Carter Lake

We went to Carter Lake on Saturday with a great crew. There were about 6 of us there, and almost all the boulders we visited were new ones to me and the majority of folks in the group. It was a brilliantly smashing time. Ian and Matty G got quick ascents of this highball 3 near the cliffline, and I had a few proud onsights. This area of my bouldering is finally starting to come to fruition after much hard work. You can find some more pics of the day here on my lamebook with some ghetto fab commentary inspired by Joe Kinder.


Ian gives this lowball traverse a go at the end of the day.

Desmond Tutu

Desmond Tutu recently wrote an article for the BBC concerning Barack Obama. I have always been a fan of Desmond Tutu. He is well spoken and well thought out, and I believe this article is worth reading. You can find it here.

The Volleyball Problem

My friend Koa, a volleyball coach, called me up today and asked me a question to help him coach his team. He has 14 players, and wants to create groups of 3 such that every player plays with every other player at least once. How does he go about creating those groups?

My first thought was to create a circle with each players name around the circle and draw lines which indicate who'd they'd be playing with.

But this creates problems because as you can see that means there are 364 different ways of grouping 3 people together amongst the 14 so that every players plays with another player at least once. (or so I think, I took Combinatorics too many years ago). I thought to myself, there must be some mistake, perhaps this model doesn't take into account duplicates. So I worked out an easier case: 2 person groups amongst a pool of 4 people.

Since order doesn't matter, all we are worried about is the fact that player 1 plays with player 2 at least once, duplicate entries do exist. moreover, this seems to be a horrid way of grouping folks together.

Perhaps a better method would be to have the 14 players count off to 5's, and group the 3 1's together, the 3 2's together, and so on. But how would you mix the players after they've played one set so that every player plays with every other player. The problem still stands. Any thoughts, ideas or solutions?

Motivation

Recently I have felt a lack of motivation with respect to climbing. Since I have moved from Tennessee back to Colorado, there have been very few lines which have caught my eye and excited my mind. There have been very few lines which keep me up at night while I dream of their movement, texture, and surroundings. The shape of the holds, the grittiness of the stone, the subtle movement of the hips. It's a shame. Is it that I'm slowly falling out of love with climbing? Although, to me, it feels funny to communicate those thoughts, that is the nature of my relationship with climbing. I am constantly itching to go, but I have no singular focus like other climbers seem to have. I have never been one to go out with an agenda. I am here today to tick this, this, and this. In fact on days I do go out with an expectation of sorts, I fail miserably. However, I do have an innate desire to improve, to form a larger schema of climbing movement, to climb more fluidly and with greater control, style and flair. But that is a result of human nature more than a reason to undertake climbing. Show me a climber who does not want to improve, and I will show you the exception to the rule.

There once was a lot of stability in my climbing. I don't mean in terms of movement or technique, but rather the atmosphere of my climbing. I had my partners, my gym, and my favorite pair of shoes. Now it seems as if my climbing constantly tends towards entropy. I don't necessarily feel as though sharing moments outdoors with a variety of people is a bad thing whatsoever, but it certainly does affect my level of motivation and psyche. Considerations such as will my partners give me a good belay, a safe spot, and friendly smile come into play in my mind, and very much determine my level of climbing. In the end it is a weakness, because I understand the root cause comes from insecurity. Occasionally the opinions of my partners matters, even though I know it never should. Climbing is an individual pursuit.

Tomorrow I boulder with a good friend of mine, a partner I trust, a partner I have built a connection with, and who motivates and keeps me in a zone where I can have a singular focus. Tomorrow, I shall return to what brought me in the first place.


An image from the early days. Backside of Senitas.

Best of Hueco Tanks 2009

Okay Okay Okay. By now most of you probably know I just returned from a trip to the Hueco Tanks. I went on this journey with Adam and Danny. All 3 of us brought our nice SLR's, and the other two brought video cameras as well. We were media whores for the majority of the climbing. In short it was a well documented trip. If you want to get an idea of the story of our trip you can check out my lamebook album here.
So instead of boring you with details I'll just post the pictures I enjoyed the most.

You can also check out Danny's Blog here and here.

And Adam's website here. I'll let you navigate to the blog for the story and the pictures section for the visuals.

Danny on Daily Dick Dose

Old School Rock Graffiti.

The marquee picture of Nobody Gets Out Of Here Alive.

Danny Crushing Paleozoic.

Hueco Vegetation.

Ian on Power of Landjaeger. So close to sending.

Adam on Sarah