End of Year Wrap Up

(warning there will be lots of nerdy climbing grade talk)

2008 has been an awesome year for my climbing. I travelled to some of the best spots in the world for climbing, met some cool people along the way and climbed hard! In fact this year I feel like i've taken my level of climbing, especially route climbing far higher than any other year (I think I said the same thing last year). Last year I improved on my highest redpoint from 7a+ to 7c which is huge, and although this year I only took it one notch higher to 7c+, I feel my route climbing has impoved so much more. I have consolidated my status as a 7th grade climber with 16 routes this year graded 7b or higher, 9 of them onsight, last year I had only done 11 routes 7b and up and none of them were onsight. Bouldering-wise although I didn't break into any new grades, I think maintained a fairly high level. My bouldering send of the year was probably Immunity Challange a V7 at Squamish which I couldn't do in 07 but did quickly this year. I think if I spent more time bouldering as opposed to route climbing I could have bouldered even harder. My proudest route of year is probably one that doesn't even count on my scorecard as one of my hardest of the year, my 2nd go ascent of Vagabond d'Occident at Ceuse. Vagabond is known as being one of the best and most popular routes in the world, in fact I just checked 8a.nu and it is has more ascents registered than any other in the world! It was a dream to climb, nice big heucos and pockets on a steep wall that seemed to go forever and challenge you the whole way. And the fact that I got it on my second attempt shows how much my level had improved on last year, having only done one 7c in 07 after working it to death.

Right now I feel in good shape for the year to come, I probably couldn't step out my door today and onsight 7b. But thats probably got more to do with the 7b's in the area to try rather than my ability, and thats a whole other topic. But if I could predict anything I would say if 08 was the year of onsighting, then 09 will be the year of redpointing. My main goal for 09 is to climb 8a, and I think I am in a better position than ever before to do so. I even have a route in mind, which is half the battle, the route is Chronic a 5.13b (8a) at Little Si. I've got on it before and struggled a lot, but I feel if I am able to train on it and work out the moves, I can use seige tactics and eventually it might go. What also helps is having other friends to work it with, and create a bit of friendly rivalry. Jimmy, Nick and Micah are all capable of climbing it this year as well. We've all tried it, and get to a similar point, Nick is probably the strongest on it out of all of us, but he won't be back here until the summer, so we'll have a couple of months to catch up to him.

Other goals for 2009 are to do more V7's and 8's at Leavenworth and Squamish. Discover other climbing areas in the US for both bouldering and routes. I want to get back into trad climbing, maybe do 5.11 trad again. And also non-climbing goals are to work more than 3 months of the year this year, and not travel so much, 25 flights in a year is not sustainable. And be a stronger climber and person in general. I'm feeling good about 2009, bring it on!

Colombia

I´m in Colombia right now on a non-climbing (although I did take my climbing shoes just in case, but so far I haven´t found any big enough rocks) vacation. I´m visiting my parents who have a house out here in Santa Marta and are here for 3 months during the winter. I´m having a great time, I´ve been here for a week and a half and have a few days left, though I wish I had longer. My parents´property in up in the hills, so its not quite as hot as in the city (but its still in the 90s every day), it feels very tropical up here. There are all sorts of tropical plants on their property ranging from banana and lime trees to cocoa and cotton. They also have an acre or two of rainforest-type jungle with a river running through it, its really wild! Its also been great spending time with some of my relatives on my mum´s side, my aunt mariaeugenia and my uncle moises and his family. But by far my favourite thing I´ve done here is to go scuba divivng with my dad. We´ve both got our advanced open water qualifications and have logged over 50 dives each, but it had been almost 8 years since the last time I went scuba diving. I don´t why I haven´t been in so long, becasue I loved it! Its an awesome feeling to be totally weightless under water and to be able to explore in 3D. The visibility was great and there was really interesting coral teeming with all kinds of tropical fish. I loved every minute of it! We are going again on Monday, and I can hardly wait!

Here are some photos of Colombia I´ve taken so far.

A common sight here is to see carts pulled by horses or donkeys, they sell fresh fruit and vegetables for cheap. Here my mum and dad get a dozen oranges for only 40 cents.

This is my dads house after he put on a new door, my mums house is much nicer.

Me and my dad on the boat about to go diving. Don´t be fooled by the rock in the background I checked it out and its crumbly.A walk up the road from our place is ´Agua Viva´ and ecological park that has a lot of the local wildlife (in cages) and jungle, it was a really cool place, and the guide helped us identify a lot of the plants we have growing on our property.A Cayman at Agua Viva.

Seattle Bouldering Competition

This weekend Laura and I traveled up to Seattle for the annual bouldering competition at Stone Gardens. It’s the biggest climbing competition in the state, climbers from all over the north-west made the trip, and we had competed the previous two years so didn’t want to miss it. A lot of the climbing team from the warehouse came up as well and did really well. Jimmy did awesome winning the men’s advanced category, and would have qualified for the open men’s finals if he had entered that category. I was pretty happy with my performance, I came in 13^th in the male advanced category which was a big improvement on my 27^th place last year. Laura did really well finishing 8^th in her category, improving again on her result from last year. So overall it was a good day for everyone.

We stuck around for the open finals at the end, where the best of the climbers compete for the big prizes. The problems were really well set and looked really hard, and most importantly separated the field well. Nobody had sent the final men’s problem, until Sean McColl who qualified first tried it finally. It was awesome to see Sean McColl who is a pro climber and former World Champion from Vancouver climb. We had met him in Ceuse France over the summer trying some really hard routes so we knew what he was capable of. He made the final problem look easy, and put on a show for the audience. Here's a video I got of him flashing it, where I think you can get a feel of the atmosphere in the gym as he sent it.

Dyno Comp and the last trip of the year

I had a pretty good weekend, on Saturday the Warehouse Rock Gym had a party to celebrate their 4th birthday, there was a cool slide show by Jim Yoder, Jimmy showed his climbing movie on the big screen and there was a dyno comp. Jimmy set all the dyno's. At first glance I thought he had set them way too hard and no one would send them, but it turned out that they were doable and a lot of fun. Me, Jimmy, and Whitey all completed 6 out of the7 (dyno #7 was huge!) Jimmy and Whitey did them with less falls than me. Here are a couple of videos I took of the dynos, the first is a short one of me almost latching the jug on a running start, and the second is of whitey doing dyno #4.

On Saturday we decided to take advantage of the break in the weather and head out for one last climbing trip before the snow, a day trip bouldering out at Leavenworth. Micah drove and we had a full car, Me, Laura, Jimmy and Jeremy. With gas so cheap right now and the car so full gas money was a fraction of what it cost us a couple months ago. We met up with some guys from Evergreen as the so there were 9 of us in total. When we arrived at Forestland it was cool, probably in the high 40s, and very misty, we thought it might burn off later in the day but it was just like for pretty much the whole day. We warmed up with a few of the classics at Forestland, Breadline (V0), The Real Thing (V4), Feel the Pinch (V4) and I did One Summer from the crouch start for the first time which goes at V6. The friction was so good it was hard to fall off. Well it wasn't that good I guess, cause I did manage to fall off The Shield (V7) and some other stuff a bunch of times . Jimmy made impressive sends of The Bedroom Bully (V8) and Busted which is a hard V8 now that the big flake has broken off. I'm keen to get back on those two problems again in the spring, cause I'm fairly close. We headed up to Upper Forestland and took our turns of some of the classics like Fedge, Lovage, The Physical, Sunny and Cheap and Funny and Cheap (all V2-4). It was fun to be climbing in a big group and giving encouragement to everyone trying the problems, it certainly turned what could have been a misty gloomy day into a fun time. Below is a video of me repeating Lovage (V3).

We finished off the day in the Scrambled Eggs area where I wanted to get back on the V8 I had come so close to completing last trip. But my skin was too thin by this point and the crimps hurt too much to really try hard, so I was content to leave this one until spring as well. I did do a couple of V3's there which were a lot fun. It was great to be out climbing at Leavenworth in November, I didn't really expect to get out so it felt like a bonus. Now I have to brace myself for a long winter of climbing indoors, and hope that I remain uninjured and strong for spring.

Jesse on Twisted Stone (V3)

Laura showing the boys how its done

Election Night

The view from our apartment of Downtown Olympia a few days before the election

Nov 4^th was the longest awaited day of the year for me. The excitement had been building up for weeks here in Olympia, days before the election the streets below our building were bustling with campaigners and Obama supporters waving their signs. We got tickets for the Thurston County Democrats election party that was to be held at The Vault, a nightclub just a block away from our place. But when it came down to it, we decided nachos and beer at our friend Micah’s house would be more fun. We headed over to his place around 5pm PST when the first states were starting to be called for Obama and McCain. I was really surprised how early in the night the news channels called each state. Even swing states like Ohio were called for Obama with only 13% of the votes in. This was the first sign for how the rest of the night was going to turn out. In between watching the results come in we also tuned into Comedy Central to watch Indecision 08 with Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, which was great for comic relief and their sketch about the Bradley Effect was hilarious. At 8 o’clock when the polls in California, Oregon, and Washington closed, the presidency was called for Obama. I thought it would be a lot closer and would take until later in the night until we would know for sure, but McCain’s concessionary speech shortly afterwards made it official. Nevertheless I stayed up late channel surfing watching all the results come in.

Obama’s acceptance speech was one of the most powerful I have ever witnessed. I felt like he was talking to me personally when he thanked his supporters for helping him get to where he is. I really believe that the American people got behind Obama like no other presidential candidate has achieved previously. I first started following Barack’s career when I read his books back in 06, before he announced his plans to run for president. I felt a personal connection with him, being raised in mixed race family, and being an American living outside of the US. I thought it was great to have a politician that was so honest and open about his past and his personal philosophies. I knew then that I wanted to support him in any way I could. I’m one of the many Obama supporters who gave what they could to support his campaign. I donated $5 dollars back when he was a long shot candidate at a time when he really needed the funds. When the caucuses came to Washington State earlier this year, I volunteered to be the precinct caucus chair, and the Obama precinct captain, where I gave a speech on behalf of Obama. It was re-affirming to meet other people in my neighborhood who were equally as excited about him, and to hear their personal stories of how they are affected by his candidacy. In my precinct we won delegates 6-1 against Clinton, even higher than the state average. That was the week that the caucuses turned in favor of Obama.

Traveling through Europe over the summer I got a first hand view of how other parts of the world viewed our election. I met a store owner in Greece who didn’t know any English, but recognized us as Americans and gave us the thumbs up and said Obama! Obama! Throughout our time in France and the UK you could pick up a paper and read the hype about Obama, it seemed at times like they were more excited about Obama than we are here. Its going to take a lot of work to re-build our relationships with other nations around the world but I’m confident that Obama is the man to do it. I’m really optimistic about the next 4 years, and the way it’s looking now, it’s hard to imagine he won’t get re-elected again in 2012.

South Sound Pull Down

The crowd gathers at the Warehouse Rock Gym

Saturday was the 2^nd annual South Sound Pull Down. Olympia’s own bouldering competition at the Warehouse Rock Gym. In last years comp I narrowly beat Micah for the top spot in the men’s category. So I was psyched to defending my title, especially when I heard about the prizes; a 60m rope for the highest-scoring male. And I was feeling pretty strong this year having trained with the Warehouse climbing team for the last few months. Laura was equally as psyched to see how she would fare, last year she didn’t make the comp cause of work commitments.

We turned up early in order to scope out the problems, there was already a lot of people there including a few that had made the trip down from Tacoma, I recognised some of them from the crags so I knew I would have some tough competition. At 3pm the comp got under way, I started out with some easier problems to warm up on. Then Micah and I got stuck into one of the hardest problems there, a steep prow with a cryptic sequence worth 1040 points. After a few goes each, figuring out the moves, I latched the finishing jug to the cheers of the spectators, so far a good start to the comp. I was checking out some other hard problems, when whispers spread though the crowd that Johnny G and his crew from Seattle had turned up. Yeah right, I thought, he’s a V13 crushing sponsored climber, what was he doing in our little gym in Olympia? I checked it out and sure enough, Johnny G, Joel Campbell, Dimitri and a strong female climber had come down for the comp. There goes the rope!

It was cool that they turned up though, I think everyone stepped up their game and it was a good test for the route setters. Credit to Jimmy for setting the hard problems, he set some really hard ones that even took Johnny G a while to send, the hardest problem worth 1080 points must rank in at around V10 or so. There were also some other strong competitors like Nathan who came down from Seattle, and David who came in 3^rd place last year turned up for the comp as well. I climbed hard throughout the comp and managed another 1000 point problem a 960, a 900 and got in a 880 right at the end to give myself a fairly respectable overall score. The total score is based on the sum of your highest 5 problems. The full results are up Jimmy's blog now, it turns out I finished in 4th place right behind the guys from Seattle. I scored the highest out of everyone from Olympia which I guess was my goal, so it was a good result overall. Laura did really well, and got up some hard problems including an 800 point problem. She was in the women’s advanced category and finished in 2^nd place overall, closely behind the girl from Seattle.

I think its fair to say that the competition was a big success and went off without a hitch. A lot of effort was put into the route setting and the organisation of the comp so I’d like to say a big thanks to Jimmy and the rest of the staff at the WRG for putting on another great comp.

Palin Bingo

I was planning on keeping my blog strictly about climbing. But lets face it, that would be a bit dull, so I’d thought I’d spice it up with some other stuff like politics. Last night was the Vice Presidential debate between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin. We had listened on the radio to the first debate last week (we don’t have our TV hooked up to an antenna) which was fun, but we figured we needed to watch it on TV to get the full story. So Laura and I hopped on the bus over to the westside to watch it at the bar of our favorite restaurant The Iron Rabbit. They had a big screen TV up for the debate, and lots of drink specials during the debate. The ‘patriot shooters’ (red, white and blue shots) tempted me, but we figured a pitcher was more sensible. When we arrived there was an Obama volunteer who brought Palin Bingo. Palin Bingo is just what it sounds like, for a small donation to the Obama campaign we were given a sheet of paper with a matrix of Palin words or phrases that you cross off when she says them during the debate. Phrases like ‘hockey mom’ ‘pork barrel’ and ‘bridge to nowhere’. We would score off each one she says and try to make a line across the sheet like bingo. There were some giveaways like ‘maverick’ and ‘drill’ that she said straight away. It wasn’t too hard to play the game and listen at the same time, not that there was much that I heard from her that I didn’t expect.

The nice thing about watching the debate rather than just listening to it on the radio, was being able to see their body language and gestures. I felt that often Palin was quite rude when Biden was talking. Things like her reactions and her smirks while Biden was talking. Her eye rolling when she talked about government-run health care, and her winking into the camera felt plain creepy to me. The pressure was definitely on Palin for this debate, it was hers to loose. But I don’t think she lost the debate, but I don’t think she won over any undecided voters either though. Her performance was geared towards pleasing the republican base, which she did well. There were a couple of small slip ups that gave us a laugh in the bar. Like when she had trouble differentiating her stance on rights for same sex couples from Biden, and when she said ‘we need McCain to leave’ and quickly corrected herself, she meant to say ‘lead’. It was obvious that she had a lot preparation going into the debate, her answers to the questions sounded more like a practised speech she had memorized about subjects that were loosely related to the questions. Biden did well, but I think everyone expected him to. I felt he could have grilled Palin more directly, but the constraints of the debate didn’t allow for much rebuttal. I felt he could have been more aggressive when critising Palin’s stance on man-made global warming and other subjects where she is clearly mis-guided. At the end of the debate the buzz at the bar seemed to be frustration in Palins inability to answer the questions directly, I think also part of the frustration was because they were hoping she would mess up more than she did.

After the debate we walked across the street to Vic’s Pizza where we used some of our $40 gift certificate we won at the Scrabble tournament on Saturday (but that’s another story), and we listened to some of the post-debate reaction on our personal radio. At this time of night we normally listen to our favourite radio show TBTL with Luke Burbank on KIRO. Tonight it was bumper show, they still had TBTL but they were doing special debate coverage with Dave Ross, another of our favourite radio hosts. Once we were finished with our pizza and caught the bus back downtown, I was feeling fairly riled up or maybe I was still buzzing from the pitcher at the Iron Rabbit. I decided now was as good a time as ever to call in to KIRO for the first time. Somehow I managed to get through to Luke, I think it was casue I mentioned playing Palin Bingo in a bar. When I got on KIRO Luke kinda called me out on being a bit drunk, but I think it went pretty well. You can listen yourself here, scroll down to TBTL with Luke Burbank and I should feature in the 8-9 hour of the Oct 2nd show. I feel an obligation to go back to the Iron Rabbit to watch the next debate on Tuesday to report back to TBTL, but I think I might go to watch it at the bar at Quality Burrito, they’re serving tall cans of PBR for only $1! We’ll see…

Oh and in case your wondering, Laura won Palin Bingo with a straight of ‘Terrorists’ ‘Hockey Mom’ ‘Alaska’ and ‘Special Needs’.

Old Video

I was looking through my laptop and came across this old video of me climbing from back in 05. I thought it would be cool to put it up here. It’s a video of me soloing a route called Nijinski at Auchinstarry Quarry, Scotland. The route is graded E5 6a, which for those of you who don’t know translates to about 6c+ climbing or 11c X, which was pretty much my limit at the time. The E grade takes into account the difficulty and seriousness of the climbing, 6c+ climbing is at the low end of difficulty for an E5 climb, but it is very hard to protect, so it’s a very dangerous climb. It is possible to get some marginal pieces of gear in, my friend George did it a year later and managed to fiddle in some weighed down RP’s and a skyhook, but these are more for psychological aid since they probably wouldn’t hold a fall. I decided to solo it because I didn’t think the gear would hold, and more importantly I didn’t want to hang around up there and get scared trying to fiddle in some gear. In this sense it was probably safer for me just to go for the solo.

I had first toproped this climb much earlier, before I was capable of climbing it cleanly, but it had stuck in my mind as something I always wanted to go back to and lead/solo. Once I had managed to toprope it cleanly, I knew it was only a matter of managing the mental aspect of the climb. I did this in May 2005 at a time when I was really trying to push my trad grades. In the space of just a few months I had gone from being an E1 (5.10a) trad climber to onsighting E3 (5.10+) and redpointing E4 (5.11+), so the next logical step was to go for an E5. On the day of the climb I had toproped the climb a couple of times before to make sure I was absolutely solid on it, the crux of the route is at about ¾ height where it is very precarious balancy climbing. A fall from that height would be very serious. The footage is not amazing, but I think you can still feel the tension of the day.

Watching the video even now makes my hands sweat. This was definitely the peak of my dangerous climbing phase, I went on to climb other hard routes up to E5, but they were a lot safer. I think I realized when I topped out that I couldn’t do something like this again. I felt some of best and worst feelings I had ever experienced climbing this route, I’ve never felt so involved in a route as I did with this one. I don’t regret climbing this route, but this type of climbing is definitely in my past now, I won’t be trying anything as dangerous as this again.

Eastside Climbing

In the last week or so I’ve made a couple of trips out over the mountains to the Eastside. Last week with Laura down in San Francisco visiting her sister, Micah and I decided to have a guys trip out to Leavenworth again. Jimmy and George from Olympia, were already out there so we met up with them at Mad Meadows. I flashed a cool V5 ‘The Undercling’ there, its one of the few things that I hadn’t done already. It was getting pretty warm, so we huddled under the Hanta Man roof in the shade, despite all the heat Jimmy managed to link all the moves and sent Hanta Man (V9). Next at the Sword area Micah got the Prism (V9) pretty fast, we all tried it, it didn’t feel too hard, I just need to grow a couple of inches to make the span. On the second day we played around in the beach area, I did the (shallow) water solo Beach Arete (V2) which was fun, but I guess I was a bit disappointed I didn’t fall. So we all jumped off an even bigger boulder nearby into the river, which was a lot of fun! Micah put together a cool video of the trip here, and here’s one from a couple of weeks ago.

Laura checking out the view at Frenchman's Coulee

A typical bolted arete at Frenchman's Coulee

A few days later Laura got back and the 3 of us headed out to Frenchman’s Coulee near Vantage. Laura and I had been here before, but it had been a while, and it was Micah’s first visit. It was cool to be in the sun in the dusty desert just 3 hours after leaving rainy Olympia. Because Vantage is in the rain shadow of the Cascades it gets very little rain, it feels like a totally different country out there with tumbleweed blowing. We pitched our tents, and got out to Sunshine Wall, where we warmed up on Easy Off (10c) a typical Vantage bolted arete, and one of my all time favorites. It had been a long time for Micah since he last onsighted routes, but proved that he still had it with an impressive onsight an 11c at Jigsaw Wall, it was really fun to watch since it gave good battle. We did a couple more routes there before it got too dark to climb. We returned to the campsite to a good fire and some country music on the radio, it felt appropriate. The next morning we made a b-line for the powerhouse another powerful sport crag, we had a bit of a fright on the way over when Laura came very close to stepping on a rattlesnake. At the powerhouse Micah worked on (and almost sent) a cool 12a, King of the Ruins. He gave me streaming beta and I managed to flash it, and we did a few other things there before we pumped out. We ended the day at The Feathers, a really fun easier area with bolted pillars. That night at the campfire we met Dave another westsider who was out here for a few days working on the only boulder problem here, Merciful Fate, a 30ft long V7. He described it as ‘the best boulder problem in the state’ and got us really psyched for trying it with him. The next day he led us to the boulder problem, which was pretty treacherous just to find in the first place. It was really cool endurance problem starting with a sit-start then went up 45 degrees on slopey holds to top out pretty high above a sketchy landing. After getting the beta from Dave, I managed to flash it to the midway rest, which is given V5 in the guide, but I was too pumped/scared to continue above. It was a cool climb but we all agreed that it probably wasn’t the best boulder problem in the state. With that we headed back over the mountains to Olympia, where we were all looking forward to a well-deserved shower

Sun, Scenery and Slopers

Since Laura and I have been back in Seattle we've had a busy schedule looking for a place in Olympia etc. So we were very excited when Micah suggested a 4 day trip to Leavenworth. We headed out in Micah's new Forester, with a triple pad strapped to the roof and 2 more inside plus all our camping gear it was still very spacious and comfortable. It was a welcome change from trying to squeeze all our stuff in our accord. 3 hours after leaving Seattle we were pulling into Icicle canyon, I had forgotten how beautiful this part of the state was, I can't think of a better place to go climbing. First thing we did was to claim ourselves a campsite at eightmile campground, we knew on the Thursday before Labour Day weekend they would go pretty fast. And the last two times we camped in Icicle we ended up having to share with RVers, not because we turned up late, but because they decided since we were just 'tent camping' there would be plenty of room to share.

With that taken care of we headed to the Forestland boulders where we all had some unfinished business to take care of. I got shut down on The Shield (V7), but Micah showed how his training had paid off with quick sends of Backdoor Ass Attack (V7), and The Drill Sergeant (V8), and Laura also showed her improvement with a fine send of Lovage an excellent V3 that had spat her off in the past. We returned that night to an empty campsite (score!), Laura proceeded to cook us up some fine burritos, Micah provided the beer and I started a campfire to be proud of. There's nothing quite like sitting around a good fire, beer in hand talking climbing. Usually around the fifth beer comes the sweeping generalisations, like Micah claiming that Washington State has the best bouldering in the whole US (despite him only having bouldered at one other place in the US - Bishop). We awoke the next morning a bit later than planned, but hey were on holiday. We switched on the radio to hear McCain introduce a woman as his VP running mate, was I still dreaming? I guess not, but with that in mind we headed to the boulders thinking maybe anything was possible, but grades don't lie and having not trained in months I was finding everything pretty hard. Over the next couple of days we checked out some new areas, The Hueco Crimper, and Machine Gun boulders really good, The Labyrinth boulders not do good. Micah continued his good form with a send of The Cattleguard Arete (V8), and Saturday as dusk approached we returned to The Hueco Crimper (V6) so I could work it some more, and Micah could work the low start that goes at V9. Micah's powerful heel-hook beta wasn't working for me so I figured out a toe-jam and bumped through intermediates to get past the big sloper, it was a very impressive send and one of the coolest boulder problems I've witnessed. With that we headed straight to Gustav's in Leavenworth to celebrate with some fine eating and some local ales (they didn't have PBR).

On Sunday our final day we were all feeling a bit sore and our skin was raw, but nevertheless we headed to Mad Meadows where we met up with Jimmy who had made the day trip out here from Olympia. He was obviously climbing very strong and psyched as he made an impressive flash of The Jib (V8), a one-mover above a terrible landing. I managed to find a problem that didn't hurt my fingers, it just hurt my whole hand instead, a hand jamming roof crack called No Pain No Grain (V5). It was actually really fun, a very unique problem, I'm glad I did it. And Micah finished up Crimpsqueek (V7) and WAS (V8) to cap off a great trip for him. He's done 15 problems V8 and harder in the last 6 months which is an amazing feat. I managed one more V5 The Footless Traverse at Swiftwater before we grabbed some cheeseburgers at The Hiedelburger and said goodbye to Leavenworth. It was another great trip, we all had a blast, I'd be surprised if its our last time here before the end of the year.

For photos check out Micahs blog.

Back to the States (well Canada actually)

Just a couple of days after arriving back in the States from our Europe Trip Laura and I were back on the road again, this time up to Canada. Our good friends Micah and Nick were already up in Squamish enjoying the bouldering, so we decided to go up and meet them. It was to be our last time climbing with Nick for a while since he is moving to the east coast to start a nursing program in Washington DC. The night before we headed off I got a call from Nick in Squamish. They had a pretty bad day, they were working on the Squamish classic Sesame Street (V9) when Nick took an awkward fall and smashed his leg against a rock. They spent most of the day at the hospital where he had to get stitches and because Nick is uninsured it cost him $600 out of his own pocket, Ouch! But that didn't deter him, he was back bouldering later that evening.

Nick on Gull Skull

It was great to see them again, the last time we saw them was in March, but it was like we had never left, except for the fact they had gotten a lot stronger. Nick improved from climbing V6 earlier this year to now having climbed his first V9's over the summer, not to mention his great improvement on routes. And Micah has now climbed 2 V10's as well as numerous V8s and 9s! This was the same guy who at the start of summer last year didn't think bouldering was for him. And only just did his first V6 around this time last year at Squamish! It was clear to see how strong they had become when we met them at Worm World Cave (V9), Nick was really close on it, and Micah was showing him the beta having already done it.

It was great to climb with them again even though I couldn't quite keep up with them on the hardest stuff. We managed to flash Atlas a cool V4 that I had never seen before, it was a really good find, considering I thought I had done pretty much everything worth doing at this grade in Squamish. Laura added it to her growing list of frustrating Squamish V4s. I also showed Micah my beta on Corrupted a crimpy V7 I had done last summer, and he quickly sent it on his second go of the day.

Micah going for the repeat of Tatonka V8

A boulder problem I had thought about a lot since I was last here last September, was Immunity Challenge (V7), a great 12 move crimpy endurance problem. So I convinced the guys to make the trek to the other side of the forest to try it. I had worked on it one day last summer but couldn't link it together , I did however write down move by move beta on a post-it note and stuck it in the guide for the next time I'd try it. It paid off when I sent it second go of the day, I was really proud of this climb especially since Micah and Nick thought it was pretty tough. After this we tried The Fuzz another V7 that manages to be a Squamish classic despite it not being in the guide. Micah sent it quickly with ease while Nick and I just watched on in awe.

The following day we awoke to rain which was a big bummer. We hung out at a breakfast joint until it looked like it would be alright. The forest was soaked but the apron boulders dry very quickly so we headed straight for those. There have been major roadworks all along the Vancouver to Whistler road as they expand it all in preparation for the 2010 Winter Olympics, and it has finally caught up with Squamish. One of the best V4's here Shots Fired is slated to be blown up to make way for the road expansion and currently it is right on the verge of the road and literally has gravel piled up to the side of it. Micah and I repeated it and Nick did it for the first time, he may have gotten its last ascent. The road works also unearthed a few other boulders nearby so we played around on them a bit as well which was fun. What looked like a write-off day actually turned out to be quite productive, as we managed to get on quite a few things that day, we capped off the day by catching a movie at the Garibaldi cinema: Pineapple Express, I'd highly recommend it.

Nick showing us how its done

Sunday was more of the same in terms of the weather, the boulders were still wet in the forest so we made do with what was dry at the apron boulders. We repeated The Cutting Edge (V4), and Micah finished off some old business with a send of Gull Skull (V6). Micah put together some footage, its all new except for the clip of me on Holm Boy from last summer. Although we didn't manage any huge numbers, it was a great to be climbing with Nick and Micah again. I'm sure I speak on behalf of everyone in Oly when I say you'll be missed Nick!

Céüse

Once we got bored of Ailefroide we took a bus a couple of hours down the road to Gap. From Gap we could see the cliff of Céüse, often called the best sport crag in the world. I could see what all the hype is about, perfect rock with pockets everywhere, its like it was made to be climbed. The big drawback of Céüse is that its a gruelling hour and a half walk in (for us) to get to the base of the cliff. The first time we walked in was the worst, maybe becasue we took the wrong way, but I seriously had my doubts if it would be worth it once we were up. But it definately was.



The climbers campsite, Les Guerins, was pretty intense. It seemed like every strong climber travelling around Europe was there. There were climbers from all over Europe, the US and Canada, even Asians and South Americans. It was easy to tell where some of them were from because they were often in teams with matching tracksuits representing their country (i'm not joking). There were a lot of very serious climbers there. It seemed like the average climber was climbing 8b and had about 2% body fat. Laura and I felt pretty out of shape in a place like this which is pretty ridiculous. There were quite a few sponsored climbers there I recognised, and some guys from a couple of the climbing dvd's I have; Underdeveloped and West Coast Gimps, so that was cool. We even ran into Aline a friend from Edinburgh who we had climbed a lot with last summer in Squamish, so it was fun especially for Laura to climb with her again.

Me fighting through the steep crux of Bibendum 7b+

At first it took us a while to get used to the climbing at Céüse, there were often quite scary runouts towards the top of routes. I did a long 6c+ called Mawoi (to the second chains) that had two bolts in the last 20m to the chains, it was vertical climbing on shallow slopey pockets with no chalk on the rock, I was very tempted to bail but I'm glad I finished it off. It seemed that often the worst run outs were on the easier routes, so Laura had a tough time committing to some, nevertheless she still sent some proud routes including a 6b+ flash, and a 6c redpoint. In the first few days I fell off a 7b and a 7b+ that I thought felt quite hard, which got me a bit worried. But then I got on some steeper stuff and seemed to do a lot better. I onsighted Lapinerrie a classic steep 7b, it didn't feel too hard, the crux was probably waiting around it the queue for the route without ruining the onsight. A couple days later I tried Bibendum an awesome looking 7b+ that I'd been told was onsightable and my style, steep and juggy. It was a real fight going through the steep bulgy roof on good (and occasionally not so good) pockets, before I managed to find a rest in a big pod where I could get a half decent knee bar and sideways arm bar that was just enough to de-pump before the pockety headwall. I was really chuffed to onsight this route, I certainly wasn't expecting to onsight a 7b+ in Ceuse. I met Dave Redpath from scottishclimbs.com up there and he kindly sent the photos of me on Bibendum, my camera had broken somewhere between Ailefroide and Céüse so these are the only photos I have from there.


After I did Bibendum I asked Robbie (from Edinburgh) and Eric (from Sweden), a couple of strong young guys who I was hanging out with, for a good 7c to get on. They had both onsighted the classic Céüse climb Vagabond d' Occident, and were always saying how easy it is. I got on it and was expecting a jug ladder to the top the way they were describing it. But I soon found out 7c in Céüse is not easy no matter how easy people make it sound. I got back on it for my 2nd go attempt a couple of days later and this time I cruised it. It made a big difference knowing what to expect and shaking out on the good holds. I was really glad to climb 7c in Céüse and to do such a classic route there makes it all the better. According to the routes database on 8a.nu Vagabond d' Occident is the 3rd most climbed route in the world!

Me on Bibendum just after the rest

I did Vagabond right at the end of our time in Céüse, if we stayed there a week or two longer I'm sure I could have climbed even harder. But I think if we stayed any longer we would have gone crazy, there is only so long we can take living out of backpacks. We're back in Scotland now, its nice to have a warm shower and a comfy bed to sleep in. We fly back to Seattle in a few days. Its been a great trip but I think we're both ready to get back to real life.

Ailefroide

From Istanbul we took a cheap easyjet flight to Switzerland, and from there a train over to France. Ailefroide is in the Ecrins National Park, the southernmost tip of the french Alps. Its not much of a town, but in the summer it gets really busy with climbers and campers. It was nice to be camping in cooler temperatures again, during the day it could get quite warm in the sun, but nice and cool in the shade, and at night we'd have to wrap up warm. We were there primarily for bouldering but we also got some routes in. The rock there is granite, similar to Squamish granite, but with more featured boulders. I had the Blocheart bouldering guide to the Alps, and I bought the local Ailefriode bouldering guide, neither of which are very good, but together we just about figured out what was what.

Laura in a fields of wild flowers

On our first day there we made the most of our fresh skin and went to the main sectors 'Surprise du Chef' and 'Cahutes'. The first problem we got on was a font 6b on a slightly overhung boulder with positive but very small crimps. I managed it in a couple of go's using big moves between the good crimps. Laura was also trying it as well since it suited her style, powerful small holds. She worked it for half and hour figuring out a different sequence, and eventually got it using a completly different but just as hard sequence, doing 7 moves where I took 3 to get to the top. Previously she had done one V4 (font 6b) in Squamish (and came very close on a few others), so this equalled it, and it wasn't to be her last one here. Later in the day, I managed a 7a+ in the Cahutes sector which i was really pleased with cause it felt quite hard. It was a sit-start on a small boulder to a couple of crimpy sidepulls then a snatch to the slopey top and mantel. I didn't manage anything harder than that in Ailefroide.

Dom on a 6b at the reception boulder

As the time went on we checked out different sectors, I was actually a little surprised how few good boulders there were, considering the popularity of the area. There are 7 or 8 different sectors spread out within walking distance of Ailefroide, but at most of the sectors there was just 1 or 2 worthwhile boulders to climb on. Maybe it was becasue the last place we bouldered at was Fontainebleau which is huge, but this seemed like quite a limited area. As for the grades I found the 7's to be really hard, even compared with font, I tried a lot and failed a lot. The 6's seemed a lot more doable than the grades in fontainebleau though. Laura managed five 6b's in total, which was an amazing effort by her. Maybe one or two of them were soft, but for the most part they seemed about right.

Dom on Rocco's Dino 6b

The routes were a fun diversion from bouldering since they didn't really hurt our skin as much. I was surprised to find everything was bolted, the gratine on the cliffs is quite compact so theres not many cracks for gear, but even where there are cracks theres bolts everywhere. Although the routes are bolted they didn't really have the feel of sport routes, bolted granite was very different from what we were used to so we stuck to mostly easier stuff. One day we hiked up this gully full of loose blocks, which was quite scary to do some routes, but all the easy stuff was already taken. I didn't want to walk all the way down without doing anything so I got on the easiest available route which was a 6c+. It started out alright, but where the route goes out of sight there were 20ft runouts between the bolts and I was breaking off footholds with every other step. In the end I got it clean, I think I was crimping to hard to fall off, but needless to say after that we just stuck to bouldering.

Laura sending Yougo Slab (font 6b)

After almost 2 weeks there we had climbed pretty much everything we wanted to, laura was pleased to have done so many hard bouler problems, and I was just happy to be back bouldering on granite again. But we were ready for more limestone sport climbing, and what better place than Ceuse, probably the best sport crag in the world just a couple of hours down the road.

Dom on a hard 6b in Ailefroide

Turkısh Delight

From Kalymnos it was a surprisingly easy to make our way to Turkey. Just a quick boat rıde to Kos, then another quıck (20 min) boat rıde to Bodrum. From Bodrum we got on a bus for the 8 hour journey to Antalya, the ticket was surprısıngly cheap consıderıng Turkey has the most expensıve petrol prıces ın the world. We went to the main clımbıng area in Turkey which is Geyıkbayiri, just 30 km outsıde of Antalya. We stayed at the very nice clımbers campground JoSiTo. The only problem was that it ıs ın the mıddle of nowhere ın the hılls, and we had no food. Luckıly for us ıt was a Sunday and the local market was on, so we hıtched to that ın the back of a pıckup truck full of trash. It was a big market, but we dıdnt know what most of the stuff was, so somehow we ended up eating potatoes, onions, cucumber, and egg plant (all mıxed together usually) twıce a day while we were there. It got pretty disgusting very quickly. As for the climbing we were a bıt dissapointed with the first place we went (Trebenna). The rock was basicly conglomerate limestone, i.e. choss. It was very different to what we were used to on Kalymnos. But as we explored different areas the quality improved. The area prides ıtself on having great tufa climbing, but ıt couldnt really hold a candle to the stuff in Kalymnos. We mostly clımbed easier stuff, it was nıce just rolling up to a crag having not don any of the routes before. I managed a 7a+ onsight, and laura a 6b+ flash here so ıt wasnt all easy stuff. The nice aspects of the area was that it was cooler that Kalymnos (at least for the first few days) there was a lot more cloud cover and more variety of when different crags were in the shade. Also the crags we literally on our doorstep, the walk ins ranged from 1 minute to 20 minutes at most, which was nice.


Laura joining in with the fun with the Hot Rock crew at the JoSiTo campsite



We shared the campsite with a few other independent climbers and a big group of Hotrockers. They are basıcly a group of mostly British clımbers who travel around the world in a huge truck and climb along the way. They were on there way from Africa, to eventually eastern Asia. If anyone readıng thıs ıs ınterested ın clımbıng ın more exotıc parts of the world, ı would hıghly recomend them to check them out, they seemed lıke a really cool bunch of people. They were a lot of fun to hang out with, and they ıncluded us in a lot of their activities, so we had a blast. They recommended to us the nearby climbing area of Olympos of the coast about 90km south of Antalya. They had been there and really liked ıt and were planning on returning in a few days as well. We were getting pretty sick of the food by this point so it was an easy decision to move on to another area.



Laura warming up on a 6a+ in the Horguc Magara Sector



In Olympos we stayed at kadirs treehouses which is the 'climbers hangout' ın Olympus, but ıt seemed like most of the climbers there also worked there taking backpackers out for a intro session. There were a lot of backpackers from all over, we seemed to meet a lot of Canadians. So it was cool to meet more normal backpacker tourısts. We didnt stay in a tree house instead we got a specıa clımbers deal campıng for 15 lira a night ın a rıverbed, including buffet style all you can eat breakfast and dinner. Maybe it was because we were starved of good food for the past week, but the food at kadirs was delicious, but I soon learned all you can eat doesnt necessarily mean all you should eat! The climbing in Olympos is less extensive, probably only a hundred or two routes to choose from ınstead of 500 or so at Geyıkbayiri, but it still had plenty. The style ıs a bit different, there is less steep stuff, but more crımpy vertical walls which I like. It was a bıt warmer than at the other place, cause ıt was a sea level, but ıf we stayed ın the shade ıt was ok wıth a breeze. Towards the end of the trıp (today) ıt got pretty hot up to 35 (mıd 90s) so we were glad to be movıng on.
Dom enjoying a steeper climb in Olympus

Overall I thınk laura and I enjoyed the clımbıng ın Olympus much better, probably becasue of the atmosphere of the town and the dıfferent style routes. The hıghlıght of my trıp here was onsıghtıng a 7b+, my second hardest onsıght after the 7c ın Kalymnos. It was a 28m vertıcal wall wıth fıngerlocks, laybacks, hıghsteps, very technıcal. I kept on expectıng to come off but ı kept on pullıng hard and got the onsıght. At the chaıns ı had a great vıew over Olympus Bay and the shıps ın the sea, ıt was a moment to remember. Laura also clımbed hard, onsıghtıng a tough 6b whıch equals her hardest onısght on the trıp so far. I thınk both of us are ın really good route clımbıng shape rıght now, our confıdence ıs hıgh and were eager to get on more hard stuff, but maybe were the clımate ıs a bıt cooler.

Dom on a rest day at the Olympus beach

I,m defınately glad we came to Turkey, ıt has been very dıfferent to what I was expectıng, but ı have grown to really enjoy ıt hear. Were takıng a bus up to Istanbul tonıght for a few days sıghtseeıng, then we,re headed back to central europe ın search of some cooler clımbıng, and were lookıng forward to fındıng some chıllıng.

A couple of Kalymnos videos

Im not in Kalymnos anymore, but I still can't stop blogging about it. I've found a good cheap internet connection here in Turkey so here are a couple of videos I took ın Kalymnos that İ wasn't able to upload there.

The first one is of the Deep Water Soloing Whitey and İ found near Dolphin Bay in Kalymnos, its just a small area, not too high, but we found some good hard climbing there. Did I fall or jump? You decide.

This is a video of the very last climb I tried in Kalymnos on my last day. Its a 7c roof climb thats only 6 bolts long or so. I managed it all except for this one crux move, I've never done a route like it before.

Turkey is a lot of fun, i'm glad we chose to come here, we,ve done a lot of routes, but mostly easy stuff, but we've stıll got a few days of clımbing left. I'll blog agaın soon...

Farewell to Kalymnos

Our time in Kalymnos is finally over, it has been an awesome 6 weeks, but its time to move on.

Me on a token onsight attempt of the Kalymnos classic Aegalis 7c, I got to the 9th bolt of 14, its hard!

The time has flown by, we were originally thinking of only staying 4 weeks in kalymnos, but i'm glad we extended it by a couple of weeks, there is so much there to do, and i feel I still have so much more i want to do there, i just have to get stronger. But I got my main objectives done, I sent my 5.13 project! The route is called Neska Polita, its a 10-bolt 7c+ in the Spartacus area, it took me 9 attempts in total, over 3 days. On my last day working it, i didn't think it would go. The beta I was using at the crux was really complicated, it involved 5 intermediate moves a foot swap and a toe hook, to get to the crux crimp. On what i thought was my last attempt, i almost snatched the crimp, but agonisingly came off, it was way hard. I didn't think i could try it again, so in an act of desperation i tried some other beta that i had seen a guy that onsighted it use. It was basicly just one big sideways lunge to the crimp, instead of my 5 intermediate moves. I changed my feet and i somehow latched the crimp. This might just work, i thought, so i got lowered back down and de-pumped for a good hour or so while Whitey tried one of his projects. When I got back on it I let out a power scream at the crux move and got it! It was the first time i had made it past the crux from the ground, I still had 6 bolts of 7b/+ climbing to go though, i puffed and panted my way through, and used the good rest above for about 10 minutes, and got to the chains. It was a milestone for me my first 7c+ (5.13a), and I felt like i really deserved it. I knew if i didn't finish this project before i left Kalymnos, it would haunt me, so i'm so glad I have closure.

Me onsighting Daphne a cool 7b at Odessy

I'm glad we spent 6 weeks here, staying here a long time has given us the opportunity to meet other climbers. We climbed a lot with Dimitris a greek climber form Athens. He showed us a secret bouldering spot by the beach, its not amazing but its worth a quick session or two. We tried his project a 15 move roof traverse, and after working it for about an hour me and Dimitris both sent it, it goes at about V5, and he is calling it Jump-A. We've also met some other locals, we took Yiannis a local DJ out climbing, he took to it very well, and i belayed him up his first lead on his third day climbing! he is adding to the number of local Kalymnians that are taking up climbing. We've also met some cool americans and other climbers from all over.

Whitey starting up Alexis Zorbas another 7b he redpointed in the sun

Its also interesting seeing how Massouri (the town here) has changed from when we first arrived in April to now. When we first arrived it was practically a ghost town, with most of the bars and restaurants closed still from the winter, the only tourists in town were climbers, and we could have the whole beach to ourselves. Now if you walk down the street, it is busting with English and German holidaymakers out here to soak in the sun. The beach ispacked with literally hundreds of sunbathers on the weekends. Its great that theres more bars and retaurants to chose from, but it defiately lost its climbers-town feel to it.

Our favourite rest day activity, Laura snorkelling in the Aegean Sea

Whitey has left for the states again now. He will go back with lots of memories, he has climbed really well over the last few weeks. He completed almost all of his projects including a 7b+ and 5 7b's I think, which is awesome, he is keen to continue his hard climbing back in the US. Laura has also exceeded her expectations, she flashed yet another 6c the other day taking her tally to 5 6c's which is awesome. Before this trip she had only done 1 and even that one was thought to be a bit soft. She has gained a lot in confidence, and has learnt to really go for it on her flash attempts.

Right now i'm on the neighbouring island of Kos waiting for our ferry to Turkey. The next stop on our european trip is Antalya, Turkey. More sport climbing in the sun, we can't wait!

Me latching the dyno (only to fall off a few seconds later) on an amazing 7c in the Illiada cave.

The view from our balcony of the sun setting over Telendos.

Kaymnos Life

My apologies to those who have been waiting on a new blog entry for a while, the computers here are really fustrating. I've got a cool Deep Water Solo video, but I guess you guys will have to wait til you see me next to see them. Anyway things are going great in Kalymnos. Andy had to go back to Seattle, he tried to extend his trip by another week, but it was too expensive to change tickets. So now its just the 3 of us, Whitey moved into our place, so now its even cheaper staying here for us. Only 6 euros a night, its probably the cheapest rate on the island.

Andy on a cool 6a+ slab

The big news here climbing-wise is that I onsighted a 7c! That is by far my hardest onsight to date. The route was Tzatziki Vikiki a classic steep route in the Spartacus cave. Its a 3 bolt bouldery extension to a 6b, it involves intense upside down climbing coming out of a cave on small fingery pockets with very bad feet. I just tried really really hard and somehow found a way through to the chains. I was so pleased, it was a wake up call for me to get on even harder routes. In other news Laura flashed a 6c here last week, she calls it her 'first real 5.11' it was a proud lead. And today she got another 6c a Kalymnos classic 'Les Amazones' no pushover for the grade. Today Whitey also fought hard and onsighted Jellyfish Pie 7a+/7b, which was really cool to watch.

Laura looking nervous as we prepare to Scooter off

Since last time I wrote we've been exploring new climbing areas. Last week we rented scooters for the day, which was a lot of fun if not a bit scary. We headed up to an area called The Ghost Kitchen on the North side of the island, which is a really cool area. It has a ton of 'tufa mushrooms' which are basicly horizontal stalagtites that are flat so you can sit (or do what ever you want) on them and get a really good rest, it was really fun. Another day we took a boat over to the neighbouring island of Telendos to check out some of the new developments there. We read a new issue of Climb Magazine (UK) in a climbers bar here which was raving about the new climbing area of Irox on Telendos. But it really wasn't all that great, the rock quality is much better on Kalymnos. It was cool to check out Telendos though, its a really nice island, much more chill than Kaly, we'll probably head back there on a rest day, but we'll avoid the nude beach this time though!

Laura climbing well on a steep route at Dolphin Bay

Whitey and I also went exploring around the side of Dolphin Bay, a low-grade crag walking distance from our studio, and found a cool Deep Water Solo area. The cliff is kinda small and up higher the rock gets a bit chossy, but down low its good quality above a great deep landing. So we messed around there and did some cool stuff. We both managed a hard V3/4 Deep Water Boulder problem there, we were a bit dissapointed not to fall in, so we just jumped in, the waters a lot warmer than we expected.

The Oly crew with our Kalymnos T's

As well as this we've also been snorkeling around the coves, which is actually a lot of fun, theres lots to see down there. Its crazy to think we've been here almost a month now, its been great fun but it doesn't feel like we've got all the time in the world anymore, so we're getting a bit more serious about sending projects. I feel like I've got so much I stilll want to do here before we go. So watch this space for news of hard sends, my draws are hanging on a 5.13 (7c+) and tomorrow might be the day!

Taking a break from our Grande Grotta climbs to watch a Spanish climber work on his project, the extension to Aegialis, a 50m 8b! He's still working on it.

Laura belaying Whitey on a 7b at Spartacus

Dom shaking out on his 5.13 project (down to 1 hang now)

Kalymnos First Impressions

We arrived in Kalymnos almost 2 weeks ago with fireworks going off. We flew into Kos its neighbouring Greek isle then took a short ferry from there, we thought maybe the fireworks were for us, but apparantely there was some local celebration that day. It was around midnight but our hostel owner was there to pick us up and take us to our studio in Massouri a short drive away. We were exausted. We decided we needed another rest day before we got on any routes so took the day to go shopping and do laundy. We did quite a big shop since we had to take the bus to the big supermarket. We bulked up on all the good cheap stuff like potatoes, rice, pasta, onions carrots etc. The shop owner was so impressed with our shopping (or maybe he felt sorry for us) that he threw in a free bottle of wine, quite nice wine I think. The place we're staying at is great, it has a little kitchen area for cooking, and a private balcony with a great view. And there is a pool to go swimming or hang out by. All for only 8 euros a night each, it'd be even cheaer if there was 3 of us sharing. And its in a great location surrounded by bars and restaurants only 15 minutes walk from the nearest climbing.

Laura heading out on the first route at Kalymnos, an easy slab

The climbing here is amazing, there is over a thousand sport routes on the island with probably three quarters of them within an hours walk of our studio. Each crag has quite a different style and feel to it. Theres lots of sharp slabby routes at the Peots sector and other areas, small fingery pockets at syblegades rocks, juggy pockets at odyssey, long vertical tufas at Panorama, and crazy steep stalagtites at the Grande Grotta. All of which are amazing to climb, the rock quality is really good and polish isn't really an issue to my surprise. The weathers been great as well, we've had one rainy day, but even then we got out climbing right afterwards. Most days we climb from 9am til 2 or 3 in the afternoon, while the crags are in the shade, but it can get quite chilly with a breeze. Then we spend the afternoons soaking up the rays and recovering by the pool or on the beach. Its a great schedule!

Laura relaxing by the pool at our studio with the Grande Grotta in the background

A couple of my pre-concieved ideas about what Kalymnos climbing would be like have been proven wrong. The grades here are not all soft, a lot of the grades are actually quite hard, especially at the lower level. Some of the 6a's (5.10a's) you really have to work for. At the base of each route is the their name and grade painted on the rock, and I've noticed a lot of the grades in the new guide have come down from what they were originally, so there aren't many soft touches any more. And the routes are bolted well, but not necessarily over-bolted, there have probably been more worrying run-outs that there have been well bolted routes, but it really depends where you go. I did a 7a in the Grande Grotta that was 40 meters long but only had 11 bolts. To be fair I was more concerned about the integrity of the stalagtites, it used to be 6c+ until a huge stalagtite fell off! I was hugging on so tight, it would have been hard for me to come off.

Me finding a rest on Themelina 7b+

I've mostly been onsighting stuff at the moment, up to 7b (i've done 2 onsight now). The hardest thing I've done is Themelina a cool 7b+ I got second go. I'm looking for harder projects, but the routes really lend themselves to onsighting since they're easy to read and usually have good rests on them. A lot of the harder stuff is super long stamina monsters. I want to find something not too long that I can work. Laura is climbing well now that she has a feel for the rock, she does well on the steeper pockety stuff, which is not what she was expecting. She's flashed 3 6b+'s so far and is looking for something her style a bit harder to project. A few days ago our friend Whitey from Olympia and his friend Andy arrived here. Its been great climbing with them and showing them all the good areas. They've fallen in love with the place, and are climbing well, they both redpointed their first 7a+ here and are keen to work harder. Hopefully next time I blog I'll have some hard redpoints to report as well.

Andy redpointing Aphrodite 7a+ (5.12a) in the Grande Grotta

Oh and check out some of my friends who have jumped on the blogging bandwagon.
Outdoor UK - George from Stirling's blog about Fontainebleau with us.
No Skin Left - Micah crushing in Leavenworth and around the PNW
Northwest Rockclimber - Nick from Olympia also climbing in the PNW

Fontainebleau

I'm writing this sitting in the sun next to the pool at our place in Kalymnos (I'm writing this on paper first then going to an internet cafe). This place is really a climbers paradise, I haven't failed on a route yet and I onsighted 7b today! But I'll wrote more about Kalymnos later.

After a few days sightseeing in Paris, Laura and I met up with George and Tom, old friends from Stirling and caught the train down to Fontainebleau, the bouldering mecca of the world! It was the first time climbing in Font for all of us so I was a bit worried about how easy it would be to do without a car, but I needn't have have been worried.

George sending an excellent Font 6b in Roche aux Sabot

We picked up some essentials (baguettes, cheese, wine) from a supermarket in town then caught a taxi to the La Muisardierre campsite in the Trois Prinons area. It was warm and sunny so we quickly put up our tents, grabbed our mats and headed to what looked like the closest area in the guide, George aux Chats. After a quick 10 minute walk we stumbled upon some boulders. As it turned out after looking at a friends guide we actually found the Chatauveaux area, an even closer area thats not in my guide. This is a fairly esoteric venue by Font standards, but when we found it, it was like striking gold. Perfectly featured sandstone boulders in a peaceful setting all to ourselves. It turned out that every other place we went after that was even better! I soon learned how tough the Font ratings were after nearly busting a gut sending a stout roof at Chataveaux, only to find it in the guide the next day as Incognito a Font 6b! I thought it felt at least V6 (Font 7a)!

Me demonstrating how not to top out on a Font 6a in the Cul du Chien area

The next few days we spent on mostly easier stuff. We decided to try some circuts. Font circuts for those that don't know is basicly a trail of coloured numbers and arrows that are painted on to the boulders that take you over usually 30 - 50 boulder problems of a similar grade in the area. The ones we tried (yellow, blue, and red) are mostly easier stuff. Font 1c-5c (V0-v2), but they sure felt hard to us. I don't think we ever finished a whole circut. I could talk for days about grading in Fontainebleau but if i had to sum it up i would say, even if the footholds weren't all polished it would still be mostly sandbags (hard). Unless its a roof in which case its still hard but you don't need your feet as much so you can usually get by.

That brings me nicely to one of my favourite problems I did in the forest. Le Toit de Cul du Chien. On the third day we walked to the Cul du Chien area. One of the most iconic boulder problems in Fontainebleau is the big roof at Cul du Chien. It goes at Font 7a, I had seen lots of videos and photos of it before so I knew the beta, climb up to the roof get the first pocket get a high heel hook behind the flake, reach back to the second pocket cut loose and campus to the jug, easy enough right? Well I could get up to the pocket in the roof, but I couldn't get my heel to stick. Eventually in frustration I tried it without the heel just smearing on the back wall and viola I got the second pocket and did the problem! After that I didn't really feel the need to send other hard problems, actually I did try other hard stuff but didn't complete any.

Eric and Erica the Candians on Yogi a steep Font 7b

As for the social scene the campsite was good if a bit expensive (8 euros a night per person). There were only about a dozen or so climbers staying there at any time so there wasn't a big climbing scene like campgrounds at Squamish and Smith. But the climbers especially those without cars tended to congregate in the evenings. On the rainy evenings (there were only a couple of them) we gathered in the shelter and played scrabble (we brought it), or laura played the banjo. And on the nice evenings we sat out by the tents chatting and sipping our cheap (but good) french wine. Most of the climbers there were Brits, but there were others like Brendan, an Aussie travelling through Europe, who cracked us up with his stories, the one about homeless dan was priceless. And we happened to bump into an old friend of mine from the USMC, Sam, so it was nice to catch up.

Me on Le Flippeur a Font 6b in 91.1

Overall it was a great 8 days or so in Font, theres not much I would change if I could. It was a bummer not having warm food, but the baguettes and cheese from Milly (only 20 mins away if you know the shortcut) were pretty damn good. And the climbing was even better than I imagined, Font is more than just slopers and polish. I can't believe I lived so (relatively) close in Scotland for so long without visiting Fontainebleau and it took me to move across the world to visit for the first time. Well it certainly wont be my last visit.

Preparation for the Big Trip

With our jobs quit and our lease almost up, Laura and I decided to do one more trip before we headed off on the big one to Europe. Our ever faithful climbing partner Micah was eager to climb too, so we headed back to our favourite haunt - Leavenworth.

The Sit Start to Spongebob Squarepad -V5

When we arrived at Leavenworth we were please to find it in perfect conditions, warm and sunny but with some snow still on the ground. We headed up to Mad Meadows to try some problems we hadn't done up there before. The boulders up there are top quality. Laura impressed us with a couple of proud V3s that were no pushover, particularly the great arete of Spongebob Squarepad, which is quite committing. Micah and I worked out the sit-start of this problem which we were surprised wasn't in the guide, since its a top quality problem and only went at about V5. Its got to be one of the best V5's in Leavenworth (see photo). Micah then made an impressive flash of The Hole V6. I couldn't quite make the span using Micahs beta, so I figured out my own technical sequence using an intermediate crimp, and sent it soon afterwards.

Pretty Boy -V7

It was a similar case when we tried Pretty Boy, an excellent V7 further up the valley. Micah quickly dispatched it using his basketball skills to jump to the crimp. No matter how hard I tried I couldn't stick the crimp (as I demonstrate in the photo above), so I figured out a sneaky highfoot and technical layback to reach through to the crimp statically. We then walked up the hill to do Pretty Girl V3 and Pretty Woman V5, two top class problems on perfect rock. To top off an already great day, Micah managed a quick send of Scrambled Eggs V8. He was climbing strong, he stuck the hard crimpy moves, and held it together on the heady topout. I tried this problem quite a lot but couldn't keep the body tension.

Me on Pretty Woman - V5

With the campsites closed cause they were buried in snow, we were glad to be spending the night at my friend Miles' house in nearby Ellensburg, where he cooked us up some nice enchiladas, thanks Miles. But I obviously hadn't leaned my lesson in Squamish last summer that the words 'box' and 'wine' don't go well together, and I was paying for it the next morning. We spent most of the day at the Forestlands where we had plenty to work on. Laura came agonisingly close on The Real Thing probably the best V4 in the northwest (yes that's right), but it'll still be there when we come back. And I finally stuck the big move on The Shield V7, only to fall off the slopey topout. But it was such a great trip it didn't really matter.

Micah repeating The Shield -V7

Once again Leavenworth didn't disappoint. Thanks again Micah for hauling our asses out there. In a few days Laura and I will arrive in Scotland for the start of our 18 week European adventure! First stop Scotland, then Fontainebleau, then Kalymnos, then ... well you'll have to keep reading to find out!