New and experienced climbers over 50 # 25

M Mwrote:

Around here if your neighbors dont have any seafood you go hit up the guy down the road with hand painted signs by his mailbox indicating he has seafood.

Living in Colorado, that sounds dreamy.

Nick Goldsmithwrote:

Camped deep on a logging road in way northern Maine. New Brunswick tomorrow. Day 5 of consecutive climbing. Climbed a three pitch 5.7 in Barrets Cove today that has a pretty serious start. Nothing but a few shallow sideways micro stoppers and bad offset cam in the first 50 ft. Might have been better with a red tricam but didn't have it with me. The rest of the climbing was steep and stellar. Isa did great. We spent major cash on lobsters and clams right on a working pier.  All the photos are in my cameras and won't be able to post until I put them in the computer and have WiFi..

Nick... sounds SO NICE.  Hope you will post those pictures ASAP.  This is great, hearing from you East Coast (and midwest) climbers.  You are a whole different universe from mine/ours, and what I love about this thread is getting to know people and places who are 'not me'--or any of the West Coast climbers here.  :-) 

Jan... I don't know about this 'bass egg goo' theory of yours.  I tried to google it.  Do you feel sure about this?  To Tim's question about the size... I recall these being 5-7 inches in length.  Pretty dense.  Like you'd imagine a breast implant.  Wouldn't a jellyfish grow legs?  This will be my mission next week when I spend time at Folsom Lake.  I'll see if I can find another one.  They do have that beautiful marking... almost like a henna tattoo.  

To Guy's great post, and comments about "you know you don't want to accept this, at some point your body just falls apart from old age."  I do know this will happen.  Maybe more accurate for me is that each of us goes to seed in different ways.  You all ran yourselves into the ground... or stretched your limits to the max... until your joints, limbs, organs just fully rebelled or quit.  The back, shoulder, knee surgeries here on this thread are remarkable.  I came to the game late.  I have never woken up more than a little sore... and it's always gone within a few hours.  Nothing hurts.  I don't feel old at all.  But I have dealt with a fatigue that is unrelenting at times... labeled 'chronic fatigue' where the prescribed solution is bedrest for months, if not forever.  It's a kind of fatigue I never experienced in the past, hard to overstate the severity... and by now it's pretty predictable... the day after any hard exercise I'm lightheaded, foggy, deeply sleepy and tired.  I've been experimenting with fixes... and doggone it, there's a direct correlation (for me) with grams of protein, hydration and sleep.  I don't know if I will win this battle, but unless forced, I won't just permanently go to bed.  :-) 

It's time for a hangboard for me.  Does it HAVE to go in a doorway?  Can anyone suggest a basic no-frills hangboard? 

Brian in SLCwrote:

Did the Standard Route a few years ago.  Some serious looking routes there!  Not too far a drive to Jen's sister's place in Friendship.

Just had friends over for dinner last weekend with Greenhead lobby tails.  I bar tended at the owner's place in Sugarloaf a few NYE's ago and Jen's mom ships them to us.

Hard to beat!

Those look pretty good. Might want to give 'em a try.

I live in lobstah country but I still prefer a dozen blue crabs any day, lucky for us they are slowly making their way up here with the oceans currents warming. We picked 2 dozen Jonah crabs last week, crab cakes the first night, crab tacos the next night and froze the rest for a future date. Those things are hard to pick, it was a long couple hours of work.

The weather here is hot, and I’m fine with that.  The lobster looks great, the ocean looks great, but I’m here happy to be in shorts and T-shirt and feel the summer. Stopped by Brandt’s to look at his hangboard… he looks GREAT, all and happy.  

I’ve been canning plums and apricots this season, but now I really want to put up some vegetables, and I don’t think I’ve done that before.  I’ve been creating anti-pasta salads for afternoon appetizers, Tony is roasting red peppers as we speak.  Tomorrow’s Farmer’s Market I hope to find some veggies worthy of canning, and more for minestrone soup with basil.  The place to be right now is Jan’s house, but since we haven’t been invited I guess we’ll just all have to soldier on.      

There’s another kind of canned vegetable called Giardiniera… Tony brought some back from Chicago and he grew up eating that and some kind of dried cod, baccala.  I was thinking of something with less vinegar—asparagus, green beans, carrots, zucchini, etc… that could be laid out on the anti-pasta dish.  Helen?   

We’ve been watching the National Geographic reality show on Alaska… featuring 4 families/people who live in 4 different parts of Alaska, in temps well below 0 degrees… living ‘on the land’ and eating caribou which they largely gut and clean right there in their kitchens.  And fish.  I was wondering how they submit, buy oil and fuel, pay for electricity etc.  A quick google indicates they get paid $4500 per episode, and $200,000 per year.  Probably makes ‘subsistence living’ more bearable.   

Lori, you can brine almost anything. Sauerkraut is nothing but salt ...and cabbage. Keeps a long time in the frig. 

But other veggies can be brined, too. Dilly beans, or asparagus are nice. Two versions, brined and vinegared. The brined don't last as long, but will keep in the frig for awhile. Brining is live fermentation, super good for us! Canning kills it, that's the point of canning.

If you're wanting truly canned stuff, for many months later?

That's pickles, made with vinegar, following solid recipes and carefully canned. Salt, acid, sugar, in abundance. That's what preserves things. Or drying/smoking/jerking. 

Oodles of recipes out there!

My favorite thing this time of year?

Fire up a grill, slice zukes, eggplant thickish, and long. Seed some peppers, cut in quarters or so. Grill the veggies, getting them a little charred here and there. Probably peel the peppers, if they char nicely. Throw them in a shallow pan, and marinate with a mix of olive oil, garlic, anchovy, capers, etc. Slice them into pieces, and serve at room temp. Sooooo nummy!

My other go to this time of year, when all the summer veg is going strong, is to do a huge tempura blowout! 

Once in awhile, just acknowledge the glory of the season, and indulge.

H.

Lori Milaswrote:

The weather here is hot, and I’m fine with that.  The lobster looks great, the ocean looks great, but I’m here happy to be in shorts and T-shirt and feel the summer. Stopped by Brandt’s to look at his hangboard… he looks GREAT, all and happy.  

I’ve been canning plums and apricots this season, but now I really want to put up some vegetables, and I don’t think I’ve done that before.  I’ve been creating anti-pasta salads for afternoon appetizers, Tony is roasting red peppers as we speak.  Tomorrow’s Farmer’s Market I hope to find some veggies worthy of canning, and more for minestrone soup with basil.  The place to be right now is Jan’s house, but since we haven’t been invited I guess we’ll just all have to soldier on.      

There’s another kind of canned vegetable called Giardiniera… Tony brought some back from Chicago and he grew up eating that and some kind of dried cod, baccala.  I was thinking of something with less vinegar—asparagus, green beans, carrots, zucchini, etc… that could be laid out on the anti-pasta dish.  Helen?   

We’ve been watching the National Geographic reality show on Alaska… featuring 4 families/people who live in 4 different parts of Alaska, in temps well below 0 degrees… living ‘on the land’ and eating caribou which they largely gut and clean right there in their kitchens.  And fish.  I was wondering how they submit, buy oil and fuel, pay for electricity etc.  A quick google indicates they get paid $4500 per episode, and $200,000 per year.  Probably makes ‘subsistence living’ more bearable.   

I'm only doing this because you are living with someone of Italian heritage, so you need to know this before he sees it and abandons you:  it is ANTIPASTO, not anti-pasta   

Lori Milaswrote:

We’ve been watching the National Geographic reality show on Alaska… featuring 4 families/people who live in 4 different parts of Alaska, in temps well below 0 degrees… living ‘on the land’ and eating caribou which they largely gut and clean right there in their kitchens.  And fish.  I was wondering how they submit, buy oil and fuel, pay for electricity etc.  A quick google indicates they get paid $4500 per episode, and $200,000 per year.  Probably makes ‘subsistence living’ more bearable.   

Lori, many Alaskans got most of their protein for the coming winter this past July during the sockeye salmon (red) run. Dipnetting for reds at the mouth of the Kenai and Kasilof rivers is a huge cultural event for Alaskans of all persuasions. If you’re also able to get a moose and or caribou, your freezer is full for the winter and you’re stoked. If you got your wood cut split and stacked to dry last spring and your woodshed is also full, you’re sitting pretty. Very few Alaskans truly live a subsistence life (off the grid, very little purchased from stores) but most supplement store bought food with wild protein, berries, and garden grown veggies. It can be a very healthy lifestyle (as long as you don’t need a constant supply of alcohol to get you through the dark season, then things can get very dark). This is caribou jerky prep. A very lean protein as you can see.

Tim Schafstallwrote:

I'm only doing this because you are living with someone of Italian heritage, so you need to know this before he sees it and abandons you:  it is ANTIPASTO, not anti-pasta   

In Italian, pasto is the word for meal, and an antipasto is a little bite to excite your palate before the meal. The plural is antipasti. Pasta is dough based food, shaped and cooked. It’s plural is paste. On a restaurant menu, the headings might be “I Antipasti” and “Le Paste”.

Yesterday we found limestone sport climbing in a secluded cove near the bay of Fundy NB . Skinny dipping in the ocean. Camped in the middle of a wild blueberry field..  that was day six of climbing with me leading everything. At the end of the day Isa did two leads. Her knee is pretty sore today. 

Where is that Nick? Most of the rock that I’ve seen on the Fundy coast ( mostly on the N.S. side) makes most choss look solid—-and is illegal to climb as well!!!! Pre-pandemic we were in that area pretty frequently ( my wife has family in N.S.) and hope to head back up that way next summer, so would be nice to find someplace to climb en route.

St John. I will send you the info when I get back. 

phylp phylpwrote:

In Italian, pasto is the word for meal, and an antipasto is a little bite to excite your palate before the meal. The plural is antipasti. Pasta is dough based food, shaped and cooked. It’s plural is paste. On a restaurant menu, the headings might be “I Antipasti” and “Le Paste”.

Thank you Phylp and Tim. I would feel some shame but may I say Tony can butcher the English language in a hundred ways. I am especially impressed by his ability to string double negatives together in a single sentence. “Wait… does this mean you DO want to go or you don’t? I’m lost.”

——-

The more I watch documentaries on Alaska and read what Colden describes I have just one question: what’s wrong with Tahiti?  Is there something about a tropical island and spear fishing that doesn’t appeal? 

The four families being covered on the National Geographic show, live well below Barrow (I will try to memorize the true spelling of your town) and they are still seeing temperatures of -40°.  I have so far not seen a greenhouse depicted, but I think if I lived there, I would take the challenge.

Sockeye and moose sound pretty healthy. Maybe the whole cuisine is an acquired taste?  What do we do with the seal meat and walrus?  Are polar bears off-limits for hunting?

—- 

Lori, growing up around people who hunt and fish, in the mammalian world, carnivores are usually not hunted for meat. Grazing animals are much tastier and easier to hunt also. Lower 48 bears are omnivores, and hunted and eaten. Personally, I stick with my grazed beef, mostly. Bison and elk, now and then.

But if we ever go cannibalistic, them vegans are in trouble.

H.

Thanks Helen. Now I have a great argument next time some friends try to convince me to convert to ‘vegan’!!!!

Lori Milaswrote:

Thank you Phylp and Tim. I would feel some shame but

There’s no reason to expect English speakers to intuitively understand the pronunciation or pluralization of foreign words that make their way into our common usage. I know I misuse foreign words all the time. Not infrequently, when traveling and trying to muddle my way in French or Italian, I’ll get confused and put the em-PHAS-is on the wrong syl-LA-ble.  Until a couple of years ago, I was pronouncing Oaxacan “oh- ox-a-can”. My friend smiled at me and taught me “wha-ha-can”.  It’s a constant learning process and fun.

But the next time Tony makes ravioli, leave one on the plate and tell him, “I’m stuffed, do you want the last raviolo?”.

M Mwrote:

I live in lobstah country but I still prefer a dozen blue crabs any day, lucky for us they are slowly making their way up here with the oceans currents warming. We picked 2 dozen Jonah crabs last week, crab cakes the first night, crab tacos the next night and froze the rest for a future date. Those things are hard to pick, it was a long couple hours of work.

Ha-ha, good to find another crab lover.  I also prefer cooked crabs over cooked lobsters.  Loster sashimi is dscussion for another day, however.
I grew up eating steamed mud crabs and chili mud crabs (still one of the most tasty crab dishes anywhere, IMHO). Flower crab has gained popularity in Asia (looks "cooler") but I still prefer mud.
I lived 4 years in Washington state as an adult so I ate the famous crabs from there and Alaska.

The most interesting crabs to me are the more 'seasonal' ones - Maryland Soft Shell in the spring (Presumably Blue Claw variety) and Shanghai Hairy in the fall.
I've only had each once or twice and they are definitely unusual, and good.

Oh, yeah, a well prepared crab cake is delish!!

Phylp... It has been a fun learning curve for me (and probably Tony) to hook up with someone so totally different and opposite.  Tony grew up in an Italian kitchen on his mother and grandmother's knees.... and with female cousins in and out all day, and doting on him.  So, he's the first man I've ever met that has NO baggage with women.  :-)  Tony learned to cook from his mother who turned out kettles of 'gravy' and pasta and various meats.  But somewhere Tony really developed his taste from all things "Chicago", as in 'a REAL Chicago pizza' and 'a REAL Chicago hot dog' which apparently cannot be duplicated in California, even with the same ingredients. 

We are carefully moving towards a Mediterranean diet... I think gout and coronary cloggage are causing him to cave to some changes.  Mostly gout.  Regarding language, I've come to understand that this is 'truckdriver slang', not an Italian slang.  Apparently there is a required swag amongst peers that I don't grasp.  He knows how to speak, spell and write perfect English.  He just wouldn't want anyone to know it.   

---

I wanted a slow, easy hike this morning, so I went to one of my favorite places, the backside of The Sentinel.

From every place I walked this morning I looked up to see White Room (unintended, but it's visible from the entire RHV)... and had to laugh.  It brought back that old Casablanca quote: Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.  It's just there, always, calling to me!   White Room has become a fascination of mine, partly because I can't seem to get to it. But also, it's so far up on this beautiful rock, and I would bet no one has climbed it since Bob Gaines and Al Bartlett put it up in 1992. I could be the second ascent--sorta.  

------------

As impressive as this is, I am always blown away by these routes on the Sentinel.  If I could identify one climb... just one... that I'd want to be good enough to climb in this lifetime, it would be this one.  It'll never happen, but this is what turns me on.  

That wall to the left... is a whole bunch of nothin'.  Centipede 11d.  It was the most amazing, jaw-dropping climb to watch (I actually belayed Nelson on this)... there's a thin edge a foot off the ground, a sort of undercling, and then a leap of faith to get smearing, crimping and edging on tiny edges of granite.  100 feet of near vertical, featurless, trad climbing.  Dave Mayville and Paul Borne put this up... not sure when.  I've heard of Dave, not Paul.  That must have been quite a day.  

I feel sure that Kris could have handled this route and Jan. I don't know, Guy... is/was this your thing?  

I wonder how John Long, Bachar et al would have done on this route.  They had to all be strong enough.  Amazing times that I missed.

Just let me learn a little more.  I'd be thrilled to attempt a 9-10c version of this route.  

Not chump change... but there I was on the adjacent (left) formation.  What an incredible day.

Nick Goldsmithwrote:

St John. I will send you the info when I get back. 

Spent a few hours there in St John climbing, pretty nice urban climbing. Going back this fall to hit the granite just south of there. Its so close to home and easy to get to without even having to buy expensive  Canadian petrol. 

S. Neohwrote:

Ha-ha, good to find another crab lover.  I also prefer cooked crabs over cooked lobsters.  Loster sashimi is dscussion for another day, however.
I grew up eating steamed mud crabs and chili mud crabs (still one of the most tasty crab dishes anywhere, IMHO). Flower crab has gained popularity in Asia (looks "cooler") but I still prefer mud.
I lived 4 years in Washington state as an adult so I ate the famous crabs from there and Alaska.

The most interesting crabs to me are the more 'seasonal' ones - Maryland Soft Shell in the spring (Presumably Blue Claw variety) and Shanghai Hairy in the fall.
I've only had each once or twice and they are definitely unusual, and good.

Oh, yeah, a well prepared crab cake is delish!!

The invasive green crab is apparently tasty as well, there is a high school science teacher somewhere in Maine selling the softshells to restaurants with a few students. I think crabs are naturally more salty which equals better to me. I made the crab cakes with the least amount of filler ever and it was heavenly. I'll do fish cakes if I catch a bunch of keepers sometimes too, i usually grill the fish whole and fork the meat all at once.

Shit now I'm hungry