Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Home...is where I want to be.

After a long road trip to The Red River Gorge and The Great Lakes I am home.  I left last Friday and drove straight to Miguel's.  SHyeAh!  The weather was great Saturday and Sunday, lending us perfect conditions for red river pocket pulling.  It was funny to return just 4 days after breaking down and becoming dependent on the community at Miguel's for transportation to and from my broken down van.  I am very grateful of those who helped Alex and I out when we were truly stuck with no way out.  Thank you.

So, there I was again in this amazing river gorge for the weekend.  Climbing was good.  I did another .13a, Beer Belly, which is a nice sustained little route.  It climbs longer than the others on the wall and it maybe one of the better ones.  While Drive By holds some nice routes, the real excitement was over at the Bob Marley crag.  A slew of capable climbers were taking numbers for their burn on Ultra Perm.  I had planned on jumping in for a few goes but when I found out the line was like 6 deep I reconsidered.  Sheesh.  Next time I will try it for sure.  It's always a struggle for me to decide what I want to climb on.  Should I try classic routes I can do in 2 or three tries or maybe put in the work for a future hard send?  The dilemma lies within the amount of climbing I'll be doing.  If I can climb a route from the bottom to the top and fall, then there is a gain in strength at least.  On the other hand, if I'm going to spend two days dogging up a route pulling up my rope and going in direct I might as well be at home where I can visit the crag more frequently.  Does that make sense at all?





Anyway, Kurt and I left Miguel's Monday morning to start our tour of the Great Lakes.  Kurt summed it up like this;  5 days, 5 states, and 2020 miles.  Yep.  We drove a lot.  Each day we'd visit retailers and do demos at the end of the day until the crowds thinned at whatever gym we were visiting.  We saw a lot of rural america and drove right through the industrial land of Michigan.  And just when I thought I had made it home, not 10 miles away from my own fluffy sheets and pillows, my van overheated again.  WTF!?  It was 1am and I had no choice but to get towed home so I could sleep.  The next day would be filled with F words.

 Here are some pictures from the trip.












 And here are some pretty flowers I picked yesterday.



 I'm not feeling very blog-y right now.

Later.

Friday, April 1, 2011

ROUTES!!!

The season has changed and I am welcoming it.  The days of waking up to freezing conditions wondering which problem I will dedicate a weeks worth of skin to is over.  As the Redbuds bloom and grass turns green most of us here in the south are pulling the ropes out of the closet and heading to the sport crags.  We talk the same, rally troops and heckle, and even begin our days the same as those in the winter, at Greenlife.

Jacob Fellers at the 300 boulder chilling in the sun.  
And we are PsYchEd!!!  The concave has been a hot spot recently.  Mini projects are going down as fitness is gained.  Tim Hinck, Mark Williams, and I have been frequenting the area trying to get our fix while the ideal sport climbing weather lingers.  Tim and I were both able to fire Silverman .13b, which is a nice linkup that offers really nice sustained sequences separated by a decent rest.  WORD!  Word up actually.  That's the name of one of the proudest lines at the crag.  The name of the game is recovery.  This super steep, near horizontal .13b climbs the left side of the belly of the concave for a solid 50ft of .13a (the word) to finish out with a 20ft section of lock offs on edges as the concave's bulge turns.  I am hoping that one goes down the next time I'm there.

Crux of Silverman .13b
Tim Hinck on Hooligans .13b
Tim Hinck on the Man Show/Silver-whatever you want start.
Mark Williams on Showboater .13b
Laban Swafford on The Word .13a
Other than the sport climbing action not too much is new.  Although, I did buy a van!  Ford Club Wagon up in this BiAtch!  So stokes to have this big rig.  I built a raised bed and threw a futon mattress on it and added some curtains.  Next on the build list is a bench/storage box and maybe a nice housing for a cooler that also doubles as a bench seat.  ???  We'll see.  

Ole Silverado.  What was this guy thinking?  Krusin Karts?  Ha!

So, that rig got Alex M. and I to The Red River Reunion and that's about it.  When we got there the radiator was dumping coolant from more than one spot.  GRRRR!!!!!!  It could be worse though, we were in the red river gorge so we went climbing.  

Alex on a belay shift.
Todd Clark on Kaleidoscope .13c





We tried to leave on Sunday and didn't even make it a mile down the road.  Damn.  So, we got towed to the only shop that was "open" on Sunday, which wasn't really open.  Turns out the the thermostat was stuck shut, which was preventing coolant flowing to the engine.  Sheesh!  The good news is that we got another day of climbing at one of the best areas in the world out of it. 

So, I'm back home now and well, headed back to Kentucky!  I hope to be at Miguel's early tonight and climb Saturday and Sunday before Kurt Smith and I take off.  The plan is to leave from Miguel's Sunday evening and head north to the Great Lakes so that we can introduce ourselves as the new Evolv reps for the region.  BOOM!  We'll be doing demos and clinics with the top accounts and hopefully opening a few new ones.  We shall see.....

Cheddar.