For me just about everything starts with a plan. I like figuring out logistics and taking all the steps to prepare for a big climb. Maybe it helps calm me down, which is really useful when thinking about climbing something as large as Half Dome. My goal was to free climb the Regular Northwest Face, with Roberto [...]
“Dude, turn around!” yells Chris from the belay. Looking back, a thick wall of mist obscures the other side of the valley. A flurry of snow blows past and I keep going, anxious to get to the next belay. Tucked under a tree, I stare out a the sheets of rain coming down. It’s not [...]
[This is a long overdue trip report from December 2009.] At 4am the alarm started blaring and I stumbled out of bed. Where was I? The unfamiliar dark room didn’t seem like home as I pulled on clothes, grabbed food and made my way out the door. In the car I started blankly at the [...]
El Capitan! So big, so beautiful! I’ve been dreaming about Yosemite for a many years. I can’t quite figure out when it started but I quickly became infatuated with this mythical climbing area. I had never been to “The Valley” but read as many books about it as possible in college. Perhaps the tales of John Long introduced me [...]
Lizzy has spent almost two months in the bay area and I was due for a visit . We started off with a weekend with new friends in Yosemite where I was happy to redpoint my first Yosemite 5.12a, Underclingon. A bunch of fun was had sport and trad climbing at Pat and Jack’s Pinnacle [...]
I first became interested in South by Southwest (5.11a, 5 pitches) on Lower Cathedral Spire when a dude from Colorado mentioned it when we were chatting at the Penny Lane crag in Squamish. He mentioned something about it being easy for the grade in the Valley (hey, if I’m trying to break into a grade, [...]
One of the perks of living in the Bay Area (other than getting to climb at Planet Granite Sunnyvale, which I love) is that I live within weekend distance of Yosemite now. And that’s pretty sweet. My main obstacle in taking advantage of my awesome proximity to huge granite walls (and some not so huge [...]
This past Friday was my day off so I drove up to Bishop to see Lizzy. She was in town for a resupply and we were able to have lunch and chat before she had to return to her field work. It was great to see her and sad when she got back in the [...]
In late February Beth Rodden redpointed a new 5.14 in Yosemite. This 70 foot line is called Meltdown and features a thin finger crack that leads to discontinuous seams. Rodden placed all of her gear on lead after a winter of work on the line. Many think this is the hardest “trad” climb done by [...]
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