Today was the first day in a long time that I really feel like I accomplished something. Unfortunately that accomplishment was four hours of moving snow off the top of Suspension Of Disbelief in Eldorado Canyon. When Paul and I arrived at the boulder in unusually warm temps, I knew we were in for an epic. The climb was dry, but the top of the boulder had about a foot of snow hiding another inch of ice. So we went to work. Brushing snow, chipping ice, and expediting the slow melting process provided by the cold Colorado winter. When we hiked out a couple hours later I was suprised at how psyched I was to return and try to climb on a boulder that I’ve now put so much work into. Especially considering the overwhelming lack of psych I have been feeling lately.
For example, I can remember and count on one hand the days that I have been psyched in the last 2 months.
Here was one of the days:
Same day, New Psych:
Am I the only one that finds it funny that I have a highlight video on youtube.
Another day of psych was the last time I was bouldering in Eldo:
And then I did this four times and considering the fifty other times I have messed up this problem on previous days, the psych was lost again. Back to its Winter Hibernation I guess.
Switching to another subject (yes, they will continue to change sporadically), I talked to my little brother Giovanni the other day and he told me about his current exploits in NorCal. We discovered an area a few minutes from our house over the summer and it holds a suprising amount of potential.
Here are some pics:
Apparently G just found a 25′ highball in the area and it could be pretty hard. More on that to come.
Another random bit. Alex just finished off her longtime project of beating Connor’s (120 seconds on Expert) minesweeper score (somebody needs to convince her to get a job). 115 seconds on Expert is her new record. The world record is 37 seconds by some Australian dude. Crazy youtube video that one.
So the last month has been crazy. At the end of December I was fired from my job at the Italian Restaurant because I got sick and I guess they couldn’t handle that. So for Christmas we drove to California to visit my family. We ended up staying for a month. It was a nice visit and it was fun to experience the local sandbagging that occurs at my home gym, Vertex Climbing Center. The head routesetter, Kevin Jorgeson, still manages to set V7′s that take me three full days to complete. Nonetheless, it was a good time to train for the upcoming Rope and Bouldering National Championships.
We left California in mid-January and drove back to Boulder then back to Salt Lake City four days later. I hate Wyoming in the winter. We were scheduled to attend both the Outdoor Retailer Show and the SCS Adult National Championships. The Show provided a remarkable amount of drama and its fair share of suprising outcomes. After talking about the business aspects of the climbing industry for days on end I came to a startling number of realizations: 1. The athletes are getting screwed. 2. Companies need to improve their marketing strategies in order to better utilize the athletes within the sport. 3. The industry makes me sick to my stomach. The rope Nationals didn’t go any better for me either. After tying for first in the Qualifiers, I completely screwed up the sequence on the finals route to land myself in a dissapointing 9th Place. Oh well, I’m not a rope climber at this point in my life. Despite the negative vibes I was getting in SLC, I had a great time staying at home of the very hospitable Steven Jeffery. I was also very impressed with the quality of the new Momentum Climbing Gym. Especially the boulder problems. They were definitely some of the best indoor problems I’ve climbed on in quite a while.
I guess this brings me up to date. ABS Nationals is in a couple of days. My brother and my mom are flying out for the comp. I can only hope for the psych to return for the comp. But if it doesn’t, I still have a Sunday session on a dry Suspension to look forward to.
Updates to come. Soon. Not next month. I swear.