Super Sick Slacklining! (say that 3 times fast! :)
Showing posts with label Climbing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Climbing. Show all posts
Feb 20, 2009
Feb 15, 2009
Free 'South Africa'
Check this crazy vid out. Have always heard that the winds
are horrendous down there, but this video shows it firsthand!
13 days on the wall.. amazing photos. Read more here:
Jan 17, 2009
i'm fat and i suck
it's definitely sucking!
The finger is pretty much on the road to healing up. Stitches come out next week, so figured there was no harm in finishing up work early on thurs for a ride. Beautiful day out! This was mine and Greg's first adventure into Mtn. Biking in the McDowells. Have been rockclimbing out there for years, but never just hiking that much, nor biking.
The climb up kicked my butt.
No other way to put it than I'm fat and outta shape. I love the feeling of being light, fast and strong, but I hate the pain, the starving yourself, the sacrifice to get there. Once you pass 40, the body just doesn't respond to training like it used to. I have to put in a full summers worth of road bike riding just to drop even 10lbs it seems!
When I first moved to Phoenix in 1990, I was a 25yr old tub O goo at 185lbs. I bought a Trek 1400, joined up with a local Cycling Club in the West Valley and started riding. By the time labor day of that year came around, I was back to what I weighed in High School (155lbs) and my thunder thighs from running (I ran the 200m/400m, long jump) had morphed into the svelte, shaved and spindly legs of a cyclist. My remote 'sorta girlfriend' at the time, came out to visit after that summer and was amazed at the transformation from March of 1990 to Sept 1990.
Of course, my calf muscles had atrophied to the point that I pulled the left one mowing the grass one Sat. but hey, we all have to make sacrifices :-)
Kept it off through the 1990's by throwing myself into rockclimbing. The company I worked for at the time (Honeywell) was far too inflexible with their 'flex' time to allow for enough training to become anything more than a Cat4 road racer, and I had started to tire of the whole 'roadie' mentality anyways. Climbing/hiking with 40lbs on your back nearly every weekend is a great way to stay in shape. Total body workout for sure! I touched 148lbs in 1997 after a two week hardcore trip to Wyoming, climbing in the Tetons, Wind River range, Devils Tower, and the Black Hills of SoDak. Lighter than I was in high school even.. oh why didnt I keep that momentum up!?
Job got more intense, promotions, responsibility, kids etc: and the weight slowly came back on.
165lbs that seems to be my set point okay fine.. that's only 15 over when I was 'hardcore'.. hey what happened? After the first pregnancy I was up to 170lbs! That second pregnancy is hell on the body I tell ya!
Jumped back on the road bike after it had sat in the closet for 12 years. What? there are triple cranks on the front now? 10speeds in back? STI? no more reaching for the downtube? Hmmmm.. Droped 5-8 lbs relatively quickly, but that just seemed to stoke the fat fire for the next round of inactivity. At the height of all my intense travel for work (to/from San Diego weekly) I was pushing 188lbs.
That's a great story problem for my 9 yr old. "If Tim weighed 148lbs in 1997 and now weighs 188lbs in 2008 what is the average weight gain per year?" Show your work and how you arrived at your answer!!!
Made it through the holidays at 178lbs and holding.. maybe there *is* hope afterall!?
Back on the bike.. but I find that I like road riding less and less these days. It seems.. well uh, like a 'workout' (kind of like how I really got burned out on running after all those years of track and field?)
So, I need to get on the Mtn Bike and grind...
Thursday *was* a grind. Of course the two slices of Ray's pizza (I *LOVE* pizza) didnt help!?
Nov 1, 2008
Speed Climbing El Cap & Celebrating the 50th Anniv. of the first Ascent
This is insane! Back in 2001, Greg and I went to Yosemite with all intentions of doing the big-wall thing on 'The Nose' route of El Capitan in Yosemite. We were going first as film/support crew for our friends Bill and Tom in their quest for a 'Nose in a Day'.
The plan was for Greg and I to spend an afternoon fixing our ropes to Sickle Ledge, then return to the ground. The day after Bill and Tom finished up, we'd pack our things, hit our fixed ropes and do a more traditional 2.5 day ascent with Bill as a team of three.
It took Greg and I nearly 6 hours to get to Sickle Ledge. In short, we sucked! (the fitness level you need to be in to make even a multi-day ascent possible is really something) You see the Huber brothers get there in minutes in this video. Now I'm sure it is time compressed somewhat, but probably not much, given that the current record for this climb is like 2 hours and 40+ minutes!
After fixing our lines and sleeping on it overnight, we bailed, deciding we weren't
ready (fast enough) since it had taken us 6 hours to climb roughly one 'sixth' of the
route! (we really wanted to be in the 4 hour or less range)Instead, we spent the rest of
the trip enjoying some of the nice, long Yosemite classic free climbs instead.
Check out Han's site here for the latest on his recent record setting climb.
Oct 19, 2008
Climbing report: Granite Mountain, Prescott AZ
My friend Greg and I headed up to Granite Mountain (Prescott, AZ) yesterday.
If you haven't climbed in nearly a year, this is not necessarily the
best idea as this place is known for some pretty hard climbing.
Not letting that stand in the way of a bit of adventure,(what
was I thinking?) I agreed when he asked about rockclimbing on Saturday.
The route objective was Witblitz. Greg hadn't climbed it yet and wanted to get
on a new route up there.
Hike in was the usual 'sweat fest' and we parked our packs in
the usual place and suited up for the climb.
The first thing I noticed was that my shoes felt about 3 sizes too
small! Ouch... cramming your feet back into climbing shoes
after taking a year off is no fun! Second, I had forgotten a
bandana or sweat band. The climbing helmet channels the sweat
right down into your eyes.. Uuuugh! It's gonna be a great day! ;-)
Climbing ensued once we thrashed our way over to the base of
the route. The first pitches were really nice actually! 
The middle two pitches were all business, and thankfully, I
got to enjoy them from the end of a 'top rope' since I was
seconding the climb.
No Granite Mtn. route is complete without some hardcore
5.8 old school wide crack climbing, and this one had a nice
helping after the crux? pitch. 
Keeping the 'trad' theme going we opted for the walk off
In climbing shoes, this was appropriate, no sense in ending
the pain too early! :-)
Thrash back to the main trail.. avoid cacti, ow! is that my
left foot cramping up!? hello ground! (as my feet fly out
from under me) sheesh, are we back to the car yet?
I've got to get out more often, this isnt a once per year
sport! :-)
(Full Flickr Photoset Here)
Oct 18, 2008
Yosemite 2008!
We're back from the fall camping trip to Yosemite Valley.
The boys had a great time, made some new friends and got
lots of hiking and exploring in. While there, we heard the
rockfall from Glacier Point (above Curry Village)
Sounded like the trash truck was up early that morning
(6:45am or so?) but then it kept going, and you could hear
the rushing sound (wind) after the main thunder sound went
away. We were camped all the way at the far end of Upper Pines
(about 200yards from the Happy Isles trail head area. My
thoughts immediately went back to the 1996 rockfall that wiped out
that area, and how close we were camped to that spot, then the 1999 rockfall that took the life of a young climber. Yikes!
Rockfall photos:
Photos from the trip:
Mar 13, 2008
Baselining
The new 'Extreme' sport.. looks pretty friggin extreme to me. A combination of slacklining and BASE jumping. I'll stick to tamer stuff like rockclimbing, mtnbiking, skiing, and 'extreme' engineering thank you! :-)
Oct 11, 2007
Sep 30, 2007
Squeezing the Lemmon
It's in the bag.. 4hours of riding, and 7600+ feet of climbing later we made it. Whew.. bring on Mtb Season!
Apr 9, 2007
Sun, Wind, Sand, Sky
Taken from the bottom of the first rappel station on 'The Mace' (a rockclimb) in Sedona, AZ The sun was just starting to head down over the horizon, and lit the sandstone up with 'alpenglow' No retouching was done on this pic. Only cropped in Photoshop
Apr 5, 2007
Apr 3, 2007
The Mace 50yrs later!
50th anniversary celebration of the first ascent of The Mace
First climbed by T.M Herbert, Bob Kamps and Dave Rearick in the 50's
Some video from this past Sunday's event.
Here are some more links for you. Additonal Photos and writeups of the event and various other Mace trip reports.
Tom Grundy's Mace 50th Anniversary Shindig Page
CascadeClimbers.com: Eriks TR: 50th Anniversary Party on The Mace!
The Sedona Spire Challenge
Another Mace TR
Mar 27, 2007
Mar 17, 2007
Partywall! - Google Video
The "PartyWall" A great video of what its like to climb a yosemite bigwall
Mar 16, 2007
Mar 8, 2007
Mt. Hayden Summit!
Greg, Scott and I on the summit (a year later than the previous photo!)
What A View!
What A View!
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