Memorials

I've had a bunch of people email and ask about the memorials for Karen and Sue, here's the info.

Karen McNeill: 2:00 p.m. on Tuesday, June 20th, at the Canmore Seniors Centre located at 600 9th Street in Canmore, Alberta.

Sue Nott: A Celebration of Life for Sue Nott will be held at the Ford Amphitheater in Vail, Colorado on Sunday, June 18, at 1:00 PM.

WG

Karen and Sue, Yukon

Karen and Sue

The rescue mission for my friends on Foraker has officially ended, as the rangers believe there is realisticially no hope of finding the two women alive. I've felt this way for some time, but really hoped I was wrong. The rangers will continue to fly with the hope of possibly recovering their bodies or at least gathering some more information on what went wrong. I would like to commend the Rangers and Denali National Park for a job well done both on the rescue and conveying information to the public and friends about what was happening with the search. It's very easy to let a slight mis-wording or piece of bad information turn into something confusing for everyone during a high-profile rescue, yet the rangers kept it very smooth. The rangers also gave a lot of information quickly and accurately; I had some inside information, but was always impressed with how quickly that information was availible publicly--usually within minutes of the families hearing it. I have full faith that the Denali Rangers and everyone else who worked on the rescue did a great job, and that is very comforting. I know Karen and Sue's friends from around the world who followed the rescue on the web appreciated the information even if the news wasn't good. No rescuers were also lost despite hours and hours of dangerous high-altitude flying, which is a testament to the skill and dedication of all involved. Good job and thanks to all who worked on the rescue and conveying information to all of us.

Plans for the memorials to both women are near-finalized. If, against the longest odds imaginable, my friends do somehow show up it will be a joy to cancel their memorials.


Yukon

I've spent the last week up in the Yukon researching the flying there for a possible paragliding competition the locals want to put on next year. I felt almost guilty at times for chasing thermals while the fate of my two friends was still undecided, but I'm certain that both Karen and Sue would have heckled me mercilessly if I had cancelled the trip because they were missing. That's not a very logical thought, but damned it it doesn't bring a smile to my face.

I'll write something up on flying in the Yukon once I get my feet back under me here, but the short version is that the Yukon has some great flying based on a very active and enthusiastic group of local pilots. Despite being a bit distracted with Karen and Sue I had a fantastic time both flying and "parawaiting" with the locals. Two hours before my flight yesterday afternoon I cored a last thermal, that's how it works in Whitehorse. More later.

WG

Karen and Sue

Karen and Sue

Two friends, Karen and Sue, are missing in Alaska. They left basecamp on the 12th of May and and started up the challenging Infinite Spur route on Mt. Foraker on May 14. A rescue effort started about a week ago when friends became concerned that they had not been seen on the descent route, which faces Denali and is pretty easy to see with binoculars. At this point the details of where and when they were last seen, tracks, and gear found at the base just do not add up to a good outcome. The pair likely ran out of fuel and food over a week ago, and without fuel there’s no way to melt snow for water. No water means no life. There are stil lingering thoughts of hope along the lines that they have descended the back side of the mountain all the way to tree line and are, to quote a friend, “Roasting porcupines and wondering how the hell to get out of the woods.” If the two are in fact alive it would be the survival story of the century, and I would love to get the good news. But reality is harsh on hope most of the time in these situations. Friends are starting to plan memorial services, and personally I ache for the families of both women.

I’ve spent a fair amount of time with both Karen and Sue over the years; Karen has always been generous with her research, time and smiles. Karen had started to really make her climbing life work, yet remained very honest about what she did and how. Some “Professional” climbers seem to be on a quest to support their own egos, Karen was on a quest to climb in stupendous places with close friends, and did so with a modesty that was as refreshing as sticking your head in a glacial stream. I just realized I wrote the above in past tense; I would so love to be wrong!

Last year Sue and I, along with a couple of other friends, had a long discussion about alpinism. She sat on the steps in our house and just went off, it was impressive. Her energy and bounce were all out of proportion to her size, in the best possible way. I also remember Karen sitting on those same steps at a party with glitter all over the place, those two memories make me bust a smile right now.

I’m feeling very conflicted about alpine climbing at the moment. The sublime beauty of the mountains is absolutely worth exploring them, but mountains are so damn big and oblivious to the small human ants scurrying around on them. Karen and Sue are yet two more friends I miss deeply. I so hope they are instilling fear in the porcupines of Denali National Park, but know intellectually that this just isn’t likely. Peace to their families and friends around the world.

WG, up in the Yukon.

Rat Race Task Two

This morning looked grim--foggy, windy and building high clouds. Somehow it all cleaned up by about 12:00, and a short (42.5K) task was called. Waiting for the start in the air was interesting--it was very windy above about 7,000 feet (I use feet in US meets to keep it simpler), we kept drifting downwind at high rates of speed up high. But the cloud flying was amazing--I think there was some sort of wave action, we were able to surf the front of clouds at least 1500 feet above base, a rare treat in paragliding.

The task was a couple of laps around the local Wood Rat valley, then off into the small hills of the Rogue valley. I had a solid start and hammered around the first two laps in the lead with Eric Reed, the conditions were really nice with smooth glides and fast climbs. Eric and I were able to glide the first two laps with only one thermal, but had to use a lot of bar on the into the wind legs. Most of the field wasn't far behind us, which lent motivation to pushing on the speed bar. We then headed out into the Rogue valley and got slowed down--Bruce Goldsmith, Bill Belcourt and a couple of others caught us, and we all climbed together in a weak thermal. I was sure that there had to be something better and left to go find it. I thought the hills were going to work better than the flats, but got flushed out of them and very low, about 200 feet above the ground, but I could just tell it was going to work and sure enough I was able to slowly grovel back into the sky. Unfortunately Bill and the others had gone on glide to goal by then, with Bill into goal first. I'm pretty sure he won the meet as he also did well on the first task. I played it conservative into goal, once I've lost the lead I'd rather be solid in getting to goal than land early as many pilots did. In the end there were probably 20+ pilots into goal, amazing given how the day looked. I don't know where I placed but had a great flight. It's always better to end a meet with a good day of flying!


Workouts:

Last night I hit the Rogue Rock gym again, and started out by learning how to slack line instead of climbing for about 45 minutes, super fun. I've only tried slacklining a few times, I'm going to have set one up in my yard for the future. Got a good session of bouldering on the crew there, we ended up in keeping the gym open to beat ourselves up on a cool hard route into the night, a great workout. I really like visiting different gyms as I travel, I always meet good people and have a good time. The Rogue Gym is a good gym if you're ever in the Medford area, well worth a visit.

Rat Race Rain

The last three days have been rained out. It happens.


Workouts: A fair amount of drinking, running, climbing in the Rogue Rock gym, Yoga and drinking has gone on and been fun.

Rat Race Day One

A good task, a good day! Len won, something like 45 people in goal, fantastic! Good to see so many friends again, it's a gathering of the winged tribe for sure.

I had a very mixed day--somehow mis-timed the start and was a bit low when it happened, but high enough. The strange thing was my GPS didn't flip at the first turn point, and I didn't check it until I was about 3K past the point--I knew I'd flown right over it from the comp last year, but the GPS didn't switch, so... I flew back, got it for sure, then continued on the course but 15 minutes behind the leaders. Comp experiences like that are mind-taxing, it's easy to let the negativity of making a stupid mistake ruin the day. I was pretty much last on the course after my additional turnpoint, but managed to rally enough to make it into goal about 20 minutes behind the leaders. The whole time I figured I was in dead last, so I just relaxed and enjoyed the good flying, and it was worlds better to at least fly the course rather than blown up mentally. As happens so often, I ended up doing OK but forgetting the comp attitude and just flapping. I think it's important to compete a lot to be in practice, I haven't competed in a year and my systems were not tight. We loaded up my flight last night and I did indeed fly directly through the first turnpoint, but for some reason my GPS didn't flip. I should have been paying more attention.

Keith, Rob and Grahame all made goal, Nicole missed it by being a bit late and geting shaded out. Still a very good showing for team Canada.

OK, we're heading up the hill right now although the sky looks like grey.

Rat Race, Medford Rock Gym

It's been a fast-paced few days. On Friday Kim and I drove up to Jasper to wish my Mom a happy 60th birthday (happy birthday again), followed by a drive back to canmore, mad packing, then to the Dom semi-invitational suffer fest in his home gym that night. It's always a wicked event, thanks to the Dom family and all the other people who poured sweat, chalk and blood on the holds all evening, I always crawl out of Dom's garage. Then the party games started, which I suck at but lots of good energy from all the folks. Knut put me up at his house in Calgary that night, then up early to fly to Medford, Oregon, for the Rat Race paraglding competition. I got a great Yoga session on in the Portland airport, I always expect to get hassled as a potential Jihadist or something for doing yoga in US airports, but all cool, and it helped work out the kinks from Dom's desperate comp. Finally made it to Medford, amazing how much can happen in such a short period of time.

Today was one of the best flying days I've had in a long time--the area around Medford is just made for paragliding, awesome flight out to Grant's Pass and back--I didn't have to turn for around 30K straight, just blasting along at and above cloud base, amazing. Flights like that are why I fly. There are over 100 pilots down here, it should be a very competitive comp and conditions look stunningly good...

After flying all afternoon and doing a tandem in the morning Keith and I hit the Rogue Rock gym in Medford, it's a good gym, still worked from the comp but had a good time pulling on plastic. The comp starts tomorrow and it's late now, time to wrack and get fired up in the morning, yeah!

wg

Rat Race, Everest, Training

On Sunday I'm off the annual Rat Race, a high-level paragliding competition in southern Oregon. I did it last year and had a good time flying with friends, looking forward to it this year. The photo is from Bo Criss from last year. Paragliding competitions bring out the best and worst in flying; the best when the flying is good, and the worst when we end up sitting on the hill all day waiting for good conditions... I'm fired up to fly, but if the flying is no good I'll be able to climb at the Rogue Rock Gym in Medford, which wasn't open last year. I'm actually maintaining a pretty good climbing fitness so far this year, I do not want to go through last year's hell of getting strong again after sitting in my paragliding LaZboy chair all summer...

Everest:

Made the news yet again as a double amputee and about 40 other people choose to summit rather than try to help a dying climber down the mountain. Who knows what actually happened, but it's clear that Everest is a circus that continue to amuse the public, and justifiably so. The summit is now more highly coveted by the public than by climbers, it would be a funny situation if it weren't so deadly. Climbers get incensed when every accountant or car dealer who summits (or doesn't?) makes the local newspapers, while far more "epic" ascents on other mountains receive no mention. I have to laugh at this a bit as what climbers are really saying is, "Hey, pay attention to MY climbs!" I also have to agree that climbing Everest by a standard route with good Sherpa support isn't all that much of an accomplishment, perhaps more of a financial accomplishment in gathering the money than a sporting event. Sharon Wood and the other Canadians who climbed a difficult new route on the way to the summit of Everest 20 years ago deserve their press and respect for sure, but reporting every summit climb is starting to get ridiculous, like reporting who won the local golf tournament as front-page news. Today in the Calgary Herald there's a story about a local woman who is attempting to climb what she defines as all seven summits. This is not news, it's not a sporting accomplishment, but there it is, front page. In one sense I'm happy to see climbing get any press at all, but surely the new route Raphael and Scott climbed last week on Andromeda is more worthy of front-page news? Maybe if Raph or Scott was brain-dead and blind then it would have been more newsworthy? As someone who plays the media game and has also worked at various magazines I feel I'm qualified to say that the media, even the climbing media, doesn't really understand climbing, climbers don't understand the media or the public, and the public will never understand climbing as its portrayed in the media (I sure don't). No wonder everyone is confused, and the resulting mix is so very strange, as it is today in my Calgary Herald.

Training:

It's an odd time of year, where I'm trying to climb and also trying to fly and do all the business stuff I ignore in the winter months while climbing. I've been slipping in high-quality if short workouts at the end of the day. A couple of days ago David and I had a great workout after I ran some errands in Calgary, we went to the University of Calgary and spent a couple of hours bouldering on the outside wall of the PE building. Back in the early nineties I spent days on this long wall of flagstone bricks, it was a serious physical flashback. We finished the workout by going into the dungeon at the U of C and climbing on Murray's old inset brick wall, and on the even earlier plywood and two by four wall. I spent literally hundreds of hours in that basement hallway years ago, it was actually super fun to try some of the old problems. I even got low blood sugar just like the old days when my diet resembled that of a rabbit (we used to think any bodyfat over about three percent was a serious hindrance, how times change...). Anyhow, a great "Nostalgia" workout as dD called it.

I've been mountain biking some this spring, including a great ride with "buzzsaw" Joe in K-Country. We rode around Barrier mountain, an epic ride, it really fired me up to do more riding in K-Country. Yesterday I rode with Mark for about an hour, then went for a short run with Chili dog, followed by a good yoga session. I'm slowly gaining more flexibility, although public reaction to my attempts at Yoga generally involves laughter. So what, I figure I'm not getting any stiffer at least, plus Yoga is good for the head.

Lady Mac

After ten days of trying we actually got a good flight in off of Lady Mac above Canmore. Josh, Kim, Jerome and I hiked up, moving slow due to Josh having a blown knee. Cruised along, ended up launching at about 1:00, I got yanked into the sky. It was interesting flying, fairly windy at base (about 3,800M), but with big thermals to block the wind. It's always fantastic to get to fly in the Canmore area, big peaks with snow, love that action! The photo is looking east toward Calgary, Cougar Creek is the main drainage. It's officially really flying season again, finally!

Skaha, Hedley, the Muppet Show

Back home. It's been the spring of road trips, partly due to shite weather here in Canmore and partly just to listen to the tires on the road. I'm trying to shoot with photographer Jerome for the Gin catalog, but we've really flown only one day in the past eight, too windy the rest of the time. We did get a short flight in at Hedley, but it ended quickly when Jerome flew out into the valley and went backwards for a bit. He wisely choose to side-hill land in the lee to escape the valley wind. I watched all this while thermalling above him, then did the same. The air was not friendly. Later I learned that Keremeos, the name of the next town up the valley, means "really windy place" in the local native language (seriously). The Hedley valley is a relatively V-shaped valley surrounded by high plateaus; you couldn't design a better place for valley winds. It will have exceptional flying some days, but in general it's not a place I'd recommend for inexperienced pilots unfamiliar with valley winds and how to escape them. That said, our three days in Hedley were great; fun locals, lots of climbing, kayaking, hiking, gold mine tours, it's just a great town and one I look forward to visiting more in the future. The options are endless.

A lot of what I love about road-tripping comes from the people I get to travel with. In Hedley we met up with the full "Muppet Show" from the west coast. I think the name started with my bud Jim O, as we are indeed muppets on strings when flying paragliders. Anyhow, the Muppet Show varies in size and composition but includes an incredible chef, AKA the Dingo. The Dingo cooks at the best restaurant in Whistler, and travels with coolers of top-notch food and the ability to put together the best food I've ever eaten. But the real highlight is watching the Dingo cook, it's a Cirque de Soleil style festival of speed, alcohol and general culinary madness that only reaches fruition when the food hits your mouth. Thanks to the Dingo!! The rest of the Muppet show knows how to erect a nylon refugee camp in ten minutes flat using vehicles, kayak paddles and whatever else is handy. There's an art to nomadic living, and the Muppets have it down to a joyous science. Many of my best hours have been spent camping in apparent squalor but with a standard of life far higher than I find while occasionally staying at the fanciest hotels in the world. It might seem a bit trite to say, but I always return from trips with the Muppet show reminded that real life is best found outside with friends.

On Wednesday Jerome and I stopped off at Skaha while driving to Lumby and shredded ourselves running from route to route. Skaha is a hobbit land of fun climbs; we stoppeed climbing only when our skin was bleeding and the sun faded into a blue evening. I was so worked I couldn't even climb a relatively easy route, I love that!

Thursday was spent in the company of Randy at the Lumby Air Park, always a pleasure, and we even flew twice betweeen rain storms. Lumby offers the most reliable soaring in Canada I think. It's not the best place for competitions due to the variable weather, but those variations almost always produce at least a couple of hours of soaring conditions, it's amazing. I've spent months there over the last four years, it's starting to feel a bit like home thanks to Randy and the good scene there. We had to seperate from the Muppet show and head up home at night, now Jerome and I are back in Canmore and watching the wind howl yet again. I really hope we get to fly the next couple of days!

WG

Hedley, BC

Hedley is located in the middle of nowhere, also known as southern BC. It might be worth taking the time to look it up on a map--Hedley is one amazing place. In the last two days we've done some excellent granite bouldering, crack climbing (10-foot roof with a wild crack) plus some kayaking and nice mountain running. The town is full of characters and loose nuts shaken here by various storms, a nice change from increasingly homogenous Canmore. We've been treated very well by the people here, I know I'll spend more time here in the future on the basis of the people I've met.

No flapping for the last two days but, but lots to do so no stress. Today doesn't look too special, but you never know!

wg

AIR

Jerome Maupoint, author of the beautiful paragliding book "Stolen Moments" is in town shooting for a week or so. Yesterday we flew Swansea near Invermere, fantastic day, four hours of turning circles above very snowy peaks. Light winds, good lift, it was about as good as it gets in the spring. Josh flew the Zulu, I flew the new Boomerang Sport.

My favorite part of the flight was playing over the top of a ridge down near Fairmont--the tops of the ridges still look mid-winter, big whipped cream rolls of snow everywhere, plus the snow mellows the thermals out a bit making it more reasonable to fly close to the ground, a rare treat and something I normally avoid like the plague in the Golden-Canal flats area. It wasn't even too cold at altitude, but I was dressed in Himalaya-style clothing in anticipation of suffering. Thanks to Tobias and the nutter mountain bike crew for the lift up the hill too.

The Sport is one silky and intuitive glider. It normally takes me a few flights to figure out a new glider, but I felt totally at home on it after only a couple of hours of thermalling. I flew several DHV 2/3 gliders a few years back and liked them at first, but ultimately decided DHV 2/3 gliders mainly offered the performance of a 2 and all the danger of a 3. So far the Boom Sport provides enough feel of the air for me to keep it inflated, without requiring nearly as much attention as the full comp Boomerangs. The Sport feels more like the Boom III than the Boom IV, especially on the speed bar where it seems to "firm up" and remain stable. We had to use a fair amount of bar to get back to Swansea, my 5020 said the performance stayed relatively good on bar. The "feel" was good too, the Sport stays pitch stable when cutting through chop upwind, that's where the difference between a comp glider and a DHV 2 is usually most apparent. I'll write a bit more about it after I get some more hours on it.

I'll post some photos later, we're out the door to have at it again today. I love spring flying!

Atlanta, back home

Houseboat on Lake Lanier, Bruce photo.

Atlanta: wore me out.

It’s been a great couple of days here in Atlanta, with a lots of new experiences. Giving a “alpine start” show at 7:00 in the morning was a first, but I didn’t see too many people nodding off, and I’m still thinking about my tour of the hospital with Dr. R, it was educational.

A week ago I was climbing cracks in Indian Creek, Utah, where I had to shake the sand out of my sleeping bag with bloody hands before bed; in Atlanta I’ve had to eat the mints on my pillow to get into the thick sheets of the Ritz Carlton, real hardship, but I’ve managed. Plush hotels always feel mixed to me--very nice, but the reality is that my sandy sleeping bag was at least as luxurious as the Ritz, and the morning caffeine went down easier with a view of red rocks and the possibility of a day grinding yet more skin off my hands. Luxury for me has nothing to do with thread count or valet service; luxury is waking up with an easy mind and a wide-open day. Still, the mints were tasty...

Wednesday’s outdoor activities were curtailed by rain here in Atlanta, but in the evening I went to the Climbing Shop/ Wall Crawlerz gym and met up with one of the owners, Tim, to get a boulder session on. I’d also had a box of the new Scarpa shoes shipped there, I always love opening big-ass boxes of new gear. The new Scarpa climbing shoes look wicked, definitely the best rock shoes I’ve seen out of Scarpa in a long time. I’ll write some more on that once I’ve used them a bit more. Tim and a few locals beat the hell out of me in Wall Crawlerz for a few hours, it’s got great bouldering and a motivated crew of locals. The high humidity (the locals said it was low…) conditions destroyed my skin quickly, but good fun. Went out for beers with Tim and Dr. Dan from the AMC and his family, Atlanta is a rocking city at night in comparison to Canmore, good fun.

Thursday was a “perfect” three-sport day. I hooked up with a couple of the “Bad Apple” paramotorheads, led by Bruce. Bruce has a really nice houseboat on Lake Lanier, we ended up flying his motor near the lake and having a great afternoon of it. Perfect smooth 400fpm thermals, warm air, hell yeah! Thanks to Bruce and Worth, that was one fun afternoon! From there I drove over to Stone Mountain with the idea of getting a run and quick solo up the 500-foot rock dome on. Stone Mountain is Yosemite-style granite dome about 20 minutes from Atlanta, I’d always wanted to climb it, and figured there would be some good trail running around the base. It was a bit weird when I got to Stone Mountain—no climbing anchors, no trails to the base of the wall, weird. I ran around for about 30 minutes trying to find a way to get to the base of the cliff, but was thwarted by bush and poison ivy. Eventually I worked my way into the cliff and soloed an easy but fun slab line in the perfect evening light. Strangely, there was a line chipped into the cliff at about 100 feet off the deck, but there’s also a huge chipped carving in the middle of the main face so I didn’t think too much of it. As I topped out and hopped over the mesh fence a guy came up and said, “Ah, there’s no climbing allowed here, you can be arrested for that! Didn’t you see the “no climbing line?” Oh, so that’s what the line was… It all worked out OK, but I think it’s insane that climbing is illegal on public lands. The top of the dome has almost alpine-style vegetation (and a tram), it's definitely worth a visit. Finished out the day with another session at Wall Crawlerz with Tim and the Thursday night boulder crew, some strong youths there! I was left barely able to hold my beer glass.

Back home in Canmore now, thanks to the many good people who helped out in Atlanta!

Workouts: Steady bouldering in the gyms (thanks to Tim, Zach and Wall Crawlerz), one day on the rock, lots of Yoga and running. Finally getting some finger strength back, it sure does take more time than it did when I was 21.

Atlanta, Rockies Accident, Risk

I'm in Atlanta, Georgia for a couple of days, nice to see all the green grass and full spring. Spent this morning doing a talk for Dr. R. and the staff at the Atlanta Medical Center, and then toured the hospital a bit with Dr. R. Very interesting to see the "inside" of a hospital, there are a lot of very talented and dedicated people working very hard. I definitely felt a bit selfish--I climb and fly, write and teach, but these men and women are genuinely making a huge positive impact with each person wheeled through the doors. I generally only see hospitals when visiting friends there, it was educational, thanks to Dr. R. and his staff for the experience--one of the things I love about speaking is that I get to meet some very different people, I sometimes feel I'm the one who should be paying for the experience. I'm hooking up with some local paragliders and climbers for some activities later today in the Atlanta area, should be fun!

Risk:

Here's an interesting article on risk, it does a good job of explaining something I've felt but not clearly understood: People change their behaviour depending on perceived risk.

Another sad accident on Deltaform (near Lake Louise, Alberta)

There was a sad accident on Deltaform last week involving two climbers from the US. I had corresponded with one of them about Rockies conditions before they came up, then found out the man died a week later. Both partners succeeded on Deltaform but were caught in a bad slide on the way down. One climber somehow lived despite the slide, bad injuries and spending a couple of nights out with those injuries. I'm always sorry to hear of accidents in the Rockies, the emails asking for information were positive and showed the climber's excitment. Risk and reward, life and death, joy and pain, these pairs of experiences are so closely linked. The deceased sounds like a good guy just hitting his stride in the mountains, I wish his friends and family some peace. Spring snow conditions in the Rockies are dynamic and highly variable, play safe out there.

Workouts

Did the plane sit program yesterday, but it's been a good month, the rock fitness is coming back as well my lungs, spring just fires me right up every year.

Aviation and primates

The weather here in Canmore is incredible, blue splitter days with low winds, warm temps, perfect for all recreation. Hiked up Lady MacDonald, the local Canmore paragliding site, for the first the time yesterday, it's so good to get back into the air. Flying in these mountains is just so damn good when it's good, today also looks good, yeah!

Here's some humor for all you monkeys.

Workouts: Climbing lots, hiking up a big hill with a paraglider, running, even mountain biking finally. This time of year is great, all these new sports open up again, yeah!

A good day to remember

A few weeks ago I was thinking about Spring, and it hit me that it's been a year since my friend Chris Muller died. I marked the date on my calendar not with a heavy heart but with a, "Hey, remember the good stuff" feeling. Today my calendar reminded me again, and the cold, snowy spring morning seemed to fit with the mood. I love seeing fresh snow, it always seems so hopeful and full of promise to me for some reason, and that's how I often felt around Chris.

So here's to Chris and my other friends and family who make life better! I'm going to go for a run in the snow, the sun's coming out, it's a good day to remember and celebrate both the soul-shaking glory and impenetrable darkness of life.

-April 22nd, a good day to remember.

Back North

Busted out the drive from Moab to Canmore via Salt Lake City over the last couple of days. I like long drives, scenery passing by, a 10-hour drive is far better than a 10-hour flight.

The final two days in Moab were good fun, we had trashed our hands so thoroughly that we had to spend another day up in Mill Creek, a decent old-school sport area above Moab. It's supposed to be a secret 'cause, "if word gets out the whole world will show up!" Well, the whole world was already there plus their dogs and it was still fun. Mill Creek is a fun area but a bit aggressive on the fingertips--perfect for balancing crack pain out over the rest of the hands. I survived some brutal local sandbagging and had a great day out with a horde of people. I learned that one of the routes that beat me up was actually rated 12c/d, and that another "12a" I'd onsighted was 12c. The more I climb the more I laugh at grades, it's all a mess in any form of climbing. I'd like to be good enough to just climb whatever lines looked best and ignore the numbers, maybe by the fall I will be, although paragliding season is likely to turn me into a doughboy again...

The highlight of the last couple of days was a great run up above Moab in wild evening desert light. It was Jeep safari week while we were down there, I ran by a bunch of jeep heads beating hell out of their vehicles--that was a surreal contrast with the general silence and colours of the desert. Later they passed me as I did a yoga session in the dirt beside the road, I think I was more alien to them than they were to me--I can get my redneck on, but a guy in tights doing yoga in the dirt sure perplexed them.

Stopped by BD to check out new designs and gear, saw some very cool stuff. Just when I think everything is evolved as it's going to get it all changes... Kolin has been doing some research on used slings and biners, check this out. I like the fact that most of the people at BD are truly climbers--Kolin started doing this to check his own safety on used gear, good information.

Also stopped by Superfly, always good to see Chris, Jeff and the real mastermind, Beci. Greg and I started driving home in a raging snowstorm, fully 'pine conditions, then cruised into Canmore on a warm, sunny day. It was like Canmore was south of SLC and not the other way around.

Thanks to all the Canmorons and Moab locals who made the last ten days so much fun, great trip!!!

Canyonlands redux

There's nothing like calling home and hearing that it's snowy there... Still sunny and warm here in Moab, although we had biblical winds last night that turned our campsite into a garbage mess and ripped up a few tents. Sand everywhere, it reminds me of a theory I read once that the Anasazi commonly died young because their teeth were too worn down from eating sand-filled food. I can see the truth in that idea after munching sand for a while, I'm starting to notice flavour differences; desert patina, Cutler vs Dakota, they all taste different... Not really, but sand is a integral part of the culinary experience here.

We had to take a break from cracks on Thursday and went into Mill Creek with the ever-psyched Lisa, who pointed a team of us at various routes. Mill Creek is a great place to climb, a lush oasis (still some snow down there despite the new leaves and sun) after the starkness of Canyonlands. Lev is close to senind "The Bleeding," an old Noah Bigwood route that hasn't seen a second ascent despite some good efforts, he again came close but no chains. Good to see him and Lisa as always, we had so much fun that we destroyed our fingertips, so it was back to Canyonlands on Friday, a hot day.

I talked to two of Moab's more prolific crack climbers last rest day, and they told me their secrets to climbing hard cracks: Aspirin and tape. Yep, even the pros find the harder cracks painful, it's not just my wussy ice climber skin and feet...

We were going to head up to the Optimator buttress but it was in the sun, so Greg, Ben and a new arrival, Nathan, and I headed to whatever buttress is across the drainage from Optimator. A couple of Aspirin, lots of tape, and a fun 5.10 corner later I was fired up to try something a little harder. Greg and Nathan had both had a go at a supposed 5.10+ just down the way, and then I had the battle of the trip on it, green Camalots on bad rock (we trundled a small car out of the start) to Red cams (OK). I got up to where it was supposed to turn Gold cams (good hands) and found another 25 feet of overhanging green cams, of which I luckily had two. I got excited and sent it with some choice words, definitely the hardest thing I've succeeded on this trip. Ben made me feel better by also using self-encouraging words on it. It felt like an exam or something, I was happy to get by with a pass if not an A for technique. The tape and Aspirin are essential, thanks to Dean and Steph for that info, I've never used Aspirin for rock climbing before, it's key for nasty cracks.

We then had a cool hike contouring around the drainage to the Optimator buttress; it was cool because it's very shady, lots of green grass, little seeps under huge soaring rock buttresses, I'll remember that hike for a long time. The contrasts in the desert are what make it so special I think, green and red, blue and white, the boundaries between the colors are sharper down here.

At the Optimator buttress we found a very cool overhanging crack on the back of a big block, Annaki or some thing (I don't have a guide down here, just climb what looks cool, so all names are phonetic guesses based off what people are saying). Annankai is the best single-pitch crack I've ever climbed, steep, good pulls, good gear, not painful. Ben and I both sent it first go, then did a few victory laps on it 'cause it was just so much fun to monkey around on the steep jams. I'd spend the rest of my life climbing cracks if they were all like that! You've gotta do that route if you're ever in the area, it's stellar!

Today we're thrashed, we've been 2 on, one off cycle since before leaving Canmore, time for a rest day. It was a bit sad breaking down camp this morning, the Canadian Invasion is splintering apart. Steve and Paul are on the road for a while longer as are Ben and Sarah, Erica and the other Sarahs have headed out. We're all headed to Castle Valley way in the morning for one last day of crack-whacking, then who knows, Greg and I are likely heading to Salt Lake City for some flying and bouldering/work. I need to turn some circles on my glider, I've been dreaming about flying a lot and the itch is turning into something immediate...

Canyonlands!

Every year I say I'm going to go to Alaska in the spring and try that game out, but by the time spring rolls around the call of warm rock and air is too great to resist and I end up not going to Alaska... This year is no different--after somewhere over 100 days of swinging ice tools I just can't see doing anything involving sub-freezing temperatures, so Bender and I loaded up and drove 20 hours south to Canyonlands. As we drove down into Indian Creek I realized that it was almost exactly 20 years ago that I first had at the cracks of Canyonlands, or rather they had at me. I don't climb in Canyonlands often, about every five years, but it's one of those reference points in life I keep coming back to. I've driven down into "the Creek" with so many different friends and partners, and each trip is a sort of time capsule lodged in my brain. As Ben and I slid out of Moab and down into the Creek I DJed a set of Grace Jones into Ice T/Minor Threat into Sisters of Mercy into Fat Boy Slim to commemorate the different trips and eras the Creek marked in my life, it seemed fitting.

Ben and I hopped out of the van and into the warmth of the Creek with the same psyche as I had had 20 years earlier, and soon we were up on some steep wall having at it. I always try to restrain myself the first day but don't, we stuffed ourselves full of steep cracks and gave blood. We started with the first thing at the top of the trailhead, which looked like hands but wasn't, blue Camalots all the way and much cursing. Then it was off to Gurka and fingerlocks, then some grunting corner, finishing off with Slot Machine, another mega-classic. My tape ripped off halfway up Slot Machine and a large portion of my left hand followed shortly. That route is a "pack a lunch" kind of rig for me, but totally fun, and Ben did battle on it too. Climbing cracks is a lot like riding a bicycle, I haven't done much of it in in a decade but the moves are still in my body.

Yesterday we went to Battle of the Bulge and climbed some perfect corner then got involved with Rengle something (the start of Air Sweden). I was too psyched and fell off the easy section, then sent it second try with some pain--desert cracks just hurt, call me a wuss, but that's how I see it. I wanted to work Air Sweden but gave that idea up after climbing the crack again, I can only take so much pain. Ben and I wandered off and somehow convinced ourselves to get on Ruby's Cafe, a 5.13. It looked steep so I thought maybe it wouldn't hurt my feet so much (now there's some logic for ya), but it hurt my fingers like a SOB. I gave it a couple of efforts, but the final one ended in a early-90s style full on tantrum (those who lived that era know what I'm talking about, anyone else can just visualize a three-year old in full meltdown). It's been a while since I've been so frustrated on a climb--I could climb the moves, but I couldn't stomach abusing my fingers that savagely. Eventually it was possible to laugh about the experience, but Ben and I decided that what people really need to prepare for climbing in Indian Creek is a "Creek Preparation Kit." This kit would contain two or three hammers of various sizes from finish to sledge... These hammers would be used to whack hands, fingers and feet until swollen like over-ripe fruit. Plus some bathroom towel sized sandpaper to rub all over your arms, elbows and back until you looked more like a skateboard punk than a climber. Finally, a mini cheese grater would be perfect for tearing chunks of skin off, just rub your fingers and hands with it until covered in blood and plasma. Add in some weak acid to simulate all of this on mild sunburn and you've just "trained" for the creek... I'm only partly joking.

Today we're in Moab along with the 15 or so other "Canmorons" down here, it's great crew to hang with in the desert. I think I like Indian Creek despite the climbing--it's about the place, Indian Creek just resonates with me and, I think, most people. Camping in the desert, watching your friends get worked and succeed, grinding your teeth on desert grit in the morning cereal, it all adds up to something greater than the parts. My friend Greg was stuck neck-deep on an offwidth crack a few days ago and, after a long period with no movement, Greg's partner asked him what he was looking for with his head stuck so deep into the void. Greg said, "My soul." I like that answer, your soul does indeed seem closer down here than it does in other places, just out of sight instead of on the moon. I'll have to climb a few more cracks and see if I catch sight of the sucker--pain is clarifying according to several religions, climbing in the creek isn't so much climbing as it is practicing some bizzare religion involving stigmata and the vertical spaces between the rock. As Ice T says, "Oh yeah!"

Rock at last, Icebergs article in the NYT

Well, I've finally gotten out rock climbing, great to be back on the stone! Cory and I headed up to Grassi Lakes yesterday and had at it. We waited until relatively late in the day to let the rock dry out and warm up a bit--temps were still a bit chilly but not bad, we ended climbing eight pitches of decently hard routes, perfect afternoon. It's pretty funny how weak my fingers are after a season of mixed climbing, I was falling off 5.12a routes and loving it, giving everything to redpoint 12b, super fun! In the fall I can hike these routes, but part of the fun of spring is getting your ass kicked. Ben and I are heading south to Indian Creek tomorrow for some crack action, plus I really want to climb a few tower routes like Fine Jade that I've never done. I'm hoping mixed fitness translates a little better to cracks than it does to Grassi-style pockets, but whatever, it's about going climbing for me in the spring, not cranking really hard. I think the month off with sinus issues also really screwed my fitness, but it is what it is. I've had three good days in the Vsion and one on the rock, another week of rock climbing should start to improve the rock fitness.


A story I wrote on cimbing bergs with Ben Firth is up on the New York Times website. My editor emailed this morning to say it was the "most emailed sports article," nice to see climbing beating Golf in terms of popularity, who would have thought? Here's the link, and the URL if the Blogger link doesn't work: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/08/sports/othersports/08outdoors.html?ex=1144641600&en=786bcc410744810c&ei=5087


I've spent some more time with the Sum from Faders, it's working well still, definitely better for lowering than Gri Gri on hot ropes. It takes some time to learn, and definitely do read the instruction manual!


Workouts:

Every other day in the Vsion, sent the double-star route into the three-star route, as well as the "bugs" red route. Yeah, so it's pathetic to be pumped up about sending plastic boulder traverses, but I am! Yoga and running too, the energy levels are back up to full bore. I'll hit the Vsion today again and hopefully get a short run in before the long drive south.

Cool spring climbs

As many of you know, I also run a web site with current ice climbing conditions in the Canadian Rockies. I normally finish this site April 1, not because the ice is gone, but because people are sick of ice and looking for warm rock. I just received a couple more cool route descriptions and reports worth sharing, check this out!

A flurry of reports from people, I'm feeling left out on all the fun, grin, congratulations to everyone who has been getting after it!

WG

Faders "SUM" Review

Fader's SUM review:

Ropes have gotten a lot smaller in the last ten years. I normally climb on a 9.1 Joker, and it's just too hot for a Gri Gri to handle safely (Petzl says the same, but many people are using the Gri Gri on smaller ropes). The BD Guide works great for belaying the leader on skinny ropes and is my primary belay/rap device, but for sport climbing/mixed I like to have a full auto-lock device for belaying the leader, and the Gri Gri wasn't cutting it anymore. In Norway I saw this thing called a "SUM" that one of the guys in my clinic had. He didn't have the instructions for it, so we kind of screwed up using it, but it worked well enough that I went and bought one (thanks to Brad at Mountain Magic for the drop-off service!). Yep, I paid retail for a belay device, so no sponsor stroking going on here.

I've now used it a few times, and I'm pretty happy with it. If you read the instruction manual FIRST, grin, it's very easy to feed skinny ropes fast and safely, and it locks down easily without belayer input. It doesn't work well on any rope over 10mm, but who cares, I don't use fat ropes anymore. The design is really smart with a sort of double-cam locking action. Faders says the impact forces are lower than other auto-lock devices, but I don't see how that is true--I still wouldn't use it for climbing on gear. But for bolted climbing it grips well and--once I read the manual-- lowers well too. I see far more people using their Gri Gris incorrectly than I do people who know how to belay safely with them, and the SUM is open to that problem (DONT PRESS THE HANDLE TO FEED ROPE, NOT SAFE!) as well, but overall it's the first belay device I've used on skinny ropes that seems safe for the leader. It's not cheap (I paid about $80cdn), but it seems to work well so far. I'm going to keep using it unless some problem appears, so far it seems safer for skinny ropes than a Gri Gri. It's about time that there was a good autoblock device for skinny ropes. My rating is "pretty cool so far."

Spring Energyhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

OK, I got busy traveling and this blog slowed down, sorry for the delay.

Here's the fast update: went to Vancouver, did shows for the grand opening of Arcteryx's new store, saw friends, got in a couple of good gym workouts and hikes, came back through Kelowna, did a show for the new UBC campus, was home for two days and got one in shooting with Cory Richardson on Pilsner (first kitchen implement ascent, more on that later), went to Washington DC to help out with the Climb for Life benefit, stayed one day and got a good climbing session in, came home, went out and shot a final day on the "How to Ice/Mixed climb DVD project with Pat, Chris, Scott and Jonathon. Scott redpointed Swank, and Chris was also climbing worlds better than he was at the start of the project, great to watch. I'm really fired up on this DVD, it's organized just like one of my ice clinics with Chris and Scott as the protagonists, the video from day one vs the final day shows exactly how much better and confident on ice they have become, congrats!

Today is my first day at the desk in a long time. My sinus disease appears to have abated, and I just finished the antibiotics. Amazing how much better I feel after going off the antibiotics, my energy levels are back up to normal, I've been doing double or triple sport days the last couple of days, antibiotics zapped me.

Workouts:

Now that I'm off the antibiotics I'm able to train effectively again. On Monday I went skate skiing in the afternoon, then a quick yoga session (I call myself the "human board," but it's getting better) had a great boulderingsession at the Vsion. I'm focusing on building back into rock climbing at the moment, so lots of long traverses to get my fingers back. Ice climbing does NOTHING for your finger strength, frustrating to be sort of strong in my arms and pathetic in my fingers, but fun. On Tuesday we shot in Hafner, actually did a fair amount of climbing, then came home and got a nice run in on the bench above Canmore. My dog, Chili, is very excited to see the running shoes come out of storage! Trails a bit muddy but not too bad. It's not really spring but winter is finally ending, I am officially done ice climbing for the season, it's time to Rock and FLY!

Gear Review: BD Guide Belay Device/Commentary

OK, it's out now so I can write about a cool toy I've been playing with for the last year or so, the Black Diamond ATC Guide belay device. First, a disclaimer: I'm sponsored by Black Diamond and basically paid to say nice things about them. That said, if you ever read any of my product reports to BD I call it like I see it (ask the designers, they @ucking hate me some days, but ultimately they make the gear work right.).

I used to have a box of belay devices, and chose which one to take depending on the day. If it's a multi-pitch route my belay device needs to belay the leader well, function as an auto-block for the second, and rap well on widely varying rope diameters. The "auto block" idea for the second is very common here in Canada and in Europe, but less so in the United States. Years ago my partner and I would share a Placquette (sp?), which was a flat piece of steel with slots in it. You hook it to the belay and it allows the second to fall off and still get caught even if the leader is eating Twinkies and sucking back an energy drink that tastes like liquid Gummi bears. If you're not using some sort of autolock device for the second on multi-pitch routes you're missing out, it's great and a lot safer. It took me a couple of years to come around to the idea of belaying the second with a placquete-style device, but once you start you'll never go back, it's just safer and lower stress (if you have a decent belay anchor--if you don't you're an idiot anyhow).

With a placquette you had to also carry another belay device for the leader, in my case an ATC and later an ATC XP, the grooves on the ATC XP made rapping on the super skinny ropes I often use on alpine climbs much safer. Then the Petzl Reverso came out, and desite being a BD-sponsored athlete I used it a lot, it was lighter than carrying two belay devices and worked well enough for all three rope-handling tasks. The problem with it was that rapping on two 8mm or smaller ropes was sometimes terrifying. The mini-Reverso came out, and that worked well enough but often I climb on one 10.5mm lead rope on ice and use one 7mm as the rap cord, which didn't work well with the mini-Reverso. I found myself taking the ATC XP, it dealt with two different diameter ropes very well, and I liked the security for belaying the leader and rapping.

Finally BD came out with the Guide, which is basically an ATC XP with another 'biner hole to clip it into the belay for bringing the second up in "Reverso" mode. It works very well on any diameter of rope for belaying the second and leader, and also raps very well. There's a cunning little hole to put some cord through that allows the belayer to lower a second while the second is hanging on the rope, pretty cool.

I've rapped on it with ropes as small as 7mm, no problems thanks to the additional friction grooves. It works great for belaying a leader, even if the leader brings an Anaconda 11mm fuzz monster rope, or two "hot" super skinny ropes. It also works well for bringing up the second.

I've used the ATC guide on frozen ropes of all diameters, all kinds of half/twin ropes, and a wide variety of single ropes. It's the best tool for a multi-pitch environment currently on the market.

-Will Gadd

Ice Book in German

I just found out my ice climbing instructional book was published in German--who knew?

EHRBUCH EISKLETTERN
EIS - MIXED - DRYTOOLING
von Will Gadd

Endlich ein fundiertes Lehrbuch - u.a. Gewinner des Banff Mountain Book Festival! - für die modernen Spielformen des Eiskletterns. Will Gadd geht sowohl auf die Grundlagen als auch die Spezialdisziplinen wie Mixed und Drytooling ausführlich ein. Die konsequente Schritt für Schritt Vorgehensweise wird durch inspirierende Farbbilder und spannende Erlebnisberichte perfekt ergänzt.

Eisklettern - Eis Mixed Drytooling
Lieferbar ab 17.12.2005
14,8 x 22 cm, 232 Seiten kompl. in Farbe,
engl. Broschur, über 90 Farbbilder
ISBN 3-936740-27-5, Preis € 24,80

Climbing Again!

I often don't know how much I need to climb until I can't or don't for some reason. For the last two weeks I've been dealing with a sinus infection from hell, but antibiotics have cleared it out. On Thursday I got to finally go climbing after more than two weeks off--not only was climbing with JD, dD and Kennan fun but I felt like a wrap of gauze had been removed from my brain, the rest of life just lit up. I fell off things I can laps on when fit, but it was a great day out! Got home, timed a scotch between antibiotic doses and slept like a rock, just wasted from the "easy" day out.

On Saturday Andy, Kennan and I went into the Real Big Drip, a fantastic Ghost route I've always wanted to do but someohow never have. Just driving into the Ghost and hiking into the climb brought back all the reasons I love to go climbing, most of which actually have little to do with climbing. It's just getting outside with an objective and moving around in winter, hell yeah! I had to try hard on the Real Big Drip, just pumped silly from the get-go, my body still isn't firing on all cylinders, but I really wanted the on-sight and somehow pulled it out of dead forearms. The crux first pitch doesn't have as much ice as normal, so you're looking at a pretty good fall getting to and up the first 20 feet of detached weird ice, but at least it would be clean air! The second and third pitches are also fun, but we stopped after the third as I was worked and so was Andy so we bailed. The ice on the upper pitches looks more fun up close than it appears from far away, it is indeed a Real Big Drip.

Today Kim and I went classic skiing up at Shark, the sun was beating down like it starts to in March--you can truly feel the power of the sun returning this time of year, each day is longer and I can track the progress of the sun as it climbs higher and higher over the mountains in the Canmore valley each day. The snow at Shark was perfect, it's funny how the best snow conditins for skiing are in the spring, when we're all starting to get burned out on winter. dD made a comment on the way into Hafner the other day about how we "push the seasons," or try to do everything too early. We mixed climb in November before it's really fully ice season, then come March we're thinking rock in the height of the best snow and ice season... It's true, but today we grooved on the deep snow and sun while the Chili dog beast sprinted around like a mad coyote, I think dogs know it's going to get warm again soon and it quickens their spirits also. Today there was light in the sky until almost eight in the evening, meaning there is now way more daylight than dark, yeah!

So, even though it's still really winter for another day or something, happy spring!!

Books Good and Bad, sports

I'm finally on antibiotics for the sinus petri dish living in my head--only three days in and already one hell of an improvment. Downtime drives me nuts, but at least I've read a lot over the last two weeks, here are the highlights.

Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men. McCarthy is one of my all-time favorite authors, he can write more with less than about anybody else I've ever read. If you've never read any of his earlier books such as "The Crossing" go and buy one, it's worth it. I paid full hardback price for No Country, and it was worth it. His sense of the world is so sharp and lucid--if you've been reading airport junk then reading McCarthy will feel like sucking almost painfully cold water out of a mountain stream after being forced to drink chlorinated junk in a city.

Thomas King, A short History of Indians in Canada. I wanted to like this book but didn't, it's just too damn loopy with too much over-done sly humour. There are some great lines, but none of the short stories ever grabbed me. A line or two would, then it would slide off into some tangent my mind would refuse to slide toward. I started having the evil thought that this book was so popular because the guy who wrote it was an "Indian," then decided perhaps that wasn't such an evil thought but just realistic. It does offer an interesting perspective on one Native's thought, but I want more than that in a good book.


Lama Surya Das: Awakening the Buddha Within. I hate buying books with titles like this one, it just sounds so fucking stupid to me that I tend to buy this sort of book with the same sneaking attitude I usually reserve for buying "feminine hygeine products." No red-blooded male should buy a book about awakening anything within. Anyhow, this book is damn good despite its title and lives up to the spiel a friend gave when he suggested it. I've been reading a bunch of Buddhist smack lately, this is better than average. It's also lethal for insominia as it requires careful reading and reflective pauses on what's been read--ten pages of this book would put a meth head to sleep. I'm still not done with it as result, I start off with Cormac McCarthy and when the night starts shrinking to morning I'll switch over to "Awakening the Buddha within" and next thing I know the alarm is going off. So not very awakening on a physical level but very engaging mentally.

Joyce Carol Oates: What I Lived For. I've read a bunch of Joyce Carol Oates, I really want to like her writing and often do for brief periods. "What I Lived For" is another book that seems promising but just couldn't keep me stuck into the pages. I don't think many writers can write convincinly about the opposite sex, and Oates can't about this book's male protagonist, Corky. Corky is a dick, and should think more like one to stay in character.

Dan Brown: Deception Point. This book sucks. It's the worst sort of airport trash. I read it after the Da Vinci Code, Brown's most famous book, and felt robbed that I'd paid something like eight pounds for it in the UK ($15cdn). It should give anyone hope who has ever felt that he or she could write a best-selling thriller.

Jim Harrison: True North. Jim Harrison is also one of my favorite writers. I'm only halfway through this book but damn is it good, stayed up way too late reading it, a sure sign of a good read. Harrison is willing to write about the inner chaos we all live with--many authors try, but Harrison gets it right, at least from a male perspective. I'll probably stay up late tonight again. Best line so far: "....so many changes in the direction of our lives come as a result of accidents, happenstances, the slightest pushes in any direction, and on a more negative side the girl you met at a gathering you didn't want to attend who infected your life to extent that the scar tissue will follow you into old age." Yeah, that sums up more than a few situations during the first 20 years of my life.

Right, all four of the people reading this are probably about sick of politics and literature, your regularly scheduled "Sick, dude!" blog will resume tomorrow as I'm actually going to get to climbing again, yeah!!!

Flapping, Politics, Colds

Today I finally got into the air again with my paramotor. Took a while to figure out how to hand-start it in the cold weather (battery dead), and it never really ran at full power but enough to get off the ground and cruise around the Canmore valley. Fantastic, flying is something special, especially in the thick winter air with the snowy mountains glinting in the sun. There were even some thermals in the ice haze which was pretty cool, who would have thought?

Red Bull was having a field manager meeting involving ice climbing at the Junkyards (just above Canmore), so went and buzzed 'em. Bit windy and turbulent so I couldn't get really low over the ice climbs, but low enough to scare myself, wind pouring through the Grassi Gap as usual. The Zoom dealt with it well, sure is a pleasure to fly a glider that's just relaxing (I normally fly pretty twitchy competition gliders, the Zoom is a more intermediate-style glider).

When I landed I had a bad case of the screaming barfies from keeping my hands above my shoulders while flying the glider. It was -5 when I launched and definitely colder than that up high with the wind factored in, but nothing could take the smile off my face, except waiting for my sinuses to equalize from the altitude difference... Finally went to a doctor this morning, diagnosed with sinus disease from hell, on antibiotics for the first time in at least ten years starting tomorrow. Sick of feeling sick--maybe it wasn't a good idea to go freeze myself stupid today, but I had to do something fun and flying counts. Sometimes you gotta do stupid stuff just to stay sane.

Had some writing published in the New York Times, I expect some ranting responses, grin...

Politics:

Canada has troops in Afghanistan. I really ought to know why exactly we have troops there, if for no other reason than some of my buds are part of those troops. I can't ask my buds because they are "top secret" or something, but I would like to know more. Mr. Harper (Canadian PM) recently killed the idea of a discussion about what our troops were doing in Afghanistan, saying, "Debate sends the wrong message." By this he means the bad guys in Afghanistan will listen to the debate and think, "Oh, the Canadians aren't really serious 'cause they're talking about why they are here in Afghanistan." Now, if having troops in Afghanistan is a good idea then why not get that out on the table? If Harper believes he's right, then a united Canada saying, "Hell yeah, let's work hard to sort Afghanistan out, we'll do whatever it takes as a country" sends a strong message to the bad guys. But if being in Afghanistan is a bad idea then I really don't care what the bad guys think. I just want to hear some of the people both in the military and in government explain why having troops in Afghanistan is a good idea. Or a bad idea, whatever, I just want to know what the goals are.

Harper's excuse of, "If you talk about anything I don't like then you're helping the terrorists" is Bush's favorite line. I hope Canadians show more sense than the American public, who keep letting Bush off the hook with his, "You're a terrorist if you're not for me and my government" excuse. My favorite Bush logic of late is this: "Hey, it's OK if I break the law in the US, I was chasing terrorists who also break laws. I need to break the law to catch terrorists who break the law." Um, no. It's called the constitution and even the President of the United States has to listen to that moldy paper, that's what makes the US the US and not Iraq. So, Bush, you can't wire-tap your citizens without a warrant. Period. Bush should be impeached for breaking the law, not just "censured" as one Democrat is arguing for. This is more wishy-washy bullshit Democrat behaviour, I'm starting to think not one of them in the United States has any sort of balls at all. Bush has clearly broken the law with his domestic wiretapping, and the best any Democrat can do is say, "Ah, gee, you really shouldn't have done that, let's see if we can censure you a little Mr. President." This sort of weak-ass behaviour really makes me miss Hunter S. Thompson, the US needs a Hunter Thompson now in the worst possible way (Thompson quote on Nixon: If the right people had been in charge of Nixon's funeral, his casket would have been launched into one of those open-sewage canals that empty into the ocean just south of Los Angeles. He was a swine of a man and a jabbering dupe of a president. Nixon was so crooked that he needed servants to help him screw his pants on every morning."). Government is always corrupt, but occasionally it starts to fester like a boil. We just popped ours in Canada (later Mr. Martin, you were not only corrupt but deadly boring), it's time for the US to do the same with the whole Bush/Rove festering mess of infected pus.

No workouts, nothing useful, and I'm getting cantankerous about it all.

Colds, Climbing, Politics

Colds, climbing, politics.

Came back from Norway with yet another horrible cold/sinus disaster. Getting tired of that, had three this year, way above normal. Amazing how lazy I get when sick, all caught up on really obscure internet research and such. Been educational, a bunch of friends and I have been emailing about peak oil, real estate investing and various future scenarios. Stop reading now and go surf slate.com if you want smart opinions, but here's some conclusions:

1. Real estate in most markets in Canada and the US is crazy expensive, calling it a bubble is probably accurate. I live in Canmore, it's nuts here. Real estate agents will disagree, but anytime something rises really fast it tends to also drop pretty fast. See tech stocks, the tulip bubble, Calgary real estate in the 80s. Every locale says, "We're different here this time!" and every locale gets smoked after big runups. Real estate is dropping in San Diego, Vegas, Virgina, Boston, SF, many of the "hot" markets in the US. I think Canmore and Calgary will continue to do well while oil prices stay high, but there will be some sort of correction around here sooner or later, there always is. Predicting exactly when is a loser's game. I hope it's soon and huge so my buds can buy houses...

2. Oil prices will generally go higher but there's likely to be some ups and downs along the way. The US is in deep, shark-infested economic water without a boat at the moment, and when that party ends it's going to mess things up around the world, reducing the demand for oil at least temporarily. A lot of the economic growth in the US has been driven by real estate, which has been driven by low interest rates (not increasing incomes). That's got to end sooner or later, and it likely won't be pretty.

3. Investing money in the stock market is a difficult game. It's really hard to beat the market by stock picking, very few people consistently manage to beat the market despite what you see and read. The TSX has done well due to energy and other commoditiees, real estate and banks.

4.Lots of people are buying gold, there is this feeling that "economic chaos is coming really soon" out there, more so than I can ever remember. Maybe the chaos-idea is Chicken Little stuff, I'm not sure, but it's got some traction right now.

So what are you going to do to keep climbing, flying and generally living the life? Me, I don't know but feel confident that dirt bag athletes around the world will do well if the chaos really starts, we've all lived the third-world diet of beans and rice, some of us have grown to prefer it... Good luck. Your regularly scheduled climbing blog will now start up again as I'm actually going climbing.

wg

WWII Story, back home

One of the guys I met at the hut under Ben Nevis, Justin Jeffrey, sent me the following. I thought it was an interesting story that reflects the history of Scotland and climbing in the world, thanks Justin for giving me permission to share it.

Justin's Words:


Back in 1939 two great Scottish climbers were on the Ben staying in the Clark Hut (G.Bell and Bill Murray). The following morning they set off to do Tower Ridge and it proved to be something of an epic, later immortalised by Murray in a book of his mountaineering reminiscences which he wrote (on toilet paper!) while a prisoner of the Germans.

In 'The Edge', an excellent short series of documentaries about Scottish mountaineering, Murray recounts the following rather charming story.

Just after the fall of Tobruk his unit had been cut from 800 to just 200 men by a determined German assault. A German tank commander approached Murray, wielding a machine pistol; Murray thought his number was up. To his surprise his captor quizzed him about the cold.
'Not feeling the cold?'
'Cold as a mountain top', replied Murray.
'Good God! Do you climb?' the German continued.
There followed a passionate conversation about the beloved Alps and of Murray's own native Scottish hills; the war was momentarily forgotten.
The German then produced a looted bottle of English beer and some chocolate and they both made a toast to 'mountains.'

Later, Murray found freedom from his captors by reliving his adventures in the hills and writing them down on toilet paper. This was confiscated by the Gestapo in Czechoslovakia and it took further attempts before Murray's stories were finally saved from time and became a book.

This story seems particularly apt in view of the new friendships made recently on the Ben. Murray's story and the friendships mountains forge remind me of this poem by Marjorie Scott Johnston, which was written during WW2:

Mountain Peace

The cloud that on Olympus rests
will clothe the Cordillera crests,
and snow on Monte Rosa turn
to Lakeland beck and Scottish burn.

And we shall turn from war's disgust,
and this dark prison of mistrust,
find life again on Lochnagar,
on Scafell and on Finsteraar:

Not slaves to time's dictatorship,
but free and kind relationship;
with mountain chains to span
the brotherhood of man.

1942

End Justin's words. Good stuff, thanks for sharing it!

Back home in Canmore now, arrived yesterday evening via London. It was pretty funny in Lodon, they were talking about "bitter cold, howling winds, blizzards." The forecast? -2 with snow flurries... I'm sure conditions are now perfect in Scotland, where those on the Ben are braving savage conditions. In Canmore last night it was -10, snowy, typical Canadian Conditions, I had to get off my ass and stay awake to beat the jet lag so I went for a run with the Chili Dog in the last dregs of the evening, sure is great to be back home! Slept 12 hours last night, game on today.

Heading Home

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...

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

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!

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!

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!

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.