The last few days.

Holy crap, a weekend without climbing something, I did manage to get in some running however.
Saturday evening was spent in Evanston at "Tapas Barcelona" celebrating Reese's birthday. In short, the food and company was exquisite, and fun times were had by all. (Couldn't get everyone in the picture (sorry ya'll)). Talks of climbing, work, school, and life in general went on as plate after plate of yummy food was brought our way.

Sunday I woke up with a head cold, being stuffy I opted not to run and spent most of the day shopping and cleaning the house in hopes to beat the damn cold. Monday morning I woke up feeling a bit better and opted to run. I did a quick 2.15 miles...that turned in to ugh...I had a hard time breathing and kept hocking up all sorts of crap, which I think might have been good in the end. Tuesday evening was spent in the climbing gym. I felt ok, because it was the evening and all that mucus crap was out of my system. I finally did yet another climb (cleanly) that I have been working on for a few weeks, a 1.5 foot wide pillar that runs the full height of the wall. It's was bear, you need both strength and technique for this one. I wish I had a picture, but for those of you that have been to the Sport Complex you know which one i'm talking about. Here's hoping to feeling better by Saturday since i'm going to Devil's Lake again.

Also, a big congrats to Matt for his success. Keep going buddy, it only gets better!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/matthewmichael/1408961843/

Weekend:

So lately my posts have been just about my weekends. Well to be honest, my weeks are just about all the same. Get up run (usually), train (sleep), work, train (sleep), dinner (yum), and usually either going to the gym or the climbing gym. I would like to blog in the middle of the week so we'll see what comes up.

This last weekend was a good time. Franck, Reese, Ryan and Diane headed up to the East Rampart at Devil's Lake. When I got there I noticed that Brinton's Crack was open. This is the one that I have been wanting to lead for a while. with good exposure and protection this is a classic climb, one that I wanted under my belt.

The lead went well, a bit different then I remember in May back when I top-roped the climb. The climb has two "technical parts" the first being a traverse and right after that a section of hand jamming. I doubled up my protection before I headed out for the traverse. One I got to the top, I built an anchor and Reese cleaned the climb for me. After which we moddfied the anchor a bit so the others that were with us could TR the climb.
Due to the large number of people that showed up while we where at Brinton's Buttress, after we all finished we moved to the lesser climbed areas of the bluff. We found some nice climbs (Devil's Lake) 5.3 - 5.6 and I picked a line that looked fun. I started the lead and ended up placing a tri-cam on my way. (This is a first on lead for me!) The top 1/4 of the climb was pretty run out. Lots of good holds, but not really a good place for gear. However after poking around some and Franck asking if I need to borrow anything (he was on a route near by) I found a place for a #1 Camalot after cleaning out some debris. The placement was still awkward. Before I made my move up, I felt each of the caming lobes to make sure they where all in contact with the rock. After my move I got a good look at my blind placement. Looked boomer and I finished the climb. The rest of the day was spend doing some TR climbs, some I might come back and lead.

Confidance & Trad with an after shot of a new goal.

Plain and simple...you need it. The two go together like Lamb and Tuna fish. I have never though of myself having large amounts of self confidence until the last few months. In life trusting yourself and your abilities (and your gear and partner(s) in the case of climbing) is crucial. This has started to set in over me the last couple of weeks and has most likely been building over the last year. Confidence is something that I actually enjoy having. I have gone my life not really having any (this is according to folks close to me), now that I do and it's never going to change. Someone told me recently... "How we view ourselves changes the way we view the world." (Thanks T) I would like to add to that statement by adding "and how the world around us views us".

This last weekend I headed up to Devil's Lake with Brian, and I managed to get in 4 good leads. Three of the climbs were more of a "huh...that looks fun...". Two of these climbs where rather "run out" in spots. I had one of these leads and Brian the other. During the run out sections, I think I only had the option of a 50 year old steel pin (which yes...I did use...) backed up (closely) by a "so-so" #4 nut. (Brianlater informed me he saw a place in the area of the old pin that could have took a for a solid cam placement) Lucky I was able to get in a good .75 Camalot about 4 feet above those. Brian ended up using a Wild Country "Zero" (small cam) on the run out of the climb he did.

The hardest climb of the day was the "Berkley Crack". A "Devil's Lake 5.6", which means...a 5.6 climb with a 5.8 Crux. The climbs sequence of moves is, up for about 15-20 feet, 10 foot traverse (right), up for another 10 or so feet and another 10 traverse (right) at this point you are at the crux, a lovely 5.8 reach to a rather nice jug. However, I couldn't quite get at the hold (which later I accepted that poor feet placement caused this) I fired in 2 cams right on top of each other. "TAKE"! Brian took in all the slack and ended up resting on a .4 Camalot. After I got back on the route, and repositioned my feet, the crux move (while still reachy) was easily doable. After the crux the climb becomes this small chimney type thing and tops out.

Side note from the weekend:
Over the weekend I reached a new low with my weight. I don't think I have actually posted what I weight now. In previous blog posts I said my goal was 218lbs. However, after this weekend and reaching a new low of 215lbs I have decided to make my new goal 199 by the end of the year.

Tradin' in Soill:

This last Sunday was a sunny day. I met up with Jeff and Andy at Drapers Bluff around 10Am for some climbing. These guys both frequent Drapers so they were so kind enough to let me lead everything first :)
"Dental Bill" was the first climb. There are a number of different ways to get up this section of rock. I chose the 5.9 way which contains a very "lovely" off-width crack. (An off-width crack is a crack that is too big to "hand jam" and to small to get your whole body into stem.) My arms and back (which I only found out about later that evening) got cut up something fierce. There were a few groups of people out just hiking around that day so every now and then we'd get a "Hi, how are you". Pausing only to stop and look up at these people climbing up the bluff and wonder just how sane they where.
Up next was "Dust Doctors" The roof it the hardest part of this climb. (See photo to left) The rest of the climb fun with great protection. I think I was able to place a piece every 5 or 6 feet., after getting to the top and running the rope though my own lockers. I cleaned when I be being lowered.

Up next was "C" crack (see photo at right), I have been wanting to do C Crack since March 07 if even it was just to second it. However, I was gonna lead it. The climb is broken down in to two sections, the first a lovely 5.8 crack with great pro all the way up. The second is a 5.8 10-15 foot traverse with two horizonal cracks, one two shallow to use for protection, the other crack was at an awkward height to place anything and only 1 foot hold (a small pocket about the size of a half dollar). Guess which part was really humbling. Judging by the amount of old gear left right before the traverse...I knew I was in for a treat. I placed a cam, as well as used a cam that was over cammed and the trigger wires cut (this thing was not going anywhere...) as my anchors. I started off across the traverse...."TAKE" Took a whipper right there. That was my first fall on gear. The sounds were something else. All the gear held.

I decided to lengthen one of the runners to give the rope some more play. When I went for a second go across the traverse, I made it to the end....Oh....SHIT Z-CLIP! (I believe those were my exact words) When I had gone to adjust the runner length from one of the cams I had re-clipped the carabiner to the wrong side of the rope. "TAKE!" my second whipper. This time however, due to the Z-clip, two of the nuts I had placed about 5 and 10 feet below my last cam "zippered" out. (Note: there was a sold #2 C4 below the nuts) While I was falling I remember just watching the stems of the nuts go 180 and then made an awful sound as they where ripped from the rock. The two cams I had above me were still solid. I fixed the Z-clip and climbed the traverse and belayed Jeff and then Andy up. I for sure learned a lot from this one climb.