Returning from an ascent of Bear Creek Spire this weekend, Konstantin and I got into the topic of Winter climbing. We’ve been climbing partners for almost two years now, but this conversation, transcribed essentially verbatim, contains pretty diverse perspectives on why we go to the Sierra in Winter: More »
So… I turned 33 this year. Each year I’m battling more mild chronic pain, I’m sore longer, and it takes more to warm up. But… I get smarter, more motivated, and have more experience to build on. I always try to accomplish something that I couldn’t do the year before. I’ve done a couple spectacular one day birthday challenges like 30 routes in J-Tree 5.10 or harder, and last year some friends and I led our age in routes in Mesa Rim. The latter challenge was extra difficult because I did a pyramid of routes from 5.10 to 5.13a. Most of the routes were 50+’, and it took 6.5 hours. I didn’t recover for almost a week. This year, I want to try something a little different. Erin, a friend in LA, had the goal of 12 5.12s in 2012. This got the brain rolling a little, as did the pyramid challenge in MR, and I came up with my own little challenge. I was born in Jan, so I roughly have the calendar year to accomplish this goal: More »
Why do you climb? Does it light the fire in your belly? Does it make your heart beat faster? Do you seek adventure, or stay in your comfort zone? For me, I know that the bigger and harder the better, and I’d rather be on the rock with an amazing friend, than anywhere else on earth… More »
The Sierra season is short, we are told. July through September, then the snows come. True, but in the Range of Light, the sun comes out again after the storm and warms the rock faces. So Asa and I headed up this December for a chilly late season (or early Winter season?) ascent of the Strassman Route on Lone Pine Peak. More »
The normal approach to climbing is to maximize your chances of success. But Peter Croft talks about going for it–and being willing to fail big–rather than surely succeeding: “It’s kind of a lost, or it’s kind of an ignored idea, magnificent failure rather than a kind of mediocre success.” More »
Ascent date: 10/22/2011
When you’re pulling the cruxes high on Cloud Tower in Red Rocks, your yells echo throughout the canyon, off of rose-colored walls and into the city of sin beyond. As a woman, sometimes, a good scream is what you need to let ‘em know you’re finishing. Our goal is that those screams motivate you to get out there and pull hard! More »
In school we learn that Death Valley is the lowest place in the Americas. Less than 100 miles away, as the crow flies, is Mt Whitney, the highest point in the 48. Distance, elevation, extreme temps, and two mountain ranges is what lies between them. To visit both in a day on your own power, you need to think like Honey Badger. More »
Homeward bound
I wish I was
Homeward bound
Home, where my thought’s escaping
Home, where my music’s playing
Home, where my love lies waiting
Silently for me
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Often climbing a peak once is not enough. We like to know the mountain well, its different facets and routes, especially if it’s one of the keystone peaks in our home range! Temple Crag is a beautiful monstrous peak with the biggest technical routes in the Sierra, all lined up one next to the other. There are too many good routes, and it beckoned to run laps on it. More »
Past the point of exhaustion and chilled to the bone, I was only half relieved that we were making our last of roughly 15, 60 meter rappels to get off the face. For hours Fred had descended into the darkness below, tediously setting v-threads in the icy face. Now, after 20 hours on the go, we were finally back on the snow, almost to the glacier. “rope free,” called Fred. I put the ropes through my ATC, started to rappel, and then the unthinkable happened…the snow picket ripped, I fell backwards, and started sliding at full speed down the 55 degree snow slope. I knew the bottomless bergshrund was somewhere below, and I envisioned my broken body lying frozen in its depths. Unable to self arrest, I knew my time had come. I would die in the great Peruvian Andes, well before my time, under the glow of a full moon. More »
Denali has a split personality. On the one hand, it is “The High One,” the stately and lofty red and white ruler. But it is also De-gnar-li, the snow-choked, windy, frigid monster. In summer, you get to see a lot of the former in nice weather windows. But the latter rears its head even more often. And yes we got to see him up close and personal. More »
In high altitude climbing, weather windows are everything. If you can move fast enough, and are opportunistic, you can sometimes grab the summit alpine style while expedition climbers are waiting around for a bigger window. It worked for me on Denali: I just had to push harder. More »
Pop! “Falling!” I sat on the ground after lowering thinking, “Really? Really? Did that just happen? OK, calm the storm. Moonlight Buttress is about two weeks away, it might heal…” I had just tweaked something pretty bad in the left side of my calf heading up into my knee, while heel hooking. I sat there on the floor at the Mesa Rim climbing gym telling myself it would be OK.
“If I have gone a little faster, pulled a little harder, and seen a bit further, it is because I have tread in the steps kicked by Giants.” More »
“Mountains are not stadiums where I satisfy my ambition to achieve, they are the cathedrals where I practice my religion.”- Anatoli Boukreev More »
Once upon a time, a friend of a friend nicknamed “the Nizzler,” for reasons lost to time, took a trip to Indian Creek. After getting brutally worked on one of her projects, she laid down amongst the gear at the base, like a wolf puppy who tried her first hunt on a porcupine. Semi-fetal, with knees tucked up but limp arms and lifeless eyes, my friend snapped a picture, and it provides the blueprint for when we tell each other we’ve been “nizzled.” More »
Many cruxes were identified as we made our way up the drainage heading towards the Palisade Glacier. The perfect combination of conditions, psych, and weather had to come together before the mountains would permit our passage. More »
Sometimes you just gotta give back to the community. Thank you to ACSD and all the volunteers who helped make this clean-up a massive success!
After a crazy and hectic 1st semester of business school in LA, I felt an overwhelming desire to get myself involved in something non-urban and anti-corporate. Over eight days spanning New Years 2011, I met up in Yosemite with two up-and-coming young climbers from Boulder, Cheyne Lempe and Colin Simon. More »
While Scotty and I were climbing Deborah on Arrowhead peak, I could not help but notice a fat drip of ice half way up the right gully on McHenrys peak. 5 days later I called Buster and convinced him we needed to go climb it. Our adventure on the Big Mac Couloir had been memorable, but now it was time to step it up. We would go for the obvious linkup…West Gully to Right Gully, car to car, and squeeze it in during the calendar winter. We approached, we saw, we sent. More »
Twitch… Twitch… Twitch… I could tell, it was time to go to THE NEEDLES! Who better to call than Roberto? I hadn’t really been climbing outdoors all summer due to full time work and full time class, and I had just received brand new shiny Totem Cams to review. Where better to test them out than the Needles where Roberto and I both intended to whip?
The Evolution Traverse is an idea. Beautiful in both its simplicity and myriad implications. The Evolution Traverse is a work of art in every sense of the word. It takes vision and perseverance, training and patience, confidence and daring. When I first read about the traverse 2 years ago, I knew I must try it. Slowly but surely I realized that I had to solo it… More »
Thanks to Anthony, Catherine’s husband, I discovered Zombie Roof, a 5.12d (recently upgrated to 5.13a) crack line. When Anthony told me about his project, of course I happily volunteered to belay him. Having never climbed a roof, I told myself I would learn by watching him, and maybe I could try to see how it feels. At that time, I was expecting to pull the moves, but not have the strength or endurance required to link them. I was entirely wrong! On my first try, I couldn’t pull any hard moves. But at my twelveth attempt, I linked them all placing my own gear!!!
Leading the Vampire last year marked a turning point in my climbing career. It was the advent of my new climbing adventure, since life was taking me away from San Diego and my trad mentor. To keep improving, I was forced to find new climbing partners and to push myself to get on hard climbs. A year later, I believe I succeeded.
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There were falls into the engulphing blackness. Some pitches were onsighted, others not. There was blood, both fake and real. Cloaks blew in the wind, and mezmerized in the moonlight. An adventure was sought, and experienced. It was a good night….. More »
Back in the summer of 2009 Nath climbed The Vampire at Tahquitz (5.11a) with her friend, Linda. She’s from Montreal and spoke French growing up and so this needed a little editing. For various reasons (none good) I slacked and didn’t get to it until now. Sorry Nath. In any case, below is her awesome tale of leading The Vampire. She’d been leading trad for about 2 years, and what made it exceptionally challenging was that she’s about 5′1″. More »
Climbing epics tend to start out in a similar manner: you pick a climb that is over your head, over-estimate your abilities, under-estimate the time to climb it and since you will summit in no time, you take away essentials like water, food, and headlamps. Much like a flawed mathematical proof or scientific experiment, what you set out to do turns into a series of mistakes because of a false initial assumption. When you succeed, you call it light and fast. When you don’t, it turns into an epic. Then there’s the gray area in between where you are climbing in the dark, blaming yourself for not bringing more water and a headlamp, your mind gets filled with self-doubts, and you are certain that you’re going to die. Here is my story: More »
When did I know I had bitten off more than I could chew? I think it occurred to me about 10 feet into my 25 foot fall…WOOOOOOOOOOO! More »
Training for Moonlight Buttress, Roberto and I were short on time one weekend but long on energy. We decided to hit Eagle Peak and just climb everything we could get our hands on! The plan was simple: show up and punch out as many pitches as possible with the time we had.
Over the last year and a half I have been lucky enough to put together a spectacular list of long climbs: Dream of Wild Turkeys, Levitation 29, The Original Route, Rainbow Country and Moonlight Buttress, but none of them really felt like they were my trip. It never felt like success or failure rested on my shoulders. So I figured it was time to plan my own trip and climb a big wall with all the pressure on me. I chose the Original Route on the Rainbow Wall for two reasons; first, I had done it before, so I knew I could do it again, and second, it is close to San Diego. More »
Goals create motivation, motivation leads to goals. It’s cyclical. Without one, it’s hard to have the other, but with both anything is possible. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard people say “that’s my dream climb.” Dreams are for the thinkers, goals are for the doers. I’ve learned that once my dreams become my goals, they quickly become my accomplishments. Sometimes it’s hard, but I always end up with a smile on my face and memories for a lifetime. More »
Looking back on this trip all I can remember are the breathtaking views, the phenomenal rock climbing and the laughs, but that is only half of the story. Be forewarned this is not your typical trip report. More »
Roberto and I recently wandered off to the desert for a weekend of punishment. I’d been sport climbing, or climbing easier stuff for a while and I needed to get WRECKED! I asked Roberto if he was up for some punishment and he gave me a big fat YES. We flipped through the guide, and found our instruments of self annihilation.
The piercing sound of gunfire rang out through the desert air, sending Charles, Asa and myself scampering for cover against the desert chaparral. Our panicked, semi-crouched positions belied our combat inexperience. Storms, avalanches, crevasses, rockfall — between the three of us we’ve faced our share of objective hazards. But the very real possibility of being shot was a new one. More »
Nate and I found a day without rain a while back, and decided to hit the Mt. Woodson boulders. We only tried a few problems that day, but three of them were absolute classics and we shot a little video. There was Silk Banana, the obscenely strenuous lieback, which neither of us had tried before. That provided a wicked warmup, being one of the most powerful problems I’ve ever tried at Woodson. More »
June 2009, Chamonix
Kostas, Scotty, and I chose the Frendo Spur as our first route in the Alps. Of course our “real” goals were the Petit Dru and the Walker Spur, being California hotshot rock technicians and all.
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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!
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?
The other day I hatched a plan and started recuiting. Being surrounded by motivated climbers, I talked four others into my crazy scheme. We all want to improve our offwidthing so the plan was, head up to Mt. Woodson after work and try some of the more gnarly offwidths up there. On the ticklist were Right Long’s Crack, Mother Superior, and Greg’s Crack. As you can see below, at least we were smart enough to tape up. Check out the video to see if we triumphed or not…
After bailing after only 1-pitch due to a late start and a heavy pack a month ago during a Whitney-Russell weekend, Lin and I decided to head back to the Direct East Face (IV-V 5.10+) of Mt. Whitney and try it again. More »
Friday Luke shows up at my house, “You ready? *sniff *sniff” he says. “You sick?” I ask? “Yeah, been sick all week, thought about telling you this morning, but was scared you’d bail.” “Shizer”, I think ” I would have…” More »
Shay and I had been talking for a while about heading up to get the first free ascent (FFA) of Pipeline (5.10 A0) on Mt. Carillon. It’s a 1000+’ route that he and Andre put up a year ago, and the “money pitch” involves liebacking, underclinging and smearing under an enormous roof that looks like a giant crashing wave. In addition, we planned on adding some new pitches leading up to and after the Pipeline roof. Mt. Carillon is just north of Lower Boy Scout Lake in the Whitney region, and is in a beautiful secluded valley away from the crowds.
On Friday I emailed Nate asking if he wanted to climb at Tahquitz over the weekend and he replied with a “pass” as he was trying to put together a trip to the Sierra’s. A few hours later he emailed me again asking if I wanted to go attempt a new line up Mt. Langley. Shay had climbed on Langley the weekend before and attempted a ridge that dead-ended before reaching the summit – Nate thought he saw a ridge in the pictures Shay brought back that might connect to the top. He thought we’d try to do the route in a day but there was a good chance we’d face an unplanned bivy and a cold night on the rock at high altitude. More »
Last weekend Luke and I went up the South Fork of Tuttle Creek to check out the North face of Mt. Langley. We were inspired to go back there after seeing the information posted by Doug Robinson on Supertopo and Alois on Summitpost about the amount of virgin rock that was available back there. More »
After not climbing anything significant for a while due to a certain Mongolia trip, Nate and I decided to jump right into the Sierra alpine season with an ascent of Michael Strassman’s If At First (V 5.10+) on the East face of Mt. Whitney. More »
Wednesday morning, 230am (roughly)
“dude, I forgot my harness…”
Brad and I were inside my shitty tent, bivied at 11500 feet in Glacier Gorge, rain fly flapping in the wind and the sound of alpine streams filling the silence in between gusts. We had hiked in around sunset and went to sleep around midnight with BIG plans for the next day. I woke briefly from my slumber and was greeted by Brad, who was apparently wide awake. All he said was, “dude…I forgot my harness.” More »
Mont Blanc du Tacul, Gabarrou-Albinoni. III 4+. 500 m. “La grande classique de la face E du Mont Blanc du Tacul.” More »
So, Greg and I wimped out of Sufferfest 2009 – with an epic carry-over up the Emmons, down the DC, traverse to the Kautz, up the Kautz and down the Emmons – instead deciding that pizza sounded much more appetizing than carrying large packs up and over the peak twice. Therefore, it was time to make up for it and do a car-to-car climb of the Kautz Glacier More »
After picking up food for a few days on the mountain, Baby Greg (aka “the Kid” aka “the Animal”) and I headed towards Mt. Rainier Tuesday afternoon. Arriving at the ranger station at White River campground, we spoke with the ranger about conditions on Liberty Ridge – the route we had come to the mountain from San Diego to climb. More »
Here’s something I wrote about soloing Clean and Jerk for the first time a few years ago. There haven’t been many trip reports recently, so I thought I would inject some life in the site. More »
I’ve been meaning to do this for a while so now that I am finally healing up, I figured I write up my accident report and see what feedback anyone had so that something could be taken away from what happened. More »
Out of all the mountains I have ever climbed, Mt. Lady Washington is definitely the least cool. First off, Its named after George Washington’s wife, who probably never climbed a mountain and/or had an orgasm in her life. (she might be wearing a bathrobe in this picture!?) More »
I’ve been climbing in J-Tree for almost a decade now. In fact, it’s the place that I started climbing outdoors. It’s a magical place for me, the home of my first multipitch, first 5.10a gear onsight, first 5.12a gear redpoint, and so much more. For seven years now, I’ve had the idea of leading the number of 5.10s equal to my age. More »
With the road open Shay, Josh, Konstantine and I returned to King’s Canyon to retrieve our gear stash, but also to snag some more of the low hanging FA fruit. An ominous weather forecast had a couple of us doubting whether we should go, but then Konstantine called us on our shit. More »
The plan was perfect. For almost a year now I had been regaling anyone with a set of ears about King’s Canyon, a magical place Lin and I visited for the first time last summer. In my opinion King’s Canyon is an untouched Yosemite, replete with vast first ascent potential, minimal approaches, perfect rock and a beautiful setting. Nate and Shay were keen, so we planned a 3 day trip over April 18-20. The plan was simple: 1) drive to King’s Canyon, 2) walk 10 feet and put up modern megaclassic multi-pitch first ascents 3) enjoy the hedonistic luxuries of a well stocked car camping site. More »
Another beautiful weekend in Joshua Tree and a few more sweet routes ticked. After a lazy saturday-morning wakeup Josh and I made it to the park before noon and headed straight for Hidden Arch, an amazing left leaning corner just to the left of Loose Lady. This thing is pretty hard, with funky crimping outside the corner followed by body-englishing your way up the corner. A total Scotty route. More »
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”
Buster and I left the Glacier Gorge trailhead at 330am. Our skinned skis sounded like laser guns, gliding along the snow which was well packed thanks to the hoards of people who come to the gorge to cross country ski and snowshoe into that majestic section of Rocky Mountain National Park. More »
My friend from “back in the day” (high school), had a condo all to himself in West Vail for a week, and invited me up to stay. With work being slow, I decided I would head up for a 4 day weekend and get some snowboarding in–courtesy of Pete’s season pass–at one of the country’s best and poshest resorts. On a whim, I called Buster and told him about the situation, and suggested we get on some ice in the Vail area. More »
I tried to find a partner – I really did, but problem one was that I don’t know very many strong skiers in SoCal. Problem two was that the few people I knew strong enough to ski it, weren’t too keen on earning their turns from the bottom up. Problem three? The two I did know who were strong enough and “willing” were busy, and this was the last weekend of winter and the only weekend I had time for it. 3 strikes, I guess it’s solo time…
Many of us know Tasmania for one thing: The Totem Pole. It is a very sought after and coveted ascent in climbing. It consists of a thin freestanding spire of rock 4m wide that thrusts out of the raging ocean almost 65m. More »
Winter Ascent of the Complete North Ridge of Lone Pine Peak from the Owens Valley.
Climbed by Scott Nelson, Nathan Ricklin and Charles Ince, January 30th 2009.
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One 82 hour weekend, 29 hours of driving, 4 states, 1 rented mini-van, 4 stinky guys and 1 petite French Canadian mademoiselle, one 30th birthday, one enclosed “natural” hot-springs, copious amounts of booze, and shit-loads of ice to climb. More »
Its funny (in a sick and twisted way) how often the word “death” gets used as an adjective while climbing…”hey Buster, are you on the death flake?” “Oh man, I can’t wait to do the death march back to the car tonight.” “That Death traverse was sooooo fun!” But Death in the mountains, along with poverty, injustice, and war, are all things of the past now that Obama is president. That’s why we never took the rope or any gear out of our packs during our mile long, 5.5 hour ascent of Mt. Ypsilon’s Blitzen ridge, although the extra weight did make it more “fun.” But really people, who needs a rope when you’ve got hope?
On January 18th, 2009 Charles Ince and Albert Yu-Min Lin woke at 3:30 am to embark upon what may have been the first winter “ukulele” ascent of Mount Whitney’s East Face. The Video below is the story of that climb… More »
“Tienen drugas?”
“Tienen armas?”
These were the questions the Mexican cop asked us as he patted us down with our hands on the side of Buster’s Mini-van, The Silver Bullet (TSB). The four of us, my roommate Pete, Jeff, Buster, and myself, had been driving for 23 hours from Boulder, CO without incident, and now, with the Potero just a dozen Kilometers away, it seemed our luck had run out. More »
Like so many climbing trips and adventures, this one started with an email. It was from Buster, and attached to the email was a picture of someone following The Flying Dutchman’s (TFD) crux ice section: More »
Lin and I headed to Tuolumne over Sep 19-21. On Friday we climbed OZ, a 3 pitch 5.10d. The third pitch is supposedly the best 5.10 crack in TM, and I’d have to agree. Afterwards we got totally hosed trying to TR “Galen’s Crack”, a 5.10c OW next to the road. This thing is pretty brutal. More »
The Michael Strassman Memorial Route climbs the South Face of Lone Pine Peak following an impressive right leaning dike, dubbed the Super Dike. This prominent feature rips across the otherwise blank wall for nearly 500 feet, offering up some incredible climbing along the way. The first ascent was accomplished on September 30, 2008 by Scotty Nelson, Charles Ince and Nate Ricklin. More »
The trickling sensation of fear and anticipation moved slowly through my body in the days leading up to the climb. Every thing I had done to this point would not compare in shear scale, where we were headed was in my mind the “Mount Everest of rock walls”. Driving into the Yosemite valley I thought back again to the days of my youth, where a wide eyed 12 year old sat in the back of his parents car staring up at the towering El Capitan in amazement… at that point I would have never believed I would one day scale that very wall. More »
Scotty had promised that we would do an FA for our birthdays back in July. Unfortunately the weather had other plans for us that weekend (We were able to do the FFA of Kostas and Nate’s route Cleavage Dreamer, with a direct start). A promise is a promise, so the next chance we had, we were headed back up to the North Face of Mt. Russell to give it another go. Things went smoothly enough (I have yet to go on a Scotty vacation). We got up at 4am on Saturday and got to the base of Mt. Carillon where we set up camp and had a leisurely afternoon of bouldering, top-roping, among other things… More »
Teased by reports of big virgin granite up the Cleaver Valley, Lindsey, Shay Andre and I found ourselves parked at Whitney Portal late one August evening. We immediately started hiking up, bivying on the sandy bench above LBSL. I think this is a useful strategy for mitigating altitude sickness, and it also allows one to enjoy the hike in the coolth of the night. More »
The pipeline is perhaps the most imposing roof in the Eastern Sierras. Flawless granite extending itself from the wall more than 30 feet. Andre and I spotted this obvious feature while putting up Sweet Carillon. This weekend we went up to explore it. More »
Last weekend, Kostas and I went to explore the West Face of Polemonium on the Palisades crest. After a lot of hiking from South Lake and a ton of talus scrambling, we managed to put up a pretty fun route that tops out on Polemonium Peak. More »
There I stood, perched on a small face hold hugging the arete trying to surmount the 5 foot roof that marked the middle of our 3rd pitch. This was my first look at the wall above it and it looked blank. Would I be able to downclimb? Was there an alternative path? More »
Nate and I ventured up to the Whitney region last weekend. After gawking at the possibilities, we bagged two new routes: More »
We waited until the end of the weekend so that I could recover from a lingering cold and to avoid the 4th of July weekend crowds. It turns out that while I was getting better, Kostas was getting worse as he had mysteriously picked up my cold. So with occasional coughing fits we made the drive at a leisurely 60 MPH to Big Pine on Monday afternoon. More »
Scotty and I spotted The Cleaver while we were on the NERLPP, and after getting home and looking it up saw that it had only one route on the South face. Sick! We made loose plans to check it out, but Scotty suggested the idea to Kostas before taking off on a 3 week roadtrip. More »
Time to get psyched on summer, fuckers! The snow has melted and the time is here for Sierra alpine rock blitzes. Throw down all that heavy winter gear, get up onto that high altitude granite, and move your ass!
To get you all stoked here’s a quick report of Charles’s and my ascent last summer of Temple Crag’s Sun Ribbon Arete. We did the route in 18 hours, car-to-car, snagged the Tyrolean first try, and topped out around 5pm. More »
For the 3rd time in 3 weeks, I woke up at midnight to go climb a big mountain. The motions have taken on a faint sense of familiarity, a sort of deja vu. An empty house, roomates out at the bars, loaded backpack waiting by the door, laden with dual ice axes and my boots and gaiters sitting peacefully by its side, begging to be dawned and trodden through the snow and ice, over the high alpine rock. The tools of the trade. My food bag sits in the fridge, each of the 3500 calories ready to be burned. More »
I don’t usually post trip reports, not because that I rarely take trips, but mostly because I’m a sport climber with the literary skill of a fifth grader. But once a while, I get on something so big and exciting that I feel compelled to write about, only to get swamped with work and actual climbing. Let’s see how this one goes… More »
“Maybe that couple” I muttered to Scotty, trying to send the 40th pitch of Galactic Hitchhiker; the ride back down to the valley. More »
I am proud to announce the grand opening of PullHarder CO. That is not to say that Ian and Buster have not been pulling ridiculously hard in the Rocky Mountain state for quite some time, but this is the first trip report to take place in Colorado and involve 2 Coloradans (I just got residency and registered my car here yesterday). That’s right folks, I now have mountains on my license plate and I live in a town called Boulder. More »
The Kearsarge Pass is but a small lull in the blocky granite ridge that runs between Mt. Gould and University peak. The scree and tallus of Mt. Gould’s southern slopes fall away from the east and west to reveal a stark and bony ridgeline which steadily slithers upwards towards University peak. It is the skeleton of the Sierra, growing with every seismic episode and aged by the very weather it creates. More »
Failure is a relative term. Though one that is not often sought out among members of the climbing community. On the weekend of May 3, 2008 Albert and Shay came to know this phenomenon during our ascent of the Moonlight Buttress in Zion NP. More »
Nate and I went up George Creek to try a new route on Shaw Spire.
The route ended up being chossy, cold and scary. We climbed 8 pitches before bailing 2 pitches from the top. That night there were 100mph winds over the crest. More »
As Nate and I drove from Indian Creek to Vegas, we talked about, guess what…climbing! (and religion, girls, mountains, but mostly climbing and mountains). I was telling Nate about my upcoming solo time in the Sierra, and his first suggestion More »
I flew into Vegas on Sunday morning to meet Scotty, Shay, and Nate to drive the rest of the way to Indian Creek (zussamen). After driving through a small snow storm, a couple tornadoes and a hurricane, we rendezvoused (yes that’s French) with Gil outside of Moab and proceeded directly to IC . To our pleasant surprise, we scored the best camp site at Creek Pasture (it comes complete with a picnic table and a great little fire pit for burning poop in). More »
Scotty had been jonesing to get on Primrose Dihedrals for a while and brought along a copy of the supertopo just in case he was able to tear us away from the sweet sweet cracks of Indian Creek. He succeeded. After spending 5 days of cragging at Indian Creek we decided to give our hands a break and diversify our trip with a little desert tower action. More »
Mt. Tom, a behemoth amongst behemoths. It is one of the 3 iconic peaks that define the western skyline as seen from the areas around Bishop. The other 2 are Basin Mt. and Mt. Humphreys. More »
Back in February of 2006, I climbed my first multi-pitch route. I had been climbing for about 3-4 months at the time, mostly indoors and on toprope. My hands were still soft, my forearms puny, my gear still shiny, but my mind was gung-ho on this new sport More »
Mission: 
The Northeast Ridge of Lone Pine Peak in Winter. This route rises 6,900 feet from the valley floor. Over three miles of knife-edge ridgeline lead to the pyramidal summit of Lone Pine Peak. From the moment Scotty suggested we try it, this route appealed to me. It’s so simple. Start on the desert floor. Get on the ridge. Climb all the way to the top. More »
“Don’t worry about the anchor, I have a good stance” Kostas said reassuringly as Shay followed the crumbly crux face move at the top of the 2nd roped pitch, risking a 40 ft pendulum. More »
If I remember correctly, the idea was to basically climb the biggest route possible – in winter.
On January 18th we took our first attempt without oxygen, only one stick of lip balm and a marginal weather window – the results were disastrous. More »
Alex and I had been talking about going backcountry skiing in the Sierra for the weekend, but a worsening forecast had us both talking about alternatives such as a surf trip to baja or Joshua Tree, or maybe even a nice latte (Alex’s favorite drink) and maybe a little political discussion. More »
“Hillary! Why must you leave me???”….Ok, so perhaps Hillary Clinton didn’t visit us on our winter ascent of Mt. Whitney last weekend. After all, she is probably busy campaigning in South Carolina or something, maybe it was just the effects of altitude and exhaustion wearing away at my consciousness. More »
I woke up at 630am, slightly angry because I had somehow snoozed my alarm at 5:45am and slept an extra 45 minutes. I have developed a special wakeup routine for nights spent in the back of my car in cold weather. More »
Shay and I decided that our main objective during our weeklong stay in Yosemite last summer would be the Regular Northwest Face of Half Dome. Since Shay had zero aid experience, I showed him how to aid and jumar on Lie Detector at Woodson… A couple laps up and down and I pronounced him ready for a bigwall. More »
Nath and I headed to Yosemite Valley in October with the intent to climb Galactic Hitchhiker. It’s shaded, you don’t need much water since it’s cool, and the route is supposed to be dry by then. However, More »
We’ve all been to Woodson and looked at some of the heinous offwidths out there, but few actually DO them. Well, on a recent trip we managed to rope in one of the true present day Woodson “Locals,” the very understated and modest Eric Roed. He was kind enough to show us what punishment really meant. More »
I gave my dream climb a go last May, and had my ass completely handed to me. The attempt included a 30+’ gear pulling whipper, stupid mistakes, and psychological barriers I couldn’t overcome. However, it was damn fun, and I did go back and send Romantic Warrior in style last fall. More »
I hiked to the top of Corte Madera many times before I even knew what trad climbing was. It is classic backcountry San Diego…fields of rugged manzanita, yuca that seem to actively spear your body, endless small mountains and deep valleys all blanketed by harsh green brush More »
Many a time have I set off for a trip and been told my family and friends to “be safe.” This is usually followed by a silent chuckle to myself and the quick thought that most, and in fact, all the trips that I take are not “safe.” In truth, there is no such thing as safety, especially in the mountains. More »
Cloud tower (5.11d) sent, another adventure complete with the
bruises, muscle aches and frostbite to prove it. Damn vegas is cold
in December! More »
Thought I’d post some photos of this amazing boulder problem in the Outback, Joshua Tree. More »
Mission Gorge will always occupy a special place in my heart. It was there that I first climbed outdoors, first lead a trad climb with the 5 pieces of gear I owned at the time and subsequently fell and ripped out my first piece and decked. More »
Gas fill-up: $30.00
Morning coffee: $1.00
Restroom pitstop: $.25
Shoving your fingers in a perfect crack: Priceless. More »
I have this friend, Scotty. He likes to push the limits. In fact he’s famous for it among our group of friends. We’ve all been on a “Scotty Vacation™.” They typically involve at least one (or more) of the following: unplanned bivy, dehydration, hallucination, cramps, stumbling from exhaustion, feeling like you might throw up, altitude sickness, and more. They ALL have four things in common: More »
Kostas, Josh, Nathalie and I went on a sport climbing vacation! (The purpose was training for hard Alpine routes, I swear). Two days of sport climbing, one evening of easy bouldering, and a naked full-moon soak in the hot springs was just the punishment we needed. More »
Wake up around 8ish, climb until the sun hits, hang out at the pool while drinking a cold frappe’, repeat. I was a little wary at first, seeing as this isn’t what I would normally call punishment. However, my little excursion to Kalymnos turned out to be both fun and rewarding. More »
With my feet scraping against the inside of the offwidth I was struggling to remain composed. “Concentrate on technique” I said to myself as the stinging in my parched throat intensified, punishing me for messing up the logistics of this big endeavor. Five feet of desperation later, I won the battle against the heavy pack conspiring with gravity to bring me down. More »
There is a canyon on the south side of Lone Pine Peak, which is just West of Lone Pine and looks at Mt. Whitney with mountains’ equivelent of penis envy, but should have more confidence because it is a sick peak in its own right. In this canyon there is a big house built from stone, lots of boulders, lots of manzanita, incredible granite walls, and no water. More »
In April, Josh and I did the Rainbow Wall Original Route in a 16 hour push car to car, 36 hours San Diego to San Diego. We freed all the pitches, with Josh ropegunning all the hard stuff (and me hanging a few times on TR), redpointing the lower half of the route and onsighting everything after “Over the Rainbow” Ledge. More »
Friday, Sept. 7th, 2005: Driving in Jake’s car somewhere on the 15
After a week of spontaneous email chains filled with summitpost links, shit talking, and general ridiculousness, we (Jacob Felderman, Albert Lin, Toby Guillete, and myself) were finally on our way up to Lone Pine for a weekend climb of The Fishhook Arete. Toby was working’ the iPod and happened to throw on a great album by Ozomatli collaborating with Chali 2na (”Charlie Tuna”), and out of 2na’s fast flowing rhymes came the word “fishhook.” It was a sign (Sign #1). Chali 2na immediately became our mascot, and The Fishhook Arete would be known as the Charlie Tunafish Hook Arete. More »
As usual, monday came and I started to bother my roommate Nate about his plans for the following weekend. What should we climb? It was Labor Day Weekend so we had time for something larger than a typical weekend. More »
The Palisade Traverse: Thunderbolt Peak to Mt. Sill. Five fourteeners in a day. Scotty and Shay climbed the Palisade Traverse the weekend before… but didn’t run over and tag Sill. Since climbing is all about competition (and fashion) Paul and I had to one-up them and do the whole thing!
