Tempered Glass

It’s been awhile so I may have forgotten how to do this.  I felt like I was updating this site regularly until September of last year, and then, I kind of lost motivation.  I can’t really decide what excuse to use in order to explain why I lost motivation so instead I’ll just say this: “Continuously pushing a boulder uphill is only as fun as the boulder is large and the hill is steep”

Last morning first light from our trip to the Bow Valley.  The only disappointment of the trip was the aesthetically unpleasing haze from nearby wildfires and the unusual heatwave that wandered through while we were there.  The stone, people, and climbing were brilliant!

That is to say, things that become tedious and work like are no longer sources of inspiration, but burdensome tasks that drain your energy and will to live.  When i dropped off it was because I felt drained but the weather continued to improve and instead of taking a break I went along with the sweet siren song of the Fall.  The temps became crisp and welcoming, the skies were a soft blue and none of this helped me feel better.

Rocks were climbed, beers were consumed, blood was shed, songs were sung on terrifying run outs, mileage was clocked, and injuries were procured.  

Mike Personick busts a second go send on Green Machinist (5.12c) at Equinox.  

Here we are halfway into the first month of the new year.  I guess it’s time to talk about myself a bit?  Well, okay.  I’ve recently run into a bit of ‘old man’ syndrome.  While trying to gun my way through a week long work out routine I pinched my sciatic nerve and haven’t been the same since.  On top of that some form of muscle neuropathy has made its home comfortably in my right shoulder and refuses to leave.  The combination of these two injuries has made it impossible to keep a smile on my face for any continuous amount of time.  But between the bouts of pillow screaming and late night ice cream binges upon which I cry myself to sleep, I try to focus on the activities that don’t hurt; namely sitting calmly in my rocking chair and terrorizing the cat.

Jon Moen uses a cheeky knee bar before launching into the sustained head wall on Black Plague (5.13c)

All in all it was a good run.  5.14 seemed so close at times but I can be happy just looking at photos of my friends climbing said grade.  We can’t all be eagles, right?  Some of us must be seagulls, or even slugs.  Chasing hard grades is a young man’s game, or a Spaniards game, or an old French guys game, but in any event, it’s not mine.  I’ve decided I’m too stubborn to follow a helpful training program, I’m too intense to have a metered approach to anything, I’m too impatient to wait for my body to heal, and I’m too frail to survive my hang ups.  Pain has been radiating throughout my body for the last month and I no longer understand how to round out my identity without climbing.  I will defer to my good friend’s approach: “I’m playing the long game”

An ideal I have failed to live up to but will now have to adopt in order to create longevity where there was none before.  

Projects, projects, projects.  Ruth on Californicator (5.12d).  Why climb 12c when you can skip a grade and crush the best 12d in the state?

The SG comp.  What can I say?  Climbing indoors is a job for some people.  

Erich was so agonizingly close on sending his project Les Misarete (5.14a) right at the very end of the season as well.  I joined this saga mid way through the effort and was there to watch as he continually fought to make high points and one hangs.  The table was set, there was one move he was falling at right at the end of a sustained sequence of bouldery moves (all in all around V.10).  On a gorgeous splitter blue bird day in October we arrived at the wall to see him warming up on the project.  He hung, came down and rested a bit.  After 15 minutes or so he pulled on and screamed his way through the move he had fallen on so many times before.  He stuck the clipping jug out of the crux sequence and tried to remain calm.  There was one more V.5 crux above.  The air went still and we all watched as started to move upwards through the last difficult sequence.  Before I could draw air into my lungs for a shout of encouragement he was off.  One move from the road to victory and the chains.  Sometimes it goes that way.  Sometimes you can work a route for an entire season only to come one move short of completion and have to put the game back in the box and wait for next season.  Erich did so with his head held high and that classic Erich smile on his face.  Erich is yet another example of what playing the long game looks like.  

 Jon fought hard on Black Plague (5.13c) this season but it got away from him.  His solution?  Send Eagle Scout (5.13c), one of the most sustained routes in the area and for the grade.  Sometimes routes that we know we can send and are physically strong enough to send get away from us.  It's all due to our head and the imaginary bits of reality that shake us off an otherwise solid attempt.  It's happened to me on almost every hard route I've done (with maybe a handful of exceptions) and is one of the hardest parts of climbing.  It's easy enough to say 'I need to get out of my head' or 'I just need to visualize myself doing this route' but it is quite another thing to successfully do those things and watch as the send materializes.  It usually takes stepping away and crushing some other route first before we can free ourselves from the oppressive chains of obsession.

We had some crazy good weather right into the beginning of Winter here in the PNW.  I tried to get out after work and use my camera as much as possible.  I still have A LOT to learn.

Erich Sachs post crux on Les Misarete (5.14a)

Tex with the last photo in this post.  A picture perfect day at 1, closing out the session with a lap on Chronic (5.13b) while I hug a tree and fight off sleepy wasps.