Outdoor Habit

Climbing, steroids, and being thin

2011-07-06T11:19:00.003-04:00

Jamie Emerson recently had an interesting post on steroids and climbing and Andrew Bisharat (the editor of R&I) recently posted a related article called "Climbers Who Cheat" discussing the advantage in climbing given by being thin. I just couldn't bite my tongue and hold off on responding to this most recent article. Since the R&I site doesn't allow comments, here are my thoughts.

First, I think Jamie's article on steroids is good mainly for asking questions about steroid use in climbing in a public setting. Jamie has a very popular site and likes to ask thought provoking (and reaction provoking) questions. Unfortunately, the comments occasionally sink to profanity, personal attacks, and heated tempers. I have a few thoughts on steroid and PED use in sports in general and climbing specifically. Personally, I am not morally or ethically opposed to the use of PEDs, what I'm opposed to is cheating (defined as breaking written rules), lying, and dishonesty. For that reason, I'm against the use of banned PEDs in all competition settings. I also have a huge problem with someone misrepresenting their achievements outside of competition by using PEDs without disclosure.

That being said, climbing is different that most organized sports. Most climbing does not take place in a competitive setting, it takes place in small groups of friends with each person competing only with him or herself. If Joe Schmoe wants to dope so he can send V10, I have no problem with that. Personally, I take pleasure in working hard and clean for my progress and would not do this. The issue becomes a bit murkier when dealing with top level athletes who are earning a living as sponsored climbers. Again, I would have no problem with someone climbing 5.15 while doping, as long as there is full disclosure. Sponsors would then have to choose whether or not to sponsor said climber and I'm sure most would not.

The problem in all sports is that the risk of being caught is low (especially in climbing where no outside of competition testing system exists) and the rewards are potentially large. That is, there is a strong incentive to use PEDs without much deterrent. A final complication, as evidenced by many comments on Jamie's post is the belief by many people that steroids will not help in climbing since the added mass will cancel out any strength gains. This is a terribly flawed understanding of steroids in general. There are many different steroids and other PEDs that have different effects ranging from adding muscle mass to increasing endurance and aiding recovery. Cyclists are even more weight obsessed than climbers and surely everyone has heard the doping controversy coming out of cycling in recent years.

Now, on to the R&I post. This post is what really spurred me to write today. I suggest you read the original, but the post basically discusses the advantage of being thin as climber and the perception that this is somehow cheating akin to using steroids.

"At what point does losing weight to climb hard offend our senses of “what’s fair”? When does losing weight become cheating?" I would say never. I can only speak for my group of friends, but I have never heard anyone mention being thin as unfair or cheating. In my belief, and I think my friends' as well, being extremely thin can be a very serious health problem (as Andrew discusses), but I've never seen it as unfair. Let me know if I'm off base here.

"Some (but certainly not all) of the top climbers in the world have the hollow, sunken-cheek, and ashen look of anorexics. Look at any World Cup podium, and the finalists seem like they could be blown over in a stiff wind." Disagree. There are very few pro-level climbers I would describe as waifish. Do you have to be thin to be a top climber? Absolutely, but you also have to be beast strong. Any top level athlete in an active sport (basketball, football, soccer, cycling, ultimate, running, tennis, etc, etc, etc) is thin and in great shape and think climbing is no different.

"When climbers, our friends and peers or even the pros, succeed on a hard climb, it’s common to hear others qualify their ascents behind their backs." Obviously there will be people who question or are jealous of others' achievement in anything. I choose not to climb with people who have this type of attitude. I think this has less to do with the perception of being thin than it has to do with the excuses and negativity that some people always bring to the table.

Finally, Andrew tries to draw a parallel between being thin and using PEDs which I think is so far off base that I had to post this. Using PEDs is generally frowned upon and absolutely banned in competition. Using PEDs amounts to using artificially engineered substances which have been specifically designed to increase performance. Being thin is living, exercising, and eating in a way that shapes your body according to your desires. Finally, I think the biggest problem with this post is the claim that there is a widespread belief that being thin is somehow similar to using PEDs and gives an unfair advantage. I have personally never thought this and I can't remember ever hearing anyone say this. The only time I've been concerned is when someone looks so thin that it appears unhealthy. Maybe some other people can chime in in the comments to let me know if I'm off base on this, but I simply don't thing this perception exists.

The Gainesville Rock Gym

2011-07-01T18:19:00.000-04:00

A lot has happened since my last post. As most of you know, my residence in Boulder has come to an end and I've moved to Gainesville, FL. Needless to say, things are a bit different here. The people are larger, the food is greasier and the landscape is flatter. At least there's a climbing gym...

The Gainesville Rock Gym, vertical toproping, overhang/"lead" wall in the back

And that's what I want to talk about today: the merits and failings of the Gainesville Rock Gym. I've been in Gainesville for about two months now so I've had enough time to get a feel for the GRG.

6' tall bouldering cave

Let's start with the bouldering. Fortunately, there is a pretty good amount of wallspace for bouldering. There is a ramp/tunnel leading from the ground floor up to a second level, a 60°+ overhang, a slab, a low ceiling room, a small topout boulder and a 20°ish overhang. Unfortunately most of space is horizontal roofs or vertical walls less than 7 feet tall which immediately transition to a horizontal roof. Also unfortunately, a lot of the wall space looks like it was designed by someone who hadn't spent enough time in gyms to know how to design the walls for one. The design of the walls makes route setting very difficult in many places. There are a lot of 90° corners and sharp transitions from vertical to horizontal. It is very difficult to set fun and consistent routes on this type of terrain. Overall, I think the route setters have done a good job with what they have. There are many problems from V0-V13 so finding something to work on was not an issue and many of the problems actually climb really well. Also, I'll be the first to admit that I'm not very good climbing on a horizontal roof. It usually ends up feeling thrutchy and thuggish. I much prefer technical movement on a 10-45 degree overhang.

The underused (and undersized) topout boulder

As for the route climbing, this has been largely a disappointment. The walls are in the 30' range and there are only 2 parts that are not dead on vertical. There is an arch that's about 7' wide connecting 2 vertical walls near the top (visible in the 1st picture above) and there's a better overhang that ranges from 10-40° with a short vertical headwall at the top. I was most disappointed in two things. First of all, the lead climbing situation is abismal. It costs money to get lead certified: $22 for non-members, as much as 2 day passes. You also have to sign up on a sheet and leave your phone

Upper level with more horizontal roofs and
the top of the tunnel/ramp

number so that someone can call you later to set up the lead test/class. Apparently only a few of the staff are able to do this. Helmets are mandatory when leading which doesn't make the gym feel any cooler either. Unfortunately, none of this seems to have helped with the capability of the lead belayers. I've already had to point out some pretty sketchy belaying to the staff. Also, there are only 2(!) lines of draws in the whole gym so don't plan on leading a large variety of routes. The route selection in the upper grades is also extremely limited. If you're climbing 5.12+ you can just about climb the place out in a single session. The setters clearly spend their time focusing on the bouldering and mainly put up easier routes. With a quick count, I only saw something like 10 routes harder than 5.10. Disappointing.

On a positive note, they're currently making improvements to the gym. A bunch of the top rope walls have been recently repainted and look much better. There's also some new insulation going up and the air conditioning seems to be a bit improved so that's a step in the right direction. Finally, there's a pretty good scene in the gym on weeknights. There's even the obligatory guy campusing with a weight vest.

The overhang and my personal favorite bouldering wall in the gym.
No more of the caves and tunnels please, just put up a 20° overhang.

In the end, the GRG doesn't really compare to any of the gyms in Boulder (yeah Spot Gym!), but it gets the job done. There seem to be good people and psyched climbers and if the management keeps making improvements it can only get better.

Flagstaff again

2011-03-13T21:18:00.008-04:00

Over the past week I've spent 3 quick(ish) sessions up on Flagstaff, mainly since it's only about 15 minutes from my apartment, super convenient. My first visit last week was spent repeating some moderates, but I didn't really get on anything too hard. Then, a few days ago I went back and climbed a few harder problems which you can see in the video below.

Flagstaff 2 from Doug Lipinski on Vimeo.

For anyone that's wondering, Hagan's Wall climbs just as well now as it did before breaking in January. The difference is that the good left hand crimp flake is not as good and the part that's left is 2-3" lower than the top of the flake used to be, making the next move harder. I'd say it feels like low end V6 in it's current state. Also, Valhalla is an awesome problem with super fun moves. It's got 2 sharp holds, but don't let that deter you, it's totally worth doing. Same goes for Battaglia's Bottom. That massive backflag move is so tenuous and fun, plus there's different beta possible if you don't like that way. Just convince yourself it's not actually that sharp.

Today I went back up there to try and finish off Battaglia's Bottom and ended up having a pretty great day. I warmed up at Cloud Shadow then got to it, ending up with the following ticks:
Hagan's Wall, V6 (repeat)
Battaglia's Bottom, V7/8 (redpoint, 2nd try of the day, I'm inclined to take soft V8 for this one, feels hard)
Reverse Faceout, V7 (redpoint, 2nd try of the day)
First Overhang, V5 (repeat)

At that point my skin had pretty much given up so I had to call it quits (the biggest drawback to Flagstaff), but I otherwise felt like I could have kept going for quite a while. This got me thinking, my bouldering has been on a huge upswing over the past couple months. In December I ended a months long battle of infrequently trying Valhalla (V7, my 2nd ever) with a very solid send. In January I sent The Turning Point, my first V8 and last month I send Resonated, my first V9. Since then, I've run laps on The Citadel (soft V8) and did Battaglia's Bottom in about 10 tries over 2 sessions. I did Reverse Faceout in less than 4 tries this season and I have Valhalla on lockdown (see video above). The point of this is not to spray or boost my ego. After all, I live in Boulder, where people climb V8 ~~in sneakers~~ with crashpads on their backs. The point is to figure out how this happened. How did I manage to bump up my hardest send by 3 V-grades in as many months?

To be honest I'm not completely sure, but I can point to 2 main things. First of all, during the past 6 months I finally started trying hard problems. I know people say all the time that you don't climb V8 by climbing V5 (or similar grade reference), but apparently I'm a slow learner. It's not that I wasn't trying hard, I was. It's just that I wasn't trying moves or problems that felt impossible. I've been doing that a lot lately and more often than not, those impossible moves go down pretty quickly, usually within a couple sessions of work. I've also stopped thinking about how hard a move will be on link. Instead, I've started to believe that if an individual move goes, muscle memory, strength gains and psych mean it will eventually go on link. After all, the problems I'm doing are less than 8-10 moves, this isn't a battle of attrition.

Secondly, I've been unintentionally training muscle recruitment and power for quite a while. My schedule and real life have meant I've been climbing once or twice a week for months now. That has resulted in me wanting to climb hard on the days I do get out and also needing to conserve my skin and energy for the limited number of good tries I've got, with lots of rest between attempts. This is a recipe for building power: low volume, high intensity, lots of rest. I've also had a couple complete breaks of 2-3 weeks with no climbing. I think that time off allowed my tendons and ligaments to heal any minor injuries and staved off any typical overuse injuries.

The question is, how long can this keep going? If I keep eating and sleeping well, trying projects above my current level, and taking enough off days will I keep improving into double digit grades? My power is without a doubt at an all time high. My endurance is terrible, but I don't really care about that; I don't climb routes. What else can I do to keep things headed in the right direction? Anyone else had similar experiences? What worked for you and what didn't?

Flagstaff Moderates

2011-03-11T01:09:00.000-05:00

We had some seriously awesome spring-like weather today and I took advantage with a quick midday circuit up on Flagstaff. Here's a short video of several of my favorite moderates on the mountain.

Flagstaff Moderates from Doug Lipinski on Vimeo.

I had fun putting this quick edit together and I'd like to get some more of these videos up, but I only have a 6 year old point and shoot camera and a memory card that holds 4.5 minutes of crappy video. Add that to the wish list I guess...

...and projects completed

2011-02-25T02:39:00.000-05:00

I went back to Eldorado Canyon yesterday with Brock, Paul and Josh S. to get in some more bouldering before the forecast takes a turn for the worse today. We had perfect weather for hard climbing and it was probably right around freezing with a very light breeze the whole time we were in the canyon. We warmed up at the Milton boulder and gave anywhere from a few (me) to a great many (Brock) tries on Milton (V4). Paul came soooo close on his flash go and even closer a few times later as well, Josh worked out some very impressive short person beta for the last move, but couldn't quite stick the lip and Brock ran laps on the problem, including sending it via a dyno from the start holds. As for me, this problem is basically the opposite of my style: a couple technical/balancy slab moves to a dyno (at least with my beta). I'd done it previously and I was happy to do it once today and then save my strength for Resonated.

Eldorado Canyon Bouldering from Doug Lipinski on Vimeo.
Video and Edit by Paul Evans, thanks Paul!

After the long hike back to the car (~10 feet), we parked by the Gill Boulder and walked down to the Water Rock to give Resonated some more tries. I had to try some slightly altered topout beta since my hamstring is still not great after my last encounter with this problem. After Brock and I each did the top section once to make sure we wouldn't blow it after the crux, we started giving some serious tries from the start. The holds felt good, friction was high and psych was even higher. On my second go I fell on the long move out right, the crux for me and the last move before the much easier top section. Brock had a bunch of goes where he fell on that same move or while trying to set up for it. I decided to change my beta slightly where I had fallen before and pulled on for my third go. I honestly don't really remember the specifics of that next try. I just know the holds felt great, I hit everything perfectly and felt super strong. The next thing I know, I was hanging from the jug after the crux, staring down the top section of the problem and telling myself to really focus and not mess this up. A couple moves later, pumped but feeling solid, I was on top of my first V9! I guess that's what it's like to be "in the zone". What a great feeling and one of my favorite problems ever!

Not to be outdone, Brock committed to some beta he hadn't been sold on before and one or two goes later, he sent too! First V9! I'd like to go ahead and take credit for Brock's send too, since I cranked up the motivation and adrenaline to the next level with my send. Just kidding, awesome job Brock!

This boulder problem is pretty close to perfection in my opinion. Plus is fits my style almost perfectly. There are mostly decent holds, but a couple very difficult moves. There is one right hand crimp that's quite bad (and sharp, my only complaint), but it's good enough to crank on if your fingers are strong. There's also a terrible sloping sidepull/undercling for the left hand, but it's manageable with a good foot in opposition and then some subtle body positioning. The bottom (hard) section is overhanging, but not too steep and the setting is ideal, overhanging South Boulder Creek in the middle of Eldorado Canyon. Go do it NOW!

Unfortunately, I didn't get any video of my send. Paul had his video camera running and it recorded me taking my jacket off for the send, then the batteries died. Isn't that just magical, 60s more would have been enough. I'm disappointed, but how could I really be upset after a send like that. Fortunately, we got Brock's send on another camera (albeit with worse quality) and you can see that in the video above. Also, Josh ripped a HUGE flapper open on the sharp crimp to end his day. I guess tropical vacations aren't too good for the calluses. Heal up soon!

Projects completed, projects begun

2011-02-21T10:00:00.004-05:00

This winter has been very productive for me as far as finishing up some awesome bouldering projects around the front range. First up was Valhalla (V7) on Flagstaff. This is a very fun, very steep problem with a couple sharp crimps and a last move that spit me off time and again on link. I was able to do the high start (Valkyrie, V5) in one session, but the last move is just hard enough to be the redpoint crux for me. After falling there about 8-10 seperate times over multiple sessions, I went back on a crisp day in mid December with the goal of finally dispatching this problem. On my first go, I totally dominated it. Felt like V3. This was one session away from becoming a mind game and it felt fantastic to dispatch it with such authority. On to the next one...

The Turning Point, V8 from Doug Lipinski on Vimeo.

The Turning Point (V8) was my next objective. All in all, I think I spent around 6 sessions hiking up to the Satellite Boulders to work on this problem before it finally went down last month. The session before I sent, I fell on the last (not super hard) move multiple times because I was using some stupid beta. By the time I figured that out, I was too tired to send. No worries though, it went down first try the next time I was up there. It was cold enough that my fingers numbed out for the last several moves, but there was no way I was letting go. This is my hardest send to date and without a question one of the best problems I've done. The moves, the rock and the setting are all spectacular. Plus there's lots of beta to figure out with different options for almost every move. The video above shows me on the send.

Kahuna Roof, V6 from Doug Lipinski on Vimeo.
Video by Sarah Evans, Edit by Paul Evans

Finally, I went up to Carter Lake last weekend with a good crew to finish off Kahuna Roof and try some other stuff as well. I had been up there about a year ago when I was in poor climbing shape and failed to do the second move. It was a different story this trip and Kahuna Roof went down after the 3 or 4 tries it took to remember the first two moves. This is another of the best problems I've done, with good rock, a fun dyno, a perfect landing and an awesome view. It's listed as V5 on most sites, but there are various rumors of breakage and I'd say it's solidly in the V6 range. We did a few other very fun problems too. My favorites were The Seam (V2), Rocky Top (V4, flash), and Sunshine (V6) which I should have flashed except for my terrible foot beta on the first go. Unfortunately, a lot of the rock at Carter is very pebbly and unpleasant to climb on, but there are still some very good problems.

With no other projects and great weather last week, Brock, Paul and I decided to head down to Eldorado Canyon to try Resonated (V9). This is a relatively new problem put up by Paul Robinson a couple years ago and it's really a fantastic line. It's only climbable when the creek is low and it ascends a prow that overhangs the water using a couple very small, sharp crimps, a terrible sloping sidepull/undercling, lots of body tension and some heal hook trickery to a very long move. I had tried the problem once before and had not been able to do the long move out right, but Brock had done all the moves and thought it could potentially go down. After trying a bunch of different things, I finally worked out some beta that works for me and pulled the crux move! Unfortunately, the top half of the boulder involves cranking way up off a good heal hook and I managed to pull my hamstring pretty bad on the heel hook the first time I tried that move. It's still pretty sore 3 days later, but definitely improving. There were no sends of Resonated that day, but we'll be back soon with high hopes for success. There are two good videos of the problem here and here.

Winter Bouldering Gear

2011-02-19T18:55:00.016-05:00

A winter send of The Turning Point, V8 from Doug Lipinski on Vimeo.
I'm not usually a big fan of the cold, and before this winter I'd never spent much time bouldering in sub 50 degree temperatures. As it turns out, I was missing a lot. Even here in Boulder, where January temperatures can reach the mid 60s, 35-45 degrees truly means sending temperatures. The low humidity and cold temps mean no sweaty hands and great friction, but the cold brings other challenges. With that in mind, I present an outline of my winter bouldering gear.

Baselayer: I find this is the key to winter bouldering and it's worth buying some nice wicking long underwear and a thermal top. If it's colder than ~45 degrees I'm usually glad I wore long underwear pants, otherwise I may leave those at home. Wicking is super important, especially if you have anything more than a 5 minute approach. The best way to end up cold is to wear cotton and sweat up your clothes at the beginning of a session. I usually wear some Patagonia Capilene pants and a snug fitting Under Armour ColdGear top. Make sure the top is long enough to tuck into your pants and tight enough to hold itself down, overlapping your long underwear. This prevents any chilly drafts and seems to help a lot with warmth.

Pants: The pants you wear over your baselayer aren't as important in my opinion. I just wear whatever pants I'd usually wear while bouldering.

Top: I typically layer another wicking long sleeve shirt over my base layer. Again, Capilene is my usual choice, but take your pick. This layer should not be as snug as the base layer, but provides a bit of extra warmth while your not wearing a coat. Speaking of which...

Coat: Go warm here. Bouldering is an anaerobic activity that leaves you sitting around between attempts most of the time. A good jacket is key to staying warm while you're not climbing. I recommend a nice down or synthetic puffy jacket. The Mountain Hardwear Phantom Down is my jacket of choice. It weighs less than a pound and has nice fleece lined hand pockets. Typically you'll take your jacket off for a climb and then put it back on right away to stay warm between attempts. I also don't wear my jacket for the approach, you'll just overheat. If it's less than 65 degrees I'll bring the down. I've never once thought "If only this big pad I'm carrying didn't have that extra 15oz. from my down jacket I totally would have sent my project", but there have been several times I left the car in a tshirt only to end up shivering in my softshell and wishing I had brought the down.

Hat: Get a decent windproof hat. Even if your jacket has a hood (which is awesome), bring a hat too so you can keep it on while you're climbing.

Footwear: Socks and shoes should just be chosen according to the approach conditions. If you have to hike through snow dress accordingly. If it's dry I just wear my regular shoes. Obviously your climbing shoes have probably already been chosen. One tip, before you put them on (perhaps during the approach), put them under your shirt to warm up for 5 minutes or so. You can also exhale a few deep breaths into each shoe before pulling them on. It makes the whole business much less painful, trust me.

Misc: A rag or two is always a good idea for soaking up any seepage from melting snow. This can also be used to help brush off the top of a boulder. Also, one of my favorite pieces of gear is a nice big thermos. A thermos full of hot tea helps with hydration and can seriously warm you up. Just try not to burn your mouth! I always go with some green tea and honey, hot chocolate is just too rich and sugary to drink much. Several cups of tea is better for hydration and warmth than a cup cocoa. Also, I usually don't bother bringing gloves. You can't climb in them and my hands go in my jacket pockets between attempts.

Last tips: Warming up is super important. If the approach is at least 15 minutes, that's a great way to get the blood flowing. Also, warming up the fingers on easy problems doesn't quite do it for me. It's a good start, but the rock always just feels freezing until I start getting on some smaller holds. Don't be surprised if your fingers numb out the first try or two on your project, mine always do. Just wait a minute or so and, assuming you're dressed well and otherwise warm, you'll soon feel the burning warmth of some serious blood flow. Sending temps!

I know it's been a long time since I've posted so I'll have another post up soon on the projects which have gone down this winter (the video above is one) and others that have been started.

Projects, projects, projects

2010-09-01T18:13:00.001-04:00

Nothing too exciting to update, but I thought I'd post a quick run down of what I've been up to over the past few weeks. Mostly, I've been bouldering a lot and starting some new projects.

A few weeks ago, Brock and I headed up to the Satellite Boulders in the Flatirons for a night session and to get on The Turning Point (V8). We warmed up as the temps cooled off a bit and eventually worked out all the moves on this awesome problem. I went back up there on Sunday to see if I could make any more progress on the line. I did all the moves again and put in a very good link, falling two moves from the finish. Unfortunately temps were really warm and the last two moves feel really hard to me, but I'm confident that with one or two more days of refining beta and getting the muscle memory dialed in, I'll top this one out soon.

The Turning Point, V8

Also a couple weeks ago, a huge crew of people went up to the Emerald Lake area in RMNP. Everyone congregated at The Kind to work on this classic V5. I made a halfhearted attempt at warming up on an easy problem to the right, then decided to just hop on The Kind. I managed the flash, feeling pretty solid the whole way, aside from my fingers going numb on the last few holds. I did the problem again and tried the sit start a few times, but decided to save my skin for other things. The rest of the day turned out to be a lot of falling off hard problems, but I'm still happy with my hardest flash to date.

Finally, last Tuesday, Brock, Paul, and I headed up Boulder Canyon to The Citadel boulder. This is a very cool bloc right next to the creek that has a V1, V5/6, V8, V10, V11, and V13, something for everyone. We warmed up a bit and went to work on Standard Overhang, V5/6. After working out the tricky beginning (where are the feet? oh wait, there aren't any.), Brock and I were both able to do this problem. Paul made some progress, but no send and Brock moved on to The Citadel, V8. I made a few poor attempts on The Citadel, but my skin and fingers weren't feeling it. Brock came super close to sending though. We got back up there last night and there was much progress to be had. Paul fell off the top out to Standard Overhang like 3 times at the end of the session (next time for sure), Brock sent The Citadel twice with different beta on each send, and I fell of the last move of the Citadel on my last go of the day (next time for sure). Mad props to Brock on wrapping up his year long goal of climbing a V8 on the last day of his self imposed deadline!

The Citadel, V8

All in all, I'm super happy with how well I've been climbing lately. I got my hardest flash and hardest send this summer, and I've got three different projects that I've linked to within 2 moves of the finish (The Citadel (V8), The Turning Point (V8), and Valhalla (V7)). Since Sendtember is now here and the Front Range is finally cooling off a bit, I'm looking forward to an awesome fall!

The Turning Point

2010-08-12T22:47:00.002-04:00

One of the best things about the Boulder area is the proximity to good rock. You can easily climb at a huge number of different areas after work and good options exist for single or multipitch trad, bouldering and sport. However, when it's 95 degrees out it's just not fun to go climbing. To get around this, Brock and I headed up to the Satellite Boulders last night. Temps were pretty close to perfect around 11p with low humidity and a great breeze to keep the skin dry. Needless to say, there were no crowds either.

I'd never been up to the Satellites before, but it was a fun area and I look forward to going back in the daylight and being able to see beyond my headlamp once things cool off.

We warmed up on some easy, fun slab problems on the Sputnik Boulder and then a bit more warming up on the A7 boulder before heading up to the BBC boulder and the nights main objective, The Turning Point (V8).

A fun V1 or V2 on the A7 boulder

We both put a good amount of work in to The Turning Point and after quite a while we worked out some good beta for the opening moves and I was eventually able to do all the moves. Eventually I did the problem in 3 overlapping sections. This is a great problem worthy of 3 or 4 stars and is pretty close to the limit of my ability at this point. I was super psyched to do all the moves and can't wait to get back up there and work on linking it up.

Definitely check out the high quality version of the video below to see women and children far stronger than I make this problem look good. I didn't use the same beta as seen in the video for a single move on the problem, great problem for all heights!

Chaos Canyon, take 3

2010-08-01T21:34:00.001-04:00

Looking back on my first post on bouldering in Chaos Canyon, lack of enthusiasm for the area was clearly evident. Well, yesterday I was back up there with a few others and, needless to say, I've warmed up to the area quite a bit. Despite the hour plus drive and decently long hike, this area just draws you in. As with anywhere, it took a little while to get used to the rock, but I think I mostly underestimated myself and the quality of the bouldering.

We left Boulder a bit after 8am, lucked into a great parking spot in the packed Bear Lake lot and demolished the hike up. We warmed up on the Potato Chip Boulder then headed over to the Gobot area to finish up some projects.

Me warming up from Doug Lipinski on Vimeo.

First up was Paul's project of several sessions, Autobot. This is a great V4 or V5, depending on who you ask. It climbs up out of a slot between two boulders. A couple difficult moves lead to a V2 topout with a perfect view of Lake Haiyaha. The problem climbs incredibly well and although it looks like a fall would send you tumbling down into the pit below, you can actually just lean back on the pads behind you. A must do if you're in the area. Congrats on the send Paul!

Paul on Autobot, V4, Lower Chaos from Doug Lipinski on Vimeo.

Next up was Revenge, V6. This problem climbs compression moves out of a cave near Autobot. The problem climbs much better than it looks and if it weren't for the strange topout (head left via a heel hand match) it would be a classic for sure. This was an end of the day problem last weekend and I felt sure it would go down quickly this time. I was able to dispatch it on my first go of the day, followed immediately by Brock with his send. He would have gotten it on his first go too, but got a bit confused on the topout.

Brock on Revenge, V6, Lower Chaos from Doug Lipinski on Vimeo.

Paul and Sarah made some good progress on this problem as well, but it will have to wait for another day for them. We decided to head over to Geeks of the Industry (V7) next. After working this for quite a while last weekend and even falling after slapping the lip on one go I had high hopes, but the problem felt really hard on my first few attempts. Our time at this boulder was very much up and down. It started feeling easier after a few goes and I even worked out some new beta for the last hard move. As soon as I started feeling like the send could be imminent it started raining and hailing. Fortunately that was short lived, but it raised the humidity enough to make the holds feel greasy. Finally, I worked up some motivation to give it my all and fired through the problem, feeling solid the whole way. Just like on Revenge, Brock followed up with the send on his next go too! Nothing like some extra psych to get you up a project.

Me topping out Geeks of the Industry (V7) on the send!

Despite the top out through the pine tree branch and the relatively short height of this boulder, I LOVE this problem. Crimps on a 20 deg. overhang requiring precision and control, a perfect landing (two pads is overkill), many options for different beta, and skin friendly despite the small holds! Get on it!

This is probably the hardest problem I've done and I was super psyched about it, but it really brought home to me (again) how much of this sport is mental. I know I fell numerous times on this problem simply due to lack of focus or effort at key moments. Just a little more precision or a little more use of your core muscles can make all the difference. Sometimes it just takes total commitment to the moment to make it happen. I can't wait for fall conditions to see what more I've got in me!

Many thanks to Paul and Sarah for the great pics and videos from the day! So psyched to spend more great days in the mountains!

Summer in Chaos Canyon

2010-07-26T21:25:00.003-04:00

I haven't posted in a while so I just thought I'd upload a few pics from bouldering in Chaos Canyon this past Saturday. The weather was fantastic, if a bit too warm for good friction and we even managed to get a spot in the Bear Lake parking lot right away. We spent the WHOLE day up there, leaving Boulder around 9am and returning at 9pm! I also managed to climb a lot better this time than my last visit up there, managing a pretty easy flash of Autobot (I'd have to say V4, not V5), and coming very close to doing Revenge, V6, and a very fun V7, Geeks of the Industry. Another awesome day in the mountains of Colorado.

And now, some of the first evidence in years that I actually climb. Thanks Sarah and Paul for the pictures!

Geeks of the Industry, V7

Geeks of the Industry, V7 from Doug Lipinski on Vimeo.

Something ~V3 on the Potato Chip Boulder

Potato Chip Boulder

Longs peak speed ascent

2010-07-14T13:01:00.001-04:00

Looking up at Longs Peak (center) from the Jim's
Grove/Battle Mountain junction. Mt Meeker (left)
and Mt Lady Washington (right) are also pictured.

I've been planning on doing a fast ascent of Longs for quite a while and it finally came together last weekend. I ended up staying in Estes Park on Saturday night before getting up at 5am and heading to the trailhead with Dave. We hit the trail right at 6 and made fast progress up through the trees, quickly hitting the Jim's Grove/Battle Mountain junction. We headed left, keeping to the main trail. After a quick picture stop at Chasm Junction, things were mostly uneventful until the Boulder Field.

Showing off my sexy legs at Chasm Junction

Looking back down on the Twin sisters peaks
during the ascent to Granite Pass

I think we both started feeling the altitude here due to our fast pace and poor night of sleep (and less than stellar acclimitization?), but we soon reached the Keyhole and crossed onto the west side of the mountain.

The Boulder Field, I've still never seen a picture that
accurately shows how enormous it is.

It was a lot colder here (in the shade) and we quickly added layers, gloves and hats. The ledges passed quickly due to the relative lack of elevation gain and we soon started the slow slog up the trough. I was really feeling the altitude here (~13,800') and the loose rock combined with the occasional sketchy snow/ice patch didn't help. Our pace slowed significantly, but we eventually reached the top of the trough and transitioned to the narrows. Again, the relatively flat narrows section passed quickly and we were soon sucking wind as we scrambled slowly up the home stretch, avoiding ice and wet rock on the way. We hit the summit (14,259') at about 10:50 and made a short stop before heading back down the mountain.

Me on the summit.

Dave freezing on the summit

The route to the keyhole passed quickly and soon we were shedding layers back in the boulder field. We felt a few rain drops as we left the boulder field, but nothing substantial and we started running as soon as we hit real trail. From that point on, we ran most of the way back to the parking lot, only walking where the trail was particularly poor. We also took the Jim's Grove cutoff to save a bit of time and distance. We finally arrived back at the parking lot at 12:30pm, 6:30 after starting.

I'm pretty happy with the time and very happy with the day spent on such an awesome mountain. When I consider how miserably slow the top part of the mountain felt I'm actually amazed at the final time.

We only saw significant numbers of other people in the trough and above, but on Monday the last bits of snow melted off the route and it's officially non-technical. For the rest of the summer there will be lots of crowds on weekends. Perfect timing!

I'm thinking about getting in some more acclimitization hiking and giving this another go later in the summer. If I do, I'll wait for a particularly stable weather day and leave around noon. Should be much warmer in the trough that way and I'll get better sleep and better food before starting out.

The stats: 6.5hrs, ~13.5(?) miles, 5000ft vertical

Chaos Canyon Bouldering

2010-07-04T12:06:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I went up to Chaos Canyon with a few people to do some bouldering. I had never been up there before and it turned out to be a pretty good day. It's definitely an awesome setting for a day outside, but unless you climb harder than I do, it's probably not an area you'd want to visit a lot.

Great views of Glacier Gorge and Longs Peak on the hike in.

Lake Haiyaha and Upper Chaos, taken from atop the Gobot Boulder

The strong people were out in force yesterday as well. We saw Chuck Fryberger, Brion Voges, John Gass, John Cardwell, Daniel Woods, Carlo Traversi, Dave Graham and others up there. Carlo was headed up the trail as we headed down and he apparently had a very productive afternoon by himself. Being a V6 climber in Colorado is a bit like running a 5 minute mile at the Olympics, it's pretty good for the average person, but the other participants consider it a warmup.

I'm not sure when I'll be heading back up to that area. Definitely a spectacular setting and well worth the visit, but if I really want to climb a lot I need an area with more moderates.

Bear Peak run/hike

2010-06-25T01:39:00.001-04:00

View fom the summit of Bear Peak

Yesterday (6/23) I did a quick run/hike up Bear Peak via Fern Canyon. This is a standard (and excellent) hike in Boulder and is certainly the steepest trail in the area, climbing about 2800' over just 2.8 miles (1000 ft/mile or averaging a 19% grade!!!). It was a beautiful day out, but a bit hot so I waited until 6:40 to hit the trail and I still overheated quite a bit in the beginning of the hike. I felt like crap most of my way up the canyon until I got up higher and started cooling off a bit. I'm feeling pretty strong these days and this was actually a pretty good time despite the miserable ascent. Great day and a great hike with a lot of bang for your buck.

The stats: 5.6 miles, ~3000 ft elevation gain, 1hr 56min

Longs Peak to the Keyhole

2010-06-20T16:40:00.001-04:00

The Diamond, Longs Peak (photo from August '08)

Yesterday was a beautiful day out, the finish to a week of awesome weather on the Front Range. After spending the morning doing some work inside I decided it was too nice outside to miss out on. I quickly stuffed some extra clothes in my pack, grabbed some water and drove up to the Longs Peak trail head in RMNP. The goal for the day was to get well above treeline and spend several hours at altitude in one of the most beautiful places on earth. I didn't bring a camera so the photos here are from a previous trip in August, 2008.

Due to the outstanding weather and lack of threatening clouds over the mountains I decided to head up the Longs Peak trail even though I left the trail head around 2:30pm. The trail was in pretty good shape with a bit of water in places and without the horse crap I experienced last time. There was no snow until I was above the trees and in the krummholz. Even then, there were only a few short snow fields before Chasm Junction and the trail passed quickly. There were quite a few people headed down the trail, but once I reached Chasm Junction I only saw a few people for the rest of the day.

Views at Chasm Junction were awesome. Peacock Pool is free of ice and there were clouds blowing over the Loft from the south and swirling in front of the Diamond. After a short break to eat a granola bar and empty the sand from my shoes I headed up trail toward Granite Pass. There were two longer snowfields on a fairly steep side slope here, but no real issues. I soon rounded Granite pass (windy here) and headed up to the Boulder Field. There was no more snow until just below the Keyhole and I made my way up to the area of the Boulder Field campsites.

The top half of the Diamond as seen from the Boulder Field.
The Boulder Field is ENORMOUS! There are people at bottom right.

The Boulder Field had been my intended destination, but when I got there I still felt good, the weather was fine and the Keyhole, with its promise of views into Glacier Gorge, seemed to be beckoning. I sat and soaked in the scenery for 20 minutes or so while I tried to gauge the time, my watch, cell phone and camera had all been left behind. I finally decided to push for the Keyhole and soak in some more solitude and spectacular views. I had a headlamp anyway so it was no big deal if I ended up hiking down in the dark.

The Keyhole, Agnes Vaille Shelter is just below/left of the keyhole.

I headed left and then switched back to the right between the snowfields lingering in the Boulder Field and scrambled up to the Keyhole without setting foot on snow. The view into Glacier Gorge was well worth it. I just stood there in the wind and sun for ten minutes or so, enjoying the solitude and the incredible scenery spread before and behind me. Mills Lake and Jewel Lake were free of ice, Black Lake was partially melted and the higher lakes were still frozen. I could also pick out Hallett and Otis Peaks near the Divide to the west. There's something about Longs Peak that really appeals to me. Maybe it's the fact that it towers above the Front Range like no other peak does, but I love nearly everything (aside from the usual crowds) that comes with hiking on this mountain. The solitude of the late afternoon was really incredible. For me, there's no better feeling than being alone in the mountains on a gorgeous day. Feeling strong and confident and without a single other person for miles around.

Eventually I headed down, across the alien landscape that is the Boulder Field and down the switchbacks to Granite Pass. From here I decided to take the Jims Grove shortcut to save some time and distance on the descent, and also to explore a new trail. To find this trail while coming down, continue a short distance below Granite Pass and look for two prominent rocks on the left, just a few yards off the trail. There is also an old, broken wooden post sticking out of the ground. You should see a faint trail and some wooden timbers which form steps leading down to the left of the main trail. This trail saves quite a bit of time and distance compared to the long arc out to Chasm Junction. It drops you back at the main trail at the sign which points to Battle Mountain.

The hike below treeline was uneventful, but for the first time didn't seem endless. I finally arrived back at the car at 7pm, much earlier than I would have guessed it was. All in all it was a great hike and I met all my goals for the day. I planned on taking it easy, but I wasn't able to help running some of the flatter spots on the way down. I think I probably ran less than a mile of the whole trail and I took lots of breaks to just sit and soak in the scenery. Even so, I made pretty good time and I felt really good when I got back down. I think I brought just enough food and I finished the water in my 72oz. Camelbak on the drive back to Boulder.

Also, as I mentioned briefly, I didn't bring a camera. In some ways this was liberating since I didn't even think about taking pictures. Anyway, I certainly enjoyed the views and the pictures would never do it justice. However, that means no one else gets to see the sights in this post, just pics from a couple years ago. Too bad for you!

Once the top of the mountain melts out (the trough was still a full on snow climb) I'll be back to do a fast ascent. Looking forward to more great days in the alpine tundra!

My best guess at the stats: ~12 miles, ~3800' of vertical, ~13100' high point, 4hrs 30min

Green and Bear it

2010-06-16T13:53:00.001-04:00

Green Mountain and Bear Peak are the two most prominent peaks immediately west of Boulder and home to the Flatirons. I decided to take advantage of the gorgeous weather yesterday and head out for a long hike after work. I headed up to NCAR after leaving the CU campus and hit the trail at 5:25 with the intention of summitting Green Mountain, Bear Peak, and South Boulder Peak in one long hike. I set out with a goal of finishing in 3 hours and running as much as I could manage.

Yesterday's beautiful weather, Bear Peak on the far left and Green Mtn in the center

The jog from NCAR to Bear Canyon went quickly and I headed up Bear Canyon to the Green-Bear trail junction. The three days of rain we got last weekend had turned the usually small stream in the canyon into a ~~raging torrent~~ slightly larger stream which sounded a lot bigger than it was. Also, I never noticed how much most of this trail looks like a recently wet stream bed until I got to the part which was a currently wet stream bed. As you climb higher up the canyon the trail starts to wind through some small aspen groves and crosses back and forth over the stream several times. I was able to rock hop over all these crossings except for one without trouble. The one crossing I couldn't make on dry rocks resulted in a wet right foot and a new found disappointment in the water draining efficacy of my trail runners.

My Route

I finally hit the Green-Bear trail junction and headed north up the hill towards the west ridge of Green Mountain. There's a fairly significant amount of vertical gain here (nearly 1000ft) and the thought of losing all that altitude on my way back toward Bear Peak was a bit depressing. After what felt like a long time, I hit the west ridge trail, stopped to eat some Gu and finished the last bit to the summit by 6:45 (3.8 miles). At this point I thought I still had a chance to hit my goal of 3 hours if I could make it to S Boulder Peak in an hour and get back down to NCAR in 40 minutes. After taking a few minutes to ~~empty the sand/pebbles from my shoes~~ delay the inevitable descent, I headed back down the Green-Bear trail and then up toward Bear Peak. This is definitely my favorite stretch of trail in the Boulder area and I didn't see a single person after leaving the Green Mtn summit until I was on the saddle between Bear and S Boulder Peaks, about 3 miles of perfect trails. The last push toward the summit of Bear Peak gets really steap, but it's an easy jog over to S Boulder peak from there. I hit the S Boulder Peak summit at 7:55 (7.1 miles), ate some more Gu and decided I wasn't going to make the 3 hour goal since I was pretty exhausted, 3.5 miles from NCAR and only 1/2 hour to go.

To descend, I hiked back over to Bear Peak and went down Fern Canyon. It's been about a year since I was on this trail and I had forgotten just how steep it is. It's by far the steepest trail in the Boulder area and my ears were popping the whole way down. On the way down I caught my toe on a rock and nearly took a face plant three separate times. I guess that's what happens when you start getting really exhausted and loose focus. I ran a lot of the downhill where it wasn't too steep, but finally ran out of gas and had to walk the last mile back to NCAR. I arrived at 8:53, totally exhausted, but still feeling better than after my last long hike. I ate enough and drank plenty of water (almost 72 oz.), but my legs just ran out of fuel near the end. Nothing some food, a couple beers and a dip in the hot tub wouldn't fix.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with the hike. Great views, perfect temps near 70 deg., no crowds and a nice evening in the mountains. This route has a pretty punishing amount of vertical and I'm happy with my time even though I didn't make the 3 hour goal. The stats: 3h 28min, 10.6 miles, ~4600ft elevation gain.

New wall at The Spot

2010-06-10T14:50:00.001-04:00

I finally got over to The Spot yesterday to check out their new wall, The Beach, and I thought I'd share my first impressions. This is the wall that was used for the Battle in the Bubble at the Boulder Reservoir and later reassembled in The Spot

The new Beach wall at The Spot, photo from The Spot Route Setting Blog

First of all, wall designs have obviously come a long way since people started building climbing walls with plywood and 2x4's and this is obviously a very cool wall. The colors add a nice effect, the texture is great and the prefabricated (fiberglass?) panels line up seamlessly and create some very cool shapes.

For now, I think just the novelty of the new wall makes it a lot of fun to climb on. Also, it's super tall, but the padding system is great and a fall from the top is no problem at all. However, I've always found that the best walls for training have simple shapes with consistent angles. It's also a lot easier (for me at least) to set fun, consistent problems on simple walls. The Spot probably has some of best setters in the country and they've done a great job of setting on this wall, but I'd be really interested to hear their opinions on setting on the new wall with its complex shapes.

La Sportiva Testarossa

On a related note, I was also able to try out my Testarossas for the first time after a resole. I've got to say, the guys at Rock and Resole really did a great job with these and I'd recommend them 100%. The down turned toe is back in full effect (much better than before the resole) and they seem almost as good as new. What's more, I had a two day turn around for the resole, dropped off Monday afternoon and picked up Wednesday afternoon. These are the original Testarossas from summer of 2003 (7 years!) and this is the first time I've had to resole them. I figure since I didn't climb much at all during some of that time and much more heavily at other times I may have averaged around 1 climbing session per week. That's well over 300 climbing sessions with only one other pair of shoes to use! Needless to say, either I have incredibly precise footwork (well, decently precise) or these shoes are seriously built to last (undeniably). Definitely the best pair I've ever climbed in.

Quick Update

2010-06-03T15:36:00.000-04:00

The weather in Boulder has definitely been warming up as we've had several days of near 90 degree temps over the past couple weeks. As the temps go up, my motivation for climbing typically goes down. On the other hand, I'm pretty psyched on hiking and trail running right now.

My route (traced in black)

So far this year I've only been out hiking a few times, but I got out for a nice long hike/run last Sunday. Parked at NCAR and headed up the trail at 12:03 with the intention of hitting Bear Peak and South Boulder Peak. The shortest route to Bear Peak is about 2.8 miles and ~2800 vertical feet via Fern Canyon. I opted for the Bear Canyon trail which loops around the peak to the west ridge and adds quite a bit of distance. The trail up the canyon was pleasant and surprisingly vacant. The stream which often runs along the path adds a nice soundtrack to the hike and the trail would be almost completely runnable for someone in better shape (maybe later in the season for me). Near the top of Bear Canyon, the Green-Bear trail branches off toward Green Mtn and I thought about hitting up Green Mtn too, but passed on that. This would turn out to be a good choice. Eventually I hit the crowded summit of Bear Peak and then headed the .7 miles over to the less crowded S Boulder Pk. You have three different descent options from S Boulder peak to get back to NCAR: down Fern Canyon (3.5 miles), down Bear Canyon (5.4 miles) or down Shadow Canyon and north on the Mesa trail (5.0 miles). I opted for Shadow Canyon to make a nice loop.

The downhill went quickly and I ran most of the flat sections of the Mesa trail to be back at the car at 3:35. I was pretty exhausted by that point and the last 1/2 mile or so was painful and slow, but all in all this is one of my favorite routes to hike in the Flatirons area. I'll definitely do this again once I'm in better shape. Stats: 10.5 miles, ~3500' (?) of climbing, 3 hours 32 minutes.

Alpine trails should be coming into season soon and I can wait to get up high and do some runs up in The Park. I particularly want to do Flattop, Hallett and Owens Peak plus a run/fast hike to the boulder field of Longs Peak. I also want to do a fast ascent of Longs Peak a bit later in the season (August maybe). Can't wait.

Nothing really new on the climbing front. I've pretty much decided to get some new shoes since I haven't bought new climbing shoes in 7 (!) years. It's just hard to cough up the $100-$150 for it. I'm planning on going with the La Sportiva Solutions since the fit is excellent. I'm a little concerned about the durability of the velcro and straps so if anyone has comments on that I'd love to hear them.

Finally, there's a bouldering World Cup event this weekend in Vail. Unfortunately I'll be at my brother's wedding so I won't be able to attend. I'm sure it will be a great event though. Good luck to all the USA climbers!

Favorite Photos

2010-05-26T22:00:00.002-04:00

I decided it would be cool to post a bunch of my favorite pictures I've taken over the past ~6 years. Nothing too spectacular, and all taken with my Canon Digital ELPH, but I'm definitely proud of some of them and they're all good shots. FYI, clicking on the images will bring up a larger image (necessary for the panoramas).

The first image is from Rib Mountain State Park in Wisconsin. I spent a Fall day in 2003 bouldering there (before bouldering was banned, effective this year due to State Natural Area designation). The climbing was pretty good and a lot of fun, but the fall colors were spectacular. The following shot was take from the top of the observation tower and stitched together from two different exposures (1 for the sky and 1 for the land) to create the relatively high dynamic range.

This image was taken in the fall of 2005 near Vilas Park in Madison, WI. Believe it or not, I did NO editing on this photo other than cropping. The colors and light are all natural. I really like the density of leaves and consistency of the leaves' color.

The next two photos are from an evening at the Memorial Union Terrace in Madison, WI. The terrace is at the UW Memorial Union right on lake Mendota and is a great place to spend a summer evening. They often have live music or free movies on a projection screen. Plus it's one of the only (if not the only) student unions to serve beer (union members only). If you ever visit Madison, check it out. The second pic is definitely one of my favorites. It would be hard to take a bad photo of that sunset, but the scene brings back a lot of good memories too.

Next up is a panorama of the Monona Terrace, a neat Frank Lloyd Wright designed convention center in Madison. The shot was stitched together from about 6 individual shots.

Next: Camp Randall Stadium. Badger football game. Stiched together from 8 or 9 photos.

The next two are from the backyard of the house on Orchard St. I lived in for 2 years in Madison. It may be an overused effect, but I think the shallow depth of field in these two is really cool. The caterpillar came out especially nicely.

Taken while camping at Green Valley near Devils Lake State Park, WI. I was guiding a family for a weekend of climbing at Devils Lake (for the gym I started climbing at, Adventure Rock) and was treated to this awesome sunset after the first day.

Storm clouds over Madison near sunset

The final two pics from Madison are longer exposures from a rainy evening. Both were taken along University avenue and I really like the play of the lights on the wet pavement and rain drops in the second photo. I think the it really captures the feeling of walking home in the cool, post rain night after a very long day on campus.

The final 3 images are from CO. I decided not to delve too far into the Colorado pictures I have since I probably have about 50 equally good shots of mountains and scenery. Not that that's bad, but here's what you get. First, some summer alpine flowers blooming in the tundra above treeline in RMNP.

A great view of Longs Peak and Mt. Meeker from the Longs Peak trail. Where have you seen this shot before?

Finally, a shot of Cody from his visit to CO a couple summers ago. Cool sun glint off his lens. I can't decide if this shot would be better or worse if it were just pure blue sky without the clouds.

Leave a comment and let me know what you think. It's hard to choose a favorite, but I think I like the second sunset pic from the Union Terrace and the second rainy night in Madison pic best. Which is your favorite?

New Blog Layout

2010-05-24T15:49:00.000-04:00

I finally decided to update my blog layout (as you can see if you're reading this). Blogger has some (relatively) new templates available if you log in via http://draft.blogger.com/ so I picked one of those that looked pretty good and then added my own images for the banner and background and made a few other tweeks to the html/css. I think it looks pretty good, especially compared to the old layout:

Old blog layout

If anyone is having trouble viewing the new layout (eg. stuff doesn't look right) let me know what browser you're using and what the issue is and I'll try to get it fixed.

Not much else is new here. I've been really busy the past week or so and I haven't had much of a chance to get outside for anything exciting. Just a short hike/run up Mt. Sanitas last week which turned into taking cover from a hail storm. I think I'm going to put together a post with some of my favorite photographs I've taken over the last six or seven years so that should be up sometime in the next couple days.

Sport climbing at Shelf Road

2010-05-18T13:11:00.006-04:00

Last weekend I had planned to head up to the 420 Boulders in Poudre Canyon for a couple days of bouldering, but 18" of snow in the canyon forced a change of plans. I suggested we head south for some sport climbing at Shelf Road (one of Colorado's warmest and sunniest climbing destinations). In short order we had a crew of four rounded up. Unfortunately that means I didn't take any climbing action shots since I was either climbing or belaying 90% of the time.

With a destination in place, we thought about heading down on Friday evening, but some strong storms in the area pushed the departure back to Saturday morning. We rolled in around 10:30am, set up camp and headed up to Cactus Cliff.

Cactus Cliff

Despite patchy rain clouds for most of the day, we had great temperatures and only about 20 minutes of light rain. I got on 6 routes from 5.10b to 5.11b and had great day of climbing. Since the area is in the high desert, it's pretty amazing how much the temperature swings between the sun and the shade. Every time the sun went behind a cloud it felt at least a 20 degrees cooler.

Rain over the Dark Side

I think the last route we got on that day was my favorite (Funkdamental, 5.11a/b). Easy climbing on comfortable (and awesome) holds leads to long reaches on good holds and a few crimps near the top. If it wasn't for the indirect and less fun start this would be a four star line. We were one of the last groups to hike out as the sun set.

Brock climbing Funkdamental (5.11b), pic from Matt's camera phone

Campfire and the crescent moon

A few beers, a campfire and a massive amount of pasta was a perfect way to end the day. The clouds even cleared out and we were treated to an incredible view of the stars.

Sunday dawned clear and warm. With the promise of good weather, but hot temperatures we headed back to Cactus Cliff to catch the morning shade. Eventually things moved into the sun and it got too hot to climb (although the masses were still trying). The limestone may as well be a giant solar oven and I felt like I was on the menu.

The Dark Side with the Sangre de Cristo range as a backdrop.
Some tents are visible in The Bank campground which sits atop the cliff

The Sangre de Cristo range in the distance

We quickly decided to head around the corner to The Gym for some more routes and afternoon shade. It's amazing what a difference that made. I soon had a long sleeve shirt on and then my jacket over that. Probably 80-85 in the sun and around 60 in the shade. The rock quality at the gym was very good on the routes we climbed and I wish we had spent more time there. I climbed a stellar 5.9+ called "Ga-stoned Again" which was a lot of fun with easy pulls on big holds up a slightly overhanging wall.

The view as you round the bend toward The Gym, not bad

All in all, it was a great weekend and a lot of fun. There are so many quality routes there and I'd love to go back and get on some harder stuff too. I wouldn't compare this to a world class area like the Red River Gorge, but it's definitely worth a visit. The access is easy, the camping is $4/night, the views are stellar and there's a lot of good rock out there.

The final hike out

A Perfect Day in the Boulder Bubble

2010-05-09T19:15:00.000-04:00

Beautiful weather here in CO today! I got outside for my first real hike of the year. I decided on Bear Peak and South Boulder Peak via Shadow Canyon. This is one of my favorite hikes in the Boulder area. It starts out at the South Mesa trail head and follows either the Towhee of Homestead trail toward the base of Shadow Canyon. After the steep canyon just head left to South Boulder Peak and then right to Bear Peak. It's a great hike, but a bit crowded on a nice weekend day. Total distance is about 7.5 miles and the total elevation gain is around 3,000 ft.

As I said, this was my first real hike of the year so I took it pretty easy and just enjoyed the great weather. I was particularly happy that I didn't feel any trouble from my IT Band which gave me problems most of last summer.

On the way down I couldn't help thinking about what a perfect day it was and that it would be difficult to find anywhere I'd enjoy living more than Boulder, Colorado.

View from the parking lot.

The Devil's Thumb from Shadow Canyon

Bear Peak from South Boulder Peak

Mt. Evans in the distance

Longs Peak in the distance

Flagstaff Bouldering Again

2010-05-05T12:58:00.004-04:00

Yesterday I went up to Flagstaff with Brock again with the intention of trying a few problems in the V6-7 range. The weather was warm and windy in Boulder, but cooler and still windy on the mountain. We also had some very strange cloudless rain, more on that later.

After warming up at Cloud Shadow, we headed to Rear End Rock to try Left Bulge Direct. This is a high quality V6 with a very hard first move followed by a difficult match on a pinch/crimp. After matching you throw for a bad sloper and rock up for a crimp to an easier top out. After probably 5 attempts I tore some skin off one of my tips and I was bleeding again. I taped up, but couldn't manage the difficult match again. Still, my best go resulted in a fall going for the crimp so I was 1 move away from the send. It'll go next time for sure.

I can't seem to climb at Flagstaff without my skin ending up like this

Next we decided to head down the hill to the Nook's Rock area to get on 30th Birthday Roof (V6). I went first and tried hard to get the flash, but fell only a couple moves from the top while slapping up the arete after mostly pulling over the roof. This is a very physical problem and another fun one. I gave it a bunch more tries, but fell twice going for the last key hold. This problem just drained my power really quickly on the attempts when I didn't climb efficiently. Again, 1 move away and it'll definitely go next session.

Me on 30th Birthday Roof (V6), Photo from Brock

Now, back to the cloudless rain. I've lived in CO for nearly three years now and I've seen some strange weather, but this one takes the cake. It was extremely windy yesterday and the NWS said there could be gusts up to 85mph in wind-prone areas. Gusts of 70mph were recorded in Boulder. However, while that's not pleasant, it's not all that uncommon due to the Chinook Winds. The strange part was when it started raining and we literally could not see a cloud in the sky. At one point we had a steady, if light, rain for about a half hour and no clouds. Still can't figure out where it came from.

All in all, it was a productive day. 1 move away on 2 different V6's and a cool sunset to finish things off.

What to do with an unused blog?

2010-05-03T22:19:00.014-04:00

Well, it's obviously been quite a while since I posted to this blog. I've been thinking about what to do with the blog for a while since I apparently don't have the motivation to write posts very often. However, I've decided to make another attempt.

Over the past month or so I've been getting outside to go bouldering quite a bit, probably about twice a week on average, and I feel like I've been getting stronger and making progress. Flagstaff Mountain has (as usual) been the most common spot since it's only about 10 minutes from the CU campus.

I guess I'll start with a recap of some of the memorable events from the past month. About a month ago I went up to Flagstaff with a good crew of 4 others. We warmed up at Tutorial Rock and then headed over to the King Conquer Rock to work on the traverse. I did a quick repeat of Face Out (V5) and started working on the traverse. After figuring out the crux beta I started trying the problem from the start. On my second or third go, I punctured a hole in one of my fingers on a sharp crimp.

My finger post carnage (Picture from Brock)

I put some tape on it and resigned myself to being done climbing for the week. After some more attempts by the others, but no sends, we headed up to First Overhang (V5). Watching the crew make fast progress and culminating in a couple sends proved too much for me and I decided to give it a three fingered go. I surprised myself with a solid send even without my left index finger.

A couple weeks later, after my finger had mostly recovered. Brock and I went down to Eldorado Canyon. We warmed up on the Milton Boulder and started trying Milton (V4). I couldn't manage the send, but Brock pulled it off. I've got to say though, this guy styled it a little better:

After that, we headed over to the Gill Boulder and did all the easy stuff on there. We then started working Horan Face (V5/6). This a great problem with small, but very solid, crimps on a slightly overhanging wall and I quickly surprised myself by pulling through the crux and greasing off the last holds. I sent on the next go, very psyched, and Brock followed with a send on his next go.

After the Gill Boulder, we headed across the creek and uphill to give Germ Free Adolescence a try. This is an awesome problem up a very steep overhang. The holds are all there, but neither of us had the cajones to try pulling the lip. With only two pads and one person spotting it felt a bit sketchy. The last problem in the video below shares the same topout.

Eldorado Canyon Vol. 2 from Jon Glassberg on Vimeo.

Finally, yesterday I went up to Flagstaff by myself to try Salad Toss (V7), a problem I'd tried during two previous sessions. This is a strange problem since the first move seems to be very dependent on body position and grabbing the left hand exactly right. If things aren't exactly right I can't even pull off the ground. I worked the top a bit and started trying the first move. I only managed to pull on twice. The first time I stuck the next hold before my left hand blew off. The second time I stuck the next hold, got my foot back on, matched and threw for the sloper. On my first throw for the sloper I missed the good part of the hold and had to fight to get to it and top the problem out. I think this is a pretty difficult problem to grade. It's certainly one of the hardest problems I've done, but I'd lean more towards V6 or V6/7 than the V7 grade since none of the moves felt too difficult. I think the first move just has to be executed exactly right in terms of body position and hand positioning on the hold and, along with the throw to the sloper, is fairly low percentage. The problem can be seen in the video below:

Flagstaff Mountain Boulering III from Zack Sticcs on Vimeo.

I'm probably headed back up there tomorrow afternoon/evening. I've been heading to the Dark Side quite a bit and I'd really like to start trying Battaglia's Bottom (V7/8) and Valhalla (V7). Both problems look to be stellar lines with powerful moves on a steep overhang. The holds are all there and both look like a lot of fun. Both problems are in the video below.

Flagstaff Mountain Bouldering II - David Gibbons and Zack Smith from Zack Sticcs on Vimeo.

Sunset

2009-09-11T21:38:00.004-04:00

Pretty awesome sunset today, and I was fortunate enough to see it.

As viewed from our neighborhood, the sun set right over Eldorado Canyon so it was perfectly framed by Eldorado Mtn. to the south and S. Boulder Peak/Bear Peak to the north. Also, as usual, the clouds are what really made the sunset spectacular. Without the massive cloud layer (which formed just before sunset and extended from the divide east over the plains) there just wouldn't have been much to see. It's kind of a metaphor for life I guess, the bad is what allows you to see what's really good.

In other news, i finally submitted my research article. It went off to Chaos journal on Tuesday and it's titled "A ridge tracking algorithm and error estimate for efficient computation of Lagrangian coherent structures". I'm pretty happy with how it came together in the end and I'm fairly confident it will be accepted without major changes. Also, since I'm now allowed to have a life again, I plan to get outside to enjoy the above pictured mountains. More to come then...

Research assistant = no free time

2009-09-06T15:50:00.006-04:00

Sorry for the complete lack of updates recently. I've honestly just been too busy to do much that's interesting. My adviser was invited to submit an article for an upcoming issue of Chaos magazine and that task falls to me. We got a slight extension to the submission deadline, but it has to be in on Tuesday so I've been working super hard all month to try and get some good results and bang out a journal quality article.

For those of you who have research experience, you probably know that good results don't come on a fixed schedule so that means my schedule has just had to adjust to make enough time to get everything done. I've been working up to 15 hours a day for the past couple weeks so this has meant I've had no time for climbing, hiking or anything else I usually like to do. The most I've managed is a quick work out every couple days and I've come to realize that running inside on a treadmill is horrible. The only thing worse is being completely sedentary.

On the bright side, I have gotten some pretty decent results over the past month and the article we're submitting is just about done. The 3800 lines of code I wrote is (mostly) working and there's not much left to do. I feel pretty good about it, but as always, an extra week or so to finalize some things wouldn't hurt either. Hopefully once this is done with I'll be back to a normal work schedule and have some time to enjoy the cooling weather.

Getting back in the game

2009-08-11T01:35:00.002-04:00

This past weekend I decided my IT band had rested long enough and it was time to test it out a bit. The truth is I've been too busy to do much anyway, but moving in to a 3rd floor apartment has probably been a decent workout by itself.

Anyway, I decided to get on the treadmill in the workout room at our apartment complex. I figured this would be a good way to feel things out while allowing the option of stopping at any time without a long walk back to a trailhead.

I ended up doing about 2 miles of mostly easy running/jogging plus one hard mile in the middle. I had basically no pain, just a couple minor twinges. Things felt good enough that I did a similar routine tonight. I'm not having any pain, but it does feel a bit tight/stiff so I'm keeping up with the ice and stretching, but I'm cautiously optimistic for now. I think it's going to be a while before I'm back up to 10+ mile trail runs, but 2-3 miles on the treadmill is a good first step.

Also, I was pleasantly surprised to find out I'm still in pretty decent shape despite my 2 or 3 weeks without much running/hiking. On Saturday I did a 6 minute mile and today I did a 5:30 mile, but I think that was wind aided since the AC vent was behind me. I'm not sure how the treadmill stacks up against running on a track as far as difficulty, but for now I'm pleased with that. Despite the monotony of running while staring at a wall, it's kind of cool to be able to exactly control your pace and effort and see an immediate measure of your fitness. I haven't really done this since I ran track and cross country in high school.

For now my plan is to ease back into things and up the mileage very slowly. Hopefully over the next several weeks I'll keep feeling better and be back to normal sometime in September.

Flagstaff bouldering

2009-08-07T23:41:00.003-04:00

Well, I'm back from Vail, but as I expected, I had no time to get out for a hike. However, I did get up to Flagstaff to go bouldering yesterday morning. Over the past month or so, my climbing has pretty much been cut to zero. Between moving, work and trying to study for a prelim. exam later this month I just haven't had much time. The previous time I climbed was about 2 weeks ago and I was unable to do First Overhang (V5), a problem I flashed.

Brock and I got up to Flagstaff yesterday morning before 9 and headed to Upper Y wall. We warmed up a bit and hopped on the Upper Y traverse. This is one of three excellent moderate traverses on the mountain, Three of a Kind Traverse and the Monkey Traverse being the other two. They're all about V4 in my opinion and all require some figuring out to suss out all the beta.

Anyway, I surprised myself by falling off the last move of the traverse on my first attempt, completing the second half on my second and sending the full traverse on my third. Despite feeling like I've lost a lot of finger strength, apparently my endurance is still decent.

If you're wanting to work on endurance, all three of these traverses are pretty close to one another so try running laps on them. I've done all three in a session, and in the future I'd like to see how many times I can do them all in a single session. As usual, I forgot my camera, so no pictures. However, I'll leave you with this awesome guide to Flagstaff bouldering which includes most of the problems on Flagstaff. Also, here are links to pages which describe these three traverses (Upper Y, Three of a Kind, and Monkey).

Cat

2009-08-04T01:01:00.005-04:00

Well, I'm pretty much moved in to my new apartment so updates should pick up soon. In the mean time, here's a very brief update.

The wife and I got a kitten the other day. Her name is Sammie, she's just over 2 months old and she's extremely cute. She's been pretty well behaved for a kitten, even going straight to the litter box. Here are a few pictures:

Tomorrow I'm off to Vail to present a paper at a conference. I'll only be there for 2 days so I won't have much free time, but I'd love to get in a hike if I can. I'll post up pictures if I get outside at all.

Moving

2009-07-29T09:56:00.002-04:00

I'm moving to a new apartment this week (today actually) so real updates will resume once I have more than 10 minutes to sit down at a computer.

I haven't had anytime to get outside during the past four or five days except for a (very) short run on Sunday. My knee is starting to feel better, but still not great. Hopefully it will keep improving.

For now, you might want to check out ClimbingNarc and B3bouldering for some good updates. Narc is in Tuolumne right now and Jamie Emerson is just back from an extended trip to Rocklands in South Africa.

Movement Climbing+Fitness

2009-07-25T20:06:00.010-04:00

I went to check out the new gym today, Movement Climbing+Fitness, and I'm pretty impressed with the facility. The lead wall looks great and there's a lot more (and better) space for spectators. The stadium seating idea seems to have worked out great and I think it will make watching comps here a lot better than most gyms. The bouldering area is just average, there's one good sized overhang, but that's definitely not the focus of the gym, go to The Spot if you want to boulder inside.

The main gym area

Seating area and balcony

Also, Boulder's strongest were out in force. I saw Jason Kehl, Carlo Traversi, Alex Puccio, Alex Johnson and others.

Alex Puccio and Carlo Traversi

Jason Kehl

Speaking of Jason Kehl, I also saw him and his van up on Flagstaff about a week and a half ago and it reminded me of this classic video:

Jason's Crib

Mammut Bouldering Championships in SLC

2009-07-25T00:40:00.005-04:00

I saw this on the live broadcast and now believe that this comp was not in SLC, it was in fact on the moon. Daniel Woods does a one arm pull up to get the flash and win the comp. He is a straight up Manimal, that's all I can say.

Movement Climbing+Fitness

2009-07-24T17:40:00.006-04:00

Movement Climbing+Fitness is open to members today and is open for free to the public tomorrow and Sunday. This is a new addition to Boulder's climbing gym scene and it seems like they've got a pretty cool facility. They've built the walls to meet IFSC standards for international climbing competitions and included stadium seating for better spectating. This is the first gym in Boulder with tall enough walls for IFSC standards and they had to dig down to do so because of the city's building height restrictions.

The gym is about a block from my apartment so I'll definitely go check it out over the weekend and try to take some pictures. It seems like they have a broad focus on general fitness as well as the climbing aspect (hence the name), so they may attract a different clientèle than the other gyms in Boulder. However, this is the 5th indoor climbing gym in Boulder (The Spot, BRC, CATS, and the CU Rec. Center are the others) and their memberships are $70/mo. There's definitely competition, so hopefully there's enough demand to support all these places.

Personally, I'll stick with climbing outside and my $35/yr. membership to the wall at the CU Rec. Center, but I'm also a poor grad student. I'm excited to see their walls this weekend though and maybe get a better idea of the feel of the gym. More to come...

Boulder Skyline Traverse

2009-07-24T11:42:00.004-04:00

This is another old trip I wanted to post.

My friend Dave and I planned a long hike last fall across the peaks adjacent to Boulder. We decided to wait for a cool day (no 90 deg. temps) on a weekend, get an early start and hike from the South Mesa Trailhead, over South Boulder Peak, Bear Peak, Green Mountain, Flagstaff Mountain and Mt. Sanitas.

Dave drove down from Fort Collins on Friday, 9/5/08 and stayed at my apartment. The plan was to get up super early and hit the trail by 5am so we'd be done before any afternoon storms. We dropped off a car at the Mt. Sanitas trail head, drove down to the South Mesa trail head, and got on the trail just after 5am.

Between being tired, still warming up, and the steepness, the hike up Shadow Canyon in the dark turned out to be the hardest part of the trip, but we made good time and were on the summit of South Boulder Peak by 6:30, just after sunrise, but the sun was still below the clouds.

By the time we made it back across the saddle to Bear peak at 7am the sun was up.

We headed down the west ridge of Bear Peak then up the Green-Bear trail to our next goal, Green Mountain. This is probably my favorite stretch of trail anywhere in Boulder's mountain parks. There's varied terrain, from open grassy meadows to steep scambles, most of it is runnable, and it's far from any trail heads so it's never crowded.

We hit the summit of Green Mountain at 8:10am and quickly headed back down to the take the Ranger Trail over to Flagstaff. This next leg of the trip was mostly uneventful and mostly downhill until a gradual slope up to the summit of Flagstaff. We hit the highpoint in the Ute Trail at about 9:10am and decided not to make the short trip off trail to the true summit.

From here, we had to descend all the way down to Boulder Creek before making our way over to Mt. Sanitas. Giving up all that altitude was unfortunate, but that's the way it goes. Sanitas wasn't too bad since we could almost taste the end of the route and we made the summit by 10:55am and were back down to the trail head and the end of our route before 11:30.

We kept up a pretty good pace and the whole hike took us about 6.5 hours. We probably ran for about a mile of the entire route and both had enough food, water, and energy that we thought we could have gone faster. Now that I've been doing more trail running this year, and once my IT band heals, I'd like to try this again in the fall and actually try for a fast time. I'm pretty sure I could do it in under 5 hours, but that's a goal for the future.

There's a well established history of people doing ridiculously long, fast runs in the Boulder area and Bill Wright has a fairly detailed list up on his website. Read the trip report for the Longs Peak from Boulder run. Most of the times for the routes I've done seem to be at least 25% faster than I've ever done them! That's like the difference between an decent high school runner and a world record miler.

I mapped out this hike on mapmyrun.com, but I don't think their elevation calculations are even close to accurate. It said about 15 miles and 3862' of elevation gain, but I know just the ascent of S. Boulder peak is about 2900' of gain and Mt. Sanitas is about 1200' so that's already 4100'. There would be a couple hundred more from hitting Bear Peak and Green Mtn. probably adds about 1000' so my estimate was about 15.8 miles and between 5500' and 6000' of elevation gain. Has anyone else used this tool? It's pretty cool and intuitive. The distance seems ok, especially if I would have been more careful entering the route, but the elevation gain is WAY off.

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://www.mapmyrun.com/hike/united-states/co/-boulder/800124831250477196"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;07/22/2009 Route&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br/&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://www.mapmyrun.com/find-hike/united-states/co/-boulder"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Find more Hikes in Boulder, Colorado&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

It is good for making cool (if inaccurate) elevation profiles though. You can see all five peaks we hit here:

Finally, here is the route we took, including approximate distances:

South Mesa Trailhead (near Eldorado Springs)
Homestead Trail - 0.0 miles
Shadow Canyon Trail - 1.5 miles
X - South Boulder Peak summit - 3.4 miles
X - Bear Peak summit - 4.1 miles
Bear Peak West Ridge Trail - 4.1 miles
Green Bear Trail - 5.9 miles
X - Green Mountain summit - 6.9 miles
Ranger Trail - 7.1 miles
X - Ute Trail (including Flagstaff summit) - 8.5 miles
Flagstaff Trail - 9.3 miles
View Point Trail - 10.5 miles
Red Rocks Trail (to Mt. Sanitas trailhead) - 11.7 miles
Mt. Sanitas Trail - 12.5 miles
X - Mt. Sanitas summit - 13.9 miles
East Ridge Trail - 13.9 miles
Sanitas Valley Trail - 14.8 miles
Mt. Sanitas trailhead, Done! - 15.8 miles

First Flatiron

2009-07-23T10:08:00.000-04:00

I thought I should get a climbing post up here before people start to think all I do is hike/run, which I can't even do until my IT band calms down. So, I went to my photo library and ... the photo evidence shows that I don't actually climb. Ever.

I think a lot of other climbers have this problem too. When I'm climbing, I'm either on the rock, spotting, or belaying about 90% of the time, so I usually don't even bother to bring a camera. The only photos I have on my computer from a semi-recent climbing trip are from the Direct East Face (5.6) of the First Flatiron here in Boulder so that's what you're getting.

3rd, 2nd and 1st Flatirons in winter

Now, just because these are the only photos I have doesn't mean this it's not worth sharing them. This is one of THE classic routes in the Flatirons. It's 7-10 pitches of perfect stone, most of them about 5.4, accompanied by spectacular views of Boulder.

The view of Boulder

There are even a couple pitches which traverse up the north ridge and give views of the snow capped peaks to the west.

The continental divide to the west

The only real draw back is the shear number of people on the route, but on a weekday evening things are usually pretty good. In fact, I did this climb on Sunday, May 3rd and didn't run into anyone else on the route. Not bad for the weekend. If you live in or visit Boulder, you should try to do this climb. Some people think it's boring, but I think it's one of the best.

View to the north

3rd Flatiron to the south

ITBS

2009-07-22T11:42:00.005-04:00

So I went to see a physical therapist today and as I thought, I have ITBS (Iliotibial band syndrome). This basically means no hiking or running for a while. I need to cut out any activity that's causing me pain right now and then slowly ease back into things.

In a few days, if I don't have any pain, I'm supposed to try walking forwards and backwards on a slightly inclined treadmill, gradually increasing speed and distance. I've also got stretches to do and a foam roller to help stretch out and massage the IT band. I've been icing at least twice a day and that seems to have helped quite a bit so far.

I tried out the foam roller last night, and as I've heard, it's pretty damn painful. It kind of feels like I've just been punched in the thigh really hard, but the pain just keeps coming as long as you're on the roller.

Hopefully things will go well and I can start doing some lighter running/hiking in a couple weeks, but I'd love to hear suggestions from other people who might have had this problem in the past. Also, I've found that these sites have a lot more information:
itbs.info
sportsinjurybulletin.com

Climbing injuries study

2009-07-21T20:53:00.007-04:00

Via Climbing Narc, there's a new study on climbing injuries out.

Not to be overly critical, but calling this a study seems like a stretch. It's really just a presentation of (mostly obvious) data. There's not really an attempt made to gather/present related data and not even basic statistical comparisons are made based on numbers/proportions of participants.

Keeping in mind that this study apparently only includes climbing injuries which resulted in a trip to the emergency room, let's summarize...

1) Like any other sport, fractures, sprains and strains are the most common injuries (you don't go to the emergency room for tendinitis or a scraped knee)

2) In the cases that might send you to the emergency room, major shoulder injuries and injuries from falls seem most likely

3) Ankle injuries seem the most likely in a fall

4) Falling from higher than 20 ft. is usually bad for you.

This statement is a real gem too, "The severity of fall-related injuries correlated with the height of the fall." Let me translate that: The farther you fall, the more it will hurt.

If this is a study, what did they study? Why not just say "We randomly decided it's time to announce the following facts..." There's no information on the relative number of male vs. female climbers so we can't say who gets hurt more often. There's also no information on the type of climbing being done (sport, trad, bouldering) which would be interesting too. Finally, since the first paragraph says "Study findings revealed a 63 percent increase in the number of patients that were treated in U.S. emergency departments for rock climbing-related injuries between 1990 and 2007", I'd at least expect an estimate of the increase in participants during the same period.

I'm not sure why, but this type of thing drives me crazy. Maybe it's just the thought that my tax dollars probably paid for it.

UPDATE: Brian sent me a link to the whole article which he has uploaded on his site. I read through it and although most of the results are still pretty intuitive, there's a lot more information, including confidence intervals and statistical analysis. A few interesting things in the whole article which weren't in the press release:

Over 1/2 of patients who fell >20 ft. were hospitalized and over 70% of hospitalized patients were injured by falling >20 ft.

Also, here is the conclusion of the article:

Conclusion

This report confirms much of the existing research on medically-attended rock climbing–related injuries, which indicates that lower-extremity injuries and fractures, sprains, and strains are most common. However, this is the first study to examine rock climbing–related injuries using a nationally representative sample. More research is needed on the role of personal safety equipment and environmental protection (e.g., padded floors in climbing gyms) and their impact on injury prevention among rock climbers. As the demographic characteristics of recreational climbers shift to include those who are younger and more inexperienced, with the increasing availability and popularity of climbing, the injury patterns of the sport may change as well. Given the disproportionate focus on elite climbers in the literature, the epidemiology of rock climbing–related injuries among recreational climbers should be studied specifically so that injury prevention strategies and awareness can be appropriately targeted.

I'm still not overly impressed, but at least the authors realize most of this isn't too surprising and the most interesting questions haven't been answered yet.

Glacier Gorge Snowshoeing

2009-07-21T11:42:00.007-04:00

Since I'm just getting this blog started, I figured I might upload some things from a few major trips I did within the last year. Here's the first:

On Jan. 17 of this year, my friend Brock and I headed up to Glacier Gorge in RMNP to do some snowshoeing. We got there around 10am and headed up the trail toward Mills Lake.

It was a gorgeous day with temperatures just above freezing and not a cloud in the sky. Eventually we gave up trying to follow the trail and just stuck to the frozen stream.

Mills lake was gorgeous and was completely frozen over except for the inlet. We also had spectacular views of the west side of Longs Peak and Keyboard of the Winds. The following photo show Mills Lake in front of a backdrop of peaks. Visible are Storm Peak, Longs, Pagoda, and Chief's Head (left to right). It's remarkable how little snow is on the peaks since we didn't get any big snows until late in the season this year.

From there, we headed up past Jewel Lake and all the way up to Black Lake. Temperatures were much cooler here since Black Lake is at about 10,600 ft., just below tree line. We had a quick snack, took some pictures and headed back down the trail.

This is one of the best days I've spent in the mountains. The weather was absolutely perfect and the sky even seemed extra blue. There's practically no avalanche risk along the route and I would definitely recommend it for anyone who wants to do some snowshoeing this winter.

In all, we hiked almost 11 miles in 6 hours with about 2,100 ft of elevation gain. The National Park has a completely different, more serene feel without all the crowds the summer brings.

Longs Peak run

2009-07-20T12:46:00.014-04:00

On Saturday (7/18) I went up to the Longs Peak area to get in a good run/hike at altitude. I couldn't have asked for better weather or scenery.

I left Boulder around 1:30p and hit the trail at the Longs Peak ranger station at 2:35p. The trail up to tree line passed quickly and it was warm enough that I soon had my shirt off. The one major downfall of this trail (at least up to the turn off for Chasm Lake) is the amount of horse poop. Maybe I'm missing something, but it's definitely not ok to leave your dog's mess on a trail, so how is it ok to leave massive piles of horse poop in the middle of this trail?

Once I got above treeline it was much cooler and the views of Longs and the surrounding peaks were spectacular. I made it up to the Chasm Lake junction at 3:45p. After a short break to eat some Gu and put my shirt back on I headed off towards Granite Pass. As usual it was super windy at the pass so I kept moving toward my destination at the start of the boulder field, arriving at 4:29. About 5.5 miles and just under 2 hours into my hike. I took a break for 15 or 20 minutes to enjoy the perfect weather and incredible views.

I ate another Gu and headed back down the trail. At this point I still felt great, but I had 5.5 miles to go. I started running back down the trail and hit the Chasm Lake split off at 4:59. I still had plenty of water and food and felt pretty good, but my left knee was starting to bother me a bit. By the time I was about a mile from the trail head, I had to stop running and walked most of the way back due to some pretty sharp pain on the outside of my left knee. I reached the car at 5:39p, 3 hrs and 4 min after starting.

I'm pretty sure I really irritated my IT band on the way down. I'm not completely sure what did it though. I've been upping the mileage in my hikes/runs to about the 10 mile distance over the past couple weeks so it could be too much too soon? Anyway, two days later, my left knee is still bothering me and I'm pretty sure I strained my left hamstring as well since I must have changed my stride once the pain started. The symptoms are pretty well in line with ITBS since the pain is on the outside of the knee where the IT band runs, it hurts most when bent at a 30 deg. angle, and it hurts worse going down hills/stairs than up. I've got an appointment to get it looked at tomorrow and I've been doing ice and ibuprofen for now, but I think the hiking is going to have to take a break for now. More time to boulder I guess.

Here are the stats for the hike/run.
Starting Elevation: 9,400 ft.
Finish Elevation: 12,400 ft.
Net Elevation Gain: ~3,020 ft.
Distance: 11 miles
Time: 3 hours 4 minutes (about 2 hours up, 1 hour down)

For another Boulderite who's been doing some trail running on Longs see Peter Beal's blog.

Starting up.

2009-07-20T12:37:00.002-04:00

I'm starting this blog to keep track of my various outdoor activities and share them with others who might be interested as well. I'm based in Boulder, CO so there's no shortage of things to do outside. For the immediate future, expect posts on trail running/hiking and rock climbing, primarily bouldering. I may also upload some pictures and descriptions from trips I've taken earlier this year.

I'll try to make my posts useful for those who might want to undertake similar activities and hopefully I'll upload enough pictures to keep things interesting. I'd love to hear peoples comments and suggestions for improving my blog as well as thoughts on new adventures. Let the posting begin!

Cheers,
Doug