See Spot Run.

Another belated Hueco sequence of Satoshi sending See Spot Run V6.

Kelly Canyon.

Donkey Punch V6 (at the end of the video)... I just punked out on the sandy dirtiness. My friend Tim suggested a brush, maybe even a broom. Man was he right. I think spade, trowel, and high pressure water hose would have been more like it. Yeah, that and uh, some climbing ability. Nonetheless, a beautiful line with fluid and rewarding movement. The setup for the crux is a thing of beauty with a flag to make the holds positive and then a deadpoint to a decent crimp. Just to give credit where credit's due, the flag beta was Matt's idea. Well, that's the first crux. I think the top out is the real crux. I'll need to suss that out next time for the send.

Then I lost a bet on a deceptively heinous V6 slab: Either I send V6 in 6 tries, or else 6-pack for Matt. A satanic bet. I lost. Matt is triumphant with his Dos Equis (last seconds of video.)

Dope Lounge V4 - couldn't yank after blowing my load on Donkey Punch and the slab. In fact I fell on Dope Lounge from the triangle sloper and twisted my friggin ankle. Arrg. Mental note: don't do tall stuff when you're tired. Plus: make sure your crashpad isn't going to slide when you hit it. Double plus: Try harder.

Props to Matt and Jay for their tremendous spotting, which saved my ass at least a dozen times that day.

Priest Draw.

Things I've learned about Flagstaff AZ.
1. it's cold. At elevation, it's 60s in Vegas, but this morning in Flagstaff it was in the 20s. Bring a down jacket in beginning of April. Apparently even in the summer, it only reaches up to 80.

2. It's a "dark" town because of an observatory. There are no street lights and parking lots have no lights. With my tinted windows at night I couldn't see shite.

3. A blizzard came through right before I moseyed into town on I-40. The snow is apparently able to stick to vertical highway signs so you can't read them. That combined with Flagstaff being a dark town, I kept searching the night horizon for the pink glow from an urban center (Vegas is visible from 100 miles away) but could find none.

4. There's a truckload of bouldering right outside of town. Priest Draw is approximately 8 miles away with well traveled trail approaches that are flat and easy. A lazy boulderer's (I know that's redundant) dream!

Ran into a couple kids who are students at NAU who took happened to be on a Hueco tour of the West Mountain with my friends and I back in January. Amazing how small the climbing world is. Here we warm up on some boulder where every hold is a jug.
Below I do some V5 called Whip and Cross or something like that.
Afterwards, we head to home depot to get a brush and extend-o stick to brush holds at Kelly Canyon. Jay and Matt react humorously to an asian wielding a camera in home depot.
Dinner... we had no pepper, so I used chili paste on a new york steak. Matt's skirt steak makes a guest appearance.

A meager day...

Triangle Boulder
V0 - flash
V3 - flash

Bat Roof
V3 Bat roof - flash
V1 fin thing - flash

Killer Wall
V1 - flash
V2 - flash
V5 whip and cross 2nd try and then repeated for camera. (2nd time was supposed to be staged for camera, but decided to do finish it anyway.) Soft for 5 but who cares.

Wife Beater V7... I couldn't get past sloper (2nd move). Matt was able to match on sloper due to his abundance of fur and gristle but chickened out before the huck- with good reason since we only had two medium sized pads and it was a stepped landing.

Anorexix V6 - failure. Couldn't get past the frickin first roof. My toe hooking sucks. All the moves are totally doable tho. I did the climb easily from after the initial roof. Definitely will go, just need to perfect the foot beta in the beginning since I don't have fingers of steel. In fact, none of my anatomy consists of steel. Tomorrow the plan is to go with Matt and Jay to kelly canyon for some sandstone bouldering. I'm secretly hoping it's closed so I'll have another espresso fueled chance on Anorexic...

Two finger lock off.

SM demonstrates some two finger lock off power. On first hard part of Monster Skank. I couldn't do this move, although now I see he sort of did a jump. I was trying a more static method. Next time, Monster Skank!

Front Corridor.

Without any prior overt communication, all sport climbers bend over simultaneously. One of the oddities of sport climbing behavior. Species from left to right: one homo climberus pilotus, two homo climberus teacherae (sub-species hubristis.)

Another common behavior observed especially in homo teacherae: Leader warms up fingers by cavorting with belayer's derriere.

The chalking ritual. These creatures believe that chalk contains magical properties that improve their climbing. Note the corduroy pink sequined chalk bag on left climber exhibiting more bending over behavior. The hind display is employed to ward off potential threats (like photographers.)
Entering the first crux on Monster Skank 5.13b (8a).

Raku.

A superlative dining experience. Here you can see Pilar about to feed her Raku habit. It's worse than coke.

Inside, your bleached chopsticks (the one weakness, but where have you ever not encountered bleached chopsticks?*) are wrapped with a cute logo.

Emily ordered the agedashi tofu, the best I've ever had. It came topped with scallions and ikura. I especially liked the tongue-shaped dab of spicy sauce on the lip of the bowl.

Pilar went for the grilled mackerel. It's deboned so you can rip right into the bubbled flesh like the vulture you are. Comes with a shredded turnip or radish, I forget which, but the waitress recommended adding some soy sauce to the white stuff and it was delicioso.

No dessert because I had to cut out to catch a redeye flight to the east coast.

*Now that I think about it, a Korean places do offer metal chopsticks, which is pretty cool. That way, if somebody tries to poison me, I'll know because the metal will change color if it touches poison. That's the origin of metal chopsticks. OK, I made that up.

I got nothin.

I want to report climbing on Thursday with SM at the Front Corridor in the Sandstone Quarry.
Tried Monster Skank 5.13b and Sunsplash 5.13b. Got bitch slapped on both.
We only made to the 3rd or 4th bolt on either route. Sunsplash I strongly suspect is a drilled route. It looks blank from the ground and utterly impossible, but when you get on it, suddenly you're sinking up to your second knuckle into deep two-finger pockets. I've been on drilled routes elsewhere and it was a similar feeling. Despite the apparent manufacturing, it was a lot of fun with good movement, and SM said it reminded him of The Equalizer 5.13a at Charleston.

While ascending Sunsplash, SM ripped a gaseous cloud of noxiousness over my belaying head. I nearly passed out and almost let go of the rope. Fortunately the gri-gri would have saved him if I were to have passed out. It must have been a relaxation of the rectal sphincter due to blood sugar redirection to the parts of his body straining to stay on the wall. Completely understandable. I believe this happens to runners when they shit themselves during a marathon. I've witnessed this also when boulderers try really really hard on a move. I guess if you squeeze in one place, you must relax another. Since your ass is not holding the rock, your body must say, "OK, you can relax" and then the squeeze fart occurs. There must be a word for this. Taking a cue from shart, might I propose "squart"?

In order to atone for lack of photos (it's hard with two people... it seems at least three is required for climbing photography/video) I'm posting some stuff from the end of the Hueco trip where we lost our minds from too much volcanic porphyry, tamales, and caffeine.

I don't know how M convinced us to do this...
My favorite picture of the trip...
Random photo of one of my coworkers as we wandered around Madison Avenue in search of ramen noodles.

Black Corridor... so crowded.

Shawn successfully toproped Texas Lite Sweet 5.11b. I needed a couple tries to get the crux. It's a steep slab with tiny holds. At the crux Shawn uses a hold that's barely in existence. After spending way too much time discussing whether it's 5.11b or not, in hindsight, I could see it since it's a slab. I mean, 5.11b slab is bound to be frickin hard for techniqueless gym monkey boulderers. The odd part is the way it's bolted... it doesn't seem to correspond to the route. So we're not totally sure how Texas Lite Sweet was originally designed. In any case, neither of us has ever seen chalk on the line that goes straight to the chains. Now there is. That sounds like a boast, but I actually regret leaving traces there. It would be much cooler to do it and leave not one molecule of magnesium carbonate on the sandstone.

From the numinous to the tenebrous.

This reprobate weather cancelled my flight back to Vegas. Feeling lugubrious in NJ, which is how you are supposed to feel in NJ, I cobbled together this video which spans from Texas to New York, with the Garden State making an appearance via the midtown Dover express line. The dream of Hueco dissolves into the muddy hues of a northeast wintry mix. The only thing warm out here are my friends, some of whom make brief appearances. OK, enough of this deleterious bathos and pitiful kvetching. At the end of the video we visit Spiderman. Then the night melted into a reddish haze of ramen noodles, hand made gyoza, sapporo, hendrick's gin, and jameson's irish whiskey. Following this immolation of liver and brain, I awoke in new jersey with nothing left but a spleen and some simulacra... there was talk of Obama, neat, blood drinking, guillotines, Kilimanjaro, ganja, bosses, limos, beeotches, shee-its, pussy, puree, Woolloomooloo, spears, nicotine, sleepy eyes, audits, nicotine, slickness, this one's on the house...

T-Bone Shuffle and Manly Stuff.

Here I try some V6 dyno on the Thunderbird boulder.

Day 5 started auspiciously: Kristoph's bacon croissant + triple espresso + cinnamon raisin bagel! That's a breakfast.

T-bone Shuffle V4 - redpoint This problem was unlocked by Satoshi who decided that the left side pull was on. This unleashed the send train as T-bone was then mercilessly gang-banged by me, Masa, and Yusuke. Mark let it go because he didn't want to risk another flapper.
In the video I almost roundhouse Yusuke in the head after missing the crenellation. Yusuke's Redbull reflexes helped him to duck and block with his arm.


Orifice Affair V1 - An amazing line of huecos, with a decoy hueco to mess you up. Below Takako works it out.
Manly Stuff V4 - We concluded the day on this muther ucker. Again Satoshi unlocked the door to the send train. Mark got it next - he pushed hard, stood tall, pulled it down, whipped out his manly stuff, and came on top. Double entendres all intended. I followed but only by exploiting a most positive hidden razor crimp (sneaky stuff). Big Yusuke almost had the right stuff, but didn't have time to work out alternate beta for his style.



18 point day

Yusuke had 14 point day... if only he sent Manly Stuff. Damn, kid is getting strong!

Hueco day 4.

In order to visit North Mountain we had to watch the orientation video. That's me in the back sleeping with the sunglasses on. I love the fact that no matter where the camera is, Mark turns to the lens and cracks a smile.

Here we are trying Daily Dick Dose V7 with the silly toe hook drop knee beta. Mark started using the heel hook gaston beta which we later found out is probably easier. None of us got it though. Thanks again to Takako for the photos.




This day sucked so bad I'm not even going to talk about it... I guess Carlsbad wasn't really a rest day for my weak ass since walking 2 miles underground for several hours wasn't exactly the same as lying in bed with a beer and watching cagefighting in your underwear.

Ghetto Simulator V2 - flash
Nobody Gets out alive V2 - failure
See Spot Run V6 - failure
Daily Dick Dose V7 - failure
Babyface V7 - failure
something next to babyface V2 - flash

More of my m.o. ... either flash it or forget it. I guess v6 or v7 is pretty ambitious given the fact that anything I've ever sent at those grades had been worked on for weeks, months, or years. So I shouldn't expect to just show up and send those guys. Sort of sucks though because classics abound in the v6-v7 range.

4 point day... yikes! Clearly out of gas. No amount of caffeine or creatine was going to revive my mitochondria or kick start my Krebs cycle on this day. Starting to wish I never came here because everything else with the exception of Bishop and Font is beginning to look like choss. I'm sure that's a common side-effect of Hueco and I hope it wears off once I depart.

Yusuke climbs into heaven...

Carlsbad Caverns - rest day

What better for a rest day than a visit to the largest hole in the ground in North America?
On the way to New Mexico we saw these yucca or joshua trees or something like them in bloom with their flowers sprouting out doing their best impression of something you'd find in a Dr. Suess children's book.
We also paused by what looked to be a salt flat. Its apparent whiteness unconvincing, Masa placed a piece in his mouth and exclaimed, "Salty!" We all admired his brave demonstration of the scientific method.
On the descent into the cavern, our resident geologist Mark was very excited. I pretentiously opted not to use the audio accompaniment, as I was not in the mood for recorded chatter while in the presence of nature's miracles. The caverns were so vast they probably could have contained ten thousand sport routes if climbers had discovered it first... I'm kinda glad that didn't happen. Unfortunately the bat show (a zillion bats fly out of the entrance that Mark is approaching above) only occurs between May and October. Right now I guess they're hanging out in Mexico (no pun intended.)
Ansel Adams said these caverns should not exist in relation to man. That's how out of this world they are. Seeing all the formations provided an organic view of geology; rock formations actually are born and die just like living beings. Only, the interval between the life and death of a geological formation is imperceptible to our hyperactive and greedy sense perceptions. We don't even grasp the interval between 75 years of human life and death; so when somebody dies we think it's the end, but it's only the beginning of another life. We are like rocks, just much softer and rocks are like us, just much slower. In climbing, that softness meets the slowness, but everything is moving - just at different rates.
I like the pic below of Takako jumping for joy. It's how I felt being on a bouldering trip for a week with good friends. Yusuke's wide angle seems to have caught Satoshi on a his way to relieve himself by the side of the road. I was going to crop it out but what the hell.