Oz Part 1 - The Arrival

I've been in Australia for two weeks; time for an update!

With an adventure such as this (a trip to a new country - solo, no plan, shallow budget) I should have expected some miscues and wrong turns. Instead I arrived expecting things just to work out. I thought 'If I'm on it when I arrive, I should be on the road with a good van by day 3'. Not so fast...

I arrived day one and got right to business: I checked into a hostel (booked just a couple of nights), opened an aussie bank account and requested a 'wire transfer'. I even enquired about a few vans that I found on the inter web. Over the next few days I patiently awaited my money, and test drove a few very livable vans. Without cash in hand I thought it imprudent to enter into a haggle with any owners and a couple of my most viable options were sold on without me.  After this I would book a few more nights, schlep the 120lbs of shit I brought with me a couple of blocks down to the next available hostel, and then go eat some $20 meal and drink a $6 beer (or three). This cycle repeated itself for a full two weeks before my car money money arrived…probably the most expensive two weeks of my life. And I still hadn't gotten a surf or a climb in. Damn you e-Trade!! 

Then, at last on christmas eve, my money arrived. At this point I was ready to buy any car that would get me and all of my shit of Sydney. With no van's in my budget on my radar, I pulled the trigger on Sheela here. Not exactly my dream van, but I think with some work on the interior, and hopefully just an oil change, she'll be just fine.

I celebrated, partied, and spent another small fortune on Xmas eve. I woke up early Xmas day after very little sleep to check out of my hostel and move my car. After a couple hours napping it became clear that my hostel friends were bailing on the drive up the coast to Brisbane, so I set off on my own. After 4 hrs of heavy traffic and pouring rain I arrived to a deserted Newcastle. Even McDonalds was closed. I couldn't get wifi to chat with my parents or Cari on Xmas... how depressing. Just when I was about to give up on the day I caught a glimpse of the water and thought I better have a look. Here's what I found:

Now obviously, this ain't no 8foot Banzai Pipeline, or even clean 4 foot OB, but I was soooo out there!! I spent a couple of hours taking steep drops into shoulder high wedges and barrels. Got a few turns in as well. The other surfers in the water were definitely a skilled bunch, and weren't afraid to break your bubble when competing for a wave. I managed to steer clear of any trouble but I can definitely see good days around here being a pretty fierce competition for waves. Feeling pretty pleased I rinsed off in the rain and a beachside shower. 

One of the better rippers out said hello and after hearing my Xmas night plans he took pity on me and invited me to his place for a beer. Sam was his name. He was 24. His place, was a one room house adjacent to his parents that he had built himself. Inside he had about 10 paper thin shortboards scattered about various racks and a few well worn big wave guns that he had taken back from a stint in Hawaii. He's a carpenter and a sign maker, he surfs every day, he's surfed everywhere that's good, he surfs better than you do. We spent about an hour talking surf; I broke out my atlas and he pointed out all the good waves he cared to share between Newcastle and Byron. After that, he said he needed a nap, and I went on my merry way. 

After getting kicked out of a deserted parking garage while making a PB&J, I found a secluded nook of suburbia and crawled into the tight crawlspace in the back of Sheela. I got a miserable nights sleep, being pestered by a mosquito, breathing stuffy moist air. I woke up sick with a nasty sore throat and continued north. Will things turn around for Colin and Sheela? Stay tuned…

Red Rocks

Sorry for the long break. I've been pretty busy in the last couple of weeks. As most of you know I've already arrived in Australia. I'm busy getting settled and planning the rest of my trip here. More details to come on that! For now I want to share a little bit more from my last month in the states. All in all, this was a really good fall :)

After Zion, I made my way to one of my favorite climbing destinations anywhere: Red Rocks near Las Vegas. The climbing and scenery is great and the conditions are pretty splitter year round. Thanks to my new buddy Matt Clark I managed to crash and climb here for about two whole weeks before heading back to the bay via Bishop and Tahoe.

My trip to RR started out with a bit of sport climbing with Ale and Melissa. I was psyched to finally get out to the 'Sunny and Steep' crag which has one of the best concentrations of 5.11 to 12- sport climbing I've ever seen. The main wall here is super steep with big moves between killer jugs and finger buckets.  After a sweaty warmup the conditions improved and I was very stoked to get a flash on Mr.Choad's Wild Ride (11b). Ale managed a last ditch red point of the namesake Sunny and Steep (12a) just as the sun was going down (I pretty much got spanked on the same climb). Nice work amigo!

Ale Crushes Mr. Choad's Wild Ride

After this, I spent a few days cruising some moderate trad routes with Matt. Armatron, Dark Shadows, Straight Shooter were some of the standout routes. It was great to get a bunch of mileage under my belt and get a feel for placing gear in the soft sandstone.

Matt @ Brownstone wall with Nightcrawler above his head

Matt and his girlfriend left for Portland the following day and at the last minute I found another partner Shameer on the mountainproject.com to do Nightcrawler (10c). I had been eying this beauty at the Brownstone wall when we did Armatron a few days prior and I knew it was a classic Red Rocks climb at the grade. Having just arranged our climb half an hour prior, I swooped Shameer from the Red Rock Casino a bit after 10AM. At this point it was all systems go; we needed to hustle to beat the 5pm sunset. We mashed out the big hike back to the Brownstone wall at a very solid pace and racked up at the bottom of the wall with a solid sweat going. The climb had 3 pitches of great climbing: one physical squeeze chimney followed by two pitches of techy jamming and stemming in the varnished corner. I believe my lead on the fourth pitch was my first red point of a 10c on gear to date, I was psyched! When we were done we rushed out in the dark to grab Cari-lynne from the airport!

Cari-Lynne and I started by doing a couple of sweet and fingery 5.10 sport climbs at the first pullout. I'll admit, they were a bit stiff to warm Cari up to RR climbing… sorry babe! The next couple of days we climbed @ whiskey peak in Velvet Canyon which became my favorite crag for the rest of the trip. Cari and I spent the next couple of days getting on classic 5.9's and 5.10's. It worked out great as I got to do some interesting and challenging climbing right and my wheelhouse grade wise. Meanwhile Cari got exposed to some new and different outdoor techniques (like jamming the cracks!). 

Makin faces on a ledge

After Cari left Matt and I did another awesome day of climbing out at whiskey peak. We got on Wholesome Fullback (10a) and then rapped into Our Father (10d). The latter was one of the most classic 5.10 pitches I've ever seen. It starts off with Indian Creek style hand jamming and moves into classic RR thin laybacking, Quite similar to parts of Nightcrawler but definitely a step up in difficulty.

I gave Our Father one very solid go on lead and pushed past the crux nearly to the top of the pitch, when an unexpected foot slip thwarted my red point. I took a nice exciting 10+ foot whip onto a very small (#0 master cam). Unscathed but filled with adrenaline I finished the pitch. This made for a fitting climax and finale to my time in Red Rocks.

Monkeyfingers

My friend Matt joined us in St. George for the last day or two of sport climbing. I had climbed with him in Tahoe a couple days earlier in the year so I knew he was a solid crack climber. Turns out he's a wall rat. With several ascents of El Cap under his belt and a lot of experience in Zion, he was the perfect guy for me to partner with to 'learn the ropes' literally of hard multi-pitch crack climbing in Zion.

I was thinking we'd get on the touchstone wall or one of the other entry level wall climbs in the canyon. Matt had his sights set on Monkeyfinger
5.12b most often done as a free climb. I thought 'oh jeez, how am I even going to follow a route that hard'. With some trepidation I agreed, figuring I could pull on gear through the hard parts. 

The first day, we got a nice late start as we waited  for the canyon to warm up. I nervously led the first pitch, a dirty 5.6 slab with two trees for pro and not much else. I knew Zion rock was known for its varying quality so I fussed and double checked every placement. I arrived at the belay ledge below THE corner, which pretty much runs all the way to the top of the wall. Dead fricken vertical.

Matt took the next pitch which was a 5.10 hands with a step across a pillar to 5.11 fingers. Following this pitch wasn't as bad as I expected. My length came in handy reaching across the pillar. From the top of the pillar started the 'Black corner' 20 ft of desperate stemming and trying to fit tips into a tiny crack. Honnold (flash) soloed this? Are you kidding? I never felt secure and had to take a bunch of times but eventually got to the top of the pitch. After just 3 or 4 hrs on the wall were done for the day. We fixed our rope and did a (scary…) single rope rap down these 3 pitches back to the ground. That (Halloween) night, we laid low and prepared for a big day two. Much to my chagrin I might add.. Halloween is my favorite holiday after all.

End of Day 1

The next day we rocked up to the climb just a little earlier than the day before. With only two jumars, two ladders and two grigri's between the two of us we each did 210 feet of ghetto jugging with one jumar and grigri each. I had never jugged before, so I didn't really know the difference, but it sure felt hard as hell. I had a pretty solid sweat going by the time we got to the belay below the 4th pitch. 

Here we encountered an awkward 5.11 roof with no good foot holds followed by 90 feet of 5.11 fingers. Matt stuffed in small master cams as he made his way around the roof, with some trouble he eventually made it to the next belay. I had a hell of a time following this pitch. Most of my difficulties lied in getting those dang master cams out of the roof, which I was not entirely successful in doing. By the time I got to the (awful hanging) belay I was whooped. And the next pitch was mine… 

The awful hanging belay

I took a moment to gather myself and looked up at 70 feet of splitter ring locks and tight hands. 10B? I thought no way… The climbing looked fierce and the exposure was breathtaking. Above the roof the first 4 pitches disappear and you are looking 400 feet straight down to the ground. Eventually I took a few deep breaths, unhooked from the anchor and started climbing. Right off the belay the climbing was fierce, no good jams or feet for 10ft. I layed it back hard and stuffed a couple green c4's in. I was already redlining and not feeling super confident yet above my gear on the soft sandstone and opted to take about 15ft above the belay. Jeez only 55 more feet to go… Fortunately the climbing eased off a little and I began to calm down and climb a little better. With another take or two I made it to the next belay.

The 10b splitter 'tight hands'

Here you can opt for a wild tips traverse out into a perfect finger crack 'the monkeyfinger crack' which goes @ 12b. Or you can do 100 feet of 5.10 OW climbing. We went with the OW… I was dreading this pitch since the night before. With nightmares of the '5.9' squeeze on Midterm in Yosemite on my mind I was expecting a bloodbath. This OW/ squeeze wasn't nearly as bad, it still kicked my ass but I made it up with just one rest on the rope near the top. 

At this point we were running out of daylight and decided to give Matt a TR burn on the 12b finger crack instead of gunning for the top of the wall. Word was that the top pitches were a little funky/sandy anyways and I was feeling pretty satisfied with the climbing we had done thus far. Someday though I'd like to get back on the route and go to the top of the wall.

Road Trip Part 1: St. George

I'm back on the grid after a month on the road. While it feels good to be back, I'm already looking forward to my next trip (which might be this coming weekend ;) I'll keep you posted).

A few weeks ago I hit the road with my good friends Alejandro and Melissa. We wanted to venture off and explore new climbing zones; the main destination was Utah. Cold weather and insufficient gear (for warmth and climbing splitters) kept us away from our original destinations: Salt lake, Joe's Valley and Moab. We aimed for sunny St George instead. Here we found super fun sport crags and bouldering on sandstone and limestone.

If you are ever passing through and looking to get super pumped on 5.11 sport climbs, don't miss the Turtle Wall and the Chuckwalla Wall. Right off the road these 40- 60 foot sandstone crags offer awesome steep jug hauling and pocket pulling.

While we were getting in a session at the Chuckwalla wall, this little asian boy in red pants stole the show. We didn't realize until we started looking at a guide that in fact this kid was crushing hard 12's like... well how a normal kid would handle monkey bars. Unfortunately I didn't catch his name, but I wouldn't be surprised to see him hanging upside down in a climbing mag someday soon.

Check out these pics and the sweet little Go Pro edit I made (this starts with a a bit of footage from my stopover in Bishop last week). Our little friend in the red pants had just lowered off a 12d and his pop sends him off to traverse the whole wall immediately (which was no gimmie, probably 5.12 as well).

October Surf in California

October is usually a special time to be a surfer in San Francisco, or anywhere in California for that matter. This year was no different. Sunny days, warm water (by SF standards), and glassy clean head high surf.

For me, this October was extra special. After nearly 3 years living back in the bay area where I grew up and working full-time doing market research, I decided that I needed to distance myself from the comforts of my office chair and city apartment in order to gain some perspective. A radical lifestyle change ensued. With dreams of climbing and surfing new and different places around the world, I left my job and moved out of my apartment. I booked a one way ticket to sydney for December 9th.

With a couple months to kill, the keys to my buddy's Subaru dubbed the 'Blueberry'(Thanks Phil!) and my girlfriend Cari living near the beach in SF, I made it my mission to surf as much as I physically could.

Highlights include:

• 4 near perfect days of SF's Ocean Beach in a row coinciding with Hardly Strictly Bluegrass (best surf trip ever…),
• Surfing an 'underground' big wave spot near Monterey with my good buddy riding our 5'10 fishes (and then plucking him from the drunk tank the following morning after one too many celebratory fireball shots)
• At least 3 mondays of 9AM coffee at Java beach cafe followed by 4 hour surf sessions @OB (instead of 9AM coffee at the office followed by 4 hours of meetings)

Check out some proof below:


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

PS: I ripped off the OB barrel shot from the OB surf FB page since I didn't have any good shot's of OB from this fall.