Playing catch up

The glorious Squamish summer is passing by in its usual flurry of work, play, friends and adventures. Late June was marked by a rare and treasured visit from my sister Nyree. She is an avid mountain biker so we spent our time together riding in the pouring rain. I also had a great day on Southern Lights with Jen Olson. Paul Bride rapped in to was there to capture some pics of The Calling.

Early July came, accompanied by a flood of guiding work, a few rainy days, and some resulting time at Chek. I was excited to redpoint Heifer Down, a route that formerly fell into the category of "not my style" but somehow repetition, time and stubborness caused me to be proven wrong yet again. I also had a great afternoon out with Evan on Freeway. We left after work (climbing by 3) and managed to be home by a very civilized dinner time.

The next adventure of July was teaching a women's crack climbing technique course with Jen Olson and Kinley Aitken. The participants were wonderful, and one of them was even someone I took out climbing for her first time during my first summer of guiding. Here are a few of Jen's shots from the weekend.

Getting burly, slot-style

A glamorous day in the life of a rock guide

Is damage to your leg-modelling carreer included in the waiver?

Guides and participants celebrate in the Chief parking lot after a burly weekend of jamming, stemming, chimneying, chickenwinging, butt-scumming.... you get the picture

Next in the steady stream of July action was backyard shed building with my Dad and an awesome day of guiding a Mother-Son team up the Chief, followed by a beeline to Valhalla Mountain Touring where I spent a busy week of hiking guiding and cooking for a group of guests along with my Dad and my friend Rich Wheater who was snappin' pics of the hiking, the wildflowers and of course, Benny. I will include my amateurish portrayals of the week here, but check the VMT website in the next few weeks for Rich's pro-version.

Lunch break in the heather below Pyramid Peak
Dad and Benny chillin on Little Cariboo Ridge

Summiting Big Sister
On Big Sister with Shannon Lake in the background

Marvelling at the pallete of colours: painbrush, valerian, arnica, lupine, aster

Albino Paintbrush

Stopsign paintbrush

False Helibor up close and personal - grizzly bear food

The troups traversing from Cariboo and Shannon

Next stop was Revelstoke for a quick hit on the Keystone Standard Basin mountain bike ride with Dad, Rich and Rob, a Nakusp local and rider extraordinaire. Rich captured some great pics of the amazing, sinuous singletrack winding it's way through the alpine wildflower meadows with a rugged panorama of glaciated peaks in the Monashees as a backdrop.

Rich Wheater photo

Rich Wheater photo

Rich Wheater photo

Hiding from bugs at the sledder shack at the end of the ride. Rich Wheater photo

Forest fire at Galena as seen from the ferry

When I arrived back in Squamish, it was back to work for this girl, but not before I spent a day of urban-fringe-alpine climbing with Senja. We wanted to do something fun, but the 38 degree heat prevented us from getting psyched for any technically difficult rock climbing objective. After perusing the Alpine Select guidebook, we came up with an option with low-key logistics and high quality adventure: Widowmaker Arete on Crown Mountain, III 5.9. Depending on who you ask, this route is a 20 hour round trip death-defying choss heap or a 7 hour pleasant stroll up a straightforward alpine ridge. We were pleasantly surprised to find that our experience was closer to the latter, despite a full 7000' of uphill travel, black flies galore, and some seriously strong sun. Here are a few snapshots from the day.

5:30 AM at the bottom of the Grouse Grind, but wide awake and ready to suffer
Clutzy McClutzerton skidded out on a gravel-strewn boulderThe Widowmaker in all it's fearsome low-elevation fury

Sweaty and psyched on the summit

Back in the Grouse Mountain wilderness theme park, we stumbled apon these captive Grizzlies goin' at it to the amusement of a large, multicultural posse of tourists

Several precious days off were spent climbing University Wall with Evan. We had a great time on the route, and Evan completed his first continuous send of the entire climb on the same day that I redpointed the first and third pitches.

Following the second (crux) pitch

Well that pretty much brings things up to date. The only new things of note are that last night I was climbing Split Beaver in the Smoke Bluffs because my buddy Andrew Burr is in town and wanted to get some after-work pics in before the torrential rain began. I sweated and grovelling my way up the gaping maw as it baked in the evening sun, and relaxed just a little too much as I began palming the slopers at the top of the cliff. My knee slid down into a constriction and would NOT slide out. At first I tried some careful but by no means graceful extraction of my leg while still on lead, but to no avail. Then I tried pulling my leg out with both hands, but still no budgie budgie. Andy was laughing and happily snapping my grimace-faced portrait while Evan shouted up impatient, mosquito-plagued suggestions from the bottom of the cliff where he was belaying. After 5 minutes I could feel my leg swelling and images of John Howe leading the Squamish search and rescue with a gallon tub of Crisco and a winch plagued my thoughts. I really didn't want Operation Lard-Leg to be on the cover of the Chief next week, so I got Andy to pass me a loop of his static line and was eventually able to extract myself. Today my knee is a little bruised, but at least I didn't have to wither away in Split Beaver, allowing the next guidebook to read "once you clip the fixed femur, the difficulty abates as you mantle to the chains".

Community

According to the Merriam Webster Online dictionary, the word community means 'a unified body of individuals'. This definition falls in line with the concept of the climbing community. We are unified by the activity of climbing, but we are unique individuals, with varying degrees of commitment to climbing, different lifestyles, different values and at many different points in our lives. I have been thinking a lot about community lately, about how a sense of community is a powerful force that can provide support and allow us to strive towards goals or happiness in a way that individual relationships cannot do.

These philosophical musings on community were sparked by the loss of my friend Micah Dash from the collection of individuals that make up the climbing community. Micah was a well known climber who received international recognition in the past several years for his bold alpine ascents and strong rock climbing abilities. I had the fortune of meeting Micah early in my climbing life, back in the spring of 2002 in Yosemite when he was on Yosemite Search and Rescue. Micah was extremely charismatic, was always joking around, laughing, telling stories complete with funny voices and sound effects. His motivation for climbing impressed me immediately - he wanted to be a great climber and wasn't afraid to work hard to meet his goals. He introduced me to his then-girlfriend Amelia when she showed up in the Valley, and we went on to climb all sorts of routes together and have remained close friends. Although we didn't see each other much recently, Micah was extremely supportive on my own dedication to the climbing life. Whether giving out beta on potential new routes in Asia or making suggestions on how to play the sponsorship game, I always felt like Micah was one of those people who would help me out if he could. The climbing community took a blow with his loss.

Not all of my recent musings on community have been sad, though. It's a really exciting and inspiring time to be a member of the Squamish climbing community. On June 20 Squamish local Will Stanhope completed the fifth ascent of Cobra Crack, a steep and beautiful 5.14 finger crack in the forest on the backside of the Chief. Although I wasn't at the crag for the send, I saw several of Will's redpoint attempts last week and it was pretty inspiring to watch him fully going for it way way way over a single cam. I can only dream of having that kind of headspace, but hopefully I will be able to channel some of the amazing pysche the Squamish climbing community is feeling for Will towards accomplishing my own climbing goals.

My camera has crapped out, which is one of the reasons it's taken me so long to motivate to write a post. It is way less inspiring to blog without a few photos or my cheesy videos to organize things around. I have actually been climbing quite a bit since I returned from Greece including a few quality newer multipitch routes on the north walls (Polaris and New Life). I also had a great day with Senja Palonen on the Grand Wall and the Roman Chimneys. Neither of us had done the Roman Chimneys before, so we really enjoyed the challenge of figuring out four burly pitches after finishing the Grand Wall. I have also been spending some really fun cragging days with the always fun ladies Mandoline Clark and Jen Olson at the White Cliff. Thanks to Colin Moorehead and Paul McSorely and others there are some new anchors, new bolts and new routes in that zone that make it well worth the hike. I redpointed the tricky 12c fingercrack Vital Transformation as well as a pumpy mixed gear and bolts Future Shock (12a). The easier routes such as Bush Doctor (11b), Backwoods Beebop (10d) and Transmigration (10b) are all quality as well. One thing I love about Squamish is that even after 9 years of climbing here, new and old crags-du-jour keep this place so far from boring.

Well that's probably enough of a rant for this time. To keep this post from being all text, I have put together a short slideshow of some shots from Kalymnos, mostly non-climbing, to get you psyched for your future island paradise vacations.

Missing Friends in China

Just found out that my friend Micah, along with his climbing partners Jonny and Wade missed their flight from Chengdu back to Boulder on June 3. No one has heard from them since May 20. A contingent of climber friends is heading to China to see what is going on. Details are at http://www.adventurefilm.org. Donations are needed to fund the research/rescue attempts, details for donations are at the website

I am remaining optimistic that they are fine and will return home soon. Please help if you can!

The end of an era

I have never really classified myself as a trad or sport climber. I learned to climb in Squamish, where many of the really classic lines are cracks, so I have tended to focus on trad climbing, both at home and on trips. My first sport climbing trip, apart from a few days here and there at Skaha and other random destinations, was Thailand in the fall of 2005. Ironically, Thailand wasn’t even the intended destination, it just happened to be a possible stopover on another climbing trip (my honeymoon, in fact) to Australia and Tasmania. We had 10 days to climb at Tonsai in Thailand, and I got pretty schooled. I had never really climbed anything steep before, and endured the frustration of lining up for and projecting the warm-ups that ascend the cliff right above the bar on the beach. Needless to say I was acutely aware of the onlookers who sipped their pina coladas or Singhas while I dogged and flailed up the easiest climbs on the beach. My persistence paid off, though, and by the end of the 10 days I had begun to grasp the basics of movement on steep limestone. More importantly, though, I had caught the bug. I wouldn’t necessarily call it the sport climbing bug. No, I love gear climbing and its unique challenges too much for that. It was the whole package: living in a comfortable bungalow, eating out every night, drinking beers with your friends, laying on the beach, going snorkeling or exploring exotic sights on rest days, and of course, amazing, challenging, not super-scary, low-commitment climbing. It’s the climbing holiday with the emphasis on HOLIDAY.

Part of me feels that I am too young to seek out this kind of experience, that I should save it until I am too old, tired and rich to shiver on a moist ledge, 15 pitches up, with only a sweat crusted Houdini and half a stale Clif Bar to get me through the night. I mean come on, only a few short years ago I was living out of a Chevy Corsica, bivvying in the pine needles and bear shit in Camp 4, climbing walls, eating good ol’ pb and j several times a day and duct taping my climbing pants together so they would make it up one more offwidth. What happened to me that suddenly I want to spend my holiday time doing something that even non-climber, non-mountain types could envy?

Well here I am, in May of 2009, in my bikini on my own private marble-tiled balcony, tapping away on the keys of my laptop while less than 100 m below me, the clear blue waters of the Mediterranean lap away at the rugged limestone shoreline of Kalymnos, Greece. Although I still have no answer to the question posed above, I haven’t spent much time trying to figure it out. My days are far too full: first I climb pitch after pitch of super-ultra-mega-classic climbs until I can no longer hold onto even the hugest of smooth, limestone jugs, then I wander on down to the sandy beach where I go for a refreshing dip in Mediterranean before wandering up to the bar for a celebratory cocktail and some Greek salad (every day I am lucky enough to spend here is reason enough to celebrate), up to my cute little studio apartment for a shower before meeting up with a posse of friends new and old for a long, leisurely dinner of delicious Greek food at one of the many restaurants within a 10 minute walk, then wander back home to fall into bed, exhausted, happy and ready to do it all again the following day.

Today is day 7 of my 27 day climbing vacation here in Kalymnos with Evan. If life gets better, I can’t imagine how. I’ll keep you posted.

Sitting on the plane for many hours (and forking out oodles of dough for a plane ticket) is all you gotta do to get to heaven

Evan wolfing down some delicious Kalymnian fare

You can hold onto the rock here with everything, and I mean everything (future post on that)

You'd better like Greek salad if you're going to come here!

Enjoying some melon and Vergina after a sweaty day at the crag

See, you really can hold onto this rock with EVERYTHING!

Another 5 (billion) star route, the island of Telendos in the background

The view from our apartment, the Grande Grotta climbing area upper right

Trial and error, success and failure

It's been a rocky road for me in the past three weeks. Those of you who read this blog and turn green with envy at the girl who chases powder snow and sunny rock climbs all over the continent can finally feel that there is some justice in the world. Yup, it's not always all laughing, wine and smiles for Jasmin. Despite the fact that I have been backcountry skiing since I was a very young child, have had the good fortune to apprentice numerous accomplished ski and mountain guides, and spent the entire winter in preparation for my ACMG Assistant Ski Guide exam, I somehow managed to fail the exam. I am still not sure exactly how this happened, although I recognize that I made some mistakes during the exam. I guess I expected it would be at least somewhat similar to an exam in university, where you might get a few questions wrong and not get 100%, but it would take many many wrong answers to get a failing grade. As I now am painfully aware, ACMG guides exams are not set up this way. Instead you get one mark in each of several categories each day of the exam. That mark is either a P (Pass), M (Marginal) or F (Fail). Based on my experience in the exam, it doesn't really make a difference how many decisions that you make in a day that deserve a P, if you make one that deserves an M or F that is the mark you get in that category for the day. I managed to make a few to many mistakes in a single category and nearly no mistakes in any of the other categories, and thus these mistakes resulted in a failing grade in that category and since you are required to pass all the categories to pass the exam, I failed. Ouch. Here are some photos from that fateful week in the Adamants:

One of the four errors that contributed to failing my exam. I used my "judgement" when choosing how to manage the risk that this cornice posed to my group by deviating the uptrack (line near the bottom of the photo) lower on the underlying 20 degree slope than I would have had the cornice not been there. Based on my observations that the pieces of cornice that had calved off had obeyed the laws of physics and stayed on the nearly flat area where they landed, I felt it was HIGHLY unlikely that the whole thing would spontaneously break off (on this calm and cool day) and roll over the soft, powdery, flat area and manage to take out all four of us simultaneously on the uptrack. The examiner, however, thought otherwise, and I received an M in risk management for not spacing out our group and warning them of this hazard. Keep in mind that avalanche hazard was not an issue on this low angle slope (the examiner agreed with this).Just thought this little anecdote might prove useful for those of you heading into guides exams in the future.

Two views of where my decision making pushed things over the edge on the final day of the exam. The upper photo shows a CMH heli ski run called Alpina that had been skied fairly heavily on March 23. Several avalanches can be viewed in the upper photo, that were the result of control using explosives by CMH staff on March 21. The lower photo is taken on one of several sustained clear periods we experienced on March 27, an otherwise poor-visibility day. The plan for the day had been to head UP Alpina to climb the north ridge on Triangle Peak then return to the Goldstream Neve via what had been described by the examiners in the meeting the previous night as a short, straightforward snow slope. When we were well on our way up Alpina via a crusty, benchy route that passed near the avalanches seen in the lower right of the upper photo, radio communication with another group in the exam who was attempting to complete the same trip in reverse revealed that the ridge on Triangle was unsafe due to avalanche hazard on a steep snow slope on the ridge. At this point it was up to me to decide how the day should proceed, and at this point, the visibility was quite good. As I continued upwards, I felt that skiing down Alpina in the vicinity of the heli ski tracks would be reasonable based on the fact that the 30 cm of new snow was low density and the wind effect was minimal at the elevations we would be skiing, and that the area had been tracked heavily by heli skiers a few days prior (shown in the upper photo). Additionally, the ski quality on that aspect was far superior to the sun-affected snow we had climbed up. As we took our skins off, the visibility began to deteriorate rapidly, and I hesitated and told a few jokes, waiting for things to improve. I skied the first pitch, down the crest of a low-angle moraine with marginal visibility (red line in the lower photo) and then began to traverse at the elevation I had deemed necessary (2300 m) to hit the Alpina run. At the location of the red dot in the photos, I stopped traversing because it was apparent the terrain was getting steeper (it had been low angle, benchy features to there) and the visibility had notably deteriorated since we had taken our skins off. I stopped the group on the crest of a roll (a safe location) and sidestepped towards the edge of the slope to get a better look at what was immediately below me. I now know exactly where I was because I could see the small rock which was above the cliff (shown in the lower photo) directly below me. At this point I wasn't exactly sure where I was given the horrible visibility, so I pulled out the run photo and the map to have a closer look. The examiner immediately approached me and asked "are you sure about this, I don't want to get avalanched" and after thinking for a moment I said, "no I don't think the visibility is good enough, let's put on our skins and climb back to where we started. After 15 minutes of skinning we reached our transition point, peeled the skins, and skied down the crusty slopes that we had climbed up. According the the examiner, my error correction came too late and that it was too bold of me to even attempt to ski Alpina given the poor visibility. I was given an F in Risk Management for this decision as well as an M in Mountain Sense. Here again, just trying to give folks an idea of what the whole exam experience is like since I guess I didn't really get it myself.

Mt. Sir Sandford (background, left)

More pretty mountains, puke.

Ross Berg, our awesome camp manager posing with Mt. Sir Sandford

I know that things could be way worse, though, and that this will only make me more resilient, humble, stronger and a better guide. That said, it's a f#$*ing expensive, disheartening and really time consuming way to learn a lesson. It's so hard not to feel bitter at the ACMG and the examiners and most of all, at myself. But all I have to do is think about a my friends and family members who have suffering injuries/illnesses or lost loved ones and it puts my little sliver of suffering into perspective, BIG TIME. What I really hope for is that my brain will stop rehashing and reliving the exam over and over and over again each time it is not occupied (like at 3:00 AM when I am trying to sleep or when I am taking my dog for an otherwise peaceful walk in the morning).

One this is for sure, I am unbelievably fortunate to have amazing friends and family who have generously offered their support, compassion and comraderie and shoulders to sob on (Mandoline!!!) at a time when I needed it most.

Enough of my online therapy session. After the exam (and before I found out that I failed... they wait 2 weeks to tell you, presumably so you don't go ballistic on the examiners and slash the $2000 group dome tent with your ice axe) I boogied home to Squamish and basked in a glorious week of doing what ever the f#$% struck my fancy. I did some yoga, some climbing, some ski touring, lots of socializing and spent lots of quality time running with my dog Benny who I had hardly seen all winter. This fantastic homecoming week ended with an all-ladies day on the Spearhead Traverse, a classic 35 km, 6500 ft. vertical horseshoe ski tour that weaves through the spectacular peaks and glaciers that separate Blackcomb and Whistler. I had done the traverse several times a while back, but it was a first for Kinley and Mandoline which made it really special. It was a spectacular day of sunny skies, laughs and sillyness, and even some sweet powder turns. Mandoline blew me away with her fitness and determination, she has really only backcountry skied a few times! That night we celebrated our big day of skiing with a night on the town in Squamish, partying at a staff party at the fantastic new Zephyr Cafe with dancing to the fantastic beats of our friend DJ Sheila.

Mandoline and Kinley grease up with sunscreen for our big, sunny day

Girls' day on the Spearhead... YAY!

Needless to say, the next morning was slow going, but after US border guards stole $80 worth of dog food from my car and hassled me as usual (but my dog puked on their floor... HA HA HA bastards) Mandoline and I rolled into the camping area near Smith Rocks in the wee hours of the next morning and my life as a rock climber slowly, creakily, weakly resumed. I have been down here in Smith Rocks for four days and am slowly remembering how to climb. I am loving the simple life of being on the road, camping, living in the dirt and filth and getting in tune to the rhythm of waking up when the birds chirp, going to bed when it gets dark, eating when I am hungry and climbing until my arms feel like they will fall off. Mandoline has climbed in Smith Rocks quite a bit, so is guiding me around the moderate circuit and I am inspired by my belay time while she sends 5.12s that I am not even fit enough to top-rope at this point. It's amazing how after a few days on the rock, it all starts to come back together mentally though. I have stopped checking my knot after every move up a route (not touching rock for 4.5 months makes me just a wee bit paranoid) and I feel ready to take some whippers on something harder.

Prince Benny basking in the sun after a LONG winter of powder hounding

Living the good life at Smith Rocks... yes there was wine involved

It looks like the skis are put away for another year and in a few weeks I will be heading to Spain to really whip myself back into shape (oh... and drink wine, eat lots of great food, nap in the sun and spend some quality time with my man). I am sure that soon I will stop feeling nauseous when I think about the guide's exam, and I can start building up my mental fortitude to try the exam again next winter, but until then, I am going to have a lot of fun. So get ready to feel envious some more, or better yet, come and hang out with me in Squamish, Spain or wherever else the quest for sunny rock climbs takes me.