This month my first photo was published in Climbing Magazine. I won a Wild Country Helium Cam for it! They also mentioned our round the world climbing trip. Very cool of them to choose my photo and go out of their way to plug our trip.
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
One Month and Counting!
As of today we officially have a month to go until we quit our jobs and leave Salt Lake City to start our around the world trip. Our intent is to take two full years off and travel around the world and US.
While traveling we will be climbing full time by camping at climbing areas, waking up, making some coffee and hoping on the rocks. We're really looking forward to exploring the globe and refining our rock climbing skills. We'll leave after my USA climbing team competes in Bozeman, Montana in mid-May. From Montana we'll head straight to Colorado and spend about a month there. After that we'll head to Wyoming, Montana, British Columbia, Washington, and then stop in Portland to visit Cassie's parents. From there we go to Europe for three months. We already have the plane tickets and car booked (so psyched). Leo and Dottie (Cassie's parents) have been incredibly generous to watch Mojo for that time. So, keep checking the blog and soon we'll have many posts describing our journey.
Right now the dull day to day stuff continues with our jobs. We can't help but feel like we're in a daze given that things area about to change so dramatically but that they haven't changed at all yet. We'll be putting the Honda up for sale soon and are slowly cleaning out the house. Just purchased a new laptop and a smartphone so we can blog on the road and hop online easily.
Gotta run, I'm late for work!
While traveling we will be climbing full time by camping at climbing areas, waking up, making some coffee and hoping on the rocks. We're really looking forward to exploring the globe and refining our rock climbing skills. We'll leave after my USA climbing team competes in Bozeman, Montana in mid-May. From Montana we'll head straight to Colorado and spend about a month there. After that we'll head to Wyoming, Montana, British Columbia, Washington, and then stop in Portland to visit Cassie's parents. From there we go to Europe for three months. We already have the plane tickets and car booked (so psyched). Leo and Dottie (Cassie's parents) have been incredibly generous to watch Mojo for that time. So, keep checking the blog and soon we'll have many posts describing our journey.
Right now the dull day to day stuff continues with our jobs. We can't help but feel like we're in a daze given that things area about to change so dramatically but that they haven't changed at all yet. We'll be putting the Honda up for sale soon and are slowly cleaning out the house. Just purchased a new laptop and a smartphone so we can blog on the road and hop online easily.
Gotta run, I'm late for work!
Monday, March 21, 2011
March and Triassic
This month we've been blessed with some warmer weather. Triassic and Joe's have been sunny and pleasant. This time of the year we get out to boulder at both those areas fairly frequently. The only thing that holds us back is the occasional weekend snowstorm which can limit us to gym climbing.
The first weekend of March we went to Triassic with our friends Jesse and Nicole. Jesse made quick work of Bacardi Silver (v4), while Nicole made progress on it. Nicole is about Cassie's height and though she had trouble making the reach at the crux she crushed the beginning without any issues. We moved on to Some get Two Fingers v5 and everyone had fun falling off the pockets. We also completed a fun problem on the backside of Golden v1. I put together a short video showing us in fast motion figuring out how to climb it.
The following weekend Cassie and I went to Area 51 at Joes. We tried Contact (v5). I sent after Cassie figured out the beta and Cassie made a bunch of progress on it. After that we headed to Planet of the Apes (v6) and Chips (v7). I did Planet of the Apes in about 3 tries and then came super close to sending Chips but kept falling off the last move. I finally figured out what I was doing wrong but was too tired to send. I hope that we go back there this coming weekend. I know that I can send it if I can try it fully rested. Cassie spent time on Planet of the Apes and made excellent progress on it, but afterwords was complaining about her right arm hurting. We now know she has tendonitis. She has been taking it relatively easy for the last week or so.
This last week I was in Bakersfield California for work, I missed my Friday connection from LA back to Utah and so had to spend the night there. I caught the first flight out the next morning and Cassie picked me up in the Van and we headed straight to Triassic. We wanted to meet up with our friends who were trying to replicate something called the Wanker 100. This is a 100 problem easy bouldering circuit that's pretty famous in a place called Hueco Tanks near El Paso, TX (an incredibly famous climbing area). The goal at Triassic was to climb a Wanker 50 and when we arrived the crew was well on their way with over 20 climbs. We did a ton of climbs I've always overlooked at the warm-up area which is kind of sad since some of them were really very good. I guess normally I do warmups in preparation for projects that I'm really excited about, sometimes I forget how good the easy problems can be. The crew managed to complete 34 problem in a day, which is pretty good considering the group size and kids running around.
Saturday night we camped with Mark, Suzi, and Pace. It was great. Mark got injured at Joe's Valley last Memorial Day and hasn't been able to climb with us pretty much since then. We've really been missing hanging out with Mark and Suzi since they are so much fun and remind us of ourselves (Mark is a biologist and Suzi works managing software so we have a lot to talk about. sometimes work conversations must be stopped) We stayed up, watched the campfire and drank beer. I suspect Cassie and I were both thinking about how this is what will be doing for the foreseeable future pretty soon.
The next morning we played with Pace and then hiked into the Tongue Area which is a place we have spent a little time at. There were two v6s that I've been wanting to do and we all threw ourselves at Idiot Boy. Mark sent first which was really impressive considering he hasn't bouldered that hard in almost a year, I followed suit with my best beached whale impression ever trying to get on top of the boulder. Cassie came super close but couldn't quite pull it all together since her beta had her making a huge stretch between two ok holds, but with terrible feet. She left pretty frustrated. We moved on to Eon Blue Apocolypse which is a roof climb that has shut me down. I spent all my energy just trying to remember the sequence that worked for me. I swore after finally finding a new sequence that I would write down my beta on projects from now on so I don't forget it ever again. I've held true to that promise and wrote down my sequence just this evening. Hopefully I can just remember where I left my beta book....
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| Problem #26 |
The first weekend of March we went to Triassic with our friends Jesse and Nicole. Jesse made quick work of Bacardi Silver (v4), while Nicole made progress on it. Nicole is about Cassie's height and though she had trouble making the reach at the crux she crushed the beginning without any issues. We moved on to Some get Two Fingers v5 and everyone had fun falling off the pockets. We also completed a fun problem on the backside of Golden v1. I put together a short video showing us in fast motion figuring out how to climb it.
The following weekend Cassie and I went to Area 51 at Joes. We tried Contact (v5). I sent after Cassie figured out the beta and Cassie made a bunch of progress on it. After that we headed to Planet of the Apes (v6) and Chips (v7). I did Planet of the Apes in about 3 tries and then came super close to sending Chips but kept falling off the last move. I finally figured out what I was doing wrong but was too tired to send. I hope that we go back there this coming weekend. I know that I can send it if I can try it fully rested. Cassie spent time on Planet of the Apes and made excellent progress on it, but afterwords was complaining about her right arm hurting. We now know she has tendonitis. She has been taking it relatively easy for the last week or so.
This last week I was in Bakersfield California for work, I missed my Friday connection from LA back to Utah and so had to spend the night there. I caught the first flight out the next morning and Cassie picked me up in the Van and we headed straight to Triassic. We wanted to meet up with our friends who were trying to replicate something called the Wanker 100. This is a 100 problem easy bouldering circuit that's pretty famous in a place called Hueco Tanks near El Paso, TX (an incredibly famous climbing area). The goal at Triassic was to climb a Wanker 50 and when we arrived the crew was well on their way with over 20 climbs. We did a ton of climbs I've always overlooked at the warm-up area which is kind of sad since some of them were really very good. I guess normally I do warmups in preparation for projects that I'm really excited about, sometimes I forget how good the easy problems can be. The crew managed to complete 34 problem in a day, which is pretty good considering the group size and kids running around.
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| I love everything going on in this picture. |
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| Nicole on Problem #27 |
Saturday night we camped with Mark, Suzi, and Pace. It was great. Mark got injured at Joe's Valley last Memorial Day and hasn't been able to climb with us pretty much since then. We've really been missing hanging out with Mark and Suzi since they are so much fun and remind us of ourselves (Mark is a biologist and Suzi works managing software so we have a lot to talk about. sometimes work conversations must be stopped) We stayed up, watched the campfire and drank beer. I suspect Cassie and I were both thinking about how this is what will be doing for the foreseeable future pretty soon.
 |
| Tori (Chris and Renee's daughter) |
The next morning we played with Pace and then hiked into the Tongue Area which is a place we have spent a little time at. There were two v6s that I've been wanting to do and we all threw ourselves at Idiot Boy. Mark sent first which was really impressive considering he hasn't bouldered that hard in almost a year, I followed suit with my best beached whale impression ever trying to get on top of the boulder. Cassie came super close but couldn't quite pull it all together since her beta had her making a huge stretch between two ok holds, but with terrible feet. She left pretty frustrated. We moved on to Eon Blue Apocolypse which is a roof climb that has shut me down. I spent all my energy just trying to remember the sequence that worked for me. I swore after finally finding a new sequence that I would write down my beta on projects from now on so I don't forget it ever again. I've held true to that promise and wrote down my sequence just this evening. Hopefully I can just remember where I left my beta book....
 |
| Cassie doing a highstep on Problem #26 |
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