Climbing days around the Outdoor Retailer Show

Matt, Kenton and I headed out to Utah a few days early to get some climbing in before the trade show and another day after.

Kenton had actually been at a family reunion so Matt and I picked him up in Dolores, CO. He had a good time with his family but failed the sunscreen test. Here he is in his white skin tank top on our first day climbing at American Fork,

 Trying the route Hell in American Fork, at the Hell Cave area,

 and getting on Burning a second time so Matt could take photos and say that they are of "Lee on Burning in Hell",

 On the second day we headed to Little Cottonwood Canyon. I had only bouldered in the canyon previously and it was nice to do routes. We got very lucky with the weather considering it was August and the cliffs are mostly south facing. It was overcast all most of the day but only sprinkled for a few minutes in the morning, so the heat was very bearable.

Here Kenton follows Gordon's Hangover,

 We brought the camping stove to cook dinner on with the idea that this would save us money on food. We ended up only cooking one night so it probably was not worth bringing, but it was pretty good.

The kitchen set up at the back of the Prius,

 and the product of our labor,

 The last day before the Trade Show we headed back to American Fork. On the first day we had climbed at Division Wall and moved over to the Hell Cave in the afternoon. This day we just stayed at Division and moved around the corner in the afternoon when the main face came into the sun. The weather smiled on us once again, there was a nice breeze blowing through the canyon which had us wearing long sleeve shirts while belaying but climbing comfortably in shorts and t-shirts.

Kenton managed to flash Quicklime Girl which matches his hardest route to go down on his first try. Then later in the day sent Litmus Test on his second try which matches his hardest red-point, so a great day for KP. Here he is on Litmus Test,

 I did Liquid Oxygen which isa great, but short route. If the ground was at the level of the top of the flake that you ramble up at the start and it was a boulder problem it would be super classic,

 Matt was feeling sluggish today and it took some convincing but he eventually got on Liquid Oxygen as well and really enjoyed the climbing,

 Here is KP topping out on his red-point of Litmus Test,

 We left Salt Lake City on Sunday afternoon about 1pm after wrapping up a few things at the show in the morning and drove to Moab. The plan was to do the North Chimney of Castleton Tower. I've done the route a few times as well as a couple of others on Castleton and the associated towers of Castle Valley but Matt and Kenton had never done anything quite like it. The weather forecast was not great, meaning 95-100 degrees so we needed to get and early start as you have to hike up a 1,000+ foot scree cone to get to the base, luckily the trail is on the west side so it is shaded in the morning.

The start from the parking/camping area follows a wash through a canyon with a few steeps that you have to stem up,

 Then it is on to the "main event", here KP is on the lower half,

 and moving into a notch through a short cliff band at about half height, with the towers shadow in the background,

 A better shot of Castleton's shadow,

 Matt rounding the corner to skirt the second cliff band, this one only a couple of hundred feet below the tower,

 The rest of the towers n Castle Valley, from closest: The Rectory, The Nuns (small and attached to the Rectory), The Priest, Sister Superior and The Covenant,

 Matt negotiates the final bit of scree,

 It is incredible that this trail which was built or improved about 10 years ago is still in good shape most of the way this last bit could use a little work.

Here is Kenton starting up the first pitch, which I think is one of the best in the desert and probably the best at it's difficulty,

 KP made a typical misstake, coming from the Sandias, you can't always get good gear, so you put it in when you can get it. In the desert you can pretty much place anywhere and he only made it about 2/3rd's of the way up the pitch before he was out of gear that fit. Matt was able to clean the first piece and sent it up to KP on the trail rope which allowed him to climb through to where he could get gear that he still had on him.

After the first pitch there is a short section of Off-Width followed by a very long (really 1 and a half pitches) chimney that the route is named for. As the only one that had really climbed OW before and with the loose and sandy nature of the climbing in the chimney I lead this section finishing at a notch just below the summit of the tower.

Looking out towards the Fisher Towers from the notch at the top of the chimney pitches,

 Matt, who rarely climbs traditionally protected routes heading off on the last short pitch to the summit,

 Matt posing down after leading the last pitch,

 The mandatory summit photo,

 We hung out for a bit on top before making the rappels back to the ground. Here is Matt on the second, very long rappel that got us to the ground,

 The reason we decided to beat a hasty retreat, some very threatening looking clouds building over the La Sal Mountains. The last place you want to be is on top of a tower if things get bad.

Outdoor Retailer Summer 2012

Last tank of gas before heading off to the OR Show

 What happens every afternoon at OR, though this year they tried to restrict it to after 5pm

 Chihoi with some Korean "water" at the Mad Rock OR party. Great Korean BBQ and cool people to hang out with.

 Very clean looking new locker from Edlrid.

 Finding out that Mark Anderson has given up on "Yellow" shoes...

 Interesting adjustable hangboard set up from Rock Exotica.

Mad Rock also has a new shoe, the Shark 2.0, that looks promising, though it is still in the prototype stages. It is a very comfortable downturned slipper with a single velcro closure. 

Lots of Photos

So a lot of pictures, first ones from the camera then from my phone.

For this years Intel GPTW event at Cliff's amusement park, Linda again got extra tickets so that "uncle Chris" and family could join us. Trinity driving Dylan, 

 Dylan flying a plane,

 Dylan and I on the little "teacups",

 For the 4th of July we headed to Austin to visit Linda's family, also Brian, Dylan's cousin had his birthday the weekend after so we were there for that as well. We met up with Thu, Nat and Noah to climb at THEIR crag. Dylan had a blast playing around with Noah and for much of the day they did not require any supervision,

 Thus pulling some hard moves on a 5.13

 We've been climbing at the Dungeon, outside of Los Alamos, a lot lately since it has a really nice setting for kids. Here Dylan relaxes in the Daddy chair,

 and putting his Monster Trucks through their paces,

 I took Dylan for a hike on the Crest Trail in the Sandias this past week. Here he is, about to disturb the wilderness,

 Having a snack at a nice overlook 5,000 feet above the city, (don't worry he is not as close to the edge as he looks)

 Ok, now to phone photos.

A day at the Dungeon with Matty Moore who is holding another friends young son,

 Los Alamos was burned pretty bad in the Las Conchas fire last year leaving the approach trail to the Dungeon looking like this,

 And naturally we had a fire break out in the Bosque, the heavily treed area along the Rio Grande river, last month sometime. This is a shot from the aquarium parking lot about an hour after it started. Luckily no homes were lost and it was controlled pretty quickly. We got lucky with the wind direction.

 Seeing the thermostat reading in the mid to high eighties even with the windows open and fans on finally got me to hook up our swamp cooler.

 Dylan swimmimg in his cousins new pool,

 How much stuff can you fit in a Prius, two bike boxes and a bike on top, yes the hatch closed, though the back seats were folded down.

 Hard to argue with the gas milage,

 This past weekend we headed to Upper East Fork in the Jemez Mountains and naturally, hiked out in the rain at the end of the day.

A video of Dylan playing with a blow up hammer that "uncle" Chris? won at Cliff's when we were over there for dinner and watching the final Time Trial of Le Tour De France.

Annular Eclipse and busy Weekend

This was a busy weekend here for us. We headed to El Rito to do some climbing on Saturday with Jodi and her daughter Livia as well as Greg and Magdel and their 2 kids. It was my first time climbing in about 5 weeks, since I crashed on my long board and and scrapped up my forearm and hip (bruised as well, this seems like it is going to continue to be an issue for another month or more). Anyway I was predictably out of shape and got super pumped and almost pitched off the top of a couple of routes that I normally run laps on. Once at the top of a climb after clipping the anchor I dropped back exhausted into my harness, not a good move when you have a bruised hip, and immediately jumped back on to readjust.

Later we set up a rope swing at the base of Bolting Barbie for the kids. Magdel and Greg's two thought it was better than anything they had ever done and threw fits when their turns were over, sorry about that guys. Her Livia helps Dylan out with the swing and yes there is usually a Barbie doll hanging out around the route.

On Sunday I left home really early to head to Santa Fe to ride the Santa Fe Century. I made good time and with the early start it was a bit weird being out on the course with nobody around but still with all the aid stations set up and waiting. Towards the end I ran into a fair number of other riders since the end of the course is used as an out-and-back for shorter rides. I was finished and driving back to Albuquerque by noon, not too bad since I've not ridden more than about 50 miles since PBP in Auguat. Linda and Dylan spent the morning at the climbing gym and Explora!, a children's science museum. In the afternoon there were 2 rare events happening.

The first was Page and Anthony's wedding. Both of them have house sat for us and are good friends and great people. We could not be happier seeing the two of them exchange their vows. Here is Page being walked in by her dad Charlie.

 And the happy couple walking out after the ceremony.

 Dylan was well behaved for the most part through the ceremony and afterwards when we were hanging out with some fellow climbers waiting for the reception to start Dylan got his hands on a Canon, with a canon for a lens. He had a good time taking pictures of everything, all very zoomed in since it was a 70-300mm lens. Tim, the camera's owner keeping a close eye on proceedings.

After playing with the camera Dylan also helped put away the folding chairs. 

Dylan entertaining himself with the place settings.

 Dylan getting his mug in every shot possible then asking to see it immediately after, the sticking out the tung in a nice touch.

And stealing the bride after.

 Our Sunday ended looking at the sun. We had a good view of the horizon where the sun was going down from the synagog parking lot and several of the guests had either glass from welding glasses or the eclipse viewing glasses that were in short supply but given out for free around town during the last week. Pretty cool stuff, this annular eclipse, and how lucky for us that Albuquerque was right in the center of the viewing path. It took awhile for me to figure out how to get a photo of the sun and with sharing the glass and glasses it took a bit, but eventually... the moon moving over the sun,

 and the moon centered in the sun creating the "Ring of Fire" or the "One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them..."

 OK so maybe it did not get dark, but if you looked at the thing without the special protection you'd be blind, not quite like disappearing but hey. I guess the last time this happened around here was 1994 so a pretty rare occurrence and one I'm glad I was able to see and share with Dylan and so many friends.

Campus Board, Training #2, Exercises

So for those of you that have looked at my post about building your own campus rungs and how I assembled the board itself. Here is something that I prepared for the gym to hang near the board to educate users on different exercises to do on the apparatus. 

Campus Board Training Ideas

PURPOSE

Campusing trains recruitment in the forearm.

To train recruitment you should be failing in a minimal number of moves and always starting out fresh, LOTS of rest.

For campus training you want to fail because you can’t catch the next rung, not due to upper body fatigue or the inability to pull far enough.

EASIEST

-Ladders matching and leading with the same hand: Both hands on #1, R #2, L #2, R #3, L #3, R #4 etc.: repeat for Left

-Ladders matching alternating lead hand: Both hands on #1, R #2, L #2, L#3, R #3, R #4 etc.: repeat for Left

-True Ladders: Both hands on #1, R #2, L #3, R #4, L #5 etc.: repeat for Left

-Any of the previous exercise skipping a rung or rungs

-Bumps: Start both hands on #1, R #2, R #3, R #4, R #5, to failure: repeat for Left

-The biggest move you can do: Both hands on #1, R #7: repeat for Left

GETTING HARDER

These are harder versions of the previous , not necessarily using the biggest move but one a little smaller

:Start R #1, L #2 then R #8: repeat for Left

:Start R #1, L #3 then R #9: repeat for Left

:etc

:Start both hands #1, R #7, L #13: repeat for Left

-Doubles: Start both hands on #1, both hands #2, both hands #3 etc.

-Doubles skipping a rung or rungs

QUITE DIFFICULT

Note: All of the following exercises involve negative movement (starting from a higher rung and working down the board). Doing this is the fastest way to get stronger and the easiest way to get injured. This is because when you ask your body to pull harder than what it thinks it can do safely your brain will make you let go, shock loading negatives lets you short circuit this response and pull harder and potentially too hard.

-Negatives: Start both hands as high as possible #5, R #3, L #3: repeat for Left

:Start both hands #5, R #1, L #1: repeat for Left

-Negative doubles: Start both hands as high as possible, #5, both hands #4, #3, etc

:Negative doubles skipping rungs

-Double, Up, Down: Both hands #1, up to #4, down to #2, up to #5, down to #3, up to #6 etc. 

Ultimately the goal is to force yourself to contract extremely hard to latch the next rung in the chosen sequence. This means that if you can hang one handed for more than a second or so it should be easy to hold the next rung if you can reach it as long as your timing is on. In this case you will only really fail when you can't get to the next rung which is more of a pull up exercise and a failure in the strength of your lats, which is not really what my goal is. Because of this I end up doing mostly negatives and some of the largest move I can since the further your hands get spread the less the lower hand help in taking weight. Another thing to consider is that ladders with lots of space between the hold is probably the most similar to what you might end up doing climbing.