June 28th - 30th, 2016 - Final Days in Rocklands

After our rest day we were psyched to get our and try to get back to some areas and try problems that we had not had an opportunity to try earlier. We started by heading to 8 Day Rain with Craig and Natalie, and made our way to the Crazy Leg area. With several problems from 7a through 7b+ on the boulder we all had a good time climbing on various lines including Crazy Leg 7b (VIDEO), Secret Ascent 7b+ and Silky Natural 7a .....

After that I headed over to the Golden Virginia 8a, which looks reasonable but will require a bit more time than I had for me to do. I then risked the skin on my right hand to do the Skink dyno 7b, apparently most people wrap their hand in tape so as to not tear skin when jumping to the hold at the lip. Not knowing this I just loaded up and jumped, luckily sticking it and only roughing up the skin but not ripping any flappers (though it was close). In the afternoon we headed back to Arch Valley so that Linda could get back on a 7a+ she had previously tried, Director’s Cunt (yes bad word and all) and try another 7a that I had done the last time we were there, One with the Freaks, which she sent on her 2nd or 3rd try (photo by Craig Faulhaber).....

The next day I woke up early to try a few things while it was still cold and shady out, though with no success, projects for next time maybe. After I returned to the house we all headed out to find fun stuff for Linda to climb and ended up meeting up with Craig and Natalie again who were taking Aubrey, who works at Traveler’s Rest, out for his first time climbing. Linda climbed several 6’s including these two on the Middle Plateau boulder .....

and on the Consequence boulder .....

though ultimately Linda was left feeling a bit unfulfilled with the day. In the late afternoon I headed back up to Fields of Joy with Craig and Natalie to get on a couple of lines that I really wanted to do and felt like I had a good shot at. After re-warming up we moved to Macho King 7c+ which had a whole host of pads because there was another group of 4 guys (3 having done it and one still trying it) there, perfect a sea of pads. On my second try I made it to the lip and fell off with the move feeling really hard and a bit awkward. The next time up I bungled the roof sequence and dropped off a bit earlier, then on my 4th try this happened (photo by Natalie).....

SUCCESS, certainly one of the best problems I did on the trip. Natalie also started trying the problem and made great progress through the roof section. After that Craig and Natalie spent some time working the Dirty Lies roof 7a+/b before we headed over to the Barracuda Rail 7b, which is basically a 15m or 50’ traverse on a sloping rail with the crux coming at the end as you make the transition around the arete at the end. I put my route climbing skills to use and hustled across the rail and turned the corner on my first try. Finally it was off to the Kiesl boulder to try the sandbagged classic of the same name at 7a. Being the gentleman that I am I let Natalie go first, then using her beta barely scrapped through (photo by Craig Faulhaber) .....

We did a final problem, Gegen den Wind 7a+ as the sun was setting and hustled it out of there to get back to the cars right as it got dark which was good since the approach is one of the most involved and technical that we did in Rocklands.

As I said, Linda was left with a somewhat empty feeling after her final day, while my skin was screaming. After packing up our house we headed to the Hen House for breakfast where Linda got a mochachino (2 shots with hot chocolate). Apparently caffeine makes everything better in her eyes. We stopped at the Kliphuis Campground to check out the Teapot boulder and so Linda could get a couple of hours of climbing in and hopefully leave feeling happy. Wether the quality of the climbing or the caffeine our goal was met. Linda loved the problems on the Teapot boulder including Up the Spout .....

and did a few other problems in the area including an Unnamed 6b arete that she really liked and Soggy Teabag 7a+ (which would be her hardest problem ever), but in her opinion not that hard. Dylan also had a good day doing 3-4 boulder problems, 2 of which would actually be quite nice even for adults, here he is on his proudest climb of the trip .....

All in all I think we would definitely be interested in another trip to Rocklands in the future, we each have things that we tried and did not finish or saw but did not have an opportunity to try, not to mention that the rock is endless out there.

June 25th - 27th, 2016 Rocklands and Rest Days

On the 25th we finally made it out to the Muisbosskerm, an open air all you can eat fish braai. The restaurant, between Lamberts Bay and Eland Bay, is built right at high tide line and only serves when they have reservations for 15 or more people. We had reservations for Lunch which did not start until 1:15 so to pass the time we wandered the beach as the morning fog burned off.....

Dylan is really into shells when he can find them and was very excited to find several complete sea urchin shells .....

The next day we headed out to the Rhino boulders with Craig and Natalie. After warming up a bit we headed back a bit further to do the amazing looking 6c Tiger Claw, which we all did, here is Linda .....

I also climbed Stalker on the Horizon 7c/+ on my first go. After a brief rest we headed back to the main Rhino boulder to climb the iconic profile of the Rhino. It is interesting as the beginning moves vary dramatically based on if you can reach a particular hold with you feet still on the pedestal under the climb or not. We all had a good time with Craig having 2 particularly good attempts and Natalie making progress while I managed to flash the problem after watching video of it countless times on a previous night when I could not sleep. We then moved back to the Tiger Claw area so Linda could wrap up the 7a Bols Island, her first of the grade for the trip. After that was done, we headed up the road to the Roadside boulders where Craig sent the classic 7b Question of Balance which I had tried our previous time out and after several attempts I was able to climb it as well with some slight changes to my beta based on how he climbed it. To finish off I climbed the classic highball 6c Creaking Heights (photo by Craig Faulhaber).....

of course I did this while Linda was off out of site trying another problem. This started a long line of about 6 people then climbing the problem with a couple of big but clean falls from the crux. With a long day at the boulders we hiked out to a beautiful sunset, here Craig humors me for a posed shot .....

On the 27th it rained leading to a forced rest day. At this point in the trip we were not disappointed to have a break from the 2 days on 1 day off theme to let sore muscles and thin skin heal. We spent the morning at Travelers Rest plotting for the remaining two days of climbing and having a lazy breakfast. Then headed over the pass into town to do some house keeping items and get souvenirs. We visited a couple of Rooibos tea houses .....

, picked up house slippers for Dylan and did more grocery shopping. After we had a nice dinner with Craig and Natalie at our place and went to sleep with high hopes for the coming days.

June 20th - 24th, 2016 Middle Days in Rocklands

After our rainy rest day we headed to the 8 Day Rain area which is typically the first to dry out after a rain to climb with Jan (the South African Ocun importer) and his son Jeremy who is 7 and got along well with Dylan. After warming up a bit we headed to the Beckoning boulder and did the steeper problems with the ones on the right being quite soft (Linda climbed the 7b+ in a couple of tries which is a couple of grades harder than she has ever climbed). After that we headed to To Siemay which is a very pretty looking 6c+ that a couple from Denver (Craig and Natalie were looking at getting on) and everyone proceeded to take turns with most of us climbing it at some point, here Linda puts in an attempt .....

Finally to round out the day the 7 of us headed down to the Vanity boulder to climb the classic 7a+ Vanity, topping out (photo by Craig Faulhaber).....

It was crazy as by the time we left there were about 20 people at this single boulder, but we still managed to climb many of the problems including this fun arete .....

The next day Jan and Jeremy headed back to Cape Town and we climbed with Craig and Natalie again, this time at the Sassies, home of the highball and roof climbs. We all played on the 7a Maties, here Linda works through the roof (photo by Craig or Natalie).....

and some of us climbed on the 7b+ Un Petite Hueco dans Rocklands, here I'm topping out (photo by Craig Faulhaber) .....

After that we moved over to the highball, 7a+ Springbok which we all climbed on using the alternate static beta as opposed to the jump move,  here is Craig .....

After I climbed the 7b+ arete of Olifantshuis (photo by Craig Faulhaber).....

During the day Dylan did a nice little boulder problem (photo by Craig Faulhaber and featuring his foot)..... 

and tried to help out with carrying the crash pads between problems .....

After a rest day we headed up to the Roadcrew area and after a fairly disappointing time there, a few of the “classics” were not so classic and some other climbers were kind enough to throw one of our pads in a mud puddle so that they could stand and lay on it to take photos of each other, we headed across to the Cedar Spine Gully. Once in the gully we found the awe inspiring highball Cedar Spine, but being alone there were not enough pads or spotters (falling with only Linda below is not real appealing) to attempt it. I headed of in search of the Last Days boulder and fell victim to the guide book. The book is not particularly detailed an I ended up in a completely different area before reorienting and finding the correct rock. On the way over to it I climbed the pretty slab of Playing in the Fields of the Lord .....

Once there we did several little problems, here is Linda on an arete .....

We hiked out to a beautiful sunset, viewed through thatch grass (yes, a real thing for making thatched roofs) .....

The next day we climbed at some of the same areas as on our first day as well as a couple of the nearby areas as well. We largely climbed by ourselves and as such don’t have any photos but still had a productive day. Highlights were the 7b+ roof of Born into Struggle and the 6c jump line of Sex Etiquette.

A few random shots, typical South African brands .....

and breakfast of champions .....

June 17th - 19th, 2016 - First Days in Rocklands and Rest Day

Our first day in Rocklands we had our friend Greg for a guide. He took us out to the Plateau Areas in the morning and to Fields of Joy in the afternoon. We started the morning at the aptly named Warmup Boulder which has several nice easier problems to get used to the stone and the blood flowing, which after 8 days of sitting in cars and on airplanes was a good idea. Here Linda climbs the 5c, Ice, Ice Baby .....

Linda also attempted the classic 6b+, Girl on our Mind but without success as the headwall finish was giving her trouble and she kept starting from the beginning without figuring out how to climb the end. I managed to climb the 7b, Poison Dwarf on my first try, not a bad start to the trip. We then headed to the far side of the Plateau Area to look at the 7b Minki which is quite an interesting roof problem where your feet are doing much of the work to keep you on. There was a whole group there working the problem so I sat back and watched all the different ways they were working through the roof. When I got on for a burn I chose the method used by the 5’ 2” girl which worked perfectly for me since it involved tying myself into an upside down pretzel and I pulled through again on my first try. As we wrapped up the morning we hiked out past Girl on our Mind and we stopped so Linda could pull off the send. Here she is pulling through the headwall that had shut her down all morning in the full sun .....

In the afternoon, between staining my back pulling Dylan up a rock step in the approach trail and Linda slipping on a rock and landing on her chin (she had a habit of landing on her face when she falls) I managed to climb the 7a+, Dirty Lies and the 7b, Maniac, both on my second try. We then proceeded to hobble our way down to the car.

In the morning on our second day we said good by to Greg after spending our time in Kruger and Cape Town with him and his family it was sad to see the last of the Crum’s go. We then headed up the pass to go to the Roadside Area, which is a bit of a misnomer as the approach is 35 minutes long. While it is alongside a road, the road is closed to vehicular traffic. Once we got to the area I took some shots of a few guys trying the 7a, Sunset Traverse .....

which I climbed shortly after. The day ended early when Dylan was sharing snacks with another little boy at the boulders and had some chocolate with a cashew coating, leading to a rushed hike out and quick drive back to the guest house to get Benadryl into him. Other than a pissed off stomach and hives all over he got through fine.

On our 3rd day we took the day off of climbing to let tired muscles and thin skin recover. We chose to check out the Sevilla Rock Art Trail just down the road at Travelers Rest. Here are Dylan and I at the entry area .....

and a few examples of the rock art to be found along the trail, Zebra ..... 

Dylan checking out a well covered panel ..... 

Several different characters with a particularly detailed archer .....

Yank-N-Yard 2012 Video

Here is a nice video of the 2012 Yank-N-Yard that Andy Burr put together. Prepping the gym, setting and forerunning the problems consumed a week of my life. All in all, it was a good time.

Yank-N-Yard 2012

Climbing and more Climbing

In the last month we've been getting out to Socorro a fair bit. Linda started working on a really good route there called Bat out of Hell that is quite sandbagged at 5.11d. With all the trips out there I found myself a little project in a new route to the right of the Demon. It even fit in with where I was in training, an easy start up to a hard boulder problem with holds that are all decent size but oriented the wrong way or far apart and topped with a romp to the finish.

It took me 2 sessions on TR, though the first was on self belay, to figure out how to do the boulder problem. Then on a third day I went back, bolted and climbed the route in a couple of tries, I decided to name it Devil's Plaything. Good thing too because it is starting to get too hot out there. We made one more trip out to Major Wall and Linda wrapped up Bat out of Hell, here is Linda finishing out here successful ascent.

At some point in this whole time Mark (aka: Monomaniac) and Kate came out and I headed to the Enchanted Tower for a day with them and their 1 year old. Mark and I got on Child of Light which has really cool movement but exploits all my weaknesses as a climber (shallow pockets and high overhead shoulder moves). While Kate got to run several climbs and get used to climbing outside more. More about it HERE in their blog. 

We managed to get in a trip to Hueco this past weekend. We had made reservations for volunteer tours only to find out that most of the guides left at the end of the week and no volunteer tours were going out leaving us waiting at the gate to get in. We got lucky the first day and some friend that were in line ahead of us knew a guide that was already in the park and was able to come out and get us on his tour. On the second day we checked to see if there was a guide for the tour we had signed up for then headed to the Rock Ranch to set up a commercial tour which is expensive ($20 per person vs. $4). We managed to get on one of their tours and it happened that another group from Albuquerque was with us. Here is a shot of Dylan doing some "V-5" bouldering, as one person on the tour described this wall.

 And Richard, from ABQ bearing down on the start of D.I.G. which is a fun but painful problem that I flashed years ago and Richard flashed on this day. I highly recommend taping your tips if you get on this problem.

Anyway, dealing with Hueco as always turned into a big hassle. 

On the other hand Today I made it back out to Socorro with Dylan and a friend, Karl to put up another new route. Yes, it is now too hot to climb, at least anything hard in the sun there, but this was an easier and friendlier route than the last. The end result is HERE I have not decided on a name yet or know if there was a previous one for the line, but it is another nice option to warm up on for future visits. 

HI, Iron Horse, Durango, Swinging on Ropes

We've been busy lately. In May we had a Regional competition at the gym for the youth kids from NM and CO. Which was right after heading to Hawaii for another of my cousins weddings, this time Melissa. Now all of Uncle Ken and Uncle Calvin's kids are married off so now it is up to my mom's youngest brother to start marrying off his kids to give us continued reasons to head to the islands. Here is a shot of Melissa and her husband Mark.
Before the wedding we headed to the big island with my parents and spent a few days around Kona. Here Dylan is enjoying the view of an active crater in Volcanos NP with my dad for support.
On another day we headed out on a boat to do a snorkeling trip. I have to say that the snorkeling off of Maui is far better.
W also rented bikes and went for a ride on day. Very pretty riding the far end of the Kona ironman course and looping around through the Kahala mountains at the northern tip of the island.

See Terrible Rental Experience.

After our trip which included 6 different days with some flying and the wedding in a 10 day period we all needed a vacation, so here is Dylan relaxing with a book.
At the end of May We joined Lance and his fiance Sarah in Durango, CO for a weekend with some bouldering and to do the Iron Horse bike race, which Chris and Joanna also did. The race went pretty well for the 3 of us rock climbers, Chris finished 11th, Lance 30th and I 20th in the Cat 4/5 race with about 120 racers. The next couple of days we did some bouldering at Sailing Hawks and Turtle Lake which are pretty spots. We ran into a group from an ABQ bike shop, Fixed & Free at Turtle Lake and climbed with them for a bit. Dylan took a liking to this girl and her little dog. I think he looks pretty humorous with his dirt mustache.
In the last couple of months we've been taking a harness for Dylan with us to the crags. He loves to be hoisted up and just swing. He could spend all day dangling from the rope.
But alas the fun must come to an end so others can climb and Dylan likes to take a rest on the rope.
On another note,

My parents are 2 weeks into their cross country bike ride and in the middle of Montana. What am I supposed to make of this?

Easter Sunday

Happy Easter all.

Today Dylan did his first Easter egg hunt over at Chris and Joanna's. Their daughter, Trinity hid the eggs and helped get Dylan into the right places to find them. He then tried hiding the eggs, he had the right idea, under the end of the slide but put all 12 in the same place. We had a nice lunch with their family and after the festivities Chris, Joanna and I watched the coverage of the Tour of Flanders which is a crazy race over a bunch of cobblestone roads and hills in Belgium.

Last night we went to a BBQ that was for a couple of friends, Greg and Magdel, who moved to South Africa 4 years ago and this was their first return with their new 15 month old daughter. It was nice to see them and we went bouldering with them and a bunch of other folks this morning out at U-mound, which is kind of a horribly sharp but very convenient local spot right on the edge of town.

Linda has been finishing up our taxes, that horrible time of year when many of us find out we gave the government a big fat no interest loan.

I'll try to get some photos downsized to post later this week.

Yes it is late, Weekend Report

I know, I'm late. We had an entertaining weekend and a busy week.

On Friday Dylan and I headed up to Ponderosa, the Sattelite area, to boulder with a guy that is new to town, Jerod (sp?). He is from back east and moved out to ABQ for the climbing, yes there are other places I would choose ahead of NM for climbing, maybe his older brother being here had something to do with it as well. Any way, we had a good time. I managed to do a problem that I'd tried periodically over the years but not managed to do previously. Dylan learned that as you dig down in the dirt it gets colder the deeper you get. It was also our first time out with the new child carrier, Dylan enjoyed it enough to fall asleep in it towards the end of the day out.

On Saturday the family headed to El Rito so Linda could climb with the Gym's adult team that she is a part of. Our group was about 12-15 people, there were 2 guide groups out, each with about 10 climbers and perhapse another 10 climbers as well to go along with 8 dogs. If you've been to El Rito before you'll know that this is a huge number of people to be in the area and there was definately some friction between the groups. Dylan had a good time hanging out with Anna K. aka: Accorn. I did not bring climbing shoes to make sure that I took the day off and Linda came OH so close to sending Pocket Rocket 5.12-, which would have been the first time she had climbed the grade in a day. Oh well, there will be other routes and oppotunites and she still wants to get back to it to finish it off.

On Sunday, I headed up to Palomas Peak to climb with Chris, Jesse and Matt L.. Chris is just starting to climb again after taking a break of a couple of weeks so he was just climbing easy with Jesse. Matt and I did a warm up with them than went to work on a couple of routes on the slab and the franks walls. I'd been wanting to get back to Sanke Dance for OH about 3 years to finish it off since I'd done it with one fall on my second attempt. I hung the draws and the opening crux seemed a lot harder than I remembered and I was no sure I could even start the route. I did find some better beta for the top where I'd fallen off before, so that was encouraging. It seemed as though sending mostly then revolved around doing the boulder problem at the start. I was nervouse starting up it the second time because you don't really have an opportunity to relax before the tough moves begin. I managed to pull the crux much more easily, more like I remembered it feeling then just executing the sequence to the top. It was nice to have sent a route that equals the hardest that I've done, 5.13d and a couple of other people who have done the route have even suggested 5.14a, so at least it should be solid at 5.13d. Snake Dance is a good route with a boulder problem start to a good rest then a serise of moves that gets progressively harder untill you are over the lip of the overhang. Matt was working on Entertaining Mike Tyson 5.13b which is a short, powerful route that I'd wanted to try and do on my first try. With beta from Matt I was able to pull off the flash. EMT is a really fun route that packs a lot into about 25 feet of climbing. All in all a pretty good day of climbing.

Linda and Dylan got a call from Ali in the morning to say that she and Paul were taking their daughter, Charley to the Bio Park. Charley is 3 months older than Dylan and we see them ever couple of months, we should try to get together more often as Dylan really like the "older" ladies.

and fish are super interesting as well,

I've finally started to let Dylan control his own food more which naturally leads to a bigger mess at times. Sometimes I wonder if he isn't trying to kill himself with how much he stuffs in his mouth at once. Here he is taking a tiny bit of banana,

On Monday, Linda test rode a nice Look 585 ella to work an home. She really liked how the ride felt but was not so hot on the lack of standover, she does not like to get quite so intimate with the top tube of her frame, so we are still looking. I rode out with Dylan in the trailer to meet Linda and Betty and ride home with them. On the way out I managed to roll the trailer, pretty scarry moment I must admitt, got to be careful of those bridges with 6" steel thresholds that you have to make 90 degree turns off of. The 5 point harness worked great, Dylan didn't budge and the wheels and the handle stick out enough that the actual carrier didn't even touch the ground, but he did get a little scarred, though he willingly got back in after I took him out to check on him and let him walk around a bit.

As further proof to those out there that are concered that he may have been hurt of knocked silly, here is some video that I took later that evening,

OH, PS the new truck arrived today, so if you all know anyone who needs a vehichle, we are looking to sell my old Tacoma 4x4, extended cab, V6, topper included.

Tax week and weekend

Well it's been some interesting times since our trip to Hueco.

We found out that it snowed in ABQ Easter morning which is weird and then again on Friday. I took Dylan out to play in it and he loved it, waving his hands around at the big fat snow flakes. What is going on, snow twice in April and once after taxes were due. Speaking of taxes we actually got some back this year and filed federal on the 13th and mailed state on...the 15th, we never seem to be able to get our act together sooner. Linda got really sick on Tuesday night and through Wednesday. On Friday Dylan and I went out to lunch with Chris, Joanna and Trinity for pizza and Dylan proved he could put it away, 3 pieces by himself. On Thursday Dylan took a couple of shuffling steps backwards for the first time which was pretty cool to see. OH and I don't remember when but we got some real shoes for Dylan this past week as well, fake Crocs and some velcro tennis shoes.

On Saturday the Shreadfest, a bouldering competition at U-mound (a local bouldering area) was held. I rode my bike up from the gym with a couple of others and Linda competed. Dylan hung out with several "older" ladies and had a blast playing with a cell phone and locking it out, I don't know if Anna has managed to unlock it yet. The event started with a clean up and some trail building and then moved on to climbing. It was cool enough to actually be good temps for pulling down which is a rarity for the foothills in April. Linda climbed well repeating a couple of problems that she can't always do and ended up in 1st place among women! Afterwards there was food and a raffle of prizes, everyone got something with prizes left over. All in all it was a good event put on by Stone Age Climbing Gym, Suntoucher Mountain Guides and Fat Tire Cycles.

On Sunday we headed to Diablo Canyon with John and Carolyn. John managed to do Ventarete which is really fun and I got on a route that Bryan Pletta bolted several years ago but had yet to be climbed. I managed to figure out the moves pretty quickly and sent it for the First Ascent on my second try. The route has some god 5.11 climbing surrounding a V7ish boulder problem crux. Dylan had a blast with Soulame, John and Carolyn's dog, petting her and watching her snap at bees and just in general being a 10 month old dog all be it a very large one.

Here is a shot of Dylan eating Linda's lunch at Diablo Canyon.

Eating a waffle with dad before bedtime.

Brushing teeth with mom just before bed.