What was your most proud climbing moment 2010?

Was it your first lead?
Not falling on some death route?
Helping in a rescue?
A new FA?
Or just having the ability to enjoy the mountains?

What made you feel all warm inside in 2010?

Climbing with great friends and meeting new ones along the way. My first 5.11 was nice too but above all else it was the people.

Climbing 2 routes on the Incredible Hulk, including adding some new ground.

After doing Red Dihedral the day before, my friend Rob and I thought we would repeat a recent addition to the right side of the wall (Beeline), but figured out later we were on new ground . That is was an FA was only important in hindsight, because it climbed like an FA pretty much the whole way. We scoped our line from the ground, and got to make lots of route finding decisions along the way, some of which were rewarded with phenomenal climbing on new ground.

It wasn't my best climbing day ever due to not climbing much in the spring. Rob had to step up and take the the sharp end for the harder pitches (a recurring theme for the trip), but I'm proud of the effort I gave. I managed to suffer through a bit of a scare on the slightly crumbly and not too well protected first pitch. And I gave the crux pitch a shot, since it was my turn to lead. I didn't pull it off, but at least I tried it.

All in all, one of my most memorable days of rock climbing.

My first outdoor lead. My first clean 5.11 lead. Meeting a lot of new people and just getting outside a lot. I started climbing trad in fall hopefully that makes 2011 even better!

Mine goes out to my new Bride that decided a Yosemite honeymoon was in order...

My best moment was sharing the summit of higher cathedral spire after just another day out of the 12 in Yos. Great Memories!

Just climbing and heading back to the strongest I've been (I hope) after having both feet reconstructed within the last year.

Standing atop my first ever trad climb (well, seconded anyway)

I'd have to say starting to ice climb was the proudest part.

That said, I need to work on getting out more and to different places. It was not the most prolific year.

Earning my Single Pitch Instructor certification was my moment.

Getting laid. A bunch. Oh yeah, I managed to get the crack clean at the rock gym in Colorado Springs. That was kinda cool!

My first trad lead!

either a FA of a great 7 pitch 5.11 that was underneath everyone's noses the whole time, and the ground-up style we did it in...

or soloing the Evolution Traverse in the Sierra Nev...then getting on two other major traverses to boot!

or maybe it was my first big multipitch ice climb in CO's San Juans...

Or maybe it was linking up Zoroaster Temple with 2 other temples in the grandcanyon with some of my best friends...

or maybe it was flashing a v6...

or maybe....

or maybe....

erikwellborn wrote:Getting laid. A bunch. Oh yeah, I managed to get the crack clean at the rock gym in Colorado Springs. That was kinda cool!

Behold!

The FA of a new

in the south platte. I bolted the route ground up, on lead over 2 full days, all while being belayed by my very patient and caring girl-friend. Getting the redpoint was absolutely surreal. All that time, work, and the skid marks in my underware were totally worth it. Definately my most proud moment in 2010.

Progressing enough to where my old project "The Prow," at Paradise forks is now one of my warm ups!

Most proud for me would be my first lead this spring, 5.6 on gear. But what's made me happiest is the beautiful places I've been with some of the greatest people I've met.

A few years back the late Daniel Schorr , the veteran reporter and news analyst, was interviewed by NPR on the occasion of his 90th birthday. The interviewer told Schorr that he was a walking encyclopedia. Schorr said he was most proud that he was still walking. I turned 80 this summer, and like Schorr, I'm most proud that I’m still walking (and still climbing). The climbing went well this year. As I’ve gotten older, the goals have become more modest but achieving any of them is more satisfying.

Every now and then, there’s a thread where someone asks how he should train to get beyond the plateau he’s stuck on. I’d like to know how to train to remain stuck on the plateau. For me, it’s a good year if I climb as strongly at the end of the year as I did at the beginning. I had 52 days of outside climbing this year, mostly on the Front Range along with a week at Joshua Tree. One of the high points of the season was finally climbing Nun’s Buttress in Rocky Mt. NP something I’ve wanted to do for decades. I’ve described the endeavor at (my comments are near the bottom of the list).

mountainproject.com/v/color…

A couple of pictures from my 80th birthday party, hosted by my wife and four daughters-in-law, and of my climbing this year are at (including pictures from an annual wide-crack class I teach in the fall for a local club).

s793.photobucket.com/albums…

At Vedauwoo, I participated in a number of first ascents (5.7-5.10a) Here’s a description of the route Ben Boykin and I established on Midsummer Wall (we also thought Shortest Night was a first ascent, but later found out it had been climbed earlier).

mountainproject.com/v/wyomi…

And here are some on the Old Folks’ Wall:

mountainproject.com/v/wyomi…

A new route on Holdout at Vedauwoo with an interesting name: Morning Sickness. One of my partners experienced this malady on pitch 2.

mountainproject.com/v/wyomi…

A new route on Nautilus

mountainproject.com/v/wyomi…

Since I’m not climbing as hard as I used to, it’s fun to seek out moderate first ascents, which often leads to adventures seldom encountered on established routes.

As the weather turned cold in the middle of November, I stopped climbing. I had lost several pounds during the climbing season and am now seriously weight lifting (squats, dead-lifts, power cleans and robust eating) to regain the lost weight. So far 5 lb. in 6 weeks. A couple of more pounds to go, and I might even consider going to a climbing gym while I wait for the weather to warm up and the beginning of another season.

Cheers,
Rob.calm

Back in May, walking back into my campsite in Zion after soloing two walls.

I'd never soloed a bigwall, but soloing El Cap was one of my 2010 goals.

So one morning in Zion, when my friends both wanted to do a long route, I soloed Prodigal Sun, figuring out the rope soloing system. I ran down from Angel's Landing and found myself with more daylight.

Another creek crossing led to the base of Lunar Ecstasy, which was a good way to dial in the ropework. It took a bit longer than PS, and caused me to miss the last canyon shuttle bus, leaving me with a 5 mile walk back to camp.

Red pointing 5.11a and 5.12b all within a year. And meeting Lynn Hill at my local crag (Riverside Quarry) this past Tuesday.

Finally getting to Needles in CA was a warm fuzzy for me. My proudest lead of the year was an onsight on a 120' pitch where I was pumped silly 20' into the ordeal. Climbing at its best allows you to chop way down into the core and see what you're made of, and that lead, ugly as it really was, showed me something I'm glad to know is there.

Hiking out of the Winds for the first time, 15lbs lighter...
Man, where has this place been all my life!