« December 2005 | Main | February 2006 »
January 30, 2006
This One's On Me
It's been a while since I've climbed with a very very *very* bad hangover. Well, today was that day. Another weekend at Hueco. Another stellar tour in the backcountry. High energy, crazy motivation, overloads of fun, and another GREAT group of new friends. Some big sends, some not-so-big sends, and some OHMYGOD-OH-SO-CLOSE sends that raised cheers loud enough to be heard in El Paso. The fun overload continued after the tour was done and carried us on over to the infamous climber's fav restaurant, El Rancho Escondito. What do you get when you combine a psyched & frenzied crew of lightweight dirtbag climbers with pitcher after pitcher of margaritas after a long and exhausting day of "sick dude, suck it in, breathe, keep it tight, sweeeet, awe yeah, launch for it, c'mon!!, send this!!!!, YYYEEEESSSS!!! NOOOOOO!!!! Niiice"? Four straight hours of loud, obnoxious rib-splitting laughter.....and a hangover the next day that puts my college party years to shame. Work hard, play hard, celebrate hard. Livin' the good life.
Posted by April at 12:15 AM | Comments (8)
January 24, 2006
Mid-Winter's Eve
...or shall I say Mid-Summer's Eve? There were clouds over Tucson this morning. Clouds, glorious clouds. Stepping out of work, I breathed in the oh-so-yummy smell of humidity. Clouds in Tucson bring humidity...just a teensy bit of humidity, but enough to notice the smell of it in this east-coaster's nose. The temps are extremely mild tonight for this time of year. It's been a mild winter all around, with not much rain. Hopefully these clouds hold the rain.
Paul and I decide to go for a nice long slow-paced run this evening in these pleasant temps. I wear shorts and a long sleeve t-shirt and wish I wore a short sleeve t-shirt. Dipping down into the washes, I run through warm pockets of air. The smell of barbequing is everywhere. People are relaxing in their backyards in front of the fire. Is this summer? No, this is Tucson.
Posted by April at 08:49 PM | Comments (0)
January 15, 2006
Road To Revenge
My road to recovery is really my road to revenge against the boulder problem Dark Age. I walked by it today, exactly 1 month since I blew my ring finger out while linking a crucial section of it. Today I only looked. I'm staying low key, listening to the D.R.E, not climbing that is... Over the las few months in 2005 I had only tried the moves and made some progress but in December I was feeling really good, linking sections and doing moves much easier than ever. Rather than setting little segments as my goal, my goal became sending the line. Now, I've got this unchecked box on my to-do list, a nagging feeling in the back of my mind reminding me daily of unfinished business. I guess in a way I've learned to feed off of this feeling: Wake up, pack two lunches, go to work. Eat the second lunch in the late afternoon so as soon as I get home I can run, do crunches, the "circus ab" routine, leg lifts, pull-ups (on jugs), push-ups, wrist curls and of course, long trail runs in the desert! When I first got injured I thought, man, I'm going to have a lot of free time to get stuff done. Instead, I've got plenty of time to plot my revenge against the boulder problem that spit me off when climbing at my peak.
April and I returned to Hueco this weekend. It was nice being back but still torture for me, not climbing. I took out a tour on Saturday to a variety of places on E. Mt. and E. Spur. Sunday, I did a lot of push-ups and sit-ups. ha ha. April did pretty darn good for being away from Hueco for such a long time. Saturday, she made some strong attempts at Uncut Yogi V6, El Burro V3/V10?, and Smokin' Sausage V4. Sunday she almost sent Donkey Head V4 and made several of the moves on Winking Jesus V7. As we left Hueco I was thinking, "Wow, how is she staying so strong?" But, then I remembered that she has been doing hangboard, campusing, woodying by her lonesome, and running with me very consistently over the last month. Its been nice, we've kept each other well motivated.
Do you ever crave a nice juicy burger for breakfast?
Do you ever crave a All-American beef patty when going out for Mexican food?
Do you ever crave a quarter pounder with a couple donuts?
I don't. And I don't plan on eating here...
Deming, New Mexico.
Posted by Paul at 10:18 PM | Comments (6)
January 08, 2006
Burned Beautiful
This weekend Paul, the dogs (Morgan and Senga) and I went for a trail run up near the summit of Mt. Lemmon. Our friend Courtney showed us this really beautiful (and really hard!) loop back in the fall and we decided to tackle it a second time. The loop involves many link-ups that take you on the Aspen Trail, Marshall Gulch Trail, to the summit of Mt. Lemmon, down next to the ski slopes, through the mountain town of Summerhaven and back down to where the Butterfly trailhead parking lot is (via some "Fern-something" trail, I can't remember the name). All in all, somewhere around 10 miles we figure. I'd say about 25% of this particular loop runs us straight through where the Aspen Fire of 2003 originated. So yes, some areas are burned to a crisp. Strangely enough though, my most favorite parts of the run are through the burned sections. The sections where the only thing left standing on a steep slope are charred sticks of trees, pitch-black figures against the cloudless blue sky. The ground, a blowing field of tall brown grass. Grass which wouldn't typically grow in a dense pine forest, but is thriving now, given the loss of shade and nourishing sunlight. The view, down the mountain to the desert flats below, is incredible. No pesky trees blocking my line of sight. With every step, I can see for miles. No having to wait until the next "look-out" spot to take in the view. Paul even pointed out these distinctive double peaks we usually see when driving east to Hueco...which are part of the Chiricahua National Forest...about 2 hours away. (we jokingly refer to these as the "nipple tips", haha, - I have no idea what they're really called). And finally (I guess this is due to my being a rock climber), as I'm trotting along, I'm amazed at how much ROCK I see everywhere. Rock that was hidden by the forest, or hidden in the dirt, has now been exposed. I realize I'm actually running on giant slabs of rock, where the earth has burned away. Being from the east, where trees and vegetation nearly smother you it's so dense, I'm really amazed at how beautiful a forest completely absent of the color green can be.
Posted by April at 10:19 PM | Comments (1)
January 03, 2006
Trail Running 2006
After a 22 hour traveling epic from NY back to Tucson, we needed to stretch our legs...
Posted by Paul at 08:24 PM | Comments (0)
Family Adventures
This year's Christmas and New Years was spent with April's family and friends in Marathon, NY.
We couldn't have asked for a better trip:
* Watching Joel, Holly and KT show off their stuff snowboarding on the backyard rail and jump
* Snowboarding at Greek Peak with the fam
* More snowboarding at Greek Peak
* More snowboarding at Greek Peak with Paul's new snowpants
* More snowboarding at Greek Peak with Paul's new snowboard boots
* And also, more snowboarding
* Spending time with baby Carley (our neice)
* Meeting awesome new friends, Dale and Tans here visiting from New Zealand (COME VISIT US IN AZ!)
* Chillin'with April's lifelong friend Jenna, meeting Kate, and laughing out asses off to the point of tears in Applebees all night (our apologies to all those within earshot...yeah, we were kinda loud)(COME VISIT US IN AZ!)
* Firewood stacking - good & wholesome backwoods hard work. Awe yeah
* Crackling woodfire in the stove
* Snowy, icy country roads
* Sledding down the driveway
* The smell of a REAL Christmas tree in the house and a homemade blueberry pie in the oven
* Biscuits and gravy
* Pumpkin soup
* Winter walks in the snow
* And best of all, a house packed full of dear family and friends on Christmas day: Mom, Dad, Michelle, Tom, Carley, Joel, Holly, Joe, KT, Peggy, Sonny, Dale, Tans and the 5 dogs, Copper, Dixie, Layla, Hazel and Achilles. It's times like these that really make us miss the east and our awesome families.
Posted by Paul at 08:11 PM | Comments (0)