I slowly ramped up the duration and intensity of my activity level as well as the amount of time I spent upright. My body let me know if I was doing too much. I started to work out some modifications for classic yoga poses that would allow me to participate in a formal [...]
May 23, 2010.
Click here to see someone else’s photo of the route. Note the climber to the right of the big tree for scale.
It’s been a great climbing season already, and I was feeling pumped to keep pushing my limits and trying new things. With a superstar climbing partner this weekend, I tackled [...]
December 24, 2009
The weather for Portland looked lousy for today, and all of Central Oregon looked worse, so my mom and I decided to head west towards the coast, where temperatures of up to 50 degrees looked fabulous for Christmas Eve. According to the blue Sullivan guide, a nice flat loop through Nehalem Bay State [...]
August 4-7, 2009.
Day 1: The Hike In
Karen, Sue and I left Portland early to get to the Wallowas by mid-afternoon. This would be Karen’s first backpacking trip. Our plan was to hike into the wilderness via the Tenderfoot trailhead and set up a base camp near Bonny Lakes or Dollar Lake. From there, [...]
July 23- July 26, 2009.
Boston Basin near Cascade Pass
Our plan: to climb the East Ridge Direct route on Forbidden Peak in two days, then drive to Washington Pass and do some rock climbing on the stellar routes we keep hearing about out there. Things didn’t turn out quite as we’d planned… On Thursday afternoon we [...]
At the northern reaches of the Appalachian Trail in Maine is the remotest stretch of walking: almost 100 miles without any towns or major road crossings, just the occasional long, private gravel road. My dad thought this would make a great backpacking trip after reading Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods. And so, for [...]
In the course of four glorious days of climbing at Smith Rock, I successfully climbed several moderate routes. I would highly recommend these routes for a beginning leader. What follows are some brief descriptions, listed by order of difficulty, as well as some lessons learned, .
Left Slab Crack (5.4 Trad)
Chris and I broke this lead [...]
All the tedious lectures and meticulous preparation came down to this: three weekends of climbing at Smith Rock, a climber’s paradise. In the 6 days of climbing we were required to get three evaluations. Much to my dismay, I had to kill the first day re-testing on some of the skills that I had failed [...]
The Mazamas Advanced Rock class is designed to keep you off the rock for as long as possible. Leading rock climbs is serious business, and safety is the Mazamas’ (as well as my own) number one concern. Week after week, I would sit through lectures on topics such as: gear placement, building anchors, rock rescue, [...]
I still can’t believe it’s over. About three months ago, I walked out of my first Advanced Rock lecture filled with fear and disbelief that I was actually going to take on the task of trad leading. I had just barely begun trying some easy leads in the safety of the rock gym and I [...]