Coming home

The last few weeks have been full of travel, navigating through grad school bureaucracy, climbing limestone, gneiss and granite in two countries, househunting, guiding and many other adventures too numerous to convey. After wrapping up my two year stint in Salt Lake it was time to pack up our belongings and head back to the true north strong and free (from far and wide, oh canada, we stand on guaaard fooor theeeee! - Canadian National Anthem). Instead of boring you to death with the details, I will instead pass on some photos which span the space and time since my last post.

1. Evan's getting cosy with his belayer offwidth master Ari Menitov on the bottom of a steep, moist route at American Fork, Utah.

Luckily the second try went better than the first:

2. Witnessing the sweet sport of river boarding in the river at American Fork

3. Trying a really cool route up at the Black Peeler crag in Little Cottonwood Canyon (Ace Drizzle Memorial). No sendage and no climbing shots, but some great spazzing on lead, barndooring off while trying to place gear and only this cheesy portrait to show for my efforts.

3. Teaching a rock rescue course in Squamish, BC.

Gripped eMag spraydown

There's an interview with me and a great shot of my buddy Senja in the current Gripped eMag, located at:

http://www.gripped.com/grippedemag/013/index.html#article2

New York I love you, but...

It's nice to be home.

Just got back from a 4 day trip to NYC to pay a surprise birthday/mother's day visit to Evan's mom. Great to see family and catch up, and when Sunday dawned crisp, clear and beautiful, we decided to take a trip to the Gunks to climb some super classic, super steep, super sandbagged routes. We were scampering up the trail to the Lost Cities crag, excited about rumours of an overhanging crack when I took a misstep and tumbled across some boulders, bashing my shin on a sharp one pretty good. Evan took a look while I was still a bit stunned and his tone of voice told me immediately that things didn't look good. I peeked down at my shin... a 4 cm long gash pierced through the fat and one part looked particularly deep. We wrapped some climbing tape around my leg and limped back down to the parking lot and found a clinic that was open on Sunday in New Paltz. The doc put in 4 stitches and said I could go climbing! Back to the crag, but I was feeling tentative and gun shy after my klutzy morning, so it was all TRing for me. Did some great pitches before motoring back to the city for a delicious mother's day dinner with our New York family and friends at a famed Manhattan Italian restaurant (Otto) and even a star sighting (Diane Keaton). She looked like she had just wandered off the set of Annie Hall a few decades later... bowler hat, dark glasses, slacks, 6 inch heels.

The rest of the trip passed with more amazing food (Spice Market was a real standout), wine, family and even a trip to the Chelsea Piers climbing gym! Photos from the trip are below, including my stitched up leg which is healing up great.

Hit up American Fork this afternoon for a sport climbing session and am finally starting to feel back in gear after a long winter. Yay!

Cool art in Evan's sister's building

Battle wound

Evan on the approach to some urban climbing


Empire State Building

The best crag in NY

Indian Creek Crack Attack

Celebrate good times, come on!

To celebrate the successful defense of my master's thesis: "Environmental controls on the stable isotopic composition of laminiated tufa in Red Butte Canyon, Utah", I spent a week pretending I was still a climbing bum living out of my car in Indian Creek. Except... when I really was living out of my car it was a Chevy Corsica not a sweet Tacoma truck, and I had WAAAAYYYY fewer cams and way less cash for wine and rest day extravagances like breakfast at Eclekticafe in Moab. So I guess that means that life has gotten better over the past few years, although my heart is telling me right now that I would trade all these material things to not be sitting in front of this computer wading through mind numbingly tedious revisions on a 150 page thesis that I am ready to huck straight into the Great Salt Lake.

Jeremy contemplates The Optimator

The climbing was fun. When my arms and head finally came back after the first few days of being gripped and tired on 5.10s, I climbed some amazing pitches that I had never been on before... and my future tick list grew in length yet again! But what really made me want to stay down there and continue living the rhythm of eat, climb, eat, climb, drink, eat, sleep repeat was not just red sandstone spitter after corner after splitter. For the past week my life became so simple, yet somehow more rich than any week I spent in Salt Lake this year. I was with friends almost all day, laughing, joking, clowning around, dancing and doing yoga on the slickrock of our campsite, cooking burrito feasts on the tail gate to be washed down by cold beer in front of a flickering campfire as the stunning desert starscape drifted overhead. Not every moment was shared though; tucked into my bed in the back of the truck I read a novel, something that had nothing to do with isotopes, and loved every word of its frivolous text. I often was the first to rise, and I sat in my lawn chair in a sliver of sun with my sleeping bag piled in my lap as I waited for the coffee to bubble out of the espresso maker, filling the cold air with its delicious aroma.

Jeremy sending the SH*T out of Disco Machine Gun

I could wax on forever, believe me... anything to keep from pecking away at some stupid isotope mass balance calculation that somehow has to find a way into the text of my thesis. But I will spare you from any more of my emotional outpourings for today. It is just great to know that as I wrap up this grad school phase of my life, I will hopefully be making room for many more weeks just like the one I have just spent living simply and fully with friends.

Kinley getting psyched for her lead

Jer and Mando hide from the sun

Even the early residents of Indian Creek knew that it is all about the meat capes... biceps get you nowhere!

Kinley and Kitt dancing to Kinley's pumping subwoofer to get warmed up before some serious crack climbing.

Just to prove I was really there!!!

Sterling Goddesses on the Rocks, Joshua Tree, CA

Spent the weekend in Joshua Tree for the Goddesses on the Rocks women's climbing weekend, organized by Sterling Rope Co. Over 75 participants and numerous Sterling athletes, staff, volunteers gathered for two sunny days of climbing and learning trad climbing skills. I spent both days teaching anchors and gear placement with Elaina Arenz-Smith to two different enthusiastic groups of eight women. Saturday night was topped off by a feast, raffle and slideshow by Arno Ilgner (author of The Rock Warrior's Way). After the clinics finished on Sunday I couldn't bring myself to leave Joshua Tree without even climbing a single pitch, so Kevin Newell from Five Ten kindly belayed me on the Left Ski Track, a burly 5.11a crack that faces the Hidden Valley parking lot. Although Arno's slideshow left me with tremendous mental strength, my body, sadly, was still in winter mode with weak arms, soft skin and big, big quads. I flailed at the crux and got to fall test a not-so-textbook camalot placement in a wacky flared pocket. Luckily for me, it held. As I belayed Kevin up I got to look around and appreciate the gorgeous surroundings while blood dripped out of a gash on my hand from desperately jamming the sharp rock. Ahhhh, what could be better than that. Now I am back at my desk, gearing up for my thesis defense on Friday... hopefully I can transition from Rock Warrior to Isotope Warrior with ease, and finish up this degree so I can get climbing!

Knotty Girls

Trad bettys in training

Armed and ready for some serious crack climbing

After a week of wading through thesis editing, I was ready for a break. On Thursday night, the relief came when six people, 2 dogs, the makings for many burritos and lots of beer, wine and tequila piled into 2 vehicles and made the pilgrimage to crack mecca aka Indian Creek for the weekend. After a full winter of sweaty ski gloves, my hands weren't in their usual leathery, calloused, scar tissued state and they took a major beating. I thought about posting a photo of them... but that would just be gross. You can take my word for it when I say that after 2 full days of sandstone splitter climbing, me and my hands were ready for a change of pace. Luckily for me, I wasn't the only one in our crew feeling this way, so on Sunday morning we drove into Moab, fueled up on coffee and pastries at the Red Rock Bakery, then headed up into the La Sal Mountains for some multipitch mixed sport and gear climbing at Lower Mill Creek. Luckily for us, my husband Evan used to be a Moab local and established a few of the routes in the area, so he knew his way around. All the routes require rappelling to the start, so not knowing what you are getting into would have been intimidating. Spring had only just arrived; snow still coated the shady side of the canyon, but we were in the sun and loving the juniper infused breeze as we climbed crimps thankfully interspersed with amazing patina jugs. After the first three days of climbing for the season, my body was battered and my mind was sharp; time to tackle the home stretch of the thesis.

Sloggerific Squared

My Dad was visiting from Canada over the weekend, so I thought I had better take him on a Wasatch adventure while he was here. The skiing wasn't looking too amazing, so I thought some good old snow mountaineering might be just the ticket. I had soloed the South Ridge of Superior a few times in the summer when I first moved here and knew it was a cool ridge with classic position and pretty mellow cruxes, so I thought it would be an enjoyable outing and doable despite the far-from-splitter weather forecast. The day turned out to be a little longer than we expected. No major epics, just some serious snow slogging. Cool temperatures mid-week had caused the snow on the ridge to facet, making for deep wallowing on the flat sections, and insecure crampon and ice axe placements on the steeper sections. My Dad cruised all the mixed snow and rock sections despite the fact that he hasn't done much winter climbing, which was cool. There were some old tracks, but for most of the route they had been blown in by new snow. When the going looked tough on the ridge, I made the mistake of thinking we might be better off skinning along the east side (shortcutting into the top of Pinball Alley), but this just made matters worse. Skinning was impossible with the super-faceted nature of the snow, which just slid out from under my skis threatening to send me toppling down the 45 degree slope and over the cliffs below. We changed back into our crampons and wallowed in chest-deep snow across to the top of Pinball Alley. Note to self: stay on the ridge! When we finally made it to the summit, a full-on white out set in, so we walked down the ridge to Little Superior, not wanting to drop into the South Face with zero visibility and potentially firm conditions. The skiing down Little Superior was actually not as horrible as I thought it would be, a bit of a breakable crust, but the apron at the bottom was OK after we crossed the tongues of old, frozen avalanche debris. The day ended well; we poached the hot tub at the Cliff Lodge and enjoyed an ice cold beer, enjoying the view of our wallow tracks up the ridge of Superior across the street.

Leading the way

Dad on the summit

Walking the plank down the ridge