Knottygirl

Shirtless of course! Who leads with a shirt. LOL

Yes, it would be awesome to go backcountry, personally I'm not experienced enough for it as this is my first committed year of riding.

Training for outdoor climbing. I'm a year into climbing and outdoors I focus on trad climbing. I'm just curious what is better training, boulding or wall climbs. I already do both, just curious.

I'm curious if anybody else is aggravated that meadows is closing almost a month early! I've heard rumors that the forest service is forcing them to because of an enviromental violation. I recieved a letter form the VP of Meadows saying its because it cost them too much to run empty chairs and nobody rides or skis after March.

I was debating with my climbing partners what is the better training (in the gym) bouldering or route climbing? I thought bouldering is better mentally especially for outdoor leading, while routes build endurance.

You definately need a 80m for City, two of them for alot of the raps.

Oh I forgot to mention that they took the short rope and gave us another....this is after about a week of hasseling with the manager.

While this isn't REI, those of you in Portland know the Mountain shop off Broadway(I don't think they sell climbing gear anymore). Last summer in City of Rock I was rappelling only to find myself on the short end of a rope still aways off the ground. Luckily I tied my ends together and managed to swing myself over to a ledge where I then down climbed (scary for me as this was my first big climbing trip). We figured out the rope was miss marked by ten meters (a Beal rope). So we took it back to the Mountain Shop where two of the employees refused to get the manager on the phone and proceeded to yell about how climbing is a dangerous sport (we know that) and we should have measured the rope next to another. Which at that time we only had one rope of our own, and being used to climbing at Smith Rocks where your climbs are much shorter then City. I guess how this relates to REI, is you're going to find the stupid and the assholes at alot of places.

I found yoga 3 times a week to keep up on my balance. Running as much as possible to keep down the belly weight. Gym climbing 2-3 times a week to work those muscles. I hope it works!