January 30, 2006
Climbing Wall Introduction
Whoa! So why so much ado about duck tape? For most people, Red Green aside, duck tape is a non-essential part of daily life. Duck Tape has a little bit more importance to me. Why? Well recent I finish construction of my Climbing Wall and, as you can see in the pictures, there is Duck Tape littered everywhere on it. When you have over 50 routes in such a small area, identifying them by a unique color pattern is hugely important. Ergo, I have a new love of duck tape. What else can fulfill the needs of a route setter: offer such a large array of colors, be cheap, and easily be put on and taken off?
So what exactly makes a person construct a climbing wall in their garage? It really is a combination of a few things. One, you obviously have to enjoy rock climbing. I'm the kind of person that enjoys building stuff and spending time with friends. You put those three things together and what else could be more perfect to build than a climbing wall. I'll probably start a series on how to construct, or how I constructed, the wall sometime down the road. But for now gaze in awe at its magnificence. :-P
Posted by aeon3 at 12:18 AM | Comments (1)
December 04, 2005
Duluth: North Shore Style Comp Weekend
Just got back from a good weekend in Duluth. Spent most of Saturday at the North Shore Style Rock Climbing competition. It was a well put-together, well sponsored, and well attended comp. Yours truly came in third place in the men's intermediate category. Unfortunately, they only gave out prizes (for some odd reason) to the 1st place finishers of each of the 6 categories (instead of to the top 3 finishers of each). Although I didn't win a prize from my climbing skillz, I did manage to walk away the winner of a long sleeve shirt during one of the raffles. Congrats to all of the other 17 top finishers.
Saturday night was spent eating and drinking at Old Chicago's and chilling out at our hotel, the Inn on Lake Superior. I tried out the new Leinenkugels Apple Spice brew. It was pretty good, though I'd only recommend drinking it in small (12oz) quantities. It had much more of a tart apple flavor than I was expecting/hoping for.
The Inn was pretty nice. They have a small heated pool on the roof outside. That, mixed with about a -10ºF wind chill, made for many a funny frozen hair-do. I also learned a new mathematical formula:
-10ºF wind chill + cold/icy concrete roof + me in just a swimsuit + stuff in my pockets + a wonderful 102ºF heated pool = "me pulling a Chris Anderson" (Note: pulling a Chris Anderson consists of jumping into a body of water (hot tub, Lake Superior, etc.) with your cell phone still in your pocket).
Fortunately for me I realized right away that my phone was in my pocket (it started vibrating, begging for air, about 5 seconds after I jumped in). So I pulled it apart and set up on a towel by the pool deck to dry (a.k.a. freeze). After being submerged, then frozen, then dried out, my phone works like a charm *knock on wood*.
So here's my advice of the week! If you ever drench your phone, remove the phone from water ASAP, pull out the battery, and place all of its pieces into the freezer. After about an hour (or until frozen), remove the phone's components and let dry in ambient (72ºF) air over night. Then Presto!, you're phone is magically working again. This is what worked for me, so I'm sure it'll work for you. (Disclaimer*: Don't listen to me... I'm obviously an idiot who just got lucky!)
I guess you can say all's well that ends well. I leave you with a couple of pics from the beautiful, sunny, 12ºF afternoon on Sunday...
A Cold Wait...
Navigating the Canal...
*Additional note to disclaimer: Being an electrical engineer I highly recommend NOT letting your phone freeze while full of water. Why? Because water loves to expand when it freezes, causing all of your phone's nifty hi-tech components, solder joints, and LCDs to flex and crack in ways they aren't supposed to. What I would recommend is to remove your cell's battery and place all pieces into a warm, dry environment to dry. (no, not your oven)
Posted by aeon3 at 08:41 PM | Comments (2)
September 14, 2005
Apostle Islands: Sunsets
We were lucky to have a couple of beautiful sunsets while we were camping on Stockton Island. Our site was right on the water, and sun set directly across Presque Isle Bay from us. I can imagine being back there right now.p>
Kick your feet up and imagine yourself sitting on the sandy beach, watching this sunset...
Watch as the sun lowers and fills the sky with brilliant color. The motion of the water becomes blurred in the low light...
Posted by aeon3 at 10:00 AM | Comments (0)
September 09, 2005
North Shore Fall '05
Sup sup...
This last Labor Day weekend was the MinnesotaClimbing.com Fall North Shore Gathering. A lot of people showed up and got a lot of climbing in. I didn't get much climbing in myself, but I did get a chance to take some pictures. I added a North Shore Sept '05 folder to my gallery.
Here are a couple of previews...
Posted by aeon3 at 06:39 PM | Comments (0)
August 31, 2005
Apostle Islands: Boats
Wow, this is my third post in three days; it's a new blog record (at least for me).
The Apostle Islands is a great getaway for boaters of all likes; kayaks, sailboats, cruisers, etc. Looking through some of the Apostle Islands pictures I came across a few pictures of boats that I like. Enjoy.
Red on blue waters is the way to do it...
I wish I had an orange dinghy...
Posted by aeon3 at 12:31 PM | Comments (0)
August 30, 2005
Apostle Islands: Mushrooms
Yo. Two posts on back-to-back days. I better be careful before I set a precedent.
Anyways, when hiking in the Apostle Islands I came upon a lot of mushrooms. I like their interesting look, so I snapped a few photos.
Suddenly I have the Super Mario Bros. theme song in my head...
Gettin' down low...
Too many of the wrong mushrooms...
Posted by aeon3 at 09:10 AM | Comments (2)
August 29, 2005
Apostle Islands: Brought To You By The Letter 'K'
I've been back from the Apostle Islands for a couple of weeks and thought it'd be nice to get some pics up. We had beautiful weather and I had a great time. I would highly recommend making a trip to Stockton Island to camp out for a long weekend. Anyways, here's a few pics for your viewing pleasure.
Today we learn about Camouflage...
Today's post is brought to you by the letter 'K'!
Posted by aeon3 at 09:35 AM | Comments (0)
June 27, 2005
Annual Blue Mounds Gathering (June 3rd-5th) Photos
I posted some of the pics from the Annual MinnesotaClimbing.com Blue Mounds Climbing Gathering to the gallery. I didn't get very many pictures. Though most of the days were full of rain, we did get in some good climbing. I'm not gonna write up a trip report since most of my time was consumed with either sleeping, game playing, climbing, shelter creation, or eating. Never-the-less, the weekend was awesome and hopefully the weather will be better next year.
Here's a couple of the pics from that weekend.
Posted by aeon3 at 05:42 PM | Comments (0)
May 13, 2005
Devil's Tower Trip Report & Pictures
Well my Devil's Tower trip was a few weekends ago and I finally went through all of the 430-something pictures I took while I was out there. Some I deleted, some were ok, and the 110 I liked were added to the Devil's Tower Section of my gallery. I have also been working on a short Devil's Tower Trip Report.... (warning: It's a long read)
Day1: The Journey There
7:15am hit and I pulled my but out of bed after getting around 4.5 hours of sleep. It was a typical last minute, late night packing job that I did, but I knew I had pretty much covered everything, so I wasn't too worried when I walked by the pile of gear on my way to the bathroom. I ran through the shower and hauled all my stuff downstairs.
Tim arrived and we stuffed the "Pimp Bug" full of expensive gear and were on our way in about 15 minutes. We traveled down HWY169 and 60, then across on I-90. Driving through this part of Minnesota wasn't half bad. Then South Dakota hit like a long, wrenching pain in the head. The weather was crappy and the terrain was quite lacking in visual splendor. We fought the boredom with music, Tim's gameboy advanced, and the book The Broker on tape. We stopped at a couple of Targets, the Empire Mall, a couple of gas stations, and a Wells Fargo ATM; it's amazing what an expensive GPS can help you find within 13ft.
Finally, we drove through Spearfish (curious name for a town in the middle of a plains area) and Devil's Tower National Monument and on to Franks Devil's Tower Lodge. We pulled up and were quickly greeted by Frank Sanders, a very well respected, legendary climber. We brought our stuff inside and were instructed to make ourselves at home. We chit-chatted and watched the original, "dubbed" over French movie Le Femme Nakita. We chit-chatted a little more and then made our way to one of the vacant rooms that Frank so generously offered to us; it would have been offesive to pitch our tents out in the rain and snow outside.
Day2: The Blizzard
We, or at least I, slept in late. I awoke to the distinct smell of hot pancakes cooking on a skillet. I went out to the dining area to find that Frank, it all his wonderfulness, was making breakfast. Tim had already eaten, but Frank whipped me up some pancakes and I ate to my heart's content. I thanked Frank for the breakfast. I ran through the shower, packed up my stuff, and hauled it out to the gym where'd I'd be sleeping in warmth, out of the cold for the next couple of nights.
Though it was an overcast, rainy, entirely miserable day, Tim and I decided to venture out to the Tower to walk around the trails and approaches a little bit. We drove up to the ranger station, talked with the delightful climbing ranger, and picked up a climbing guide book. As we were leaving the ranger station a few other of the "Minnesota 15" arrived.
Tim, Ward, Richard, Andy, and I made our way along the Tower Trail that circles the base of the Tower. We stopped and read some of the educational displays along the trail. With the weather being only mildly annoying with it's drizzle and us getting bored with the trail, we decided to look for and scramble up some approaches. Tim and I elected to find the East/North East Buttress approach and the other trio went off to find the Durrance approach.
Tim and I walked along the trail and found a path that the guide book described as the approach base. We scrambled up the obvious approach path through the talus. The rock wasn't too slippery considering the drizzle that had been coming down for hours. As we scrambled up the drizzle got a little heavier and turned into light sleet/snow - not a surprise, but still no big deal. Tim stopped to throw on his rain pants and I continued up, taking pictures as I climbed. Finally, Tim and I were near the end of the approach. Unfortunately, the climb up is only half of the journey.
Without warning the light sleet/snow turned into huge, wet snow flakes. Intelligently, Tim decided to take off right away. I decided to stay around and shoot a couple of pictures. I snapped a few photos and started making my way back down the approach trail. Needless to say the path was being quickly covered in snow. I continued on, snapping photos here and there as I tried to make my way down. Realizing it's probably not the smartest thing to have your camera out when wet flakes are covering anything out in the open, I put my camera back into my back pack. With a few slips, but no falls, I made it back down to Tim at the base a little off the desired path, but back to the trail never-the-less.
We made our way back down to the ranger office and were happy to find that the other three guys had also made it back down in one piece. With that being enough of an adventure for one day, we all made our way back to Franks.
We all set up shop in the garage and went inside and ate with Louisiana oil rig crew who were up on their company's request and expense. After dinner, anchor setup practice, knot tying lessons, and general climbing talk went on for few hours. I finally had the time to pull out my ascenders and play with them. I used an 18' 8mm accessory cord to fashion up a pimp stirrup style aider. Lord knows if I'll ever use it, but it's not a bad thing to have lying around.
Day3: El Cracko Diablo & the Summit
Breakfast in the morning was again delicious. This breakfast included the rest of the "Minnesota 15." Some had come the previous evening and late the previous night, while a few had arrived at sunrise. The entire house was of talk over who was going to climb what routes. People grouped up; novices grouped with the experience folk and leaders found people to follow. Justin, Tim, and I decided we should take a stab at "El Cracko Diablo", a 250ft, two-pitch crack climb rated at 5.8.
We filled my car up with our gear and drove up to the base of the tower. We first registered at the ranger's office as is required at the park for all climbers. Then, we got all or our stuff together and equipped and quickly made our way up the trail to the approach. The approach was longer than anything I had been used to but wasn't too strenuous. Thankfully I'm not acrophobic or the exposure of the scramble might have mad me uneasy.
At the base of the climb we threw on our shoes and situated our gear to our liking. Justin took off leading up the route while Tim belayed. I chilled out for a bit and took a few pictures. After a while Justin was set up at the hanging belay hangers and Tim began cleaning. This pitch of the route is about 90ft and rated at 5.7. I was soon climbing and thought the 5.7 rating was suitable even with the pitch being at least 30ft longer than anything I had climbed here in Minn.
With all three of us hanging at the belay station, Justin pulled his anchor, Tim set his belay, and Justin again started climbing. This time Justin took quite a bit longer to climb the 150ft of this 5.8 pitch. Various parts of my body fell in and out of sleep while Justin climbed and set up the next anchor. I decided that, for the experience, I should clean the next pitch. Being already tied in, I disconnected myself from the anchors and started climbing after getting the "belay's on" call from Justin.
There must have been something bad about hanging in that harness for an extended period of time. In the first forty or so feet just about every muscle below my waste cramped up. I climbed on but quickly realized that, with me not being a crack climber at all, a 5.8 classic crack climb can quickly turn into a 5.10 or greater face climb. It was odd, the difficulty came in waves. It would get harder and harder and then there'd be a fairly good "rest" spot. Those are the places that Justin used to make some bomber placements. The lack of stamina from all the bouldering recently mixed with the small foot chips/crystals and tough face climbing forced me to hang about 100ft up. With a short rest and some refocusing I climbed on to finish the pitched.
I topped out and, to my ignorant surprise, we weren't at the very top. The route ended in a little area called the "Meadows", still a considerable distance down from the summit. I scrambled around the Meadows and watched as the other Minnesota climbers made their ascents. Tim made his way up and, being only the second group up to the Meadows, we relaxed a little bit. Once we rested and collected ourselves we made the 100-plus foot, 4th class scramble to the summit.
We were the second group to the top. The actual top of the Tower was rather unimpressive; like portions of the bouldered plain land below, but minus the trees. But the view from the top was gorgeous. After looking around and gazing at the view, we made our way to the center of the Tower’s circular top to a rock pile. Inside of the pile was a tubular container that housed a "summit log". We signed our names into the log and put the tube back. The next few hours consisted of eating, re-hydrating, and chilling out we waited for the other 10 of the Minnesota Crew to make their accents. The highlight atop the Tower was definitely the wedding proposal.
After we took a group photo we made our way over to the Meadows Rappel. It just took some brain power to coordinate getting the 8 ropes to the proper locations so there weren't too many people stuck at each rap station. All 15 of us made our way down the 4 rappels to the bottom without any problems. We packed up and made our way back to Franks.
We ate dinner and talked about the experiences of the day. With everyone being worn out, we watched TV and relaxed the entire evening. Being completely exhausted, I passed out on the living room floor. What a perfect way to end a great day.
Day4: Durrance
The day started with another greatly appreciated breakfast, this time cooked up by us Minnesota folk. We filled our stomachs and again discussions went on about what folks wanted to climb and where. Everyone decided on a route and went on their way. Justin, Tim, and I decided upon Wiessner, a 5.7 route. We organized our gear and were on our way.
Registered and equipped we made our way up the Durrance approach. We had to do a little backtracking here and there, but eventually made it up the base, over the exposed southwest Tower shoulder, and to the bottom of Wiessner. Once at the base of the route, we found that there was a slow 4-some on the route. Next in line were Rich, Andy, an Ward. They were making their way up a route that started in the Bowling Alley and ended at the base of Wiessner. This route is an alternative to the Durrance approach.
Rich's crew originally wanted to go up Durrance, but had changed their mind early on. One they climbed up to where we were we talked a little bit. Eventually the line for Durrance went from three parties to just one. Rich, Ward, and Andy decided to do Durrance and Tim, Justin, and I continued the long wait for Durrance.
Finally, after a couple of hours or so, the wait was up. Justin tied in and Tim belayed. Justin tried climbing Wiessner, then Pseudo-Wiessner, but came to the realization that he really wasn't in the mood to lead, being mentally and physically exhausted from the day before. Our trio decided to just rap down into the Bowling Alley and find some where else to climb.
Will we were waiting for the rap station to open up, Andy decided he would rap down, too. He had been getting psyched out from the long wait and was tired from the day before as well. I had really wanted to do Durrance on this trip out. So I asked Ward and Rich if I could take Andy's place. Ward and Rich graciously accepted and we waited for the group in front of us to get to a point where we could start climbing.
Rich, Ward, and I made our way up Leaning Column, Durrance Crack, Cussing Crack, Flake Crack, and Chockstone Crack. Ward and Rick traded off leads and I cleaned a couple of pitches. The 5.7 climb was pretty easy and fun. I did mostly face climbing at the beginning and decided to try the hand crack and off-width on the second and third pitches. I had a great time despite the cool temperatures.
The climbing was rather uneventful for the most part. One "incident" was Rich's minor lead fall onto two bomber 3ish sized nuts on Cussing Crack. The other was when Ward noticed that I didn't have the second rope clipped into my haul loop when I was seconding Cussing crack. That was no problem though. I just stopped about 15 feet up and Ward put a knot in the rope and tossed it up to me. I clipped it in and finish up the pitch.
After finishing the first 5 pitches, we only had the "Jump Traverse" to navigate. It is about a 20ft traverse, with an 8ft or so gap in the middle. Rich suggested I lead it. Though I was a little nervous about it since I had never lead anything before, I accepted - peer pressure I guess. I tied in and placed a piece right away; a #3 nut. I then crawled down to the sloping ledge and looked up and over the roof to find a piton. I clipped a sling into it and clipped in. I next tried to make the traverse from the ledge. I was nearly crapping myself when I looked down as I tried to find a foot and figure out how to span the gap. I decided to try something else. I crawled back to the middle of the ledge, then climbed down about 15ft or so off the front of ledge. I stood and matched on a small foot chip, and then stepped over the gap. I climbed back up and then had to set an anchor to belay from. Looking at my harness, I only the gear that Rich and Ward left we with after I had cleaned for them. That was a #4 Camalot, #2 or so Camalot, and a #6 or so nut. Hmmm.... not much to set up and anchor with considering there was only a huge crack nearby. I put a huge figure-8 bite into the rope and slung that around a large boulder. Then I placed the #4 Camalot into the large crack nearby. I belayed them over and cleaned up the anchor. We decided we didn't want to summit, so we made our way over to the rappel station.
We waited another hour to two for the rappel to open up then made our way down the Meadows Rappel. We had to wait at every station for the 4-some rapping ahead of us. On one of the pitches, we accidentally put the rope right on top of their heads, thankfully we were just slowly lowering it by hand. We reached the bottom right at sunset as we had the day before. We made our way down the to lot to find that Andy had drove back to make sure we were ok since it was quite late.
Dinner was good. Most had lasagna and chili, but I cooked up some noodles to eat with the tomato sauce that was out with the lasagna. Stories and experiences were shared the entire evening. I was wishing it wasn't the last day, though I don't know if I could have climbed another day.
Day5: The Ride Home
I was up a little before sunrise. I decided that I wanted to get some early morning pictures of the Tower and the park area. I got up, showered, and jumped in the car with my camera in hand. I drove to the park entrance and back, taking quite a few pictures. It was a beautiful morning to be up and it was very relaxing and peaceful out there.
When I got back Tim and I packed up and loaded the Bug up with our gear. We ate breakfast, chipped in on a "thank you" tip for Frank for all of his excellent hospitality, and said our goodbyes. Next thing we knew we were on I-90 making the long ride back to the cities.
At around 8pm, after 10 hours of driving with only stops for gas and food, we arrived back home. The Broker was good at killing the boredom for a majority of the drive. The book on tape ended up being really good as well. The fun journey was over and another week of work was about to begin. Tim moved his stuff to his truck, said goodbye, and took off. I put my gear away and reflected on the great weekend. All of the good times and great people that were there made the trip one to remember.
Posted by aeon3 at 04:31 PM | Comments (0)
April 26, 2005
Devil's Tower: Made it back in one piece!
Well I'm back from "The Tower". The climbing was great and the people were awesome. Can't wait to get back there to climb and visit Frank again. Hopefully I'll be able to set aside some time to put together a trip report soon and put pics into the gallery. In the mean time, here are a few pics from the Tower. Peace.
Posted by aeon3 at 04:58 PM | Comments (0)