I guess the workout we got on Saturday was better than I thought...
I just got back from a 4.6 mile run and my legs felt just super tired and heavy :-(
Hopefully I will be able to stick to all the plans for spring/summer, since I have to travel for about two weeks. This came rather as a surprise and will change my trainings schedule significantly. Well, at least it's good for the Flyers milage...
Monday, March 24, 2008
Sunday, March 23, 2008
El Cap Tree, or not...
or: spanked by the Captain, or a humbling day in the Valley, or Reality Check, or a good workout.
All these things describe past Saturdays trip to Yosemite Valley pretty well.
After a first aid climbing practice in Joshua Tree, Ben and I figured we could step it up a notch and try the El Cap Tree route on El Capitan. Rated at 5.7 C2 it didn't look too bad. It was also recommended as: "The first pitch is a brilliant aid lead for beginning leaders and cleaners (make sure to have pendulums and hooks understood before jumping on it)." (seen on SuperTopo.com).
Well, can't be too bad, right? Wrong!
After roughly half the pitch Ben bailed and I had no intention to try my luck on that one...
And, ok, I'll admit it...I don't really have the hooks down yet...
Well, the strenunous approach a short review an how to follow pendulums and climbing the beginning of the first pitch took up about 4 hours.
Being quite bummed we faced the question of what to with the rest of the day. The topos we carried showed that our options were rather limited. We decided to give it another shot on aiding and decided to do the first pitch of Pacific Ocean Wall.
My turn: I rack up, and start the free part at the bottom of the route. It's rather easy. BUT, in my opinion the rock was way more loose and scary than anything I climbed at the Pinnacles in the recent past. There are huge loose blocks, which just wait to be pulled off. Anyway...I made it to the beginng of the aid section and freeze. It's a tiny (well not that tiny, maybe slightly smaller than fingers) crack that eats nust...but all the loose stuff below had freaked me out pretty badly, so that the prospective to put my wait on gear was not too appealing to me...time to bail.
Ben TRed to my high point and aided the pitch to the end. A really nice effort! I jumared up after him and cleaned the route. I still have to work on my jumaring setup, because the separation between the upper and the lower ascender was too large...
After rapping off we packed up and started the descent...well, the walk back to the car, since we were only at the base of El Cap. After negotiating scree and boulders for about 20 minutes Ben turned around and said: "Let's not come back here, unless we have a very good reason!" That summed it up pretty well...We had been to the base of ElCap once before, and it was pretty much for no good reason as well. To make it short, the descent was no fun at all.
Back at the car at 5:30 we figured we had a good two hours of daylight left, so we decided to check out the bolt ladder on the LeConte boulder. There are actually two... One for each of us to lead...Ben gave me the choice: "Ridicilously overhung or rusty?" I choose ridiculously overhung.
I think it was a good choice, but gosh...it was a hard work! But fun! We still need to figure out how to clean roofs and such, we managed to clean it, but it didn't seem to be the most efficient way.
So yes, we were humbeled by El Cap. We re-thought our plans, which on the drive in on Friday night got a little out of hand ;-). We got a good workout in, between the approach, the descent and the fooling around on the LeConte Boulder. After all a nice day in the Valley. Last night I couldn't stop looking at the pics I took.
All these things describe past Saturdays trip to Yosemite Valley pretty well.
After a first aid climbing practice in Joshua Tree, Ben and I figured we could step it up a notch and try the El Cap Tree route on El Capitan. Rated at 5.7 C2 it didn't look too bad. It was also recommended as: "The first pitch is a brilliant aid lead for beginning leaders and cleaners (make sure to have pendulums and hooks understood before jumping on it)." (seen on SuperTopo.com).
Well, can't be too bad, right? Wrong!
After roughly half the pitch Ben bailed and I had no intention to try my luck on that one...
And, ok, I'll admit it...I don't really have the hooks down yet...
Well, the strenunous approach a short review an how to follow pendulums and climbing the beginning of the first pitch took up about 4 hours.
Being quite bummed we faced the question of what to with the rest of the day. The topos we carried showed that our options were rather limited. We decided to give it another shot on aiding and decided to do the first pitch of Pacific Ocean Wall.
My turn: I rack up, and start the free part at the bottom of the route. It's rather easy. BUT, in my opinion the rock was way more loose and scary than anything I climbed at the Pinnacles in the recent past. There are huge loose blocks, which just wait to be pulled off. Anyway...I made it to the beginng of the aid section and freeze. It's a tiny (well not that tiny, maybe slightly smaller than fingers) crack that eats nust...but all the loose stuff below had freaked me out pretty badly, so that the prospective to put my wait on gear was not too appealing to me...time to bail.
Ben TRed to my high point and aided the pitch to the end. A really nice effort! I jumared up after him and cleaned the route. I still have to work on my jumaring setup, because the separation between the upper and the lower ascender was too large...
After rapping off we packed up and started the descent...well, the walk back to the car, since we were only at the base of El Cap. After negotiating scree and boulders for about 20 minutes Ben turned around and said: "Let's not come back here, unless we have a very good reason!" That summed it up pretty well...We had been to the base of ElCap once before, and it was pretty much for no good reason as well. To make it short, the descent was no fun at all.
Back at the car at 5:30 we figured we had a good two hours of daylight left, so we decided to check out the bolt ladder on the LeConte boulder. There are actually two... One for each of us to lead...Ben gave me the choice: "Ridicilously overhung or rusty?" I choose ridiculously overhung.
I think it was a good choice, but gosh...it was a hard work! But fun! We still need to figure out how to clean roofs and such, we managed to clean it, but it didn't seem to be the most efficient way.
So yes, we were humbeled by El Cap. We re-thought our plans, which on the drive in on Friday night got a little out of hand ;-). We got a good workout in, between the approach, the descent and the fooling around on the LeConte Boulder. After all a nice day in the Valley. Last night I couldn't stop looking at the pics I took.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Training
In lack of adventureous activities in the last few weeks here's a brief update on my workout activities since climbing at the Pinnacles:
The plans for the immediate future (the weekend:-)) include the first trip to the Valley for this year. We have our eyes on 'El Cap' tree, a 5 pitch C2 aid route on El Cap. It's identical to the first five pitches of 'Atlantic Ocean Wall'.
Another trip to Yosemite is planned for late April. Probably doing the 'East Buttress of Middle Cathedral' and 'Royal Arches'. Wait! That would be two of the 50 classics in one weekend...No Way! Got to find something else...Braille Book perhaps, this has been haunting me for a while...
- March 10: running, campus loop, 3 miles
- March 11: climbing at the gym
- March 12: hiking, PG&E trail, 8 miles 2100ft elevation gain, 2:10
- March 13: running, campus loop, 3.6 miles (full loop this time)
- March 15: hiking, Mission Peak, 2100ft elevation in 2 miles. A really nice workout with respect to Mt. Shasta. I'll definitely go back, especially since it's only about 15 minutes from my place. At some point I'd like to be able to run the trail, in preparation for the Diablo 25.
- March 16: bouldering at the gym & 90 min Yoga
- March 17: running, SCT, 6.4 miles.
The plans for the immediate future (the weekend:-)) include the first trip to the Valley for this year. We have our eyes on 'El Cap' tree, a 5 pitch C2 aid route on El Cap. It's identical to the first five pitches of 'Atlantic Ocean Wall'.
Another trip to Yosemite is planned for late April. Probably doing the 'East Buttress of Middle Cathedral' and 'Royal Arches'. Wait! That would be two of the 50 classics in one weekend...No Way! Got to find something else...Braille Book perhaps, this has been haunting me for a while...
Monday, March 10, 2008
Ano Nuevo
Due to Daylight Savings, getting up was pretty hard on Sunday, but we had a reservation for the 10am guided walk in Ano Nuevo State Reserve, which would enable us to have a close look at Elephant Seals. Just 100 years ago, these seam mammals were thought to be extinct, but after hunting became illegal the Elephant Seal population recovered. Ano Nuevo is the first rookery on the mainland, other rookeries being on small islands 100s of miles off the coast.
We took HW 17 to Santa Cruz, and HW1 North from there to the park. It was an amazing drive, and I'd like to spend more time on the coast. The ocean has such a soothing influence!
The walk, guided by a naturalist, was very pleasant and informative, we got surprisingly close to the seals.
After returning to the car, we took HW 1 North to HW84, heading to Stanford to catch a conversation between Lawrence Krauss and Richard Dawkins on science education.
We took HW 17 to Santa Cruz, and HW1 North from there to the park. It was an amazing drive, and I'd like to spend more time on the coast. The ocean has such a soothing influence!
The walk, guided by a naturalist, was very pleasant and informative, we got surprisingly close to the seals.
After returning to the car, we took HW 1 North to HW84, heading to Stanford to catch a conversation between Lawrence Krauss and Richard Dawkins on science education.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Poison Oak and blown footholds...
...or adventures at the Pinnacles off the beaten path.
As a preparation for our climbs on Washington Couloumn and Half Dome Ben and I had planned to do some aid climbing on Machete Ridge on the west side of the Pinnacles. There is one thing though, which makes climbing at the Pinns tricky in spring: Nesting closures. Machete Ridge was closed due to raptor nesting. The actual climbing options were pretty small, especially since we wanted to avoid Discovery Wall and The Monolith. We decided to check out Marmot Rock. The guide book promised 'clean and solid rock', so we were looking for a nice climbing experience.
It turned out that the approach was quite hideous...an hour (I don't have a clue how long it actually took...this is 'felt' time) uphill hiking and bushwaking brought us to a spot from where we could finally see the formation. A few minutes walk took us to the base of the climbs. We had gained quite some elevation and had a nice view of Discovery Wall.
We started out with me leading Dead on the Shoulder, a 5.8. While the lower part of the climb was fun and enjoyable, the upper part turned out to be pretty loose and scary. Following Ben blew the first foothold of the day, near the bottom. After rapping off, Ben led The Heretic (5.10b). This climb is pretty run out in the upper (traversing) part. The topo shows a bolt here, but neither of us could find it. Also, the second bolt does not look very solid...
Anyway, following up this route I blew the second foothold of the day, just below the first bolt.
My next lead was another 5.8, Marmot with a Hand Grenade. The distances between the bolts seemed to be pretty large, but it felt not too run out. While I was looking for the second bolt, shifting my weight around slightly, the next foothold broke... Well, we were getting used to it by now... Ben followed up, we did an other rappell of some slightly sketchy looking webbing, and started up Furry Marmot Substitude on the backside of the formation. Now this was choss heaven...every decent hold was wiggling, plenty of scars from broken off holds, lots of moss and lichen...pretty freaky. But with finishing this climb we had completed all climbs on Marmot Rock and we don't "have to" come back :-)
Moving over to the next formation, Upper Marmot Wall, Ben lead Making Puppies (5.10a). To our surprise he didn't find an anchor on top of the formation, but he found a gully which we could climb down. We had to skirt around the back of teh rock, and climb the next Pinnacle to rappell off from there. This sounded easier than it was, since it took us through some huge bushes of poison oak. At some point I found myself holding a branch of it in my left hand. Fortunately I did not come down with any rashes!
After getting back to the base we climbed Misty Mountain Hop and On a Pale Horse, and found solid rock for the first time this day...
We goofed around on top of the rock for a bit, before rappelling, walking back to the car (the descent still felt like an hour) and driving back.
With five miles to go, I had a cramp in my left leg. I have no idea what triggered it. I am pretty sure that I had enough liquid during the day... I have to get in a better shape for the planned trips up WC, Shasta, and HD!
As a preparation for our climbs on Washington Couloumn and Half Dome Ben and I had planned to do some aid climbing on Machete Ridge on the west side of the Pinnacles. There is one thing though, which makes climbing at the Pinns tricky in spring: Nesting closures. Machete Ridge was closed due to raptor nesting. The actual climbing options were pretty small, especially since we wanted to avoid Discovery Wall and The Monolith. We decided to check out Marmot Rock. The guide book promised 'clean and solid rock', so we were looking for a nice climbing experience.
It turned out that the approach was quite hideous...an hour (I don't have a clue how long it actually took...this is 'felt' time) uphill hiking and bushwaking brought us to a spot from where we could finally see the formation. A few minutes walk took us to the base of the climbs. We had gained quite some elevation and had a nice view of Discovery Wall.
We started out with me leading Dead on the Shoulder, a 5.8. While the lower part of the climb was fun and enjoyable, the upper part turned out to be pretty loose and scary. Following Ben blew the first foothold of the day, near the bottom. After rapping off, Ben led The Heretic (5.10b). This climb is pretty run out in the upper (traversing) part. The topo shows a bolt here, but neither of us could find it. Also, the second bolt does not look very solid...
Anyway, following up this route I blew the second foothold of the day, just below the first bolt.
My next lead was another 5.8, Marmot with a Hand Grenade. The distances between the bolts seemed to be pretty large, but it felt not too run out. While I was looking for the second bolt, shifting my weight around slightly, the next foothold broke... Well, we were getting used to it by now... Ben followed up, we did an other rappell of some slightly sketchy looking webbing, and started up Furry Marmot Substitude on the backside of the formation. Now this was choss heaven...every decent hold was wiggling, plenty of scars from broken off holds, lots of moss and lichen...pretty freaky. But with finishing this climb we had completed all climbs on Marmot Rock and we don't "have to" come back :-)
Moving over to the next formation, Upper Marmot Wall, Ben lead Making Puppies (5.10a). To our surprise he didn't find an anchor on top of the formation, but he found a gully which we could climb down. We had to skirt around the back of teh rock, and climb the next Pinnacle to rappell off from there. This sounded easier than it was, since it took us through some huge bushes of poison oak. At some point I found myself holding a branch of it in my left hand. Fortunately I did not come down with any rashes!
After getting back to the base we climbed Misty Mountain Hop and On a Pale Horse, and found solid rock for the first time this day...
We goofed around on top of the rock for a bit, before rappelling, walking back to the car (the descent still felt like an hour) and driving back.
With five miles to go, I had a cramp in my left leg. I have no idea what triggered it. I am pretty sure that I had enough liquid during the day... I have to get in a better shape for the planned trips up WC, Shasta, and HD!
Monday, March 3, 2008
Crossfit
Saw a talk about crossfit tonight.
Seems to be a good way to get in shape, like a monster shape!
Mark Twight, who officially rocks (ok, I am a fan-boy), does it too...
at Gym Jones.
Their program in addition to climbing and running should be good!
Seems to be a good way to get in shape, like a monster shape!
Mark Twight, who officially rocks (ok, I am a fan-boy), does it too...
at Gym Jones.
Their program in addition to climbing and running should be good!
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Update: The run...
...was not bad.
My legs were a little tired, and I had a pretty high heart rate (high: 181 , avg: 169), but it was fun to be running again. It was a 4.6 mile run with an average pace of 8:25 min/mile. (All this data is monitored by a Garmin Forerunner 305. A frickin' cool toy!)
Lesley brought an 25km trail run up earlier today... Might be interesting!
My legs were a little tired, and I had a pretty high heart rate (high: 181 , avg: 169), but it was fun to be running again. It was a 4.6 mile run with an average pace of 8:25 min/mile. (All this data is monitored by a Garmin Forerunner 305. A frickin' cool toy!)
Lesley brought an 25km trail run up earlier today... Might be interesting!
Banff Mountain Film Festival Word Tour
Went to Santa Cruz to see the Banff Mountain Film Festival Word Tour last night.
They were showing seven films:
Ok, before then - off for a run. It will be interesting to see how that works. Haven't run in more than three weeks.
They were showing seven films:
- Ain't got no friends on a powder day - skiing - awesome footage! Where's the road in the beginning? I want to drive there! Pretty funny too/
- Trial & Error - mountain biking - Amazing stuff!
- 20 seconds of joy - BASE jumping - Best film of the night
- Inner Balance - extreme unicycling - Or "How to hurt your crotch..." Looked like it at least
- In Flux - kayaking - weakest film of the night
- Balance - skiing - I wish I could ski!
- Kinglines - climbing/deep water soloing - Impressive, but I've seen better climbing films
Ok, before then - off for a run. It will be interesting to see how that works. Haven't run in more than three weeks.
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