Allow Me to Re-introduce Myself
Well hello to anyone and everyone who happens to be reading my blog. I started this online journal for the soul purpose of keeping track of my outdoor adventures. As such, most of them will revolve around the neverending quest for perfect boulders, and beautiful lines on pristine rock, but I'll settle for the local crag and the occasional trip to Leavenworth. Yes, you guessed it, this is a climbing blog! And as the name of my blog suggests I am determined to climb until I have no skin left. I love climbing, but if you ask me why I climb I probably won't be able to come up with a mind blowing answer that will leave you in a state of serenity, at least not on the spot. I guess, like most people who enjoy clinging to a rock face, I climb because I enjoy it and I feel that it gives me a sense of purpose. Plus I like being outside, hanging out with my friends, who also happen to be climbers, and I like the challenge and the rush you get when you feel as if your life is in danger. Who doesn't? But in all reality my life has probably never been in danger; I'm mostly a sport climber and a boulderer. Don't get me wrong though, I have great respect for people who plug their own gear, I'm just not that gutsy or experienced. Anyways, your probably wondering why I started climbing. Well, I guess it started when my family moved to Colorado, Boulder Colorado. Oh yeah, the mecca of climbing. I was 11, it was 1992, and the Boulder Rock Club was in full effect. I started climbing indoors, with the occasional trip to a top-roping spot called the Amphitheatre that was home to several easy lines that could be top roped or lead traditionally. I really started getting into climbing when I was 12 and would spend all day at the Boulder Rock Club bouldering or hanging from a rope. I met a lot of climbers whose fame I had no idea about, Jim Karn, Mia Axon, Katie Brown, Robyn Erbesfield, the list would be longer but it was a long time ago and I didn't really care at the time. I started getting into climbing competitions heavily around this time and I found myself addicted. I never really made the transition to climbing on real rock, the times I went were mainly to Flagstaff for bouldering, Eldorado and Boulder canyon, and a few trips to southern Utah to Snow Canyon. What I liked was the constant challenge, and I started climbing indoors a lot, mainly for preparation for the next comp. As time went on I started to develope a heinous pain in my middle fingers, and by the time I was 14 I could barely hold onto a jug without a sharp pain shooting through my hand. I found out I had tendonitis and the only thing I could do was stop climbing. Subsequently my family was in the middle of another move and I ended up leaving Boulder to go to Seattle, Washington. I climbed for a few months when I first arrived at the Stone Gardens gym but something was different and my addiction had turned into a chore, and then I just stopped climbing. My climbing shoes thrown in the closet to gather dust, and my rope and quickdraws scattered to the wind I forgot about climbing alltogether. Until...one day...when I arrived at the Evergreen State College. The year was 2005, I was 23, it had been almost 9 years since I had last set hand or foot on a climbing wall. Going to college here in Olympia at Evergreen had completely rekindled my interest and love for climbing. The college's climbing wall, an old raquetball court converted into a plywood piece of heaven, had sparked my interest and I was back in my old climbing shoes yacking it up with the locals. I would drop in occasionally to climb and see what new routes had been set, until a couple years had passed and I was a full blown junky again, plus I started working there which made it even worse. After meeting a couple of people who would turn into my friends as well as my partners in climb, I started climbing outside and found a whole new way to appreciate climbing. Now I climb regularly, spending way too much on gas money each week to get my fix of granite and draw clipping not too mention the evil which is 8a.nu. All of this combined has set me into a whirl wind of pushing myself to get stronger so I can climb harder, as well as finding the purity behind climbing. Some days I want to go out and send the hardest thing I can, and other days I just want to go out and enjoy being outside and enjoy climbing. The rock, the movement, the scenery, and the feeling of being in the moment. The picture at the top of my first blog here is of a trip that I took to southern Utah, to a place called Cedar City. The climb that I am looking at with my dad in the picture we had no clue to its name or its difficulty but I got on it and managed to climb to the top. It was one of my break throughs in climbing and I will always look back on that day as being the day that I fell back in love with climbing. No guide book, no grade, no ego, just the climb and myself. That day had to be one of the happiest days I ever had because I proved to myself that I could do it. Now I live in Olympia, finishing up my degree at Evergreen, still working in the little rock gym that used to be a raquetball court and loving every minute that I'm able to get out to Exit 32/38, Leavenworth, Squamish, or Smith. I want to thank the people who inspired me to want to climb again, Travis, Daniel, and Eligh. And of course the people who have kept me climbing and kept pushing me and challenging me to climb my hardest, Dom, Laura, Jimmy, Nick, and Tony. And to the new generation of Evergreen climbers, Jesse, Kyle, Mika, Adam, Andrew, Al, Riley, and Emily. This blog is for you, and I hope that I can do you justice, as well as a little entertaining. Now that the boring stuff is out of the way, lets go climbing.
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