Ninja Night Highline

Said and I had the awesome idea to go set up a highline at night, and pretend we were ninjas. It would have worked out well, but there were added elements of the incoming blizzard (which dumped 15 inches of snow throughout the course of that night and the next day) and the night time environment, and the fact that I was rigging up the line by myself. It went flawlessly though. I was able to get the line up and tensioned in about an hour, with an extra 10 minutes for tightening. Then it was walkin time! Said crushed it, a noble send for his 4th highline ever, and walked there and back performing many tricks. Larkin also showed up with some big lights so that we could paint the rock with light and get some cool photos. It was a really great time, and even though I left Boulder to rig after a full day of work, I still got home before my normal bedtime. Alright!

My first tandem skydive!

Nearly a year and a half since my first skydive, I received the opportunity to participate in a tandem skydive. I had never done one before (as I went right into AFF for my first jump), and it was a bit scary.


My friend Boyd just got his tandem instructor rating (congrats dude) and one of the many requirements for this rating is to take 10 practice tandem jumps, 5 of which must be with other experienced skydivers. I met the 100 jump minimum for the ride-along, so Boyd and I geared up and headed to the plane. I rarely get on a plane without a skydiving rig anymore (even when I'm traveling I usually bring my parachute as a carry-on for the cool dropzones in different parts of the country) and it was a little nerve racking to have neither a helmet nor a parachute while getting on the jump plane. But the fear soon subsided as Boyd strapped in my harness and we jumped out of the plane. It was a short freefall, and very sluggish because of the drogue which sits above the tandem group to keep them stable and to slow the falling speed to an agreeable amount (without the drouge a tandem group can easily reach speeds of 200 miles per hour). When you pull the parachute (which simply releases the drogue and uses it as a pilot chute to deploy the main) you go back into freefall for a bit, as the drogue falls away and you accelerate for a bit before the main comes out. It was fun, but unexpected. After that, it was a nice long canopy flight to the ground, where we landed safe and sound.

So for anyone considering doing a tandem jump, do it! It was a lot of fun, and not as scary as I'd imagined. It is a great way to experience skydiving and I'm even more excited about jumping now. Thanks again Boyd for the sweet experience.

Fun Skydiving

I've been in a skydiving phase lately. Pretty much every ounce of free time that I have is spent studying for class or heading to the drop zone. This last weekend was particularly fun. Although I was a bit sick, I've found that freefall is a great cure for the common cold.

One of the highlights of the weekend was the balloon jump we put together. It was my 3rd jump out of a balloon, and this time we spiced it up a little bit.


While the other guys jumped out of the basket, Joe and I decided to get creative and rigged some ropes up to the basket and descended into freefall by rappelling out. When the balloon hit about 6,500 feet above ground level, Joe and I began our treacherous rappel out of the balloon while intentionally forgetting to tie stopper knots. In climbing it is important to tie a knot at the end of a rappel rope so as to prevent falling off the end of the rope. But this is exactly what Joe and I had in mind. We started down the ropes, hanging 50 feet below the hot air balloon, and then rappelled off the end. It was a really cool experience because of the unobsructed 360 degree view of Boulder and the front range. We could see all the northern Colorado mountain ranges, and probably all the way to Kansas. It was a truly spectacular experience. The freefall was fun, and the farmer that approached us for landing in his field wasn't too angry, which was great. It made for a spectacular morning!

Click Here to see the youtube video.

I'm hoping to get to 200 jumps by the end of May so that I can legally and legitimately fly my wingsuit all this summer (although I'm not sure if I can wait that long so it may be when I get to 150 jumps). Only 78 more jumps to go!

Slackline Party

I hosted a wonderful slackline party at Chautauqua Park this past Saturday, and it was quite fun. We had a total of 13 lines up at once, and probably 60 or more people who stopped by to have some fun. It was the most successful slackline party yet, and I'm really excited to see the sport grow to this level. Here are some photos from the weekend:

Now Presented in 3D!

I was walking home on friday and the UPS man drove up and stopped me in the street. "Hey are you that slackline guy?". I suppose that I am that slackline guy, at least as far as redheaded male slackliners go. Anyway it turns out that the UPS man for my neighborhood is also a 3D photographer and was down at the GoFast games last September taking 3D photos of the event. You can see his work here:

3DSnow

There are a bunch of cool 3D photos of the BASE Jumpers, the JetPack Pilot, and of course, the Highliners from the event. He (David Snow) hooked me up with a cool 3D photo of me walking the Royal Gorge slackline 1012 feet above the Arkansas river. Cool stuff! The photo in its 2D format is seen below.

February Climbing

The weather has been fantastic lately, which is odd for February, but it has allowed for some great climbing days this week. I managed to get outside 5 out of the last 6 days and did a lot of trad, and some really fun bouldering as well. I sent in Eldo, Boulder Canyon, and finished off with a beautiful day in Carter Lake. I forgot how much I love climbing, I've been spending too much time falling and not stopping to enjoy the way up. I managed to lead a nice 5.10 on trad this week, so hopefully I can work from that base up to my goal of 5.11+ trad this year, eventually climbing the diamond on Longs with my newfound climbing ambition. Here are a few photos:

At a belay station in Boulder Canyon
Leading the first pitch of the Bastille in Eldorado Canyon

Said crushing a cool bouldering route at Carter Lake

Life Changing Experiences: A Look Back at the Lost Arrow Spire

Everyone has that one thing in their life that molds them into the person that they are. Sure there are plenty of little elements in everyday life that affect the way we look at the world, and gradually show us our passions and things like that, but usually there is one big event in everyone's life that dictates who they are more than anything else. For me this event was going to the lost arrow spire in Yosemite, CA this last summer and spending a week out there. I was looking through my old photos in one of my spare hard drives just recently, and found a couple things that I had originally overlooked when I first did my trip report.


The best thing about the Lost Arrow Spire is that people hold it in such high regard. When things are sensationalized to great extent, it makes it even more rewarding to conquer them. Not for the reactions that other people have when you do something great, but for the self-empowerment that you feel after you do something incredible. We all have dreams, goals, idols, heroes, aspirations. These are the things that make us happy when we wake up in the morning, and they are things that help us sleep well at night. Dreaming big has always been fun for me, but it wasn't until the Lost Arrow Spire trip that I realized that dreams don't always have to be dreams. We put these things in such high regard that they seem almost unattainable, but in reality, they're not. Realizing that I actually could do anything that I dreamed of changed my life in the best way imaginable. This state of mind has allowed me to succeed at work, at school, with other passions such as climbing, skydiving and now BASE jumping. I guess you could say that this is the first time my eyes were opened to the power that humans have to do anything they dream of. The best part is, people grow in what they dream about, who they idolize, and what their goals are. My past heroes are now my friends, my past goals are now my accomplishments, and my future goals are so wonderfully complex that only I can understand them. It is this feeling, the churning in the stomach and the lightheaded anticipation, the numbness of your toes as adrenaline seeps in, the moment of clarity and love that accompanies the accomplishment of dreams, that makes life one of the most precious things that ever existed.

Kites are Beautiful

I love the way that kites cut through the air, nothing but nylon and string, they dance from treetop to treetop, and flirt with the clouds.

The wind fills the cells with air, creating a wing that creates lift, so you can actually fly away with the kite. We usually kite in North Boulder park. It is nice and wide open, lots of kiters, and it is right next to Boulder Hospital in case we eat it after a 20' high jump.


I love watching the kites fly back and forth through the sky. In a state of hypnosis and awe I guide the kite in dives, slices, loop d' loops, and lazy 8's. The fabric ripples as is silently soars in an 85 foot hemispherical enclosure. I slide around and let the kite take me wherever it wants to go. The five square meters of caged happiness dances around the sky, flocking with birds, and waving to airplanes higher up in the atmosphere.


But the caged kite is not happy. It wants to be let free. It tugs and pulls with all its might to be released from its dyneema fetters. Being attached to a human is its curse, and its blessing. For my kite would not fly without the chains that hold it back. The tension from the lines keeps the kite rigid, allowing it to create lift and waltz from south to north and back again. Without it, the kite would be lost, fluttering fabric spinning around like a white plastic bag caught in the smallest of tornadoes. So I let my kite out as often as I can, letting it taste the flight that it desires, though it never gets to experience the real thing.


One day I will set my kite free.

Family

My little brother, Paul, just got his Eagle Scout, while simultaneously being accepted to West Point military academy. We had a little celebration for him. Here are some photos:

Dream as you'll live forever, Live as you'll die today

In my dreams I think of flying, of soaring to the sun. The wind whispers through my hair as I rocket towards nothingness. Then I spread my wings, and doubled nylon lifts me higher. I swoop around a cloud, lightly brushing the curious cumulus structure. Whisps of smoke rise as I sear through the saturated mass of air, and my hands trail vapor as I fly faster. I need not breathe, as the oxygen permeates me completely, through osmosis I am alive. My eyes close, taking in the feelings of flight. The tingling in my arms, the rippling of my skin, the flapping of my wings. I circle around the mountains that were my home, but now my home is the sky.


The perfect curvature of the earth seems so small. I am rising, rising, soaring into the stratosphere. Higher I go without pause, the pace quickens, soon I am above the whole rockies, and higher still. The majestic mountains and golden plains fall before me. I fall faster and faster away from the earth. A swap in physics as you know it causes me to depart from this planet, into space. Still I fly, higher, dancing with satellites, a ballet no one can see. Dodging meteors and asteroids, I fly, faster. Sound has already left, and now the red and the blue are shifting into a tighter and tighter ball of light as I achieve Einstein's symphony in C.

A massive, soundless expansion of matter ensues. At the beginning of time I soar around newborn nebulae and birthing stars. I fly through colorful clouds of matter a million miles wide, and, within seconds, reach the other side. I cruise from galaxy to galaxy, and they follow in my wake. Two collide and I fly right towards the center, accelerating and accelerating. I reach the singularity faster than light, happier than light, and I am expelled out of the other side. Dark matter drips from my fingers and toes, sucked back into the vacuum of nothingness. I pick a star and head straight for it, bringing with me the matter and the life I have collected from around the forming universe. My wings still taking me through the most beautiful constellations I have ever seen.


I find my star and circle it, flying around and around, depositing matter as I go. I swoop through solar flares and loop through the expunged radiation. As I fly, the matter conglomerates back into planets, and recognizable forms of life. I fly towards the third closest one, beginning to slow in my approach, with arms stretched out, embracing the warmest and most welcoming region of space. As I slow down, bombarding the particulates of the atmosphere, my spirit slows as well, the further I get from the flight that I know, the more I fade. I deploy my parachute, and descend towards the solid ground that I left so long ago. I look up to the stars, cutting brightly through the young, blue sky, vowing to return. And as my feet touch the ground, I finally expire...

Lodi / San Francisco

I took a spontaneous trip to California this weekend, I figured with the long weekend and all, and the amazing weather, it would be fun to go hang out in the bay and maybe do a bit of skydiving. I met up with Andy and Libby, and after hanging out in San Francisco for a little while (In and Out burgers, checking out Damian's new and almost complete climbing gym, teaching Andy how to pack his parachute) we headed out to Lodi, CA. Lodi is the most rockin drop zone I've been to yet. With $13 jumps from 13k feet and $5 jumps from 3k feet, it is the cheapest skydiving in the world, and as such is pretty crowded, even in January.



I was able to touch up my tracking and belly jumping, and managed to get 11 jumps in over the course of 2 days, not too shabby. Donning my tracking pants, (which have vents that take in air and inflate creating more surface area, I was able to do a 90 second freefall! That's 90 seconds of falling (instead of a normal average of 60 seconds) just by flattening my body and flying forward through the air. Instead of falling downward at 120 miles per hour, I was able to shape my body like a wing and reduce my downward speed to 80 miles per hour while consequentially having a forward speed of around 60 miles per hour (I was able to track about 1.6 miles horizontally during the dive). I'm pretty stoked on my tracking progress and am excited to transpose this skill into the language of wingsuit.


I also did a bunch of jumps with Andy, and one really fun High Pull with Andy and Libby. Libby just finished her AFF and is doing great. Its fun to be able to jump with such good friends and such good people. Andy did have a reserve ride though, as his main didn't deploy properly during one of his jumps. But all was well. We did a great jump right before leaving to go back to the Bay. It was just a belly jump, but Andy's altimeter ran out of batteries in the aircraft so he didn't have an altimeter! After doing several flips out of the plane, Andy and I came in to a dock so he could read the altitude off my wrist until it was time to pull. It was pretty fun. He had an excellent landing too! despite the fact that he didn't have an altimiter to guide him through the landing pattern.

We also hung out for a bit in San Francisco, and I had the opportunity to check out the Golden Gate Bridge, and do a little wire walking around that area. It was a good trip, and I'm glad I went. I got some good skydiving in, and got to hang out with some really good people. I can't wait to go back in March for Spring Break!

The List

I've got my eye on some killer routes for the spring climbing season, here's what I'm hoping to send before the summer sun heats up the rock:

Eldo Canyon:
Bastille Crack - 5.7
Yellow Spur - 5.9
Naked Edge - 5.11a
Diving Board - 5.11a
(and many other classic trad routes in this area)

Boulder Canyon:
Standard Route (Elephant Buttress) 5.8
Cozyhang w/ 5.10 finish (The Dome) 5.7-5.10b
Dementia (Repeat at Happyhour) 5.10a
Hot Flyer (Upper Security Risk) 5.12a sport
Empire of the Fenceless (Easter Rock) 5.12a sport
Bailey's Overhang (Castle Rock) 5.8

The Park:
Culp Bossier (Hallet Peak) 5.8 III
Casual Route (Longs Peak ) 5.10 IV
Pervertical Sanctuary (Longs Peak) 5.11 IV
North Ridge (Spearhead) 5.6 II

Ouray

We got asked to rig a highline and do a cool highline demo down at the Ouray Ice Festival this last weekend, and it was a lot of fun. Friends and pro slackers flew in from all over the country to participate in the festival and to walk the line and climb some amazing ice.

There were also a lot of really amazing ice climbers there, but that wasn't the main reason we were participating.

After the Slackline Brothers Tent was all set up, we got to rigging the line. It took several hours after we got the go ahead for the anchors, and it took a couple extra tries to re-tension the line to the best walking tension. We got it to just the right tension and then had plenty of walking fun for the weekend.

Here are a few photos:






There was also a killer after party on saturday night and we all danced it up and had a good time. I won a dance/limbo contest and got a free $400 Arc'Teryx jacket, so I'm pretty stoked about that. All in all, it was an amazing weekend, with some amazing friends and I had a great time displaying the art of highline to the Ouray, Colorado crowd.

Also, we got a little screen time in the local press for our funambilist feats:

Denver Post
Telluride Daily Planet

New Resolutions

2009 is going to be full of surprises, good surprises I hope. But while there will be spontaneous and surprising adventures, there are also a few things that I would like to accomplish this year. I guess I'll be unoriginal and make a list:

1. Finally graduate and move on from CU. I've got so much on my plate that it almost seems as if school is holding me back.
2. Launch the big project in March (secret secret)
3. Make a few more highlining trips out to Moab
4. Reach 250 skydives and get my skydiving coach rating.
5. Rig some highlines in Mallorca this summer.
6. Walk a slackline more than 100 meters in length.
7. Knock out my Alpine Trad ticklist (now that I'm done with those boring 14ers)
8. Send 5.11 trad (5.10 was my highest this last year)
9. Reach 50 BASE jumps
10. Spend more time away from the computer and enjoying beautiful Boulder.
11. Climb V8
12. Eat Healthier
13. Exercise more often
    
14. Smile more frequently
15. I'll come up with some new stuff as the year goes on, but pretty much my main priority is to continue loving life and living it to the fullest.

*edit 16. Help my not so old man in his quest to climb all of the 14ers.*

Old Resolutions

At the beginning of the year, I set out a bunch of goals to reach by 2009. Some of these I achieved with flying colors, and others were forgotten. Here's a look at what I intended to accomplish vs. what I actually did:

• Design and build a line of power kites

(I designed a couple kites, but I never got around to building any. I need a good sewing machine!)

• Finish the 13 remaining Colorado 14ers on my list

(I finished all of the 14ers the day before my 21st birthday this year)

• Climb 5 14ers in the remainder of the winter

(I managed to climb 3 or so during the winter. I guess I didn't have a lot of time for climbing this last winter)

• Reach 100 skydives, or maybe even 200

(I have a total of 85 parachute jumps a this time. I got close, but the crazy Colorado weather sometimes keeps me grounded)

• Walk the lost arrow spire highline in Yosemite

(I rigged and walked the spire highline in Yosemite this summer. I onsighted the line and walked it 36 times! I was incredibly surprised by this, but it was a good accomplishment)

• Rig 5 new highlines in Colorado

(I walked 5 new highlines in Colorado: (1) Little Bird Rock Highline, (2) Terry's Backyard Highline, (3) Coors Gap Highline, (4) Golden Spire Line, (5) Royal Gorge Line.)

• Begin writing a book

(I've begun writing a book about slacklining that I will try to publish sometime in the next year or two)

• Get a job with an engineering company

(I've been working at the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) since May)

• Help Mary train to climb 5.12

(Some things didn't work out the way I wanted, but I'm happy for the experiences that I had)

• Climb Castleton Tower

(Every time I made it out to Moab, I ended up leaving all the climbing gear in the car and just walking slacklines)

• Rig and walk 3 highlines in Moab, UT

(We rigged 2 old highlines, the birthday gap and the doghole, and then established 6 new incredible highlines at the Fruit Bowl in Moab, which we had up simultaneously. That makes 8 new lines in Moab for me)

• Teach myself to kite-ski
  

(Didn't end up doing the skiing part, but I did plenty of sliding around on the snow with my kite)

• Get published

(I'm now publishing content on a regular basis on slackline.com, and am working on a big project that will help me get published even more frequently during the next few years).

In all, I would say that I did pretty well. I had lots of dreams, and many of those dreams came true. Some of those dreams were put on the back burner a little bit, but they will certainly make an appearance during the awesome year of 2009.