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.