This year I’ve taught quite a few SPI Courses, as well as crevasse rescue (sans crevasse) and rock rescue clinics. All of these programs have allowed me to think a great deal about skills that climbers of all disciplines should know before they decide they are self-sufficient.

Basic self-rescue skills involve the following components – belay escapes, load transfers, rappelling/lowering, raising and simple rope ascension. If you understand these skills you can extricate yourself from most (even complex) climbing rescue situations. Assuming that the participants have a basic understanding of knots, anchoring, and belaying I begin most clinics with how to tie off the standard plate belay device (like an ATC) and how to tie a few basic friction hitches. From there we rappel safely and then practice rope ascension. Once those basic skills are mastered you can add load transfers, raises/hauls, and work towards seamless transitions between any skills you might need to employ in a situation. A one-day clinic typically finishes with top belays and raising a stuck climber. A two-day clinic would spend day two solidifying skills and employing them in several possible scenarios.

The participants from last Sunday’s clinic asked me to post pictures from the day. I’ve resized all of the images. While they’re not the best images they’ll help you get an idea about some of the skills, and some safety considerations when initiating any sort of climber assistance.

If you like what you see here consider hiring a professionally trained AMGA certified guide (like me;). They’ll help you iron out any skills that need polishing and can help you build confidence in your climbing systems and knowledge. See you all out there and be safe!

Every once in a while I get pretty excited about things unrelated to climbing. Recently I’ve been pretty jazzed up about a few things.

About two months ago my partner and I decided that we were going to have a container garden this year. We bought several tomato plants and basil plants, scavenged a ton of squash seedlings out of the compost and planted some lettuce. It’s a work in progress and a serious learning experience. We chose buckets and other random containers because the soil in Cambridge where my partner lives is a bit suspect. Additionally, we can move the plants around and even move them over to New Paltz for the summer (we won’t be in Cambridge for the summer).  We’ve spent a total of about $150 on plants and supplies thus far and we’re hoping to get a lot of that back in fresh food this summer and canned/dried goodies for the upcoming fall and winter. I know, already, that next year’s garden is going to have a lot of other things in it, and with some careful planning hopefully we’ll be able to harvest at least a few things all spring, summer and fall. I took a few pictures about two weeks ago now. The tomatoes are healthy. Can’t wait for the first ripe tomates, which seem to be a few weeks off right now.

These days I’ve been riding a cyclocross bike I began acquiring parts for last year. A few months ago I finished putting it together and gave it the acid test. I rode tentatively for the first few road rides, foolishly fearing that something awful, like the front wheel coming off in the middle of a big downhill, would happen. I’ve now ridden the bike for commuting to work (with my full climbing kit in the panniers and on the rack), shopping for groceries, and for fun on a few of the access roads on the Mohonk Preserve. A mountain bike would probably better for some of the rockier terrain but the bike absolutely rips on smooth packed access roads. I’ve ridden a bike quite a bit over the years, and have always thought that a cyclocross bike was appealing because you can go most places on it comfortably and quickly. Slap a set of road wheels on it and you’ve basically got a slightly heavier road bike.

I went with mostly Shimano Ultegra parts (including a triple up front instead of the normal compact crankset) and swapped the wheels (Chris King hubs, Mavic Open Pro rims) out from my old road bike. I kept the 8-speed cog stack in the back so that I could have wheel compatibility with with my old road bike, and for long term durability. I’m pretty psyched, and every day I don’t drive to work or to the cliff I save some money on gas, which is nice.

These days I’m working off of a new laptop too. I picked up a Toshiba (big fan) A505 laptop. I’ve used Mac’s a bit here and there and still feel like I know my way around a Windows OS better. So much most people do on computers is server-side and has very little to do with one’s processor speed. A lot of web-design can be done using open-source software and I like using Photoshop for image editing. This has really left me feeling like the extra $900 I would have spent for a Macbook Pro wasn’t worth it. The A505 has a new Intel I3 processor, 500gb storage, 4gb RAM, a long-life (about 6-6.5 hrs.) battery, full keypad including a numberpad on the right, and good sound. Not too shabby for about $650. It’s quite a step up from my indestructible old machine, a low-end, $300 Black Friday Toshiba notebook I bought in 2007. I have to admit I’m sentimentally attached to the old laptop and will be keeping it around for a while yet.

Well, this may be an odd and off-topic post, but I feel compelled to write about it anyway. We’re having some typical Gunks weather right now – on-and-off rain that makes clients skeptical that they should come climbing. I’m clearly not at the cliff right now. Two days of work this past week have been canceled only to have dry daytime weather. As a climbing guide on the East Coast this type of weather makes you realize that your career, while being fun and rewarding, is a paltry way of making a living.

Enough of that though. Do you ever rediscover music you used to love? On occasion this happens to me and it’s almost always (always is a strong word) pleasantly surprising. For me, Pandora has made this a much more frequent occurrence.

Temple of the Dog is a band that I have rediscovered recently. I was an impressionable young teenager when this album was popularized by the release and subsequent success of Pearl Jam’s Ten album. Temple‘s a one record collaboration between members of Soundgardern and the band now known as Pearl Jam. It was written as a tribute to Andy Wood (Chris Cornell’s housemate in Seattle) of Mother Love Bone, who died in 1990 of a heroin overdose. The remaining members of Mother Love Bone teamed up with Eddie Vedder to become Pearl Jam. The album I thought, as a teenager, was awesome.

I owned the album as a cassette and haven’t had a cassette player in a decade. Hearing a few Temple of the Dog tracks on Pandora has convinced me to get an digital copy of the record. Giving it a listen, it’s nothing short of exceptional, and much better than I ever realized as a teenager. If, like me, you were a teenager when the Seattle grunge rock scene put mainstream heavy metal to bed for a while you’ll definitely enjoy revisiting this album too.

So, if you’re sitting inside on a rainy day instead of climbing, like me, cruise through some of your old music. You’ll probably be pleasantly surprised too.

Over the past few weeks I’ve had the pleasure of climbing with great friends at some of the best granite climbing areas in the northeast (and the U.S.). It’s not everyday that Gunks climbers get to climb granite. The closest “granite” to New Paltz is in the Adirondacks, and it isn’t really granite. Beyond that one needs to travel to NH to get good granite. Damn, New Hampshire granite is fine though.

I did a big day at Cannon which I wrote about previously, and which made me so tired for 4 days afterward that I was concerned while guiding moderate routes in the Gunks. Fortunately, my legs have recovered from that effort. Last week I met my old friend and long time climbing partner Erik Eisele at Cathedral Ledge. Erik’s been a climber as long as I’ve known him, but this past year he’s really figured things out and is climbing exceptionally well. Now it’s time to figure out where to go on a trip with him so I can have a ropegun.  We met for a morning of climbing and did a link up that a few North Conway locals have been calling “All the Crazy Bitches”. The four-pitch link up starts with Wild, climbs the middle of Women In Love, and finishes up Webster’s Abridged.

I’m embarrassed to say that these were the first 5.11 pitches I’ve ever climbed at Cathedral Ledge. All of these pitches were well-protected, sustained but never desperate, and eminently climbable. The experience was quite different than climbing several 5.11 pitches in the Gunks. I have always felt, and I think there are many local Gunks climbers who would agree, that climbing 5.11 in the Gunks requires a serious gameface and frequent small protection. You need to pull hard moves on tiny crimps above small gear.  Not an everyday thing for most of us in the Gunks. So, to go to Cathedral and climb several 5.11 pitches in a row, in a straight line up the cliff, and have all the pitches be safe, well-protected and fun was enlightening. It definitely left me with a big fat ear-to-ear grin.

Just yesterday I visited Cannon again. This time with fewer talus-jogging aspirations. Erik and I wanted to do a bunch of pitches including the very famous and stunning VMC Direct Direct. After warming up on Union Jack we headed over to the Big Wall and found everything to be a bit wet. We climbed through the wetness on the first two pitches before deciding to go down. Several more pitches of cragging, which is quite enjoyable – some of Cannon’s finest rock is at the base, and we were all set for the day. Not quite a grade IX day but good climbing and good company.

I’ve realized that It would be good to climb some more granite, and to do it a little more frequently. Climbing granite requires precise footwork and a lot of body tension – two things that help with all types of climbing and make reaching further and pulling harder feel less difficult. If you get a chance, by all means check out the pitches I have mentioned in this post; they’re all exquisite, top-notch pitches on beautiful stone.

My quadriceps keep getting more and more sore and it’s making me feel old. Marathon days are fun in a masochistic way, and when Kevin Johnson pitched his Cannon idea to me I was immediately interested. I don’t get to climb there that often, and despite Cannon’s reputation for loose rock (it’s all true) there are some amazing granite pitches.

We met at about 9:30 Wednesday evening at a park and ride near Northampton, Ma. After a long 3.5 hour ride through the most horrendous (amazing) lightning I’ve ever seen we arrived at the pullout near the north end of Cannon Cliff.  Instant bivy and 3.5 hours later we were on the move again.

Kevin’s plan was to climb three full-length grade III Cannon routes in a day. A few years ago he pretty casually climbed Moby Grape, III 5.8+ and Vertigo, III 5.9+ in a day and he wanted to see what it was like to add one more to the list. As he was unfamiliar with other routes on the cliff and we wanted to keep the grade fairly moderate for the third route we decided we would choose either Union Jack (bad decision) or Moonshadow (maybe also a bad decision), which are both 5.9.

We planned to do the climbs we were familiar with first and finish with the route we hadn’t done yet.  After the fact I see that we may have wanted to sandwich the new one between the two familiar routes. Moby Grape, the most popular of the three routes was definitely going to be our first climb. That way we could beat the crowds (definitely a good decision).

At 4:50 a.m. I heard Kevin moving around and semi-unwillingly arose from my sleeping bag. This was my second pre-5 a.m. start in two days and with only 3.5 hours sleep I was like the walking dead. We racked up, packed our little packs and headed up the talus for the first time. As you would expect, there were no crowds on Moby Grape at 5:30 a.m. I lead the whole route and we were on top at about 9:10 a.m. I am ashamed to say that I’ve never climbed this route to the top, and it’s something that I plan on doing over and over again in the future. This is one of the best 5.8′s in the northeast, and one of the best long 5.8′s in the United States. The rock is a bit shattered in places, but for the most part it’s solid and really fun climbing on God’s own stone – tacky fine-grained white granite.

35 minutes later we were back in the parking lot for a short break, a snack and a water refill. We were warmed up and wide awake now. By 10:30 we were on the first pitch of Vertigo and enjoying the sunny weather (but not the black flys). Kevin lead for the whole route and we were on top at 2:10. Vertigo has some really killer climbing on the lower portion of the route (granite that’s good even for Yosemite). There is however, as I found out at this point, a good reason for the rappel bolts after the Half Moon pitch. The upper 450′ of the route is loose, really loose. A single person with prybar and a twelve pack could have the time of their life trundling large blocks on this route. Not super desirable, but it’s good to do things once just to make sure, right?

After experiencing the upper pitches of Vertigo we decided we weren’t too keen on playing the numbers game on the same upper sections of the cliff again with another route in that vicinity. Union Jack climbs the same upper section as Vertigo and Moonshadow climbs allegedly solid (everything is relative there) rock to the top. We settled for a grade II, the very classic Whitney-Gilman Ridge.

At 3:30, after a loose and longer approach (there seems to have been substantial rockfall recently on the face right of the Black Dike) We climbed the Whitney-G without a whole lot of conversation. Fatigue seemed to settling in a bit for both of us. I felt my strength waning and was definitely getting goofy. The third and final descent, which is longer and steeper on that side of the cliff, was utter punishment. Both Kevin and I felt pretty good after two routes, but the third absolutely wiped us out.

At 6:30 p.m. we hopped in the car and headed down I-93 and back to Northampton, psyched about our day but a wee bit stiff from a lot of movement. Several days later I’m still hobbling around a bit, and walking downhill is pretty uncomfortable.  And my neck is a pock-marked, bloody mess from the black flies. So, do three grade III’s (actually two III’s and a II) add up to Grade IX? Well, not really. Maybe grade V+ or VI, with a whole lot of pretty fun moderate granite climbing.

I’ve updated my review of the Black Diamond Sphynx 32. I love the design of the backpack, a classic climbing klettersack. Durability and quality control seem have become major issues and I’ve begun to question how long the pack is going to last.

Check out the link to the review, with updates here.

No, I’m not talking about Atlantis.

A couple of years ago I got into a heated debate with a housemate of mine about whether Lost City should be a “locals only” area. Earlier that day he had seen a guide friend of mine there with a client. It frustrated him that guides would decide to take clients climbing at Lost City. He felt it was a “locals only” spot and that it was taboo to take outsiders there. However, when I asked him how he’d learned about the climbs there he replied that a “local” friend had shown him. And when I asked him how long he had lived in the area the response was a meager three years. I told him that my guide friend’s client has owned a house in the area nearly twice that long, and that she was climbing in the Gunks back when my housemate was still in his early teens wondering when he’d get to shave for the first time and what to do once he got it up. So who’s a local now? To me the answer seems muddy at best.

In fact I could care less.  I’ll gladly take the time to show any one of my out of town friends around Lost City. Hell, it might be the first place I take them. The climbing is fabulous – gymnastic, crimpy and sustained. There’s no road beneath you, and you get to hop from rock to rock so that you don’t harm the most amazingly large, green beds of moss.

If you want sustained climbs you definitely won’t find them in the Trapps. With the exception of the Workout Wall in the Nears, sustained climbing can’t be found there either. Go to Millbrook looking for sustained climbs and you’ll need to change your underwear afterward. Lost City, however, has sustained climbs galore, many of which you can toprope or lead(woohoo!).

Some of the locals have tried to keep Lost City to themselves. It is, however, decidedly not a local’s only crag. On crowded weekends it’s busy with “nonlocals” too (damn, how did they ever find the place?). Not as busy as the Trapps, but as busy as the fragile ecosystem above and below the cliff can probably handle. It’s no secret either; you can see it from the road, and the High Peterskill trail parallels the cliff from below. Jeez, there’s a parking lot with a flat trail that goes straight there in under 15 minutes (and a ranger who’ll give you directions).

A long time ago the Mohonk Preserve decided that they didn’t want a guidebook published to Lost City. For better or worse the local climbing community has acquiesced to the preserve’s request. That’s not to say no one’s written a guidebook to the area. This just isn’t true. There’s more than one local who could probably furnish a publisher with pretty detailed guidebook to Lost City tomorrow if they felt it was a good idea.

Myself, I’ll live without a guidebook to the area. Some of my best experiences in the Gunks have involved being shown new climbs by other people who are more familiar with the cliff. More than one of those people have become my best friends. As I started to think about writing a post about Lost City I did a little internet research. You know what I found? Not much. Mostly I found forum bitch sessions on sites like rockclimbing.com about how unfriendly the locals are about their precious cliff. Now I can’t get it out of my head, and it’s under my skin. I’ve never been a smug unfriendly local to visiting climbers, and most of the people I know aren’t that way either.

Not having a published guidebook to the Lost City is a blessing. It forces us as climbers to do a few very important things: to be friendly and open-minded and to explore. Climbing is about making friends. And, the things that most likely attracted us to climbing were the sense of independence that it gave us, the wonder of exploration and the discovery of new places and things.

Climbing is like an art or a trade. There’s some information in books and on the internet, but most things you learn get passed on to you by someone who’s generally wiser and more experienced at climbing than you are . It’s a word-of-mouth skill that you acquire over years, not overnight and definitely not over the internet. I definitely don’t sit at home polishing my climbing skills and knowledge in front of my laptop, that’s for sure. I don’t think there’s a climber out there who’s learned everything they know about the sport from books and other media sources. The beauty is in the process and the interaction. You make friends, find new climbs, appreciate the outdoors and realize that you have it really good. And good it is. Lost City is a very fine crag. Oh the Gunks! How I love thee.

Here’s a sunset pic I snapped on the way home from my parents’ house in NJ.

Last week I headed down to New River Gorge for a week of climbing. I haven’t been there in a year and a half and a trip to the New felt overdue. Over the years I’ve climbed there and at other locations around the southeast quite a bit. Of all the southeastern climbing areas the New is my favorite. It’s not a stretch to say that this area has the best cragging in the United States.

The climbing is sustained and physically demanding yet usually well protected. If you haven’t been there it’s worth the trip. From New Paltz, if you don’t drink too much coffee (too many pee stops) you can be there in under nine hours, making a long weekend reasonable. We spent a week there this time but you really need a lifetime to explore all of the crags this area has to offer. The diversity of the climbing and the uncrowded cliffs are what makes the New special. You can climb there almost any day of the week and not see a soul at Endless Wall or Beauty Mountain.

The new Wolverine Press New River Gorge guidebook by Mikey Williams is now available too. I love the old Rick Thompson guidebook but there has been boatloads of development since that book was published. With 500 pages of routes in Mikey’s new book and miles of cliff still to be developed there is no shortage of climbing to be had. Most of my trips to WV have been during the summer, so this trip was special. We visited Whippoorwill and Long Point at Summersville Lake, both of which are only accessible by boat during the summer. The sandstone at the lake is more featured than most of the stone in the New River Gorge and many areas have rock similar to Red Rocks (plates, patina and giant jugs) but on utterly bulletproof white sandstone. However, for me a trip to the New wouldn’t be complete without at least a day in the gorge proper. The Endless wall might be the finest stretch of single pitch climbs in North America. We spent a day scrambling around Diamond Point doing classics such as Raging Waters, Remission, Strike a Scowl and Supersymmetry.

If you head down there be sure to stay at Roger’s Rocky Top Retreat above Kaymoor; it’s a little slice of heaven in West Virginia. He’ll keep an eye on your stuff (then it isn’t in your car at a roadside trailhead) and provide you with an endless cup of his special colon-flush coffee each and every morning.

Here are a few shots I’ve snapped over the past week.