Anytime I say those words, I think I should be yelling them like some drunken college kid on TV. As it winds down, it has been pretty awesome.

Friday night We left at 9pm for HP40. We had 6 people in a cargo van. It was a lot like being on tour, but more comfortable. I haven’t been climbing much, so I went without any serious climbing goals. I didn’t send anything that I hadn’t done before (save a few warmups that I hadn’t noticed before). It was more of a social trip with some climbing mixed in. At the height of it, there were 14 of us.

Some of the more memorable moments: Read the rest of this entry »

4 Comments || Topcs: General, punk, rocks

we left this morning at 4am for chattanooga for the little rock city comp. Arthur driving, Me in shotgun and Jenny in the back. CLimbing trip, you think about camping, dirty, smelly, but instead we rolled in to gatlinburg, went to cooter’s (from dukes of hazzard) museum. Then on to the wineries. we tasted a lot of wine, bought some local stuff. Muscadine is really sweet but really good.

chinese buffet for lunch and then onto chattanooga, it’s a cool artsy town. To be raging full on yuppies we continued to a coffeeshop and 2 art openings.

We have our tents set up in the cold ass concrete middle of chattanooga tennesse first pavillion. It’s cold as hell but for some reason the pavillion gets wireless internet so we thought it would be funny to update the blog.

more pics at my flickr site.

No Comments || Topcs: General, rocks

So the surly crosscheck has been converted over to a fixed gear for the winter. Let me reiterate that I just love that bike. Riding fixed with clipless pedals is really awesome when riding, but all my unclipping skill goes out the window when on a fixed gear.

Yesterday I did a quick 10 miles on the PG county trail system that involved a 3 stooges-esque slow motion fall on the ice around lake artemesia. I also managed to replenish any calories I burned (and 10 miles doesn’t burn that many) and then some at Nolen’s cool ass xmas party!

today I mixed biking and bouldering (it was a bit tricker than I thought). Slapped the crashpad on my back for some great falls and went riding in great falls doing recon. I found some cool stuff that was wet or icy and then put up 3 problems. None of them are crazy hard, but I feel like they are decent problems. There’s definitely potential for more.
Read the rest of this entry »

1 Comment || Topcs: General, bikes, rocks

I got back from horsepens on sunday night. The last 3 days of work have brutalized me, so I haven’t been able to get the trip report up. Here’s what I have to the best of my recollection.

Friday: Leave early in arthur’s yellow-mobile to ultra hip dupont circle to get tim. check in just fine and get to huntsville. Which is apparently “Our Nation’s Space Capital” Who knew? our crashpads never made it so we had to go make arrangements to get our pads when they were found. highlights of the conversation

We crossed our fingers and then I proceeded to rent my first car. A toyota camry with more automatic stuff than I am used to. We rolled through lovely northern Alabama where yard sales seem to be the state industry. Who has a yard sale at 9am on a Friday in October? Read the rest of this entry »

4 Comments || Topcs: General, rocks

busy with work so hp40 trip report will come later.
But here are some pictures:

My Flickr page

Tim also did a little write up and posted some pictures

check out my hat. I bought it in Boone. It say’s “redneck woman”.

2 Comments || Topcs: General, rocks

so, I leave in about 15 hours for my favorite climbing destination to date. HP40 for the 2nd event of the triple crown comp. I should be uber excited and doing all sorts of bizarre hand exercises to get ready. But instead, I keep thinking about my damn work. I have a lot of stuff to turn in on Tuesday, so I will be doing lots of work before I leave and lots of work when i come back and maybe some work while I’m there.

That said, I am writing up a brief game plan (not entirely unlike Tim’s) for my 3 day climbing extravaganza.

Friday: Try to climb the problems I really want to send before everyone gets there:

(seen below)

and maybe trying a few more. Given how much I’ve been climbing, that is unlikely. but it’s all about the fun.

Saturday, my goal is to actually fill my scorecard. 10 problems. Hopefully the majority in the v2-v3 range. I’m going to try and not get obsessed with anything and spend too much time/skin on it. It’s been a long time since I’ve snet 10 problems in a day, but I think I can pull it off there if I start out with that as a goal because the HP40 rock has been good to me.

Sunday, wake up early and climb a bit before driving back to the airport.

No Comments || Topcs: General, rocks

another boring climbing trip wrap up/ wimpy ass tick list / would be spray if I wasn’t climbing super easy problems.

Left at 3:30 am from casa de Joe. Leaving at 3:30 am is th way to go for road trips. You’re kinda awake, but as you get tired-er, the sun starts coming up. We rolled into blowing rock at 10:30. Hit up the mushroom boulder first where I sent the I kick matt in the nuts V1, the pinchy v3ish thing, and some thing on the far right end. We roll from to smart tom, I continue my irrational fear of blowing off the little patio it sits on, but Joe and Arthur are ripping it up. We stop after Arthur slips and slides and almost blows off the little patio for the 20-30 foot drop. Here’s Brian on the kick matt in the nuts problem.

here’s me on the harvester.

Read the rest of this entry »

1 Comment || Topcs: General, rocks

for climbing is actually winter time when the friction’s good, but the summertime is when I have time so the season is starting. I hit the gym up yesterday for the first time in a month or so and it made me realize that I really need to get climbing again.

hopefully the summer will be comprised of the following climbing type activities:

working on a great falls bouldering guide with my friend chris (has a degree in geography and works with satellite stuff)

some trips to coopers.

some trips to el gunks. I would very much like to work in a southcarey show up there and/or a non-climbing weekend with jen.

maybe a trip to boone or acadia if I can work it in.

The triple crown registration is open. I’m going to try and commit to making all 3 this year because it seems like enough people are into it that it might be do-able (and I need an excuse to get back to horse pens).

No Comments || Topcs: General, rocks

race is tomorrow. picked up my race pack. decent goodies. the shirt is ugly as shit and I got there too late to get a medium, although honestly it is so damn ugly it doesn’t matter. Water bottle and one of those weirdo drawstring backpacks that seems so popular these days. couple energy bars.

racked my bike. it felt weird to leave my bike outside unlocked overnight, but there will be security there. also, of the 1400 bikes there, mine is one of the least likely to get stolen. At dewey, there were a lot of “hey, I am going to try and do a triathlon” types. The pack for columbia seems hard fucking core. almost all the bikes are carbon fiber monocoque titanium aero triple spoke featherlight nuclear powered rockets. I’m sure those would get stolen first, unless they have built in titanium kevlar alarms (but they probably don’t because that would cause too much drag).

if anyone is inclined to roll out tomorrow to cheer me on in my quitting, my swim wave leaves at 7:23. I’m hoping for a 40 minute swim, 5 minute transition. 100minute ride and quitting. I was thinking about running anyway but I took it to the internet for advice and 2 random strangers advise against it. and that’s good enough for me :)

this morning, to enjoy the weather, I met jed and erin at Great Falls for some climbing. motivation was low for the day, but it was a good day of hanging out. No new sends, just old climbs and old friends. Afterwards jen, jed,erin and I went to baltimore for “the best turkey burger ever” at Donna’s. And it was pretty damn good.

1 Comment || Topcs: rocks, running/triath

Worked. came home and hit the College Climbing comp. I hadn’t climbed in weeks. It was a bouldering / short route climbing comp, but I didn’t bring my harness and I had to jet out early to go swimming anyway. The bouldering at the college leaves something to be desired, not for lack of trying, but the structure they have to work with is really limited. BUT, they managed to hook up some really cool problems and some of the routes looked cool too. They even did a men’s and women’s final. In the end, I was really impressed with they way things turned out. As we watched the finals, someone asked one of the setters what they were rated and they were reluctant to give it a V grade or a route grade (it was maybe 25-30 feet). My obnoxious ass piped up and suggested giving it a british grade. Because “you know, all their grades sound tough like ‘EXTREME VERY SEVERE YOU’RE GONNA FUCKING DIE’” immediately following this, a british woman turns around and says “we also have ‘difficult’”. I couldn’t tell if she was amused or not.

I also heard that NWB is now up on rockclimbing.com. It seems like some of the local young strong as hell kids from sport rock have been paying it some visits and putting up some uber hard eliminates and sent some of the longstanding projects.

I updated the site with some of the info I had and some history I acquired from the painful meetings of the Neighbors of the NWB that I attended.

oh yeah, and I swam a mile in 40 minutes again, but this time I really wasn’t trying that hard (tender shoulder), so I think I can pull a better time or a stronger finish.

No Comments || Topcs: General, rocks