Big Changes...

So a lot of big changes have happened and it looks like there are a lot more on the horizon. First, Nancy (my girlfriend of 5 years) and I broke up. Which was a big shock to me... Now, I'm struggling with what to do with my self and who I am with out her. For awhile now I have seen us settling down in Atlanta and starting a life here but it seems that that is not the case and I have a lot of opportunities ahead of me.

One thing that is nice but weird at the same time is I no longer have to consider another person when planning anything; where it is day to day life or a big trip 6 months from now. So with that new found freedom I am going to Yosemite Valley this Wednesday and then starting to make plans to move west once I get back.

Packing shit show....

So Yosemite, such a great place... but flying out there SUCKS!!! First the stupid restrictions on check baggage is ridiculous, and flying with an small big wall rack doesn't make anything easier. Second, the damn series of trains planes and automobiles needed to get from Atlanta to Yosemite Valley is a preposterous epic shit show. It even involves a bivy in an airport. My sister actually leaves for Italy the same day and will arrive in Rome before I get to Yosemite Valley, freaking ridiculous.

I'm meeting my good friend APL (apple) out there and our big goal is to free Freerider (5.12d) on El Cap. This would be by far the biggest, hardest and best accomplishment of our climbing careers to this point. I'm both really excited and nervous about Freerider, I've been climbing hard enough, atleast on paper, to say I can redpoint all the pitches on this thing but actually doing it is another issue all together.... I guess we'll see shortly.

Well, that's it for now... Big trip, Big Break-up and wide open future.....

And so it begins...

So this is it, my last beer before I start my 7 week training schedule in preparation for the valley. A New Belgium Ranger, a great IPA, I highly suggest it. I feel stronger on routes then I've ever felt before and am really psyched to go and try as hard as I can in Yosemite. I've been out there twice now and am so inspired by the climbs the surrounding and the people who are pushing their limits. Over the last few month I've had a number of outside trips, including a week long trip to The New, where I worked the greatest show and feel that it could very possibly go this fall; I can't explain how excited I am about that.

But back to the point....the valley and training. So I'm planning on breaking the next 6 weeks up into 3 - 2 week cycles. each getting more intense then the last and the 7th week will be a recovery week, hopefully allowing me to preform once in the valley.

So weeks 1 and 2 should look something like this....

Sunday - Climbing (trip outside)

Monday - Run 3 miles

Tuesday - Climbing (15 routes and 15 boulders >V5), Core and Campus 45min.

Wednesday - Run 3 miles, Climbing (15 routes and 15 boulders >V5), Core

Thursday - Climbing (15 routes and 15 boulders >V5), Core and Campus 45min.

Friday - Run 3 miles

Saturday - Climbing (trip outside)

So we'll see how it goes... hopefully week one goes well and week 2 should be great so week 3 can get harder....

Let's try this blogging thing again....

SO..........last time I posted something I talked about going to The New and Seneca for several weeks and posting stuff from the road, and getting on all these awesome climbs etc. etc. Obviously posting anything was a big lie, as I suck at posting stuff on here.

The trip turned out to be a giant shit show.... instead of 5 weeks i was only out 3. I never went to Seneca, and stayed at the New. I got shut down HARD on the Greatest Show and it also rained almost everyday I of the trip. To top it all off I had to fight a shoulder/pectoral injury. On the bright side I got to hang out with some great people and friends and really enjoyed being back at the New, even if the climbing was a bust.

Since last August, I have left Chicago and Nancy and I moved down to Atlanta, so she can go to grad school at Emory. Being down here has been great! I'm 2-3 hours from dozens of climbing areas, you can climb almost all year around, even the summer if you can deal with the heat. We have a nice apartment and I've found a great crew of people to climb with on a regular basis.

I finished out 2010 by not really having accomplished any of my goals in climbing. A fact that hit me pretty hard and definitely lit a fire under me. My motivation for the most part is super high and I'm working on training as hard as I can. 2011 has been a great year for me so far, I sent my hardest boulder, routes, and even am really close to red-point in a day a multi-pitch route I've been eying up for years. All of this makes me want to train even harder. I'm in a really great cycle right now.

As the season goes on I really want to keep posting and probably put up some pictures to go along with the posts. Well, thats all for now....

It's Been A While....

So, I'm noticing that I really am not great at keeping up with these posts. Its been over a year and a lot has happened in life. I'm still stuck in the flat lands but am getting ready to move to Atlanta, which is a change I welcome with open arms. It's not that Chicago has been a horrible place to live, it's actually a very nice city, but I find myself stuck in the city and not being able to make it out to open spaces enough. So Atlanta will be better since I have more access to plenty of climbing and open spaces in the Smokey Mountains. Just gotta hold out till August.

Since moving to Chicago, I've worked as everything from a person moving boxes around a law firm (literally) to a line cook and most recently a sales associate at Moosejaw Mountaineering. Moosejaw is a small but growing version of REI, it does have its draw backs but I am able to travel for weeks at a time when the opportunity strikes and still have a job, so I won't complain.

I was just in Baltimore to compete in the first big comp in my short climbing career, The Earth Treks Roc Comp. Even though I didn't do fantastic, I'm happy with my climbing and where I placed. It really helped me gauge where I stand against the big names and how much work I need to put in to be as strong as the people we read about in the climbing magazines.

On a different note, I head out Friday for about 3 weeks on a climbing trip!!!! I'll be at the New River Gorge for roughly 2 weeks, then Seneca Rocks for a week. I'm PSYCHED!!! First I haven't been outside since, October, which is way too long. Second, I'm feeling strong, probably the strongest I've ever felt so I'm excited to see what happens. I have a long laundry list of goals for both the New and Seneca, which include, The Greatest Show (New) and Nightmare (Seneca).

We'll see what happens and I'll post some pics and updates from the road.

Well, thats about it and I need to get going...... Ciao

Catching Up.....

So, its been a while since my last post but I wanted to get back in the swing of things. Over the last few months I did a good bit of climbing, down at the New, the Red and I took a trip to Yosemite Valley which was pretty awesome. I also moved....

So the trips to the New have been pretty standard, sent some cool climbs and still have a lot of open projects. But the most exciting trip was to Yosemite. I met up with my buddy Apl, the first week of October and we had a great trip. The first day we tried to climb the Nose on El Capitan but regrettably had to bail.

After that we took a few days just cragging, bouldering and hangin around camp 4. Then we decided to attempt a one day ascent of the Regular route on Half Dome. This really isn't a big deal but for the 2 of us who had yet to climb a grade VI wall let alone in do it in a day.

The day before our ascent attempt we hiked up the death slabs to the base of the wall, this was a long 4 hour hike with very heavy packs. Once at the base we set up our bivy, eat and go to bed in the dark. The next morning we woke up around 5am and started up the route. We were definitely moving slower then we wanted but we were making progress. Within a few pitches of the top the temp. dropped and the wind started to pickup. We topped out around 9 pm and within a half hour it started to rain/snow (kind of a wintery mix). The two of us packed our stuff up as fast as we could and started looking for the cables. It took way to long to find these cables, probably about an hour maybe a little longer. Then once we got down the cables and made it to what is called "the saddle" it took another hour to find the stairs. Normally, it shouldn't take so long to get down but the top of Half Dome was covered in a dense fog that cut visibility down to about 15 feet, not good.

Anyway, eventually we got down and back to the bivy. The next day we hiked to hikers trail and went to an all you can eat buffet. The rest of the trip was pretty relaxing and we headed home.

A few weekends later I met back up with Apl and did some climbing at the Red and Seneca. All in all it was a pretty good end of the season.

As for the rest of life, I just moved to Chicago and got a job working as an office peon moving boxes and stuff. It's a very easy and boring job but it pays ok and is going to help me save for more climbing trips.

I'll need to post more later but that is what has been going on the last few months.

New River Gorge Trip Report….

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Trip Reports....

So it’s been about a month and a half since I last wrote anything for this little blog I started and with the climbing season under way I guess I could but a few trip reports on here.

Seneca Rocks….

About a month ago I went to Seneca Rocks in West Virginia with Sarah Albani, Alowishish Leap (Apple) and Mike Yosko. Sarah and I drove down from Pittsburgh on Friday night camped out and got up Sunday morning to head to the rocks. We hiked up to Ecstasy (5.7) and elected to wait for a party to move on so we could climb this instead of hiking the entire approach; in retrospect a bad decision. We wasted a good 2 hours waiting for the party a head of us before Sarah could lead the first pitch. Once up to the first belay Sarah brought me up and I elected to lead Ecstasy Escape and was hoping to link it with the second pitch of The Burn (5.8), which is rarely done. I quickly found myself off route in a lichen covered part of the face, carrying a 25 lbs. pack and definitely lacking in good gear placements. After a few sketchy minutes I was able to top out and bring Sarah up and move on to the main objectives for the day. We headed over to the Crack of Dawn area where I lead Cottonmouth (5.10a) and linked it with Venom (5.10b); these are two stellar climbs of people climbing at the grade. Sarah was supposed to lead Marshall’s Madness (5.9) into Crack of Dawn (5.10) but elected not to because it looked like weather might be rolling down the valley. So, I decided to lead the first pitch of Sidewinder (5.11a). With the wind starting to kick up and rain on the far side of the valley there was a feeling of intensity that I usually don’t get at Seneca. Fortunately, the rain held off and all went well.

That evening we met up with Apple and Mike and hung out at the Cinco de Mayo party, which had free Mexican food and plenty of beer. Eventually after having our fill we crashed….

The next morning we hiked to the east face of the south peak and climbed in that area for the day. After warming up on Castor and Pollux (both 5.10a), Sarah and I went up to Orange Aid (5.10b). After a few minutes of Sarah getting nervous she finally jumped on it and got the onsight. We rapped to the base and I went and lead Nip and Tuck (5.10c) and Apple and I ended the day with Spock’s Brain (5.11a).

The New River Gorge….

After a few weeks of no trips Sarah and I took a trip to The New on Memorial Day weekend, as usual we left Friday night and climbed Saturday, Sunday and Monday. We headed to Endless wall on Saturday and went to the Fantasy Crack area. We warmed up on Fantasy (5.8) and the got on Aesthetica (5.11c), both are stellar climbs. I attempted Erotica (5.12a) and worked out all the moves but because of the way it is bolted I’m a little hesitant to get back on it until I’m stronger at the grade. We headed down to Leave it to Jesus (5.11c/d) and I hung my way up this climb as well. With a little more endurance I feel that I can send but right now I just don’t have it. Last climb of the day we got on Jesus and Tequila (5.12b), needless to say…no dice, this climb is hard!

On Sunday we went out to Beauty Mountain, which is becoming on of my favorite crags at The New. First climb of the day was Welcome to Beauty (5.11b), which is a stellar line and one of the classics at the area. We proceeded to go to Burning Calves (5.10b?) which Sarah onsighted. Then I worked Grace Note (5.12b), I think this will go down with a little more work. And finally I got on Steve Martin Face (5.11c) which was not a good way to end the day. The lead was heady and I was placing poor pro…I definitely need to redeem myself after that debacle.

On Monday, we had a short day at Summersville Lake and climbed at Long Wall for the morning. We climbed several 5.9 and 5.10 then got on Under the Milky Way (5.11d) which was stellar.

Coopers….

Chad Hume, Sarah Albani and I all took a trip to Cooper’s Rocks one Sunday in May. If you don’t know about Coopers it’s a pretty cool little state park nestled just out side of Morgantown, WV. The rock there is pretty awesome and offers a great amount of bouldering. We got there late afternoon with and headed to the Coral Area, Coral is a climb that Chad is pretty psyched about working. We warmed up on 2 V2’s and a V4 across the way from Coral, I’m not sure what they are called but they’re pretty decent. Then we headed over to Coral (V7), this thing is pretty hard. We worked out the first few moves and the kept getting shut down on a big move up and right. After a number of attempts we started power spotting each other and pretty much determined that this climb is going to require crap tons of core strength…so we moved on for the day after working it pretty good. Then we headed over to a boulder called Crash and Burn (V5) which went down after a number of goes. Finally, to end the day we went over to Tilted Tree Area and tried to send The Bulge (V5) but…no dice.

The New…..

So last Trip Report for this post…. I just got back from The New with Chad Hume and Eric Schenfeld. We got down to The Rocky Top Retreat (Roger’s) around midnight, set up the tent and crashed. We woke up around 6am on Saturday and headed down to Fern Buttress. At fern we jumped on a The Chameleon (5.10a) to warm up and then ticked off Fly Girls (5.12a). We jumped on Wild Seed (5.11a), which was stellar and fixed a line to snap some photos. Then Chad and I climbed Muscle Belly (5.11c) while Eric graciously snapped some shots. After that I ended the day by trying Portly Gentlemen’s Route (5.12c) and needless to say…no dice. This route is awesome and really stout. It follows a nice crack into a dihedral and the out a roof, all relatively moderate 5.11 climbing. Then you need to pull the roof on to a face with a thin finger crack, which I couldn’t figure out, so I aided up and Chad cleaned the route on top rope. I really think this can go down pretty soon, and that I should have the strength to pull the moves once I figure them out. It really seems that on the harder grades where I’m really pushing it that I have a hard time figuring out the new movement….who knows but it’ll go down.

Saturday night we cooked at Roger’s and hung out on the porch with a few people we met; then crashed pretty early.

Sunday, after a groggy start we headed to the lake. We hiked in down to Orange Oswald Wall and climbed Orange Oswald (5.10a) and Voodoo Surfer (5.10b). I was really psyched to get on Narcissist (5.12a) but surprisingly it was dripping wet, so instead we went over to do Under the Milky Way (5.11d). Then headed to the Coliseum and Chad and I jumped on Apollo Reed (5.13a). I made it to the 4^th bolt clean and the hung at the 5^th to make my high point at the 6^th bolt (of 11 or 12). I think the crux is right after the 6^th bolt but and hopefully I can pull the move next time. After that we jumped in the lake and headed home.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to post trip reports more often now and they won’t be this long. But we’ll see….

Ciao

A Few Weeks Ago....

So I actually wrote this a few weeks ago but never got around to posting it. Hopefully I'll be more diligent in the coming months, since it is climbing season....

The other night I watched "Into the Wild" and was completely captivated by the story and by Chris McCandless. Even though we come from different back grounds and different eras I feel we shared a lot of ideals and views on the world and of society. It has also made me think a lot about life and what I want to do with it, I'm still not sure on work but living a simple life with less is definitely appealing to me.

For the past year I really cut back on my consumption habits and have been trying to buy and use only the things that I need, rather then want, and I'm without a doubt much happier then I was when I was trying to have the coolest gadgets and gizmos. It's much less stressful and if it weren't for my student loans I would be able to go do what I want, (climb). I can't wrap my head around why, as a society, we feel that we need to have more shit and useless junk then we can use, or how we even came to be this way. The whole world has this problem but it seems to be even more evident in America. We eat more then needed, which causes obesity, use more then we should which creates a shortage of resources and feel we are entitled to have everything and anything we want. It's really amazing how we just blindly take and take and take with out ever thinking of the consequences of our actions, especially for parents. How do parents consume the mass quantities of goods available, and never think what kind of world they are creating for their kids.

I also can't wrap my head around how and why individuals treat each other with such disrespect and disregard. You see it on the street when driving and one person flicks another off or they are laying on the horn of their car in a fit of road rage. I've heard it with people talking about the war in Iraq and how the place should be nuked, with no regard for the innocent children or the farmer trying to raise his family.

I drives me insane sitting at work listen to co-workers talk about how America should construct a fence around the boarder to keep all immigrants out, as if they have a God given right to determine who belongs on this soil. How easy it is for us to forget the heinous acts that our founding fathers committed to claim this land; that we are only the 5^th and 6^th generation at most.

There are many times I feel trapped, trapped in my job and in Pittsburgh, afraid that I won't escape and be free to travel. I just hope that my distain for this job and the front I have to put on while I'm here will help push me to leave once my debt is gone. Until then I just have to make it though each week till I can go climbing on the weekend.

And speaking of climbing, I'm going to the New River Gorge this weekend for the first trip of the season and I am psyched. I just started climbing about 3 weeks ago after being off for 2 months because of a strained A2 pulley. I can not wait to get out there and send.

Well, I guess that's my little rant for today……….Peace

Just An Update....

Well, it’s been a bit since my last post and a few interesting things have happened.

I recently had an interview with BD but unfortunately was turned down; I’m pretty bummed because it would have been a sweet gig. I guess for now I need to keep looking and just make do with the crappy job I’m doing right now. At least, I’ll be around to do a few of my projects hear on the east coast this spring and summer if I don’t find gainful employment out west.

I also only have ~2 weeks till I can climb again and I’m getting pretty stoked about that and also slightly anxious. Back in the last week of January I partially ruptured one of my A2 pulleys and have been out of the game for 6 weeks now. The time off has really given me time to think about a lot of things and I’m really starting to realize that climbing and the life style associated with it will always be a big part of me regardless of where life takes me. I was really starting to wonder if this obsession with climbing was a little like a high school kid “falling in love” (just a phase) but I really think that it is who/what I am. I can even remember being 15 and having climbing magazines that I would flip through and wish I could learn how to climb. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the stones to just go and learn until I was 21 and in college.

One of my most memorable vacations involved climbing also, it was a family trip to Yosemite National Park. I was 16 and my parents let me go on a guided trip! I climbed at swan slab and TR’ed a 5.9 called Lena’s Lie Back. And I also remember driving in a truck with the guide, looking up at El Cap and being awe struck by this rock face that people climb, and even more in awe that the guide I was with climbed it! It seems silly now, especially that I’m confident I could climb The Nose, but that memory and the feelings that I associate with it are definitely a large part of my love for climbing. It was the same when a friend and I were at the Looking Glass in NC; although I wasn’t awe struck by the impossibility of climbing the granite dome, I was awe struck by the beauty of the surroundings. There is so much beauty left in the world and it can be inspiring, it’s just hard to find some days with all the negative events that surrounds us in daily life.

I’ve also been working on a couple of ideas on how to keep doing what I love, climbing, and yet still work. I few friends of mine were thinking about opening a climbing gym but I’m still not sold on the idea yet. I have been looking into making climbing holds and I’m pretty sure that this is a great idea. We’ll see how it goes but I’m pretty amp’d to try this the materials should come in today or tomorrow.

Finally, I started working at a local gear shop last Wednesday which is sweet and will hopefully help me get a job with BD, Petzl or another climbing company someday.

That’s pretty much everything that has been happening in my life for the last several weeks, kinda sad it isn’t more exciting…. Oh well.

Conservacion Patagonica

I’ve always been a person who wants to see a lot of change in the world, but have fallen victim to the nagging voice in my head saying ‘your only one person what can you really do.’ Hopefully this past weekend was a break in that line of thinking for me; it was the first time I saw a charitable event I thought of actually happen, and I’m pretty amp’d how it went down.

A few months ago, around late November ‘07, I came up with this idea to hold a bouldering competition that would benefit a group called Conservacion Patagonica*. I don’t know what made me want to organize such an event, whether it was insanity from the crappy winter weather, that Pittsburgh is known for, or being stuck at a crappy job and not climbing enough, but either way one rainy Pittsburgh day the idea popped into my head and I ran with it.

My good friend Todd and I pitched the idea to the coordinator at the University of Pittsburgh’s climbing gym and he went for it, we were on our way. I was stoked, full of energy we compiled a list of all the companies we could think of, and sent letters requesting donations to each. The response we got was great! BD, Metolius, Trango, Patagonia, Sterling, Climb On, Evolv, Organic, Urban Climber, Climbing Mag, and a local retailer Exkursion all jump on board.

After a lot of planning and setting the event went off more or less with out a hitch, it was pretty sweet to see something I had conceived a few months ago actually happen. In the end we ended up raining $1215.00 dollars for Conservacion Patagonica; not a bad chunk of change.

Hopefully, in the future I’ll have the motivation to participate in more events that support a good cause; there sure are plenty of them out there. One I’m really psyched on is called “Climb Up So Kids Can Grow Up.”

And I guess, even though we can't see the positive effects of our actions on the world all the time, every little bit helps change the world slowly but surely.

*Conservacion Patagonica is dedicated to “preserving intact ecosystems by acquiring and protecting privately owned wild lands, and returning these landholdings to the public domain for permanent protection in the form of national parks or reserves”

Sometimes Life Gets In The Way.....

I grew up in a suburb about 45 minutes north of Philadelphia, in retrospect a decent place to grow up, not great but it was safe and gave me plenty of space to roam and play. My biggest complaint growing up was that it was boring, if you didn’t have a car something as simple as going to the mall wasn’t going to happen. I was always seeking the next big adventure maybe it was because I had an over active imagination and watched one too many Indiana Jones Movies, who know? All I can say is I wanted adventure and my nice cozy suburb wasn’t doing it!

Don’t get me wrong, my friends and I had some great times, but I wanted more; more places to travel, more exciting things to do, more adventure! When it finally came time to go off to college I wanted to get out of that town, run off to a city….I ended up going to University of Pittsburgh. Not a bad city, I was finally in a place where things happened; “things” being anything, it didn’t matter, as long as there was more then cookie cutter houses. I also knew, for sure, I wanted to go into finance; I wanted to work on Wall Street, there was no doubt in my mind. But in between my junior year in school and now something changed, I changed, my out look on life changed.

My junior year, I learned to rock climb, and I fell in love with the sport, the places it took me and the community that goes hand in hand with the sport. Now, two and a half years later I’m sitting here, in a cubicle, at a job I couldn’t care less about wishing I could be climbing, and if I’m not climbing, I want to be working in the outdoor industry, where it seems people realize there are things that are more important then the almighty dollar.

My point with this ridiculously long analysis of my life, a life I feel is pretty par for the course, is that something must be fundamentally wrong with the system we’ve created; at least it seems that way to me.

We live in a system where you go to school for 12 years until you’re 18, then you get shipped off to college. In college you get schooled more and most of us accrue astronomical amounts of debit. Sure, college life does lend itself to personal development and grow but more and more students are expected to have internships every summer and participate in extra curricular activities; basically, using their free time to prepare for ‘real’ life, as if they are living a fake one. Finally, graduation day and you’re expected to start a job, or if you’re lucky your career. We work 9 am to 5pm everyday, 5 days a week, until we’re 65 and retire, maybe taking 2 or 3 weeks every year for a vacation. No where in the average life do we really get a chance to discover who we are and what we love, most people are stuck in the ‘rat race’, trying to get to that proverbial ‘pot of gold’ at the end of the rainbow.

Now, 23 and having a quarter life crisis, I realize that all those cliché quotes like “all that glitters is not gold” are more true then I ever could have guessed. Hopefully, once the debt I have amassed from college is gone I can go and do what I love, climbing rocks. And maybe with a little luck I’ll discover a profession that will allow me to interact with the climbing community while earning a pretty penny.

Until then I’ll just have to deal with the fact that in the system we live in sometimes life gets in the way of living……

Cheers,

CMT

“If you’re too focused on the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, you might just miss the rainbow.”

-CBS Sunday Morning, “Fast Draw: Money Matters” Josh Landis and Mitch Butler. 02/18/08.