Lonely Online

I just realized I don't have anybody on my AIM list that climbs or knows what I'm talking about when I talk about climbing. Err, there's Andrew Cheung, but he hasn't really been into it and whenever we talk online it's usually about relationships/women. Anyways, it's lame! I talk so much to other climbers in the gym all the time.

Today was especially cool and packed for some reason. I met Nathan Fuerst again. We exchanged numbers a month ago but never got back to each other about climbing and he was in the gym today. He's pretty strong and climbs at about V5-V7 outdoors and at stone gardens, but at the UW gym he's humbled by V4, which is pretty encouraging. He said if I ever went out and climbed at other places I'd be 'pleasantly surprised.'

I've been climbing with these guys Brad and Jeff, both older grad students who have a few years of climbing under their belt. It kicks my ass everytime but I make much more progress and I'm getting much stronger because of it, feels good.

There's still some V2's I can't do for the life of me but I'm putting together a few V3's. I guess this means that I should be able to do V5 (at best) elsewhere. The current bar is V15 and V16, so let's see how far I can push it...

Teh

Sent Caveman Games, a V2/3 set by Glenn. Sent the 'walls of avalon', weird 5.9 route. Not much new.

I started projecting a V3 set by Alex spott, and I'm pretty close. I just have to connect all the moves. Took me a solid hour yesterday just to figure out the start, and one of the more experienced guys had to help me out on it.

Wilson and Andy are coming back soon. Should be fun to climb with them.

This summer I've probably been 'test dummy' in 6+ belay tests for various people. Basically when people get their belay tests done, they need a climber (me) to go up while one of the other guys tests their actual knowledge and watches their belay technique. I just go up and take some falls (on purpose) really.

Matt (the manager) knows my name and he's pretty relaxed with me. I think it's just cuz I go in all the time, one of maybe like 5 regular climbers during the summer quarter. I forgot my shoes once and had to rent some, and he let me have some chalk for free, etc etc. Small things like that.

It's nice, maybe I'll get a job there.

Exit 38 pics

Andres on 5.11a 'steep street', he actually did it. Ryland redpointed it to set up the top rope. I almost got past the crux, I really want to go back and give it another go.




















Me sending my first 5.10c - 'Open project'






















This is the insane bastard who was climbing with a broken leg. It was a 5.11 something too...god.





















Erika and I on 5.9's, way easier than they look.

That's the best of them, with me anyway. There's a ton of others, if you're seeing this you probably have my facebook and you can see them there anyway.

Climbing at Exit 38

Apparently the routes in the gym are 'sandbagged' as Chris puts it. It basically means that the routes in the UW gym are way harder than they're rated at. Erika, Andres, Kevin, Chris Ryland and I all went out to Exit 38 yesterday to get some outdoor climbing in. I flashed a lot of 5'9s, knife in the toaster, blockhead, had to take due to Chris's jynx on one of them. The first 9 was over at write-off rock, and then the rest were at 'we did it rock'. I even did a 5.10c (10+) that was called 'open project' in the book. The book is a little over 2 years old though, so it should have a name and stuff in the next edition. We stayed in deception crags area, then went down to substation.

We were in substation earlier practicing repelling on a 5.7 crack under this bridge, when we got there we decided it was far too crowded so we went on over to a wall called Nevermind. Ryland led a 5.11a for us to try. I almost got around the crux (which happened to be at the very start) but ran out of juice. Andres got it after a few tries, which was really inspiring.

There was a guy who had a broken leg in a cast and he was still climbing...he was actually doing well too which was both crazy and amazing.

There's a few new V2's I've been working on that I've managed to piece together most of the moves, but by the time I figured them out 3 hours in today I was just spent. I couldn't even repeat some of the warm-up problems I usually do, so I just took that as a sign to call it a day. I posted pics on facebook, but I suppose I'll post some here later.