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.