These may well be the last set of fall climbing pictures for the year. Ieva and I are heading up to the Adirondacks for Thanksgiving, with snow on the way. Hopefully we’ll get to do some ice climbing while we’re there, and then we’re on to Stratton for some snowboarding with a bunch of friends.
Here are the best pictures from yet another perfect day bouldering with Doug and Zach.
The leaves seem to have stayed on the trees much longer this year than usual. When the air’s crisp, the leaves are changing, and the skies are blue, I think that climbing in the northeast U.S. is about as good as it gets: the friction’s great, and the colors are unlike anything else in the world. Here are some pictures from a very cool day of bouldering yesterday with a great group of friends.
Ten of us met up in the Red River Gorge, KY over memorial day weekend (five rode down in the front of our truck to save on gas!). Ieva got home from Greenland, slept for a few hours, and then Eriks, Doug, Tess, Ieva and I piled into the truck and started driving.
We totally lucked out on weather — it rained like hell on the way down, and then it was blue skies for every day that we were there. Perfect temperatures, too; not too hot or humid.
When we showed up at Miguel’s Pizza on Saturday night, and it was loaded! I’ve never seen Miguel’s that busy, and after talking with him the next day, neither had he. The parking lot was jammed, with everyone double-, triple-, and quadruple-parked. Even all of the aisles were full. At least 20 cars couldn’t fit in at all, and were lined up along the side of the road. There was a new climbing film premier that night, followed by a pretty big raging party. I briefly woke up in the middle of the night as the truck cap filled with the light of a wax bomb (they seem to be turning into a Miguel’s tradition).
The next day, we somehow managed to avoid the crowds. We wound up at Funk Rock City on Sunday, and there was hardly anyone else there. What a fantastic crag — there are great sport and trad routes there — and we practically had it all to ourselves!
This was a really cool crowd to go climbing with. We also had Bowers, Michael and Sharmishtha, and Lauren and Nate (who I hadn’t met before that weekend). Lots of hanging out, goofing around.
I was also pretty psyched to finally land my first small jumps while on a slackline. I had worked on them last season without any success. Miguel’s has a really good “trick” line that’s doubled 1-inch webbing, sewn together, set low, and pulled super tight. I’m going to have to set up a second line like it in the backyard.
A lot of people got to push themselves on this trip — there were a few first leads and first falls, all of which went really well. We had a really good atmosphere going that was pretty condusive to progress (and fun). Ieva, Eriks and I got to stay until Wednesday. It’s only been a few months since our last long road trip, and I’m already dying for another one. Hopefully it won’t be too far off. At any rate, I only have two more weeks until the race, and then it’s back to devoting all my free time to climbing again!
Our two fantastic friends Michael and Sharmishtha got married this weekend. It was one of the best weddings I’ve ever been to. It was a great location, laid back, and so many of our climbing friends were there. The party basically lasted from Friday night until Sunday night. We also got to hang out with Sharmishtha’s family, who came over from India and England. They were a blast.
I can’t believe how much activity got packed into those few days. I feel like I fit in more quality time with my friends than I’ve gotten all year. This was actually Michael and Sharmishtha’s second wedding — they’ve already had one in India. By popular demand, they had the U.S. version too.
Congratulations, lovebirds! Here are some of the pictures that I took. Sharmishtha’s cousin Amlan took a lot of really nice pictures of the whole event. I’ll probably be able to get a copy of his shots later and post some of them here as well.
I’m just getting around to posting some pictures from an awesome afternoon that we had at the quarry. Both Eriks (Ieva’s brother) and Kathleen (Jim’s special lady) were in town. Perfect weather, good routes, good food afterwards. Jim also got us to go do some of the routes next to the water, below the Flake. The rock is really high quality there! Very compact. This picture is of Jim on a new line. Click on it to go to the gallery.
Jim, Michael, and Sharmishtha came over to finish off the first section of the home wall that we started a couple weeks ago. Michael and I actually found a matress while we were out getting beer. It only blew off the top of his car once.
Same as last time, there's a lot of images, since the camera was set to go off once every few minutes. Just select the "slideshow" option in the upper right of the gallery screen, and set the delay to 1 or 2 seconds for the time-lapse effect.
The strange glamour picture that shows up partway through is something that we found when we tore down the enclosure around the water meter to make more room. The thing's truly odd. I might save it for Klophaus. I know he'd love it.
Tim White invited everyone over to his house in honor of John's graduation from PSU (which actually happened quite a while ago, but nobody minds). The centerpiece for the evening was to be "the bonfire that could be seen from space." I guess Tim had been saving up brush and housing debris for quite a while. Add a little bit of gasoline and some fine beers, and you have yourself quite an evening. Here are the pictures that Tim and I took. Congratulations, John!
The other night, Bowers, Michael, Sharmishtha, Eriks, Sam, and Kate all came over to help start putting up our home climbing wall in our basement. Despite too many discussions, too few working power tools, and too many libations, we did actually get some stuff done.
I just set up a camera in the back corner and set it to take pictures every 5 minutes. So you can kind of get the "time lapse" effect if you click on the slideshow link (upper right) on the page with the pictures, and set the delay to one or two seconds.
Notes: