14th Annual Yank-N-Yard

I was joking around with some friends that with taking care of Dylan most of the time I actually earn about 25% of my yearly income in the couple of weeks a year we bring in reinforcements to watch him.

Well the second week of October was one of those weeks. My parents came out to help watch Dylan so I could help get everything ready for the Yank-N-Yard competition that was in it's 14th year. I got to spend maybe only 10 hours with my parents in almost 10 days while they were out, but w did have dinner and dessert for my mom's birthday.

Linda competed on Friday night Open qualifying and missed finals by one spot. Pretty great considering she is twice the age of most of the competitors and has very little big competition experience. Then on Saturday she easily won the citizens competition by about 3000 points which means that she did not even need to do all her problems to win, she could have counted just her top 3 and beaten everyone else counting their top 6.

After the citizens competition on Saturday the Open Finals happened. The link below is to a video put together of the finals.

Yank-N-Yard Finals Video by Alstin Films

Needless to say,with how much of a show it was Linda is kind of glad that she did not make finals. Pretty good competition all around. I managed to pull together about $8000 in raffle prizes for the citizens competition and the gym gave away $4000 cash to the open competitors.

Photos from Sitting Bull Falls

Here are some photos from our second weekend at Sitting Bull Falls. These first ons were taken by Matt Menotti who came out with Katie from Austin to meet us for Labor Day weekend. This is me hanging the draws for everyone on Counting Coup 5.12, which is one of the best routes of its grade in the state. Linda sent this on her first try one she gave up on the very reachy short person beta and used a real hod that made the moves shorter. This is at the start of the route just getting up to the rest before the hardest moves.
Her I am in the middle of the crux.
Counting Coup is a great route and very fun. Linda was quite pleased with her success and it started a string of days out climbing during which she climbed a 5.12 every day. including the next day when she did the 5.12a to the left in 2 tries.

This second group were taken by our friend Matt Moore who works with me at the climbing gym and the are on Kootenai Cruiser which is 5.13+ and I managed to do on my second try.

There is some physical climbing on underclings to get up to the hardest section.
Followed by a very physical clip,
And capped by a pretty long throw to a good edge,
Which I barely caught.
Then a ways to the anchor on easier 5.12 climbing.
Finishing off Kootenai Cruiser means that I've finished off the cliff, except for the undone project right out the middle which has some very viscous looking holds on it and will probably require someone with much stronger tendons than mine. Something about the shallow sloping two finger pocket and V slot mono that is only a pad on a 45 degree wall with poor feet is unappealing to me, though if we go back I need to try something....

Dylan's 3rd Birthday

On Friday the 22nd Dylan turned 3. We had a little birthday party for him, inviting his class mates and some of our climbing friends that have kids. We started in the park which was great for the little ones as they got to run around but was probably a bit cold for the adults since it has cooled off in the last few days. After eating a bit we headed back to the house for cake and ice cream and to make a mess. Here is Dylan and his birthday cake.
Among the guests was JaxsonWest and his little sister Bridgette. At 9 months Bridgette is really mellow and all the kids seemed to know to give her some space, she never got knocked over or anything and Dylan was even good enough to share toys with her...and the other kids as well.
We only let Dylan open a couple of gifts on Friday night and on Saturday night he got to open the present that Linda and I got for him.
Buzz could use a "to infinity and beyond" button. As it is it is one of 6 lines he says when you press a particular button and Dylan will sit there and push that button until that line comes up and then run around making Buzz fly and repeat. Dylan even read Buzz a goodnight story that night.

Some photos

Well it has been awhile. Here are some photos.
This was camping for the weekend A Datil with Mark and Debi. They have a cab over camper that Dylan loved, it is just his size when it is collapsed.
That same weekend Linda got stung on the lip by a bee that was trying to drink from her water bottle at the same time she was. Nothing happened the first day but the next morning it looked like she had gotten a botox treatment for lip enhancement.
We headed to SE New Mexico to climb at Sitting Bull Falls on the first weekend of September and meet up with some friends from Austin to limb then continued on to Austin for the rest of the week. Here Dylan and Noah are stealing Thu's food. Dylan will attach himself to anyone who has food and is willing to part with it.
After being in SE NM in the 95 degree heat with not a cloud in the sky, by the time we got to Austin the remnants of a tropical storm were just starting to roll through and it rained for about 36 straight hours causing tons of flooding. Later in the week when we headed out climbing it was back up to 90 degrees with 70+ percent humidity. Conditions that put you at risk of heat stroke with physical activity.

Here is a shot of Dylan attempting to brush his teeth.
And here is Dylan after eating a raw steak...actually waking up with a bloody nose and this is after I did a first wipe down.

Sandia Mountains Bolting Issues

Just got back from a meeting at the climbing gym to discus some issues that have come up about bolting in the Sandias. The ranger district want to put some restrictions on the placement of fixed anchors in the range. This was coming eventually on a national level but way put on the fast track locally by some climbers getting caught using a power drill which is illegal and the impression, right or not, that many of the new routes that have been put up were done so with a power drill.

What will ultimately come of this is that there will likely be an application process to put up new routes and the applications will need to be approved by the NFS. As climbers we can either participate or not. If we don't participate then we have no say in what we feel is appropriate or not and I also feel it is important to show the NFS that we as climbers feel strongly about our rights to be able to add new routes. On the other hand we could not participate, essentially saying that we don't care and let them run the whole thing or just shut down the installation of new fixed anchors all together.

It is safe to say that most all climbers would like to see new routes that they feel are worth while additions get established, but this is where issues arise. What one climber feels is worthy another may think is a waste of time. How one climber puts up a route another might think is unethical. The problem is that the NFS does not care about any of these things, all they care about is the number of fixed anchors and if they were installed with a hand drill or a power drill.

Needless to say we had a 2 hour meeting that involved lots of veiled mud slinging about ethics and what routes belong and don't belong and very little time dedicated to coming up with something to actually present to the NFS. We are lucky in that the local resource manger is a climber himself, it makes it easier to communicate and he understands a little better what climbers are after. . . I don't know guess I'm just a little frustrated that you get a room full of climbers together to try and solve some issue and all you really end up getting from at least half the room is a bunch of unnecessary posturing.

Bike Stuff

Last week Linda's new frame came in. Here it is partially built up. Mostly DA 7900, right now I have 7800 shifters on it, though there may be a compatibility issue that will mean we need to put the newer shifters on, though Linda thinks she likes the shape of the 7800 better. The frame has a seat mast that will need to be cut as well as the stearer tube which the LBS (local bike shop) will do when she goes in to get fit. The last thing I want to do is cut the seat mast to the wrong length, if that is going to happen I'd rather have the LBS be responsible.

Just ignore the terribly messy work bench, I usually manage to find all the tools I need. Walt this makes your shop look pristine.
On another note. On my lunch ride today I headed up to the La Luz trail head. This is a steep 2.25 mile road that averages 8% but with lots of stuff over 10%. It is nice to get a reasonably long climb in that is steep but it has always been unpleasant as well since the pavement is only good at the start and finish. There was a section of 1-1.5 miles where you could not find any smooth pavement, all potholes and cracks, the best place to ride was on the paint lines down the middle of the road at least while going up.

I've always thought it would be nice if it got repaved but at the same time scary since you could go so much faster on the downhill which on this road would not be safe, with the tight blind curves, drop offs and a fair bit of traffic. Well the city or county is repaving it, but as of now there is no pavement. The dirt is hard packed and they have been spraying the surface with water to keep dust down, especially where they are working. With the dirt surface the road is actually a lot smoother than when it was paved, but the decent is terrifying, particularly where it is muddy.

Which brings us to this next shot. This is after I cleaned the big chunks out and road back the climbing gym. Looks like I could use a bit more mud clearance on my Cervelo.
Anyway, hopefully the road turns out nice and people are careful and conscientious on the decent. I bet the local hill climb record gets broken with in a month or so.

4th of July and 1st Haircut

This last weekend we headed to the Dungeon with Scarlet. There were a whole bunch of folks from Albuquerque out there that we climbed with as well. Linda finally worked out a good sequence on the bottom of Moat Jump 5.12a with the help of Susana, and it seems as though she ought to be able to send it. I mostly ran laps on things since I've done most everything there, did three 5.13's after warming up. Dylan had fun as usual playing in the dirt and the stream. This time instead of using his harness we brought the real swing which he really enjoyed. Here he is being "watched" by one of the dogs for us.Dylan and I went to visit John and Carolyn last week before John left to guide in Europe for a month and a half. We hung out in Carolyn's personal training studio and climbed while Dylan got to use some of the training equipment, here he is on the rowing machine with John.
For the 4th of July weekend we headed to the Taos area to do some climbing. We met up with Betty and Eric. The Groth's where there as well, John, Liz and their girls Sarah and Michele. The girls were great playing with Dylan, her Dylan "belays" Michele (the younger of the two) while she pretends to climb.
The first day we climbed at Comales Canyon which is a fun crag with "vacation" grades (ie: they are easy).

Dylan is starting to get the hang of camping and is always excited to get into the tent, though he likes to run around and play without going to sleep until he is so tired that he drops mid-sentence. Here's Dylan getting ready for the sun to go down with Linda's headlamp.
The second day, after a very slow start and a kind of long drive we ended up at El Rito and got a few routes in before heading home. We just ran some laps on stuff on the Rad Wall.

Finally gave Dylan his first hair cut last week. Here is the "before" shot.....
and the "after"
We now have our little monk back.

Here is a video of Dylan singing a song about frogs, he misses a bit at the end but it is still pretty funny.