3 posts tagged “climbing”
I found this podcast/blog a while ago, and just now started actually listening to the episodes. For anyone who's into climbing, kayaking, backpacking, etc...this podcast is something you should definitely check out. Fitz Cahall, the guy who does the podcast is sponsored by Patagonia, which also has blog called The Cleanest Line.
Mountain Hardwear also has a pretty cool blog called Hardwear Sessions.
So I guess it's been about a year since I've done any blogging, on Vox or on my Blogger account, and decided to start trying to make regular posts again.
I've begun to build my climbing rack. I finally got my own rope, but only have six quickdraws right now, which is just enough to do most of the 5.8-5.9 climbs in Big Cottonwood Canyon and American Fork Canyon, and I think a few in Little Cottonwood Canyon. The next goal is to start building my trad and aid rack (cams, pitons, nuts, hexes, etc...), although it's going to take a while to build a full rack. Trad gear is really expensive. But with goals like climbing El Cap, and, later, Cerro Torre, I'm going to need quite a large selection of gear.
A few weeks ago, my bosses switched me from the framing crew to the log setter crew in preparation of splitting up and making to logging crews. Setting logs entails a LOT of walking to find all the logs for the house and craning them into position, or a LOT of swinging sledge hammers. I've been the one walking around finding and craning the logs, so I've been walking about 4-6 miles each day, roughly. Thursday, I decided to make it into a bit of a training program, so I brought my technical pack, and stuffed about 50 lbs. of rocks in it, and put it on. I felt pretty good at the end of the day. Well, I actually felt pretty tired and worn out, but it's the good kind of tired. I'm hoping to get at least one 50 mile pack trip in before the snow flies (with luck I might be able to do two), and carrying all the rocks around will really help me get reconditioned. I know I could do it anyways, but I think, to make things easier on the pocket book with having to take time off of work, I'd have to really push it. I'm thinking 4 days, which means 12.5 miles/day average. Depending on the terrain, I can do 20-25 miles in a day easy, but I don't know yet where I'll be hiking, so I don't know what kind of terrain I'll encounter. Best to be prepared. That way if I make really good time the first two days, or even three, I can take it easy the third or fourth day(s).
After church today I went up into Rock Canyon again and went bouldering. I found one of the boulders that I wanted to find last week. It has a V6 (which I'm still too much of a newb to climb), a V1, named Pocket Rocket, and a V0, named Left Side Slab. I climbed Pocket Rocket a few times, but I'm not sure if I started in the right spot; the book I have isn't real clear on the directions. After a few minutes there I decided to hike further up the canyon and enjoy the outdoors a bit. It's quite a beautiful canyon. I only went about 2 miles in and turned around. One of these days I'm just going to have to go as far in as it goes.
