the dea(d)lio...

so it's been a while, don't hold your breath, who knows when the next one of these posts will show up...

but yeah, i've been up to quite a bit since the days of "al's diner"
(i think that was the last thing i talked about...)

mostly, i've spent my climbing time on projects at the fins.

 bolting

(actually, matt bolting)

the triple combo shared first ascent of "huck you", which has become my favorite 5.11 in the eastern idaho area.

three days went into this climb.

back when matt and i did "al's" we hung out for another day with our friend tyson and checked out this line, which matt had scoped a few years ago, but never finished.

by the end of day 1, the route was brilliant, but had a desperate ending that just... well ruined it.

day 2 involved matt and i climbing it to almost the very end, and getting super psyched about putting the anchors at the low spot.

and day 3, matt moved the anchor down, moved a few bolts to accommodate the new ending, then troy neu, myself, and matt all fired it.

kudos on bolting this route matt, it kicks ass!

belaying 

(well, that's actually kenny belaying, but i'm behind the camera here...)

the "pure rock fury"

matt has been looking ridiculously strong this season. and it comes as no surprise that he is right back at his high point working this route. he can repeatedly one-hang this thing. our thoughts on the grade seem to be settling in around 5.13b, which i think is a bit modest. also, these horrendous mono moves terrify me...

the send is near, stay tuned.

projecting

"turbo 900"

after 5 days last summer, another 3-4 this summer, this route is almost at the point of becoming a legitimate project. i've never seriously attempted something this hard, and the only thing that i have sent that comes close is "karma police" (13c) a dean lords route down at crank cave. 

a shot of me on "karma police" from 2007

i'm saying this as a form of scope:

it took a day or two to do each of the moves on "karma" (albeit the first day involved a full beta shake-down from dean), and within a few days i was linking large sections. it took maybe 10 days to actually send.

so what do i mean about a "legitimate project"?

well, i can almost do all the moves... still, there are a few sections that i have yet to understand fully, and the sections i can link are either relatively easy, or very short.

the crux.

this move is driving me a little bit insane. it's not that long of a route, and around the 25 foot mark, there is a long reach off a terrible gaston on the left hand. the feet are actually not bad here, but they are kinda in the wrong spots for me... a bit crunched up, forcing me to really yard off the left hand. it's not much more than a half pad thumb-catch, it has a little ripple on the top that fits two fingertips, pretty awful...
the hold i'm gunnin' for isn't much better.

stay tuned on this one as well...

i feel like i don't want to over-saturate you with my ramblings, so i will leave parts two and three of this update for future posts. (oh, and all future cacti updates have unofficially moved to my facebook page.)

enjoy!

a bit lost in the shuffle/the send-train almost came to town!

yup, i converted to the hustle and bustle of face book. i always thought i would just hate it, that somehow having one of those things would be an overall negative experience. although i'm still rather new to it, i like the fact that all these people i know can be reached from one place.
where that has left me is in a place where i'm not really sure what to do with this page anymore. i keep finding that now i'm showing up on pages other people write, photos of me end up online before i even see them. i don't wanna be just copy pasting, but...

here's a little copy-pasting! check out the teNgaiolator's account of our venture.

to elaborate a bit on that, we almost got to see the magic that is the send-train, where each person consecutively crushes his/her current route.

to start off, each of us had not-so-inspiring first goes.
i got to that last move again, my forearm just decided to quit grippin for me, and i was left thinking, "ahh man... i could be in for the long haul on this route..."
teNgaio looked super solid on al's diner, but took a few hangs here and there.
and ricardo was battling with the unnamed 11d we unofficially dubbed "the virgins of howe".

so we all hung around for a bit. in reference to teNgaio's link up there, i'm often found guilty. i think that is what blew my first attempt. i was just thinking about it too much, getting all nervous, and a little bent out of shape. but when i lowered down from my first go, i felt great really. my right arm was so pumped with lactic acid that i couldn't undo my knot, but other than feeling like the route might take a while to climb clean, the nervousness was gone.

then matt decided to give the route an honest go, and destroyed it. he came down, i tied in, and fired it. there was so much good energy floating around that ricardo jumped on the unnamed 11d. he looked super strong, climbed the hard bit no problem, and then slipped off...

rick jumped right back on, climbed the rest of the route, and when he came down to the ground, he didn't have his redpoint, but there was a smile on his face.

other than "the best climber is the one having the most fun" lesson, another big part of redpoint climbing is to turn off your brain, and breathe.
by which i mean:
-it's not my first go (hence redpoint), i've been on this route before, i have the sequence worked out, i've done all the moves
-the next step is to just focus on the climbing.

when i started up "al's diner", i was singing to myself to calm my nerves a bit, and someone said, "remember to breathe", so i quit singing, found a rhythm to my breathing, and entered that headspace where my only focus was each move (the song was "red right ankle" by colin meloy, in case you were curious). i think everyone was being quiet, but really i have no idea if anyone was yelling encouragement to me while i was climbing. basically, everything went smoothly, and i got to the last hold, not pumped, found the key foothold, and that was that really.
not to be the harsh critic, but after rick climbed the crux of his route, it appeared he lost that headspace, which was ultimately why he popped off.

so you might be saying to yourself, "jeez louise tom, what a round-about way to tell us that, and i still really have no idea what you mean... can you just put up a photo now?"
which is totally cool, because i'm right there with ya. so thanks to facebook, via tyson hallbert, i have a nice photo of the send.

firing the crux of "al's diner" 5.13a

the fins; why climb anywhere else?

actually there a few really good answers to that question, likely why we rarely see other people up there.

-access is a bit rough. without 4 wheel drive, it's a long walk uphill to get to the climbing. 

-the warm ups are 5.11.

once you get past those though, the fins are pretty much utopia for the sei climber. and quite simply, this place is the reason i decided to come back to IF for the summer (too many projects here).

over the past month that i've been back in idaho, i've made it out here for a few sessions, limited mostly due to the access issue (which, in my case, has been taken care of mightily!). we've weathered light snow, a bit of rain, and cold temps, and every bit of it was worth it.

"al's diner" on the headwall (upper area)

ricardo, on "warm up 1", 5.11a

(does anyone know if this has an actual name? if not, may we suggest "the virgins of howe")

ricardo crushed on his second go!

the fins has the highest concentration of hard routes in the area, and the teNgaiolator and i set our sights on the classic "al's diner" (5.13a), which, for our area, is probably the standard for the grade. we're both ridiculously close to redpointing, both slipping off near the very top while looking for a hidden foothold that is pretty vital.

the first crux on "al's diner"

a very long reach off a not-so-good-slopey-crimp with the right hand, and a mono pocket on the left.

teNgaio, fighting the bulge before the second slab-crux(very tricky...)

but don't worry, we're headin back with a vengeance! which means i'll probably have more photos for ya soon.

all photos by ricardo and teNgaio. (ha ha, they probably don't trust me with a camera!) 

ralph and bethel

over the past week i've been down to crank cave a bit. i've had some pretty good days, and i saw some things that kind of amazed me.

i guess the best part of it all was getting onto rock, or just feeling like myself again when i'm climbing. since the injury, a lot of climbing confidence was shaken up, combined with strength loss and boredom(emphasis! and i just ran out of episodes of the office....) basically, been a bit off lately. but i found myself runnin through some of my favorite routes and gettin psyched about friends finding projects to work on.

johann on 'riff raff' (12c?)

this past sunday, i was out there with my friends johann and tyson, and while we were trading laps on the routes, 'el jefe' and 'riff raff', i looked over and noticed two owls watching us, a good day to have brought my camera(sorry about the low quality). they were just chillin in the back of the cave. just watchin. at times we got within about 15 feet of them, screaming, grunting our way up climbs, and they still just watched us, all day. i've seen these owls during various trips down to the cave, usually flying in or out, rarely stationary, and never together (i believe most of us thought was that there was only one left out there).

 just one of those brilliant moments.

open project beta #2: cedarville canyon/the pod wall

the second installment of this series is once again not a single route; this time, it's a whole canyon.

upon a tip from our buddy marc, teNgaio and i headed out past the town of howe, idaho, to check out a potential new area: cedarville canyon. the road back in there isn't too bad, unless you drive an old sedan, such as a saab 900. i somehow broke one of my side mirrors and possibly damaged my exhaust system.... but if you have anything with decent clearance, no problem. to get there, drive to howe, and head out the only road(the one by the school and general store) for a few minutes and look for a sign on the left of the road that says "cedarville canyon". sorry about being so vague on the directions... 

the trail is really chill, and a little bit in, we saw this deceptively good looking wall up to the left, which we named "the pod wall". i went out on my own a few days later to check it out up close. the hillside is very steep, with no clear path at all. the wall looked ok, although i was probably just seeing what i wanted to rather than what was actually there. i found a rather sketchy way to get up on the left side, and get around the back and up to the top, which is very densely forested(the wall above in the photo is much bigger, and could be worth a look). if you look to the left of the cave/pod feature near the top of the wall, there is a tan streak with a somewhat visible roof (well "somewhat" in the photo). anywho, i decided to bolt a route right there. (i had a new harness with me that turned out to be a bit small, this is important) about half way down the wall, roughly 30 feet down, i could no longer stand the discomfort from the harness, and i lost my mojo for this route. so in terms of an "open project", this route is all i got. to anyone out there, feel free to bolt the bottom half and go for the send. 

on the other side of the canyon, there is a series of large red walls. they could be good, but the approach is a rather steep and loose hillside.

there is a cave up near this red wall, and it looks a lot better/bigger from the ground than it actually is. the roof part is roughly 8 feet, and it's not even 20 feet off the ground, plus it's pretty devoid of useful features to climb. 

upon further inspection, teNgaio and i decided that there really wasn't much potential to this area. there are maybe four lines that look ok/good, and with a lot of cleaning, maybe a few more. near the mouth of the canyon there is a larger wall up to the right that we didn't take pictures of, and it could be worth looking at. there is also a very very large wall way back in the canyon that goes all the way to the top of a mountain(don't know the name).

basically, we found it very hard to justify spending the time required for all of this when the fins are closer to IF, and much better. 
who knows, maybe someday we'll be back.

all photos by teNgaio. 

open project beta #1: "uber unagi" and "the basilisk"

the first installment of these articles is a double feature, as the two heavyweight projects are in all ways linked to one another. not only do they merge midway, both were bolted around the same time, and both developers participated with the bolting/cleaning of the two routes.

the routes: "uber unagi" and "the basilisk"

opened by: t-rock, aka me(unagi) and the teNgaiolator(basilisk)

crag: weeping cave, palisades creek, idaho

beta: "unagi" is named after the series of small tufas near the base of the climb about 10 feet off the deck. in the photo above, it begins at the black streaks directly above the backpack. in keeping with the serpent theme, matt named the right hand start "the basilisk", after the stone face looking feature of underclings that mark the start of the route. the cave seeps a bit, sometimes leaving the tufas a bit wet, but i believe both routes can be climbed in a light rain. both may require additional cleaning; beware of falling rock.

unagi: a few easy moves off the deck, into a beastly(emphasis on beastly, maybe even substitute the word "beastly" with "ridiculously heinous") crux bulge that still needs a bit of cleaning and possibly needs the bolts moved to better spots for clipping. this section comes to a close with a lunge to a sizeable pocket, another series of very difficult moves, though none are difficult in comparison to the bulge below. i believe there is a second crux around the sixth bolt, with some body tension moves that lead to a long pull off a very small crimp. the rest/finale isn't really of consequence in terms of difficulty, maybe 5.11 at most, and the anchor may be lowered to the seventh bolt to avoid this section and hopefully improve the overall quality of the route.

dean lords on the opening section of "the basilisk". the bolt to the left marks the end of the bulge of "uber unagi".

basilisk: start to the right of "unagi" on a face like feature of underclings. the opening moves are hard, maybe in the 5.12 range. then connects with "unagi". currently there are draws hanging on this route. please leave them in place.

the mid section of the two routes, just below the second crux.

difficulty suggestion: 

for unagi, i'm not sure. i'm not anywhere near strong enough to know. i've only done one or two of the moves through the bulge, and clipping is a huge problem as it is very difficult for me to let go when i pull onto the holds and actually take weight off the rope. so i'll just say, V-ridiculous, then maybe 5.13/+ after the bulge.

for the basilisk, it has been suggested to be anywhere from 5.13-5.14-. as far as i know, three people have tried it: dean, teNgaio, and myself.

basically, both routes are ridiculously hard.

photos by the teNgaiolator. for more info on the weeping cave, check out seiclimbing.com, also check out the link to dean's page.

I plan on updating these posts if there is progress on the routes. for easy access, look to the pages listed below the title photo(in the future) or the labels links to the side (open project beta).

headin south...

winter has come back to bozeman for the time being, and i found out last night that my windows leak like crazy... anyways, my time here is done and i'm psyched to head south(well sorta) and get after it in idaho.

and also, some bad assery went down in california recently, check out mr. fresh's trip to bishop.

so if you(anyone out there) happen to be in south eastern idaho over the summer, look me up and let's go climb!

normally i try not to be political...

...but when it comes to threats against south park then something is wrong with the world.


however, aside from that, i'll save you from my commentary, and let jon stewart, matt stone, and trey parker have the spotlight.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
South Park Death Threats
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

also, check out revolutionmuslim.com

oh, and the avs lost in game 6 of the quarter finals for the stanley cup... oh well, they were picked to be dead last in the entire league, so i guess it's cool they made the playoffs.

guess what happened one year ago...

---

4/23/09:

the beginning? 

hey, so i decided to start this blog deal and we'll have to see what becomes of this. hopefully there will be plenty of good stuff here, and mostly it's going to be climbing oriented. 

so yeah....

cheers,tom

---

and now! 4/23/10!

as i've been a bit laid up from my recent ankle mishap, i have no new material... except that i'm upset about the avs losing last night. and for good news, i got the go ahead from the doc to try climbing next week! about time! here's to not getting injured! (*knock on wood)

but, i guess i could do a year in review type thing?

hmm...

ok! so here's a photo tribute to some of the raddest people i got to climb with over the past year (the rest of you need to bring a camera climbing!):

kenny

spiderman (10a), joshua tree, california

3/09

mr. fresh

carrot top (v3), happy boulders, california

4/09

the teNgaiolator

the mothership (12c), the fins, idaho

6/09

clint

crate stacking comp, lander, wyoming

7/09

neil

powder finger (8/9), crank cave, idaho

8/09

the dealie bob, aka johann

riff raff (12b/c/d?), crank cave, idaho

8/09

tami-loves, and the alpine club crew (represented by my dad's back. teehee)

red rocks, nevada

11/09

eric larsen

bozeman ice festival, montana

12/09

pedro

the highline, near helena, montana

1/10

andrew

flyboy (v8), buttermilks, california

3/10

and i didn't have a photo of this dude from the past year, but...

herschdog, my pops

 the "creative belay" in lander, wyoming (7/07)

basically, this is dedicated to the few people that actually give a shit about this site. most of the time i feel like i'm ranting to no one on here, and it's nice to hear from you peeps.

cheers,

tom

some rodeo bad assery

what? yeah, i went to the rodeo.

i think this is the only one they hold in bozeman, and one of my best friends is kind of a big deal when it comes to rodeos.

 robbi nace, kickin' ass and takin names.

i went to cheer her on for two of the days the rodeo was in town, and unfortunately she knocked over a barrel during the finals for barrel racing and didn't win. however i think her time would have placed her second without the five second penalty. she also competed in the men's team roping event, and must have been top ten, because she was in the finals for that too.

also, robbi has been dominant all year in the big sky region rodeos. i have the stats, and i have no idea what the points mean, but from what it looks like to me, robbi has half of her teams points, and is the main reason the msu women's team is ranked number one. i think she's ranked close to the top nationally as well!

top 4 women's teams:

1.		Montana State University		MTSU	2,173.00
2.		University of Montana, Western		UMTW	1,814.00
3.		University of Montana		UMT	1,135.00
4.		Northwest College		NWC	1,124.50

women's all around:

1.Nace, Robbi LynnMTSU1,082.00




2.Thompson, Bailee JoUMTW935.00

barrel racing:

1.		Nace, Robbi Lynn		MTSU	544.00
2.		Knudson, Morgan David		MTSU	385.00
3.		Thompson, Bailee Jo		UMTW	301.00

breakaway roping:

1.		Nace, Robbi Lynn		MTSU	340.0
2.		Proctor, Cody Marie		NWC	316.5
3.		Hamlin, Haily Kay		NWC	254.0

and in goat tying she's ranked tenth, but goat tying is kinda lame, and really funny actually, so i guess it's ok that she isn't number one. my guess is she just doesn't bother with it all that much.

and yeah, go robbi!

spicy noodle

oh my god, i wish there were tufas like this around here...

Made In China, Part 3 from Mike Call on Vimeo.

chris sharma, on the first ascent of "spicy noodle", 14b, in yangshou, china 

(summer 2009. also, check out parts 1, 2, and 4)

cacti update 5/and other things

more in the unfortunate events column...

... there are only ten. (check the bottom left)

one little cactus passed away. i guess there really wasn't that much sun over the two week period where they were left in a windowsill without their artificial sun. in fact, none of them really look all that good(except maybe two of them), and many of the pots have algae growing in them as well, which i've since scraped out. it's a sad day; actually it bums me out more than i thought it would.

----

hardcore crutching. (and andrew checking out flyboy, v8)

during that week in bishop i crutched up and down dirt hills, on uneven paths, over rocks both big and small, and even forded a creek via a few fallen trees. all while carrying my pack, water, and sometimes a crash pad for my buds. pavement and cement were cake after all that.

so i may not have made it all that clear in the bishop post that i was hobbling around on crutches for the past week and a half, but i was (i later added that info in the last post... kinda slipped my mind during the first go around....). so i went to the doc on wednesday, and she told me to start trying to walk normally! yay!

the doctor in bishop told me i had a grade two sprain and that they were surprised i didn't crack my fibula, and the lady here in montana said it could very well have been grade three, based on the amount of swelling, but yet that it would be better to start walking then stay on the crutches; which i found pretty surprising. she gave me a new brace thingy, a bunch of exercises and such to do, and that was that really. she said i'd be good to go once i could start doing one footed hops on my right foot, and that will likely be a few weeks. it's been just a few days, and the swelling has gone down like crazy, and i can pretty much walk like normal with my new fancy brace on.

----

and none of you may care about this, but HC Zapdos lost a super close match against the number one seed FIRE N ICE in the round of four of my fantasy hockey league playoffs, sending me to the third place match for next week. sucks that i was fourth seed and had to face the number one seed, i looked at the match between the number two and three seeded teams and i would have beaten both of them pretty soundly. in the semi finals last week i also had a close match against the sixth seed, but won. i wasn't even there to manage my team... teehee.

(edit: 4/5/10 HC Zapdos won the third place match 5-4!)

bishop round 5

finally! an end to this drought of climbing stuff to talk about!

in keeping with tradition, i headed south this past week to climb at the boulders near the small town of bishop, california. this adventure had all the makings of being a brilliant trip...

andrew crushing "the hulk"(v6), at the happy boulders

i was climbing at the happy boulders on our third day in bishop. my buddy andrew and i had just worked out an amazing v6 called "the hulk", and andrew sent! well anyway, i told him about my favorite problem in the happies, a v3 called "rio's secret arete".

i first found the problem last year when i got split up from carson by accident. it's up on one of the canyon rims, a huge block cracked off and left a 3 foot wide corridor behind it. at the corner, there is a clean, 15-20 foot tall arete, with just enough holds to make a fun little climb. when i found it last year, i was all alone, no spotters, and i climbed it over and over for fun.

this year was no different. andrew and i were rehashing the moves; the most challenging bit is actually committing to the arete. no stepping back onto the side walls. i had a good go, but ended up getting scared and stepped off. on my next attempt, i decided to go for it, to get the high foot and bear down on the crimps. unfortunately...

my foot didn't quite make it to the hold, and i came off. even though andrew did his job as a spotter (to make sure i hit the pads), the pads were slightly uneven, my right ankle rolled off the edge and my 175 pound frame landed right on the side of my foot.

"rio's secret arete" (v3), happy boulders

just moments before a rather unfortunate end to our day...

may i also add, i still hold that rio's arete is my favorite problem at the happies.

we were pretty far back into the happy boulders, a long way from the trailhead. my buddy kingsley (who was up on the rim behind the camera) rushed down, and luckily, he's a wilderness emt. he taped it up, and i started hopping. i made it a ways until i couldn't hop anymore (maybe half a mile?) and kingsley scooped me up and carried me the rest of the way to the car. (by the way, he's a bad ass.)

the next few hours were spent at the north inyo hospital, located in bishop. suprisingly, there was no wait whatsoever, even with an ambulance coming in. the staff was really chill, i'm sure they get this all the time, with all the bouldering around bishop and one of the largest ski resorts in the country (mammoth mountain) only an hour away. plus, i got a nice pair of crutches too!

i spent the rest of the week hobbling around the boulders as best as i could, trying to send positive vibes to my buddies, and taking a few photos too. andrew had one hell of a trip, climbing what are likely bishop's best problems at each grade from v1-v8, including an epic last day, sending both the checkerboard(v8) and soul slinger(v8/9).

here's a few photos (and captions) for your enjoyment: (all these photos are from the buttermilks area)
please click on them to see them full size!

two looks at "the iron fly" (v9)

there are two ways of going about this problem, either dyno (above, one move) or pull a ridiculously high heel hook/mantle move (below, two moves). i came very close on the dyno, but was having much better luck with the heel hook, and i came fairly close on that last move... 

gonna have to go back for this one.

andrew and i working out the "pope's prow" (v6), a problem of entirely core strength and balance. so very ridiculously hard. neither of us sent. 

kingsley, the viking/my hero, sending "hero roof" (v0). very cool, he spent a lot of time working this problem, and unfortunately i didn't get to see the send.

revisiting "soul slinger" (v8/9)

i didn't have much luck on it this time around, but it's such a good problem i had to give her a go.

"soul slinger" (v8/9)

andrew crushing/sending on the last day of the trip!

our female companions on the trip, kayla (above) on "west corner" (v3/4), charlotte (below), the definition of muscles, on "go granny go" (v5). i can't lie, they didn't mesh well with us, and unfortunately we didn't get along very well. the two are comp climbers, and that attitude was hard to adjust to. 

that said, charlotte has a lot of potential, and it was really cool climbing with her, she just needs to climb outside! she told us that she's been climbing for seven years, and this was only her third time climbing on real rock!

andrew sending "the checkerboard" (v8)

likely the most brilliant boulder problem in bishop. and part one of his epic last day of sends.

andrew, trying "saigon" (v6). 

such a brilliant looking problem, and a good reason to come back to bishop, as if we need another. 

"high plains drifter" (v7)

andrew crushed, and it is probably the best v7 i've ever tried (i came super close two years ago). unfortunately, i didn't get my chance at revenge this trip, stupid ankle...

my buddy nate, "the iron man traverse" (v4)

it's amazing who you run into at climbing hot spots. it just so happened that one of my best friends, who i've played soccer with since i was ten years old, was camped right down the road from us at the buttermilks. neither of us knew the other would be there, and it was really cool to see him again and to share a campfire with his crew of friends.

always psyched. even with crutches...

(all photos by kingsley and myself, he's posting the whole 1,200 or so pics from the trip on flickr.com. i'll update with the link once they are up)