After the written word the internet may be the greatest communication tool ever invented. It has made it possible to drop a line to a complete stranger halfway across the world as easy as if you were asking your buddy to pass you a beer.
I just got an email from Sophie Denis, a French climber, telling me about the new routes her and her partner Beto Pinto were putting up in Peru. In a recent seven day trip Sophie and Beto put up three new routes in the Central Range of Peru. They put up the North Face of Suiricocha (5,495m), West Face of Manon Dos (5,500m), and the West Face of Vicunita (5,538m). That’s a pretty good week in my opinion.
If you’re feeling a bit uninspired, check out her blog and get a shot of motivation. FollowTheClimb.blogspot.com
I recently found the treasure trove of beta called Clint Cummins. This guy has been absolutely everywhere and has documented everything. He compiled a guidebook to Index in 1993 and is freely distributing it on his website. That kind of generosity is truly amazing.
On his website the topo’s are scanned page by page and he has posted quite a few of them. I wanted to print them out and instead of doing it one by one I combined them into a few PDFs. While my 30 minutes of work pales in comparison to the work Clint did I’m sharing them with you for your printing ease.
Seriously though, check out Clint’s site. The amount of info there is staggering. (site)
I hate to admit this but climbing at the gym has grown on me. Actually, nix that, bouldering at the gym has grown on me. A year ago that would have been an unspeakable thought but now I’ve learned to appreciate bouldering in the gym for what it is.
Since moving to Seattle I have been going to Stone Gardens on a semi-regular basis. One of the unfortunate side effects of moving to a new city is that I didn’t have a go to climbing partner. That has since been remedied but at first I was flying solo so to speak. Without a belayer I took up bouldering.
In the beginning it was rough. I would thrash and dangle on the easiest of V0′s and my forearms would pump out on even the slightest of overhangs. On the all day climbs in North Carolina my Mythos performed wonderfully but on the plastic of the gym my feet wouldn’t stick like they had on the east coast. It would’ve been easy to blame it on the rubber or the slippery holds but I knew better.
It was frustrating but it all changed the instant I learned the drop knee. When that happened everything just clicked. Soon enough I was keeping my weight over my legs. I could take the time to place my feet instead of thrash for holds. I was making progress and though it wasn’t the same as looking down on the birds on a long route in NC, it was fun.
Now that the weather is starting to turn in Seattle I am getting outside more. The single pitch stuff I’ve been doing hasn’t been fantastic but I find myself ho-humming up 5.9′s, dancing up easier 5.10 friction, and even sinking gear in a splitter 5.8 in marginal weather a couple of weeks ago. Even though these are moderate achievements, they are half past amazing for me considering a year ago I was barely sketching up 5.7.
Bouldering in the gym has allowed me to break through a barrier in my progression as a climber. Not only am I stronger but I have learned how to move, how to balance and how to visualize the sequence. In a couple of years I’d like to be able to TR 5.11d, I’d like to lead 5.10c and I’d like to be confident that I can pull through the bouldery crux thirty feet above my last piece of pro. Maybe I’ll get there, maybe I won’t. What I do know is that without the gym I’ll never get there only climbing two weekends a month.
A nifty little video on how to thread an Ablakov v-thread when you don’t have your stupidly expensive v-threader tool or if you’re like me, you forgot your piece of hanger wire. I like little tips like this that make my life easier. Thanks Mike Barter.
Sometimes climbing a peak is just meant to be. This week, it seemed that every time I got close to climbing the Triple Couloirs on Dragontail Peak something would derail my plans, and yet it all worked out in the end. Funny how that happens sometimes.
I’ll spare you the happenstance that led up to the climb but the night before while I was talking it over with the two partners I came with, I decided that I was going to climb Colchuck Peak instead of the Triple Couloirs on Dragontail with them. The three of us had been bouncing around the state all week trying to get some climbing in and we had been thwarted everywhere we went.
I won’t speak for Charlotte and David but I was kind of bummed that we hadn’t summited anything and I figured that with a committing climb like the Triple Couloirs it made the most sense to have a faster two person team instead of three. I needed a win, they needed a win and while I was bummed about giving up Dragontail, at least I would summit something.
They next morning I brewed some water and prepped to climb Colchuck Peak. I had watched David and Charlotte leave about an hour earlier for their far more committing climb and now they were just dots at the base of the first couloir. As I sorted out the little gear I would need, a fellow who would soon be my climbing partner wandered over. I had briefly talked to Aaron on the hike in to Colchuck Lake and he knew of my plans to head up the Triple Couloirs. After explaining about his partner’s footwear malfunction he asked if I wanted to rope up for a go at Dragontail. It was a no thought needed decision and an hour later we were at the base of the first couloir.
Now for the actual trip report. The snow on Dragontail was purported to be phenomenal. I can attest that on March 27th it was just about as perfect as perfect comes. Unfortunately we weren’t the only people that knew about the amazing conditions and the route was overrun by four parties and a soloist.
The first couloir was a conga line with everyone following the kicked steps of the leader. The snow was sinker and it was like climbing a ladder all the way to the runnels.
The runnels were dry but Charlotte and David wanted to take a looksey just in case there was some fun dry tooling to be had. The rest of the train continued up to the “5.8 variation” with a short rappel into the second couloir. I put quotes on “5.8 variation” because it was covered in the same amazing snow that the first couloir was and was no more difficult.
The hardest part of the variation was not that the anchor was creaky or that the tat had seen better days but rather the fact that the rappel was a bottleneck and all forward progress halted. I was the last in line and by the time I got down the short rappel my toes were half frozen, though my hands were toasty warm in my new BD Guides that I got a wicked awesome deal on.
After the rappel there was a short ice step that was pretty beaten up from the thwunks of countless tools. There wasn’t much rock pro to be had and the ice was on the thin side but Aaron found a bomber #1 camalot. He easily dispatched the ice step and we began swinging leads up the second couloir, though I should say swinging leads is kind of misleading because we weren’t placing pro and were following amazing kicked steps.
As we reached the top of the second couloir Aaron moved out of sight and slowed down. He had been cruising up the kicked steps so I really didn’t think much of it. When I rounded the corner on the second couloir I saw that he had built an anchor and I was being belayed properly.
The reason he built the belay was because between us was a tricky traverse which called for a bit of dry tooling and ginger steps in the snow. It wasn’t hard but it wasn’t easy either. When I got to the belay he told me to continue on. Since I had almost no pro on my harness I asked what I was going to need for the second crux at the top of the second couloir. He laughed and told me that that attention grabbing part was the second crux.
We unroped for the third couloir and even though I felt a little exposed the snow was in such great shape that I think it would have been more dangerous to be roped up and moving slower.
There is not much more to tell about the route. I feel a little cheated in how simply it went. There was nothing epic about it because the conditions were perfect. Don’t take the Triple Couloirs lightly but if it is in good shape it is a great climb.
Round trip from Colchuck Lake it took about 7 hours. Aaron brought a light rack which was a set of camalots, a set of nuts, a few blades and two pickets. David brought a brand new ice piton which is now fixed somewhere in the second couloir. Those ice pitons are scary looking but apparently they work really well.
There is a lot of talk about using CrossFit as training for mountain climbing. Some people swear that CrossFit is the ultimate training for mountaineering and based on their enthusiasm that is almost fanaticism, I’d have to CrossFit intrigued me.
I am guessing if you’re reading this you know a thing or two about CrossFit. If you haven’t heard about it the ten second run down is you train for functional fitness by doing full body exercises at a no holds barred pace. A typical work out goes something like this:
5 box jumps
5 dumbbell squats
5 burpees
5 medicine ball slams
repeat for 20 minutes
While that may sound easy, it is most definitely not. The key to CrossFit is going at 100% the entire time and that intensity is what makes it tremendously difficult.
My climbing partner has been doing CrossFit for a while. I was intrigued by the following of the program so I tagged along. I knew what I was getting in to but I didn’t fully comprehend what was about to happen.
Upon arriving at Northwest Crossfit in Seattle I was given the run down of what the workout was going to consist of. Very conveniently the typical workout from above was the demo workout they had planned. The trainer led me through a thorough warm up and then critiqued my form as I learned the basic movements of the workout. He pointed out little things like on a medicine ball slam I should slam it hard enough to bounce and then catch it before it hit the ground again. Or that when I was doing squats for this workout I should use my momentum to push the dumbbells above my head.
So then I started. Everything was going fine for the first three cycles. It was fun, challenging but ultimately uninteresting. Then the fourth cycle happened which corresponded to about the fourth minute of the workout. My pulse started rising, my breathing started getting labored and everything started going to hell. By the seventh cycle I was struggling not to rest between exercises. While I wanted to rest, the trainer would challenge my manhood and prod me along with positive encouragement like, “you’re not a quitter are you? Do you want to be a failure?”
Ultimately I made it 12 or 13 rounds depending on how you count before my body gave out. In total I made it an entire 15 minutes before I succumbed to exhaustion. Kind of pathetic but also kind of the purpose of the demo workout. CrossFit gave me a helluva workout in under 20 minutes.
I recovered a bit and still in an oxygen deprived state of mind I got the hard sell. Even with the broke grad student discount, at $120/month there was no way I could afford to sign up.
What I took away from CrossFit is that it is a helluva a workout in a very short period of time. Is it the ultimate mountain climbing workout? Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. I don’t doubt that I would get in great shape if I did it… but in my lowly opinion joining a rock gym for $40/month, trail running on hilly terrain and just getting out there on the weekends is a much better use of time and money. I’m not going to learn how to climb smoothly on vertical terrain by jumping on a box or how to move efficiently by doing burpees ’til I collapse. But then again that is just me. I care more about the 6 pack of cheap beer at the end of a climb then trying to get a six pack under my tattered Gore-Tex.
After the written word the internet may be the greatest communication tool ever invented. It has made it possible to drop a line to a complete stranger halfway across the world as easy as if you were asking your buddy to pass you a beer.
I hate to admit this but climbing at the gym has grown on me. Actually, nix that, bouldering at the gym has grown on me. A year ago that would have been an unspeakable thought but now I’ve learned to appreciate bouldering in the gym for what it is.
