more Weeping Cave action

A large crew of us headed out to the Weeping Cave yesterday afternoon. Large for us would be seven close friends! At times it was pretty funny with three climbers fighting for space at one time on the wall! It was like a scene from that old TV show American Gladiator!

Everyone enjoyed the routes. Matt pushed his one hang status on Quart of Blood Technique higher up the route. Tom worked on his impossible looking (to me anyway, but the power of youth is stronger than i am) route Uber Unagi, and I worked out some sequences on Matt's open project, The Basilisk. Heather and Nat M. started to work on Qt. late in the evening, both topping out on the route with a lot of hard work to get there. Rick and Scott burned up the moderates before time constraints sent them back to Idaho Falls. All in all, a very inspiring day of rock climbing and projecting.

The Basilisk is hard - as in we need Mike McClure and his crimp strength on overhanging bulges without feet to come over and check this thing out. It may be our area's first attainable .13+/.14-. Now that is just a suggestion and said in complete reservation in tossing arbitrary numbers out on the internet. Regardless, the Basilisk, like Qt. of Blood Technique is very inspiring and i look forward to getting bouted on it for many months to come!

I leave in a few days for the Outdoor Retailer show in Salt Lake City and the Mammut Bouldering Championships. I look forward to seeing a lot of you guys there and can't wait to get caught up on things happenig in your lives.

and the winner is...

Quart of Blood Technique.

Last year i scoped out a few sectors of limestone in Palisades Creek and came back with some worthwhile findings. I wanted to start establishing routes this spring but the opportunity for a trip to Croatia and the super poor spring-time weather kept me from doing so. I passed on some photos and locations to Matt TeNgiao to check out. He too was excited about the potential. Knowing i was going to be gone most of the spring and being the gentleman he is, Matt asked if i had any reservations about him starting the equipping process. (one of the many great things about most of our local climbers... they have a lot of respect for each other and the hard work that goes into sifting through miles and miles of choss to keep the local scene going! I love where i live and the people i get to climb with.)

In my absence Matt has equipped a handful of quality routes for all abilities, including a few projects to work on. Typically i equip routes out of the need for new terrain to climb or the inspiration of a particular feature or peak. But with the hard work Matt put in the last few months, i have some new routes to work on and no real need to equip new routes other than one or two inspiring features at the new Palisades Creek wall called the Weeping Cave. And maybe a really cool looking sector near the Weeping Cave. And this one area in the Lemhi Range. And maybe, well, you get the point!

Matt took Heather and I out to the Weeping Cave yesterday to show us his work. I had a blast and so did Heather. We climbed some really fun .10's and .11's on featured but technical and challenging limestone. One of Matt projects he has dubbed "The Quart of Blood Technique" is AMAZING! I do not hesitate to say it is by far the best new route of the year and may easily become my favorite route in Eastern Idaho. An impossible looking line with hidden holds that are really good. The line is sustained, powerful, and pumpy as hell. Lots of knee drops, lock-off's, and techy feet. CLASSIC in every way. Nice work TeNgiao!

I am excited to go back and redpoint the route after Matt get's the first ascent; which won't be long as he had it down to one hang on his last attempt of the day yesterday. At any rate, here are a few photos that Matt took of Heather and I along with a couple of images i took of Matt with his camera.

For more info on the Weeping Cave, check out http://www.seiclimbing.com/

that's me on Sasquatch 5.10d

Heather getting techy on the deceptive 9 Cow Wife 5.11b

Matt getting ready to gaston on the Quart of Blood Technique

Another shot of Matt

I love Idaho

I love Idaho. I love America. I love the piece and quiet of country living. Cool air at night. Breeze blowing through the trees... I could go on and on.

We are home and happy to be here.

The above vid is sooo perfect! Thanks for sending the link to me Steve! It it a perfect display of humor in every aspect. I laughed and laughed. Heather and I must have watched this 10 times in a row!

My brain is a bit fried for any worthwhile blog content. Hopefully i'll be recovered in a day or two...

Some photos of Rome and stuff

Hey, why didn't anyone tell me Michael Jackson died?? Sad day.

Ummm....

Stuck in Ancona, Italy. Our plane to Frankfurt leaves tomorrow from Split, Croatia. Hope we can get out of this place before we miss our flight.

On another note, H and I visited the Pope's home along with some other amazing historical places the last few days. Once i get a few minutes to upload some photos, i'll do so. As of right now we are on the run. The last 36 hrs have been the classic hurry up and wait game as we are trying to make our way back across Italy and then across the Adriatic Sea to Split. Cross your fingers we will make it there by Tuesday before 2pm!

We are both healthy and for the most part happy. Other than a rough first part of the night when we got bad beta from the bus driver who dropped us off at the place were we needed to purchase ferry tickets, but neglected to tell us no ferry's leave from the port on Sundays... and he was the last bus of the day. So we had a nice 8km walk back to town only to find a hotel for 80 Euro's a night (that's very expensive).

Always and adventure.

Rome, Italy

We took the overnight boat to Ancona, Italy last night. That was really fun, but i dont think i could live on a boat for more than a few days! Next was the train from Ancona to Rome. This took us from east to west across Italy, through mountains, vineyards, and villages. Once in Rome, we wondered around downtown for a few hours, eating pizza and pasta (yes it is the best pizza in the world) and now we are hanging out in a nice hotel a few blocks north and east of the Colluseeum (sp??).

That is about it. Not much to report! Sorry no photos.

a star is born

Heather pretty much had one of the best ever climbing days! It has been really fun to watch her evlove on this trip; going from her typical reserved self to an all out funny, quick whitted, send or fall off trying kind of gal!

I was not feeling well yesterday and spent most of the time taking photo's and trying not to vomit. I did manage to climb two routes and back off of two routes, one of which was likely 5.9!

Nathan, Cheri, and Christine are headed to Germany. Heather and I are taking a few days to play tourist in Italy. We'll take the overnight ferry to Ancona and then the train to Rome. We should return to Split after the weekend for a few more days of climbing before heading north to Frankfurt, Germany.

Our trip has been increadable. Both Heather and I are super motivated to return home and start working on another limestone Sector i've had on the shelf; this one is located in the Lemhi Range of Idaho. A beautiful north facing long wall of blue/grey limestone! We've climbed enough sharp limestone to realize that you can either complain about it, or just climb it. I hope it stops raining in Idaho by the time we arrive later next week.

We can't wait for Ranch Dressing and Mountain Dew and chips and salsa and hamburgers from The Backyard and climbing with our friends and 4th of July with the family...