SENDING…
Monday, December 26th, 2011
….a Happy Holidays to all y’all - and a New Year too!
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Archive for December, 2011
BIG dream pics!
Sunday, December 18th, 2011
I just thought I’d upload some images that my friend Ben Ditto took during my time on Ambrosia. He’s a generous, not to mention amazing photographer. I really like his unique perspective on life and in his images like the one below. It’s not a typical hero shot you’d see in the mags, there’s something different about it, it’s subtle, like, reading between the lines or something. The crash-pad you see in the foreground is put up on a rock, about 6 feet higher than the ground. It’s there in case you blow the final tech sequence to the summit. There’s no spotting on this climb. Andrew Burr is above, hanging out with me, encouraging me. Which brings me to my next point….
Some people ask me if having a photographer up there is distracting. The honest truth is that it’s not. Not when they are a good friend like Andrew is. In this case it was more motivating. I feel like when the camera guy is up there, in position and they want me to send nearly as much as I DO. Then it actually helps me focus. I feel like it’s GAME TIME. Because they give me energy, they don’t take it away. Not because of the kodak courage syndrome, but because they are my friends, and it’s nice to have their truly positive energy beside me, perhaps I don’t feel so alone. Maybe one could argue it’s a performance enhancer? ha ha. For me, I think it just might be. Take Cobra Crack for example, I never wanted to be filmed on it. Because I don’t like being filmed, ESPECIALLY on climbs I haven’t done yet. But then Paul Bride (one of my best friends in the world) said, “Why don’t I just go up there and check out the angles, for an actual video shoot we’ll do later”, for both of us it was just a recon mission, but having him up there with me, cheering me on with his energy, was possibly just the kick I needed – I sent the route on my first try that day – the first time anyone pulled out a video camera. It wasn’t the camera it was the positive energy. Call me a cheater if you like, but I like hanging out with my friends in cool places, trying to climb cool faces, it’s as simple as that. And it’s nice. Another example (one of many) is the Prophet. Ben Moon on a last minute mission, rappelled down the day of the hardest pitch, and he was all smiles and high fives, his energy lightened the mood and the pressure and allowed me to just smile and do what I love, which is climb up some rocks. It was satisfying to send, and having him with us.
Without trying to sound too ‘cosmic’, as my friend Will Stanhope likes to say, I know you can’t always have a brother (or sister) around, dangling from a rope above, but sometimes when it’s on the line, it’s a nice way to distribute the vibe, and share the experience.
Okay, that’s my rant for the day, I have to go do yoga, apparently Ted Danson is in this class, it’s for stiff old guys like myself, Which is exactly what the class is called. It’s on the brochure.
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‘B.I.G’ DREAMS!
Saturday, December 17th, 2011
While the big boys like Nalle, Woods and Ondra have all been busy warming up on V14 flashes around the world, (which is absolutely mind crushing to think about), I’ve been eeeeeezzing my way back into bouldering in California. The weather has been absolutely dreamy in Bishop, like 50 degree’s on average, but sunny every day with a slight breeze. One could hardly ask for more. Bishop was our first stop since leaving Yosemite, and it was also our last. What was supposed to be a 2 week trip, kept magically extending itself. Suddenly, 4 weeks passed and I just began to ‘feel’ it again.
Not going into it much, (because I’ve already written about it on the BD Journal), but basically, El Cap took a lot out of me, the long days stacked on top of each other, the lack of sleep and the long drive as well, when I arrived in Bishop for the first week, I felt like a Zombie. Only after the second week did I start to remember how to climb rocks again. And only after the third week did I feel ready to climb them.
Since I lack the firepower to climb anything hard, I focused on the beautiful. Bishop as far as I can tell is probably the WORLDS BEST climbing area for BIG. I’d include BOLD in that statement, but bold is relative. As you may know, there’s been a flurry of activity in the last 5-10 years in Bishop and climbers like Kevin Jorgeson, Ethan Pringle and Shawn Diamond have all been adding there signature routes on the hillsides. Whenever I think of Bishop, I think of the Buttermilks, naturally, they’re some of the most inspiring blocks I’ve ever seen. We may as well be on the moon up there.
Which only reminds me of how silly climbing really is, ha ha ha. Basically, we drive all the way from wherever we live, sometimes up to 20 hours, to drive up a bumpy corduroy road, to hike into the desert, to climb up some obscure friable rock that someone actually gave a name to, via a path of holds that someone else named something differently. They’re sort of like Pet Rocks. Pictured above is the Grandpa Peabody Boulder. Home to Ambrosia, probably the biggest, baddest ass highball in Bishop. Below is the road to the boulders with the high Sierra’s that surround them in the background. It’s a land of stunning and drastic contrast.
Lydia crushed a slew of V5’s showing that she continues to be the strongest, sexiest off the couch climber I know.
The relatively unknown Alex Honnold came out as well, to climb some big rocks with me, offer moral support, two mondo pads, and steroidal levels of psyche. Pictured below I tie my shoelaces underneath the Golden Boulder. Above me is a 20 foot tall, 8 move sequence, stunning line of chicken-heads we called, “On the Shoulders of Giants”. It clocks in around a “supple” V9, but is unique in the sense that it actually requires an Old Alpine technique where you stand on the shoulders of your climbing partner. Hence the name. It’s absolutely classic:)
There’s a very obvious starting hold for both hands about 10 feet up the wall, and a savage opening sequence from the start that still remains a project. I’ve seen V14’s before, and this thing looks harder to me, not to mention, painful. But shit, they are only rocks, and we are only PLAYING around – so why not see it as a glass half full? Instead of thinking, “oh damn, it’s too bad those incredible holds are so high up the wall”, why not say, “OH damn, look at those incredible holds, lets go up there and climb on them”. And so we did.
‘On the Shoulders of Giants’ is one of the best problems I have ever done, even with the contrived yet hilarious start. I managed the climb on my first try after a solid TR session from last week. Alex, intrigued, stepped up, ground up, and climbed perfectly. He sort of jumped off the crux, proving that the landing is perfectly safe and flat. Then, under the watchful eye’s of curious bystanders, he sent beautifully on his second try! Nice job Hondo. I’ll see if I can upload some video of that one.
And below, a photograph sent to me by a new friend, Julien Lecorps, just after the crux on Giants.
We also sent the amazing Luminance that day, V9 and the day before that, I pulled my emotions together for a rope free ascent of Ambrosia V11. Which I personally think that after the giant foothold broke last year is now possibly, a mushy V12, since I think it’s considerably harder than all the other V11’s I’ve done in Bishop. But maybe it’s the nature of highballs, maybe they all get inflated grades because they are scary. I don’t know. I’m not a great boulderer. I’m just glad I did it and nothing broke and I didn’t fall. It was really a dream of mine since watching Kevin’s first ascent. A BIG dream. I have never linked to the dreaded Hueco before, but as soon as I did, I knew I didn’t want to do it again. Keep calm and carry on, says a friend of mine…I just breathed my way to the top.
On the last day before I left, Alex convinced me to rally up for “Transporter Room” V5/6 on the same boulder. He called it Ambrosia’s little brother. Which it thankfully was, but the rock was not perfect up there and to be honest, I’ll never do either of them again. ha ha ha.
Watch this outstanding performance from the 15 year old Enzo Oddo, and watch Dan Beall climbing Luminance and watch Kevin make the second ascent of Transporter Room. Thanks for reading. best wishes.
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OUTSIDE
Friday, December 9th, 2011
I love being outside. Naturally. I also like going to the grocery store after a hard days climbing for a bag of Newmans Own organic chocolate chip cookies and seeing Outside Magazine on the shelf at the checkout. With stoic poses of Kelly Slater and Lance Armstrong on the cover, and headers like, “The top 10 places you should never live, ever”. Or, “Why the outdoor industry just isn’t cool anymore. And what you can do about it”. But the online version is a different beast, with it’s many drop down menu’s, news flashes and rotating imagery, or is it?
A few days ago, a friend sent his congratulations along with this link…OUTSIDE MAGAZINE. .com. Quite frankly, I’m still not sure what to make of it, should I be psyched, or embarrassed? Can you really create a top ten Best list for climbing sites? Really? Wow.
Without wanting to sound like one of those annoying pot head conspiracy theorists, but sometimes, I wonder if they do this sort of thing to collect data and information? Seriously, (not really), but sort of…lets say for example, that they do this for every sport they cover, climbing, running, biking, swimming, skiing, whatever it is, (they cover a lot of rad sports), oh yah, surfing, paddle-boarding, yadda yadda yadda. I’m not prying, I’m just curious, I think it’s good to wonder, even if you sound like a dink. So anyway, ya, lets say they run a ‘TOP TEN BEST BLOG’ list on every sport, then, they sit back, and collect the data. If every blog does what I do, which is publicly pat themselves on the back, (and I suspect they will), then Outside Mag.com will get an increased number of hits from each site, (or Facebook likes), won’t they?
I’m no intraweb specialist, so correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that how it works, and can’t they tell where these “HITS” are coming from? If so, then they probably pay some young keen intern from Boulder, Colorado to stay late and crunch the numbers. Maybe it’s just a fun way to celebrate climbing, or maybe it’s a target market research experiment, maybe it’s to see who the largest user groups are, and to specifically sell advertising to reach them? Maybe they’ll learn that SURFING got 10 Trillion pingbacks or whatever they’re called. and CLIMBING only got like 1,432 because it just so happens that Adam Ondra recently sent another V16 and the video is SICK – which by the way, it WAS, watch Adam crushing HERE.
But, it’s all in good fun I suppose, (isn’t everything?), not to mention good business sense too, so I’ll roll with it, why not?
It sort of feels like when you do a climb that’s unexplainably easy for you – maybe you’re just tall enough, or just short enough, or your finger fits in that little tiny pocket like so, or maybe you’re too damn strong, or you’re wearing lucky pink underwear, the point is, you crushed it, then you say, “there’s no way that’s a 5./V/A/Whatever”. BUT, your friends kindly remind you that it IS printed in the guidebook bro, it’s been published dude, so you take it, and why wouldn’t you, who cares, mark it down in your little pocketbook with a little red pen, like my buddy Alex Honnold does, then smile, pat yourself on the back and move onto the next climb, which, if you’re like me, you’ll then get schooled on and beat down.
The moral of this dribbling rant is that we all have little surprises out there waiting for us, ones we should be grateful for, and this one in Outside Magazine is no different, I’ll mark down with a little yellow LINK, to say THANK YOU, it’s truly an honor, my mom and dad will be proud of me:) not to mention my sponsors, which I’ll be sure to politely share this news with, so I can hound them for a few extra bucks to get my sorry ass to Hueco in January. he he:) Okay, enough deep (and ridiculous) thoughts. Thanks Outside, I love you, please keep up the GREAT work.
P.S. Congrats to all the bloggers on the list, and props to Narc for being #1. Respect!!
P.P.S. What’s a blog these days without imagery, I’ll leave you with pictures of Bishop and the The beautiful ancient Bristlecone Pines! Peace!
The Thunderbird is a Bishop CLASSIC. It’s affordable, warm, and located right downtown.
The 4000 year old Bristlecone Pines are not only true survivors, they are stunning.
Bishop is located in the Deepest Valley on the Continent, surrounded by 14,000 ft peaks.
The Buttermilks, always a pleasant place to drink more coffee.
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