Nice day at the Zoo

The weather here has been crazy. On Monday or Sunday we had gusts of 75+mph in town and on Tuesday snow flurries. Today was 65-70 degrees and relatively calm, spring in New Mexico.

Today Dylan and I headed to the Zoo in the afternoon. We usually go in the mornings so it was different, including getting to see the polar bear feeding which was cool.

After the polar bears we checked out the seals and sea lions among other things.

Anyway, a nice day to be out. I have not been up to much outside of bolting a couple of routes, the latest being easier. I've been putting off the recovery from a slightly tweaked finger that happened while setting for the competition in Durango. So, I've not been climbing much and with the schizophrenic weather Lance and I have not been getting out to ride regularly, it's probably been 3 weeks since I've been on the bike. On the other hand I've started longboarding which is fun.

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. 

SnowDown at the Rock Lounge

Sometime near the end of last year I got a call from a old college friend, Chris Barlow. I had set the a couple of of the Colorado College competitions several years back, he won the first one and worked with me on the second. He is now living in Durango, CO working at a boarding school there and doing some route setting at the local gym, The Rock Lounge. They were going to have a competition at the beginning of February for an annual Durango event known as the Snowdown (basically when everyone is sick of the snow) and was wondering if I could help set the event. Well I'm not one to turn down an opportunity for work, visiting old friends and possibly snowboarding so I agreed.

The gym is quite nice for how small a community it serves. You enter on the middle floor of 3 and overlook the downstairs area which is for routes. Here are some people during the competition.

 The left wall is pretty steep in the upper half and reasonably tall, maybe 30 feet. Interestingly you can see windows in the wall that you can still bolt holds to, there are more like this half way up the lead wall on the left as well.

Upstairs is a very steep cave which is nice to set in since you never need a ladder. The roof is a little on the low side though I never felt like I really had to suck my feet up to avoid them hitting the ground when I swung. So while I'm not a big fan of horizontal climbing it is a good use of the space for them and about as good as it gets for setting.

 On the main floor there is what amounts to a very short lead wall or very tall bouldering wall. Since this was a bouldering competition we obviously used the wall to set problems. Here are a couple of guys climbing for the peanut gallery.

All in all, I think the competition was a success, they had about 60 competitors, which for such a small facility seemed like a lot. People seemed to be having a good time when I left about half way through the event to make the drive back to Albuquerque. 

I had a good time setting there and working with their group of setters, and hope to be back soon.

On another note, I did get in a day on the slopes at Durango Mountain Resort (Purgatory). A family that parked next to me in the lot was nice enough to get me a discount with their season pass, friends of pass holders got a discounted rate, Thanks Adam. 

Campus Board, Training

A few months ago Linda and I decided we wanted to start actually training for climbing. In the past, when we had a climbing trip approaching we would just try to climb more to get into shape.

A friend of ours, User, Monomaniac, and his twin brother Mike had developed a training program several years ago and had had great success using it. Mono since I've known him had progressed from a 5.13- climber to 5.14, while Mike I guess started in the 5.12 range and has successfully sent 5.14-.

Anyway, the training has been going pretty well and we are currently camp using to work on maximum muscle recruitment. Mono was coming to town for a 2 week class and he is in the same phase, we both recognize that the campus board at the climbing gym, great as it is, does not work really well for very focused training. So I decided to make one. You can buy the rungs for about $35 for a set of 5 and we needed 15. The rungs that you buy are 16" wide which is narrower than shoulder width and I've always wanted wider so I decided to make a set instead.

I spent about $30 on some 1.5" by 3/4" oak from Home Depot and cut it sown into 2' sticks which is wide enough to use both hands on comfortably. Then I put a 1/4" round over on the 2 front facing edges (in hindsight I think a 5/16", or even 3/8", round over would be better, but I had the 1/4" bit) and used a raised panel bit to put the incur on one edge. Both were done on a small router table. Again, in hind sight it would have been better to do the routing on the full length sticks then cut them down to 2' sections. Here is a shaped rung, the most time consuming part is sanding everything smooth.

 All 15 rungs lined up and marked for drilling. I used an edge of a cardboard box to make a jig for making the locations of the screw holes.

 I added a 1/2" countersink to put washers in and so that the screw heads would not hit your hands.

 I managed to find a pretty nice piece of 1/2" plywood in the garage that I used for mounting the rungs. Behind the 1/2" is another piece of 3/4" ply so that you can't pull the screws out of the wood.

 The final product mounted at Chris' house in the climbing room. We pad the doors to make sure we don't kick in the glass. Eventually I will make it a little longer and mount it at climbing gym with all 15 rungs, right now there was only room for 13 with the standard 4" spacing. 

For reference, the spacing between matching rungs at the gym is 14.5" which is what makes it difficult to train on. You will be able to do one sequence on the board and the next will be impossible because it is so much further.

So far I think the board is pretty nice, though the rungs are a little more positive than the ones Metolius makes, or at least a bit easier to hold (this is the reason for thinking a bigger round over would help). It is really intimidating going for the last rung since if you over shoot it more than just a little you can catch your fingernails on the upper edge of the plywood, which could be ugly. 13 rungs is definitely not enough, 15 should be a starting point and people with really long arms would want 20 or more.

Chinese New Year, more than a bit late

We headed to Austin to celebrate Chinese New Year and Linda's mothers birthday. We also managed to get a day of climbing in at Flat Creek with Thu and Noah, then caught up with Matt, Katie and Tyler (their little one). Climbing went pretty well, Linda finally managed to do all the moves on Scapegoat without too much difficulty and I finally got back on and sent the only route I fell off of the first day I climbed there, Four Legs Good. We spent lots of time with Linda's family as well, having nice family meals and Dylan getting loads of attention from his cousins. Whenever the cousins are around we don't read him bed time stories because he wants one of them to do it. Here is Dylan being read too by Cady his youngest cousin on Linda's side, besides him of course, probably before we head out for dinner.

 Not sure what it was, but Dylan had a light allergic reaction to something.

 Avery was celebrating a winning basket in HORSE over cousin Brian in the living room and jumped off the sofa, landing on his hand and breaking it, Excessive Celebration.....

 The family at dinner for Chinese New Year.

Dylan dancing to the music in the car.

Some Interesting Photos from the Last Month

Wind blown snow attached to bare branches at Sandia Peak

Really cool reflection...
From the glass on the polar bear tank.

This sign is at the entrance to the cafe when you exit the Albuquerque Aquarium.
If you missed it, the second to last line is interesting...

Assorted

Linda and Dylan "doing" yoga









 Some strange looking lemonsDylan getting ready for ski school at Sandia Peak

Linda and I up at Sandia

 The family took Friday before Christmas off and I decided to head up anyway because I knew I would find something like this....Linda's low key birthday celebration

Dylan "working out" on the water cycle at the climbing gym. I just really think it is cute how he has to rock his body back and forth to get the cranks around.