With my work trip to Antarctica quickly approaching, Friday Nov. 6 became Konstantin’s and my goal to climb Dark Star (V 5.10c) on Temple Crag. More »

A couple of weeks ago Luke and I drove into Yosemite with the intention to check out Free Rider — kick its tires, try and get its general idea. Things went better than expected and we ended up climbing up 1/2 of El Cap free in a day. So we figured, “Eh, doing the whole thing can’t be that hard.” When I said that to my friend Traian, he laughed and answered “Yeah right, you guys climbed ‘Easy Rider’. Wait till you get higher.” He was spot on. More »

The long awaited 2nd installment is finally here.  That’s right, last month I got the itch again, sent out the e-mails, and this time an even bigger crew went up for punishment on some of the more heinous offwidths at Mt. Woodson.  Round 2!!!  This time we tried Right Long’s Crack and Greg’s Crack as the main course, with a little Big Grunt for dessert!

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I hadn’t been on a really long hard route for a while and I wanted to test myself.  This year I’ve started training a little more intelligently and it was paying off.  I was strong, but did I have endurance?  Not really sure how hard I was climbing when it comes to 10+ pitch hard stuff, I decided what better way to find out than try to free a bigwall?

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Rainbow wall is ridiculously well protected with a ridiculously small rack.  I’ve been on the wall 3 times now, and the rack has shrunk each time.  There is great gear, the crack changes sizes, and there are bolts protecting many of the cruxes.  I would recommend taking the following rack.

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