Too Hot in the Kitchen

Summer has arrived.

The mercury has been hovering around 100 degrees Fahrenheit and the humidity has been holding pretty strong at 70 percent in between massive rain showers. Suffice to say, conditions for climbing are so far from ideal at this point it is laughable. I have been getting at it anyhow, though, in some misguided effort to disprove the supremacy of Mother Nature and send despite her best efforts. I have so far had mixed success to this end.

Since getting back from California, I have been climbing up at Moore's Wall every moment I can tear away from other obligations. The park is open until 8:30pm during the Summer months, so I have been able to go up after work when the weather has permitted. Through some serious effort, I have made up for lost time at Moore's by logging an absurd amount of hours up there and thereby familiarizing myself with many of the boulders and ticking off a lot of classics.

After several months of effort, I feel as though I am finally starting to get my bearings of the mountain. As there is no guide currently available for the bouldering, everything is word of mouth as far as naming, grading, consensus and all of that goes. I have been able to find a few scattered resources online, but it has mainly been going to the boulders and being social with the people I meet. I have been lucky enough to have a great deal of the problems shown to me, and have even dabbled in tour guiding a bit myself.

There is so much rock up there, though, I still find something wholly new every time I go. There is a guy out of Raleigh working on a guidebook for the area. It is supposedly in its second draft, so hopefully the search for acquaintance will not be so exhausting for too much longer.

Luckily, I was able to tick off a lot of boulders before the summer heat really set in. I even managed to struggle up a couple after the fact. Now I am in recon mode. I have spent the last couple of weeks finding and trying the moves on a bunch of the harder problems I am psyched on doing next season. In the process, I have also been able to find and do a slew of new moderates and easier problems. As I see it, if I spend all Summer honing my beta and familiarity with the area, this fall/winter should allow for my best season yet. I am psyched to finally have a home crag that has such an abundance of amazing boulders. Mark my words, I will send everything Moore's has to offer, or I will blow tendons trying.

Maybe that is a little extreme, but you get the spirit of the statement.

Despite being consumed by Moore's, I have also gotten out to Chat a couple times in the last few months. My objective with climbing in Chat from day one has been to climb as many problems as I can of whatever grade so long as they are interesting and appealing. There are so many classics across the grade spectrum in the area that are worthy of doing, it seemed silly to me to quest after one problem each time in an effort to tick hard problems. After a season of climbing, I feel as though I am coming close to arriving at a point where I feel comfortable enough with my resume of classics to devote more time to working harder problems. Much like with Moore's, I am just beginning to compile a tick list for next season in Chat. There are still an innumerable amount of moderates and easier lines I am psyched on putting down of course, but I feel I am nearing a point where I have paid my dues to the boulders and would not be dishonoring them by neglecting the field for one problem.

I am all for trying harder problems and pushing the limits of what you feel you are capable of. It is what makes me tick as a climber and I do not see the point in doing anything in a state of complacency. That is to say, I lack the vision to see the merit in not striving to be better at whatever undertaking one set out to do. As such, I am constantly trying to get stronger and better for climbing. But I also feel like sometimes we as climbers get tunnel vision to this end and miss the big picture.

Climbing is fun. This is why we do it.

There are so many boulders/routes out there to climb. Some are hard, some are not. Some of my favorite problems/routes have been well below my maximum ability. That being said, all of my proudest problems/routes have been right at my maximum ability at the time that I sent them. I feel though, that to only quest after that which is hardest for us is misguided on two levels.

First, to refuse to climb something below a certain grade is to miss out. Just because something is easy for you does not mean that it cannot be fun. I cannot innumerate the times I have been surprised by easy problems/routes. Sometimes the funnest movement and holds are found on easy/moderates. I have found that if I set my ego aside and get on everything that looks quality rather than grade questing, I have much more fun and usually get to climb something really cool that I would have otherwise overlooked. Also, while a boulder field may have a handful of awesome double digit problems and a crag a small assortment 13s and 14s, there are almost always ten times as many moderates and easier problems/routes. Why miss out on all that fun? The same stone that houses that bad ass V11 or 13d is also what makes up that V2 and 5.9. Obviously there are gems and there are clunkers, but I have found that high quality rock makes high quality problems/routes regardless of grades.

Secondly, there is always something to learn. Every problem/route regardless of grade requires some sort of technique to send. I have learned more and honed my craft better on easier problems/routes than I have on harder ones. While my weaknesses are more pronounced on problems/routes at my limit, I have more of an ability to work them on lines well within my ability. Its much more beneficial for me to work moves I am not so great at on an easier problem than it is on something that has one hard move right at my limit. Furthermore, I think it is much easier to learn and feel body mechanics on lines you feel confident on that ones you feel you are wrestling your way up.

I have slowly adopted this philosophy over the past year and a half or so and have begun to see some concrete gains from it I think. By climbing as much as possible regardless of grade, I have started to see myself moving more naturally and understanding movement better. Beta seems much clearer and harder moves go down faster for me now. Maybe this is happening just because I am due for a performance gain and there is no corollary factor between the two, but I think if it is not broken, why fix it? Plus, I like where I am at. I work on things that are hard for me, and still want to progress to those levels that seem as if they border on unattainable goals, but I just love climbing too much for that to be my end all and be all.

I want to climb everything. Hard, moderate, easy...I do not care. If it is good, I want to conquer it. Hell, even if it is terrible, choss climbing can be fun in its own right from time to time. In the words of a friend of mine, Russ Clune, "He who dies with the most ticks wins."

Now go climb something!

As I lay defeated and victim to my own folly

Hello to all of my loyal followers that likely can be enumerated by counting fingers. It has been a few months since my last update, so I thought it prudent to make yet another erratic installment in the recounting of the life of me. And so, here it goes...

It has been a fun filled winter here in North Carolina. I have gotten settled in at my day job which affords me the funds to get out and climb on the weekends with little worry as to the cost of essentials such as food and gas. Adjusting to the Monday through Friday lifestyle has been a story of the three t's as I like to put it. Troublesome. Tiresome. Tedious.

All in all, though, whenever I am able to separate myself from the immediate and truly examine my circumstances, I find I have very little to complain about. Though I am not currently living the vagabond climbing waif lifestyle I have come to find a sort of solace in, things could be infinitely worse for me. I go to work, at the brewery, and play with beer all week. When I come home, I usually climb in my basement for a couple of hours. Though my wages are relatively meager, they are more than sufficient given the lifestyle I have come to enjoy. And on the weekend, I get to sample some amazing Southern Stone.

In short, while I am currently grounded in one spot and not able to live the semi-nomadic life for now, I still get to climb as much as I can handle and enjoy great beer. Worse lives have been lived.

I have spent a majority of my time climbing at Pilot Mountain this last winter. I managed to find/clean/tick off a good portion of problems there. The conclusion that I have come to make is that despite the lack of quantity of rock there, the quality is very high. In addition to bouldering at Pilot, I have been lucky enough to get out to Boone, LRC, and the Rumbling Bald. The bouldering in the Southeast impresses me a little more each time I go out and get on new problems. I have been so psyched going into all of these areas new to me knowing that there are so many ticks to be had.

As aforementioned, to supplement my meager allowance of weekend climbing, I took it upon myself to build a climbing wall in my basement. It is a standard 8' by 12' wall, but I built it on something close to a 52 degree overhang. It was difficult to adjust to the angle at first, but now I think I am beginning to see some concrete gains from the steep angle. Additionally, the wall has been painted pastel purple, so it has that going for it.

Motivation has definitely ebbed and flowed as climbing has been a bit of a solo effort here. I have been lucky enough to be able to spend some time climbing with friends and have met some truly welcoming people at the crag, but I have yet to meet anyone local to climb with. There have been a lot of hours logged training and climbing by myself. In a way it is kind of nice because it adds a different element to the equation and almost makes the world around you quiet and still when you are in the moment, but I do miss climbing and working problems with people on a regular basis. It seems as if there are climbers from everywhere in North Carolina except Winston-Salem...bummer. But, so it goes.

I spent this weekend climbing at the boulders at Moore's Wall. I went up on Saturday not really expecting much after my somewhat disappointing trip up to the area's satellite boulder field of Two Mile. Two Mile was really cool, but, as the name serves to infer, it is two miles uphill to get there and, much like Pilot, while the quality of the climbing was high, the quantity was lacking. And so it was with an open mind that I hiked up to where I thought some boulders might be from doing a bit of research only to find myself overwhelmed with the both the quantity and quality of rock. The boulders at Moore's can hold there own with any area in the Southeast insomuch as I have seen. Yesterday was the common solo effort of wandering around and climbing what looked good, but today I was lucky enough to run into a girl that has been climbing there for several years and her friend who were down for the day. They were nice enough to play tour guide and give me the lay of the land.

The bouldering there is simply impeccable and I cannot wait to get back out there as soon as I can. I feel so silly for having written the area off as unworthy of exploring all Winter due to one experience in snow ridden weather when if I only had the mind to give it a second chance, I could have been climbing on amazing local stone all Winter. But, so it goes. Since I was not climbing there, I climbed other places. Had I discovered how good the rock was there, who is to say whether or not I would have felt so pressed to search elsewhere.

Either way, I feel that as the weather heats up, the season is likely to be drawing near its close; so I feel charged with the duty as a local climber to represent for Winston and climb there as much as I can while I still can. While I feel regret for missing the season, I feel so much relief in finally finding great bouldering that is less than an hour away. Be sure of one thing, I will redress my missteps of the the past few months by logging as much time and ticking as many boulder problems as I can at Moore's before the Summertime woes come and dash all hopes of good conditions.

But, before any of that, Bishop. I will be returning to Bishop soon. I am flying out to San Diego to visit my Grandfather and celebrate his birthday with him next week. While there, I intend to take an excursion up to the boulderer's paradise and tick off a little unfinished business. I have a small handful of problems I really want to do, and a laundry list of others that I would like to do, so time will be my enemy. All I can do is keep an open mind, try hard, hope for good conditions, and have fun. And so it will be.

That is all for now. Thanks for reading. Now go climb.