Winter Bouldering!

We live our lives in sharp contrast.  As I sit outside this morning watching the rain it is evoking all kinds of unexpected emotion.  I close my eyes and imagine that I am sipping this coffee watching the rain under the shelter of my tent looking out at a mountain range.  I dream that yesterday I have climbed a peak and today is a rest day.  A day to patch torn gear, to eat lots of food, to read, write, and refresh.  I come back to and realize that I am indeed in the city and that we live with too many damn comforts.  My life is too fucking complicated.

 We live in a noncommittal world with risks taken away and replaced with corporate induced fear.
Think about the beautiful state of mind we are delicately thrown into when we climb just a bit to far above our last piece, enter the no fall zone on a highball boulder problem, or get to the point on an alpine climb or big wall where retreat would be just as complicated as the summit.

Could we ever enter the same state of mind in everyday life?  Would we want to?  These are questions that I wrestle with daily; both held in tension with the yearning to just simply live and in the present.  I often ponder how I can live my life in a way that fulfills both sides of my own coin.  On one side sits the intense desire to give back to the world.  On the other the call to nature, to be outside, and to live simply.  The two sides can absolutely be present at the same time, something I've been working on for a long time, but have not found the answer to.  I invite anyone reading this who has it figured out to please shoot me some tips.

The rain for some reason makes me think, "what were some of the best memories of my life?"  I then think about the complexity of the human brain and the relativity of feelings to who I was at  a certain point in time vs. who I am now.  Why was I so present at certain periods in my life, and how can I untangle myself from the complexities of now to fall back into that clarity?

To be honest and vulnerable I haven't been writing as much due to insecurities in my own writing, but it is a new year and I'm going to start writing more, because as with any craft one must practice.  I hope everyone is off to a great start in 2013! 

Daily Checklist

Daily checklist:

Smile at someone I don’t know

Be the first to say to someone that I recognize but don’t know

Ask someone how their day is going and truly listen

Make really good coffee

Listen to good music

Never be afraid to ask someone if everything is going alright

Give someone a compliment

Tell someone thank you

When I get mentally overwhelmed go to the gym

Train hard and rest when needed

Eat good quality food and prepare it myself

Sit down and enjoy eating it

Create and allow spaces for open dialogue

Create free spaces for my students and build leadership

Mt. Hayden

The wonders of the Grand Canyon cannot be adequately represented in symbols of speech, nor by speech itself. The resources of the graphic art are taxed beyond their powers in attempting to portray its features. Language and illustration combined must fail.

-John Wesley Powell-

I'd never climbed in the Grand Canyon before although wanting to for the past 4 years.  The guilt of living so close, and being to lazy to go for it finally won its battle and Friday afternoon I hurriedly packed for a journey into the unknown.

                                       

It'd been a good busy week, and I was excited to get out of town.  The simple act of camping can make it seem like one is on vacation, and bring a certain sense of newness to the soul.  We headed out of town around 5pm leaving just enough time to catch the sunset at the Vermillion Cliffs!

                                      

                                     

                                      

Another hour and a half of driving brought to the North rim in the dark.  We decided to pull over on a forest road and set up camp for the night.  After a few pbr's, some spicy mac (One of my new favorites for camping... any tasty bite Indian food packet mixed with mac and cheese! Thanks Alonzo!) We headed to bed.  Anytime I step into a new environment, especially one I've heard is super burly, I have trouble sleeping.   After finally drifting off the alarm came all to soon at 6am.

                                      
                                           Jason doing a late night patch job on his theramarest


We woke to find where we camped was a beautiful area that was booming with succession after the big north rim fire.  Aspens were beginning to come back in a very lush field of Arizona Fescue with the black charred skeletons of Ponderosa pines patiently watching over the process awaiting their return.

 A quick drive to Imperial Point brought us to the start of our day.  The directions were simply to hop the guard rail go down a 1,000 foot gully of loose dirt and rock, bushwack through about an hour of New Mexican Locus,and find the ridge of shale than connect Mt. Hayden to the North Rim. We couldn't find much information on the climb, but saw quite a few trip reports claiming horrible knifey locust, and 11 hour car to car days.  Many people said the approach took them 2.5 hours and the return hike another 3.5.  These comments had us all expecting a long day.

photo credit: Jason Lowry

photo credit: Jason Lowry

 After leaving a not on the lookout with our emails in case any tourist took photos of us on the summit Nate took the lead, and somehow almost flawlessly led us right to the climb in 1:15 with minimal bushwhacking.  The approach in itself is a brilliant hike! 

One very important thing in the Grand Canyon is to bring plenty of hydration...a little beer also helps with the bushwhacking.

We quickly got ready for the climb, which turned out to be super fun adventure climbing.  I tunneled through, climbed over, and slung many weird bushes guarding the cracks in the reasonably solid Coconino sandstone.  The climb had great belay ledges, and each pitch was super enjoyable.  The summit, perhaps one of the best of my life, was the biggest treat of the day.  It was perfectly flat and large enough to walk around on unroped.  The summit register read like a history book with climbing legends lining the pages.

                                                    photo credit: Jason Lowry

photo credit: Jason Lowry

After spending an amazing, wind free, perfect hour on the summit we decided it was time to head down.  The rappels went great except for one easily solved snag on the last one, and we started hiking back to the rim.  I'd planned for this to be the worst part of the day, but to our surprise we found an even better route back, with nearly no locust, and made it back to the rim in about 1.5 hours.  Stoked to be back we hung out at the overlook, drank some water, and then headed back to Flagstaff!

After making it back to Flagstaff around 8 we finished off the day with NiMarcos pizza and pints!  It was a great day with good friends in an unforgettable setting.  Can't wait to go back and climb in the canyon again.

Mt. Stuart N. Ridge!

The south face of Mt. Staurt from our campsite

A huge sigh of relief swept over my entire body as the man with the headlamp loudly shouted, “I found it!” Despite packing an extra set of batteries and testing my own headlamp before leaving, the on/off button had somehow broken and I was left in the dark.   At this point in the day we’d been going for about 14 brilliant hours and my thinking skills were suffering from lack of food, water, and exhaustion.  I’d done the N. Ridge of Mt. Stuart before and thought I knew what to expect.  The difference however, was that in July vs. September EVERYTHING, including the route, was covered in snow and ice.

One of the hundreds of mountain goats that inhabit the area

I’ll start from the beginning and then circle back to the end in describing this refreshing and humbling day in the mountains.  There are many logistical questions around doing the 20+ pitch, 5.9, upper North Ridge of Stuart in a day.  This mostly stems from the easier descents being on the opposite side, thus forcing climbers to traverse half of the mountain to get back to camp or car.  We’d decided to camp up in headlight basin to chop off the first 3 miles and 2,000 feet of elevation from the start of our day.  While allowing us a shorter approach this also meant we had to hike back up over Stuart pass at the end of the day.  This was a decision we were willing to make for the security of a tent and extra food.

Ingalls Lake

After drinking a Kokanee, the self appointed, “Glacier Beer,” I watched the sun set and anxiously dozed off to bed.  All too soon the alarm clock went off at 4:30, and it was time to start moving.  The approach went quite well up and over into Ingalls lake, a quick stop for some water, and then onto Stuart Pass.  This vista, also the start of the classic West Ridge climb allowed us a view of the valley below, which to our surprise was blanketed in snow.  After descending the pass we were forced to do a long and winding traverse on a 40 degree snow field to get to goat pass, our next objective.  The last time I’d done Stuart we took the right side of goat pass, as it puts one out closer to the climb.  I told Jason we should take this way again, but upon gaining another 500 feet of elevation found out that with all the snow, that this route would be impassable.  We had to come back down and take the left side of the notch.

On top of Stuart Pass, Goat Pass is behind me in the left side of this picture

Mt. Rainer

This brought us to the glacier, which in the current condition was heavily crevassed, and much steeper, than it had been before.  We quickly made the decision to not rope up for it as we didn’t have snow pickets and to just be super careful.  Each movement was calculated and precise, a kick in the snow, the planting of the axe, and then another kick.  Each step had to be solid, because any mistake would result in a virtually impossible to self arrest fall in the crevasses.   It took us a while but we made it fairly easily, and arrived at the notch, which is the start of the climbing on the N. Ridge. 

Stuart Glacier

Let me just say this route is amazing, it has provided me with two of the best climbing days of my life.  Once on it you have around 2,400 feet of clean granite to the pinpoint summit.  From the route you can see Rainer, Baker, the enchantment valley, and many rivers and lakes.  It is a surreal experience as for the most part the ridge maintains the width of a sidewalk, and at many places narrows to a knife edge.  On one side is the Stuart Glacier, and the other the Sherpa Glacier. You must move fast on this ridge, and unless you want to bivy on the route, you cannot pitch everything out.   

Getting onto the route

Somewhere on the ridge

A week prior Jason and I had practiced our simul climbing out of McCall, ID, on another one of my favorite climbs slick rock.  We were able to quickly work out our system and ascend the 1,000 foot 5.6 route in 1.5 hours.  We started simuling right away on Stuart and quickly worked our way up.  After navigating some tricky pitches that were covered in snow, we finally made it to the Gendarme.  This feature is incredible and holds two splitter pitches of 5.9 that give access the last 5 pitches of the route.  The last time I’d been on the gendarme we decided to haul our packs and made every mistake possible in doing so.  First the ice axe sticking out of the pack got stuck in a caribiner, and then we couldn’t get the packs to pull upwards.  This time I decided to just go for the lead with my pack on.  To my surprise, and the highlight of the day for me, I very solidly got both pitches clean and without too much hassle.  The pitches up above had tons of snow on them so the climbing consisted of a combo of kicking steps in my climbing shoes, brrrrr, and placing protection when I got to clean rock.  We navigated some very loose blocks, and shot straight up to the summit! We'd finished in around five and half hours, not bad for 20 pitches!

Summit!!!

Once on top we quickly high fived, changed shoes, and started the descent.  The Cascadian couloir was our ticket down, and I was not looking forward to it.  This 3^rd class route features about 3 hours of walking through talus and scree.  But again, the whole thing was covered in snow.  Kicking steps and essentially down climbing a 40 degree slope took us over an hour.  After this however the angle lessened and we were able to glissade for over 1,000 feet!  With everything still covered in snow we had no idea where the actual trail was and wandered around looking for a route down into the valley.  After crossing a few ridges, Jason said that he thought he saw a trail, we wandered over, and to our surprise, it was!  Another hour or so put us on the valley floor and by the creek where we refilled water and prepped mentally for the hike back up over the pass.

What started uneventful quickly turned interesting again as more snow covered the trail we needed.  ‘We wandered uphill and to the left and eventually after much bushwhacking found it.  Coming over Stuart pass we were rewarded with a sunset of bright reds, oranges, and purple.  We figured at this point it was only another 40 minutes or so to camp and were still doing pretty well.  From here all we had to do was walk down to Ingalls lake, and then over to our campsite below.  While on Stuart pass we talked to a large group coming in who was doing the West Ridge the next day and began following their footsteps.  This was a mistake on my part.  I followed their footsteps the opposite way around the lake as we’d come thinking they’d done a shortcut.  This turned out to be wrong as we became cliffed out, with our campsite agonizingly in sight.  Instead of backtracking a few miles I decided to build an anchor, leave some gear, and rappel off of the cliff.  Darkness was quickly approaching so I pulled out my headlamp, went to turn it on, and nothing.  Somehow the on/off button had broken…  So between the two of us with one small headlamp we set a bomber anchor, rapelled safely, and walked back to headlight basin. 

Sunset coming back down

A huge sigh of relief set over me as we came in.  At this point we were both a bit mentally fried, and physically spent.  As we walked around looking for our tent it was nowhere to be found, me stumbling around without a headlamp, and Jason with a poor excuse of one.  This continued for a mentally trying hour or so, when some other campers finally agreed to help us.  After another 20 minutes or so one of the awesome folks from Seattle yelled out, “I found it!”  I felt silly to be so mentally helpless.  There were points where we would just sit down and try to gain composure, but to no avail. 

The next day after brewing some espresso, we hiked the 3 miles downhill back to the car.  We split one beer, felt buzzed, and then drove to Cle Elum for apple fritters, more coffee, and pizza.  I once again tested myself in the mountains, was humbled, and remain stoked for more adventures! 

Last big day of training before the trip!

Yesterday was the last big day of training before the trip to the Northwest.  We were going to do three peaks in Flagstaff in a day to simulate climbing Rainer in one push.  Slept in a bit too late, left at 10:30am instead of 6am, but had a great day.  Started with Humprhies and focused on keeping a good brisk pace that we could maintain the whole time.  Ended up topping out at around 1:47!  Came back down and it was only 2, so took some downtime and the house to let the hot temps (87 degrees) subside and then set out to do the Elden Slabs.  I wasn't sure how my body would react, as most of the training has been high intensity for shorter time periods.  Went into the slabs with the same strategy of keeping a good pace the whole time and not stopping.  To my surprise we topped out Elden in 1:02.  I was not expecting to be able to keep the pace for both of the objectives, but am super excited to see all the training pay off.  In total the hikes were about 13 miles and 6,000 feet of elevation gain car to car in under six hours!  This is not super fast by any means, but it was a constant pace and at this rate we have a great base of fitness to take to the Cascades.

I'm sure I'll be taking some solid rest days so will be trying to actually update this blog about the adventures in the PacNW.  Looking forward to good coffee, food, and friends!  And oh yeah using my new Canon 60D!!!

Balance

What is it indeed that gives us the feeling of elegance in a solution...? It is the harmony of the diverse parts, their symmetry, their happy balance; in a word it is all that introduces order, all that gives unity, that permits us to see clearly and to comprehend at once both the ensemble and the details.

Henri Poincaré in Mathematical Maxims and Minims 

A stream flows.  Each molecule seemingly connected yet separate at the same time.  Hundreds even thousands of variables affect the way it moves.  A life could be looked at in a similar way.  The threads of humanity and the chaos of the world work with and against one another in a human brain.  Sometimes I wish I could quiet my brain and focus on a single thing, a single strand; I struggle.  The complexity is beautiful and all consuming.  What are the forces that influence the flow of the world in relation to the individual?

In the context of my own life I’ve began to formulate what keeps me afloat in this world, and what does not.  The list is by no means complete, nor will it ever be. Many of my own factors conflict with one another, and sitting comfortably in the tensions in between is the place I need to find. It is recognition of this unfinishdness that will allow me to continue to grow, to love, to hurt, to give, and to be taken from.

Being Uncomfortable:  Pushing oneself physically and mentally past perceived boundaries is the first vital tool I’ve stumbled upon in the search.  Intentionally putting yourself in situations where you question if you can physically make it, but then summon something greater mentally and keep pushing on, is one of the best things for personal development that humans can do.  It is healthy to test our limits, and it is good to not always be comfortable.  Inseparable from this though is good judgment in the ability to know when a situation is really dangerous vs. very uncomfortable.  This can only come with time and most of all being able to turn around or come down.  These situations offer importance in the search for balance as they are a time when one is not thinking a billion thoughts, but focused on the task at hand.  The moments bring clarity, and for me spirituality.  It is important to acknowledge that these can’t happen every day and other ways of balance must fill the gaps in the week.

Let me say right off that bat that Relationships make all of the below better and are the overarching theme of it all.  I’d also like to note that not all relationships are healthy and if someone is sucking your energy away it is a skill in itself to call them out on it.  We don’t have to get along with everyone, and not everyone deserves our time.  It is important to give everyone a chance, but let’s be real in saying that some people just aren’t worth working with or befriending.

Now, onto my own personal list, the next few luxuries are what tide me through the week…

Good Food:  Eating right is important. Taking time to cook is a great way to slow down.  Actually having to prepare the food, and being stoked on what you are eating.  If your work is constantly interfering with this, then stop working as much, it is that simple. 

Hot drink:  Whether you drink coffee or tea, to me this is a vital part of the day.  This could be leftover from my days in outdoor education, but there is something about holding a warm cup of something in your hand in the morning that gives the brain a much gentler wake up. 

Music:  The soundtrack to our lives is such a vital part of my days.  Listening to music changes the atmosphere, brings memories back, inspires, and gets me pumped up.

Libation: I’ll be the first to admit I really like beer, and have been getting more and more into good whiskey.  Having drinks with good friends is something I would not be willing to give up.  At the end of a long day it is nice to unwind with a drink.  Albeit not the healthiest, perhaps it is good for the soul. 

Support: In the adventure of life and doing meaningful work one must have support.  There has to be someone/ many who you can talk to who is/are on a similar page. 

Challenge: I believe that our life’s work must not be easy.  It would be too easy to fall into a boring cycle if all of the answers were black and white.  The human mind has evolved to solve problems, and we must push ourselves in further developing this beautiful function.

Freedom: In seeking balance it is important to find where our freedom and ownership of our work is.  When mentoring or coaching others it is just as needed.  Allowing ourselves and others enough freedom to make mistakes, have successes, and reflect is so exciting and important.

Guidance: We all need mentors regardless of our age, experience, or position.  There are always lessons to be learned, and they don’t always come from where we’d expect.  Being open to mentorship from many different types of people can enrich our lives.

Creative outlet:  This can be through work, but it is important to have something else outside of that.  It could be writing, photography, art, music, anything that stimulates diverse parts of the brain.  Expressing ourselves through different mediums is good for the soul, but is not something that many develop properly.  Recently, two days ago, I bit the bullet and bought a new camera.  Photography has always been a passion of mine, and I’ve been without a camera for about six months.  I realize it is a privilege that I can afford to have such a hobby, but creative outlets can often cost nothing.

Now for the last two which sit in direct tension with one another but are both needed in achieving balance…

Simplicity: Living life without too much junk.  It is important to do some deep introspection to realize what you actually need.  As a middle class white male, I have a lot of stuff I don’t need.  I feel that if I were to slim it down to what actually keeps me balanced, and what is extra, I’d be more appreciative, and respectful of what I have.   The question of sitting in simplicity in the chaotic state of the world is a big one.  I don’t have the answer to this, and would very much appreciate feedback.

Complexity:  Some scientists believe that the world is constantly striving towards becoming more complex.  I agree.  As cells self organize towards more complex states, we must think about how to embrace this growing complexity.  On a much more shallow level one can think about complexity in the everyday workplace.  How do we recognize and respect the talents and stories of the individual, then step back and look at the bigger picture of how people can work together towards a common goal.  It is similar to how an artist would take so many different strokes to achieve a beautifully complex painting that at the same time could sit in elegant simplicity.  I constantly strive to figure out how to lead, guide, and be led in these processes with humanity.  How to work together towards big goals that sit poised to topple our world is a question we must address.

So why did I start all of this with the metaphor of the stream? Perhaps because it is 90 degrees in Flagstaff and I so desperately miss the lakes and rivers of the Northwest.  But also it could be because anyone who sits by the side of a stream and watches the flow of the water can see what I’m saying about something simultaneously being simple but complex.  How can we work together as humans to achieve this beautiful balance?  This is what I try to work towards in myself, and in those who I work with.  There is hope; it is in us, in the children, and in not burning ourselves out.