So, last week I mentioned that while climbing with the girls, at an out-of-the-way toproping area, I lost our big, $120, number six BD Camalot deep down inside the 6-inch wide crack we were climbing on. When Mark found out, he was not happy, but seemed optimistic that we’d be able to get the thing back the next weekend.

On Saturday this weekend, we had one goal: Get that cam back.

Our plan on Friday was to set a toprope on the climb and try to find the cam first by using several flashlights, and then fish it out of the crack with a couple of treble hooks we made from drapery hangers.

Mark was still having trouble with the return time change, and slept in a little late that morning. We made it to Vedauwoo at around 11am, and then hiked out to the crag. By the time we got to the climb, the clouds were thick above, and there was thunder in the distance.

I suggested that Mark might take a look at the fat crack and see if he wanted to lead it, and the next thing I knew, he was free-soloing up to the base of the climb in his running shoes. I tossed the rope and his climbing shoes up to him and he lead up Barley (5.6) with no problems, set an anchor, and started lowering down as the wind started picking up, and the thunder got closer.

He stuck his head in the crack as far as it would go, with his own nice headlamp on, and couldn’t see anything. He looked for several minutes, from several points, and couldn’t see a cam. This was when Mark figured that somebody must have read my blog post from last week, and had beaten us to the cam. He was sure there was nothing down there.

I climbed up to the spot and couldn’t see anything either. I tried several different things to wiggle in and see that cam. I even tried lowering my headlamp on a long cord, and swinging it back and forth to see if anything would glimmer or “tink”. I didn’t see anything.

Mark was pretty sure there was no cam in there. But I decided to lower the hook and swing it around a bit and just see if it caught anything.

And it did.

It took me maybe three swings, less than a minute, and I felt the hook catch on something. I lifted experimentally, and felt a weight and heard metal scraping on rock. Mark was shocked. He was down below me saying “That’s probably just the hook caught on the rock.”

I pulled a little harder and the hook came free. I swung it into the spot again and caught something again. I pulled again, slower, and I heard metal grinding on rock as I lifted the weight up, and then pulled it further in to the wide spot in the crack. In less than a second, the big cam came into view. I don’t remember exactly which part of the thing I had hooked, but I remember it looking really secure on the end of that line.

I grabbed it, pulled it out of the crack and WHOOPED for joy! Then I quickly clipped the darn thing to my belt and told Mark to lower me down. Once back on the ground, I put the cam back on the hook for the trophy shot. :-) Mark was completely amazed. He had totally prepared himself for the cam to be gone, not in there at all, and somehow, I had just pulled this giant chunk of metal out of dark, thin, air.

Mark scampered up the climb again to clean the anchor and move the rope over to the 5.9 destination climb for the crag. As he bounded up, fat rain drops started to fall, and thunder roared over the top of the cliff. Mark took shelter in the cave at the top of the climb, and Liv and I hung out in the cave at the bottom. The rain poured and the hail pounded down for more than 30 minutes. Liv was hugely freaked out by the thunder, and kept trying to crawl further onto my lap. A few of the bolts sounded extremely close.

When the storm was over, all of the cracks were running with water, and the rocks were slicker than snot. We packed up our stuff and slid down the formation and back to the trail to head home for the day. No more climbing for us that day, but definitely MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

All of my pictures from my week-long trip are up in the gallery.

I finished my trip to Japan yesterday. Due to the international date line, I got back to Colorado two hours before I departed Japan. Neat-o! Traveling that far is always quite a taxing day.

Traveling around Japan via mostly train was quite challenging, as I am mostly illiterate concerning signs. I had good help almost every step of the way so it went quite well.

During my short little trip, I was astounded to see how young the Japanese population is, as well as the astounding number of men (and very young men) in business suits. I liked that part a lot. It made the day seem more civilized and refined. The trains were very impressive. They were smooth, fast and quiet and incredibly clean. The very best trains are the Shinkansen high-speed train. These are the 200 mph electric trains that cover the distances between the major cities. If I had the choice between a one hour commute to work by car or by train, I would take the train every time. On one morning trip, I got 15-20 minutes of toying with my laptop because I wasn’t driving. It was really nice.

For dinner the first night of non-travel, we went to a Korean BBQ. We ordered some kind of flat-rate-drink-for-90-minutes item and took good advantage of it. Beer, Sake and Shochu all around and all tasty. The food was very good. It was a meal of cut meats that you grill at your table over a small charcoal pit. After lots of eating and drinking I was quite finished and retired to my room. I would characterize it as a big drinking night for me, yet I did not suffer a hangover for it. Those clear liquors are quite strong, but less painful the next morning. I was a bit dehydrated, but had none of the headache or tiredness that I am accustomed to when I overindulge.

I was on my own for the second evening and found a restaurant with pictures on the menu and pointed. It was beef-like, though of a texture which made me think it was a part of the cow that I have never had before. I couldn’t even start to guess what I ate that night, but it had a nice sauce.

During my trip, I had two means of calling home: a pre-paid phone card and a Vonnage flash drive phone. The pre-paid calling card was useless. I had printed every page of instructions from the web site and this thing was useless. However, the Vonnage flash drive phone was awesome. Every hotel that I stayed in had some form of free internet and as long as I was on the internet, the phone usually worked and all calls were dialed as if I was in Colorado.

On the third day, I saw a fantastic Buddhist temple. It really felt good to be amongst all the buildings and wandering the grounds. We were only there for perhaps a half hour (had a schedule to keep), but it was worth it. On the third evening I moved to a different hotel with nicer rooms and a hot springs on the premises. Unfortunately, I got in fairly late and was traveling early the next morning, so I was unable to take advantage of it. Next to the hotel there was a very beautiful river, but at this point, it was dark and the batteries in my camera had died, so I was unable to take any more pictures until I replaced them.

The final day was a partial day of sightseeing before my flight. We used a train to to get to Tokyo station and then had the incredible experience of rush hour on the local Tokyo trains. It resembled a rugby scrum in business suits. First the train gets packed with people. Then about 10 more people just push onto the train followed by another 15 that I just didn’t believe were going to fit. I think people actually had to exhale to pull it off. At each stop 15 or so people had to unclog the door to let others off and then quickly reclaim the door blockage to get to the next station. We did this three times before arriving in the vicinity of Tokyo tower.

At Tokyo tower, we took in some tourist activities. I purchased some souvenirs for Kate as well as saw some of the sights that are in the lower levels of the tower. We saw a wacky wax museum as well as some Japanese history and demographics. Japanese people have been getting much taller lately! Unfortunately we were unable to go up into the tower because this is the season for school children to see it and the lines were tremendous. Having used most of our time, we were unable to do part II of our morning tourism which would have taken us to see the grounds of the emperor’s palace. So, we headed to the airport a bit early and hung out (sumo on the big-screen TV) until our flight left. It was quite exciting. And then came the super-long flight home…

My few pictures from the weekend are in the gallery.

On Sunday morning, Dylan, Ann and I headed out to the Nautilis to meet up with Sean and Collin for one more day of climbing. I don’t know about Ann, but I was still feeling pretty beat up that morning. Even on the short hike around to the NW side, my legs were fatigued, and my knees and ankles were aching. But I got in a couple of climbs anyway.

Cornelius (5.5) – As Ann led the first climb yesterday, I got on the first lead today. I’ve led this sweet little finger crack before, but it’s been well over a year now. I was really pleased with the climb, as I used about half as much gear as I usually do, and only took one little hang. Plus my TR anchor on top took only a couple of minutes to build, and it was awesome!

Ted’s Trot (5.7) – Dylan led up this climb while I was leading mine. Collin followed and cleaned it, and then I was volunteered to be third. Looking up at the gaping chimney above me, and seeing the rope run horizontally into the darkness; I didn’t really know if I was up to this one. But Dylan wanted another rope brought up, and I wanted to give it a try, so I did.

There were three times in this climb that I would normally have done everything I could think of to avoid them. The first one was this scary, dark, bad rope direction chimney. I kept thinking “If only there was a big bro up there…” But then, I knew that if there was a re-direct, that I would climb without problem. So, I decided to climb without problem without a re-direct. It’s all in my head… right? right!

The chimney was much easier than it looked, thanks to hidden cracks inside, and then the top section had an awesome 3-crack chimney. There were times when every part of my body was jamming a different crack, and somehow, I was doing chimney moves too. Loved that part. So classically ‘voo.

Then, there was the top. The crux of the climb is crawling out over a bulging chock-boulder that sits atop the chimney. There’s a fat fist-sized crack in there that both Dylan and Collin were able to hang on their fist jams while lifting their feet up onto the slab to the left. But, for me, it was waaay bigger than fists. I sat below this crack for a few minutes, just breathing and thinking. Below the roof, there was 100ft of air. The rope, again, seemed to run in a direction other than perfectly ideal. This was the second time that I really wanted to go down.

I was so close to finished, though! I’m not afraid to admit it, I used the rope a bit to get my balance below the crack. Then I reached up, and found a perfect handstack, left fist, right hand!! This was the first time that I’ve ever done a handstack, and it worked so well that I just stood there and stared at it for a few minutes. Dylan saw it and got a huge kick out of it. He said he wished he had a camera because it looked so nice. I managed to hang just long enough on that handstack to get my feet up on the slab. I moved my handstack up, moved my feet up, and I worked my way over the bulge this way.

Above the anchor, Dylan directed me to lead up over easy terrain to the very top of the formation. It was simple, but exposed, and wild, and I did it! Collin and I rapped off the top using the rope that I brought up, and that was the end of my adventure. I was really proud of pushing through these little things that normally would have just blown up to ruin the whole climb.

After this, I was done for the day. Collin lead up Cornelius as his first Ved lead, and then Ann jumped on a lead of Easy Jams (5.4). She got about halfway up when the thunder and lightening started crashing around us, and the rain started coming down. She lowered off, and we all took shelter in a little cave. The rain blew by pretty quickly, and Collin decided to finish the lead afterwards.

After watching Collin enjoy the fat crack in the corner, I packed up my stuff, called the dog and hiked out. The skies above Vedauwoo were dark and ominous, and I headed home across the windy Wyoming plains.

My few photos from the weekend are in the gallery.

So Mark is on the other side of the planet for the weekend. I decided that I wanted to get out for some climbing regardless, so Ann and I planned a Girl’s Day of Climbing in Vedauwoo for last Saturday. We had a great group come out for the day, Rachel, Kate M, Becca, Vicki and of course Ann and I packed up the racks and ropes and ran to the rocks for the day.

Our original plan was to climb on Poland Hill, but when we arrived at the parking lot at 9:30a, there were already 5 or 6 other cars, and two more climbers showed up within minutes. We decided that this was too big of a crowd for the three good climbs on that formation, and took off for Plumb Line Crag instead.

This turned out to be a nice change of plans. There were only a couple other people in the area through the day, and they were all interested in a hard 5.9+ crack that we waited until the end of the day for.

Ann started out the day by hopping on a lead of Amaranth (5.7). She did so great! Her pro was solid, and she actually pulled a layback and some creepy difficult moves on lead! Her anchor was creative, and worked pretty well as a toprope anchor, though we did decide to have everybody rappel off to save Rachel’s new rope the wear and tear.

Rachel seconded and cleaned the climb without problem, and then belayed Ann over to set a top rope on Barley (5.6?). I thought this was a 5.8 up until just now. Hmm. Ann built another great anchor, and set a directional in the fat crack using my #6 camalot. I’ll come back to the significance of this later.

While Ann was leading and Rachel was cleaning, the rest of the girls were having fun making their first sets of tape gloves. Then they all took turns working Amaranth. None of the other three girls had ever rappelled before, so Rachel sat on top of the anchor and explained how to go static to the anchor, untie and throw down the rope, and then set up and go on rappel for all three girls. And she did great! Kate, Becca and Vicki all seemed to enjoy the adventure of rappelling down for the first time.

Then we all started to work on the fat crack next door. And, wouldn’t you know it, the last person to tackle that crack accidentally kicked the big cam 90-degrees and it fell, (tink, tink tink!) deep down inside that dark, wide crack. Ann climbed the route last, with a headlamp, and did eventually get a view of the cam, which she says is waaaay down there. There was no getting it out that afternoon. Stay tuned for next weekend, when Mark and I lay siege to Plumb Line Crag trying to get that big cam back!!

Ann and I worked together to clean these two climbs and keep each other on belay. After some hilarous antics of trying to get on a low rappel over the edge of a lip just a few feet above a huge ledge, we made it back to the ground with a top rope on Plumb Line.

A couple of the girls tried this one, but it’s overhanging-massively crackishness was just too much after a long day in the sun. I explored the far end of the formation, and found an exciting little scramble that got me back to the anchors so I could clean the climb. We all hiked out in the evening feeling exhausted, sun burnt, scraped and bruised up, and very very happy.

Ann and Dylan were nice enough to let me camp with them on Saturday night and climb with them on Sunday. I really missed Mark that evening as I had to set the tent up by myself in the outflow wind of a near-by storm, and then cook my own dinner, and tackle all of the usual camping chores single handedly. It’s so much more fun with two people. But I did ok. Eventually, Liv and I snuggled up for a warm, quiet night in the wilds of Wyoming.

10,000 views in Flickr as of this morning! Pretty cool… it’s gonna be a good day.

Quite the field of boundary layer cumulus this morning. These are pretty rare for Colorado. The weather has been so great lately, that I’ve been able to get back to riding my bike to work. Wow, I am sore!

I’ve been working a bit on the site lately. You’ll notice a more fine-tuned category list on the side-bar to the left. I’m not completely done with the re-org, but I should be soon. I’m also working with Dylan to update and debug the Adventure Map. If you haven’t played with this toy much, I strongly suggest it. It’s pretty darn cool.

On Saturday, Mark is leaving for Japan for a week. I’m hoping to get him blogging about that trip too. It’s going to be neat to be able to put some pins on the map in Japan and then Italy in July!!

Our plans to climb on Devil’s Tower this weekend got canceled because of the storm that blew through. Mark and I were both disappointed, but we didn’t really have the money to pay for the weekend right now (have to replace the laptop). It was nice to stick around at home for a quiet weekend, get laundry caught up, vacuum, and get some work done.

As I said before, more photos from the day are in the gallery.

Sunday morning dawned clear and warm again. We decided not to spend too much time on the rock that day, so we’d be able to get home with enough time to clean up and take care of everyday life. We packed up camp and made it to the the Nautaulis by 9am; early enough to be first on two of the more popular climbs on the formation.

Handjacker (5.7 ow) – Dylan started out the day leading this innocuous-looking, fairly short off-width, and a climb that Mark and I have done a few times before. The early part of this climb is pretty easy, but hard to protect. The last 8ft, though, are heck-on-wheels. I enjoy this climb because my feet fit well in heal-toe during the wide part. Dylan climbed it fantastically, without any hangs or falls, though it seemed to me to be the hardest I’ve ever seen him fight for a climb.

Lower Progressive (5.9+) – We hung a toprope on this one and everybody had fun giving it a try. Mark and Dylan both climbed without any trouble, of course. I had one flying crash as I tried to get on the climb, but I jammed and pulled into the crack, and eventually worked my way up. I actually had the most trouble in the center of the climb, in one area where I lost all friction for the foot outside the crack. It was a very difficult, but very fun climb. One of those climbs where you give it every ounce of energy you’ve got, and the finish feels so good for it!

Between climbs, Ann and I did a few yoga poses on top of the rock formation, the photos turned out really nicely, so I’ll post a few below. It was a really fun day. Dylan has an awesome video on his blog of Mark climbing Handjacker before we took off for the day. After the two climbs, we followed Ann and Dylan out to a coffe/sandwich shop in Laramie, and I had one of the best curry chicken wraps I’ve had in a long time. Great day, great climbs and great bruises to remember it with!