Returned from Alaska being very sure I was not born to be a fisherman. Although the money was nice, I just didn’t enjoy it one bit; felt like I sold my soul and happiness. It wasn’t that the work was hard, it was just extremely boring. I didn’t understand what drove people to do it, and the best reasons I could come up with (the drive to kill, the notch on the belt, the feeling of being manly…) just aren’t things I need to prove to anyone. Or maybe it is because unlike most people I met there, my ‘regular life’ back home is actually my dream life, so why would I want to leave it and do something ‘extreme’ like fishing?

My view for 31 days.

"...and I caught a fish this big..."

I returned, and immediately returned to climbing (literally got off the plane, got in the car, and went to the crag). The frustration of being out of shape was painful, and besides not climbing for 6 weeks, I also managed to gain 15 lbs on the boat. Ouch. I soon got back on Russian Arete, a spectacular line in Deep Creek that I had fallen off from the last hold about 90minutes before my plane left for Alaska. A few days of work and I managed to put the line down. Felt great to have it done, even though it was a route where every go was a blast as the route is aesthetic and the movement flawless.

This whole time in Pullman I was building my mom a patio, and this one week project ended taking up almost four, but I managed to escape in under a month. Next destination: Canmore and the climbing in Acephale.

Living the dream. Jai's house is the red one, I have the gold one.

I showed up in Canada to climb with Jai who I’d met at the Red. The first few days were perfect, and I managed to tick the few 11’s and 12’s at the upper crag, so it was time to move onto a real project. The crag is stacked with hard routes, but watching my friend Axel on ‘Army Ants’ sold me on it and the project was chosen. The movement on the route is phenomenal and rare; moves I likely won’t find on another route again.

It took 5 days to just do every move, and it seems every day involved some improvement in places, but an equal amount of decline in others. I soon realized that a couple extra inches of reach would have helped me on three moves on the route, the three that happened to be the hardest for me. Linkage was happening sometimes, but sometimes it wasn’t. The most frustrating part was that the top of the route, which wasn’t supposed to be that hard, involved a stab to a pocket that no matter how many times I practiced always felt desperate, and on link was only happening about half the time. Missing this hold would mean falling one move short of the anchor.

The temperatures were getting cold and it was starting to rain periodically making things muggy and friction terrible. I started having a lot of doubts about the route. Should I bail for better weather? If I stay, can I even do the route, maybe it is just over my head? Jai was equally frustrated with the conditions and after climbing with him on a Saturday he decided to head back east. That night a fairly strong storm came through, and waking up Sunday morning showed snow in the mountains just a few hundred feet above town. The day was drizzly, and that evening I decided to hike up to the crag to see if all hopes were lost. Things looked bad: the upper half of the route was completely soaked.

Woke up Monday and met up with Ben Gilkison (who is roadtripping with his wife, Tiffany, for a year so I’m guessing we’ll be crossing paths again soon here, he’s got an excellent blog at bengilkison.blogspot.com) to go climb. I was ready to bail; I brought up my stickclip thinking I wouldn’t be able to get to the anchors to pull my draws. Ben tried to make me optimistic but I wasn’t having it, and after almost two weeks falling off the same route, I wasn’t really psyched to try something new (and dry); I was ready to go south, and not have to light fires at the crag to stay warm.

We arrived at the crag and much to my surprise the route looked mostly dry. It is hard to try to get repsyched after having accepted defeat, so my first go felt very half-hearted. Before the day was out I had managed to stick the first crux three times, something I’d never managed to link even once from the ground. First time I stuck the crux I popped a foot making the next clip, so a big thank you to Ben for keeping me off the ground as I wasn’t very high up and had a big armful of rope pulled up; the next two times I stuck the first crux I peeled off the upper crux. I decided to stop trying because I found the top of the route to be filled with wet pockets and I couldn’t get through. I thought about it, and decided to return for one more day.

So Tuesday rolled around and I came armed with a blow-torch. The pockets were still wet but with a little prepping I managed to make it climbable. My first goes of the day did not feel good, things weren’t as cold as the previous day, but the humidity was depressing. I felt like I was climbing poorly and the optimism left me.

When I was tying in for my last set of attempts and I was more focused on whether I should pull my draws and bail or try to cross my fingers for more good weather. So tired of being cold, and so close to sending, but close isn’t doing the route. This was a mental cluster for me because Army Ants was the first 13c I’d put much work into, and even though I try to not focus on grades as they are very personal, this “13c wall” had stood in front of me for a long time and not taking it down would have definitely caused doubt down the road. First go I fell on the first crux which is probably only 20 feet up, lowered, and as a joke put on my Polish Rocket shirt that I’ve decided to unretired. Next go was terrible, grabbed everything wrong and generally felt so bad I think I actually said the forbidden word, “take.” Lowered, was about to call it a day, but what the hell, one more go I decided. Suddenly things flowed, I stuck the first crux, remembered to squeeze with my left hand on the second crux (my left hand had blown off the previous three times I’d gotten to this point) and made it to the rest. The top had still been a bit wet and definitely harder than usual early in the day, but thankfully everything came together and I found myself clipping the anchors.

First crux; squeezing with the left for the second; the upper portion.

End of the first crux, amazing sequence of holds.

What a relief, man I was happy, this huge weight off my shoulders. Ben is definitely the most supportive climbing partner I’ve ever had, and his mentoring along the way was crucial. This is the second time Ben has helped me with a breakthrough in my climbing, as the same happened at Smith last year. I feel like he’s gone through what I go through, and now is wise enough to know how to transcend it and look at it from outside, while I still get obsessive, hasty, greedy and impatient. Maybe one day I’ll be wise too.

Canada is beautiful.

Left Canada now and after a quick trip to West Washington to spend time with my friend Aly I’m heading to Utah; almost there, just spending a couple days with some great people here in Boise. We’re going bouldering in an hour, so I’m getting ready to get destroyed. Bouldering is hard when you climb routes, and routes are hard when you boulder…

Thank you for reading.