New and Experienced Climbers over 50 #42

What are these “stairs” you are talking about?  It does make bringing the laundry up interesting!

I am all about small house, Big shop..  tracked out my biathlon course yesterday after work. 

then went up to Isa's and chopped a hole

when you are soaking wet from the plunge but your body is putting off heat in zero degrees F temps you are enveloped in a massive steam cloud which makes it impossible to use a camera without fogging the lens. 

I'd inevitably drop the camera into the water!!!

Kristian Solemwrote:

Same here. New house is two stories. Gotta have stairs.

An elderly woman was asked during an interview how she kept in shape. She answered " I've got a big house, and a bad memory".

I like that Victor. My small house definitely suits me. 

A link to Old Man Lightning is over on the bouldering thread.  Definitely worth a watch for the over 50 crowd.  Hits close to home for me anyway.  

Alan Rubinwrote:

Hi Gabe, We have fixed lines on our roof for that purpose --moderately steep roof!!!!

Hope to see you this spring--presuming the snow melts at some point!!!

Good idea about the fixed line. This is the first winter since we had the panels installed that i have needed to clear them. It just hasn't been this cold and snowy in years. 

Yes, hope we can meet up in the Spring! 

Edited to add, Ward, thanks for the note about the Old Man Lightning thread.  Just watched the movie. Tough to watch but pretty great.

GO

It’s a balmy 72F here in Irvine. So chilly, I had a jumper on this morning. After lunch, went for a walk. Got a light burn from too much sun, then grabbed a coconut water from the fridge, put it on ice then had a conversation about 190M Americans under the snow. Read through this thread and had a sudden feeling of guilt, then walked by two young ladies sunning themselves in the park next to my office.  

In the summers, it gets pretty warm here… this is the absolute best season for us.

James Harvey wrote:

Ah yes.. Hair Raiser. The climbing was very fun and I was thankful for ALL the additional hardware!!!

Climbed Grape Nuts also while visiting, learning a thing or 2 about the name choice…lol.

Does the name have to do with the rock quality?  I haven't done that one yet (on the list) but a long time ago I did one around to the left a bit, a 3 pitch 5.9 called Firefall.  I liked the route but I remember on the first pitch I was just raining down loose stuff on my husband. The third pitch has one bolt but I kind of remember almost no other gear for the whole pitch.

It actually prompted an interesting discussion with my husband of how f*$ked we would have been if I had fallen on that last pitch. The long fall would have left me hanging in space to the right of his belay spot. If I had gotten too injured to ascend the rope, or was unconscious, it would have been quite involved for him to self-rescue.  No one knew we were out there. Most of my climbing up to that point had been things in fairly travelled places. I started thinking in advance about "backcountry" scenarios a lot more after that trip. These days I always start my climbing days with a text to him of where I will be, who I'm with, and what time he should expect to hear from me. And I always have a INreach device in my pack these days.

1. phylp phylpwrote:

Does the name have to do with the rock quality?  I haven't done that one yet (on the list) but a long time ago I did one around to the left a bit, a 3 pitch 5.9 called Firefall.  I liked the route but I remember on the first pitch I was just raining down loose stuff on my husband. The third pitch has one bolt but I kind of remember almost no other gear for the whole pitch.

It actually prompted an interesting discussion with my husband of how f*$ked we would have been if I had fallen on that last pitch. The long fall would have left me hanging in space to the right of his belay spot. If I had gotten too injured to ascend the rope, or was unconscious, it would have been quite involved for him to self-rescue.  No one knew we were out there. Most of my climbing up to that point had been things in fairly travelled places. I started thinking in advance about "backcountry" scenarios a lot more after that trip. These days I always start my climbing days with a text to him of where I will be, who I'm with, and what time he should expect to hear from me. And I always have a INreach device in my pack these days.

The rock on Hair Raiser Buttress is quite good. I believe that the name originated from the rather run-out nature of the climb -- as originally bolted. The comments on the route listing on MP are pretty interesting.

I clipped every bolt and slinged a knob or two. Getting to the first bolt remains pretty heads-up. This is still far from a sport climb. 

However, as a matter of principle, adding bolts to routes without the nod from the FA party (particularly when it has had many ascents) is pretty lame.

Fun watching the kids train speed climbing this afternoon at the local gym.

Nutty how fast they climb.

Randywrote:

The rock on Hair Raiser Buttress is quite good. I believe that the name originated from the rather run-out nature of the climb -- as originally bolted. The comments on the route listing on MP are pretty interesting.

Oh, I was referring to his comment about Grape Nuts, which is much farther to the right.  I remember the long conversation on Supertopo about the retrobolting of Hairraiser, and then I believe those bolts were pulled. 

Evening kneehab, back to dog walks and spinning on my bike, but still avoiding climbing and the associated hyperflexion. In the mean time, I have been focusing on weight training and hangboarding. I’m doing my best to heed the sage advice that I read here and ”keep my momentum”. 

Happy Friday!

Ward Smithwrote:

A link to Old Man Lightning is over on the bouldering thread.  Definitely worth a watch for the over 50 crowd.  Hits close to home for me anyway.  

Thanks for the heads up! I enjoyed it a lot, and for me, it was him, what he managed to do, the climbing, but also his photography, and the condors. Pretty strong connection with Boise! 

Helen

Kneehab, I like that. I am going through a bit of that myself. Two more weeks of no weight bearing then rigorous PT. The only forward momentum for me at the moment is keeping my attitude positive. 

After I get my PT behind me I’m hoping to climb here again this spring. Seems the perfect venue for a recovering crippled up old climber. 

Went climbing at The Riviera in Boulder Canyon yesterday. Granted that The Riviera is a sunny well protected crag and a favorite for winter days, but we were in t-shirts and it was almost too hot to climb. We persevered anyway.

Victor Creazziwrote:

Went climbing at The Riviera in Boulder Canyon yesterday. Granted that The Riviera is a sunny well protected crag and a favorite for winter days, but we were in t-shirts and it was almost too hot to climb. We persevered anyway.

And, just so you deprived western snow lovers feel as bad as us northeastern rock addicts, it is snowing again here in MA--bringing in another deep freeze for the rest of the weekend. I'd be happy to trade places, though current circumstances on my end dictate otherwise.

Old lady Hwrote:

Thanks for the heads up! I enjoyed it a lot, and for me, it was him, what he managed to do, the climbing, but also his photography, and the condors. Pretty strong connection with Boise! 

Helen

Gosh, there’s so much to catch up on! Everyone is busy.  

I’ve been having a gratitude day.  Sometimes it’ll be some small thing that catches my attention and I say “wow, I am truly fortunate.“. Yesterday was a climbing day.  I wanted to see if I could complete a route that I couldn’t do a week ago. There were a couple of places on this wall that were just too hard – – needing more strength and more technique. Bob studied it and had a new idea: what if we used a different set of handholds through the crux? So I was willing to try and when I got to the crux those holds were not at all obvious. It was one of those “do as you’re told“ moments but the astonishment was real when the next few steps took me right to a deep horizontal and then to the top. This happens a lot in climbing for me. I don’t know how the HELL I just did that.  

There’s a mantle on this route that takes a little know how.  I call it the “thank God ledge“ because that’s the relief I felt just standing on it.  Figuring out is this a right hand or left hand mantle, is this a left foot up? Standing up and realizing there’s a blank wall with no holds ahead, “balancey”, but it’s the kind of challenge I love. 

So, on my way home, I felt real happiness, like I’m back in the game – – not nearly healed and healthy yet – – but I could tell because my mind was wandering all over the place. If I have five months to keep climbing this season what do I want to climb? I’d really like to finish what I started last year.  But there’s hundreds of new possibilities. Tough problem to have!

I observed Bob as he climbed this route and noticed that he glided through moves that I really had to struggle hard. I asked him if those moves were difficult for him and he said no. So that underscored how helpful it would be if I would do more strength training off the rock. In this case, a little more quad strength would.really help.

It’s time to plant tomatoes and whatever else is available. And I’m planning my road trip to visit tech sites with my grandkids… and bring a Lego globe kit to build as a project together.

Yikes. Snowing here now and temps dropping rapidly from the low teens to however low it wants to go.   I have about a 3 ft snowpack in my yard.   The low snow year will probably mean  nasty drought and fire season out west...  the winter I spent in Jackson it was -40 and -50f regularly and loads of snow...  in other news how many folks with real jobs would still have their job today after posting monkey pictures of prominent black people... 

I've found a way to multitask when it comes to the "maintain momentum" goal.

Vacuuming. Works legs, torso, and arms through a broad range of motion.

I start each day with a quick bit of vacuuming of a room or two. On workout days when I'm not climbing, I'll vacuum the whole house, carpet, floors, walls, ceiling. If I'm training overall fitness, after the house, I'll vacuum the driveway and sidewalks, sometimes the neighbor's sidewalks. When I go big, I vacuum the street too.