the land of the mountain hippies

i once heard montana described like this:

all the hippies live in missoula, and all the rich hippies live in bozeman.

so true. at least the bozeman part... i've only been to missoula once, and it was for an impromptu soccer practice a few years ago before a state cup in coeur d'alene. i do know a girl from missoula, and yes, she is a hippie.

i pretty much did nothing today, except move 300 or so miles to the north, to a strange land, where things are open on sundays, there is no sales tax, and no grocery stores stock jarritos (don't worry, i brought quite a lot with me). i guess the best way to describe bozeman, is that it's jackson hole, but bigger, and less tourists/art galleries, oh and it has a university. plus i do not live in a rectangle anymore, and i also sleep roughly 100 feet off the ground. yup a strange place.

i also learned it is very difficult to take an empty space, and make it seem full. interior decorating is an art, and i am definitely not an artist. 

5 months in the works... and a ukranian rap song

so not a lot goin on right now, with broken fingers and all. i did some hefty work on my beloved saab, well actually i just used a zip tie to put my car stereo back together, my pops did the bulk of the work, like changing the oil, fixing fuses, lubing gears, and trying to fix my parking break. the car's runnin like a champ! and is comin up on the 25 year mark! maybe i can get classic plates for it?? do they do that in idaho? (montana?)

but yeah, let's go back to happy times past, with a nice trip down memory lane. turned out to be kinda long, but what evs.

the road to the buttermilks, one of the worst roads ever, one of the best climbing areas ever.

so this post has been in the works for nearly 5 months... and i told all you peeps i would post these photos once i got them. well, mr. fresh disappeared for a while, and i didn't get these until a couple weeks ago. 

we didn't take a lot of photos on this trip, there were just the two of us, and being climbers, we wanted to climb more than take pictures. plus, when bouldering, having a spotter is kinda nice.

also for you peeps that don't boulder, here is a rough explanation of the ratings:

a v3 is roughly equivalent to like 5.11+, and v9 is roughly equivalent to 5.13+

but a 5.11 and a v3 are usually very different from one another, so you can't really draw a level comparison.

please redirect to an earlier post, the one about this very trip. then come back and look at the photos! ya know, just in case you don't remember reading it, or you are a new subscriber. (which i know i've picked up at least three new ones!! you rock!)

attempting the "iron fly" (v9) at the buttermilks

this boulder is home to the bishop classic "the iron man traverse" (v4) that follows the 20 foot long rail in the middle of the wall, then has a cool left foot heel hook on the rail to jump up to the sloper over the top on the far right side. the iron fly, however, is a one move dyno(jump) problem that starts where i am standing on barely visible little flakes, then one long move to the lip, pull the lip and you are done. i came very close to sticking the dyno, but could spend days trying it without success, and say the same thing. i climbed up on top of the boulder via that ramp on the left to scope the hold over the lip, it's a really good crimp, but oh well. the two kids behind me are from norway, we didn't spend much time with them, but they were pretty cool.

the bureau of land management owen's river climber's campground, or put simply, "the pit".

our home for two weeks. rest days here suck, mostly we would go to coffee houses in the nearby town of bishop, or rig up a lean-to against the jeep, and play mario kart on our nintendo ds handheld gameboy things. then we took the grill from my coleman stove and cooked by fire every night. you can see the communal bonfire ring and the bathroom in the picture, and for water we had to drive down to the rv campground down the hill. we did have a two man tent set up the whole trip, but for the most part we slept out under the stars, using our crashpads as mattresses. also, the big mountain in the distance is mt. tom, roughly 14,500 feet tall. 

not bad for $2/car/day.

"carrot top" (v3)

this was carson's big project for the trip. he and i got split up in the happy boulders one day, and as i went off and climbed, he found this problem and worked it with some pretty rad dudes, whom i eventually met when i found carson. we came back a couple days later with our friend J, and carson crushed it. way to go carson!

"soul slinger" (v9)

this was my goal for the whole trip. i had tried it 5 years ago when i first came to the buttermilks. before the trip i watched the section from dosage 1 with lisa rands over and over to get the beta for the climb. the holds at the top are pretty terrible, and just barely enough to hold on to. and there is a huge jug over the lip. such a brilliant boulder problem, if i were to make a top five list of routes and boulders i've climbed, this would be on that top 5 list. i gave it a much better description on the first post. so please read that. i think i even made up a little song about this climb... how did that go??

one day while carson and i were playing hacky sack in the pit, shirtless of course, we came up with a pretty neat little ditty. this couple moved in next door, euros, and were ridiculous. the dude was always shirtless, and ripped as hell. the chick was golden tan, pretty thin, and rather well endowed (emphasis on that) and always wore a yellow bikini. so he would exercise, and she would take pictures. of pretty much everything he did. so we started pretending to be him, and talk with a bad ukranian accent. "quick tom! take picture while i flex my bicep!"(but with that accent) then we made up a rap about a group of ukranians that lived in idaho under the ground. so good.

"Deez Ukraines Rappes"

by myself, and mr. fresh

we ukraines lives unders ze grounds

wez lives by ze lava all years rounds

whenz weez go huntings

we use lots of rounds

we misses lots which makes us frowns

but not as bads as the scary clowns

dis is de ukraines rappes

that's going downs

that's number ones rappes

in all of ze towns

peoples says "heys, ho's, heys, ho's"

yeah, you're welcome.

symmetry spire, a rafting epic, and the broken finger fiasco

so with all this business of breaking bones and whatnot, i forgot to describe a few of my latest wild and wacky adventures. yeah, this entry has a lot of text, and no pictures, but it's kinda epic in a way.

last friday, my good friend patty and i went and climbed symmetry spire in the tetons. the spire tops out at 10,560 feet, and includes 5 full rope length pitches of technical rock climbing up to 5.7.

now, 5.7 may not seem like a big deal, considering my recent 5.13b/c(?) ascent, but in the mountains the game changes completely.

we started around 5:15 am and drove to catch the 7:00 am ferry at jenny lake to access that area of the tetons. we hiked in 2+ miles, a good portion up steep rocky slopes. as we hit the base, patty thought she spaced her belay device!!! that would have made for some tricky ropework, but thankfully, she did have the thing. whew! patty also said she didn't want to lead any part of the route, which would make this the first time i lead in the tetons.

the first pitches were confusing to lead, mostly just scrambling trying to find certain features outlined on my pocket route topo. and yeah, i got lost a few times. we reached the crux pitch, and it was stunning. a beautiful dihedral, the rock was super polished, and in many places i had only 60-70 year old rusty pitons(iron wedges) for protection(the first ascent was in 1938... i assume they put in the pitons). the last three pitches were all stunning, and were so much fun. but, an ominous rain storm was fast approaching and threatening our summit plans. somehow, it hailed and thunderstormed all day in jackson hole (the town right outside the tetons), but as the weather hit the grand teton, it was like moses parting the red sea, and we had nice sunshine. it was extremely windy, but no rain. no hail. and luckily, no lighting. all those things can mean certain doom if mother nature decides it's your turn. it doesn't usually happen that way, but sometimes it does.

we summited, i ate my sandwich, and we hauled ass to get to the last ferry (7:00 pm). we made the 6:30 one, and were quite pleased. we had dinner with patty's friend, and renowned mountain guide,  rob hess, a dude i met earlier this year in city of rocks. then drove home.

definitely took one step higher on the mighty staircase of bad-assery.

then the next day i broke my fingers... but more on that later...

so i decided to go rafting with some friends of mine yesterday. yeah, i was wearing a hand splint thing, i couldn't hold a paddle, and i probably wasn't supposed to get wet. little did i know...

it was generally warm, with mild rapids in the hoback section of the snake river. (i believe) 

the rapids weren't really too bad, except one. "kahuna" was very gnarly. it was huge! like, we went into the rapid head on, and next thing we know, the raft flipped, dumping all 7 of us. several of us got caught under the raft, and fought for the surface. my friend bailey was under the longest. it was scary. my bud peter got on top of the flipped over raft and started pullin peeps up, but only four managed to get on the raft before the next rapid. "lunch counter" wasn't particularly big, but after you're all shaken up from bein tossed out, frantically doing a head count, yadda yadda, the story kinda changes. i did not get pulled up, and had to ride the next rapids solo. in the end, we were all ok, shaken up, but ok. i lost a flip flop, and somehow my glasses got caught on my life jacket and i didn't lose em. we were all freezing. and i got my splint wet....

ha! it was such an adrenaline rush, and actually was my favorite part of the day.

and with the fingers... ugh. i probably sound more bitter than i really am. i finally got to see an xray today. i have a fracture at each of the middle knuckles on my right index and middle fingers. tomorrow i get a cast/splint thingy put on, and in 4-6 weeks, it should be mostly healed. so no climbing for a while. but i think that's kinda ok. i've been goin full tilt since january, climbed a bunch of hard and beautiful routes, and most importantly had a blast. 

plus, gotta settle in to school, and at least mentally, i kinda needed a break anyway. this year was always supposed to be a rebuilding year of sorts, and what a year it was! 

so two parting thoughts:

- do not go to idaho urgent care. they don't have a clue, they were slow, they misread my xray, and frankly, i didn't feel comfortable around their staff, and barely spoke with the "doctor". i don't even remember his name. no clue. 

however, the specialist they sent me to has his shit together. thank god.

-also, i turn 20 in like two weeks! woot! 

cheers,

tom

a small update

so hey! guess what i learned:

  the peeps at idaho urgent care have been a real pain. they are sure taking their sweet time telling me what is going on. all i know is that i fractured my right middle finger in 2 spots and one is an avulsion fracture. and i don't know what that is. i'm getting set up with a specialist, and we'll go from there.

so yeah... maybe i'll be healed and sending 5.13d before i even get to see an x ray of my hand. hopefully they tell me what's what before i leave in a week or so... 

fuck. injuries suck...

so i thought about titling this with much stronger language than just "fuck", but my mom doesn't like me swearing.

it's so horrible when you're just dickin' around and get hurt.

i injured my hand....

the docs don't know for sure what all is damaged, but it is likely that i have broken two of my fingers, and possibly hurt some tendons in the process. 

while tightening a fucking slackline.  not from an semi-epic day in tetons yesterday when i almost got caught in a huge hailstorm... no... from a fucking slackline in tautphaus park.

i'll update when i learn more.

ascend and conquer/crank cave update part two

today was brilliant.

"wave-police" (5.13c)

second ascent

i got the second ascent of "wave-police" (5.13c) down at crank cave! i've been trying the route over the past 2 years, maybe only like 5 days total though, and spread out, to where i would forget little nuances of the route each day. today went very well. it was really hot, i was nervous, tried it once, fell at the lip of the overhang, sat and had a little heart to heart with neil (yeah it just kinda happened... i don't really know why), and after our conversation i headed down to belay her on her project, "powder finger" (5.8), then after seeing her send, i just knew i could climb the route. we headed back over to it, i tied in, and bam! send. 

very good. 

(yeah i stole the photo from last week's session, there were only two of us down there tonight.)