Humbled by the desert

As I look at the scratches, cuts, and bruises on my legs and arms, and the soreness of my quads I think about how good it is to be humbled. Memorial day weekend is filled with people epic'ing on climbs, hikes, paddles, bikes, etc... I didn't think I would make a rookie mistake, but recent successes in climbing have made me over confident. The day started waking up at 4 am dropping Julia off at the Mesa airport for her flight to Arkansas. After driving back to Flagstaff (which took 4.5 grueling hours due to a car wreck) I got some coffee looked at the topo/approach for "the windows route" in Sedona, loaded my pack and got back in the car. Jason and I have had pretty good luck in the past with the "fun," approaches guarding the red rock giants of Sedona. This time however what we thought was going to be an easy 30 minute hike turned into 3 hours of bushwacking, kicking steps in inches of loose dirt covered slick rock, and the unrelenting sharp pokey flora that grows seemingly everywhere. Upon finding the climb on the opposite side of where we started and getting up to the saddle the wind was gusting around 50 to 60 mph. The decision to not climb was made, and luckily we'd brought summit beers. Albeit a failure of the summit the time spent outside was much needed and we celebrated our spiritual successes over the beer. The windows route looks awesome and I can't wait to go back and send!!! Here's a few pictures Jason took.

Photo of the week

I've spent a lot of time trying to get a good photo of Humpries Peak. It seems I'm always too late, too early, or the weather is just too good to get a shot. I've learned my lesson in the past of always taking my camera with me as I've missed many good shots. Last Saturday I got a shot that I think is decent, not great, but in the right direction of getting the shot I want. After hiking up to the saddle between Humphries and Agassiz on a gorgeous spring day we turned around to check out were we had just come from and the clouds were going crazy. The dormant volcano top looked as if it was sucking clouds into it. I took this shot in color, but thought that it looked better in black and white. I have to admit I used a set mode on the camera for it because the clouds were moving so fast and didn't have time to set it up properly. I used the depth of field mode as I wanted to highlight the prairie in front, the trees and top of the peak in the middle, and the sky in the back. The sky is easily the coolest part of the photo as it is multilayered.

Post school Moab trip!

To round off the school year we decided to do a three day trip to Moab. The weather was supposed to be unreasonably cold for this time of year and was in the lower 80's all weekend. The climbing went surprisingly well. I ended up onsighting an 11d mixed route that I'd repeatedly watched people epic on and 10 minutes later redpointed an 11b trad route to its right. We also got out to Mill Creek, which was RAD! I look forward to going back over the summer. I also can't wait for the late fall as my list of climbs in Castle Valley just keeps growing.... Here's a few pictures from the trip.

Picture of the week

I've decided to start posting a picture a week with a story of my inspiration and how I took it. Since the photo above is one of my favorites and one of my most planned I've decided to start with it. The photo was taken outside of Red Rock National Conservation area in Las Vegas, NV at the Kraft Boulders. As one walks down the trail the split in this boulder catches the eye, and begs to be climbed. The first time I went to Red Rocks I climbed this gem, and tried to take some pictures. At the time I had a cheap point and shoot, the lighting was bad, and the composition was awful. Five years later I came back with a tripod and a vision. I knew that the light would be perfect at in the early evening and to take the shot from the east side of the boulder. I got really lucky with this shot as the sky was cloudy, but the air was clear. I set up the tripod and my friend James climbed the boulder. It was Jame's first time chimneying but his form was great. I snapped off about 10 shots and this one turned out the best. I used ISO 200 and shot it with a 18-55mm lense at 18mm. For me this picture encompasses the freedom of bouldering. This problem tops out at about 25 feet and keeps the climber going until the end. Also with Jame's being a relatively inexperience climber I think it shows the natural movement disposition of people to climbing.

I'll be posting another picture next week!

Work and finding flow

It has always been a struggle for me to stay happy in all aspects of my life. For a long time I was very accepting of this as when I'm out climbing on the weekends, I am fully alive. This acceptance however may have been a mistake. While in my undergraduate at University of Idaho I was introduced to the work of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a Hungarian Psychology professor. His research studies on ,"Flow". Flow defined as,

"concentration or complete absorption with the activity at hand and the situation. The idea of flow is identical to the feeling of being in the zone or in the groove. The flow state is an optimal state of intrinsic motivation, where the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing. This is a feeling everyone has at times, characterized by a feeling of great absorption, engagement, fulfillment, and skill—and during which temporal concerns (time, food, ego-self, etc.) are typically ignored."

This graph outlines his theory and says when challenge and skill level are high, in relation to the individual, that flow is present.




So why is this important? Well many of us achieve flow when we are out climbing, biking, running, etc... But how many of us achieve flow at work? When work, for many Americans, is task oriented, and managed by a socially constructed time clock, this is very hard to achieve.

Point of this post being, office work is slow and painfully chipping away at my soul...

The Energizer

An unplanned afternoon of climbing at the Pit turned into an unplanned send of something I've been working on for a long time, "The Energizer." Rumored to have been put up none other than John Sherman solo, this climb has been really hard for me. The pit was the first place I climbed in Flagstaff, and this was one of the first climbs I tried. I got shut down really hard then, and have continued to get shut down hard, even up to two weeks ago (and on top rope). Jason and I decided to head out after work this afternoon, as he has been working on this climb for 7 years. After doing some warm up laps on Mr. Slate we decided to go for it. It was my turn first and with really low expectations I started up. Surprisingly the friction on this normally greasy climb felt great, and I rapidly pulled through the starting moves and up to the big throw. The same throw that we used to fall from repeatedly. I hit it static, and shocked tried to decide what to do next. I tried some new beta using a two finger pocket, and almost pulled the crux. After one hang I finished the rest of the climb! I'd never one hung, or two or three hung the climb before so this progress was really exciting. Jason's first go was a one hang, and then he got back on and got it clean. It was super inspiring to watch him fight his way through the crux and fight the pump to the finish. After two more tries I also fought my way through!!!! I feel as if I have finally broken the 5.12 barrier, as this was my third in two weeks. It is good to feel progression and to feel healthy!!!

Inspiration for the summer climbing season

The Sedona season has pretty much wrapped up. I'm still looking forward to some evening towers in the warmer weather, but for the most part it's time to shift focus back to the forks, peaks, etc... Surprisingly I've recently gotten back into sport climbing and it's been a blast. This has in turned inspired me to actually train a little and try to really break into the next level. For those that know me, I'm not one to train, and have self labeled as an elitist trad climber, mainly because of my lack of strength on sport and bouldering. When I bouldered and sport climbed more I felt as if every time I got strong I would get hurt.

Recently, and what will lead me into the second part of this post, is a change of diet. I've changed my diet to heavily represent food without many ingredients that is mostly unprocessed, and cut eating out back to less than a few times a month. Long story short, I've lost wait, and in turn have finally broken into the 5.12 barrier without getting hurt. So far all these years a simple diet change would have resulted in less injuries! Pretty common knowledge, and something I should have realized years ago. I've also cut down on my drinking, which for those who know, also wasn't exactly helping my climbing. This is all part of one of my next journeys and that is to try to almost completely localize my diet, and reshift my time into learning how to make things that I would have had to buy.

Inspired partially because my unexpected strength gain in climbing and partially from a book by Juliet Shor Plenitude I've decided to spend my free time (non market time) by expanding my knowledge of activities such as sewing, beer making, baking, carpentry, pretty much any skill that would allow me to become more efficient, save money, and find some "flow" in everday life.
Finally, I'd like to minimize my waste as much as possible, which I believe in turn will save me a bunch of money and force me to actually commit to the activities I just talked about. So to end this post, and to start a journey, some recent climbing pics!

Spring Break 2011

Just got back from an awesome spring break trip to Moab. After packing the car and starting to drive out of town to go to Red Rocks we found that our favorite coffee shop wasn't open, we had a small freak out and decided to stay in Flagstaff and cook dinner. The result of more in depth discussion that evening resulted in us deciding only to go to the Moab area for spring break and save some money. The first day of our drive put us in Moab around lunch time and afforded us time to climb at Potash road for the rest of the day.

We then continued on to Castle Valley a place I'd been once before, and consider one of the most amazing places I've been. This small town of around 370 was once a booming mining and farming town. Their website says

"Fremont and Ute people were in the area of Castle Valley long before white settlers arrived in the region. Arrowheads and shards have been found throughout the Valley, particularly around the unique "stone pile" located on the grounds of the old ranch house. Some claim this was a meeting place.

Up until the 1920's, the focus of the Castle Valley farming community was towards Castleton, then a small mining and sheepherding boomtown, and the post office/general store in Richardson, an outpost in Professor Valley. With the decline of Castleton and the disappearance of Richardson, Castle Valley's isolation led to the selling and consolidating of land into large ranching parcels. The "old ranch house" near the large cottonwood tree was the homestead of what eventually became the McCormick Ranch.

A monument located above Castle Valley to the southwest marks the spot of the 1881 Pinhook battle, in which eight posse members, two Moab cattlemen, and possibly as many as two dozen Native Americans lost their lives in a confrontation over land and misinformation.

When Castleton and Miner's Basin were "real towns" in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Castle Valley was a farming area. Brothers Mat and John Martin owned large spreads in the Valley, and Mat's son, born in 1886, was probably the first non-Native American child born here. The Martins' sister was married to Tom Parriott, who was a road worker and mail carrier and gave his name to Parriott Mesa."
The campground was nothing less than stunning and afforded us an amazing view of the climb we'd be doing the next morning.

We did the N. Chimney route on Castleton which was amazing. Good rock, adventure, and an incredible summit. The approach to Castleton is probably one of my all time favorite hikes.