New and Experienced Climbers over 50 #35

Nice climb yesterday for my birthday. Here’s a video of me almost forgetting to clip a bolt. Age is catching up maybe.

https://youtube.com/shorts/xkaYzzoNdhk?si=9_Tr3q36zIFyhqB0

Carl Schneider wrote:

Nice climb yesterday for my birthday. Here’s a video of me almost forgetting to clip a bolt. Age is catching up maybe.

https://youtube.com/shorts/xkaYzzoNdhk?si=9_Tr3q36zIFyhqB0

Happy birthday, Carl! Hope you downed a few tinnies and blazed a bit of bud: age will never catch up if you keep it real. 

Carl Schneider wrote:

Nice climb yesterday for my birthday. Here’s a video of me almost forgetting to clip a bolt. Age is catching up maybe.

https://youtube.com/shorts/xkaYzzoNdhk?si=9_Tr3q36zIFyhqB0

Nice climb! Happy Birthday!

On age, I like to think we've got one last hurrah.

I just finished 3 sets of campus board to the second to last knobs, 2:2:2, and a young kid tried it and swung wildly side to side. I told him to be careful, whereupon he angrily stated "I know what I'm doing", then though for a moment, "then thanked me and shook his hands out and shoulders in pain.

I'm like 3 times older, and was able to glide*** up the knobs for a fourth set then did four pullups at the top. That'll show the kids...   

*** Of course, what I felt like, was likely much different than how I actually looked.   

What I think I look like VS What I look like - PICKLEBALL EDITION

https://youtube.com/shorts/6axTJ3pK0wI?si=UXfJBwsgg2f0wg4K

Somewhere on Seneca BITD

Age bit us in the butts.

In mid February , my wife blew out her knee. Lacking an ACL for decades she tore up her menisci (there are two in each knee).  

About a week before her surgery, I re-“sprained” my back.  By one innocent sneeze, what I called a sprain deteriorated into a ruptured disc with an extrusion impinging my L3 nerve perfectly enough to induce thought and mobility stopping pain.

“Torn meniscus is a 20 year old’s injury.  And ruptured disc are a 30 years olds injury.” At least that what the doc said while observing my “spine of a man in his thirties 30.”  Well doc, age didn’t make us immune !!

My 70+ year old folk moved in to take care of the invalids.  That’s actually nice.  Talking for hours between dashing to lie face down in a pain relief position.  

At some point we will get back after it.  But for crying out loud this is not how I thought first weeks in the 50+ thread would go. 

Happy Birthday Carl!!!  You're going all Sharma and Honnold on us by skipping bolts now that you're crushing it these days, eh???

I've added a trip to Aussie-land just to stalk you down and share a rope with you to my life-to-do list!  

I find it is actually way more about the ones that I've shared a rope with over the years than the climbs when I'm looking back over the past 40 years!  Don't get me wrong, I love those classic climbs but I'm definitely not climbing for ego so it's the shared experience that really counts for me.

And Rich!  Your style was (is?) just KILLING it!  Man, you were straight out of the movie "Elf" on that last photo!  Just awesome!  Do you still have any of those old rugby shirts?  I think that Patagucci might want to run a line with your name on it!

And finally Perched:  Hang in there man!  Low backs SUCK!  I tweaked mine at age 52 last fall and it is FINALLY starting to straighten out and not hurt all the time!  Just do the PT and listen to those Docs and PTs, they actually know what they are doing!  You'll be back out there in no time!

I’ve been really enjoying all the pictures and conversation and it blows my mind that it took 35,000 posts for you all to start posting up your pictures.  

Carl, I hope you had a great birthday. Being approximately 17 hours ahead of California time this is my excuse for not acknowledging your birthday sooner. And thank you for the maps, now I am totally curious about what all that interior space is about.  

I took a long hike yesterday to sort of meditate and ponder. I was just reflecting on what climbing means for me and what I’m feeling drawn to now that I’ve had some time and experience here. 

I always wind up visiting a particular route on a particular rock that leaves me kind of speechless. Jan Mc climbed it, did the FA of it.  But it’s the kind of climbing that makes me think of Jedi magic. Every time I step up to this wall, I think “it’s impossible”. And I want to learn that magic before I’m too old to even try.

Bob has frequently advised “climb what you love”. And I have enjoyed every kind of climbing here.  But steep face climbing just knocks me out.  It seems to happen every time I climb steep slab that I hate the torture of being on a wall with no holds, but I always find myself afterwards saying “I love this stuff!“.   

This is Jarad climbing the route just to the right of Dirty Tricks. He climbed it as a favor to me so I could see it being done. 

and I keep going back just to touch the rock, to pet it and wonder…  

So I just discovered this review of this route by Matt Bebe, which made me feel a little better about my obsession for a rock that’s a full mile hike away.  Someone else gets the beauty too.  Dirty Tricks 

I feel like I understand a little bit Ward’s obsession with his boulder in Arizona. When you fall in love with a rock, it ignites something powerful. I hope we get pictures, and Ward, best to you on your route!

Way back pics to stay in the new thread.

Headed to the NorCal coast for a week of Redwoods therapy.   

1975 ish bouldering at The Monument.

1977 leading an FA at an obscure crag in NE California.

T Hocking wrote:

Way back pics to stay in the new thread.

Headed to the NorCal coast for a week of Redwoods therapy.  

1975 ish bouldering at The Monument.

1977 leading an FA at an obscure crag in NE California.

Nice pics!

Whereabouts in NorCal? Muir Woods?

^^^

Cougar Rock in Plumas County.

3 pitch 5.8 that is probably still unrepeated. 

More pics from same route...

I’m out hunting for blue flowers this morning. Kris will be relieved to know that this year so far there aren’t any. .

I’m astonished at how rapidly Trump is dismantling our American democracy. I was sick at heart yesterday as more and more reports rolled in.  Naïvely, I thought he might bring more chaos with him but I never expected this, How swift and well planned this has been.

The first hopeful thing I’ve heard in ages is that the president of Harvard university refused Trump‘s demands that they report all dissenters and permit a third-party to review all their curriculum and pull whatever was deemed inappropriate. They stand to lose in the billions of dollars.

I loved attending UCLA and it was a place where all ideas were welcome. We could study and explore in every direction. I cannot imagine walking into a library that has been disinfected and culled of any dissenting materials.

Banning associated press from Trump press conferences. Threatening to pull the licenses of CNN and MSNBC. Harassing journalists.  Threatening the New York Times. Squeezing all news sources that dare to question or report on Trump‘s policies.

Does anyone remember James Foley? This guy died to bring us news. He was beheaded. If I could choose only one issue, it would be freedom of the press. It would be to take back this ridiculous chant of fake news. We should make it our mission to keep all new sources alive.

Silencing and deporting anyone who speaks out on current foreign affairs. That would’ve been us during the Vietnam war. What if we had been forbidden to protest?

I don’t understand at all the law firms who have agreed to pay Trump for having attorneys who once investigated him or the January 6 debacle.  Citizens are now paying dearly for having contributed to the Mueller investigations.

watching monuments and libraries and books destroyed because they mention civil rights or black history. What will my grandchildren know or learn?

References to climate change and alternative sources of energy have been banished. Deregulation allows mercury back into our waterways, air pollution, and plastic— just the tip of the iceberg. Oops. We can’t talk about icebergs anymore.

Back to hunting for my dormant blue flowers… 

Lori Milas wrote:

I’m astonished at how rapidly Trump is dismantling our American democracy. I was sick at heart yesterday as more and more reports rolled in.  Naïvely, I thought he might bring more chaos with him but I never expected this, How swift and well planned this has been.

His plan was  simply working to make himself wealthier. Since the start of his term he’s made 500M USD. 250M/month? His cronies and himself likely a couple 1000 million. I’d say he’s far ahead of his original targets, and doing better than expected.

Dismantling “American Democracy”  was a team effort by all American politicians. He’s simply benefitting personally from it.

He’s doing an excellent job at what he’d planned.  

And shipping violent citizen criminals to El Salvador doesn’t sound like something a Democracy would do, and the fact that the rest of the country isn’t doing something to stop it is just as appalling to me.

Carl- happy birthday!

Nothing else to say 

Later all 

I can understand why many voted for Trump largely because the alternative was simply unacceptable- I have many close friends who felt this way, and I felt exactly the same way about my options. What I don’t understand is the unwavering support he has received from many, in spite of ten years of blatantly obvious negative traits and actions. There doesn’t seem to be any threshold where he’d lose that core support.

Hope you have an awesome birthday Carl.

apogee wrote:

I can understand why many voted for Trump largely because the alternative was simply unacceptable- I have many close friends who felt this way, and I felt exactly the same way about my options. What I don’t understand is the unwavering support he has received from many, in spite of ten years of blatantly obvious negative traits and actions. There doesn’t seem to be any threshold where he’d lose that core support.

So sorry, but anyone who voted for Trump is no better than Trump himself.  For all you Trump supporters, are you proud of your President?  If you are, crawl back into your hole.

Carl Schneider wrote:

Nice climb yesterday for my birthday. Here’s a video of me almost forgetting to clip a bolt. Age is catching up maybe.

https://youtube.com/shorts/xkaYzzoNdhk?si=9_Tr3q36zIFyhqB0

That looks super fun! Happy birthday, sir!!

Helen

Idaho Bob wrote:

So sorry, but anyone who voted for Trump is no better than Trump himself.  For all you Trump supporters, are you proud of your President?  If you are, crawl back into your hole.

Likely “preppers” seeking revenge after being ridiculed by friends and family for so many years.   

Seriously. You had a choice of a federal prosecutor and a football coach over a rapist. WTF