Real winter.

I guess this is a real Colorado winter. We are in day two of a three day snowstorm, though we have maybe 5 inches so far and are predicted to get 4-5 more. So that's not too bad. We have no highs above 40 degrees in the next ten days, and won't even be above freezing until Friday. I would say so far this year we have gotten 3 - 4 feet of snow.
I have really been wanting to go mountain biking lately, but of course with the weather as it is, that hasn't happened and doesn't look like it will happen anytime soon. I've even been taking it pretty easy climbing. We went to Movement last Wednesday and I think that was the last time I climbed.
I think our trip was a bit disappointing to me in that I spent so much time training and felt like I really didn't do much of anything and was wondering if it was all worth it. I can see that having an impact on the psyche.
However, this past week we saw a great movie called between the trees. It was shot in the spring of 2009 in Fontainebleau, France and documents Ty Landman and Keith Bradbury climbing a ton of problems there.

Teaser 1 from unclesomebody on Vimeo.

It was pretty inspiring and ends with Keith unable to finish off his main goal of the trip - Gecko Assis. He reflects on reasons why and of course, vows to return. It is disappointing sure to not be able to do something you think you should be able to do, but I did have fun on our trip, and it is really about being out there with friends and having a good time.
Anyway, this got be psyched to get out to Haycock when I am home visiting, so I am planning to get up early on either the 23 or 24 and spend the day there. I am trying to work out a list of problems I would like to do that are within my range and can be easily reached in one day. Should be fun.
I am thinking about my next batch of beer. I think I may do a porter that is in the book I have and sounds pretty interesting. My last beer turned out soooooo freakin good. I will definitely make it again.
Work was ok this week. Thursday was slow, but I was pretty busy on Friday. I took a few drinks up to a room and got a little bit of an extra tip. I forgot to open the bottle of Pellegrino they ordered and headed back a few minutes later and got to talking to the guy who was exceedingly nice. We talked a bit, and that would have been it, but I decided they were so nice that I got them a dessert on me and brought it up a bit later. Of course they were in the bathtub at that time, but he said to swing by the next day and he would give me his business card and talk some more maybe.
Unfortunately I didn't make it up as we were very busy Saturday night as our restaurant was bought out for a holiday party. But he left his card at the front desk for me. I will have to shoot him an email and say thanks.
People never cease to amaze me.

Over.

Unfortunately my motorcycling season has come to an end. I did get to ride in great weather on Friday (almost 70!) but had a chilly trip home and with the weather forecast looking cold - highs in the low 40's and lower - for the time being, I decided it was time to put er down. Today I changed the oil, oil filter, added a fuel stabilizer, and put the battery on a charger. That should take me through winter in good shape to get riding again in the spring.
I was thinking adding heated grips might get me a bit farther into the year, but really if it is 40's during the day it'll be 20's at night and heated grips or not, that is too cold! Plus that would be 100 bucks I would put into the bike that I wouldn't get back when I sell it, though it looks as though I may not be selling as soon as I thought.
Katie has expressed an interest in learning how to ride! We were going to go across the street today, but it is just too cold and I wanted to get it set up for winter. Once things warm up some, I guess I will teach her the basics and then she will take the same class I took and then take over this bike.
I have finally gotten some of our movies from our trip together, though I still have yet to edit. First I needed an external hard drive, as I didn't have enough room on ours. Then I tried the editing software that came with the camera. It sucks, so I went to windows movie maker which I have used before. But then the file format the camera uses isn't recognized by wmm. Eventually I downloaded a free program to convert the files to a format recognized by wmm. Hopefully soon I will have something.
Not much else going on really. I am really looking forward to some time off and seeing my family.

Once in a lifetime.

I have had a hard time getting back into the swing of things. Work was ok this past week, actually had a decent room service shift last night. But it looks like my motorcycling days are pretty much over. We are in day one of a 3 day winter storm warning and the weather for the next ten days looks like highs in the mid 40's. I can ride in that though it is cold, but I have to consider it will be a bit colder on my way home.
So I am back on the bus. Kind of sucks, but at least I don't have to pay for it. And I can read. And maybe write?
Our dog is doing well. His 2nd house training seems to have worked and he hasn't gone in the house in a few weeks now. When I let him out and say the magic words, he seems to go pretty much right away. So that is good. Too bad this happened after he pissed on Katie's cds and the stereo receiver.
I have tried a few bottles of my first beer in a long time. It is a honey spruce lager. I got the recipe from the new complete joy of homebrewing. In the book, it says this is a beer that even your friends who don't like beer will like. Well, I like beer and so far I just don't really care for the flavor. Not to say it is bad, but if it was something I bought I would not get it again.
My next batch is going to be a bitter. That is a low alcohol style of ale popular in England. I like it alot, but it is hard to find it here. I am using a modified recipe out of the same book.
5 lbs dried amber malt extract
1/2 lb crystal malt
1 oz challenger hops (boiling)
1/2 oz cascade hops (finishing)
2 tsp gypsum
english ale yeast
A good thing is that it should only take two weeks (or so) from start to finish! After that I am planning a Belgian style cherry spiced dubbel. I am looking to do something similar to Unibroue's Quelque Chose. I only had that once, but haven't forgotten it.
We had some car troubles on Wednesday. We were in Boulder and stopped at Whole Foods, then the car wouldn't start when we got back in it. It seemed like we weren't getting electrical power. Katie called Dean who was able to give some advice. We were able to diagnose and fix the problem, which was that her battery was 6 years old. We got a new one and were on our way home two hours later than we would have been. But that was better than getting it towed.

Trip report.

As some of you have already heard, our trip was pretty much a bummer due to lots of rain. We left Colorado early Sunday morning and started driving east. The speed limit is 70-75 the whole way, so we made pretty good time though it was overcast and rainy here and there. That is until we hit Missouri and the skies opened up. I think we had the windshield wipers on high for 3/4 of the state.
We would have been there in less than 13 hours if not for this rain. As it was, we made it in around 13.5 hours. Still not too bad.
Monday we planned to go to Elephant Rocks in south central Mo. We woke up and it was raining. Instead we went to Upper Limits, which is where we started to climb a few years ago. I am glad I don't climb there anymore. It has definitely gone downhill.
Tuesday we planned to be off. It rained. We went to Terrene for dinner which was excellent. It was nice to see some of my old coworkers. It is also nice to know that I am remembered so fondly there.
Wednesday we planned to leave for Jackson Falls in Illinois. We woke up to a bit if rain, but the last weather report we had seen said it should stop shortly and then have only a 20% chance of showers on Thursday.
So we left. We got there and pretty much everything was wet. We went to the rainy day roof area and even that felt pretty greasy. We ended up just walking around and checking things out.
Before we left I was a bit worried about how our dog would handle being out there. I was worried we would be a bit timid with the access to the canyon as it is a bit technical. I thought it might take alot of encouragement from us to get him to cross a creek on rocks. As it turned out, that was all for naught as he went right down the dog walk access and jumped into the creek. It turned out even better than that as he clearly loves the outdoors and was having a blast. We had him off his leash and he would be running huge circles around us through the woods, jumping over fallen logs and the occasional four foot cliffs. At times he would disappear for a minute but he always came back when we called him, out of breath and panting hard.
We headed back to the campground and set up the tent. I tried to get a fire going but had a really hard time with it as everything was wet. A few hours later I finally managed to get it going pretty good. We went to sleep around 8 I guess. What else are you going to do when it gets dark?
We woke up around 11 because we heard a car door slam and I saw a shadow outside our tent. It scared the crap out of us. I checked things out and everything looked ok. It took me forever to get back to sleep and I slept very poorly that night. The next morning I talked to the guy who had come from Quebec and just happened to get in late. I felt kind of silly then.
I left dog with Katie and took the roped access into the canyon. All of the bouldering was still wet, but some of the climbing looked pretty dry. So we got the rope, walked down, and started looking for something. We found a dry area and decided (somewhat foolishly?) to do a 5.10c without any warm up. I led it and did it with maybe 3-4 takes as my arms just got so pumped out. Katie then followed and cleaned it on top rope. As she was climbing I felt a few rain drops. When she got down we felt a few more. And a few more. We packed it up and decided to head back to camp.
We drove to the general store and got some food. We got back and I decided to try and make a fire before it was raining too hard. While I was out looking for wood it started pouring. I got back to the tent soaked and sat inside wet and miserable. I finally got up to get some dry clothes and got my phone to hopefully call someone to check the weather.
I called my mom who said we now had a 90% chance of rain on both Thursday and Friday with showers Sat morning. Reasoning that it would be at least Saturday afternoon until stuff was climbable, we decided to pack it up and head back to St. Louis, and possibly back to Colorado the next day.
That night I went to bed early and I was pretty miserable. I was thinking about how long it had been since we had been there, how excited I was to get out there, all the training I had been doing in the gym and at home, all of the time and money I had spent on stuff just for this trip... I felt like I was going to cry. But then my mind started working. What if we just hung out there Friday and then maybe went to erocks Saturday and Sunday, leaving Monday as we planned? Or what if we went to erocks Sat and then got up early Sunday and went to Jackson Falls, staying until sundown Monday and then driving back overnight?
I went and talked to Katie who was still up watching tv. It turned out that she didn't have work until 6pm on Tuesday, so we decided that we would go to erocks Saturday, and then Illinois Sunday and Monday, come back to Stl Monday night, and then leave early Tuesday morning to get back in time Tuesday evening. I went to bed feeling alot better about things.
Friday we did a bunch of nothing. Drove around in the rain. Blah.
Friday evening it was starting to clear and we saw patches of blue sky. Erocks dries off quickly as it is pretty exposed, so we knew we would be good for Saturday. We got up and headed down.
We went to check out a new sector there we had never gone to before. Since the whole park is pretty small it is maybe a 15 minute walk to anywhere from anywhere. We warmed up on a V1 and then started working a V4. We both got pretty close, but neither of us did it. We then headed to another area and a problem I had tried last time we were there, also a V4. Again shut down, though I did get farther than before. By now our hands were screaming due to the coarse granite, so we decided to head back to an area near the entrance. There were a few problems we had tried there last time, but hadn't been able to do. Though the hardest was a V2, they felt alot easier and I finished them all off. We went back to the picnic area near the parking before deciding to call it a day and save some skin for Illinois.
The next day we got up around 6 and left around 7. We got there around 10 and the entire campground area was full! We took the rope down into the canyon, but it seemed that everything we had intended to do already had people lined up waiting to climb. We headed back and I took the roped access up and got the crash pads. We started at the OBD area and did a few easy warm ups. We both did Jennifer Anniston, a V2. I did Chamber Music, a V2 that felt impossible last time we were there. Though I did try, I was unable to do anything more difficult in the area.
The Yosemite slab area lies under a cliff face and was still getting some runoff and was soaked. We headed to the reefer madness area and both did Wolverine Problem V2, Ghetto Life V1, and Alpacca V1. I did a fun high ball called Heroics V2. I discovered that I kind of like high balls. We decided to call it a day and headed back. We waited maybe half an hour and got a nice camping space. I was able to get a fire going easily this time and we had a nice hot meal for dinner. We slept alot better this time.
I got up in the morning and made a fire to make some hot tea. Katie got up and we packed up the car so we could just come back after climbing and go.
We took the north access this time. It looked like it would take us near where we wanted to go, but I think it was more out of the way than the dog walk. The trail was alot less maintained and hard to follow at times.
We headed to the Mr. Jimmy area and got on Big Wall Greg's Chicken Shack, a 5.6. This was my first outdoor lead. Katie tried it but chickened out (ha!) and came down at the third bolt. This time she did it. It is a fun and pretty easy route. There are a few moderates in that area, but we decided to head back down to the 10c from the other day.
On the way we stopped and I led The Sophomore 5.9. The book said 5 quickdraws plus anchor but we only saw three bolts. The first was about 18 feet off the ground, the second maybe 6 beyond that, and the third 20 or more beyond that with another 15 or so to the anchors. A bit run out in other words. Later I found out it is supposed to take 3 QD plus trad gear. But it was easy, huge jugs for the most part. Katie followed on top rope.
We continued walking to Group Therapy, the 5.10c. I led it and I am happy to say that I was able to send it! I was pretty pumped again and had to take a long rest at one point, but I did it. I was pretty psyched! Katie followed on top rope.
We headed farther south to Spleef peak and Katie led Blue Spark 5.8 and then Master Marley 5.10a. I led both after her, and flashed both. Master Marley is one that I had really wanted to do, and I was happy to do it! The hardest part is the somewhat scary beginning, but once you gain the arete, it is smooth sailing.
We walked down to another route we wanted to do but it still felt wet and by now it was late in the afternoon. We decided to just head back to the car and get back to stl.
We left the next morning at 5:02, made it home around 4:30. 12.5 hours. Not bad. I really wish we had all the time we planned to climb. I feel like I could have done something harder but we didn't really have the time to try. At least we got to climb at all.
I feel for me as a bouldering trip it was not successful as I didn't do anything more difficult that I thought I should be able to do. As a sport climbing trip it was great though and a huge confidence boost. It made me think I should join the BRC or Movement instead of the Spot so I can sport climb also..
Despite not doing anything more difficult on the trip, I climbed in the garage yesterday and sent the left start to problem k, problem 2 in 2 tries, problem 4 in 2 tries, and problem 5 in 3 tries. I have been working on these for months now and was able to do them all in one day.

Winding up?

Well just a few days now until we leave for our vacation. I am not looking forward to the all day drive on sunday, but in the end it will be worth it. I did my last day of training at the gym last sunday and felt pretty good. I climbed yesterday in the garage and that will be it until we go to elephant rocks on monday.
Unfortunately, the weather is not looking very promising at this point with showers predicted monday and then wednesday through saturday. We are taking tuesday off to spend some time with friends and family. Hopefully things will stay dry enough. There are a few options at Jackson Falls for wet weather climbing though.
I am really excited and had some trouble falling asleep last night already. I woke up at 615 this morning from a strange dream involving pterodactyls and people being on fire. I was really thirsty and thinking about getting up when doggie came over and put his head on the bed. So I got up and fed him and here I am several hours later, still awake and TIRED.
Tomorrow I am going to be bottling my first batch of beer in 6 or 7 years! I am excited. Hopefully that way it should be about ready by the time we get back. I was worried I wasn't going to have enough bottles. I have been trying to bring some home from work, but it seems like most of the beer they do there is on tap. I was asking the bartender in the corner bar last night to set aside any bottles for me and a guy who works at the sushi place next door told me to go check out their recycling bins as they do alot of bottled beer.
Suffice it to say I am buried in bottles and I now know where I can get as many free bottles as I want. I think the next batch I make will be a fruit beer. I still fondly remember the raspberry stout I made. I may make that again.
Work has been up and down. Last weekend was pretty good moneywise. Yesterday I made 0, yes ZERO, dollars. My room service shifts have been so bad lately I am seriously considering just giving them up. I was going to look for another job first, but at this point I often feel like my time would be better spent hanging out with Katie or sitting on my ass at home or playing with the dog. After all, I can make just as much money doing any of those things.

Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo.

The good.
Sent the hardest problem I have ever done at the gym yesterday, graded a four plus. I have heard others say this grade is in the V6-7 range? Also flashed a four minus and did a four in a few tries.
Got my plane ticket to go visit my family and friends for christmas. I am super excited about this.
Only a week and three days until our vacation! I have a camcorder coming so we can make a little movie.
The bad.
Work yesterday. Walked with seven dollars, worked 6.5 hours.
Harley Davidson has decided to cease production of Buell motorcycles. Which means the bike I am hoping to get (used) in the spring is on super sale new. I have seen brand new going for in the 5000's with an msrp of 12000. Anyone want to loan me a few grand?
I have 1500 in real money saved plus 2500 in virtual money from selling two of my bicycles and my current motorcycle. Just not enough!
The ugly.
Gunner peed on some of Katies cd's the other night. We have taken him back to basic house training.
I am pretty sure the receiver is either going to need to be repaired if possible or is gone completely from a previous pee incident.

Obsession.

This is a climbing video that was seemingly recently released. It shows Rich Simpson preparing and talking about his repeat of the route Action Directe. The route is generally recognized as the world's first 9a. It was first climbed by Wolfgang Gullich in 1991 and has since seen ten additional ascents. That is a testament to it's true difficulty as the route is located in a fairly popular and populated area. Part of that would also be the specificity needed. The route involves alot of one to three finger pockets. In fact, this is the route that the campus board was invented for.
Anyway, here is a glimpse into the world of climbing and the never ending mission to climb harder.

Obsession from Chris Doyle on Vimeo.

So it goes.

I am in my final weeks of training before our trip. I feel like when I am rested I am climbing alot better, but I am rarely rested.
We went to Flagstaff on Wednesday and got on some of the problems we have been trying forever and had no luck on, and still had no luck on them. That was a bit disappointing. But we moved to another sector and I tried a problem that I had tried last spring that felt way hard. I think all I had ever done was the first move, a long reach up to a small two finger pocket used as a bump to a three finger pocket. I had never gotten to the three finger though. This time I did on my first try!
A few more attempts and I had hit the second to last hold, but not held it. Unfortunately this was at the end of several hours and my skin was pretty dead. I will save it for next time. It is a V5, and I think the hardest problem I had done outside was a V2, so that is inspiring. See number 5.

In other news, the new movie from Big Up is out. It's called Progression and it looks pretty good. I am just waiting for it to arrive!

I also saw a pretty good movie last week called JCVD. It stars Jean Claude Van Damme and it was fantastic. It was sort of a mockumentary style, with a washed up star heading back to Belgium to start over.

Unfortunately for some reason Gunner has been peeing in the house and peed on the dvd player and receiver. The display of the dvd player is messed up and the receiver is not working at all. ARGH!
I am thinking I am going to start home brewing again. There is a supply store right there in Boulder. I have been craving some cider lately and I didn't see any at my local liquor store, so I may have to take matters into my own hands! Even if I don't make cider, I think I will try my hand at brewing again. I did enjoy it. I wish I still had that glass carboy I left behind in Philly when I moved to Stl. I wish had kept more of the stuff I left behind. Ah well.
The weather has been getting colder. It was 70 on Wednesday. I doubt we made it much into the 40's yesterday and it snowed with no accumulation. Today the high should be near 60, but tonight it will turn cold again and we are predicted to get an inch or so of snow. Needless to say, I am taking the bus to work. I could probably deal with the cold ok, but I do not want to ride in snow!

Black maria