Sarah.

This is my partner, Sarah. She climbs, thinks, explores, works, grunts, loves deeply, makes silly mouth noises, hikes, seeks, inspires, teaches, gives, and most of all she doesn’t stop doing any of those things – ever. She’s an amazing, beautiful, strong, educated, independent, empowered, intelligent, enlightened woman who teaches me something new about myself every day. She lives well, eats better, works hard, thinks smarter, never complains (unless she hasn’t eaten), loves a good trail, runs harder than me, does more pull-ups than me, can debate me into a corner, carries more water, cooks better food, is more disciplined and I’m finding that she has the capacity to love more fiercely than anyone I’ve ever met. Her laugh is intoxicating, her perspective balanced and when she smiles, you smile too – you just can’t help it. She’s usually unforgivingly focused and bullish but always exquisitely graceful and feminine.

Sometimes, you just gotta call it what it is.

Spring is goin’ on outside somewhere. I’m a little sunburned, windburned and I got hailed on four times. Washington spring is always a very temperamental thing.

First of the camas to pop.

Climbing and training have begun in earnest in an attempt to get back to where I left off last year. Everyone is anxious to get outside and climb, but the weather’s been throwin’ sliders at us a little. None this weekend, perhaps next. But, it’s still spring, so who really cares?

A growing photopost.

No seatbelt either.

It's what's fer dinner.

dusk

did you hear that?

fixin' up the sup'.

who farted??

Required bigassfire for 20 degree nights.

when watterbottles become icebottles. cold effing night.

A stop at Hyas lake; hereforth referred to as coldass lake.

Hey Sarah, lets find the one route in Washington that has the steepest, most direct route. Did you bring a rope??

The sun and snow locked in hand-to-hand combat. Snow won. From the approach.

Greg's Problem (V.5). That crack is like glass, no bite whatsoever. Inverted lieback. the landing is good...

Snowing. where's that damn climb at now?

The snow wasn't supposed to hit until tomorrow dammit!

Trying some problems at the cliffband. 12 degree rock will suck your soul out through your fingertips. SOOOO PAINFUL!!!

The whiteout and the retreat. Beer and burgers somewhere await.

B.F.O.

B.F.B.

Thanks, Sarah, for taking so many pics.

its winter. see you all next year. goodnight.

nothing to see here.

Tonight the girl from Ohio was introduced to the food that looks and feels like nothing else; the one that grows in the shallows of the Pacific Northwest. The Ohio native, Sarah, got her first taste of my kind of a perfect Saturday night. Raw oysters with lemon and cholula, pasta with a creme sauce, pepper, asparagus, two six-packs of beer. Most importantly is the endless variety of swing music to dance to: Ella, Frank and Tommy; singing and swinging the night away with great food, beer and terrific times. A great night!

"Um, I need more beer first I think"

Wait, dont you need to cook this shit first? It looks disgusting.

Really? Raw? But, I'M FROM OHIO!!!

YEEEEAAAH!!! Oysters kick ass! Where's my frickin beer?

Such a great night dancing and eating terrific food. I wish you all could have been here to share it with us. Well, not really the whole night. Heh. Cheers folks!

Check my mom’s blog, roadtrip, and give her a holler.

One-arm tentbound pullups rule!

I captured a bunch of panoramics of my last trip. Here’s some I’ve finished stitching. If you’re looking for stitching software, IMHO the best is called Hugin from UBC. Click the images to see the mid-sized version of them, the view is worth it.

Panoram from the summit of Hidden peak looking out over the North Cascades. Sarah tips the summit for the score.

Sawtooth Ridge and Libby Lake panoram.

The view from my climb onto Hoodoo peak looking into the Pasayten. Can you find Sarah and the bivy?

New training regimen, since I feel the need to keep up with Micah and Kyle. I is gonna blows you’s guys outta da water!

:training:

oh, to be 21 again…

Ah, its inventory time again. Lots of you will remember my rants about inventory last year on the blog. Not really rants so much – it’s a welcomed break from the regular runaround this job becomes. This year is going well enough, but it was my job yesterday to inventory the licensed radiation storage bunker in the bowels of the college.

Now, please remember; I do want kids someday soon…

So, in this bunker hidden in the basement is stored three 55 gallon drums of liquid radioactive waste, loads of solid beta and gamma emitters, and the scary part is that it’s not just the ionizing radiation decimating the bonds in my DNA that was gonna get me, but also the fact that all the HF is stored there…

I walked in, refused to touch anything I didn’t have to and held my breath. The gloves I put on that stay in the room fell apart on my hands.

I ran and took a shower the second the door closed.

HEEBIE-fucking-JEEBIES!

Psych for Saturday.

Dosage V

Most of you know that I’m a big fan of cross training for climbing – I don’t mean that silly crap sissies do where…yeah, Im just kidding. By cross-training, I mean training the muscles not used for climbing – the ones in opposition to climbing muscles. It keeps your joints balanced and reduces the possibility of injury.

Rock Climber Girl has an excellent article about an injury she just acquired and her prescribed treatment for it is one I believe should be trained chronically.

Rock Climber Girl.

Good article.

I cant believe I wasted ten minutes of my life on this, actually it was so funny I can believe it. I so totally needed that ten minute laugh!

I’m outta here. It’s Friday and Im off for more climbing hopefully in North Bend.

World Wall One. Click for the full size image.

Full trip report by Tuesday!

Tape? Check. Chalk? Check. Crash pad? Check. Tent and sleeping bag? Check and check. Forceps and vials to keep ticks in upon removal…..Check?

It turns out that Monday is supposed to be in the 80’s in Leavenworth and, well, you know climbing on hot-ass granite sucks. I figured that if we could get there before noon we’d have a chance to actually top-out on some problems without the fear of the auger at every slippery link. I proposed to Micah that we head up Sunday night and get a free spot for a nice fire and some swill thinking it would give us the opportunity to hit some cold and sticky at 8 rather than noon. This plan is turning into “Hey, shit – why dont we just go early and climb on Sunday too”, which turned into going Saturday night and climbing three days. Oh, my birthday weekend is turning into something grand!

The problem is that Leavenworth is heaven for ticks – and there is an appropriate method for removing them. According to the CDC, remove by pinching the head with flat-tipped forceps and retract directly, making sure to remove all mandibular pieces. Disinfect with iodine or 2-propanol and salvage intact insect for identification if the patient becomes ill.

Yeah, fun. The only thing right now that there are more of in Leavenworth than ticks are rattlesnakes. Snakes really arent a problem – they run away, but the last thing I really want to do is pull an embedded tick out of my armpit in the middle of the night by campfire light.

Here’s our spot this weekend. I’m all over it…

Also in the news is that I’m forcing myself to eat, eat, eat! One of my finest friends in life brought me still warm bread she made and a bottle of olive oil for my birthday yesterday. It was the finest bread I think I’ve ever eaten.  I’ve also stocked up on good food for the coming weeks so I should start putting some muscle on fast.

Additionally, My house was shown yesterday and they’re coming back out to look at it. Please, everyone cross your fingers that they make an offer! *prays*

Adios!

Read This.

…go boom.

I love this picture of Micah looking burly on I Heart Gerry Garcia, V9-. I took it last time he and I were up there.

But I dont think it’s nearly as cool a photo as this one; same position different perspective.

Micah gets ready to crush I Heart Jerry Garcia V9-

This weekend is going to kick ass. It’s my birthday weekend and Im sure there’ll be a lot less things for me to send when I get home. The ticklist is gonna get short in a hurry!

Here’s a video of Kelly Sheridah flashing I Heart Jerry Garcia:

I was surfing around some climbing videos online and I found completely by accident this video of Micah, Dom and Laura up Leavenworth.  I thought I’d share.

More fun stuff here

A few posts ago I wrote about some folks from California who were interested in my house. Their daughter came out and toured the place and absolutely loved it. Evidently it was perfect for them – except the fact that it wasn’t in a giant neighborhood packed with other septagenarians. Yeah, they’re in their 70’s and wanted to be closer to town.

Good news is that since I got the news last night, three couples have already been out to look at the house, one this morning. Come on folks, make me an offer I cant refuse. The Zillow page keeps getting hits (and Zillow says we’ve listed it for $110,000 undervalue), so people are interested.

I just gotta get out of that house! Keep your fingers crossed people!

Graduate school is back on the list of priorities. Good news is that my tastes haven’t changed much.

The site is reborn, however with a knack for mountaineering, sport climbing, biking and other marginal persuits of danger, marvel or thrill. It’ll take me a while to get used to the new layout and management, so bear with me.