New and Experienced climbers over 50 #22

Nice, Phyl! Love the stories and your pictures.  .  

Well, sleep has become an issue here.  Never was before… but now I’m yawning at 5 pm and trying desperately to stay awake until 8. I was thinking about a lightbox for use late afternoon to extend the day.   Some nights I sleep well, but some lately seriously not—last night not at all.  My doctor prescribed Trazadone which I’d really rather not take—but I might have to.  My NP offered ketamine troches (no).  Meanwhile I ordered a product called Cortisol Manager by Integrative Theraputics and a daytime one called HPA Adapt.  I think that’s more my speed.

I just remembered the weighted blanket I bought during the summer and wanted to see if it really helps with sound sleep.  Aroma oils.  Masks.  Magnesium. CBD oil. I Have them all.  This year I need a plan.  

Meanwhile Tony doesn’t fuss with any of that.  He’s got a stash of pills if he needs it—mostly he doesn’t.  My side of the bed pretty woo-woo, his side pretty truck driver. 

Beautiful rain and wind outside.  Hard rain falling.    

Phyl - Sorry I missed you when you were here. Would have been nice to say hello to Denise.

Lori Milaswrote:

Nice, Phyl! Love the stories and your pictures.  .  

Well, sleep has become an issue here.  Never was before… but now I’m yawning at 5 pm and trying desperately to stay awake until 8. I was thinking about a lightbox for use late afternoon to extend the day.   Some nights I sleep well, but some lately seriously not—last night not at all.  My doctor prescribed Trazadone which I’d really rather not take—but I might have to.  My NP offered ketamine troches (no).  Meanwhile I ordered a product called Cortisol Manager by Integrative Theraputics and a daytime one called HPA Adapt.  I think that’s more my speed.

I just remembered the weighted blanket I bought during the summer and wanted to see if it really helps with sound sleep.  Aroma oils.  Masks.  Magnesium. CBD oil. I Have them all.  This year I need a plan.  

Meanwhile Tony doesn’t fuss with any of that.  He’s got a stash of pills if he needs it—mostly he doesn’t.  My side of the bed pretty woo-woo, his side pretty truck driver. 

Beautiful rain and wind outside.  Hard rain falling.    

I’m often in bed by eight, sometimes seven thirty. I like sleeping. I have very vivid dreams that I remember and honestly I find them quite entertaining. It’s like going to a European film festival of films by odd directors. I understand it’s not normal to consider dreaming a valid past time but for me it can be.

I’ll probs drop dead as soon as I type this but I’m lucky to be in a position where I take no medications at all, not even any supplements, not even fish oil, magnesium, nothing. I honestly feel no supplement I’ve ever taken has ever had any noticeable effect. Oh, actually, Iboprofin makes me very happy so there’s one; but I don’t take that any more because it makes me too happy.

Carl Schneiderwrote:

I’m often in bed by eight, sometimes seven thirty. I like sleeping. I have very vivid dreams that I remember and honestly I find them quite entertaining. It’s like going to a European film festival of films by odd directors. I understand it’s not normal to consider dreaming a valid past time but for me it can be.

I’ll probs drop dead as soon as I type this but I’m lucky to be in a position where I take no medications at all, not even any supplements, not even fish oil, magnesium, nothing. I honestly feel no supplement I’ve ever taken has ever had any noticeable effect. Oh, actually, Iboprofin makes me very happy so there’s one; but I don’t take that any more because it makes me too happy.

Except for the wild dreaming, this sounds a lot like me, though I do take a multivitamin and had Moderna shots and boosters.

rgoldwrote:

Here I am traversing ice cliffs that formed during storms on Lakeshore Drive in Chicago, The cliffs weren't at all high, as the picture makes evident, but extended for perhaps 1000 feet along the shoreline. The extremely frigid water directly beneath constituted a new type of exposure, and the air temps that year were well below zero. The cliffs blocked out all views of the city, so that all we could see was the rather artic-looking expanse of Lake Michigan. And yet just over the top were the streets and highways of a bustling metropolis, a truly weird juxtaposition.

Sorry for the irrelevant reverie---the point, before I descended into a nostalgic trance, is the white laid rope, which is the Columbia yachting line I mentioned previously.
I don't know the exact year, but my best guess is 1962 or 1963, when I was 19 or 20. The bowline on a coil has been replaced by a swami belt. In 1960, the then 21 year old Yvon Chouinard (belayed by Bob Kamps) fell 160 feet attempting a new route on the North Face of the Crooked Thumb in the Tetons. He walked away with a gash from his piton hammer, but nothing worse, and credited the survival of his internal organs to the use of a swami belt. Almost overnight, it seemed to me that every American climber gave up on the bowline on a coil and started using swamis.

Returning to nostalgia, other items of note: I'm wearing what was, at the time, the iconic Holubar NP22 parka. The leather patch on the back was to protect the shoulder and upper back during rappelling. The belayer is using the usual hip belay, with plenty of slack---I had no pro in anyway. I think the idea, in this case, was that the belay was for reeling in a climber who had fallen into the icy water back to the shoreline, and in particular, we didn't want the belayer dumped into the drink as well; hence the slack. If we had any brains, we would have been wearing life jackets (except of course we didn't own any).

The belayer is anchored to a single Salewa corkscrew-style ice screw.  The idea of anchor redundancy wasn't established in those days, and most of our anchors on rock and ice were single-point affairs.  I think we only had three screws anyway, one for the belayer, one for a belay anchor at the end of the traversing lead, and one to place halfway along.  I had a single axe which is was in my right hand and isn't visible in the picture.  It was, I think, a Stubai Aschbrenner axe from Europe with a perfectly straight pick---it wasn't until 1969 that Chouinard introduced the curved pick. In some of the steep or overhanging sections, I cut handholds for the free hand, but I think in the picture I'm just trying to hold onto the ice.

The yachting line seems too perfect since its main purpose was to haul the human boat out of the lake!

Great pic and story.

GO

Kristian Solemwrote:

Any more crazy wind stories out there? I've got a wild one from Josh I might post up later. Right now I gotta drive Beaver, Utah, to home. Looks like fine weather.

Never anything truly dangerous.  But one time driving from Moab back up north to the highway there were cross-winds blowing a ton of tumbleweeds across the highway from left to right.  Some were little, and you didn't want to run over them for fear of them getting stuck under your car.  Others were enormous.  Biggest one I saw was literally as big as my car.  It was actually pretty fun - felt like being in a real live video game.  You could see them coming from a long way away, and they were maybe one every 20 seconds or so, so you could easily time your speed to get in front or behind them.  Miss your timing and the worst that happened is a bit of scratched paint I guess.

GO

Ward Smithwrote:

Well I’ve flown three times during the pandemic, so I haven’t exactly locked myself away.  Steve and I are actually flying out to Arizona again on Friday so I will have another chance to catch it.  I do wear an N 95 mask and hammer the zinc lozenges. 

Give Steve my best.  You all have fun.  Do some FA's!  And send pics and videos. And be safe.

I have flown twice this year between July 1 and Oct 18, totalling ~48 hr and ~27,000 miles.  Frankly, I was more worried about being in SE Asia in July when cases were peaking.  In fact, looking back at the numbers, cases in SIN hit a peak the day I left the island (July 17).  Mask use, however, was significantly higher than 50%.

Ward Smithwrote:

Well no shots and no COVID for me.  I’m the last man standing in my extended family who hasn’t had COVID. 

yep

Lots of upheaval here... the cabin i have been renting for 20 years sold last friday...  Hugi and I lived in the vani for a day and then moved into this tiny 3 season house as a temporary arrangement until I hopefully close on my new place dec,7th. 

It's tight for the two of us...

sunrises are special here... 

the bathroom is primitive

built a woodshed today

we had to drain the water today as it gets cold for real tomorrow and the water system was just a 55gl barrel in the back on the outside where it would freeze and wreck stuff..  hoping the sink drain doesn't freeze up too quickly...  

 Yesterday was a big day. the last of my stuff from down south..

 Red Bessie on her ride up north.

Nick Goldsmithwrote:

Lots of upheaval here... the cabin i have been renting for 20 years sold last friday...  Hugi and I lived in the vani for a day and then moved into this tiny 3 season house as a temporary arrangement until I hopefully close on my new place dec,7th. 

It's tight for the two of us...

sunrises are special here... 

the bathroom is primitive

built a woodshed today

we had to drain the water today as it gets cold for real tomorrow and the water system was just a 55gl barrel in the back on the outside where it would freeze and wreck stuff..  hoping the sink drain doesn't freeze up too quickly...  

 Yesterday was a big day. the last of my stuff from down south..

 Red Bessie on her ride up north.

Good luck, stay warm.

Sweet little place, Nick. It looks like something straight out of the 1960s or 70s. But I trust that your permanent place will be better suited to winter.

I hope so...     In the 60s and 70s we didn't have solar power.. 

Nick that’s a cool place and a cool story. I can’t imagine living somewhere where it gets proper cold. 

Bouldering at Priest Draw Arizona for my 62nd birthday.  Really cool limestone roofs with pockets, this is The Coffin, V3

Warming up on The Brain, V0-

The Fin, V2

Thanks for sharing.  And happy b-day, Ward.  Hope to fnd some cool rock like this for my 62nd next year!
Pretty rock for sure.

Cool pics Ward. Happy B-day.

Nick, neat little place, but I hope that you get yourself settled into more permanent ‘digs’—with modern amenities, before winter really sets in.

Ward Smithwrote:

Bouldering at Priest Draw Arizona for my 62nd birthday.  Really cool limestone roofs with pockets, this is The Coffin, V3

I love roof problems.

Happy birthday