apAdventures

It’s that time of year again to climb with our Pittsburgh buds at Hueco!  Similar to last year, we coordinated our trip over Thanksgiving…a blissful 2 full weeks with excellent temps, minimal crowds and plenty of strong psyche and sends.  Here is a re-cap in photos:

Sunset on our first day, North Mountain

Silas the plane

Paul still trying to perfect the handstand

…until one of the kids knock him down, wanting to play

Seb and Oren being goofy

Me sending a short yet powerful little v8 called Mystery Knobber early in the trip

Bucket bath!

Chillin’ in a Starbucks parking lot on a rest day

Ticking off a 4-star classic I’ve walked by a hundred times in the East Spur Maze and never touched, Slim Pickins, v5

Seb’s perch for a good read

Thumbs up for a Jingus Bells, v5 repeat

Our hero of the trip: Jen! Here she is sending Better Eat Your Wheaties, v8 after only a couple days of work. Awesome!!!!!!

On the same day immediately following Jen’s send of Wheaties Paul ups his game too and completes The Focus, v10

…and then another v10 for good measure, Dead Serious

The children too are having fun

Silas makes music out of a couple of sticks

Seb reads and Oren plays out yet another adventure with his yucca-stalk sword

An East Mountain tour and everyone sends! Starting with Jen’s flash of Ides of March, v6

…followed by my send of one of the more burly v4’s at Hueco, Tri Hard

…continued with Brian’s fast work of Julio and Me, v9

…and finished off with Paul’s tick of Sunshine, v11!

The grownups’ enthusiasm is apparently contagious

The four little rascals

LOVE these kind of days when everyone sends!

And now we can celebrate by indulging in our Thanksgiving feast

This year’s wholesomely homemade Thanksgiving menu: mushroom lentil mash with cranberry chutney, raw kale salad with root vegetables and maple-candied pecans, potatoes with arugula pesto, brussels sprouts with bacon, applesauce, pickled okra, a loaf of whole wheat seeded Barrio Bread from Don the Baker in Tucson, and a store-bought pumpkin pie. Ok make that 2 store-bought pumpkin pies. 😉

Now time for a West Mountain Tour. The infamous starry-eyed man pictograph

Cleanin’ up the classics: another 4-star v5 that I’d never done, Star Power

…and conveniently Paul also sends his adjacent line on the Star Power Roof, Unfinished Symphony, v10

A neat bird’s nest on the 100 Proof Roof

Jen sends her long-standing project from last season, Mexican Chicken, v6

And Brian adds Double Vision, v7 to his tick list

Silas and Oren on a “diving board” over a bathtub-sized Hueco

And for every climb and grin and send shown above there were two, three, four times more! We all had such a great trip. Paul, Silas, Ivan and I were definitely saddened to see our dear Pittsburgh friends drive east at the end of it all.

posted by ARR

“We force it.”

On more than one occasion I have used this response when asked about how we manage to climb with kids. My response is just as vague and open-ended as the question usually. Sure we’ve learned a few lessons and tricks along the way for keeping our children happy, rested, fed, safe, warm, etc. at the rocks. But for the most part, ‘forcing it’ has been our most common and successful course of action.

For Paul and I, giving up climbing is simply not an option (and I’m not even going to attempt to go into the ‘why’ of this statement cause we’d be here all day and then some). We will climb as long as we’re physically capable and that’s just the way it is. From our perspective, the choice is crystal clear: We’re either climbers or we’re not. We either finish this drive to the crag or we turn around and go home. We either haul our gear and kids to the rocks or we sit at the campsite all day. We either send this rock climb now or never. ‘Forcing it’ by our definition typically entails an extreme amount of patience, an outstanding ability to tune out distraction, a rock solid tolerance to withstand pure and utter misery, and just a smidge of silliness to make light of the worst possible situation imaginable. Lucky for us there are two of us, so when one falters the other can maintain course. No, we’re not superheros. We’re just two people that happen to be completely obsessed with climbing some rocks. And here’s a classic example of just that:

Paul sending Jewel Thief v10 on Mt. Lemmon a few weekends ago. Make sure your audio is on. 😉

Jewel Thief from Paul Vollmer on Vimeo.

Posted by arr

Costumes, pumpkin carving and good boulders to climb. What better way to spend a holiday?!

This year’s ideas: A crow and a crocodile. Thankfully these costumes were mostly hot glue and only a bit of hand-stiching. I’m afraid of what ideas they’ll come up with for next year. I really must get my sewing machine fixed!

Crow versus crocodile. Who do you suppose will win?

And to round out this party, me as Silas’ witch and Paul as Crocodile Dundee, Ivan’s crocodile wrestler

Good ‘ol Site 12 at Hueco

Pouring over their whole 5 pieces of candy each. (Shhh, they don’t yet know that other kids fill up pillowcases with the stuff on Halloween!)

(Silas starts school next year….they’ll know soon enough)

(and this mostly candy-free holiday will be no more) 😉

A “starry-eyed man” rock art replication and “a happy guy with crow eyes”

No open flames allowed at Hueco so we improvised with battery operated candles. To our delight not only did the candles flicker and actually look like real fire once inside the pumpkins, but it was so windy that day a candle never would have stayed lit anyway

At home sitting under a boulder and playing in the dirt

Paul testing out his post-surgery finger on Unfinished Symphony v10. So far so good!

No, not another dirt-eating episode – we’re well beyond that (thank goodness!) Just getting a little too cozy in the dirt while drooling and pushing around his trucks.

Silas finding more fall foliage. This time NOT poison ivy!

Me on the opening move of Nuns & Donkeys v6. Yeah muscles.

Cuteness

and more cuteness

As predicted back when we decided to spend an extra day at Joe’s Valley, we found ourselves having to hack a destination from the trip’s hit list due to limited time. Sorry Wild Basin, Colorado. We’ll visit you some other time.

Then we figured what the heck, why not hack another destination and spend a nice three whole days in Rocky Mountain National Park? After all, it is our trip and we made up the rules so we can modify them if we want, right? Right. See ya Clear Creek, Colorado – another destination for another day.

So now that we’ve got destination’s 8 and 9 out of the way, it’s time for the grand finale: Durango, Colorado. We’d heard of the great plethora of rock in Durango from fellow climbers. There’s even a bouldering guidebook for it. And we’ve always liked the town the few times we’ve driven through it on the way to Ouray and Telluride. We were excited for destination #10.

We arrived in Durango around 3pm on Friday. The protocol we’ve fallen into on this trip has been to arrive at the destination late in the day. We spend the remainder of the day scoping the climbs we had picked out from the guidebook and/or videos. This way, the next day could be spent just climbing, not hunting around for stuff or getting stuck at the first boulder we see that looks amazing.

Durango was a little different. I’m not sure what fire got under our butts that day (maybe the REALLY great cup of coffee we scored in Pagosa Springs?), but we literally drove into town, found the local climbing shop, bought the guidebook, drove to the boulders while flipping through it’s pages as fast as possible looking for good lines, parked and haphazardly packed up the kids and pads, speed-hiked the all-uphill 25 minute approach, threw the pads down and just started climbing any and everything we could get our hands on. As Paul summarized rather brilliantly on the dark hike out, “I felt like a dog, running around and pissing on everything!” (Note: For those that haven’t hung around Paul or I enough to hear the vulgarities start spewing while we’re climbing, to “piss” on a climb is a climber’s way of saying he or she “climbed it with ease.” Or as in, “that climb was piss-easy” meaning, “that climb was extremely easy.”)

Annnnyyyywaaaay, vulgarities aside, the boulders were fun. Really fun! We climbed the next day too, until threatening clouds rolled in and started to thunder, lightening and rain on us. From there we topped the day off with burgers and a brew in town and a visit to the Narrow Gauge Railway museum for the kids timed perfectly with the train’s arrival from Silverton. Good climbing, good food and beer and a no-kidding operating authentic steam engine all in the same day???!!! Durango is awesome!!!! This made for a stellar ending to a superbly stellar trip. Now back to Tucson.

We tried our best to shoot video of this trip. More so to capture the boys at their adorable ages than us and our earth-shattering sends. 😉 The climbing video probably sucks anyway since it’s mostly all from a tripod. We hope to put together a little summary post soon, video included. Stay tuned.

A beautiful vista approaching Pagosa Springs from the east

Me warming up on the Petrified Boulder at Sailing Hawks in Durango. Our warm-up lasted probably a total of 10 minutes…

…and then we were trying the adjacent v5, Petrified Prow, which Paul sent and I did not. I was basically flash-pumped the whole 2 hours we had to climb that night!

Cute boys

and cool boulders

Google ‘Durango bouldering’ and this climb will come up, Sunday Stroll v6. Paul flashed it. I worked out the moves but wasn’t able to get on it the following day on account of the rain. Excellent line.

These guys ran around just as much if not more than us adults, gathering leaves

and after closer inspection I realized that some of the pretty colorful leaves they were grabbing was poison ivy. Eek!

And thus we learned that the boys have their mama’s genes of poison ivy immunity, cause dad was the only one who broke out. Poor dad, good thing it’s the end of the trip!

Paul making quick work of Legacy of the Kid v9, send!

Durango landscape

Another excellent line, Last Tango in Durango v6. Same as above, Paul sent that first evening. I came close and then wasn’t able to return the following day on account of the rain.

The following day we warmed up and then tried this just as it started to rain, Something Wicked This Way Comes, v6. Static and sweet movement required.

Although I was bummed not to have gotten to try Sunday Stroll and Last Tango in Durango again, sending this baby was a nice little consolation prize. And since Paul had sent literally every problem he had tried upon arrival, including this one, we were off for burgers and brews downtown! Wooo!

posted by arr

Our next stop landed us in Rocky Mountain National Park, a place we’ve been a couple of times before. We love these boulders and every time we leave them question why we don’t live closer. This trip, like the few before had us barely scratching the surface of the numerous stellar lines. We scoped out some different areas this time: the Moraine Park Boulders, the Veritas Boulder and some undocumented blocks nearby, and another roadside boulder with the climb Donut Thief on it.

An unnamed climb at the Moraine Park Boulders

Look who joined us up in RMNP! Linda!

Paul giving Veritas v8 a try

Linda on an undocumented face climb sorta near the Veritas Boulder

Same boulder, different line

Paul getting a group spot for this excellent line on an adjacent block

Nature boy Silas with a wild rosehip…we think. He wasn’t allowed to eat it.

Ivan gives himself an applause for sending his own ‘kid’s boulder’

Paul sending what we think is a v6 variation of The Donut Thief v9

RMNP scenery

posted by arr

We’re in Colorado now and bouldered at another place we’ve never been, Poudre Canyon, just west of Ft. Collins. At this elevation the Aspen are in full color. Beautiful area, beautiful boulders and beautiful temps! Too bad we’re feeling subpar strength. As expected, the trip is starting to wear on us.

We primarily bouldered at the 420’s. We had really really REALLY wanted to get to Against Humanity, v7 at the Gandalf area, touted as the best of the grade in Poudre. But unfortunately it required a river crossing. We were hoping to wade or rock-hop but neither panned out safe enough to do with the kiddos. While scoping it for us, Paul slipped and fell in and dropped the guide book in the water. He came back to the van totally soaked and had a chat with a fly fisherman as to what the hell he was doing, haha. So sadly, until we come back equipped with waders, Against Humanity is untouchable. Which is probably a good thing (for me anyway), cause given how tired I feel it no doubt wouldn’t have gone well.

The Puffing Stone, v6

Staring down the crux move of Scuba Steve, v7. “Staring” was about as far as I got on this one. Never stuck it.

Paul had no trouble though. The topout of Scuba Steve, v7

Merlin, v7. Paul was having trouble with this one until I gave him the best beta in whole wide world. And then he sent next try. Check out his feet – heel hook with your right and then step on your heel to get the height to reach a left-hand crimp. I call it the heel hook stomp. Heel hook and then stomp on it! Too bad it didn’t work for me. The crimp was too far away and for the first time I can remember I actually used the excuse “out of my reach.” I’m sure there’s probably another (burlier) way to do it though. There always is.

Grrrr. That was MY beta!

Silas sending his own climb. This could perhaps be the cutest photo ever. Look at little Ivan spotting him!

And then Ivan picks one. Looks as though his could use some cleaning.

Atop his first ascent

While bouldering in Poudre we stayed up and over the Cameron Pass at the North Park KOA. All the campgrounds around the bouldering were closed for the season. And the closest open one was about the same distance down-canyon. The scenery at KOA was absolutely gorgeous and again we had the whole campground to ourselves. We just couldn’t pass it up.

Scarface, v6. I had hoped to be able to send this one before we left but the intensity of the trip is catching up with me. I need a good rest.

Paul sent it though, a couple of times…

…cause it was just that good.

Paul ticks Tilt, v7, just barely. He too needs a rest day or two…or three.

Bye bye Poudre. On to the next destination.

posted by arr

And here we have Triassic, just down the road from Joe’s. This place is the definition of “kid in a candy store.” There are so many boulders here we couldn’t decide where to start! Too bad we only had a day.

Sooooo many boulders. Sooooo many lines. Check this one out – of the hundreds of lines documented in our guide, this was one stellar line of many that was not!

Warming up the Daisy Boulder in the Land of a Thousand Boulders

Silas playing imaginary checkers with his imaginary pet, Water Dog…(who followed us home from the Water Dog Wall boulders at Hueco Tanks about a year ago and has been our constant companion ever since)

The Gravity Boulder, which hosts…

…The Good, v4,

…The Bad, v5

…and The Ugly, v6. And yes, that is a pile of mud that this enormous boulder is balanced on. I tapped the mud with my finger for some sort of conviction that this was safe. The mud felt like rock.

The boys, wild as ever and in desperate need of a rest day. Do everyone else’s kids spend more energy the more tired they get, or is it just our’s? As Paul likes to say “it seems so against a human being’s primal instinct for survival!”

The kids aren’t the only ones that need a rest. Finishing the day off with some Bacardi Silver, v4

posted by arr

The fourth spot on our hit list is Joe’s Valley. After now having climbed there for the first time, I find it near-sacrilege that we’ve lived in the west for over a decade (with the majority of that time bouldering exclusively) and never been. It’s awesome!

We arrived late day and spent the early evening driving around, jumping out of the van and running up to the boulders we’d picked out from the guide and/or videos. Conveniently, most were right near the road so it was easy to scope everything and decide which to attack the following day. As usual we had something like 8 different areas we wanted to squeeze into one day (and we typically average 4 per day…and that’s only if they’re fairly close to one another).

The following day we of course got sucked into some goodies that took longer than planned to send. One in particular that I DIDN’T send after sacrificing two (or was that THREE??!!!) precious hours on, Kill By Number, V5. And then on our way to our planned climbs we’d of course see something else that we’d want to get on. And then the more we looked at the guide the more we wanted to get on too. So we pretty much finished up our one “Joe’s Day” with even more climbs on our wish list than when we started.

But only one climb in particular stood out that was enough to make us extend our Joe’s Valley stay another day; extending it another day such that we’re going to have no choice but to eliminate one of our other destinations later in the trip. The climb was just THAT GOOD: Vertical Ice, v6.

Early morning at our campsite at the Joe’s Valley reservoir. We were the only campers there. Beloved solitude once again.

Welcome to Joe’s Valley. Warming up at the Riverside boulders in the Left Fork.

Paul ticks off Kelly’s Arete, v5 at Riverside. One of those “not in the game plan” problems.

..and then ticks off Big Joe, v7 across the road. Another “not in the game plan” climb. See how easily we get off track? So many good boulders to climb!

Ok, so this one was on the original hit list: The classic Wills of Fire, v6. I’m going to brag about Paul just a tad here. The prior weekend’s state-wide torrential downpour pretty much obliterated Joe’s Valley. The canyon hillsides were mudslides. The edges of the road washed away in a few spots. And unfortunately, a lot of the boulders were covered in mud and sand. This one included. I took one look at it and it’s already high and slopey topout and immediately declined even attempting it. Paul however wasn’t phased. He climbed right up, sandy slopey high topout and all.

Moving on down the Left Fork to the Mine Cart boulders

My first nemesis of the trip: Kill By Number, V5. This is the thing we spent waaaay tooo long at as I fell off the grovely heel-hooky slopey topout at least a half-dozen times. Hey?! I’m a Hueco climber! I need actual topout holds okay?! (This move shown here in the pic was rad, btw)

Back at camp, where the decision has been made to spend another day just so we can climb the problem Vertical Ice, v6 since we couldn’t fit it in today

The next morning near the approach to Vertical Ice. Now, this climb wasn’t it our book. It’s a climb I saw on uTube that I just had to check out and I was able to gather enough clues on the web to get us there. It’s located way up the Right Fork, way beyond all the other areas. So far up the canyon that it actually snowed on us while we were there. Here is where we parked.

And here we are hiking in

Or shall I say, up?

A handful of boulders on the approach make for a nice warm-up

Paul snags a send of Baldwin Bash, v7, another climb I saw on uTube

And there it is, the Vertical Ice boulder. Was I not kidding that this is a beauty of a climb?!

The opening moves of Vertical Ice, v6. The striking line, the fall colors, the little snowflakes in the air, can this day be any more perfect?

Oh yes it can. My send of Vertical Ice, v6

Fueled with motivation from the morning’s alpine feats, we decide to squeeze in a few more that day before saying good bye to Joe’s. We first made a quick stop at Pimper’s Paradise, v5. The boulder was on a hillside so steep though it wasn’t very kid friendly so Paul sent first try, I tried it maybe twice and then we moved on to the Buoux Area. Paul shown here atop the four-star Buoux Problem, v3

…followed by me.

And then The Bowling Ball, v4 to finish it off

We’ll be back Joe’s Valley!

posted by arr

Our early evening arrival

Campsite for the night right next to the boulders and not another soul around for miles. Life just doesn’t get any better than this

Usually this is a dry lakebed. Not today.

The kids were infatuated with the lake. They spent the entire evening throwing rocks into it. I can just imagine all their little rocks sitting out there atop the white sand long after the lakebed dries back up.

Did I forget to mention this place is absolutely beautiful

Good morning boulders

Hello Red Monster

Good morning Cow. Now let’s climb already!!!!

Me warming up on The Cow boulder

Silas sends

Paul’s turn on The Cow, a v3 line

Now it’s time to get serious. This is the other side of the Red Monster, where all the climbs are.

Paul sending the mega classic Ju, v7. I too tried this one but only half-heartedly. With a sore back, high crux and slabby topout I wussed out and moved on.

Atop the Red Monster after his send. Yeah! First big send since his finger surgery!!! Woohoo!

All day we found ourselves saying that the holds here at Ibex aren’t quite crimps, aren’t quite slopers and aren’t quite jugs….they’re something in between all three of those things. And they took a while to feel comfortable on. This is me sending an unnamed v5 on the Warm-Up Wall. A bitty little climb that sure packs a punch.

Paul giving Meat and Potatoes, v8 a try. Too hard for today.

I find a climb that’s suits me perfect for today, Tranced Out and Dreamin, v6, with the first move being the crux. And may I just point out, I stuck this hard first move before Paul! (my short moment of glory, thank you)

…and I send it!

Silas atop yet another fine Ibex block

And before calling it a day we quickly run up some easys on The Lone Boulder as another Utah rainstorm blows in

posted by arr

A number of factors conspired against us when it came to destination #2: Zion National Park, Utah. My appointment with the chiropractor the afternoon/evening prior meant heading out of Flagstaff way later than planned. And we weren’t in the mood to drive late into the night. So instead we opted to stop at Jacob Lake, AZ just outside the entrance to the north rim of the Grand Canyon. Then if we felt like it we’d head to Zion in the morning for a quick bouldering session and then on to destination #3.

Well, we didn’t feel like it. Plus it looked like it was going to storm, everywhere, which it did, all day, across all of Utah. So we instead spent the day leisurely making our way toward destination #3, amidst glorious rain and beautiful rainbows and an entertaining group of mountain bikers at a gas station having just ridden all morning and were now stuffing their faces with gas station pizza, nachos, cinnabons, soda, corndogs, you name it. “Look at those boys eating all that junkfood!” Silas says between giggles as he gawks out the van window at them.

Our campsite at Jacob Lake. Nice little campground if you’re ever passing through.

Happy boys

posted by arr