City Of Rocks

We had our selves another trip to the City of Rocks in Idaho. Ingrid's dad came with and got in some climbing as well. There was less climbing this year as I had a few sicknesses. This didn't stop Ingrid from leading her first trad (5.9). Or stop the van from having its annual 'somethinggowrong' event. This years events consisted of lights going funky, speedo breaking, and water pump issues. The hammer brought it back inline though.

Pictures

Workout

I'm reading about strength building in Extreme Alpinism by Mark Twight. His book says (if I read it right) that you need to get warmed up and then do 6 sets of 2 reps of your almost max. This is supposed to increase your neuromuscular pathways and in turn increase your strength but not mass.

It takes 9 or so sets of warming up before the set of 6, for a total of 15 sets. As you need to rest the muscles inbetween sets I tried throwing in other lifts or exercises. It also takes close to 1 1/2 hours to get through the lifting. I'm focusing on biceps and lats as I'm not wanting to hurt my shoulder with bench. I'm not doing legs as the gym doesn't have enough weight to do low rep/high weight for legs (serious, I plate the press machine with 1 leg.)

This is my second workout like this, but I think I've seen a change already. In the first one I could barely get out 2 curls of 95lbs, but this time I got in 6 sets of 105. Hopefully it's not a fluke and continues.

warmup:
pullups x8
pushups/pullins on ball x15

curls 45x8, 50x8, 55x8
jumping jacks 1min

1 arm pulldown 50x8, 55x8, 60x8
1/2 ball shuttling 1min

curl 65x8, 70x8, 70x8
calf raises x15, x20, x25

1 arm pulldown 65x8, 70x7, 75x5
behind head tricep 40x15, 40x15, 40x15

curl 75x5, 85x4, 95x3
fly on ball 25x15, 30x15, 35x15

1 arm pulldown 80x3, 85x3, 90x3
1 leg press 175x15, 190x15, 205x15

curl 100x2, 105x2, 105x2, 105x2
crunches on ball

1arm pulldown 100x2, 105x2, 105x2, 105x2
1 leg press 220x15, 235x15,250x10

curl 105x2, 105x2
1 arm pulldown 100x2, 110x2

jog 15 min

Mt. Tabor Summit

Mt. Tabor

Munra Point

We went into the Gorge to hike up Munra Point. It was a perfect day and the trail was fairly dry. This didn't stop me from falling on my ass on the way down though. We saw salmon in the river (or sturgeon if you ask Matt.) The top of the hike is the coolest location in the Gorge that I've been on, but you can see for yourself below.

City of Rocks night shots

I got the scans back from the Yashicha film we took at City of Rocks. I edited the images to have less exposure and Gamma to compensate for the scanning adding too much noise and being over exposed. These are how prints would look.

PRG Ice Festival

We went to the PRG Ice Festival to watch Keevin compete. He came in 2nd in the first round, tied in the 2nd and was the only one to finish the route in the 3rd. So he's the champion. Check out the video of the finish of the 2nd round.

Keevin

City of Rocks

For the long weekend we (Ingrid, me, Ron, Angel, Dan Little, Cyndi and her dude) went over to City of Rocks in Idaho. The weather was perfect with low 80s and light winds. Everyone had a great time (except Cyndi who got heat exhaustion - she's ok now.)

We got in good climbs on all days (though never enough). I had my first fall outside on a thin climb Castle Keep (5.8). We all agreed that the ratings were a bit stiff, maybe 1 or 2 grades. It seemed like none of them were sustained but the hardest move was at least a grade harder than listed. Or we are wimps.

The van did pretty well on the way there and back. While there the left rear wheel was making bad noises so Ingrid spent an hour repacking the bearings. Noise begone. I helped by not touching the van and eating Ritz.

On our last full day we hiked out to Site 18 and decided to ignore (which is close to ignorance?) the incoming thunderstorm. After 2 climbs and the sight of lightning above the chains we decided to hightail it back to the van. Ingrid saw a rattlesnake on the path back. We were going to use it for food like Bear but it was too wet to start a fire.

Day 1

Day 2

Dan Bouldering

Dan competed in the boulder comp at Circuit on Saturday. He placed 2nd in his division.

Smith Rocks Oct

On Friday we went over to Smith Rocks to watch Keevin, Dan and Matt work on Chain Reaction (5.12c)

Tetons

Last week I went over to Wyoming via City Of Rocks, Idaho, to climb the Grand via the Upper Exum (5.4 II). While the weather and other things made us not climb the Grand, we had a good time at City Of Rocks and hiking and scrambling in the Tetons. We also took a trip up to Yellowstone to check out the springs.

City Of Rocks

Yellowstone

Tetons

Panormaics

Smith Rock

Last weekend we went over to Smith Rock and climbed on Spiderman. I freaked out at the crux, again, when my feet blew and I was hanging by my hands above my gear. So that sucked.

After Ingrid and I got to the top, I rapped down to take pictures of Matt and Jeremy pullng the roof. That was badass and made up for the cruxy screaming and swearing.

Mt. Hamilton

On Saturday Matt, Ron, Angel and I went up into the gorge for a little hike up Mt. Hamilton. It was a pretty chill hike with some nice views.

Beacon Rock

On Tuesday Ron and I went up to Beacon Rock to get in some practice. I've been wanting to do some simulclimbing to get ready for the Grand Teton in August. We got in a few sections of simulclimbing using an ascender to protect the leader, I think it worked out pretty well. The climbing was bomber and I felt pretty good on lead above the gear. We'll be going up again in a week or two to get more practice.

Ron on approach

Smith Rock

Over the weekend Ron and I went over to Smith to try and help out Vince's Boy Scout troop do some climbing. We set up a few top ropes over by Cinammon Slab. We did a few 5.8s and a 5.5. After they left Ron and I redid the 5.8 to the side of Cinammon Slab and then did the 2nd pitch of 5.5.

The next day we ran over to Super Slab (5.6) after a bigass breakfast and had a bad ass time. I think next time Ron will be ready to do his first real trad lead on the 3rd pitch - the money pitch. When I lead it this time I was able to run out certain sections to practice going faster and it was totally bomber.

Godzilla

Mt. Hood Reid Glacier

Keevin, Matt and I went up on Hood to do the Luthold Couloir. We made awesome time to the top of the Palmer lift and then headed over towards Illumination Rock. From here on the snow was pretty loose and we postholed everywhere. We cramponed up at Illumination where Keevin lost his blue butt pad. We went over the saddle and took the wrong way over to the route we wanted. We ended up going up the Reid Glacier Headwall. We got in a cool section of mixed climbing that was pretty thin in parts. This was last fun part of the climb. I promptly took off my helmet to remove my hat and dropped my headlamp down the glacier. Keevin said it was gettable, but it had taken 30 minutes to get from where the lamp now was. So I called it an expensive lesson.

We moved up from the mixed climbing into more soft snow made for postholing. This prompted us to bonk which we didn't remedy by eating extra food but instead complained we were tired. I entered a section of deep sugar snow on a steep section that seemed like it was ready to slough off and turn into an avalance. This is at least what I told myself as I wigged out standing in waist deep shitty snow. Keevin threw down a rope and belayed me to firmer snow.

Keevin took a different route up to the summit ridge than Matt and I. I just followed Matt as I was too tired to make my own plan. We saw Keevin off to the north taking a route in the sun. I was a little concerned about avalanches as the sun was on the already warm snow. We could hear him swearing as he slowly made his way up. Once on the ridge I hung out and saw Keevin lying down on his ridge. I radioed for him to meet me up higher on the next ridge so we could split some gatorade and M&Ms.

It took us a good 2 hours from the M&Ms to get to the summit. Matt was ahead telling us that we were no where close to the West Crater Rim, which sucked. Keevin and I would rest every few steps. I fell asleep resting on my axe once and realized this wasn't the place to be screwing around and took my time going across the final ridge to summit.

We stayed on the summit for about 2 minutes before heading down the Pearly Gates. Keevin got hit on the head twice with ice in the Gates. I followed last and went the wrong way around the Bergshrund before doubling back. As I followed the boot pack across below the Bergshrund my left leg broke through the snow and was in the air. I was up to my waist and fumbled around for a while until I could fan out on the snow and get myself out. I made it over to Keevin who was passed out on the Hogsback and shared the last of my water and I threw on sunscreen - about 4 hours too late.

I took my time going down as I was so exhausted and thirsty. I put snow in my nalgene and got a bit of water out of it on the way down. We saw a few people going up and adviced them not to try and summit as there was so much rockfall and crappy snow. There was even a snowfall and avalanche to the west of the Hogsback. We all got down safely and booked for home and some rest.

Mt. Hood pictures

Dog Mountain

On Monday, Ingrid, Ron and I went up Dog Mountain to get a bit of exercise and look at the flowers. It was a bit slow going up but totally worth the views from up there. You could see the top of Mt. Hood, Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Adams. Up top were at least 30 people, and we must've run across another 30 on the ways up and down. Ingrid and I talked to this older gal who was cool as hell, she trains with 2 gallons of water for the hike up. I felt like a siss just carrying 5 gallons when I'm 40 years her junior. She was badass.

Ron and Ingrid

French's Dome zip line

On Saturday I went up to French's Dome with Keevin and Matt. We did a few climbs and it was pretty good. But the exciting part was there is a zip line there. They're rebuilding the belay areas on the right side of the dome and have a cable line installed to move the timber. So we thought it'd be a good idea for Keevin to do the zip line. We did a few dry runs and then let him rip down. He was on a rope clove hitched to a tree so he wouldn't hit any of the construction half way down the line.

Here's a video of Keevin on the lne

Matt rapping down

Smith Rocks

After the Hood debacle we went to Smith on Saturday to get in a bit of climbing. I forgot toilet paper and that wasn't good.

Mt. Hood

On Friday Ingrid, Keevin, Matt and Moira and I went up to do the Louthold Coulor route on Mt. Hood. By the time we got up to the top of palmer it was already 3:30am and we weren't feeling it. So we called it and went back down. We did get to see a really cool red moon as it rose.

Tietons Climbing

Last weekend a bunch of us went up to The Tietons to do some crack climbing. It was a really good weekend of climbing and hanging out. Trad climbing is finally getting to not feel like I'm going to die the entire time I climb. It's now down to 4 moves of sheer terror followed by the elation of not fucking up.

Tieton pictures

Red Rocks

Ron and I went down to Red Rocks in Las Vegas to do some climbing and to hang out with Jami for her birthday. We had a good time not losing all of our money, making fun of the other people at Circus Circus and getting in some climbing.

We did a sick 5.3 trad climb (Chips and Salsa) that got us to the top of a few nice top ropes. We also got in a few good climbs on the Panty Wall and Ultraman Wall.

Friday and Saturday night we went out gambling at the Sahara. I lost my first hundred over a few hours, during which the
dealer laughed at me for doubling down on an Ace and a Two - I got another two and lost. The second night we got most of our money back after being down to 25 dollars.

I found out my camera has a defect that puts a white line through most pictures, so that added a nice flair.

Red Rock photos

Smith Rocks

On Saturday we went over to Smith to do a bit of climbing. Here are a bunch of pictures of Kate and Dan climbing a 5.11.

Smith Pics

More Monkey Face Pictures

I got some more Monkey Face pictures from Esther, Aaron (from the Romper Room) who was climbing Spank The Monkey or something insance and Rob who was filming across the way.

Ron, Esther and Dan on top

Monkey Face

Last weekend Ron, Esther, Dan and I went over to Smith to climb Monkey Face. While Ron and I did the Pioneer Route they did the West Face Variation. I made Ron, me and Esther some aiders with webbing as we're not sure if aiding is our bag or not.

First pitch

On the first pitch of the climb I pulled on some rock and showered Ron with dirt and rocks. Well, mainly rocks. He says I just yelled "Don't let go!!!", but I'm pretty sure I yelled "Rock Rock!!!! Don't let go!!!". This set the tone for the climb so I had a hard time leading the rest of the way up. I ran out one section a bit too much so that if I were to fall my last protection would just stop my body from hitting the ground not from crashing into the notch we just came through.

Bolt ladder

The aid section was really awesome. It took just a few moves to get into the rythym of clipping, standing, using Fifi hook and resting. I screwed up a few times and would get it backwards and fall onto my daisy chain, but that's why it's there.

Aiding

Once I was in the mouth of the Monkey I belayed Ron up. He cut his hand on the route and started dripping blood, so that was cool. Once we were both in the mouth we went over to the beginning of the 5.7 pitch. I kept telling myself to not look out and down, just to look up. That didn't work and I got freaked out. It's called Panic Point for a reason.

It took a while to get up the balls/nerve to step out and start the route. I would make it to a bolt and yell at Ron. I thought it came out as "Ron I'm clipping now. Okay now take please." Or as he says it came out as "Clip Clip Clipping Clip SHIT!!! CLIP!!! Shit Take TAke goddamnit TAIEEEKKKEEE! shit fuck shit shit." Then I'd slip down a 1/2 inch and continue yelling at him.

5.7 pitch

I eventually scrambled up and belayed Ron to the nose and we jumped over to the summit. We nerded out and called people on our cell phones and ate M&Ms once Dan and Esther got up. We hung out for a bit but started to get cold so we headed down.

Esther was brave enough to be the first to do the rappell down. I say brave because it's about a 200 foot free rappell. As she went down some guy hopped up onto the ledge after clipping his rope into a quickdraw like a ninja. He didn't say anything as he walked by in his loosely tied AIRWALKs. Dan, Ron and I stared at each other wondering if we saw that right.

A minute later his partner came up to our ledge wearing jeans and no real equipment besides her wonder bra'd cleavage. She at least had real rock shoes on so we didn't feel like complete nancy boys. I thought it'd be bad form to take her picture, but I should have anyway - for you people.

We did our rappell as fast as possible, which meant it took me 5 minutes to get down as it's a bit airy. Once you were committed to the rappell it was pretty cool - 200 feet straight down with nothing around you but your adrenalinized sweat and air.

The Airwalk Ninja and Cleavage used our ropes to come down. Of course they showed us up by doing a simul-rappell. Then they walked out in the dark without any lights and beat us (who had lights) back to parking lot.

Monkey Face pictures

The Tooth

Two weekends ago we (Dan, Esther, Matt, Keevin and I) went up to The Tooth in Washington for a little climb. The approach was a little bit of BS (like them all) but the climb was easy and had great views.

The Tooth pictures

Smith Rock

Last weekend Dan, Angel, Ron and I went over to Smith Rock to do some climbing. It was bad ass, as usual.

Smith Rock pictures

Ice Climbing

This Sunday Keevin, Matt, Esther and I went up to the Elliot Glacier to do up some ice climbing. We practiced on WI4 and WI5 routes. It was very cool.

Climbing pictures

Climbing

I've been slacking and haven't put up any climbing pictures lately. So here are some to check out.

At the end of August we went over to Smith Rock and did like 4 climbs because it was so hot. All I got were pictures of Ron and Angel, which isn't a bad thing.

Smith Rock

Last weekend Angel, Ron and I went over to Beacon Rock and did the South East route. There weren't any issues besides me screaming at the top of my lungs when I slipped 2 feet and put tension on a cam.

Beacon Rock

Ingalls Peak

Esther, Matt, Kate, Dan and I went up to Washington to climb Ingalls Peak over the weekend. We were going to do Mt. Stuart but changed our minds after we heard that it'd be over 16 hours. We figured we should try something smaller first. So our friend Bob told us to do Ingalls Peak right next door.

On Saturday we did the easier (5.4-5.6) South Ridge route. It was super fun and easy. Great views from the top of Rainier and the Cascades and of course Stuart off to the East. We got attacked by swarms of biting flies and mosquitos and had an early night. I tried out my new bivy sack, which worked great except for the exposure to the bugs. Bastards.

On Sunday we rose to a nice sunrise over Mt. Stuart. We huffed it over to the East Ridge after a quick breakfast. I lugged up over 11 liters of water to the base, thinking we'd need it all. It was way to heavy and after drinking our fill I dumped close to 6 liters of water. Matt joked that we'd regret it later, luckily we didn't.

The East route was a bit harder than the South but was more exciting with great exposure and great climbing. I learned a cheap lesson to always wear your helmet. While Matt was climbing I took my helmet off for a second and got hit with a fist sized rock in my back, luckily missing my naked head.

The route was super fun, good protection when needed and a few really fun hand traverses with cool exposure. We all enjoyed our first real alpine climbing experience and hope to get in a few more this season. We ended up getting down kindof late and returned to the cars around 10pm and back to Portland at 3am.

Beacon Rock

Over the weekend we (Jami, Matt, Keevin and I) climbed Beacon Rock. Here are our pictures.

Middle Sister

Over the 4th of July weekend we (Esther, Keevin, Matt and I) went over to Eastern Oregon to tackle the Middle Sister. We had plans to do the "East Arete" as it looked like a super cool line with some easy rock climbing inbetween technical snow climbing.

On Saturday we climbed at Smith to get warmed up and practice our trad placement. I started talking to an older guy next to us about the East Arete on Middle Sister. He told us outright that it was shitty rock and unprotectable. So there went that.

So we switched up to doing the North-East ridge instead. We went through Sisters after finishing climbing and got some awesome pizza at Martoleous? before heading up to camp. We got up and left camp at 4am and were on the summit around noon. There wasn' tanything really technical and we definetly had more gear than necessary with pickets, rope, crampons, axes and tools. But better to have than not.

Smith Rock pictures

Middle Sister pictures

Mt. Hood Summit

Over the weekend Keevin, Matt, Esther and I went up the West Crater Rim route on Mt. Hood. It was completely bad ass. We had awesome weather, full moon, still air and great climbing. The route was awesome and the summit ridge was even better.

Hood pictures

Training on Mt. Hood

Keevin, Matt and I took a class through Timberline Mountain Guides on advanced snow technique and crevasse rescue. I think the rope mangement for crevasse rescue melted our brains but we eventually got it down.

We have some action shots.

Mt. Hood

Saturday morning my friends Keevin, Frank and I went up Mt. Hood from Timberline Lodge. We left around 2 am and hit the base of the Hog's Back around 5:30. We decided to skip the Hog's Back and traverse over to the West Ridge.

I was a little freaked cos I hadn't done anything like that, but once we started it was totally bomber. We did a running belay with snow pickets every rope length.

The view from the West Ridge is totally awesome, the North side of Hood is quite amazing. I had to take a break at one section cos the wind knocked me a bit when it was really narrow so I hunkered down for a second.

It was totally bad ass and here are some pictures

Moab!

Trey, Henry and Dan came down to Moab this Tuesday and joined up with Ron and I. We started off with Monitor Merimack - as per custom, and then did Bartlet Slickrock and Amasa Back. After riding we've gone climbing twice so far. The first was a warm up on Potash Road (Wall Street). Dan and I went up the Fist Full Of Potash (5.10). Yesterday we drove out to Sunshine Wall and put up some top ropes on a nice slab with some 5.9s and 5.10s.

Here are our Climbing and Biking pictures.

Smith Rock

This weekend a bunch of us went over to Smith Rock to do some climbing, and celebrating Jami's 30th birthday. We just climbed on Saturday because Sunday it was raining and certain people were hung over.

On Saturday we did 5 and 10 gallon buckets for a warm up before heading over Asterisk Pass. Then there were five of us to do Spiderman Butress. Keevin did the lead climbing and we followed and placed gear as practice.

It ended up taking around 4 hours to do the three pitch climb. The weather changed from sunny and warm to hail, snow and wind. In the end we rappelled off the top to the first set of anchors and got Keevin's rope caught in the overhang. Apparently you're supposed to do the walkoff and not rappel. But we were tired, cold and hungry so we screwed that up. I was going to jumar up the rope and do the walkoff but Matt pointed out that now wasn't the time to try an untested technique. We bailed to get warm food and beer.

Here are our pictures

Traditional Climbing Gear

I just received my first bit of trad gear today. I've been wanting to do trad climbing (where you place your own protection) for a year now, but never got around to buying gear or going out and practicing. This weekend we're heading over to Smith Rocks for a friend's birthday so I will get my chance. I'm hoping that for the Moab trip in 2 weeks I'll be able to lead up some easy stuff with Ron.

I don't have a full rack, or even a partial rack, in fact this is pretty pathetic, but it's a start. I also bought a set of Black Diamond stoppers earlier at REI. I even have a few Yates Screamers for sketchy placement.

Green Card

After about 15 times not passing, I finally got my damn lead green card.

Hood Training

Today Matt, Keevin and I went up to Timberline Lodge to get in a little hike at altitude and practice our basic snow technique. We went above Palmer almost to Illumation Rock, but it was blowing snow pretty hard, so we took off back down. We spent about 2 hours practicing self arrest, belaying on the snow and catching each others falls on rope. It was a pretty kick ass time.

As you can see from the pictures it got rough up there and Keevin had to save Matt on the 70 deg slope. But he got him, so don't fret.

Matt at Timberline

Mt. Defiance #5

Last Sunday we did Mt. Defiance for the last time this season. Brynne came along, though I didn't see much of her as she and Keevin booked ass up the hill. They're insane.

Bottom

Top

Mt. Defiance #4

Start of hike

Mt. Defiance #3

Keevin and Matt at start.

Mt. Defiance Panorama

Mt. Defiance #2

Today we did our second training hike up Mt. Defiance. This time it was Matt, Keevn, Aimee, her dag Kala and me. We figured out that our last hike was actually up Starvation Ridge (No. 414 via 414b) instead of Mt. Defiance (No. 413) The beginning was much easier this time when we went up the correct trail.

I used my new trekking poles and they made a world of difference. We left Portland at 4 am so we'd be back in time for the Superbowl. We topped out at 10 am after 4 1/2 hours, 2 of which were in snow. It was a perfect weather day, light wind, sunny and not too cold.

Obligitory start picture

Mt Defiance #1

In preparation for climbing mountains this year, Matt, his friend Dobson and I went up into the Gorge to hike Mt. Defiance after eating some kickass breakfast burritos. We ran into two other groups getting ready and they had snowshoes on their packs. Matt hoped that they were over prepared.

Turns out we were under prepared. At around 3000 feet the snow was about 5 feet deep. It was fun to post-hole through it for a few miles, but then it got a little tiring so we ended up turning around a mile or so from the end. We don't really know cos it was cloudy and we've never done it before. But it was a hell of a lot of fun and we're ready to go up again this Sunday before SuperBowl.

Matt practicing for Mt. Defiance

Lead Test == Beer

On Tuesday I took my lead test, again. This time they were kind enough to pass me. After I finished the belay portion of the test and was told to be careful who belays me (as everyone is a midget), they handed me and Matt two cold beers. Matt happens to be the only person in Portland who doesn't drink beer, so he gave it to Scott, who is smart enough to drink beer. That was probably better than passing, drinking beer in front of everyone at the gym.

Lead Test

Tonight I took my lead test at PRG, and blew my last clip. But I have it down now and most importantly, got a video of my fall(17MB). I'm retaking tomorrow and should pass this time, with less swearing and falling.

Beacon Rock

On Friday night I climbed Beacon Rock in the Gorge with my friend Ben. It was a 6 pitch climb, with the last being a 200 foot scramble. We went up 3 pitches and then I lowered Ben back down to the ground on another route so he could top rope that (a 5.11).

After Ben's climb we continued up, now it was in the dark. We used headlamps and it was pretty damn cool. Ben lead the whole way and I just cleaned on the way up. It was a little funky at parts when it was completely dark and you had to move your headlamp around to figure out the foot holds.

We made it to the walkway around 9:30 and after organizing a bit we hiked back down to the parking lot. I went to get the car (and beer) while Ben got his bag from the backside of the rock. When Ben got back there was a Ranger there and he came over and talked to us as apparently the park and parking lot were closed. And he didn't seem to appreciate us having a celebratory beer in the close lot. He didn't hassle us too much and we took off for the safe shore of Oregon.

I put up some pictures if you click on the next picture.

Smith Rock

This weekend all of us went out to Smith Rock to celebrate Kate and Sandra's birthday with some rock climbing. Friday night was some beer drinking and fire starting until 2am. On Saturday after a breakfast of bacon, coffee, bagels, pancakes and warm beer, we headed over into the park.

Brynne, May and I went to Wherever I May Roam, a 5 pitch climb. Brynne lead the pitches, I went send and May came up after me. On the bottom I broke a hold which funked up my zen. The first 3 pitches were ok, on the second I had issues and fell a few times (once cos a fart made me laugh and fall off).

I was following up the 3rd pitch and was having some issues with it when a guy above us started to throw his ropes down right on top of us to rappel. He was talking to Brynne, who was belaying me and I was freaking out so I yelled at her "Hey, tell those fuckers to not rappel onto us!" The guy was like 30 feet above and yelled back"Did you just call us fuckers?!?" I told him yea but to ignore it. Brynne thought it was funny. They rappeled down after I got up to the anchors and then Brynne had to help them untangle their rope so I figure we were even. He was busy yelling at his girlfriend about something anyway.

The next 2 pitches were lots of fun and made up for the first 3. On top we had great views and saw our other climbing buddies over near Asterisk Pass. We did a single rope rappel, then a 60 foot double rope rappel cos the ropes didn't touch the ground. Then we did one last one. I couldn't see if the rope touched the deck or not but when I went about 100 feet down I could see it was a few feet above the ground, so we went for it. My weight stretched the rope enough to touch.

We were all done and took off after getting some snack food and met up with everyone else in the parking lot. After telling everyone of our epic climb and the yelling we went to the 7th Street pub in Redmond.

We had a good time drinking and eating before heading back to the grasslands camping area. Where we stood around a fire and jabbered over beer.

After a frosty night we got up early and headed back out to Smith so May could do her first lead - which she kicked ass on. We talked to the guys next to us and they had heard about my yelling at the dude on Saturday. So the word got out.

We did a few easy climbs and May and I called it a day and bailed to go home and sit in hot tubs.

Here are pictures from Saturday(ish) and Sunday(ish)

Smith Rock Pictures

I put up a pictures from last weekend at Smith Rock. I used a little disposable Fujifilm camera and I'm pretty happy with how the pictures turned out. For only $4 Freddies will scan the pictures onto a CD, which saves a bunch of time.

Here are the pictures of Spiderman and the route I don't know under Monkey Face

Smith Rock

Over the weekend I went out to Smith Rock with my buddies Dan and Kate. On the way I found out that gas stations inbetween Sandy and Madras close at 9 the hard way. I ended up driving back to Sandy after dropping Dan and Kate off at a bar.

On Saturday we went into Smith and walked over to Spiderman. It is a two pitch climb so we got to hang out at a set of bolts a hundred feet off the ground. Kate and Dan led by placing nuts, cams and hexes along the crack. I would follow and just unhook as I went up. The climb was pretty awesome. It was rated as a 5.7, but I think some moves were pretty difficult. Near the top is a roof that you have to traverse under and then climb around. That was frickin scary, but awesome once you get over.

The next climb we did was under Monkey Face. We did two pitches up this time as well. There were awesome views of the Sisters and Jefferson from our belay station. The top of our climb didn't end up at any bolts so Kate built a 4 point anchor and I sat above her with two additional pieces of protection. Dan came up last and did a traverse whil being belayed by Kate. I followed while being belayed by both Dan and Kate and then she came over last after clearing her anchor. Then we had a 200 foot rappel down the face. I think this was 160 feet further than my last rappel, so I was freaked out most of the way down. But it was good.

On the way out we ran across some climbers who couldn't free their rope from above. So Dan climbed up at 5.10b route to bring them another rope. I thought that was pretty bad ass of him. We had a nice walk out along the river. We were the last ones to leave the park, so it was all ours.

On Sunday we drove down to Bend and rode up Phil's trail to the Whoop De Doos. Yet again it was an awesome ride. Until Kate got attacked by a log and did an endo. We thought she might have broken her collarbone or torn something. We drove to the hospital in Bend, which is like 15 minutes away from the trailhead and took her to the emergency room. Turns out she sprained her somethingorother on her shoulder and should be back in business in 2 weeks. That's pretty awesome given she could have been out for the whole summer if it were the collarbone.

Smith Rock

Over the weekend I went over to Smith Rock with my climbing buddies. While it was raining on everyone else in Portland, it was sunny and warm in Terrebone (just North of Bend.) At night you could see all of the stars and even the constellations (if we could've remembered their names.) Coyotes provided singing for us to fall asleep to.

On Saturday we woke up, cooked blueberry pancakes and bacon and headed out to Smith Rock. We split up into a few groups to attack various routes. Amy and Brynne led up the bolted routes and I, Scott, Dan and May would follow. I got to break in my new rope, it started off shiny and orange, it ended dull and dirty - looking like a real rope.

On my last climb I got to clean the top quick draws and thread the rope through the chains so I could rappel down the face. I hadn't ever done it, but I knew the steps to take. It took me about 10 minutes to get ready to push off the ledge and lower myself down. I'd say I was like a cowboy and booked down, but I took it slow so I could live to eat another pizza.

It was an awesome day, at least 80 degrees out and no clouds.

The next day some of us went to Bagby Hot Springs, some went climbing and May and I went to Bend to do the Whoop De Doo trail. The weather changed and the clouds rolled in, which seems to please people in Bend. "Dude, it's perfect biking weather! We love the rain" They're crazy.

When we got to the top of the Whoop De Doo trail it was snowing, quite a bit different than the previous day. But it was all good, we boogied down the trail and hit all of the moguls.

I put up some pictures from Smith Rock if you'd like to check them out.

Scott going up a 5.10b

Mt. St. Helens

Last weekend I went up Mt. St. Helens with a few of my climbing buddies. I have no pictures of the adventure because I still don't have a digicam. But, it was pretty fun (except for the last hour, that's pretty tough.) Maureen and I glacaded (sp?) down from the top for about 3 miles. That was pretty kick ass, even got air a few times. Brynee and I decided we're gonna do other mountains next year. Which probably means I need to bump my bi-weekly 3 mile jog up a little bit.

Climbing

I went out climbing with some new people last night at the PRG. They've added quite a bit of new rock onto the wall, making it easier to get up. But now they have taped routes (showing you which way to go.) I did my first taped route last night, it was a 5.7, I mean 5.12. It was much harder to follow the little taped marks, but more fun when you get to the top.