Fun in the Sun

These last few days have been great! The weather here in Boulder has been amazing, and so has the climbing. Yesterday after class James and I went to the Sport Park in upper Boulder canyon and had some fun with some of the better sport climbs on "Suprising Crag". We got on some really fun 9's, some really slabby and blank 11s, and a 12. It was really great too, while we were up there, some of my buddies, Said and Gabe showed up. It was entirely unplanned, but it was pretty cool to climb with them as well. I'll put up some pictures soon. The 12 we got on was "Furius Howard Brown". It started out will a really steep overhang, and then transitioned into a really hard, slabby crack climb with all kinds of water seeping out. It ate chalk like a gila monster.

(Sending the Aerogel traverse)

Today we went to the Satellite Boulders and I sent four different V1's on the sputnik boulder, two v5's on the aerogel boulder, worked the turning point and captain hook, and then sent some v4 called original grapple. It was a fun day. Tomorrow morning I'll be climbing the first flatiron with James, then its time to bear down for finals!!! I'll have to put climbing on hold for a week or so, as there's lots of stuff I need to do before school gets out. Then we'll be going to Penitente for a week. I'm really excited for that.

CU Student Arrested

So last night in Kitt West Hall, 2 halls down from mine, there was this kid arrested for having a shotgun, a handgun, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. Pretty scary ordeal considering the 8 year anniversary of Columbine today, and the VT shooting earlier this week. Fortunately police got wind of what he was packing, and he got expelled from the school. I can't even imagine what might have happened, or what he may have been planning, but I am very thankful that everyone is alright, and there were no attacks.


All this violence/potential for violence makes you think so much differently. It isn't really normal to be sitting in a class and be thinking how you could barracade the door, or where you could hide, or what you could use as a weapon against an attacker, but that's what everyone has been thinking about lately. We should be able to think of the college campus as a safe place, where you can learn without dealing with the terrors of the world, but unfortunately, this isn't the case. With people having guns in the dorms, you really don't know who to trust. This is especially scary for us RA's as we could be involved in an incident, and that incident could potentially get out of control to the point where the RA is attacked. I know this has happened before, it even happened at VT earlier this week. I don't think that will be an issue this weekend though, because of the 4/20 festivites in Boulder, everyone will be too baked to even move. That makes the RA job a lot easier. I'll just continue to have a positive outlook on life, and everything should turn out ok.

Climbing

I went bouldering yesterday after class, and then went to the Primo Wall in Clear Creek Canyon today. I finally linked the v4 monkey traverse in flagstaff, and sent the "Gill Swing", another classic v4. Today James Sloan and I went to the Primo Wall for a few hours and did a nice 5.10c, a 5.12a and a 5.12b. It was good to get out in the summer sun that is finally here! There's a 12c at Primo that I have been working on, but didn't get it this time. Maybe next. There's always time for climbing when the sun is always shining!


Finals are coming up soon, so I'll have to slow down this sudden spree of climbing, but the yearly Penitente Canyon trip is coming up, and we have a nice crew this time. I'm pretty stoaked for that! I am slowly getting better, the more gear I buy...

Slacklining

So I just found out today that my buddy Said and I appeared on Boulder TV 54 for our slacklining skills. The links are below:

My moves

Said's moves

Apparently we are going to be doing a lot of highlining soon. We had a nice session today, I'll post the pictures when I get them.

It kind of aggrivates me when the weather models call for 1.5 feet of snow, and boulder gets absolutely none and is sunny all day today and yesterday. I cancelled a lot of climbing plans due to the snow, but I'm glad I got to slackline for a bit, that adds a little light to the situation.

Chilling at the Cabin

Over the last part of Spring Break I got to hang out at the Cabin with Grandma and Grandpa. It was great, and I had a great time. I did a little skiing, but mostly just talked with Grandma and Grandpa, and slept a lot. On the way back I had a fun 5 hour drive though, because it snowed and all the roads were closed.

Red Rock Rendezvous

Over the last weekend in March, my friends James, Caitlin, Ashlee and I went to the Red Rock Rendezvous in Las Vegas, Nevada for the first part of our spring break. It was a very fun trip, filled with fun and adventure. The best part of the trip was that it went from bad, to worse, to amazing in a really short amount of time.

We left Boulder on March 23rd at 10:30 am. The inital part of the drive went pretty quickly, stopping for gas in Glenwood Springs, and again somewhere in southern Utah. I drove for most of the way out there, except for about an hour where James decided to drive. But he got a little carsick, and I took over. The weird thing about Vegas is that it has this aura about it that lets you know when you are getting close. You could see the light pollution of Vegas, and you could see it from about 130 miles out. It was kind of amazing that there is that much electricity in such a small place, but I guess Hoover dam it pretty dam big. We got to Vegas at about 9:45pm or so, and got to Spring Mountain Ranch at about 10:30 (20 miles west of Vegas on Charleston Blv.), and set up camp and hit the hay.


I got up at 7:00 the next morning to an awesome sight. The sun was just rising up over the bluffs to the east, and huge cliffs were looming over us to the west. Although it was only March, it was sure to be a beautiful weekend. We had some breakfast, and did a little slacklining, and then all piled into the truck to head out to the sport climbing area. I was the only one who had ever done any lead climbing before, and I was the driver, and I was the planner for the trip in general, so it really was a stressful time overall with all that feeling of responsibility, but I managed.


There are three main sport climbing areas in Red Rock Canyon, and the other numerous areas are all mostly either bouldering or multipitch trad bigwalls. (Class III-V all day routes). We mostly climbed at the second pullout in the scenic loop, and did a bunch of easier 5.8-5.10c routes. These were at the "Magic Bus" wall. It was really cool getting to this area because the entrance was in this shaded slot canyon full of really interesting geological features and technical obstacles. The wall itself was really exposed. It was a giant boulder about 70 feet tall and 150 feet wide that was just sitting on this 15 degree slope of rock, which eventually dropped another 200 feet to the canyon floor. This added a really neat aspect to the climbing as the fear factor while leading was essentially doubled due to the overall height of the rock.


We climbed a few routes the first day, and then came back to camp for dinner. While at dinner, there was a dyno comp happening at the portable wall that mountaingear brought, and I got to meet big climbers such as Lisa Rands, Chris Linder, Tommy Caldwell, Beth Rodden, and Chris Sharma. It was cool to be able to hang out with these bigshots. There also was a really cool bluegrass band or rather "newgrass" band, as grandma calls them. We went to bed rather early as we wanted to climb a lot the next day.

The second day we got to the second pullout again, and went to "the gallery" climbing area, and hung out a little while waiting for a turn, but there were way too many people there, so we went back to the "magic bus" area for the rest of the day. We climbed the other routes we didn't have time to climb the previous day, hung out a little bit, and then headed back when we got tired. It was a pretty fun day. After a quick nap at camp, we decided to go to the Vegas Strip to walk around and take in the sights. It was pretty fun, and we went to "Ceasar's Palace" and the "Bellagio" as well as the Coke superstore and "Fatburger". After a few hours of walking around though, we decided to head back. On the way back to the car there was a really neat fountain/water/light show at the lake in front of the "Bellagio" that we watched for a little while.

(The above picture is me slacklining with some pro athlete and the owner of Asana)


The next day we drove back to Colorado after a fun but short trip. We were thinking about going out to Disney Land, but decided against it as we were all plain tuckered out. On the drive back we stopped in Fruita, CO for some gas and James pulled a fast one on me and locked the keys in the car while I was getting some food. I freaked out for a few minutes but it turned out that he actually had the real key in his pocket so we were all good.

It was good to get back and sleep. Overall though it was a really exceptional trip, and I will definitely go back, but hopefully next time I'll be able to stay longer.