A tough summit..

I have fallen in love with the freedom that I experience through the rocks I climb.
As I stumble deeper into my depression and anxiety, some of my most joyful thoughts are of the intense freedom of climbing walls. The days I spent climbing el cap, and the hours I spent day dreaming walking around the base of el cap.

I'm trying to figure out how to get through all of this. It's drastically effecting my climbing. That's not what is important to me right now though.

As life gets longer, awful feels softer. 
Well it feels pretty soft to me. 
And if it takes shit to make bliss, 
then I feel pretty blissfully. 


If life's not beautiful without the pain,
well I'd just rather never ever even see beauty again. 


The View - Modest Mouse


Maybe someday I'll be able to explain what I go through when I climb. It has never been about getting to the top, it's about how I'm changed getting there. 

Boulder Baby

Moving out of my parents house back to boulder for my second year of school. 

These rocks are now in my backyard again. I'm thinking I'm going to do a solo link up of all 5 flatirons. That means I will have onsight soloed 4 out of 5 of them. I've only done the first 3 so far. I climbed the third by myself for my first time the day after christmas a year and a half ago. I was terribly off route, frozen cold, and scared myself pretty bad. 

None of them are very hard, the hardest being 5.6 or 5.7. I've soloed the first flatiron over 20 times. It's one of my favorite climbs ever. 1000 feet of greatness, looking over the entire world. 

P.S. training for next summer in yosemite starts now

Memorable words.

Here is a recent short collection of things I've heard or read..

I don't train hard, I get drunk a lot.
Crazy John
(* he said this after team freeing free ryder on el cap)

I think Camels are the future.
Amit
(* we gave Amit shit because he was from israel, I guess they still actually use camels as transportation hahaha)


You may love the captain, but the captain doesn't give a shit about you.
Tom Evans
(*  Tom was talking to Alex Honnold on the bridge about when Ueli Steck took a huge fall on their speed ascent of the nose)


Once I ate fish and chips there times in one day.
British Mark
(* this guy was full of funny things to say, he said this the day after he got off mescalito on el cap using homemade portaledges) 

It's the most epic part of your life so far, make it count. Remember that you love approaches, love descents, love hauling, and love being hungry, tired and scared. 
Colin
(* He commented this on one of my blog posts when I was talking about being unmotivated. A pretty good testament to wall climbing)


It's the most epic part of your life so far, make it count.

Remember that you love approaches, love descents, love hauling, and love being hungry, tired and scared.


P: If you die we split your gear.
M: If I die, burry me with my gear... I hear there's brimstone in hell.

Big wall climbing consisted of hours and hours of boredom interrupted by moments of sheer terror.
Warren Harding

In his amazing account of life in Auschwitz "Man's Search for Meaning", Viktor Frankl describes finding purpose in life only after being stripped of everything and facing death daily. 
Gringo Nightmare

A lesson harder than stone..

So to get psyched on climbing again, it only makes sense to climb the tallest object that I can think of. 

In this case: 500 foot radio tower. 

I packed my harness, two slings, and two locking biners into my pack and drove out to parker, the next town over from me. I waited until it got dark enough so I could duck into the shadows and climb this thing in stealth mode. 

After hopping one barbed wire fence, I got to the second and final obstacle. This sign was posted on the outside of it. I figured that they said it was dangerous just to scare people off. I hopped the 10ft. fence, heel hooking to mantle on top of it, of coarse, and I was in. 

Once I got next to the base of the tower, I heard a buzzing sound. I decided to lightly touch the metal supporting beam to make sure it wasn't electrified.  ZZAPP!!!!!! 

Sparks flew, and I could instantly smell my burnt hair and skin on my hand. I got the hell out of there as quick as I could. I had set an alarm off in the process of zapping the shit out of my hand. 

The backs of my fingers immediately began to blister, along with feeling like they were on fire. This picture was taken a few days after it happened. 

Yeah, yeah, I know... one of the stupidest thing's I have done so far. Hey.... at least I'm not trying to get high in new ways with drugs, only by climbing things.