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