Laura and Erica settlin' the score with the boys. Priceless night. Thanks everyone who came. Let's do it again soon.

I miss my friends sometimes. Somtimes I miss my friends. A lot.

A season's worth of Grigri grit. The cord just know's she's spent for the year and getting ready for retirement. They shove old ropes out on iceflows too, don't they?

Yesterday marked the end of the sport climbing season for me; my last day. Well, that’s a little bit of a lie because Micah and I still have some unfinished business at Bob’s Area. Save for that bit of hand-to-hand to come, school starts in a few days so it’s time to bid a scornful farewell to the bolts. My project didn’t go yesterday – a product of a heavy work cycle, a long backcountry trip, a closed gym and complete lack of training. She’ll be waiting for me first go next year. I stole Micah’s camera and started snapping around the World Wall ledge, trying to capture the sights and sounds of the culture we’ve made for ourselves here. It’s been a phenomenal year; everybody sending like crazy, the competition between Dom and Jimmy, tons of new friends and a really tight clique to huddle in. Life is the most beautiful thing. Enjoy some sideline views of my last trip to the ledge in 2009:

Spent on Californication. It'll go soon guys.

Micah rehearsing his crux on Californication. We call him "le acrobat suicidal". I have no idea what that means.

The product of being belay bitch for the day. Gah-ritaaaay!

What we all felt we could lead by the end of the year.

Last dance on the death ledge and my poor friend the tree had been ripped out by it's roots and broken in half.

Andrew catches Micah on Abo.

Reptiles will have to wait to see my icy-cold grip until next year. I sure am going to miss clipping the same bolts Moses clipped on the FA of this route. That was back when Moses wore a shorter loincloth under his harness.

Goodbye, Little Si. I’m not actually sure I will miss you that much. Thanks for all the great times and the brothers. Now, lets find some big azz boulders!!!

Home. Car camping was so foriegn to Sarah and I. I have no idea what Sarah is doing here. The Funky Chicken?

Micah and Dom left Sarah and I in camp this morning to finish packing our things and to head home. They were on their way to Rainbow Rocks on the Tieton River to continue climbing for an additional couple of days. Sarah and I had to return to civilization and be responsible. Mortgages, phone bills. A hungry cat.

Micah dines on a fine breakfast of fried chicken wings.

I’d never climbed at Tienton before, though I was excited to. In the end, I wasn’t super stoked on the rock. It was good, but falls were not the cleanest with lots of ledges to break legs on. To make it worse, lots of routes wandered increasing the chances of a nasty pendulum if you took a whip. Or, maybe it was just the couple of places we ended up climbing at. Respectfully, the place has serious potential; and to be fair I was really in a laid back 5.9 kind of mood this weekend. I’ve been pushing so hard all summer, I just wanted to have some short, steep fun.

Micah's 11d onsight attempt. Sexy, braw.

Sarah leads the 100-foot 10a. I got schooled!

I shouldn’t make it sound like I didn’t have any fun, because I really did. I was able to enjoy a few stellar campfires out in the middle of nowhere with great friends, laugh my ass off, drink a shit-ton of beer, watch shooting stars from my tent and, well…climb. It was a good trip, but I’m broken right now with a messed up knee that’s going to put me out of commission for at least a month, what is shaping up to be Giardiasis; and last but not least, I lost both big toenails (which is not going to help with climbing). I’m really impressed with Sarah, she lead a 30 meter 10a without even looking tired. She actually spanked me because I just wasn’t into climbing it. Meh, not inspiring. Sarah, however hiked the thing and even came down with a great flapper. Tough chick. I like that.

Hey, Sarah's between my legs. She's a great belay.

Priceless, pure Dom.

This was, for me, more of a trip to relax, play around, laugh hard and maybe send a few easy, short routes. I got to do all of that so I continue to be a success in life.

We’ve decided that we’re going to start a quote book because we always end up saying the funniest things and then we forget them. This trip’s best quotes were:

• Dom: I love nuts (in reference to cashews).
• Me: I have endless wood (firewood).
• Sarah: I wish it was 3 times longer and twice as hard (that last route).

Micah had a few great ones, like usual. But he waits until we’re all shitfaced and can’t remember anything the next morning.

Curry y vino at the Crag: L to R Micah, Nic, Dom and Erica. Just about too late to downclimb the 4000 ft to the car, but not too late after a bottle of wine!

The convoluted nature of my monetary gains and it’s competition with my desire to be outside doing fingertip pullups is one you might not be familiar with, but you should get used to it. Last weekend, if you read me often, you’ll realize that the crew and I got out Saturday at Little Si, and if you remember my girl, Eirca, and I got out Sunday too…to Leavenworth (and Exit 38 in the same day). That meant I needed to work a full weekend this pay period to be able to live (I mean…climb!).

So, what does a guy do? He takes Friday off his day job to climb! This finds me at Bob’s Area at Mt. Washington, off of Exit 38. Not difficult, but a good plan. I have a project up there, Saltallero Presto (5.11a) and the other guys wanted to hit Crawling From the Wreckage (5.13a). That way I can climb a little more rock and make a little more money. Well worth it!

Nic, Micah and Dom projected Wreckage for a few hours and got all the good beta they needed. Micah and I are going back Tuesday, but Dom went up today, so we’ll see who gets the first redpoint. (building anticipation…..!!!!sDFJKHASKDFJHASKHASKDF)

I picked Nic up early so we could run some errands for him and then we booked it to Micah’s to head to 38. Five-man crew today. good vibes and, well, surprises lay ahead…. *grin*

Nic and Erica stopped at Amazonia down low to warm up on some fun stuff, but Micah and Dom had a 13a on their minds and I could only think about my project, so I headed up with the big boys. Micah and Dom worked and few 5.10+’s that I wasn’t going to touch for to save my strength for Presto, but they looked good.

Eventually, Nic and Erica showed up to see the guys working their asses off on Crawling. Major progress was made and  if the redpoint hasn’t gone down by this writing (I haven’t talked to Dom) then it will by Tuesday.

After dickering at Crawling from the Wreckage, we hit Alpinia. A few surprises awaited all of us! We all sent a few easy leads to warm up, I wanted to get on my project and…well, we were hungry. Erica, the crag goddess fir the day, had brought her camp gear and asked everyone to bring veggies. As a surprise, Nic and I smuggled a bottle of vino up the hour-long slog (along with my 7 liters of water (UGH!).

In the end, Erica is a killer cook in the backcountry (yum….) and I think I satisfied everyone’s disdain for downclimbing at night with a little wine.

We all climbed really hard (I almost sent my proj, ground-up! Thanks, Erica, for the most awesome belay in the world, even on that last “TAAAAAAKE”!!)

In the end, This climb was magic! we hiked hard, hauled a ton of gear and supplies, we stayed late and loved one another deeply. This is what makes climbers different than everyone else: a total sense of community. Erica had the genius idea to become crag mother for the night and cook us all a friggin awesome coconut curry dinner, and I had the sense, with Nic’s wisdom, to smuggle a bottle of Merlot up high (sorry, legs….). The rest of the guys simply wowed us all day with their muscles.

At 1:30 am I dropped Erica at her house and drove myself home with a  glowing feeling of success. The guys had made serious progress on the new “dude-proj”, Crawling from the Wreckage, and I had almost sent my project too. Last time I could only get to the first bolt. This time I got to the last bolt. Next time, its goin’ DOWN!!

Beautiful times for beautiful people. I love these folks. More pictures to come, More pictures already in the Imagery link.