Treading the Water of Life

Oh the neglected blogosphere. I'm back and after what feels like a few months of holding my breath I feel like I almost have my head above water.

Conversation point #1: I graduated college. After 5 long years they finally kicked me out with a degree in psychology with a minor in political science from the great University of Kansas. That felt amazing for a minute until the boozey haze of graduation weekend ended and I realized I still had to figure out what to do next. I've made some big steps in that direction lately and should be out of the midwest quite soon, more details later on that one.

Woot! Graduated.

Regardless graduation weekend was super rad. Mike Draper and myself hosted a co-kegger grad party. The Fink family unit made the drive up and I had all of my climber family mixed up with the old Lawrence crew and the girl for the night. Felt great to have all of my best friends in the same place for the night. It was a true rarity for my collected memories and if you came than thank you, it made my grad weekend. On Sunday I walked down the hill and enjoyed the lovely tradition that all of us Jayhawks can forever bond in, celebrated with my family and then went on a 2 man pub crawl to re-live our (now) college past.

Conversation point #2: What's a college graduate to do when they are still working at a coffee shop with no real life obligations? Go climbing of course. So last weekend I headed back to the ranch with the trio of Carol, Rachelle and Jess to send some gnar rock. John Waller was already in the great state or AR so he joined us as well and we went to sendin'. Not too much to report on the whole climbing front. I almost onsighted another 5.11 and have high hopes that .11a will be my onsight grade by the end of the summer, sounds kinda lame and sport climberish but I have come to terms with the fact that that's all I currently am for now until I get a job, build a rack and hit the mountains.

J-Dub cut his teeth on his first outdoor lead climb ever on a pretty stout 5.10b at the prophecy wall. It was a very impressive first send on the sharp end and just goes to show that once again John "Good at Everything" Waller can get the job done. I'm pretty sure if you have a conversation about it with him he will mention something about it being less hard than I am making it out to be, but a .10 for your first time out on real rock is damn impressive (don't let him tell you anything else). Overall the weekend ended up being a great way to gain some composure. We climbed in the morning, swam in the Buffalo in the afternoon, climbed again in the dark and attended a most rad wedding reception in the HCR barn.

Conversation Point #3: This was a while back but I know a lot of you who read this have participated in this event in the past so it's worth a mention. David Neidinger hosted the Biro 3.0 at his pad and team WallerSlate dominated. Johnny Giles' team almost showed up with some good competition but in the end proved to be choke artists. So I now have the shirt to show that I belong on the hall of fame wall with the likes of Bundy/Kristen and Schroeder/Hemphill.

So here's to growing up, climbing rocks, and combining the great sports of beer drinking and bike riding.

The Final Trip

Last weekend I headed down to Horseshoe Canyone Ranch with the KURC for my fianl trip ever with these kids. It's a most giant bummer for myself to have to leave this club or rock crushing stone bandits, but apparently life has to move on.

We started the weekend on Thursday night with a Jeep full of kids who climb harder than me (the ego took a hit on that one) and partied hard until we reached HCR around 5:00 in the morning. From then we threw up some tents and slept until 11am. And then the quartet of Lesage, Spalding, Surface and I went sendin'.

This is what our campfires look life, don't be too jealous

Friday: We went craggin' at the Prophecy Wall and it was good. Got warm on a .10b and moved over to a giant roof line titled "Taliban Soup." The Soup is a hard .11D that not only requires some serious rock-reading skills but also some serious burl to pull the roof. I got hung up on a balancey, lie back in the middle of the route after not trusting the beta that was being shouted from the dirt. So it didn't go clean, but it did go and after getting shut down on Flying Elvis just a few weeks before it felt good to pull some overhangs.

After we left Prophecy we built a giant tent fort at the campground in preparation for the impending storm and went back to send town over at the north 40. Racked up some biners and ticked off another .10 over there and then went to town on Sonny Jim with Andrew Spalding, an .11b with a neat roof. Almost, almost, almost had the onsight, and damn it would have felt good to say I did it. But once again my rock reading skills proved to be the downfall for the send. Hung once and cleaned up the roof.

Saturday: Some more creatures from the north joined us just in time to watch an Arkansas tsunami wash over the Canyon. Once the sun came out we headed to the aptly named "Goat Cave" for some super overhung climbing and what I can only imagine was the only dry climbing to be found that morning. The goats were there when we arrived, hiding from the wet but they quickly dispersed as the clouds moved away. The bottom of the cave was covered in inedible cocoa pebbles and it smelled like a petting zoo (to us city boys). Regardless of the smell, the climbs were a straight burl-fest. Start overhung and climb out of a cave, that was pretty much the name of the game for everything there.

Sunday: My hands were worked, my head ached from partying too hard in the barn the night before and my balance wasn't the best in the world. Regardless if this was to be my last trip with the club I wanted to go out the same way I came in, on top of Orange Crush. To all the climbers reading this, yes I know it's a cliche to talk about this line and how rad it is but stfu. It's the tallest climb at the Ranch by far, it's a 4 star climb, it's rated so I can lead it clean and still have a ridiculous amount of fun and it has the best view of the Canyon of any crag at that place. So yes it was gorgeous, yes it was well within my limits, yes the bolts were a little too closely spaced together and yes if I climbed it at sunset I would "like totally tell you how totally gorgeous it was." I have that view on top of that rock to forever couple with the memory of my last club trip and that is something I can most definitely live with.

So here's to pushing your personal limits, sending harder than planned, the canyon, the views and those dang creatures of the Arkansas craggin' scene.

Freefallin: The tale of the weekend of the 16th

Friday: I quit early from the coffee shop and raced down to the LRT to demo some Trek bikes. Rode some pretty rad squishy things. I hauled ass on a Trek Top Fuel, cruised on the Superfly 100 and hucked as much gnar as I could for the LRT on a Rumblefish. All of them were rad. I won't write a novel about the experience since I don't have the background in suspension or bikes that aren't my own to write even remotely a well thought out experience.

Saturday: Hopped on the road bike and headed out by myself. Probably the first solo road ride I have enjoyed doing in quite some time. Lawrence to Perry Lake to Clinton Lake by the day's end, all in a breezy 5mph crosswind.

Suit up!

SUNDAY, SUNDAY, SUNDAY! I jumped the heck out of a plane. It was the most rad experience of my life by far. It was kind of the culmination of every adrenaline rush I have ever chased in my life. I liken it to going full throttle on my motorcycle straight up in the air, jumping off, taking a 5000 foot whipper and then sitting on top of a giant route trying to catch your breath.

I was pretty nervous going into the day seeing as I had a good 9 months of anticipation building up inside of me. Once the flight suit was on and I watched my altimeter climb as I sat on the metal floor of a tiny plane shaking at speed the nervousness disappeared and a calm set in, the closest I can liken it to is sitting at the base of a very runout project and knowing you can do it but knowing it's going to hurt if you don't do it right.

The minute I hucked out the door of the plane all of those feelings disappeared. I was in freefall for 30 seconds and it was the most serene 30 seconds of my life. Some people talk about getting tunnel vision when they free fall, some people say their brain blacks out, mine did the opposite. I felt a very acute awareness of my surroundings, I was cruising at 130mph through the air, looking around in awe with life, calm and happier than I think I have ever been in my life. I firmly believe that I could spend the next 50 years as a buddhist monk and I would never achieve the serenity that washed over me the second I gained composure after tumbling out of that plane.

So here's to the weekend. Long live long rides, carbon wonder bikes and jumping from way up.

Party at Graceland

The first weekend of April I made my return trip to Cave Creek in Arkansas. The club took down a smaller group of kids to send hard and that is what we did. I had my sights set on a severely overhanging 5.12a named "Flying Elvis." I've been eye-f*cking this line for almost 9 months now, it is honestly one of the boldest and most beautiful lines I have ever seen AR. I got the chance to top-rope it a titch on the March trip but couldn't work the crux side pull, so this line got deep into my brain. The minute I got to Cave Creek I warmed up and went straight to Elvis. I had redpointed this thing at least a dozen times in my dreams the month leading up to tying into the sharp-end at the base of this climb, but alas those dreams did not become a reality. I flailed at the crux for probably a half hour before resigning myself to come back and try it later that day.

Flying off Elvis' Crux

Little did I know that the rest of the day would be spent with Brian Lesage climbing things that are just at or past my limit. After pulling through a .10d and then following up the most technical .11D I have ever seen in my life I was so exhausted that I could not climb a 5.10A on top-rope and felt like a soccer short, shoe renting, plastic pulling squid.

The next morning I returned to Elvis and pulled through the crux moves but my body was just too worked to clip the following bolt and move onto the juggy finish. Elvis got me good but at least I know that I got his number now.

Fear and Loathing in my Harness

Spring Break 2010 brought upon a most epic adventure. 31 rock climbers from my fair university piled into a few vans and headed west to wage wars of mischief and mayhem against the unsuspecting Red Rocks Canyon Park as well as the cities of Las Vegas and Moab.

After 20 hours of sleeping shotgun in an Element I found myself right outside of Las Vegas, Nevada. Which happens to be the most desolate, trashy, over the top, wino filled crap hole that I would hope to be so lucky as to someday call my home. Anyways, after burning through that town we arrived at the doorstep of Red Rocks Natl. Park only to find that there were no camping spaces available! And just to add insult to injury the wind was whippin around 45 mph (which is the most painful thing in the world when that wind is laced with sand). Long story short, some fast shuckin' and jivin' was done by the officers. We were allowed to stay and a short trip to the bar kept us out of the wind.

The morning of day 1 bestowed upon myself the most excellent present a boy could wish for: calm sunny skies, dry dirt and warm rock. And with that day bestowed upon myself I took upon the conquest of slaying the first multi-pitch, free route of my life. Ryan Surface and I sent a mighty 600' 5.7 climb free and clean. Slaying this beast was quite possibly the most heady brew I have ever taken down. Sitting on belay anchor built with 2 smaller cams and a nut, on an edge roughly 2" larger than my ass in every direction, 500' in the air is one of the most intense, nerve racking experiences of my life. But also reaching the summit and then thanking the dirt for welcoming me back to the base at the end proved to be one of the most freeing feelings that I believe can ever be experienced.

View from the aforementioned tiny belay station.

Day 2 saw my first day of sport climbing for the trip. I hit up the Magic Bus Wall inside the park and immediately set up a slabby 5.6 warm up next to what was supposed to be "the climb" to make the day, a super slab 5.10d that looked like a sick cheese grater if my foot was to take a slip that shared an anchor with my warm up. Anyways the decision to leave the anchor and try it on TR before it was lead was made, and after that tr session nobody wanted to eff with that climb anymore. So we made our way over right and sent some cruiser 5.8/9 leads while letting the sun soak us up.

Somewhere along the next few days I hit up the black corridor and got on some semi-runout mid-high tens and hit the panty wall to throw down on even more 8s and 9s. Overall the sport climbing in Red Rock park was big, exposed and super fun. Although I can say I grew to appreciate Arkansas for having as diverse of terrain as it does. Every climb on a certain wall more or less was a different variation of the same features simply because of their height and wind exposure.

Day 4: A nice casual morning of bouldering in Calico Basin started what has to be the most mind blowing St. Patrick's Day that I will ever have in my life. Post boulder session we descended upon Vegas like the thirsty bunch of creatures that KURC is. The Sahara's pool was filled with filthified climber bums, the pre-game was rocked along with a trip to the in-n-out burger, post pre-game got rocked as well, the strip was taken with force, cops broke up a sidewalk dance party, beasts were shotgunned outside Circus Circus, things got peed on and the Belaggio horse statue may have been ridden by a German kid.

Sidewalk dance party.

Bleary eyed and dehydrated brought upon the start of day 5. I believe the events of this day went like this.
10:00 amish- Hit McDonalds for breakfast (walk since we may or may not be legal to drive) with a few of the boys that partied as hard...ish as me the night before.
10:30am - Bail on shirts and pray that the intense desert sun poolside at the Sahara can make us sweat this out.
11.15 am- Open new beers and start packing
12:00 pm-ride roller coaster on the strip
9:oo pm - wake up in Moab, Utah

So Moab went like this: It was raining and wet when we got up and sleeting shortly after, so we went into town to work up a healthy morning buzz off of Moab's own brewery while waiting for the rock to dry. Once it did dry I climbed a whole bunch of top-ropes on "wall street" and felt like I was in a gym. Super featured crack climbing right outside your car door in one of the most amazing cities in the world is pretty rad. I led another super easy crack climb just to practice my placements some more. This place literally took everything I love about climbing outdoors and mixed it with the convenience of the gym.

The next morning a big ol' lot of whatever climbers hadn't bailed on the trip yet went out to Corona arch and jumped the 'eff off the top. Not really but we rappelled off it which is almost as neat. After I did that I cruised up to the top of Portal Trail to enjoy one of the most scenic views Moab has to offer, hit the campground again, split a bottle of wine, packed camp and headed back to Lawrence.

Corona Arch adorned with our ropes.

So here's to my last Spring Break, Vegas, Moab, the KURC and the rock that keeps leading us back to these adventures.

Cave Creek Craziness

Last weekend was the first warm weekend of the year for KS. Regardless I decided to get the eff out of dodge and head south to the great state of Arkansas. I think I'm just a few visits short of being able to claim dual citizenship between both forms of the Kansas.

So here's the digs. We camped at Sam's Throne but climbed at Cave Creek. I think Cave is becoming one of my favorite areas to climb "locally" since it has plenty of shiny bolts but is secluded enough with a hard enough approach that it still remains rather isolated. There definitely isn't the quantity of climbs that HCR has but seeing as how we only have the routes to share among ourselves it's pretty rad.

Saturday I really just wanted to play around on some easy 5.8-5.9 sport routes and kind of get my "lead head" back on my shoulders in preparation for spring break. That didn't work out as well as I thought it should. I did knock out a nice 5.9 to warm up on, so at that point the day was going as planned. As soon as we had rapped off the bolts from the warm up I decided that the slab to our immediate right needed to be put up. Problem: the first bolt was about 23 feet off the ground, talk about getting my lead head screwed on nice and tight.



View from the first bolt

After I scared myself witless on the slab I wandered a little further to the left and found a whole bunch of cams dangling from a tree. So what did I decide to do in this situation? Of course I racked up said cams and sent my first trad lead. No guidance, no top-rope mach-ups or rehearsals, just grab the gear and go on up.



Pluggin' my first cam on lead.

By this time in the day I realized that easing myself back into an outdoor season with a solid responsible head on my shoulders just isn't the sort of thing that I am good at. However running out my protection and praying that my gear will hold are two things I do seem to be okay at. So for my final climbs of the day I just hopped back on things that are on the upper end of my onsight level when I am in shape, and right now isn't one of those times. So I ended the weekend with two pretty flailtastic 5.10+ sport routes.

So here's to warm rock, dry dirt, and decisions that always seem to work out.

Best Year Ever

2009 was quite possibly the very best year for me so far in this journey of my so called “adulthood”, so I thought it deserved a little recap on the blog. I started to do a month-by-month write up but decided nobody needed to be that overloaded with my thoughts. So I made a top 20 list instead. Since most of you readers accompanied me on these journeys just feel free to add “with the greatest people in the world” to the end of your journeys.

1. Went on one of the most epic ski journeys
2. Bad Goat Racing is born.
3. Did my first running race
4. Arkansas trip #1. Oauchita style
5. Hobo’d my brains out by the river
6. Did my first duathalon
7. Arkansas trip #2. Dirty Climbin’ style
- MO trip #1 dirty float trip style
8. Dirty Kanza attempt #3
9. Became a barista
10. Became a bike shop wrench
11. Did a metric crap ton of fishing
12. “Won” the Sunflower State Games sport xc race
13. Bought a motorcycle
14. Started running excessively
15. Placed 4th at RIM (Highest finish in an endurance event)
16. MO trip #2, dirty Osceola craggin’ style
17. AR trip #3 Sam’s Throne, Cave Creek climbin’ style
18. AR trip #4 Horseshoe Canyon style
19. AR trip #5 HCR Fall Break epic
20. Eh, cyclocross

That would be a total of 8 successful adventuring trips, holy ballstastic. This list doesn’t even begin to account for half of the reasons why this year was so great but at least it’s a start. Adding in all of the nights out on the town, Pattersnap parties, graduation weekend, time spent on the bike or at the rock wall would probably put this entry out of the realm of readability. But I think there is definitely one last thing worth mentioning, none of these whimsical epics would have been even a fraction as much fun as they were without having some of the “greatest people in the world” in my friend group. Yeah that was kinda sentimental, eff off you hoboin’ dirtbags (that should even out the emotions scale). I think the readership would agree on that point seeing as a large chunk of us (or those still left) will be spending yet another New Years together tonight, I’m pretty sure that makes three in a row and I’m pretty sure each of those years has continually seen more adventuring than the last.

Y’all adventurin’ dirtbags make these epics epic and worth reading about so here’s to you and let’s get 2010 epictastically and officically opened with some gnar sendage, huckage, general Bad Goatin’.