Little Si-ne Die Weekend

I know, lame blog title, I was trying to come up with a witty way of combining Little Si and Sine Die (last day of legislative session).
Anyway, I just had a pretty awesome weekend. The weekend started with my last day of work at the House of Representatives on Friday. I was sad to be leaving cause I had such a fun time working there, and learned a lot. Working on an appropriations committee really gave me an insight into how the budget process works. I would have blogged more about my work, but my position was non-partisan and I was privy to confidential information, so I thought I'd better not. One thing that impressed me a lot with was just how hard working the legislators and staff are, I would often arrive into work at 8am to find fiscal staff asleep in their offices after working all-nighters. I think they get a bad reputation in the media, but in reality they are some of the hardest working people I've come across. Saying my goodbyes on Friday was sad, but I also felt excited to be moving on. On Friday, I also submitted my Masters in Teaching application to Evergreen. I am hopeful that I will be accepted starting this fall, and I'm really excited to go back to school and look forward to being a teacher. Thank you very much to those of you who have helped me with the application and support.

Friday night we went out and celebrated Arts Walk in downtown Olympia. It was a really good vibe and the weather was beautiful. We saw lots of different performances and exhibitions. Even the lobby of our apartment complex was an art gallery for the night, which was really cool. Nights like these I really love living in downtown Olympia. The highlight of the night was definitely dancing at The Loft with friends to Laura's old time music band 'The Grizzle Grazzle Tune Snugglers', they were awesome.

On Saturday I got an early start and went climbing with Micah and Mika at Little Si. The crag was really dry and cool (maybe a little too cool). Micah made amends for his actions earlier this week and returned some draws. Read here to get the full story. I felt good to be doing longer routes, I managed to repeat a lot of classics from 11b-12a without too much effort which is promissing for the summer ahead, my endurance can only improve from here. Micah and I got on Dairy Freeze, an overlooked 12b on the left hand side. I had tried it a couple of years ago, but didn't remember much other than it felt really hard at the time and that I had really weird beta. It took me a couple of goes to remember my beta for the crux, which is hard, so now I think I can get it if I go back again. Micah finished it off which was a good morale boost for him. We returned to Oly in high spirits and met up with friends at a Mead tasting party.

Sunday I woke up with a nasty Mead hangover. Nevertheless it was a beautiful day outside, BBQ weather. I went over to Jeremy's BBQ first and had some awesome ribs, then Ian's BBQ and filled up on steak, mmm. Then as the evening approached I walked up to the Capitol Campus in search of some Sine Die parties. The mood at the Capitol wasn't good though, they had managed to negotiate a compromise on the Budget which many thought would need a special session, but some other important bills like the renewable energy bill and budget bond bill were stalling cause they didn't have the votes. Governor Gregoire is holding a press conference today to announce if there will be a special session, it looks likely since these are important bills. Its really too bad after seeing all the hard work the fiscal staff put in to be able to finish in time, they deserve a break more than anyone. I'm glad to be done now though, I have a lot more free time now and the weather looks good, which can only mean one thing, lots of climbing, so watch this space!

LW

Sorry for the delay in this blog post, but some of us have jobs ;) (at least for a little while longer!)


Last Saturday Micah, Jimmy and Me headed out to Leavenworth for our first bouldering trip of the year! A lot of impressive stuff went down, Jimmy and Micah picked up right where they left off last year and sent a few V8's and a V9, see their blog for more details. Lisa impressed us all with an amazing send of The Lonely Fish V9!!! To put it into perspective before Saturday her hardest send was a V4! I actually got close to flashing the Lonely Fish, but it wasn't meant to be. I'll definately be back for it though. I managed to send Cruise Control a sweet V6 at Forestland though which I really liked. And I repeated some great problems V5 and below. We also met Jeremy out there and he sent his first V5's; One Summer, and Arrested Development Variation. But enough about grades, here's some photos I'll let them tell the story of our weekend.

Lisa on Arrested Development a fun highball at Forestlands that feels a whole lot easier with a bunch on pads down.

Jimmy negotiates his way up the technical corner of Pretty Girl at the Pretty Boulders. Contender for best problem in Leavenworth?

Jimmy denied by the slopers on Pretty Woman on his flash attempt.

Lisa focusses on the big throw on The Lonely Fish.

Micah slaps slick slopers at Swiftwater.

Jimmy commits and latches the jug of Pretty Hate Machine.

Lisa on a possible FA in Upper Forestlands on a really sweet boulder.

(Insert your own caption here)

Smith Again

Last weekend we got back down to Smith Rocks. I wasn’t planning on a trip, but a bunch of people from Olympia were heading down and a couple of days before I found out I didn’t have to come into work, so I had no excuses. Micah, Jared, Laura and I headed down after work on Friday and met up with Jeremy Erica and Jimmy who had already been there for a few days. We were glad to have friends down there already since Skull Hollows was packed, and its always nice to arrive a warm fire on a chilly night. On Saturday we started out at Morning Glory as per usual, I warmed up on Overboard to the top chains a fun 11c, that’s really just a whole lot of 10a climbing with a tricky V2 barndoor crux. Laura did a good job on Overboard, one-hanging it on toprope. I also got in a repeat of Nine Gallon Buckets to the top chains as well, it was great to get in some good milage on these long routes, 35 and 30 meter pitches. Micah did well with a couple of relaxed flashes of 11’s, and Jared proved he wasn't scared of Smith with an onsight Nine Gallon Buckets (10c) as his first lead at Smith!

Laura belaying me on the start of Overboard

Once we were warmed up we headed over to dihedrals and I hopped on Chain Reaction. I had gone over the beta in my head a lot since last trip a couple of weeks ago, and it paid off as I cruised past the crux and up to the jug on the lip, with just the one more move left to a jug before the chains I came off. I didn't leave enough room for my heel to rockover on the jug, and I ended up heelhooking on top of my hand bloodying up a finger and falling off in the process. I tried again but didn't manage to make it past the crux. I'm not too keen to get back on it but its one of those routes you just have to do. Congrats to Jimmy who sent it on his second go of the day (6 go's total?), it suited him down to a tee, it was his first 12c, but I predict there will be plenty more the way he was climbing. We finished off the day in Cocaine gully, where I did Chicken McNuggets which is a good route, but its no Walking While Intoxicated. I wanted to get on Vomit Launch, but people were on it, so I settled for Freebase the 12a to the left. It was a fun climb, but I got shut down on the reachy crux. We returned to the campsite where we got a good fire started and cracked open a few PBR's, minutes later a nasty storm blew in and it began pouring/hailing. We escaped to the Terrebonne Depot, where we enjoyed some good food, but it wasn't the same as hanging around the campfire. Some other friends were on their way down from Olympia, but they had to turn around cause of the weather. Luckily for us the rain stopped so we returned to the campsite, with hopes it would be dry in the morning.

Jared On Wedding Day

We woke up on Sunday to blue skies, and dry rock, we shouldn't have worried after all. A few of us were interested in checking out Northern Point the place we went at the end of the trip last week. As I said last time (below), I really like this place a lot. Maybe its just more my style of climbing, where the holds aren't just tiny pebbles, and you can actually hold slopers. I fired off a couple of 11a's Woman in the Meadow and Limbo which were great, and flashed the 12a that Jimmy did last time, it was really fun, I just wished the routes lasted longer. Jimmy and I tried a 12b there as well, but the deadpoint crux to a two finger pocket was a little too reachy for me. After that we decided to hit the road back to Olympia. All in all it was a fun weekend, good to get out climbing with lots of friends. I'm looking forward to the next trip already. I didn't take very many photos, but for more check out Jimmy and Micah's blog. Also I think I figured out how to upload my photos so you can click on them to get more detail. I'll do that from now on.

Jimmy about to pump out on Crack Babies

Me trying a 12b at Northern Point