It is never more easy to have a good start to the year then when the seasons change early.  Yesterday Zach and Steph and I went out to Rumney for another day of climbing since I had such a good one last week.  It was cold in the morning and then the clouds blew off and it was really nice.  We ended up at the jimmy cliff on Lonesome dove (5.10a) just because finding something dry to climb is always the hardest part after a day of rain.  I feel like that is such an east coast statement but here it is such the case.  It is not some desert area where the weather is always good.   After the sun did finally blow off and the sky turned blue the cliff almost immediately dried off which was nice for the end of the day.  It was a good practice day of staying motivated in slightly sub par conditions. 

This morning I am just letting Steph get some extra sleep while I post to the blog.  Once the weather warms up we are planning to hike Mt. Mansfield.

Spring Day at Rumney

On Sunday I found myself just getting up early 6am daylight savings time and getting in gear as fast as I could to make the drive down to Rumney.  The temps were supposed to get into the 50s and I decided that I needed out of the apartment after spending most of Saturday just reading and doing an errand or two.

The way that I would describe Rumney to a non-climber is this.  It is the closest area to Boston that has routes that are bolted so well that everything dangerous about leading has been engineered out of it by the placement of bolts that you can clip into.  The more overhanging the rock the cleaner the fall is when you are trying something.  The only thing you need is a competent belay. One other thing about Rumney is that it has the most used parking lots within the white mountain national forest. IT is comparable so some of the busiest hiking trails.  

Since I was alone I was a little worried of finding a partner and that I might have troubles with this but I have never had this issue really at a cliff.  My partner finding strategy works one of three ways if I am just showing up and have not posted to a forum:

1.  Get to the parking lot and get your happy to be there mood on and sad that you don't have a partner puppy eyes look at the same time.  This usually finds you the first person alone in the lot where you then have to ask, "do you need a partner for the day or are you waiting for your friends to show up".  If that doesn't work I go to

2. Hike to the base of the wall and find the first group of three that has someone bored and sitting around while the other 2 people epic on a sport route and pop the question.  "Hey I am alone today want to do this climb with me while your friends are on the other route?"

3. Hike to the cliffs and find the most inexperienced group that has a leader that is new to things and too scared to get the groups rope up to the top and offer to do the climb for them.  This almost always works but you end up being a teacher sometimes instead of a climber and getting short roped is always the case. But climbing is better then no climbing.

The couple of times last year that I found partners was typically number 2 or 3 option but yesterday it was option 1.  As soon as I got to the parking lot I opened my car door and watched all the "coupled" up partners leave for the cliff and then a white car pulled in next to mine and this tall thin guy stepped out and scanned the lot looking at other cars.  I realized that he had my tactics too and that this would work and I called over. "Hey Man you looking for a partner".   He said yes and introduced himself as Erik. 

We ended up being a well matched team.  We ended up doing six climbs together including a couple 5.9s and a couple 5.10s and Erik worked on two 5.12s that I fell my way up on top rope.  He was really tall (6'4'') so certain things were really easy for him with his reach.  The day was good it was warm enough that I could have been in shorts at the high point of the day.

Having had the full gamete of partners in the past that I have met for the day I can say this one was good. It is hard to suss things out just talking with someone over a phone or via email or even meeting someone in the parking lot.  There is always  a strange dynamic I feel for me of many unspoken things where you have to test the waters to see how experienced they are.  Sometimes you can tell just from how efficiently they move on the rock.  Sometimes just from their routine.  Little hints like this are what I rely on to tell me how much I may or may not know.  Just seeing how long it takes someone to put on their harness basically can tell you how good of a belayer they are and if they are on top of things and will be able to see you fall or not.

I have joked with some really good friends about  finding partners that it is sort of like online dating as many things can sound good on paper and yet have major flaws that are show stoppers.  I can remember finding a partner from an online forum once where he brought his dog which ran off half way through the day and he had to stop climbing to look for the dog.  That was one of my least favorite partner situations.

Making a training spot in your home town:

The hardest part of living somewhere as an amateur athlete is finding a spot to train that is easy to use and accessible. At a certain point I do not think that any climber can get by just with the local cliffs and ice routes.  It may be easier in the desert but a gym just adds so much variability to climbing.  

There are so many aspects of training that stop people; Clean Space, Times available, Motivation in space, Cost of training, Overuse and gym crowding,  Limitation of routes or movement.

I feel like all of these things have to be managed and kept fluid in order to train effectively and also to stay motivated.  For the last 3 years since I moved to Montpelier I have been working with a local bunch of friends to get a small training spot going.  The closest place with a bouldering wall that is not someones hangboard is 45 minutes away in Burlington.  I feel like Montpelier is one of the few state capitals with a climbing gym at 45 minutes or farther away.  Even Augusta Maine has come colleges with Gyms closer.  The gym space that we found is primarily used for the CrossFit program.  They had some extra space and the director thought that a wall meshed with the crossfit program.  I think it will work out well because we have the access code to the gym and can go in whenever we want so long as it does not interfere with their classes.  It is a neat gym because it is a non profit community based gym so there is really a lot of neat things that happen there and for me it is the tip of the iceberg at getting into a new training regime.  The people at the gym are all nice and invested in their own gym.  I have been surprised at the atmosphere and I feel like I want any gym that I train at to be like this.  Usually you find inspired people at a climbing gym because the climbing aspect of learning and doing a route requires a creative mindset.  I feel like the Crossfit program must attract those same creative thinkers.

The wall had materials donated from me and the director of the confluence and then some additional wood was bought from a fundraiser that was held last year when we thought that the wall would go in a different spot. I also donated all of the holds that I had, and a bunch of wood so there was a lot of people to get together to get this thing built.   Four of us ended up donating time to erect the wall over multiple weekends and weeknights and it is still a work in progress.    After getting the wall together and putting so much time into that both before and after my AZ trip I am not sure I want to do anything other than train for climbing now.  I put pictures in from start to finish to highlight the wall coming together. It took 4 guys over 160 hours of work collectively to build and that doesn't include any of the logistics and planning of building before we started the actual building of stuff. It was about a thousand dollars of donated money and that is going towards the crash pads and framing materials.  The holds were already present and are fine for now. Tonight I am going up to finish putting holds on the wall I will update with another picture later. 


The Starting Space

Framing the 45 degree

End of the first full weekend




The Homestead: Limestone Sport Cragging

The Last Several days of my Arizona trip were spent at the Homestead.  It turned out to be a really good and unique experience because the area is newly developed and there is really no guidebook except for a pdf that you can find online and mountainproject. This area was just featured in climbing magazine as an up and coming area that would have many good routes in the future .  I would call it the rumney of Phoenix the way that rumney is to Boston for sport climbers from cities.  

The Logistics of just getting to this area for a traveller are really difficult because it is in the middle of nowhere and up a 4 mile dirt road that in my honest forester opinion is getting worse and worse every day and I used to construct roads like this for a living.  Justin and I just had a corolla with off road tires and a cracked windshield. 

We started off by camping on Friday night near the entrance to the road that we would need to get in to drive to the area. It is a neat area because it is Sonoran Desert. Where we were was BLM land with a major Cholla (choya) cactus field.  They are called Teddy Bear Cactuses.  Camping in cactus country can be difficult with a dog.  Handy pliers can be recommended at all times.  Justin has been training Luna to stay close by and she is a very quiet dog.  At one point that morning we were both saying where is Luna and Justin called and she came limping from behind a cholla.  I think this was the last lesson for her of how close to get to the spiny cactuses.  Luna was always very patient when stuck by a cactus and I think that is the nature of smart dogs.  It only took her one time to learn not to sniff the cactus if it was stuch in her and I think a lab would have licked the thing but she did not. 

Saturday morning Justin and I packed the carolla and stashed a key so some friends could shuttle our camping gear up to the end of the road and we could camp for the weekend.  As we started hiking in the road a vehicle came up by the time we were about 500 feet in and offered us a ride.  We jumped in with them and got a ride the whole way there so it was a lot more climbing this day then we had planned.  I always find that climbers all in one area are very friendly because you always see the same people again later.

One neat thing about this area is that the canyon is small and full of birds (canyon wren) you can hear the calls echoing in the canyon.  Also the rock just appears and the cliffs get taller and taller as you walk in.  With sport areas sometimes you get the feeling that someone has bolted a route because it is there. This area is so new that some of the lines still had some loose rock on them but it was a great time.  When you have no guide you rely on looking at the climb with an objective eye to size up the rests and the gear (bolts) to make sure that things are safe before committing to do the line or not.  With bolts it is not very committing because you can always leave a carabiner on a bolt and bail from the climb. 

Bolew what it looks like in the canyon and at the cliff.

We ended up doing 12 routes over the weekend and we both really had a good time.  We were towards the end of our strength from coming off of two weeks of climbing but we still were able to crank routes I felt like. Looking at mountainproject after the fact I felt like some of the climbs that we worked from the ground up with no guide were in the 11c/d range and that felt really good to get an 11c with one hang to rest from the weeks cumulative muscle fatigue.  It made me feel like I could get them in one go if I was fresh and rested.  After seeing many people come back from trips to limestone saying "that is how I want climbing to be for me", I can understand why.  The climbing is intricate and the atmosphere is nice and relaxed. It does take some getting used to because the holds can be very hidden and trick holds are all over the place.

Below Justin is starting out on one of the 11s after I finished it in sub par style after missing some holds and footplacements.

Trip Report: Stronghold

The Trip to Cochise began with me flying into Phoenix and Justin picking me up late that Sunday night. The flight attendants did end up announcing the score after the super bowl was over on the plane. I can't say that I am sorry that I missed it. We spent a quick evening in a hotel near the airport using my hotel points that I have accumulated from travel and than started driving south to the Stronghold. We stopped and loaded up on groceries and water in Tucson. The Stronghold is really in the middle of nowhere in Southeastern AZ. It is 1.5 hours from Tucson and 28 miles from the nearest chain grocery store. Over the course of this trip we climbed more pitches and climbs than we saw people. The area camping is at four thousand feet and the stronghold itself is an impenetrable pass of rocks that is hard to hike into without scrambling and  where Cochise an Indian chief used to hide from persecuting cowboys.


Owl Rock 5.9 (my entrance exam)
On the first afternoon there, we set up camp quick and hiked out to the closest rock that we could climb. It is called Owl Rock. I think because it stands alone and might have an owl profile but I couldn't figure the profile from the right direction. It was a great opener to the stronghold rock. It started with a chimney up a boulder leaning against the rock and then had a step over onto the meat of the climbing. A few slab moves lead to climbing on flakes/protrusions/chickenheads that came away from the rock. I found it hard and run out in sections but generally pretty good. Justin had done this one before so he had me lead it.

When we were walking back to camp, Justin's dog Luna caught the scent of an animal and bolted after it. Growing up with shepherd mix dogs and watching Luna run for the thing I thought this is my kind of dog. We called once or twice but all we heard was Luna yelping at the deer.

As we got to the main road leading to the camp, Luna came out of the woods and took one look at Justin and started sulking. She was smart enough to know she was in trouble but she still came back with sad puppy eyes. We ended up finding a cut on her inside leg and both of us came to the conclusion that in her chase she ended up doing battle with a barbed wire fence. There was a pretty good tear in her leg so we cleaned it as best we could and made dinner.

Wasteland 5.8 III
The next morning Justin had convinced me that Luna and her injuries would be all right for now and that we should go for the send of wasteland. He had been up there on two previous attempts and got off route both times. When he pointed to what we were going for I thought to myself. The guidebook says 5.8 I hope that they are right because this thing looks ominous.  Justin told me of the two other times that had stopped him trying to complete this climb on the approach. They Included; "climbing as a party of three on a six pitch route" or "the summer heat and his friends shoe rubber melting". At the base of the cliff I decided that I needed to take the torch and start us up because I was not thinking bad thoughts of past attempts. Hopefully this would get us back on track. It ended up being a 70 meter pitch to start combining the first and second guidebook written pitches with 10 pieces of gear so we were off to a good start. The climbing was in general up a broken crack system and then after the crack system ended the field of chickenheads started.  Justin lead a pitch up through a final steep chimney that ended in the field of heads.  From there it was just a couple of slung heads and he was at the second belay.

When I went out on what was considered the true 4^th pitch of the climb and our 3rd pitch, I decided that I understood why this was such a committing climb.  The pitch traversed and was now overhanging and high enough up that we could not do anything but climb to the top.  I climbed a small roof and ended at a belay.  As Justin lead off on pitch 5 he started again traversing out a sea of the protrusions and at each protrusion the rope seemed to get a little more drag that I could feel.  As he got out of sight and about one hundred feet out the rope started to get stuck so he built a belay.  It was just after what I would consider the crux of the climb.  The descent included 3 rappels with inter spaced climbing down this gully on the back side of the dome.  We noticed that Luna who had been patiently waiting at the base of the climb had been licking her wound while we were climbing.  It was not looking any better so we decided that the next day was going to be a rest day and we would find a vet.  On the walk down Justin and I really started discussing goals and climbs that we should do. After bagging a grade III 5.8 route it was time to think of what else to do and both of us thought that it was time to step it up a notch after this climb.

After a half day calling vets and trying to find one we ended up 28 miles away at the nearest town and animal vet to Cochise that was reasonable.  It was a good rest day just driving around and seeing the place.  We were originally thinking that it was going to be stitches for her but the vet ended up cutting the green skin around the wound out and giving us drugs for Luna because there was no flap of skin to sew shut.  We ended up climbing in the evening at a short 40 foot cliff right at the campground called the winery.  It was a nice end to the day after being relatively sedentary.

Time in camp was nice here.  The daytime temps were in the 60s and it was almost always sunny and the camping was dispersed so we could only really see one other campsite near ours which was pretty far away. The camping was free and there were many rig oriented people here with campers that would stay for a week and then leave when they were out of water.  Solar battery chargers seemed to be the newest camper fad. 

What’s My Line 5.6 A0 II and Inner Passage 5.7 I
One of the neatest looking moderate climbs that I had researched before coming to Cochise was called What’s My Line.  The AZ guidebook had a description that read something to the line of “this is the best back country moderate rock climb in all of AZ but has tricky route finding and an alpine feel”. After  pouring over the topo for the climb I saw that it followed a sea of chickenheads (these are the protrusions that you can see in the photo to the left).  We decided that it would be another classic to do and also since it was going to be a midweek Wednesday it made sense to do it while no one else was around.   Easy moderate climbs are always busy even in the off season.  The formation was much higher within the stronghold and also a long ways in. Even though the route was only four pitches it had a lot of scrambling to get to the base of the climb and it was pretty committing I thought.  The climb started with a long scramble up this gully which was pretty deep.

When the gully came out on the face and the real climbing started.  Justin head up first and stacked the rope for me so it was my turn.  My portion began with a short little climb out to this bolt where I lowered off of the bolt and then tensioned the rope to the side to get into the good holds.  Once on the head sea it was just another day of climbing and the climbing was really good.  It does take some time however to learn which heads are the best to sling for protection.  It is helpful to look for the protrusions that have a lip around the whole head. Even the belays were hanging off of the heads.











When we topped out on the formation Justin made me look at the Rockfellow domes so that I would get an idea of what lines were on the dome. 

We got down from whats my line and it was early.  We decided to do inner passage.  I had heard it was a chimney through the formation but I had no idea what I was getting into.  I thought it was going to be like 300 feet of a chimney.  Justin had done it before so he opted to take pictures.  The passage was really a neat feature and it was grueling to get through it.  It was a slot and it was a sideways move which I am not as used to as I am going up.  It started off  with some frog type slithering but I also has some butt scumming, heel toe camming, sidewinder type moves, and also a weird looking hump.  For me I have done a lot of really wide chimney’s but not one so tight.  For me often it was easier to be 20 feet up in the slot then it was to be closer to the ground.  For Justin it was easier to be close to the ground because he is skinny. This one made me remember how much I liked Paria canyon. 

Rockfellow Dome
We decided that the Rockfellows was going to be the objective for the next several climbing days.  We decided that leaving a bag of gear up there was worth it so that we did not have to hike in 30 pounds of gear every day.   The logistics of bagging several routes at an alpine area that tops out at six thousand feet need to be pretty detailed to work out.  Belay changeovers need to be fast and route finding needs to be dialed otherwise retreat is the only option.  Since six thousand feet is really high for the area we always had wind whipping at very blustery speeds when we were topping out on the formations.  I always felt like the way the clouds were it was going to rain but this was the desert and I am used to the Northeast. We ended up getting in three routes here that are grade III over six days.  On the last and final day we knew the dome enough that we felt comfortable going up and coming down with a single 70 meter rope instead of bringing a retreat line.  I would say that leaving a couple of cams and an extra rope saves you ten pounds without even taking into effect the friction of the rope on the rock. I didn't get many pictures of the other lines but they were more committing than the others so each day we were doing better.    We did the following routes in this manner.

Endgame 5.10a (5 pitches) III
Days of Future Passed 5.10b III(4 pitches with 200 feet of chimney)
Welcome to the Machine 5.10c III (5 pitches but we linked pitches 1/2 and 3/4 with a 70) .  This one was tricky because it was 17 pieces of gear or more on the linked pitches at 230 feet or so.

With short days in February the last couple climb routines were something like this:

8am: Get up when the sun hits the tent and make coffee and breakfast.  Start Stretching

930am:  Start the hour brutal hike up to the packs where our stuff  was stashed at the base

1030am: gear up for the climb and stretch and feed Luna.  We always tried to stretch again here and get a safety talk of the objective hazards of each route before we started.

11am: scramble over to the climb and start up.  It got progressively warmer as we went up each day but it was always really windy and blustery towards the top so it was a race against getting really cold.

3pm: By this time we would be on top coiling ropes and ready to descend.  The descents were tricky and it was always hard to find the rap anchors.  Most days we were topping out around this time. If it was any later we would have been worried about descending in the dark.

4pm: pack stuff back up and head down.

6pm: making dinner at camp during the sunset.

In general I would go back to this area.  We saw less people in comparison to any other destination that I have ever been to and it gave us the time to just enjoy the climbing.  We met one older guy that said that it is what Joshua tree used to be like only the climbs were longer and the bolted routes were safer and the trad routes were more aesthetic.  I tended to agree with him.  The last day of climbing we climbed Welcome to the Machine at the Rockfellow group. The next morning it looked like the climbing trip to Cochise had ended and the mountain gods were telling us that it was time to move on to the next area.  The photo below is a zoom up on the Rockfellows from a field near camp.

The last couple days in AZ were spend limestone sport cragging near glob AZ.  I will post on that area later.

Travelling to Cochise

So Nothing can be better than going on an expedition road trip right?  Last night I got the email that I got an upgrade to first class for the first leg to AZ.  I was thinking to myself.  OK Nothing can be better than going on a expedition climbing trip and getting a free drink within minutes of the first hours of your trip...  Then this morning I got the complementary call saying flights were delayed... I hope that all goes well.  Right now I am writing this post as my wife gets ready to drive me to the airport and let me go for almost 3 weeks and also trying to come up with some of my own personal goals for the trip.  I am thankful to have someone that cares for me but that can also let me go for a little while.  Absence makes the heart grow fonder. 

It occurs to me also that I am going to be in the air and flying to go on my trip on the most American day of the year.  Super Bowl Sunday...  I know that as a Boston native I should be routing for the patriots and watching but some part of me wants to just play dumb. 

Now what teams are playing this year?? When is the Super Bowl??

The one thing that I have thought lately is about watching athletes before they race or play.  They all have a warmup routine that they do religously before they start their sport. I have been wondering about trying this type of thing before every climb.  I really have always just put on my shoes and gone for it.  That is the one reason why I would be interested in watching the bowl this year.  To see the pro athletes routines before they perform at their best.  Get some pointers.

So a lot of what I have been thinking about the last short times that I have had free coming up to this trip has been what goals I want to try to accomplish on the road trip and how I want to start off this year on my trip after about 6 months of training for things.  I know that one of my downfalls has always been my self talk.  I usually get up on a hard section and after trying it once or sometimes not even at all I tell myself I cannot do it and talk myself out of it.  This needs to go away so it is what I have told my partner Justin I want to get rid of and work on this trip.  Easier said than done is what I am thinking but I have to try otherwise I am doomed to the same grades.

Hopefully I will get a post in half way through the trip when we come out to civilization for a resupply.

Going to Cochise!

One of my very good friends from college will be at Cochise Stronghold for a while this winter and I am looking forward to making it there.  I have told him to wait for me to get there since there is always some extra adventure in going to a new area and exploring and getting into the local rock.  This is something where once one partner has been there it is easy to get into the rut of sharing rock climbs that one of the partners has already done and that takes away from the adventure a little.  And even if you play the silent partner without giving beta you run the risk of being called a sandbagger.  This stifles both partners growth because neither is on new terrain adding new climbing moves to their lexicon. 

So finally it is coming to fruition this week and I am flying out there for two weeks.  This trip to Cochise Stronghold in Southeastern Arizona should be really interesting.  The climbing is on granite but it is unlike other areas at times because the protection relies on natural rock flakes called chicken heads that you just throw a sling over.  Some of the rock looks just like the skin of a dragon hide or something. I think that at first this is going to be difficult because where you normally look for a crack in the rock to protect yourself it is going to be different.  I am hoping that this and the rock variety from other areas I have been to make this a good learning experience. 

Looking at the guidebooks it seems like all of the climbs will have a little bit of everything in terms of runnouts and protection and change in moves.