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’.