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.

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.  

Jah Video

Here's a little edit of the Jah Natty.

The Haps

Well my car broke down in Boone, Nc on my way back from doing an Evolv shoe demo at App State.  Which ended up not being so bad. With Pat and Jessa's hospitality I climbed for two days while my car was being fixed.  We hit Lost Cove the first day and Grandmother the next. The weather was soooo nice too.  The day I arrived it was dumping rain, the same kind that just dumped on HP40 last weekend.  Then the sky opened up and rocks were dry!  Yes!  I had always wanted to do Matt's Prow and Zen Master ever since Triple Crown of 2009 when I hurt my ankle and was unable to climb any the day after the comp.  From what I saw they are the best of the grade at each boulderfield.  Here are some iphone photos.

Matt's Prow @ Lost Cove

Zen Master @ Grandmother

So, I finally made it back to chatty after a nerve racking 4.5 hour drive back to chatty as I had literally driven my car out of the shop's garage and hit the road.  Sheesh!  

Not two days later I was headed to HP40 for the HP Rocks festival and comp.  Amanda, Alli, and I left Friday around noon.  The temperature was 65 or so and the skies where darkening.  I thought it'd be cool if we stopped at Little River Canyon and The Citadel on the way to get some real rock climbing in.  That is opposed to squirming our way up slippery slopers.  It ended up being a killer day. Amanda did her first lead route, which was Booger .11b.  Boom!  Then I put some burns in on The Word gaining beta each go until I was confident in sending next time. 

All I'm gonna say about HP Rocks is that it rained for a solid 20 hours and the ground was soggy.  Daniel Woods has a clone (Tyler Wilcutt who is now Krusty the Clown).  And the dance party friday night was a mockery of frat parties with all kinds of grinding and dance floor face sucking.  This one guy, and I'm not even kidding, it's a good thing he had his pants on because the girl he was humping would probably be pregnant.  I'm talking hands on the floor and tapping that ass type dancing.  And Nate got it allll on video.  Hilarious.  

Well, yesterday Tim Hinck and I went to the Concave to take care of business.  I sent The Word .13a first try and quickly shifted my attention to Silverman .13b, which was Tim's objective for the day.  This route is all about the recovery.  You can break it down into two sections separated by a three move traverse on decent holds that lead you into the red point crux, 11moves of nonstop pulling on overhanging terrain.  He is pretty freaking close to sending and I hope to follow.  We both got the one hangy, falling a few moves after the rest and sussed out some efficiencies that will save us energy and help us get that much closer to the top.  I'll probably start trying Word Up now too as it also is a pure endurance style route.  PSYCHED!!!!!!!

Cheddar.

Mmmmmm....Coffee

Alright.  Recently I've been on the project grind.  That means not sleeping well, constantly doing a minimal amount of anything physical, and neglecting other aspects of daily life.  My skin has been trashed for two weeks now.  The joints in my fingers ache from a lack of rest and my body feels like it's been beaten slowly by small hammers.

Biggie Shorty has been something like a water hazard haunting me in the back nine of Montlakes' golf course.  Only this one, you start in the hazard and have to climb your way out.  I've always wanted to do this climb, ever since I moved here 6 years ago.  Only recently now though, I have gotten stronger and able to climb at this level.  With that confidence, I thought I should commit to get it done.   This climb kinda represents my anti style too.  Short. Crimpy. I've been able to knock down the hard power-endurance classics more quickly than those of this nature.  After getting sick and having a bad session, I totally wrote this thing off and started concentrating on other climbs, only to return in a different form, solo, where I was carrying two pads, a camera, and motivation to do work until this thing was done. So, it was very satisfying to prove to myself that I could do this thing.  

Here's a video!

With that being done I was amped to go climbing with out the pressure and anxiety of performance and execution.  My homie Preston A.  came up from Atlanta to climb with Kit and I at LRC yesterday.  It was a dirty type work day too.  The day went like this.  Pocket Pool, Scarecrow, The Chattanoogan, The Law, and Dragon Slayer.  Whoa.  I am absolutely destroyed.  Looking at my camera roll I can tell I got more drawn into the session as the day went on because I don't have any pictures from anything after scarecrow.  Damn!  Although, I did get some killer footage of P. on The Chattanoogan.  Psyched for him.  He'll send soon.  

So here they are:

So, I guess I'm psyched on The Law now after making some moves on it and quite frankly, sport climbing and maybe some sessions on the Dayton roof.  Head change.  

Cheddar.  

Some pics

Not much has been going on around here recently.  Rising temps have left the entire southeast biting their fingernails hoping that the winter temps will grace us once more so that we can avenge our failed attempts on projects.

Here are some photos from the past week.

Tomorrow I'll be at Little Rock City in the morning.  If anybody wants to go with just hit me up!

Cheddar.

DONE!

OMG!  When I left the gym in Greenville, SC it was ten o'clock.  The forecast was showing snow from the mississippi river all the way across the southeast.  I had two options.  One was to stay the night in Greenville with some of the nice people from Half Moon Outfitters.  A HUGE thanks goes out to them and Climb @ Blue Ridge gym for promoting the demo and helping out.  The second option was to suck it up, bite my lip, and drive straight into the winter storm that may or may not claim me as a victim.  Well, it's been a while since I've put up a good fight.  Game on.  Whirling winds and the blasting blizzard conditions were no match for my motivation to get back home safely.  Frankly, I don't think I would have been able to handle any mishaps.  The five days of travel and EORA festivities had left me completely fried.  With that said, I made it back in four hours flat.  That could be a new record.  It was two in the morning on Thursday and I was finally flopping onto my own bed.  Shwooh.

Kurt and I spent a lengthy amount of time talking about the game of rep-retailer relationships.  I learned a lot too.  Things are looking good for twenty eleven.

Friksn

My new rope.  9.2 Nano!!!

Geshido  

Optimus Prime Lace-up.  I will definitely where these.

And these.  The Shaman.

Here are two shorty video clips.  One is a problem I did a couple of days prior to the footage and was unable to video the send.  I was kinda bummed not to capture one of the biggest and baddest problems I'd done on video.  Fortunately, we had plans to go back there in the next couple of days anyway.  So, I made it happen and did it up!  The second is a little taste of the trade show.  Consider yourselves attendees of the clinic.

Hope you enjoyed it. 

Cheddar