an idiot: he made a big deal out of the Iraq invasion, saying Canada should have taken part. That alone means there's no way I can vote for him--if he were in power when the US invaded Iraq then Canadians would be directly taking part in that idiocy. His domestic policies are even more bizzare, but somehow he is getting votes in western Canada and even Onterrible. I think people in Canada are just sick of the corrupt, over-fed Liberals, and see the Conservatives as the only viable option. Nobody is going to win a majority in the upcoming election, so we'll likely have a conservative minority government, which will be a cluster. This might actually be a good thing--the Bloc, Liberals and NDP won't let really idiotic legislation through from the conservatives, same for the conservatives with the NDP, Liberals, and the Bloc. On the other hand everybody will be doing deals and trading for pet programs, our budget surplus likely won't be in a year or two.
I'm going to vote Green. Here in Alberta the Greens don't have a flower's chance in a Canadian winter of winning, but the Greens now have official party status due to getting something like 4 percent of the vote in the last election. We're seeing a lot more of the Greens in the media, and their long-term view is something we really need in our politics. A lot of people think of the Greens as being primarily a bunch of tofu-eating tree huggers, and many are, but they are the only party really saying anything different in this election--they are at greenparty.ca, check it out. They are for proportional representation, something I'd like to see, for smarter health care, for fair trade (not the multi-national companies as is Harper), etc. This guy makes a much better case than I can: for voting Green. So, with all the massive power of this forgotten blog, I'm endorsing the Green party for 2006! I'm not eating any tofu though, that stuff is nasty and reportedly may in fact be bad for you...
Our (Wild Rose riding) Green Guy is Sean Maw, seems like a good candidate.
Workout January 2
Trying to finish off a video edit and hating it, but still managed to hike/run for an hour on Lady MacDonald with Kim and Chili, then hit the Vsion in the evening. The Vsion is great for training, where else can you boulder on plastic with your ice tools in a gym? Quentin and I marked a 25-move drytool problem then got really pumped trying to do it. Eventually did it, but I was still really beat up from the Cineplex on Saturday--it's amazing how just six routes mixed climbing can destroy my body. In sport climbing I need to climb at least ten hard routes to get this messed up, and even then it's usually just my forearms and a few isolated muscles that get torched from hanging on, not every muscle in my body. Anyhow, did a few laps then did sets of front levers and handstand pushups. Even though I was tired both of those went better than they have the last few times, my ass is only mostly sagging on front levers instead of totally, and I hit a massive FIVE handstand pushups on my first set... Following sets were stronger too. Starting to balance for at least half of the handstand pushup movemet each time too instead of my feet sliding on the wall, fun to see improvements.
I'm going to vote Green. Here in Alberta the Greens don't have a flower's chance in a Canadian winter of winning, but the Greens now have official party status due to getting something like 4 percent of the vote in the last election. We're seeing a lot more of the Greens in the media, and their long-term view is something we really need in our politics. A lot of people think of the Greens as being primarily a bunch of tofu-eating tree huggers, and many are, but they are the only party really saying anything different in this election--they are at greenparty.ca, check it out. They are for proportional representation, something I'd like to see, for smarter health care, for fair trade (not the multi-national companies as is Harper), etc. This guy makes a much better case than I can: for voting Green. So, with all the massive power of this forgotten blog, I'm endorsing the Green party for 2006! I'm not eating any tofu though, that stuff is nasty and reportedly may in fact be bad for you...
Our (Wild Rose riding) Green Guy is Sean Maw, seems like a good candidate.
Workout January 2
Trying to finish off a video edit and hating it, but still managed to hike/run for an hour on Lady MacDonald with Kim and Chili, then hit the Vsion in the evening. The Vsion is great for training, where else can you boulder on plastic with your ice tools in a gym? Quentin and I marked a 25-move drytool problem then got really pumped trying to do it. Eventually did it, but I was still really beat up from the Cineplex on Saturday--it's amazing how just six routes mixed climbing can destroy my body. In sport climbing I need to climb at least ten hard routes to get this messed up, and even then it's usually just my forearms and a few isolated muscles that get torched from hanging on, not every muscle in my body. Anyhow, did a few laps then did sets of front levers and handstand pushups. Even though I was tired both of those went better than they have the last few times, my ass is only mostly sagging on front levers instead of totally, and I hit a massive FIVE handstand pushups on my first set... Following sets were stronger too. Starting to balance for at least half of the handstand pushup movemet each time too instead of my feet sliding on the wall, fun to see improvements.
Monday, January 02, 2006
Happy New Year
Happy New Year! Yeah, it's an arbitrary date where everybody gets all fired up about the next year and drinks stupid amounts of alcohol for no good reason, but the world needs more holidays like that. Christmas feels pretty over-commercialized--my parents celebrate the solstice, which is likely where the whole Christian Christmas thing came from anyhow--far easier to appropriate an already-existing pagan festival for a new religion than come up with something original. I'm all for celebrating more daylight, here in Canda we're down to a skinny 8 hours of light in the winter, I can't wait for the days to get a little longer! I generally make what I view as achievable resolutions on New Years, we did that as a group this year and then just swapped resolutions we wrote on pieces of paper. Interestingly, people seemed to get the resolutions they deserved. Mine are to "Get all the POS non-working cars out of my driveway ASAP." Hey, all the cars work, just not at the moment... And one other one I already forgot so it doesn't count.
Spent New Year's Eve in the Cineplex Cave with Guy Lacelle and Guy Tremblay, two strong francophone climbers. Learned some interesting new Quebecois words while the Guys worked one of the best M9 routes in the Rockies, the Cineplex. Both sent it last try of the day, good efforts. I beat the hell out of myself first beating the holds in on my new route, then falling off it. It's nice that it's basically organized now--one of the problems with climbing shit rock with your ice tools is that the rock tends to break until it's all cleaned up. It's taken me four days of effort just to bolt and get the route cleaned up enough to actually climb. I had three redpoint burns on it, but it's really hard, best I could do was two very long hangs. The moves are so continuously powerful that as soon as I lose a bit of power I'm done, it's impossible to keep your feet on the small features in the horizontal roof. The climbing is super technical--keeping your frontpoints on the little edges is critical for the dynamic moves, but doing so requires several "front lever" moves...
Workouts:
Dec 31: Cineplex Cave, 2XM9 warmup, 4XMhard. Absolutely pounded.
January 1: Wanted to train today but my back, lats and stomach were totally thrashed so rest day. Went for a walk to get rid of hangover and did some Yoga.
Spent New Year's Eve in the Cineplex Cave with Guy Lacelle and Guy Tremblay, two strong francophone climbers. Learned some interesting new Quebecois words while the Guys worked one of the best M9 routes in the Rockies, the Cineplex. Both sent it last try of the day, good efforts. I beat the hell out of myself first beating the holds in on my new route, then falling off it. It's nice that it's basically organized now--one of the problems with climbing shit rock with your ice tools is that the rock tends to break until it's all cleaned up. It's taken me four days of effort just to bolt and get the route cleaned up enough to actually climb. I had three redpoint burns on it, but it's really hard, best I could do was two very long hangs. The moves are so continuously powerful that as soon as I lose a bit of power I'm done, it's impossible to keep your feet on the small features in the horizontal roof. The climbing is super technical--keeping your frontpoints on the little edges is critical for the dynamic moves, but doing so requires several "front lever" moves...
Workouts:
Dec 31: Cineplex Cave, 2XM9 warmup, 4XMhard. Absolutely pounded.
January 1: Wanted to train today but my back, lats and stomach were totally thrashed so rest day. Went for a walk to get rid of hangover and did some Yoga.
Friday, December 30, 2005
Mixed tricks, aging
Mixed Movement:
I've been climbing mixed routes without spurs for the last couple of years, and the more I do of this the more fired up I get on the movement. Initially I thought I'd just end up doing more Figure-4 moves on steep terrain, but the reality is that I do about the same number of figure fours on a given route as ever--sometimes a figure 4 is all there is to do. But I've discovered a bunch of new moves (new to me anyhow, I'm sure others are well up on these) that make BB mixed cimbing a lot more fun than the the "spur over head, repeat to top" style that was en vogue for a while. I find myself climbing mixed routes much more like hard summer rock routes--here are some of the "tricks" we've been using lately on the steep cave routes or roofs.
Raking: Use the points under the ball of your foot on edgesor ice to "rake." You still have to keep body tension or your foot blows, unlike a spur, but you can really use the "rakes" to rest and setup for hard moves. It's a lot like having your foot on a bucket with a rock shoe--good as long as you have the body tension. You can also "paste" your points and let the rakes work a bit, this works suprisingly well even on relatively smooth rock.
Rake cams: Stick the side points into a crack feature then twist your foot--these can be bomber if done in a good spot, pretty cool. Still require body and foot tension to stay on.
Toe/foot Cams: These were key to climbing Alcatraz in Colorado last year--hook a "rake" point on an edge under a small roof, then cam your frontpoint or toe against something. It has to be done really precisely to hold well, but again it's a common move on rock routes, feels good. On routes with big horizontal cracks you can get a great heel/toe cam with the same trick. Sometimes it's even possible to get a no-hands rest, but it works your stomach really hard...
Heel Hooks: Again, just like rock climbing. Sometimes you can use the spikes on the back of your crampons for better friction in ice, or the rubber rand on your boot on rock.
Drop-Knees: These kind of died in the modern "power" era of rock climbing according to my bud Sonnie Trotter, but they are back with a vengance in mixed. They work better with mono-points and fruit boots for sure.
Dynos: Yep, with ice tools... Big reaches are really hard without spurs, often I find myself pasting my feet and trying to lock a big move, then falling. The solution is just to dyno. It's hard mentally at first, but I'm getting way into it for speeding things up through difficult sections--all key to beating the pump clock on steep routes.
------------------------
Aging
As I get older (38 now) I find my training needs to be more flexible. I can still train about as hard in terms of volume and intensity, but exactly what I do in any given week or even month seems to add up differently than it used to. New exercises cause more damage than they used to for example, but exercises I have done regularly for years don't, even if I haven't done them in weeks. Slight variations in diet, drinking, sleep, sickness (a cold for example) or just life impact my training much more than they used to. I used to basically never take a designated training day off no matter what I felt like. Now I do--sometimes that means three rest days in a row, like over Christmas when I didn't feel great, but then I'll come back and feel like training hard for three days in a row. At the end of a month my total climbing/training days still seems to add up to around 20-25, but it is definitely a much less structured process than it used to be. Surprsingly, this doesn't seem to hurt my overall results (I climb better each week at this point). No real point to this commentary, I just find it interesting to see how my body and mind change as I age...
------------------------------
Dec 29's workout: Power
Did the usual 30-minute Yoga session in the evening then went to the Vsion (climbing gym), where I focused on front lever power and lock-off power, two tricks the line I'm working in the Cineplex requires a lot of. Feeling a bit tired after yesterday's session in Hafner. Warmed up by bouldering at the Vsion (I'm a worthless POS on plastic at the moment, mixed climbing does NOT make you strong there!), then six rounds of front levers on rock rings (can't do one good clean front lever right now, but it's coming back, just did my best effort then one-leg extended levers, qick cycles to failure) alternating with hand-stand pushups (sets of 3-5, I'm weak on those too) followed by a half-dozen rounds of big lock-off moves on the peg board. Finished up with campusing on the peg board and messing about with some figure fours. A couple of weeks ago I watched a couple of the younger climbers at the Vsion (Seb and Zak) busting out front levers, it inspired me to get after it again. These guys are STRONG, and got that way through regular training. Many mixed climbers aren't very strong (myself included) compared to well-trained rock climbers. I can think, "I'm getting pretty strong" when I can do half-assed front levers when other mixed climbers I train with can't, or I can recognize the truth that I'm weak and need to train harder when I see the youth busting them out way better than I can. No excuses for my ass dangling low on front levers...
Goal: Send my new route in the Cineplex...
I've been climbing mixed routes without spurs for the last couple of years, and the more I do of this the more fired up I get on the movement. Initially I thought I'd just end up doing more Figure-4 moves on steep terrain, but the reality is that I do about the same number of figure fours on a given route as ever--sometimes a figure 4 is all there is to do. But I've discovered a bunch of new moves (new to me anyhow, I'm sure others are well up on these) that make BB mixed cimbing a lot more fun than the the "spur over head, repeat to top" style that was en vogue for a while. I find myself climbing mixed routes much more like hard summer rock routes--here are some of the "tricks" we've been using lately on the steep cave routes or roofs.
Raking: Use the points under the ball of your foot on edgesor ice to "rake." You still have to keep body tension or your foot blows, unlike a spur, but you can really use the "rakes" to rest and setup for hard moves. It's a lot like having your foot on a bucket with a rock shoe--good as long as you have the body tension. You can also "paste" your points and let the rakes work a bit, this works suprisingly well even on relatively smooth rock.
Rake cams: Stick the side points into a crack feature then twist your foot--these can be bomber if done in a good spot, pretty cool. Still require body and foot tension to stay on.
Toe/foot Cams: These were key to climbing Alcatraz in Colorado last year--hook a "rake" point on an edge under a small roof, then cam your frontpoint or toe against something. It has to be done really precisely to hold well, but again it's a common move on rock routes, feels good. On routes with big horizontal cracks you can get a great heel/toe cam with the same trick. Sometimes it's even possible to get a no-hands rest, but it works your stomach really hard...
Heel Hooks: Again, just like rock climbing. Sometimes you can use the spikes on the back of your crampons for better friction in ice, or the rubber rand on your boot on rock.
Drop-Knees: These kind of died in the modern "power" era of rock climbing according to my bud Sonnie Trotter, but they are back with a vengance in mixed. They work better with mono-points and fruit boots for sure.
Dynos: Yep, with ice tools... Big reaches are really hard without spurs, often I find myself pasting my feet and trying to lock a big move, then falling. The solution is just to dyno. It's hard mentally at first, but I'm getting way into it for speeding things up through difficult sections--all key to beating the pump clock on steep routes.
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Aging
As I get older (38 now) I find my training needs to be more flexible. I can still train about as hard in terms of volume and intensity, but exactly what I do in any given week or even month seems to add up differently than it used to. New exercises cause more damage than they used to for example, but exercises I have done regularly for years don't, even if I haven't done them in weeks. Slight variations in diet, drinking, sleep, sickness (a cold for example) or just life impact my training much more than they used to. I used to basically never take a designated training day off no matter what I felt like. Now I do--sometimes that means three rest days in a row, like over Christmas when I didn't feel great, but then I'll come back and feel like training hard for three days in a row. At the end of a month my total climbing/training days still seems to add up to around 20-25, but it is definitely a much less structured process than it used to be. Surprsingly, this doesn't seem to hurt my overall results (I climb better each week at this point). No real point to this commentary, I just find it interesting to see how my body and mind change as I age...
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Dec 29's workout: Power
Did the usual 30-minute Yoga session in the evening then went to the Vsion (climbing gym), where I focused on front lever power and lock-off power, two tricks the line I'm working in the Cineplex requires a lot of. Feeling a bit tired after yesterday's session in Hafner. Warmed up by bouldering at the Vsion (I'm a worthless POS on plastic at the moment, mixed climbing does NOT make you strong there!), then six rounds of front levers on rock rings (can't do one good clean front lever right now, but it's coming back, just did my best effort then one-leg extended levers, qick cycles to failure) alternating with hand-stand pushups (sets of 3-5, I'm weak on those too) followed by a half-dozen rounds of big lock-off moves on the peg board. Finished up with campusing on the peg board and messing about with some figure fours. A couple of weeks ago I watched a couple of the younger climbers at the Vsion (Seb and Zak) busting out front levers, it inspired me to get after it again. These guys are STRONG, and got that way through regular training. Many mixed climbers aren't very strong (myself included) compared to well-trained rock climbers. I can think, "I'm getting pretty strong" when I can do half-assed front levers when other mixed climbers I train with can't, or I can recognize the truth that I'm weak and need to train harder when I see the youth busting them out way better than I can. No excuses for my ass dangling low on front levers...
Goal: Send my new route in the Cineplex...
Thursday, December 29, 2005
I'm BACK!
Right, I've been in Nepal and all over, finally back home in Canmore and finally training hard again. I came back from Nepal tired and with a bad case of the post-trip blues. I often find the aftermath of big trips very difficult mentally--all my energy and focus goes into creating something, then it's done, it's hard to fill the resulting void. Total commitment to an idea means just that, there's not a lot of room for the rest of the world or even myself when I'm in the midst of planning or executing a trip. I find it very difficult on return to do the daily life tasks, train, or get much of anything productive done. Nepal was a great trip, but we failed miserably to climb our planned line on Teng Kang Poche. I could write volumes about why, but the reality is that we just didn't have what it took in terms of organisation, commitment, weather, conditions, etc. It was a great trip with fun people, but I hate failing. I know I'm supposed to "learn" from failure, but failure sucks, and I've failed enough to have learned that very well. I spent a week after Nepal looking listlessly at the computer screen and reading pulp fiction. Then I started to climb mixed routes again, and I can feel the energy building. Nepal put me in a truly horrendous climbing condition--a month of hiking up hillsides at altitude makes you aerobically fit, but I am fundamentally a technical climber, not a high-angle backpacker (alpinist). That's the one good realization to come out of the post-Nepal blues: I know what I am a bit better. If I go back to Nepal I'll go back with either a technical mindset or a hiking mindset, there is no middle ground for me. Easy climbing disturbs my ability to enjoy the mountains--I'd rather just go hiking and groove on the mountains. If a rope is involved I want it to be there because the climbing is hard enough to be the only thing that matters. Mixed climbing for me is hard--on the average mixed route I'll fall off, pumped silly, and I don't want it any other way. We've been playing with some new styles for mixed climbing of late, this link goes to some of that. Basically I'm really exicted about mixed climbing again, I'm working a new line in the Cineplex, up on the Parkway. I've been training consistently since early Novemember, but it's still too hard. It's just too crazy good, three big swings and then some horrendous moves for 25 feet across a thin crack in a flat roof. Everytime I go in there my stomach feels like it's been beaten with a baseball bat, perfect. I hope to get it done by the time I head for Ouray, we'll see.
Workouts: Basically just a ton of mixed climbing for the last month, with an emphasis on front lever power and power endurance. I train in at the Vsion when I can't get out mixed climbing, but absolutely nothing trains you better for mixed climbing than going mixed climbing. It's a volume game, mixed climbing is jus too weird for anything but mixed climbing to simulate the movements and head space required. Yesterday Scott Semple, Raphael Slawinski, Valerie Babaonov and I spent the day in the Hafner cave doing laps. I did Cave Man, m10 four times, with as much downclimbing as I could handle each time, and three laps on Fire Roasted, M10. The Hafner cave is the best training cave we have around here, plus it's a really nice place to hang out. The 30-minute walk is just long enough to get really warm on. Last time we were in there a big crew from Japan was also in there, going at Caveman with intensity. Toshi, a Japanese bud of mine from Banff, was working Caveman bareback and getting close, he's fired up.
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