The Concave

Sport Climbing in Little River Canyon, Alabama.
More pics to come, yay-er!


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Little River Canyon, Alabama

Heyheyhey, Dabbers!

I finally made it to the Little River Canyon two weekends ago. Its getting brutally hot down here, but I lucked out that weekend. It was actually supposed to rain but it held out so the clouds ended up providing good shade, w00t! Yesh, weather-gods are out-run once again, muahaha!!!

So the Canyon is actually a legit National Preserve. Vurry wild once you descend into it, managable once you get there; however, there is no published guidebook for the area. Very cool drive up to the top of the preserve, but very easy to get lost if you don't know where you're going. I'm psyched to do more climbing up there and check out the other walls, and I heeeaar that the water bouldering is plusplus. Most of you have probably heard of the Concave, yes? I'm not even going over there until it cools off and I lose some of the slothy-fatness.

I had to get back to the city early so I was only able to climb at the Unshackled Wall. DOPE. This place is sooper good, great lines, great rock, and STEEP, STEEP, STEEP. Must get stronger. Here's a couple of "Iron Mike", steepest 12a in the Canyon? REALLY COOL BLOCKY features (actually reminded me of the gunks a bit, like the last half of Gelsa but on roids or something), good holds, steep with the cruxy move 2 bolts from the end. More to come once I procure the pics.






Iron Mike photo credit : Samy Kunze

Valentine's Day Massacre : Round 2

After being introduced to VDM and Sandrock the previous week (Round 1 blow-by-blow) , psyche was high and I returned to Centre, AL with Mr. Tommy Calhoun the following weekend. We didn't really discuss the game-plan for the day but it was silently understood that we would be returning to the "Valentine's Day Massacre" at some point in the day to give it a good -GRRRRRRR!!!- and try to send the thang.

More pics to come, but in short TC put it down quickly and I followed suit 2 burns later; however, I did not send without getting a good 'ol fashion scare. Hah.

After successfully pulling thorough the crux moves, you encounter a reachy move out left to a good crack. For me, it was a move requiring a bit of OOMF that's not quite static nor too dynamic...I didn't go dynamic enough. Stalled JUST short of the crack, probably by a couple centimeters as shown in the first picture. My hand was there for a couple seconds as I tried to crank it out that little bit. Alas, I had not teh juice and I went for quite the ride.....



In retrospect, the picture above makes me cringe a bit. Rope-behind-the-leg. AH! Tunnel-vision/pump/desperation i guess, hahaha. Also, I REALLY wasn't planning on skipping the bolt that was by my stomach but I think my bouldering mentality kicked in and I just started gunning. I had also played it out it my head and knew that I could skip it and most likely avoid a ground fall. This conclusion was helped by the fact that TC had my belay so I knew I had a good catch. Sorry bout that Mr. Calhoun. Hah! Well, here's the rest of it....





Living to tell the tale, eh? Haha, the fall wasn't as heinous as it may seem. My leg getting tangled in the rope helped slow down the fall quite a bit and i was able to spot the rock and get my arm out in time. Walked away with very minor injuries. Some rope burn and bruising but I've had much worse. I rested for about 15 min. to depump and ride out the crazy adrenaline-shakes. Snagged the redpoint on the next burn. Yay-er.

Valentine's Day Massacre / 5.13a
4th ascent: TC. 5th ascent: CHL

P.S. - Thanks for the catch Mr. Calhoun! Also, Dabbers get down here sometime and run some laps on this thing!!! It is quite gooood! ++ Pic 1 by Jason Plemmons and fall sequence by Kelly Dalton. w00t!

Climbing With tEh Ropz

Whattap dabbers?!?!

So, bouldering season is winding down for me. And for the first time I think I am going to try and put some serious effort into some sport-styley climbing. There seems to be a good bit of quality sport areas down in the southeast. I never really had the motivation to check them out until now. PSYCHED!

Currently, I've only checked out Foster Falls and SandRock, located in Jasper/TN and Centre/AL, respectively. Here is a shot from Foster Falls, really aesthetic area. The waterfall was raging due to the rain we've been getting lately and the river runs down a small valley alongside the cliffband. Vur Nice!

Here's a route called "Ethnic Cleansing". Super cool problem, I'm sure all yous-guys would be psyched on it / crush it. Has some bouldery moves for sure, even a jump out of a roof to a jug seam! Blind toss for me, yay-er! So much fun. Will have more pictures up on flickr soon. Hope all is well out there!

*EDIT - Foster Falls Set for a few more shots, with notes.*

El Potrero Chico (Mexico) is teh sick

I spent the first three weeks of December climbing in El Potrero Chico near Hidalgo, Mexico. Basically, this area consists of several 2000+ foot tall mountains with shear limestone walls on every side. Crazy. Huge amounts of awesome rocks and established routes. Only a small percentage has been cleaned, bolted and established. Cragging, multi-pitch, bouldering, you name it.

I climbed tons of five star routes, but Timewave Zero was the one to remember. It is a 23 pitch (2300~ foot tall) bolted route that tops out at a peak. (!!) Many strong climbers are benighted and end up spending hours rappelling in the dark. I was pretty nervous, since I am not known for my speed in life tasks or in climbing.

Two weeks before our attempt, I had struck up a conversation with a balding/grey-haired Swiss climber called Lucien. His English was sparse, but better than my French. His girlfriend had only been climbing for 2 months and wasn't up for any big missions, so Lucien asked me if I would like to climb Timewave Zero. I pulled out the topo, pointed to Pitch 20 (5.12a) and said, "but this pitch is very hard." Lucien replied, "I can lead this, no problem" making some crimping and pulling motions and gritting his teeth.

I set my alarm for 5:45am, 1-1/2 hours before sunrise brings warmth to the desert. I performed each of my morning tasks according to the plan that I had previously devised. My bag and lunch had been packed. My clothes and breakfast had been set aside. I had written the topo on my forearm in sharpie. I had spent the previous day neurotically fretting over every detail, but this allowed me to be an efficient morning machine.

Lucien and I walked into the park, where the gatekeeper heard our voices, rolled over in his bed, opened the window of his hut and groggily asked us for the 10 peso entrance fee. That's job commitment! We made our way up the steep and loose approach, arriving just as the fist hint of dawn was appearing. I was unpacking when Lucien realized that he forgot his harness! "I will make very sure foot", he said, borrowed my headlamp and disappeared into the darkness.

When he returned, the dawn light was in full swing. He was very sweaty and asked me to lead first, since his heart was beating too fast to climb. I lead the first pitch, got to the anchor and proceeded to drop my belay device! Lucian linked the next pitches to an out-of-view anchor and we spent the next 15 or so minutes waiting for each other and staring at the rope. I was beginning to worry that Lucien had a heart attack, but it turned out we just needed to discuss the belay commands for French and English. This was not an auspicious start, but we were in good spirits and I was confident we would iron out the wrinkles.

The next twenty or so pitches seemed to melt away with Lucien and I swapping and linking. The climbing is mostly soft 5.9 with a few 5.10's and one each of 5.11, 5.12, and 3rd class. We kept a steady tempo, never rushing, but rarely pausing. It was almost as though my mind trusted my body to take over. I felt safe and didn't worry about the bolts, the runouts, or the exposure. Lucien on-sigthed the crux pitch. I freed the entire route, except twenty feet of the crux pitch where I french-freed (pulled on draws and the rope). We arrived at the top around noon. I had been smiling all day, but at the summit my grin was truly shit-eating. The feeling of moving over so much rock, so quickly is simply amazing.