Mud and Stars

Cassie went to Oregon last weekend to watch her dad run in a marathon. Leo trained for months to get ready and we were all really proud and impressed that he finished! He even did the marathon in the rain which makes it even more amazing. So, congrats to Leo for such a great accomplishment.

I stayed in Utah for the weekend and went climbing by myself. It had rained a lot during the week and the rock was wet and everything was quite muddy. Not a ton of pictures were taken so bear with me. Basically I took some pictures of a big mud puddle and tried some night shots of stars. Yeah I know it's a weird combination.

Rainclouds over the mountains. 

The Milky Way and the cliffs at Joe's.

Mojo loving the muddy water. He would have played in it all day if I had let him.



Weeds and muddy water.

I tried a project at Joe's and got really close but didn't send it. I did another climb called Runt (V7) that I tried super hard on in June but failed. This time I found the right sequence and sent it easily. Possibly I used holds that you aren't supposed to use because it was so easy that I repeated it immediately without even resting so that I could get video of me doing it. Alas watching the video it doesn't even look that good because I make it look super easy. One of the tricks when shooting good video is being able to show how hard the moves are, and usually a good way to do that is to really struggle on the climb. That seems to help make it look interesting, but when you just cruise it it doesn't make it look very impressive, especially when it's a short climb. In this case the whole climb was packed into 5 or 6 hand moves in only about 8 feet. So, I probably won't post the video because it's really not very exciting. Funny how that works sometimes something that is so rewarding to us (I felt completely elated when I finished it) just doesn't visually make that great of a story. I suppose that's because all the effort put into it is really what the story is about, not just getting the climb. So, trying to convey that effort is probably what I should really focus on in the video. Build up the story of the climb so that when I show the climber getting it the audience also feels that sense of accomplishment. Ah well, i'm just an amateur and often I just don't have the video. Most of the time I'd just rather climb than shoot video.

During the weekend I also installed our newly modified tent. Previously our tent just had canvas sides, so when you roll over you just see brown canvas. We found a custom tent repair shop in Salt Lake that would install new windows with bug nets. Over the weekend I installed it. It was great to be able to see the stars as I was falling asleep!

Before Tent was installed. 

Finally installed and ready to sleep in. The new window is behind the light.