New and Experienced Climbers Over 50 #16

Lori Milas wrote:

...You mentioned Pilates reformer which got me thinking.  I wonder if we have any Pilates here in Josh/Yucca.  Will check that out.  That's the kind of work that might help me climb better...  

 

Pilates is great for climbing. It's not just about core strength and mobility. To do the work, you have to be 100% focused on it. No thoughts of anything else. Complete in the moment self awareness. Mind-body connection and all that. 

I don't know if there's good Pilates up there. I wouldn't be surprised if there is. I know there's good Yoga. A woman named Karen Tracy is reputed to be very good. She has a FB page.

A Pilates class of more than four people is useless, and doing a couple of private's just to get the ball rolling is a good idea. When I was teaching I limited myself to single and doubles. Three or four was too much for me, only the best teachers can keep four people focused and safe for an hour.

In a good Pilates environment things like range of motion, and compensating for special conditions (back pain, rehab from injury, etc) are carefully managed. Not so much in many Yoga classes. Some teachers like hyper-mobility, which destabilizes joints, especially shoulders. Watch out for that, there's no problem with telling an otherwise good teacher that excessive mobility is not for you. I had shoulder problems for a while due to that practice. 

I just searched around and found a place up there called Wilde Pilates. 5 stars on every yelp review, but it looks like they've given up the brick and mortar studio and are doing outdoor classes or something. Worth checking out.

Kristian Solem wrote:

Pilates is great for climbing. It's not just about core strength and mobility. To do the work, you have to be 100% focused on it. No thoughts of anything else. Complete in the moment self awareness. Mind-body connection and all that. 

I don't know if there's good Pilates up there. I wouldn't be surprised if there is. I know there's good Yoga. A woman named Karen Tracy is reputed to be very good. She has a FB page.

A Pilates class of more than four people is useless, and doing a couple of private's just to get the ball rolling is a good idea. When I was teaching I limited myself to single and doubles. Three or four was too much for me, only the best teachers can keep four people focused and safe for an hour.

In a good Pilates environment things like range of motion, and compensating for special conditions (back pain, rehab from injury, etc) are carefully managed. Not so much in many Yoga classes. Some teachers like hyper-mobility, which destabilizes joints, especially shoulders. Watch out for that, there's no problem with telling an otherwise good teacher that excessive mobility is not for you. I had shoulder problems for a while due to that practice. 

I just searched around and found a place up there called Wilde Pilates. 5 stars on every yelp review, but it looks like they've given up the brick and mortar studio and are doing outdoor classes or something. Worth checking out.

Back in the 80s Karen Tracy was a Dentist. I wonder if she still is.

Kristian Solem wrote:

Have you met Brandt Allen? You two might have a lot to talk about...

I like this shot. I'm not sure why I had the camera pointed at him, but I'm glad I did.   

And that's Barbara's face and my butt in the background.  That was at Holcomb.  Was Donny Reid with us that day too?  Can't remember...

edited to say, I think that was taken at that little crag where we saw the huge rattlesnake slither past the base of the route.

Old Reliable? More like Reliably Old.

Had another fun day in the Gorge.  Spent the AM at the Monkey to Monk formation.  Later, we moved to a spot where I was able to get a great view of the million tons of rubble that sits on top of the cliff.  My dear friend Wags (RIP) used to say that if there was ever a decent earthquake on the East side on a Memorial Day weekend, it would wipe out half the population of LA and SF Bay climbers.  It actually wasn't crowded at all for a Saturday.  I struck up a conversation with two very nice climbers who were visiting from Alaska and have been in Bishop for the past 3 weeks already.  They are having a wonderful time in Bishop.  It's so nice meeting friendly strangers from all over the world when out at the crags.

Lori Milas wrote:

Carl, if I haven't said it before, I'm so happy you've hung in there with us and continued to write. I feel like we've almost gotten to visit Australia and experience life there.  I'd miss it a lot of you didn't post.  All your pictures over the last few years have really filled in the pieces.  Thank you!

--

As for researching and 'overthinking'.  I think some people have been blessed with natural good health and can't even imagine why anyone would spend time worrying about it.  My mother was one such person who led a moderate life, but ate and did whatever she pleased until she died at 102. She couldn't understand someone more delicate like me, who had one thing after another almost from birth.  She certainly never grasped diabetes.  

But what we're after here is even more than just basic good health (which is not a given).  We want to climb "at a certain age'.  So that requires a little extra attention.

In the ancient Indian science of Ayurveda, which I studied for many years, the yogis said that most people are given a measure of effortless good health until somewhere around the age of 50-55.  During that window of time we will make a deep and spiritual choice about whether and how to go forward in life.  Without a strong, positive will to be vibrant and engaged in life, there will be a slow steady decline into death (or fast decline if the vices of youth all pile on at once).  I felt very aware of that window, and decided to get pro-active.  How long can we hold illness and decay at bay so we can continue to have fun and play ... I don't know.  But I do know that this is no longer a freebie.  

Oh thanks. Sometimes I feel very much the outsider as you talk about places and routes you've all been to and all climbed. And then there's the reverse seasons, the customs, cultural differences, time differences, measuring differences and even route grade differences, but there's one thing that links us all together and I think that's wisdom. 

I felt tired worn out and damaged today so I just went for a ride on my motorbike, ate a hot dog, and watched Breaking Bad from episode 1 while drinking beer and stoking the fire... 

Oh, also did the week's ironing. Always have to be dapper... 

Carl Schneider wrote:

Oh thanks. Sometimes I feel very much the outsider as you talk about places and routes you've all been to and all climbed. And then there's the reverse seasons, the customs, cultural differences, time differences, measuring differences and even route grade differences, but there's one thing that links us all together and I think that's wisdom. 

I felt tired worn out and damaged today so I just went for a ride on my motorbike, ate a hot dog, and watched Breaking Bad from episode 1 while drinking beer and stoking the fire... 

Oh, also did the week's ironing. Always have to be dapper... 

Wait!  You don't make your wife do the ironing???     I thought you guys Down Under were manly men, macho dudes who make their wives do the chores.  

Then again, Tony is the most manly man I know here, and he loves to do laundry, mine and his.  I have never been so pampered.

BREAKING BAD!  Oh my god, Carl... we just finished the entire 5 seasons, and started right in on Better Call Saul.  We are finishing season 5 of that one.  I wisely avoided Breaking Bad when it was playing originally because I knew if I saw 5 minutes of it I would be hooked.  This is now a truly guilty pleasure.  How are you liking it?

I think you should give Cindy your MP password and let her report in here on your behavior.  I don't entirely trust your first-person accounts.  

got out to one of my local crags yesterday after a photo gig. No climbing camera so no photos. Did my usual solo circuit and it being the first time out there since last summer I didn't feel a solid as I like to. No danger of actually falling but I could not remember some of the sequences so had to actually  figuer them out  while 60ft off the deck....   not my usual flowing meditation climbing that I do there.. on my loop hike out  was thinking how dry it is. driveing home I encluntered a forest fire. had my work camera in the rig so went to work... 

Wow. Already. So early in the season

When I first read it I thought "Oh, that's a nice thing to say!" But quickly after that I understood the real message.

Lori Milas wrote:

Wait!  You don't make your wife do the ironing???     I thought you guys Down Under were manly men, macho dudes who make their wives do the chores.  

Then again, Tony is the most manly man I know here, and he loves to do laundry, mine and his.  I have never been so pampered.

BREAKING BAD!  Oh my god, Carl... we just finished the entire 5 seasons, and started right in on Better Call Saul.  We are finishing season 5 of that one.  I wisely avoided Breaking Bad when it was playing originally because I knew if I saw 5 minutes of it I would be hooked.  This is now a truly guilty pleasure.  How are you liking it?

I think you should give Cindy your MP password and let her report in here on your behavior.  I don't entirely trust your first-person accounts.  

"Make"? "Make" her do the ironing? How could I "make" Cindy do anything? I actually like doing the ironing, it's relaxing. 

I know everyone else on the planet has seen Breaking Bad. I like the show. I like how, at this point the main character is maintaining his bumbly, 50 year old with a dad bod, straight white guy persona even though he's just disposed of a body... 

Sequences.  I had a happy day yesterday doing some vertical climbing, not slab.  Maybe this is where 'old' comes in... when it's something different the learning curve takes a minute.  I had only one thing to learn, a hip roll and a reach.  Just a short little sequence, but where there was no time to hang out.  Step up with left, grab left jug, step back with right, hip roll in, grab right little jug, and then reach up tall with right to ledge.  And that took several tries to get it straight.  Also, with so much climbing here being slab... I'm always thinking 'nose over toes'.   Learning 'hips in' on vertical walls is really new.  (I was at Trick or Treat in Sleepy Hollow) 

It's pretty cool to be able to spend days learn things that are of no real importance in the world.  I leave my house and disappear for 6-8 hours into nature where politics, pain, war all fall away very quickly.  It's a reminder, walking back into my house, that we do not HAVE to engage 24/7 with the drone of bad news.  

(This is Tucker Tech on Trick or Treat, pic by Todd Gordon.  Such a great picture, I wish I could prop my shoe-cam up like that).  

What's this "ironing" thing???

H.

Old lady H wrote:

What's this "ironing" thing???

H.

It's what people do to get the wrinkles out of their clothes. Try it! Works wonders.

I was trying to remember the last bit of clothing I ironed....and can't come up with anything, lol! The iron and ironing board left the house years ago, when I conceded I hadn't pulled out the sewing machine for years.

Clothes don't get all that wrinkled just laying there overnight, waiting to be put back on the next day. 

Yeah, she's goin' feral here. 

Rather happily.

:-)

I love ironing. When I’m making a quilt, there’s as much ironing as sewing in the early stages. I iron all the pillowcases and napkins, and my husband’d good t-shirts.
heading out soon for a day of climbing in Pine Creek...

Here’s a photo of me from the Gorge the other day. They say a picture is worth a thousand words but this picture doesn’t tell the story at all. The reality is, It was hot and I was tired and I got up about 8 clips into a 15 bolt climb and just ran out of gas. Lowered down and my partner finished the route.

Lori Milas wrote:

Gabe. Wrong, wrong, wrong!   

As to not needing self-rescue here in Josh—I have already needed it!  Some months back I was climbing a route that had an odd twist in the rock and my rope jammed in it. It couldn’t be pulled up or down and I was left hanging there, high noon on a very hot day.  That’s when I had the thought “Hey! Wouldn’t it be COOL if I had some idea how to get myself outta here before I roast to death on this wall?”  (I untied and downclimbed.) 

That wasn’t the only time. I watched with real concern a young man whose rope got stuck on Double Cross and he was stranded there mid-route for a good half hour while he did some fancy maneuvers to change ropes and descend.  He was pretty rattled when he got back on terra firma.  A stranger had to lead back up and fetch his stuff.

As for scoping out approaches and descents on domes: I am already positive that there are none. I set out to do that very thing last summer.  I tried to hike up the backside of Cyclops, ran into a boulder field and couldn’t work around it.  However there is this very cool rock off to the side. 

I tried to walk on and off Echo Rock, hit another boulder field and a swarm of bees and had to beat a fast escape.  I thought surely I could walk up Buckets To Burbank but ran into one problem spot and turned back (all 5 attempts).  But I figured I could AT LEAST hike up the backside of Granny Goose and set up an easy top rope on those roadside routes. It turns out that is the hardest of all.

I’m still working on an approach to either of the Cave Corridor domes.  Dead end after dead end.

My best effort was on Bikini Whale. I spent two days trying to bushwhack to the base.  A stellar failure. 

So now I can say with 100% certainty that any suggestion of walk on/walk offs anywhere in Joshua Tree is FAKE NEWS.  I’m sure of it.   

Okay, well you told me.  Doesn't match either my recollection of the dangers involved in being a beginner toproper, nor the approaches/descents on my few visits to Joshua Tree way back when.  But my memory is unreliable, and it's your scene, so I'll drop it.

Cheers,

GO

Actually Cyclops and Echo are pretty easy to walk up or down if you know the way.  I don't even think that Cyclops is at all scary while Echo does take some climbing skill.  There ARE lots of rocks in Josh where you can't say that though.

I love Pine Creek.  It's just a gorgeously scenic place and the rock is wonderful.  My photo from today of my partners doing Salamander Slayer.

Well I went off to the gym tonight with the intent of getting my little grade 24 project. Didn't happen. Fell off on the first attempt at the crux. Then gave it another go and got to the third last hold again. Held that for longer than I did last time, fell off, punched the wall like a fool and hurt my hand. 

My elbow bursitis is looking stupidly bad too. So no climbing at all for me for a while. Now I'm all fucking depressed.