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.