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New and Experienced Climbers Over 50 #15
Old lady Hwrote: Delaware just changed to allow anyone 50+ to get the vaccine, so at 63 I'm no longer hangin' in limbo (DE was 65+). Now I just need an appt... |
phylp phylpwrote: Brandt and I are in contact, but schedules didn't mesh. Lime Kiln was perfect today, once the sun got high in the sky. |
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Got my first shot yesterday. Making me even more excited about COR in June! |
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Woot woot!!! I climbed CS Special today, less the starting boulder problem. 45 minutes working on that stem/undercling and I knew I had to let it go... but there’s an easy workaround to reach the face, which is what I wanted for today. Really great day. I’ll be back for the boulder problem...    |
Lori Milaswrote: That's such a lovely post. This is what climbing is all about, that funny, weird roller coaster of emotion, the half crying half smiling thing. You've 'got the stuff' Lori :-) |
Carl Schneiderwrote: Carl... thank you for saying that! I don't know why this one got to me... or why all the emotions but I was high and happy all day. Right now my main feeling is one of gratitude for the privilege to even climb at all. I get to watch some beautiful climbers... Bob, Chris, Nelson, Jeremy, Ryan and others, and I think, well, they SHOULD be climbing. They earned it. They are meant to be here out on rock. But I came in late, completely unskilled and unsuited to this endeavor... and only with the huge amount of support and effort these friends/guides/instructors have helped me climb. Thanks for the song, too, Carl! I never know what you're going to come up with. Fortunately, Tony loves that I climb. Unfortunately, there is NO WAY to explain this journey... he tries, but he's never experienced it. Weird walking into my house after a day like yesterday... it feels so 'earthly'. Back on the planet again with a thud. I actually had to step back outside for awhile yesterday, to get re-acclimated to 'normalcy'. ------- I have been thinking about sleep this week. I've been waking up more and more tired, not sure if I have the energy to do anything at all. Kind of spacey, wobbly. More than once the subject of 'how much quality sleep are you getting?' has come up. I think it's time for a sleep journal because I suspect I've been shorting myself. Come to think of it, the first Chapter of the book "Peak" is on sleep. I made this mistake once before, when I had a lot going on at my business and with my family, and I thought I was doing fine on 5-6 hours a night. Suddenly, I had a near total collapse that took months to repair... and it all came down to sleep. |
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Congratulations on CS Lori! Royal wrote about this way back in some article he wrote about this subject, I unfortunately can not recall the name of it. Something about “filling the hole” inside of you. He claimed that all climbers have this need for the challenge, the doing, and the moving on. Anyway I’m happy for you, you are getting a taste of “it”. Now imagine that your 22 and you realize that this is what you were born to do. Looks like JT is going to be glorious for the next few weeks- get after it. |
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Nice Send Lori! |
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Thank you, Guy and Mike! Reflecting on these routes lately I realize it’s a misconception that slab climbing is all about lower body—feet and legs. These recent routes took all the crimp, pull down arm and back strength I have. Sore today. |
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With good weather yesterday, we finally got on a nice multi-pitch route. Prime Rib on Disappearing Buttress. Fun day out! Black line shows approximate line of the route.  |
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Lori, in your Dave quest, have you done RAF in Echo Cove? That one is all feet. And I'm glad the make believe is working for you. Some call that faith in your own abilities, by the way. It is hard to find and easy to lose. |
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Congrats, Lori! Maybe consider a Fitbit type tracker? Wearing it overnight will show you your sleep, but also the quality of sleep. They are also an oximeter, and will 'talk' to glucose meters. If nothing else, you can get a track of what's going on, and start watching for patterns. It rained today, cancelling climbing plans. Catcat does not approve of wet. Sunshine good, wet evil. I get that glare...somehow this is my doing. So, I concede my complicity in this, and leave the door open so she can sit there and ponder this cruelty.  Best, Helen |
Jan Mcwrote: Jan.. I have climbed it, and you are right. It's all feet, and really fun. I'm still mulling over your Bachar-Yerian. What an incredible experience that must have been. The video is a whole new lesson in face/slab climbing ( youtube.com/watch?v=-hSz_ps…). Just watching that first step up on Pitch 1 is kind of shocking... something to aspire to. So, picking off the Houser routes here in the park has been a way of putting structure to my climbing here. In my mind, the 5.10 a/b routes may be possible for this season, and we'll see if I ever can do more come September. But if I thought that slab was all about muscular toes and calves, I'm seeing now I better get a better grip. I'm bummed about Good To The Last Drop. I don't know what you guys were thinking... but apparently I won't be climbing it. I was out with a good friend/guide, Nelson, a few days ago. He showed me a bouldering route he has been working on ... Caveman. ( mountainproject.com/route/1…) ANOTHER Bachar route, with John Long. More history. I did not realize that bouldering was a thing back then. --------------- Speaking of bouldering... it's a darn shame I couldn't handle the opening moves on CS Special. Nelson demonstrated it, I watched, tried it. Nada. He estimated this is a V0 problem? I don't know if there's any magic or special religious belief that would get me up and onto that face even if I could have hung onto that second hold. But I was GREAT at finding an alternate route... (I think they call that thinking outside the box).  All I did was completely wear myself out. I'll bet Brandt could do this... easy peasy.  |
Lori Milaswrote: Okay, you win first prize for Best Pic of Most Useless Belay Ever, lol! Lori, remember, a 5.10 grade is usually bestowed upon a route by a 5.12+ climber. Yes, it's a 5.10....for them. Maybe not a 5.10 for a 5.9 climber, especially at old school areas with old school bolting and attitudes to "easy" stuff. Boulder grades are often even more this way. Glad you got it! :-) EDIT to add, look carefully at the differences in where his left foot and left arm are. I bet you could get that next right hand up, with the left shifted the way he has it. Unless you can't undercling where he did? But, I bet you could get more weight on the left leg/toe, straightened out more, to get that right? Isn't it pure joy to climb with such good climbers? I've only had a taste, now and then, but I sure miss it! It's also pure heaven when you pull off something that surprises them. |
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While the Bachar/Yerian was a great climb, walk around Josh and look at some of the true thin slab routes there. Go look at Games without Frontiers on the Future Games wall. That is a Paul Bourne masterpiece that Kris and I did. Or look at Kris' prophetically named Seizure just to the right of Rubicon out at Split Rocks. Both look absolutely impossible but with strength, passion and belief it is amazing what we can accomplish. Well actually, Seizure was one of the few slab routes that I tried and I never did do. There is just one move to this heart shaped hold that is just too far away... And I never did go back and work on it to figure out another way to get thru that move. |
Jan Mcwrote: I think that Seizure is the only hard route we've been on together where you couldn't find a way to climb through something I reached past. I'm not sure there's anything there. I suppose you could believe that it's not as steep as it is, a sort of Carlos Castaneda move. It's kind of cool that in the case of a climb like Games Without Frontiers when we were finished we'd done two different climbs, you having done about 25% more moves . I belayed Erik when, about a month after we did it, he did the 3rd ascent. And of course it was yet another entirely different climb. That boy's got some long arms... I found myself in that reach situation climbing with Erik in the Owens Gorge. He led this thing called Excelsior, across from the Great Roof. He's got at least 6" on me at my best, and there's this stand up and reach bugger up there. E could just barely tag it and pull, but no matter what I tried I couldn't get it. And while I wasn't paying attention, Erik had pulled the rope, so I didn't have the mercy of a TR. I just slammed into the wall over and over again 'till I got tired of it. |
Old lady Hwrote: Ha! The thing is, back then it was considered stylish to make light of difficulties. And of course the worst form of humiliation was to have your route downgraded . |
Kristian Solemwrote: I can honestly say that I have never had that happen. I have helped put routes up all over Southern and Central California and NONE have been down graded. Of course, I don't think any have been up rated either although I am not sure that the routes Kris and I put up on Hell Rock have had enough ascents to know that for sure. And Kris, the two places that I hated climbing just because of the reaches were Devil's Punchbowl and Valhalla. Valhalla I did an 11b (on the left of the main wall) that was at least 12c for me just because of the reaches, one after the other after the other after the other.... |
Jan Mcwrote: We've both had at least one route we did together up-graded. E called Gold Standard the hardest climb of its kind he'd ever done.(!) But spray is untoward on this thread. After all we're both well more than a decade over 50 by now. Older than I ever thought I'd get. That's a joke, but it's not. Hell Rock is an obscure crag in Josh, in a beautiful setting. Jan found it, took me out there, and we put up The Route of All evil. Not without some effort. We took Laeger out there and he said this looks like Hell, thus the name. Later Jan and I put up No Rest For the Wicked. Razor blades for holds. Not the smartest idea, but fun after the fact. I remember we took Yoho out there. It wasn't exactly his style of climbing. The best way to find this place is to look it up in Randy's Joshua Tree West book (pg 56). I can't imagine why, but he included it. That's what is called a well researched and thorough guide-book. It's a nice walk out there, maybe a mile. Despite there being no elevation gain or loss, you'll see a lot of variety of desert plant life. Un-travelled washes and higher dry terrain. |
Jan Mcwrote: I am so glad you and Kris are sharing. These are great stories, and also, great coaching on the art of climbing. It truly takes a village... and this is a virtual village. I suggested to Tony that we take a drive today to Split Rocks. I'm sure he'll be thrilled . It doesn't matter the size, shape or beauty of a rock, he will finally say "Lori, it's a ROCK." I've met a surprising number of people from Chicago recently who feel the same way. On the other hand, he can name every car he's ever owned, and the girlfriend who went with it. He cannot believe the dirt and gravel and stuff in my car... obviously I don't deserve a car. I have not seen the Rubicon yet but hope to today... some of these other routes take religion to a new level. Jan, the MP pic of you Games without Frontiers -- what a thing of beauty. Perhaps Bob will be shaking his head and wishing you instigators would go away. I have so totally given myself over to this process of learning to climb this year, and I'm sure I'm hard to manage. I want to go everywhere and climb everything. This business of slowly, painstakingly, learning to climb--holding back until there is at least a chance of a send... going through the steps, building skill, gaining strength. I have infinite gratitude to those who have taught me along the way... most especially Bob. Personally, I wouldn't want to teach anyone. It has to be misery. I already did this with my four kids... helped them learn to tie their shoes, take their first wobbly steps, shove them along on training wheels. Then down they go again, and you have to be patient. No matter how confident I am on the ground, it's another thing when I set off on a route, sometimes shaky, wobbly, totally botching it. Never a complaint from Bob--only kindness, more precise coaching, and always with supreme confidence that I can do it. I do not know how you found each other, and other partners... but I know that one day I will be looking for my own partner in crime. Maybe this is another part of the religious experience. gravitating to the potential friend who will know you, of similar skills, and ready and eager to climb. Consistent. Dependable. We've had this talk before on this thread... finding a good climbing partner. It's perhaps the hardest part of climbing. ------------ I was set for a three hour hike yesterday, when 20 minutes in I saw this formation in the distance. Jettisoned all my plans and hiked over to look at this one line. I trudged through some bushes and shrubs to get to the base of it just to put my hands in the crack. This is the first time I have had the experience of feeling "Hey, I think this could be a great route!"--a little dirty, but I am so very curious about how it would go. A little like when the kiddo's say "Take the training wheels off, and let me ride by myself!" Never got back to my hike...  What is it about men and their fish???  |
