All That You Need is Within You.

Life has funny ways of surprising you.

"The Dreamers are the saviors of the world."
-James Allen

Don't ever stop dreaming.

Love Life.

"We can have in life but one great experience at best, and the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as possible."-Oscar Wilde

I can not desribe in words the trip I just took over Labor Day weekend. Click Here for Pics.

Apologies for the lack of updates. Life suddenly has become quite busy.

Corwina Park

Chris took me to a 'secret' boulder off of 74 before the town of Kittredge in Corwina Park. It is hardly a secret as it is less than a 2 minute hike from the trailhead, but I had never heard of anyone climbing this boulder before. Perhaps it is the lack of hard problems that exist on it, but there is a nice highball in the v3-v5 range. Matt and I got on it, but neither of us were psyched enough to send. It is interesting that it is the same quality of gneiss that is found in the park. If there weren't more diverse destinations close by, I would probably frequent this boulder often.


Matt Climbing. Chris spotting in the classic Hunchback of Notre Dame Style.

3 Sisters Guide Book

Bouldering has always been my first love in climbing. I began bouldering, and I will always boulder. I remember many trips J russ and I would take into the front range. We were complete noobs, rocking Umbro shorts, and placing climbing stickers on everything we owned. We were obsessed, and loved it more than anything. When we finally got sick of the sharp conglomerate of Flagstaff Mtn, we decided to venture into the unknown armed with Benningfields Colorado Bouldering, and Horan's Best of Boulder Bouldering. Boy did we ever get lost....constantly. J russ and I had an epic at least twice a week looking for boulders. Often we wandered around aimlessly finding nothing to climb, resorting to putting up some dirtbuglar on the closest chosspile we could find to make the trip "worth while."
Perhaps part of it was the fact we weren't very good at exploring for new boulders, but I feel a much bigger hand in our aimless wanderings was the poor description of boulder locations, and the lack of a proper map to get us there. Now we are much older, much more experienced, and I like to think we're much wiser, but that is always up to debate. Now I armed with education in the field of Geographic Information Systems, and it is time climbing guides on the front range are revolutionized in terms of accuracy and precision. I've decided to take it upon myself to create a guidebook for the 3 Sisters area in Evergreen in an attempt to create a guidebook which focuses on getting climbers to the boulders they desire with minimal knowledge of the area.
Today I hooked up with Luke Childres a 3rd generation First Ascentionist that has developed a great deal of the 3 Sisters area in the last 10 - 15 years. He is truly a legend in his own right, and he gave me the pleasure of working with him today. We gathered all sorts of data for the guidebook, and I am very excited to see the distribution of areas and boulders from a cartographic perspective. Here are a few pictures from our day.


Parking Lot 2

The First Ascentionist Taking Flight.

The Author on the Prince.

Gaining wisdom on Wisdom.

More 3 Sisters

Matt K. and I went to 3 sisters despite the weather channel's call for scattered T Storms. It turned out to be a beautiful day. We experienced one short 15 minute shower, and blue skies the remainder of the day.




Matt making the bump on Thievery.

Rainbows

The view from on top of the middle sister. (Enter dirty joke of choice here)

Baby You, You Got What I NeeeeeD.....

The last few weeks my house has turned into a hostel for rock climbers from Tennessee. It seems half the climbing community from Knoxville currently resides in Colorado for the summer, and I can't blame them. It has been really nice to catch up with old friends, and show them some Colorado Hospitality.
The more I mingle with climbers, the more I realize that we are actually quite a worldly bunch. There are few other sports which encourage a lifestyle of travel the way climbers experience travel. Traveling to destinations in remote regions away from the hustle and bustle of the 'tourist' experience, we see, feel, and understand culture better than most. For a long time I felt as though climbing was going to be another sport I'd fall out of after a few years, but I know now the draw is more than just movement and physical activity. There is an intrinsic association with the way we choose to live as well. I love climbing for everything it is off the rock as much as it is on the rock. Next time you go out, and get frustrated by your failures on the rock, remember everything you've learned from climbing off the rock.

Alex F. on Re-Entry Burn at Satellites.

Charlie on Slabrina at 3 Sisters

3 sisters/Alderfer Park

I fell in love with quartz granite on Saturday. My first foray into 3 sisters was absolutely amazing. This area is an overlooked gem in the front range bouldering destinations. We had the boulders to ourselves in a pristine and gorgeous environment. At 7500 feet I will be heading to this destination plenty this summer. The rock quality is superb, and suddenly my psyche is back.

OMG BLOG UPDATES!

I have nothing to say except this: TBA - Total Bad ASs.


Kyle cruising this crack for the 100th time.

Kyle Crushes Again.

Tasha hiding behind the bee.

Pictures Knot Words

Sabrina on a fun but grovely v4

Matty on a neat v9

Ninja Night Sesh

I stare out my window watching the snow hurl itself towards the ground debilitating the city. These are my favorite snow storms as long as I am not forced into the brutal world to deal with the stresses of transporting myself. Old Man Winter rears its ugly head hopefully for the last time this season, humbling and reminding us of his capabilities. A saving grace for some, and possible death for others.

Last night Scott, Josh, Larkin, and I rigged up a highline in the peaceful calm before the ensuing storm on North Table Mountain at the Golden Spire. It was only my 4th line, and it was in the dark. The weather was unusually cooperative after its inital bouts to boot us off the mountain. We strapped on our patience pants and set up in a timely fashion. By we I mean Scott because I have a limited idea of what I'm doing. I did take the opportunity to set up my tripod and take some pictures however.

Larkin joined us as I was flailing about on the line. I had sent the downward direction, and was having trouble cruising the uphill direction. Luckily Larkin brought a few powerful portable lights, and the pictures turned out great..when we used them. Police cars flashed their lights on us from below in Golden, so we decided to forgoe the lights for the 2nd half of the session. However the ambient light from the storm and glow from the lights reflecting off the clouds were more than enough to allow us to see the short line.
It was a really great time. Scott and I reflected on how much fun these mid week excursions were, and agreed much more of these shenanigans would take place in the coming months. Here are a few pics of the Ninja Night Sesh.


Scott sorting his many lines to find the right one.

Scott and Josh kicking it at Dusk.

I asked Scott to hold still for 15 seconds for this shot. The ambience of the sky did not show up in the pictures unfortunately.

Scott sends in "Full Man" Style

Hero Picture on top of North Table Mountain.

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.

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

Mike's 4 Star Upper Flag Circuit of FunK

What a day! It began with rain and ended with rain, but everything in between was perfect. Mike B suggested we do his 4 star workout circuit, and if you have ever bouldered with Mike B, then you know in his eyes, a problem isn't 4 stars unless its at least 20 feet tall.
We began in an area of upper Flagstaff I didn't even know existed. It is above the Upper Y and consists of almost all overhanging boulders. We warmed up on a few classy highballs, then went over to Pat Arment's "The Stand." Perhaps the best at its grade on Flagstaff. We then worked our way down, and ended this brilliant day on Big Overhang, in my opinion the best V2 I've been on in Colorado.

Dean working his way up The Stand

Charlie has such great climbing faces. Wish this photo had turned out a bit better.

Mike floating up Standard Route. Supposedly a V0. Yeah Right Mikey.

More pics of the day here.

Sat-o-lites

It was far too gorgeous to not be outside today. Here are some different perspectives of Turning Point.

Matt Whipping up a storm.

Danny loooking constipated

The Hold we are not getting to.

The turning of the point.

I really enjoy climbing with other photographers, not only do we nerd out and talk photography, but I also get to see myself in action. Danny's side here.

Blob Rock

We headed up to Blob Rock in Boulder Canyon on Saturday, and I have never felt so worked as I have on Sunday. There is something different in the way Blob Rock climbs compared to my other experiences in Boulder Canyon albeit a limited amount of experience.


Tara and Ian figure out where the blob we are going.

Ian entering the first crux of Jolt Cola.

Photoneering

It seems Danny and I have been trying to get up to the Satellites for weeks, but the weather or other activities seem to stand in our way. We attempted to head up there today, but after eying the amount of snow and lack of sunlight we decided on a Flagstaff session. Who drives 45 minutes for a Flagstaff session?!?? Apparently we do.


Pre Warm Up Warm Up.

Nearly a great picture on the Amphitheatre.

Southwest Arete Face.

A little Scary, but how could I not post the glory of Danny's white stomach?

Danny's side of the story here.

Rest Week

The fact that I don't remember what it is like to not be sore coupled with the microinjuries in my tendons and hand joints pointed me in the direction of rest. Today is my 9th day of rest 2 more days than I would've liked, however it has been refreshing to not be completely immersed in climbing, the climbing community, and everything climbing related. Balance is something in which I am trying to attain, although rarely achieved. In lieu of climbing I've decided to model, amongst other activities, but also mainly to give moral support to my sister, and her budding startup fashion design company, Freedom Star.
On Saturday the 13th of December Fashion Denver put on a fashion market aptly named Holiday. It was a pleasure to meet so many new interesting, dynamic, and open people. All of my preconceived notions regarding folks in the fashion industry were completely shattered as I met the players in Denver's fashion industry. It was an incredible time, and as the only male model, I got more cheers than the girls did, although they were much better looking than me. So, here's to being and looking Fabulous.