willstrickland

Ideally both, but if an either/or, during the activity. Problem with accelerade is, when I'm really thirsty it doesn't quench like water and almost makes me gag when I get the first whiff. If it's afterwards, not a problem and I can choke it down without difficulty. Maybe all the protein containing drinks suffer from this? I've diluted other stuff, but haven't tried it with the 4:1 stuff. Maybe I'll just switch back to cytomax during and accelerade after.

Help me out here. Looking for a 4:1 carb/protein recovery drink that doesn't taste horrible. Bought a jar of Accelerade lemon/lime recently and have used Accelerade orange before...they both taste horrible at room temp and I can't imagine having to slug that crap down while on-route after a hard OW pitch when you're parched. Buhler? Buhler? Frieh?

You assume there actually IS a place to park before the signs. Often that is not the case. I was in the USFS Big Bear office a few weeks ago. They have a binder on the front table detailing where their retained funds from the NW Pass equivalent (Adventure Pass or somesuch) are spent. Something like 20% was for enforcement, the other was fluff programs, signage, etc. Either fund the agencies properly, or cut services. Personally I say cut services. Here is what they say on their site:

Crest Jewel, Central Pillar of Frenzy p1-5, Peruvian Flake, Nutcracker, Reeds Direct, Bishops Terrace, Highway Star, Jamcrack, Maple Jam, Positively 4th Street, Keystone Corner, East Buttress El Cap, West crack DAFF Dome, 3rd pillar Dana, Moby Dick Center, Jawbone, New Deviations, Doggie Deviations, NE Butt higher cathedral, Braille Book, E Butt Middle Cathedral (you can french free the 10c section, but it's easy for the rating), Steck Salathe

5/1 158 5/12 157 5/23 155 6/01 154 6/07 152 6/14 151 6/20 149.5 6/27 148.5 Goal is 143 to 145 by the 3rd week of July. Not doing anything special to lose it, just cutting back a tad here and there. Switched from beer to wine.

How in the hell do you take a 35 footer off Rollerball? Done that one several times, other than the crux move it protects very well (and if you're tall, or did it back when there was a fixed pin instead of bolt, you could have pro at your chest during the crux) Anyway...first real trad fall. P3, Reeds Direct. Fell out of the 5.5 section of chimney when a face hold I was stupidly crimping broke. Upside down and backwards for about 15' onto a medium stopper.

My motivations for soloing easy stuff is usually a convenience thing...no hassling with gear or partners, the abililty to do a lot of pitches in a short amount of time. But the motivations for things close to my limit are much different. I don't really understand those reasons myself. I just feel compelled to do it and try not to get too psychoanalytical about it. I don't feel like it's coming from a destructive or reckless place. I'm not out soloing after breakups or emotional trauma. If the calm mind + relaxed movement isn't happening, I bail. It does seem like we're muddling the discussion with the various aspects of "soloing". When I hear or say "soloing" I'm talking about ropeless climbing on technical terrain. I've done plenty of roped soloing whether single pitch stuff on lead, tr minitraxion, aid walls, etc. But when the rope is in play, I don't consider it "soloing" I consider it "roped soloing". One is reasonably forgiving, the other not at all.

Gorgeous pics.

I'm not in the PNW anymore, but yeah I solo on a semi-regular basis. Usually it's very easy stuff when I just want to get in some exercise, work out some soreness, etc. But occasionally I do something pretty close to my limit when I'm feeling strong, injury free and have been getting in alot of mileage. 98% of the time I'm alone with no people around, don't like spectators. Never really soloed much until I moved to Josh.

100lbs? Who are you kidding butterball?

Holy shit. Wishing you a speedy recovery Dane. One of my worst falls was also in an easy chimney when a hold broke (5.5 section of p3 Reeds direct). Hang in there.

good times Mr R. Congrats on the pending nuptuals. Generator is pretty fair for 10c wide. Most people just don't put in enough mileage on the wide for it to feel that way. Reeds p2 always seems pretty continuous and steep for 5.9, but the p3 10a OW is the real biz on this one. Did ya'll get a chance to hit Stone Groove and Lunatic Fringe while at Reeds? If not, put em on the list for the next trip. Five and Dime is just below the road near where you park for Reeds (descend by the end of the tunnel). There are some more excellent pitches there...Five and Dime, Keystone Corner, Copper Penny are all very nice. Generator is not too 'bagged at 10c. I think Ahab at 10b is harder, but 1096 at .10d felt easier...go figure. I do love Generator, but IMO 1096 is a five star classic, protects well, and is aesthetic. It's also right next to Hangdog Flyer, you could probably drop a rope down it after 1096 and get your hard liebacking groove on. Ahh man, you got me hating this work life, wish I was up there right now.

Nah, Bill. It was probably just the LSD kicking in.

Nice one. Hard slab on soft sandstone? No thanks. The Doc with no skullcap? WTF?!!

I was at the Holcomb Valley Pinnacles, first time but not the last. Reasonably close by, and decent climbing on good granite. Kind of a small main area and we saw more people than we expected. All this talk about pits...anyone remember Petey from the Little Rascals? Petey was an american pit bull terrier IIRC.

I just replaced my Subaru legacy wagon with a new (used) car, and looked at all those (Matrix/Vibe, Mazda 3, Civic) as well as newer Subaru legacies, Mazda 6 wagon, BMW 325 wagon, Audi A4 wagon, VW passat wagon, Ford Focuse wagon, VW Jetta wagon, Toyota Prius, Honda Element. The Matrix/Vibe is surprisingly tall inside, but has a very shallow cargo area when the rear seats are up/occupied. Also, the mpg isn't that great for the size. They drive nice, and have toyota quality, but ultimately not for me. I have two friends driving them that are very happy with them. Mazda 3, pretty nice interior styling for the class, drives/handles MUCH better than the primary competitors, but they are holding value too well for me (I want a steep initial depreciation curve, thats why I look at 3-5yr old used cars and drive them until they fall apart, others may value the higher resale values) Civic, pretty bland car. Does everything competently, but doesn t inspire or stand out in anyway (aside from reliability). The newest version looks good outside, but has some interior design flaws IMO. For example, the e-brake lever is too far forward and you'll bump your knee into it alot, the "a" pillars (the piece of metal running from the hood to the roof) are too slanted and obstruct vision when turning or especially when driving curvy mountain roads. And, they don't get quite the mpg of the prior generation. But, they hold value well and are very reliable, second only to toyota. Honda Element: Bad mpg, somewhat utilitarian with the configurable cargo area and no "b" pillar between the front and rear doors. Drives like the unweildy box that it is. AWD available. Interior seems cheap. Car is just fugly. If I were a dedicated water sports or mtn bike guy, this might make the list. Holding their value pretty well. BMW 3 series wagon: Aboutg 30mpg on the highway, drives better than anything in it's class. Handles fantastically with a very smooth inline 6 that has lots of torque where you really need it. Beautiful car inside and out. Exceptionally safe.AWD available as the "x" badge (i.e. 325iX). Cons: expensive to buy, and expensive to service. On the used market, you can get a 5 series wagon same year, same mileage for about the same price so unless you wanted a small car for some reason, it's a no brainer to go with the 5 series over the 3. Mazda 6 wagon: Reliable, handles well. Mpg is subpar and for the price you can get better cars. Suby legacy/outback wagons: After the switch from the 2.2L to the 2.5L head gasket problems began. Since the years I was looking at were all equipped with the 2.5 and the problems usually only surface around 80-120k I passed on the subarus (which was my first choice initially. I had a great experience with my '91). They are also overpriced on the used market relative to what else you could get for the same loot. Audi A4 wagon: A slighlty nicer, barely smaller version of a passat wagon (same parent company, and the passat uses a stretched version of the A4 chassis). Reliability sucks, styling is uninspiring for a "luxury" car. AWD available, steep depreciation so maybe a good deal on the usde market. Everything about this one someone else does better. Expensive parts and/or service. Passat wagon: Reliability issues, but drives very well, interior is pretty nice. I avoided these because VW has one of the very worst reliability records of any company in recent years. AWD available in the GLX trim (called 4motion, which is just a re-named audi quattro awd). Volvo V70 wagon: safe, reliability issues, costly parts and service. One of the biggest cargo areas and folds completely flat. Interior are nice, if somewhat bland. Many have turbos, which do tend to get leaky or give up altogether around 70k-100k. There was a non-turbo available, AWD also available. Saab 9-5wagon: Terrible reliability issues, steep depreciation, very expensive parts, shitty ac compressors, mostly turbos with the associated turbo lag and other typical turbo problems. My housemate has one of these and although the car looks nice, has a very nice interior with these bitchin' "cooled seats" (has interior fan ventilating the seat back) as well as heated seats...the seats themselves are some of the nicest I've sat in, but the reliability, few independent repair shops, and high cost for parts turned me off. Very little torque steer for a turbo front wheel drive vehicle. Very steep depreciation. Ford Focus wagon: Cheap new, but don't depreciate quickly enough for me. Some reliability issues. Cheap and poorly designed interior. Good mpg, about 35 hwy. Big cargo area for the class. Handles/corners well but has a pretty anemic engine. This was the first thing I looked at, thinking they'd be really cheap. But at the age/mileage I was looking, the deals weren't very good and I couldn't get past the shitty interior. I ended up with a used 528iT wagon, a lease return with service records and low mileage. It's an amazing car, gets 20/29, and I can sleep in the back. Paid less than I would have for a similar year and mileage of any of the others listed above...hard to believe I know. And this was not just for this particular car, it was actually third on my list behind two other 528iTs at around the same price.

One of my regular partners always carries a draw on his rack with smallish lockers on each end. In a case where the first piece is a bolt that's well off the deck, he'll use this draw and lock it on both ends, otherwise it stays on the ground. Seems like a good practice, especially for something like the protagonist in this story was doing...climbing past the anchor with it as the only thing between you and the deck. Yeah, it's redundant with your std TR through your draws setup (and when TRing that's what I do), but I've seen draws become unclipped from moving around. Anyway, something to consider. It's hard to imagine someone going for 30' out of Blownout. Guy must have been climbing way below his level, ran it out and slipped? Granted, I haven't climbed that route in about 5 years, but recall it was pretty well protected if you wanted it to be. On the original anecdote, I just don't see the big deal in taking a 25 footer on a clean vertical wall onto two bolts. Exciting? Sure. If your average climber was willing to take similar falls, they'd probably gain about 3 letter grades overnight.

I wouldn't call any of these "moderate" but by Mike's criteria these are some anyway. Rostrum - Yos Astroman - Yos Steck-Salathe -Yos Crest Jewel - Yos Good Book - Yos Moratorium to E Butt - Yos Kaukulator - Yos 1096 - Yos Cream - Yos OZ w/ Gram - Yos Don Juan Wall - Needles Atlantis - Needles Thin Ice - Needles Igor Unchained - Needles Airy Interlude - Needles Abracadaver - Stronghold Lizard Marmalade Direct - Lemmon Fine Jade - Castle Valley Middle Parallel Space - Vedauwoo Mainstreet - Vedauwoo Spectreman - Vedauwoo Horn's Mother - Vedauwoo Boardwalk - Vedauwoo Imaginary Voyage - Josh Wangerbanger - Josh Heart of Darkness - Josh Coarse and Buggy - Josh The Cruise or Scenic Cruise var. - Black Canyon

Ditto the breaking experiences. How anyone that uses them regularly and has never had the keeper break that little circular piece clean off from the top of the lid is beyond me. I've broken at least 5 of them, and I don't clip them to anything (use the duct tape+webbing on mine). Usually happens when just carrying it. I'll keep my lexan ones, thank you very much. If you ever need an emergency hot water bottle to toss in the bottom of your too cold sleeping bag, hdpe just don't cut it, aluminum has it's own issues, stainless could be the answer but I like to be able to see into my bottles, and like a wide mouth bottle for putting ice, mixes, etc into. From what I read, if the inside is not scratched up, you're not putting hot liquids in it and then drinking them, and your're not storing water in them for long periods and then drinking it, you don't really have anything to fret about...except secondhand smoke, cholesterol, bad drivers, excessive aluminum, radon, trans fat, etc. Frankly, I'm much more concerned about long term exposure/uptake of aluminum from the gear. But, washing the rope regularly, and using belay gloves would solve that.

On offsets (also called hybrids by some manufacturers) the pair of cam lobes on one side of the cam are a size larger than the pair of lobes on the other side. This asymmetrical arrangement allows the offsets to fit better into cracks that flare. A typical situation is a piton scar where the back of the crack is radically smaller than the front. They are somewhat specialized and IMO, not as useful for the building blocks/base of your rack as normal cams. I have some offset aliens that are a godsend on flaring pin scars, but I use them almost exclusively for aid, rarely taking them on free climbs unless I expect flaring placements, and then they are still a just a supplement to my regular cams. Offset nuts, on the other hand, I find extremely useful when free climbing, especially in the larger (aluminum) sizes and in all kinds of rock.

Hey Pax, I have been up Running Man, following, and still fell twice. So I wouldn't really say I "climbed" it, more like dogged up it. Was doing ok and then just ran out of gas at about the 3/4 mark. Fantastic pitch,and my partner Chris's favorite there. Reminds me how poor my pitch length endurance is. Can't be a move on it harder than .10+, but it doesn't really let up. Did it last year year, didn't get back to it this year. Out of Control is just a beautiful thin hands to off fingers splitter for most of the pitch to a short bit of wide/flare and a cool roof. Even though it's not on the primo varnished rock, the climbing is incredible. A little Indian Creek at RR. Probably a good point Drederek, everything seemed a bit sandy after the rain. But, I've also heard similar sentiment from others (about rapping after the .10 pitch that's above the crux pitch). Seems like the walk off would take quite a long time (does it take you back to the base?), we were stoked to be rapping instead of walking.

Just missed crossing paths with you. We were on the E side of Mescalito in the Y2K area on the 25th for the first day of our trip. We arrived after the rain so stayed dry, but our bivy (the lame campground) didn't really live up to the swank factor you have goin in that pic.

Trip: Red Rocks - Levitation 29 Date: 2/26/2008 Trip Report: No pics, so this will be short. This one had been on the list for a long time. I thought it lived up to the hype with great climbing on good to excellent rock in a nice setting. The routes gets sun basically all day, so plan accordingly. Although I'm in in poor sport climbing shape (not much enduro stuff here in JTree), it went pretty well. My partner Chris led the crux pitches and took no falls. I fell once on the crux pitch. After warming up for a day including the stellar Out of Control (maybe my favorite RR pitch to date), we figured why not try it and called in for a late exit ( the closure was still at 5pm during Feb). Turns out we didn't need it. Left the car at 8:20 and was at the base at 10:00. Approach is reasonably easy to follow, lots of cairns eventually put you on a long ramp system that leads all the way up to the wall from the left. The "eagle" mark on the wall used for reference is not super-obvious, but the crux pitch of Lev29 is, and appears as an angling splitter high on the wall. First pitch is high quality with varied climbing including some funky drop knee stemming on chocolate varnish. Getting to the first bolt was a little eye opening for breakfast. Mixed gear/bolts. P2 was one of the two .11 pitches with a gym-climbing like crux complete with a fun move matching a heel hook to a hand while pulling a small roof to a bomber fingerlock. Closely spaced bolts protect the crux here. P3 follows a long 5.8 crack system with a few bolts and was a lot of fun. P4 starts on a .10b face on varnished edges over a small roof for 4 bolts or so, then continues up an easier crack system with gear interspersed with more bolts. P5, the business, .11c. This pitch is sport bolted with something like 14 bolts in about 100ft. You are following a crack system, but it's more like face climbing than anything. After about 35ft or so you enter a shallow diherdral that forces you out onto the left face for some pulling on patina edges (crux). Milk the rests before and after this section, the moves aren't hard but do become pumpy and endurance is the real crux here. I didn't take advantage of the rest before the crux sequence and fell at the end of it, hung for 30sec and finished the pitch still way pumped. p6 is more bolted face on patina edges. I was still so gassed from the previous pitch that ratings felt meaningless. Various guides call it between 10b and 10d. After 6, the rock quality deteriorates quite a bit and you go from mostly great varnish to sandy white rock with some slabby moves, 10d. I would recommend skipping these last pitches and rapping from the top of p6. Other notes: We did this a few days after a rain and there were only two bits of chalk on the whole thing. It made for a nice change where you weren't just playing "connect the dots" like on many super-classics. Gear list calls for stuff to 3 camalot, and although I did place the 3 once, I wouldn't take it again as there are plenty of other options within a foot of anywhere you might use it. We spent a little under 5hrs climbing and rapping, and were about 8hr car to car including about half an hour eating and laying around after rapping and were pretty leisurely on the approach and return. This is probably the best long route I've done in Red Rocks. Highly recommended. Gear Notes: Single set of cams to #2 camalot, wires, lots of draws (15), plus a couple of shoulder length. Single 70m rope allows you to rap from top of p7, but knot the ends when rapping the 4th pitch as you will barely make it on a 70m. Approach Notes: Guide says 2hrs, we took 1h40m both on the approach and the return.

Learn to enjoy box wine, malt liquor, and bottom shelf vodka/tequila/bourbon. Best tip: find a a one-way rider to your first big destination (Yos or Josh probably). Frequent the popular areas in season (Josh Oct-Apr, Yos Apr-June, Creek Oct-Nov & Mar-May) and you can usually pick up riders to your next destination when you split. Never pay to camp, ever. Go OB, BLM land, Wal Mart parking lot, whatever.

I really don't get the mountaineering fetish. Particularly the "high altitude" version. I mean really, who enjoys carrying a big pack up a steep hill in some third world country and paying a year's salary for the privilege? It's not even climbing, more like cold hiking. Meanwhile, I'll be in the park tomorrow pulling on another grainy Joshua Tree pile. Life's hard here in SoCal, 60 degrees and sunny, was probably even 70 when I was in San Diego today. But there are some virgin offwidth roof cracks out there with my name on em, so I guess I'll have to brave the elements.