kevinoregon

Fear is good. I have found that fear will do one of two things. It will paralyze you up in which case you will fall or it will give you the clarity of though and strength to get through the moves. The second is a learned ability which can only be learned by overcoming the first, by refusing to let fear paralyze you.

Nothing could be finer. The Universe must have been smiling on you for that brief time.

I am up for a little drinking anywhere you all decide. I can't wait to watch the decision process. It will be the longest thread in history.

I just gave up my insurance for next year because it is getting way to ridiculous to pay so much and get so little. I hardly ever get sick, and in 19 years of climbing I have only been hurt bad enough to go the the doctors twice and both of them were minor. The protection systems work, so I am not worried about it. Now falling off the trail as I walk there is a different worry.

Do the people that resole climbing shoes use a lot of air freshener?

I have always loved going to the City of Rocks. Everyone always waves to you as you pass them on the road. There are not many places like that left in the world.

Wow, that is going to be tough to overcome. It took me a couple years to get over the fear of falling. I got hurt a bit too, but only because I always tried to grab onto everything in sight as I was falling. It took some time to learn to trust the gear and just let go, or even to push off to insure a clean fall. I hope your pain was not due to gear popping out or some such thing that would make it harder to trust the gear. Stoppers work really well, and I have taken some pretty good leader falls on even the smallest of them. Good Luck.

While I have been reading through all of these postings, it occurred to me that many of you might be suffering from the same affliction that I suffered from many moons ago. The 5.10 Barrier. I was stuck in this invisible barrier for years. I could do 10s of all kinds: cracks, face, and friction, but I could not get past the barrier to move on to 11s and 12s. Even when I looked at them, I could not conceive the moves necessary to put it all together. So, now I have 2 questions. Does this barrier really exist in the minds of climbers? If it does, how do we consistently get past it? For me, the answer to the first question is YES. I think I was stuck in this barrier for about 4 or 5 years. It was really frustrating. In July of 89 this all changed, everything finally clicked and I was on my way. It was at the first International Climbing Competition held at Snowbird Resort in Utah. Great climbers from all over the world showed up. Notable climbers included Hans Florine, Tony Yaniro, Robyn Erbesfield and Lynn Hill just to name a few. Watching these world class climbers showed me techniques I had not though possible. I took these newly learned techniques to the rock and instantly moved on to harder climbing. Let’s hear your answers to these 2 questions.

I love tricams. I never go anywhere without them. Ever!

There is a third style of climb that has not been mentioned. Friction face can be about as fine of climbing as there can be. I have gone whole pitches of friction without so much as one decent hand hold. I have always liked to compare friction climbing to a delicate dance. Slow careful moves as you delicately smear up the face. The skill in mastering this type of climb is in mastering your footwork. Crack climbing on the other hand is mostly upper body. If a person is strong enough, he can power through the hard moves on most hard cracks even if he is not as strong in his footwork, but good footwork always makes the climbing easier. Sport climbing combines the skills of both of these as there is the need for a strong upper body as well as the need for some fancy footwork in order to climb the face with style. In my experience, and I have been doing this a very long time, a 11a face climb or any grade for that matter will be easier than a crack climb of equal grade mainly because you do not have to hang out on a face climb to place gear. This is also why there are not as many hard crack climbs as there are hard face climbs.

Where are you?

So, if anyone would like to get in a bit of climbing, let me know.

I think I will pass this time. I am sure I will hook up with some of you from time to time and I would have loved Smith, but it was just too short of notice. I think I will just try to find someone around Portland to climb with or if that fails, go do a bit of soloing.

So, it has been suggested that I just join everyone heading to Smith tomorrow. It sounds to me like many of you know each other already and have climbed together a bit. What do the rest of you think about the new kid in town joining your group? How many of you are going? Where would I meet up with you? Smith sounds great. I have not been there yet and the weather this weekend looks perfect.

Ok, so maybe I am not really a kid. I have been climbing for 19 years, and I can still crank out 10s & 11s and even the occational 12. I have not climbed alot since moving to Portland a few years ago, but I need to get back into it before I loose my edge. I would like to get out and so some climbing around town on Saturday and maybe on Tuesday.