crank cave update

the mighty crank cave

my plans for workin "900 S" fell through, and johann, neil and i headed down to crank cave. we met up with jerry painter later on, and we had one hell of a good evening climbing...

neil b. on "powder finger" (5.8)

johann workin the no hand rest on "riff raff" (5.12c/d)

the dealie bob found a new project!

painter, fresh off his redpoint of "bride of crankenstein" (5.12b), givin some beta to johann, who came close to gettin through this route.

 i wanted a pic of jerry, but no one was around, i was belayin', and he fired it way easy on his first go! total no anticipation send, well done jerry!

 and yours truly coming very close to the second ascent of "wave-police" (5.13c). 

the route climbs the bulk of a project called "wave of mutilation" then moves right into the ending of "karma police". "wave" may very well be the best route in the area when it's done, and certainly is the best route in crank cave. (dean, if you're reading this, i'm very excited about this route!!!) but since it isn't complete yet, i've been working on the link up, which is super fun. my time in idaho is coming to an end soon, and i've been very lazy about projecting this route... kinda have to re-learn the beta every time i get on it... hmm, time to put it away!!  johann found two good routes to work on, neil continued to work through the mental barrier of leading, and jerry painter got his project! 

all in all, a good day!

a hard earned jarritos/ aka FUCK YEAH!

i had kinda a bad ass day yesterday. instead of sittin on my duff, i headed out to the fins, solo. i guess technically i was going soloing, but i was on a rope the whole time. i figured out a top rope solo system that works nicely.

the fins is an oasis of sorts. beautiful rock, and shade, all afternoon. but to get there, one must arrive at the base around 12:30 or 1:00 pm. the hike up has no trail, and my car will not even make it up to the low parking area. (the rains in june carved a deep, one foot plus, rut/gash in the road on a hill part....) so anyways, one has to lug all their gear up a hill for quite a long time, in the sun. 

i got up there, and proceeded to stick clip my way up the route. i felt it would be easier than walking/soloing up the back side and dropping a rope in. when i got to the top, i realized i had forgotten something at the base... my belay device. my shiny new reverso was sittin right on top of my pack... 50+ feet below me. i was using an ascender type device called a shunt, and a prusik, to get up the wall, and then i had to inch my way down, using these primitive ascenders. it was kinda freaky.

but yeah, i got down, loaded up my pack with the rest of the rope, my water, anything with significant weight, tied it off a foot of the ground on the rope, clipped the shunt to my belay loop and headed up. the shunt is a strange looking device that works with double ropes, and works like an ascender.  it can also be used in this manner to self belay. one just has to keep the rope tight to make sure the shunt slides up the rope. this gives a great amount of freedom to work routes, but unfortunately the route must be pretty close to vertical. that works well in this case, as my route is barely overhanging.

i got up to the crux moves, and sat there for a long time. one move had stymied me on every other attempt, and today i was gonna do this move, i didn't know how, but i could feel it was gonna happen. 

the crux sequence starts off a pretty big left hand crimp. high step, then reach above to an undercling crimp, step to bad smears, then reach up left to a really terrible crimp that is very small, and very sharp, and i can really only hold it with a half pad thumb catch on a small edge under it. then step the right foot way high into the good left hand crimp, back step the left foot on a tiny edge, and gun up right to a shitty half pad two finger side pull. i found a few intermediates that helped a lot, and with some outrageous and furious yells/screams i stuck that move! (hence the jarritos!)

no... i didn't link the crux together... and i tried the upper bit, which may be 5.13b/c on it's own, figured out some better beta, but i had to stop when my left index finger started bleeding. (i told you that small crimper is sharp!) but yeah, the battle is going well. now i know what to do on all the moves. it took 5 days to figure the sequence out, which is the longest it's ever taken me. now it's on to step two, linking all the moves, then send!

daniel woods topping out men's final #4

oh and on tuesday i went to the mammut bouldering championships in slat lake city (on top of the shilo inn parking garage) and watched some amazing climbing. daniel woods owned the men's comp, and flashed almost every problem, and did the other 2nd go. most of the field didn't do a single problem! on his flash of the last problem (picture) he was doing the campus sequence to get around the big red eye, which involved a few 180 spins arms only, anyway he swung around, almost caught the next hold, sat there locked off on his right arm for a second, then busted out a one arm pull up, stuck the hold, and did the rest super easy. amazing. that kid is so fucking strong.

oh, and my cactus that i thought died seems to be doing better now. i put it in a spot with more sun, gave it a little miracle grow, and it's spines are starting to stick up again. poor shriveled up cactus...

climbing in the land of the cowboys

the 16th annual international climber's festival

lander, wyoming

clint showin peeps what's what in the crate stacking comp. yeah, you need climbing shoes and a top rope.

bad ass. the winner this year stacked 22 crates. beating clint this year and his record of 20 set last year. 

mmhhmmm.

anyway, i had an eye opening trip.

i set three goals for myself on the trip:

-try a 5.14

-onsight 3 5.12s in a day

-send a 5.13 in one session

basically, i would've been happy with doing just one, and in all actuality, i almost did two of them!

the first day, went to wild iris, i pulled out a pair of 5.11d onsights, and came super close to onsighting a 12b. i missed a foot and well, fell off. then pulled the rope and climbed it pumped(for the non climbers, by pumped, i mean that my arms were full of lactic acid. the route was like 80 feet long, and the crux was the very last move! and i fired it way easy on the 2nd go.

the next day was really chill. i tried the infamous 'killer', the classic 5.12c at sinks canyon... somehow (well, a conscious decision really) i got onto 'mr. majestic', which is in fact, not 'killer', not a 12c, but is 5.13a. yeah... i didn't have a guidebook, nor any motivation, and a 5.13 is kinda rough for a warm up. the combo of those three didn't go over very well. (serious, i tried to warm up on that, i had no idea what else to go for.) ha, what evs.

"rodeo free europe" 5.14a

the third day was strange, but in a good way.

so if you noticed, my main goal was to try a 5.14. well that seems simple on paper, but in reality, is not at all. i was very nervous. the crag was very crowded, and well, i didn't wanna feel or look like a punter, up there way over his head... plus, legitimately attempting something of that difficulty is very intimidating. like climbing in killer cave, trying evilution to the lip(v10) or the mandala( v12) in bishop, climbing indian creek in general, or the first few times i went to the fins. i don't really know the best way to describe that feeling. i guess, well, it feels like such a huge thing, something i have dreamed about for a long time, and all of a sudden, this year, i felt it was time to go for it. a big step.

the night before, i thought a lot about it. i decided to kick my ego and just go for it. fuck that shit, i came here to try an established 5.14. i wanted to know what it takes to climb the grade. one of my biggest goals in climbing has always been to climb 5.14, and it's beginning to feel like that could happen, but how am i gonna know in an area where the hardest established route is 5.13c (karma police, which i climbed in 2007), and where the only things that are harder are projects.

i picked a route at the rodeo wave wall in wild iris called 'rodeo free europe' (5.14a).  in an old edition of the guidebook it is called 5.14b, and in the new edition it is called 5.14a. what does that mean? well, it means it's solid at 5.14a, if not hard for the grade. the route doesn't suit me very well either. i believe it would be easier for a shorter person to do the moves, based on the foot holds available, plus it is very power intensive. basically a boulder problem (it's like, 35 feet long), the moves are all way physical, and the holds are all really bad, with monos and desperate pocket stabs in the crux, pretty much scaring the hell out of me. i've had three tendon injuries in the past two years... yeah, what was i thinking.

the setup for the crux. the two moves after this shot shut me down cold....

so having chosen a hard route that doesn't play to my strengths but probably to the polar opposites, aka my weaknesses, here is what i learned:

i tried it 4 times on one day.

i managed to do all of the moves except for 2 or 3. which i came close on! amazing!  

i did not link very many moves together, but i did make links.

i could hold every single one of those horrid little pockets, not weighting the rope!!!!!!!

the crux of this route is not mental, but very much physical.

now to apply what i learned:

-my first day on 'rodeo free europe' was much more inspiring than my first days on either 'unagi' or 'the mist project'.

-'ueber unagi' is way harder than 'rodeo free europe', and in similar style. 

-'the mist project' is not quite as physical, but almost twice as long, and so it is hard to say which is harder, as they are in different styles, and 'the mist' is more my style(big reaches on small holds). but you know, it could very well be 5.14a, i'm hesitant to say that, and kinda doubt it. one day on 'rodeo free' was not enough for me to tell. we'll just have to see.

-i make an annual trip to lander, and i believe i can do 'rodeo free europe', and that i will do it. no way have i peaked yet. and it allows me to use this route as a yardstick of sorts, to measure my progress every year.

so yeah, a productive trip.

i'm still waiting on a photo, so once i can contact jerry painter, i will get one.

 i'm glad to be psyched about wild iris. cause i kinda hated that place, like it's super pretty, mountains, trees, flowers and all, but yeah, i hated it... now i have a reason to go back there! and i actually am starting to like it a lot! (still workin' on liking sinks....)

well, hmm, i only told my highlights for the trip, but i believe every one had a good time, and it was super inspiring to see supy and clint pushin' their limits and trying to onsight every route they climb. i dunno if either has climbed 5.11, but they are both onsighting solid 5.10 pretty frequently. also, the local swimming pool was a lot of fun, as usual, and has a climbing wall above the deep end! not to mention the only place to get a shower for under 5 bucks.

and a parting shot for peter:

this dude dominated the slackline comp. 360 spins, jumps, yoga poses, and the best of all,

 he downed 2 beers while on the line. 

this is why people should only ever watch 'king lines'.

something political??

a film review of sorts.

so today i watched a film entitled "a divided state" or something like that. yes michael moore is a main character in the film, but he did not make the film. it documents a university whose student government decided to have moore come speak before the 2004 presidential election. 

wow... trying to stay neutral in that last paragraph was rough. so change of dynamic right here!

i was disgusted by this film. yep, kinda lost a lot of faith in humanity after watching this.

 why? no, not because moore is evil, but because people don't think, and then act like total ass holes to peeps who call em out on it. two guys asked a high profile person to speak at a college. bottom line, right there. but since he is liberal, and he was going to orem, utah, he was evil and wrong. i do have a lot of respect for three people in the film. no, michael moore is not one of them. in fact, all three of them are conservatives, i know two of them are returned missionaries, and these three people encouraged the free market of ideas. one is a soccer player interviewed early in the film, and the other two are the student body president and vice president. and unfortunately the two student body reps sell out their ideas, and aren't friends anymore. so i guess, so much for respecting them....

i recommend watching this entire film at least once, i think it would be overkill to watch it more than once... but if you want to, go for it.

so yeah, i'm fairly liberal, but i don't fit obama's ideals to the t. i dunno, i had some ass hole friends in high school that made everything in life a political issue, and i was dumb enough to go along with it. hence why i said had, not still have. total burn out on all that shit. i know how i feel, i'm open to new ideas and change, i hope others can say the same, and i hope i'm not secretly lying to myself when i say that.

 mad props to dean lords by the way. that may not really make sense to a lot of you peeps, but i have a lot of respect for that dude, and a lot of that comes from discussions he and i had about our differences.

yeah, that is an attempt at some substance! ha! hope peeps enjoy! but remember, this is a climbing blog! not a political forum! and, this is what happens on rest days... beware. and yeah, right now i'm watching "king lines" again. no rest day is complete without that movie!

oh and a trip report from last week at wild iris is in the works, i just need to get some photos. so stay tuned. plus, i'm hopin to head out to the fins again on wednesday. another session on the proj!

being the wizard

(edit: hey! publicity!!!! i'm gettin a link added to seiclimbing.com that leads to this blog, the local climbing website for south east idaho! wow, now i have all this pressure... it's like... the big time, oh my goodness... i would like to thank the academy, my mom, my dog ranger, and all the days spent in mr. hancock's AP COMP class thinking, "oh my god! this creeper better not draw another smiley face on my burrito!" ha yeah!)

hey so i just got back from palisades... got my ass handed to me by this heinous set of bulges i bolted.... 5.14? 5.14+?? it's called ueber unagi, one of a trifecta of routes really.

ueber unagi-ridiculously/outrageously heinous project

the basilisk- ridiculously heinous project

quart of blood technique- still waiting for matty T. to FA, but it's like 5.13-

 i have been thinking of asking peeps about a collective blog, and what do ya know, i open my email and here it is! i got invited to join one!

yeah, so far i think its authors are dean lords, marc hanselmann, and of course, myself. the almighty t-rock!!

so i'm gonna keep this one alive, cause i love you peeps! and well, i can't send email updates through the other one! but for the most part, i'm gonna double post my blogs on both pages. plus, this page looks so much cooler, polka dots are really the best thing in the world!

ha! so i haven't said much of consequence yet have i? 

well here's something i have been cookin up:

being the wizard:

omg check this out  http://www.udini.de/index.php?option=com_gallery2&Itemid=117&g2_itemId=16849) (oh by the way,he uses french ratings in his discussion. 7C=v9, 9a=5.14d, apparently the crux for realization is only a v8!!!)

a mind that races.

this makes me laugh. yeah, cause i'm totally on his level of climbing, NOT! 

no it's funny, cause i feel like i need this wizardry to climb. the two guys i climb with inside, they are fuckin strong as hell. it's ridiculous. me... not so much. i have so much trouble with problems they come up with. POWER! 

after a season on rock, i always feel this amazing rhythm with the stone. like, it takes me a while to figure out routes... i'm really bad at onsighting, but projecting... i seem to make shit happen in that stage. at least to my puny climbing abilities.... but eventually reading the rock just comes easily, muscle memory kicks in, and sequences come together. i don't really know how, but they do. magic?

 god damn, if i could really figure out what it was that dave graham was talking about(video), maybe i would be sending hard. instead of flailing all over on 5.13. especially the focusing thing... man, i have had so much trouble with that lately. i took 6 months off climbing because of that!

 but when you can finally focus again, when you do figure out the fucking moves, when you figure out the BEST way for you to do something, strength doesn't seem to matter as much.

 take soul slinger, not a power problem at all. people try to thug through it, and damn, you'd have to be so fucking strong to do that. those holds are terrible. but when you really look at it, you figure something out. OH MY GOD!!! look, a hold that no one ever ever used! and bam, you send.

 yeah, you need to be able to hold that tiny little crystal, but the physical dissapears, and the problem is easy. like really easy. i often feel that way after i get on a route a couple times. after 3 or 4 half hour sessions, i figured out soul slinger. it was strange, i wanted to use the conventional beta, i dunno why, i saw the crystal out left on the third day, but it wasn't until someone ticked the hold that i decided it was something to try. then it came together in a matter of three tries.

or take the mist proj(which i think i will end up calling 900 S, after my beloved saab) that felt so fucking hard the first few times, i was like, shit! 5.14! now it's like, hmmm 5.13?? then, is it really harder than bushido??? then you look up at bushido, and you say, yes... it is much much harder. that's why marc didn't bolt it! he rapped the line, and it sat empty until i put some bolts into it, said, "well maybe it goes... there are some holds..." now what, a line! beautiful, hard, and strangely like soul slinger.... but it's more physical, and 20+ feet of v5/6 after that. so it's harder!!(the exit section feels as hard as the crux on tengaio's route, and his route is in the range of 5.13a-5.13c) oh, soul slinger is given v9 in the bishop guidebook, but it could be v8, so i figure that the crux on my route is more solid at v9, cause it is sooo much like soul slinger, but in addition, there is strength involved in this one. but really, i have no idea, so yeah.

then one can get into the grading issue. what to call that???? how does one take three boulder problems, stack em, and turn it into a route rating??? v0/1+v9+v6=5.13+?????? strange! in pure form, closest comparison i can think of, v11=5.14a look at the present, a route in utah. 2 bolts long.

so you know what i'm gonna do! i will not rate it at all! i will say in my official last chance to rate after i do it, that to me it is comfortably harder than bushido. by a lot

 on wednesday i'm traveling to lander, wyoming for the international climber's festival. time to test my mettle, aka time to try 5.14! ahhh yeeah! beat down in the making!

so yeah, check out scidaho.blogspot.com for more on local stuff, but everything i post there will be posted here as well, and not necessarily the other way around.

cheers foo's,

tom

the 2 for 1 special

aka: bad assery to the max!

a random photo of mt. olympus!

2 men, 2 mountains, 1 day:

olympus

the journey began around 6 pm on wednesday evening, waiting in a mcdonald's drive through in the bustling metropolis of blackfoot, idaho. we were told to wait, and they would bring the food out to us. after like 20 minutes this guy walks out and hands us a bag of "food". my cohort, land, was pissed off. this had taken way too long! but to pacify us, they had decided to give us a baked pie for free... they really, really shouldn't have...

blazing down the highway, listening to npr, rain beating down on land's corolla, we made our way into utah. we were en route to a friend's apartment in provo. we arrived, i met a lot of strange/outrageous people, one of whom, bronson, lived in the apartment we were staying in and didn't know that his heat had been on at 81 degrees for the past three weeks... ("are you serious! i thought i was saving money by not having the A/C on, and i had the heater on this whole time!") and we went to the nearest village inn. (basically a denny's, but sketchier). at roughly 1am we tried to get to bed. mind you, it was fucking hot in this place... even with all the windows open, the ceiling fan on, and the front door wide open.land and i woke at 3am, and headed off on our adventure.

first up was mt. olympus, 45 minutes to the north in salt lake city. so, we had no idea where we were going. land had climbed most of it before, but still... no idea. then out of no where, land points off into the distance and says, "there it is dude." what! how the fuck did he know that? it was 4 am, pitch black... and he found the outline of mt olympus, drove to a random culdesac, and right there, was the trailhead. the first bit was fully overgrown with bushes and trees, and guarded by a massive spider, complete with huge web, and a deer carcass. it was dark, and my headlamp died... so we were both traveling by the headlamp i lent to land. as we got higher, the sun started to rise, and we found the "west slabs". roughly 9-12 pitches(yeah the guides we found later weren't very accurate) of 5.5 slabs, with a lot of trees. the climbing was really easy, and seemed to go on forever despite moving pretty fast, soloing, and not even in climbing shoes. (note: it was really really really easy climbing... not a problem at all) we gained a ridge, and continued up, forever, to finally chance upon a summit register. ahh yeah! 7:49 am, summit of mt. olympus. 

we couldn't find a realistic trail down... ended up going down this loose rocky(emphasis on both!) chute. oh my god, it went on forever! totally almost died like every 20 feet. we slid down some waterfalls, bushwhacked through thickly overgrown trails, and after that ended -there were serious doubts about completing this epic day...- we popped out at a parking lot. we had no idea how far away the car was... we decided to just hoof it on the roads till we found it, oh and also, we haven't eaten yet... and it's like noon. some dude was nice and gave us a lift. we eventually found the car, and headed to a grocery store.

next up, notch peak

we drove about 3 hours south to find this peak. by now, it was raining. we seriously thought we might have to bivy up there... hoping that we might finish this in 24 hours. the hike started pretty mellow. everything was wet though... all the plants we had to walk through, everything, was wet. we kept going, and came on this wash. a dried up creek of sorts. it was really chill, slightly uphill, but flat. every time we wondered where the trail was, we found a cairn. like magic, only better. we came across a humongous tree(like 5 feet in diameter, maybe 50 feet long) that had fallen into the wash, and pretty much ended the wash. we moved up onto the hillside. there were so many cairns, there was no chance of loosing the trail. seriously, every time we thought, "huh, where do we go?", we looked ahead and found at least 3 cairns. we scrambled up for a bit, and the trail opened up into a hillside. no more cairns, plenty of fog/ rain, and the summit in view. we walked up to this ridge, and peered over the edge. one of the largest walls in the world was on the other side. roughly 5,000 feet tall. really big. we kept going up the ridge, and found the summit. there was a huge cairn, more of a box made of rocks, that housed the summit register. 4:50 pm summit of notch peak. we ate our sandwiches, then headed down. it wasn't raining anymore, but we were soaked, and it was fucking cold. the hike out went super smooth, minus us being super tired, aching...

the final leg

the drive home was epic. we decided to listen to techno, really really intense techno, and drink lots of red bull. only way to stay awake. i was at the wheel, land was asleep. i was practically hallucinating behind the wheel. all the reflector things on the side of the road looked like cars, and the lights from oncoming traffic scared the shit out of me. it got to a point where i just couldn't drive anymore. i had just clipped one of those orange barrels for road construction. land thought we hit a deer... he took over. we stopped at a gas station for more red bull, and they closed while land was in the bathroom, while they locked the doors. we decided to both stay awake this time, and talk the whole time, for safety's sake. we eventually made it to provo, parked at the apartment, and stopped the clock. 

19 hours, 27 minutes exact

made another trip to village inn with land's friends, then collapsed... around 1 am... "men's men" as his friend taylor said. and yeah... it took a fucking loong time....