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.

Slacklines & Senitas

The weekend was good for being a local one. Lately partners have been injured, or more ambitious in terms of weekend trips (Read they have more time and money than I currently do).

On Saturday I attended the Slackline party at Chataqua Park hosted by Scott Rogers, a strong advocate of the slacklining community. A man who is a pioneer and pushes the boundaries of the sport. It turned out great. There were at least 50 people who showed up while I was there, and the ability of the slackers was quite unexpected and impressive. There were numerous people with the ability to do flips line to line, as well as a number of other hard tricks. There were around 12 - 15 lines, with the ~160 ft line taking center stage. I only tried to walk it once, and chickened out near the middle. I wish I had given it another go, long lines are something I don't get the opportunity to walk very often as a result of my laziness in rigging them.

On Sunday I took a few folks out to climb at Senitas. Amongst them we had some first timers, and it was a joy to watch them tackle the outdoors with such enthusiasm. It reminds me of the bliss I experienced when rock climbing first discovered me, and I absolutely love to share this great sport with those who are open minded enough to enjoy it. Lets face it, rock climbing is not for everyone, but experiencing the unbridled enthusiasm of noobies gets me really psyched. I posted the pictures I liked the best. You can find more pics of the day here on my lamebook.


Mike B enjoying himself thoroughly.

Mike B on Lower Fin.

Publish Post

Charlie on Lower Fin.

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