Chasing Shade

I spent a few days at the City of Rocks, Idaho with Heather and a few friends. We climbed a lot of fun crack routes and i taught my friend Jennilyn the art of jamming. The highlight of the trip was Jennilyn's first gear lead on one of my favorite City routes, Heartbreaker 5.10d. She lead the route in fine style. Given the fact that Jennilyn's hardest sport redpoint is 5.11a and only a handful of sport lead climbs on routes 5.10 and under, her one hang ascent of Heartbreaker was motivating to say the least!

Heather Lords on the classic jam crack, Fred Rasmussen

Jennilyn jammin' Heartbreaker 5.10d

Hearbreaker 5.10d

Dean Lords - East Idaho

Rifle, Colorado

We're in Rifle, the land of beta-intensive limestone sport climbing, and having a blast. Although the climbing here is incredibly tricky, it's also a ton of fun and we are tuning up for our fall trip to Kalymnos, Greece! We've been somewhat surprised at the lack of road-tripping climbers here - the majority of people we run into are from various parts of Colorado that are not too distant. However, for limestone sport climbing, Rifle is hard to beat...and it's a great destination in the summer as the canyon has good morning shade and comfortable camping. Enjoy!

The local landscape down below the canyon.


The Anti-Phil wall. This is some of the best stone in the canyon.


The wildflowers around here are amazing.


If you look really closely, you can see a climber on "Hang 'em Higher" (5.12c) at the Project Wall.


Our 3-year-old daughter enjoying the morning shade at the Project Wall.


A climber redpoints "The Path" (5.13c) at The Arsenal.




We participated in the annual Rifle clean-up day and party. It was fun to network with the locals and give something back to an area we've enjoyed. Here's a bunch of workers building a new bridge across the creek beside the Project Wall. That's cold water!!!


The party tent in the campground. There were lots of raffle prizes and the locals raised over $600 for bolt replacement in the park. Nice job!


On a completely unrelated note, this is a photo of a route I redpointed before leaving for Rifle. It's a direct start to the Squamish "headpoint" testpiece Sixty-Nine (5.13b). I worked it last summer and again for about 3 weeks this summer before sending. The direct start (5.13c) links the opening moves of the route Leviticus with the main crack on Sixty-Nine via a very thin and bouldery seam. This wall holds some of Squamish best and hardest single pitch gear climbs, but these are typically approached using a "headpoint" style. None have received serious on-sight attempts...yet. Click on the image for a larger picture.


Marc Bourdon - Squamish, BC

Canyoneering Neon, Escalante

This last weekend I was able to spend some time down in Southern Utah. Although Escalante is one of the most remote and desolate places in Utah, it is also one of the most beautiful. I was given the invite to join some friends on a canyoneering trip to do Neon canyon which is in the Egypt area of Escalante. I have wanted to do this canyon ever since I got into canyoneering. This slot canyon has multiple raps and a lot of swimming through ice cold water even though it might be over 100 degrees up on the mesa. The climax and exit to this canyon is rappelling through the celling of a 80 foot high golden cathedral. By far one of the most aesthetic slot canyon I have ever seen. we spent two days down in Escalante and my only mistake was taking twice as much camera gear as needed for the four mile hike in.

Nick heading into the start of Neon.

It might not look all that cold, but it took my breath away.
peter on the last rap looking down through the celling.

Nick raping down into the Golden cathedral

Spending time in these remote places and being able to photograph them has been one of the best gifts I could have. Take the time to get out there and capture the wonders of our planet.
Steve Lloyd

Hello From Geneva

VACATION FROM VACATION: 10 DAYS IN GENEVA AFTER 45 IN SOUTHERN FRANCE/ BIG CHANGES FOR BALAZY-POO

PREPARING TO DIVE INTO THE FIREY DEPTHS OF VERDON GORGE IN JULY

As the summer’s been rolling by, I’ve been undergoing a pretty major metamorphosis. Most normal-lifey/ high-ambitiony  people might call it a “degeneration”. But just a few days ago, I decided that I would not return to Utah this fall; instead I will say to travel, climb, and write (wait, work?) full-time.

 

SUFFERING THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE FIREY DEPTHS OF VERDON GORGE IN JULY

Despite the fact that I’ve been in near paradise for the last six weeks, I’ve been processing all kinds of introspection –brought to me by many facets of Céüse life: the hike to and from the cliff (nearly an hour up if you take it nice ‘n’ slow), the intensity of the climbing… and to an extent, periods of relative loneliness –though I’ve been surrounded by people the entire time, it’s been a really transitive crowd of acquaintances and new friends. But, all told, it's been a great experience. OK.

 

ABOUT TO GO SKYDIVING WITH KEVIN

A few days ago, I decided to not return to Utah in the fall as I had previously planned. Though I’d always intended to go back at the end of August with my round-trip plane ticket, it struck me on the hike down from the crag that I wouldn’t be returning home. 

 

A number of logistical factors, I realized, have aligned to facilitate this prospect and, despite the fact that I will forsake many figments of my Utah: Fall ’09 life by not returning (work, weddings, fall season at Indian Creek, Zion, Yosemite), the opportunity to stay in Europe most certainly outweighs the details I sacrifice by not boarding my August 31^st Air India flight #127 FRA > ORD.

 

ABOUT TO JUMP OUT OF A PLANE: ARE YOU NERVOUS?

That said, I am attempting to experience a paradigm shift into vagabondness. It has to do with simple logistics like pace of climbing during the day and pace of climbing across a month. It is a mindset shift from Woo-hoo-fun! Land to Woah-this-is-going-to-be-my-life? Land. which is all good, but I feel like I'm the subject of my own experiment. I seem to like to stick myself into new and bizarre situations without much preparation.  

 

So far, though, I must say the summer as a whole has been great, trials and lulls included. I feel that, though Céüse is a soul-crunching gravity knob, it has nonetheless facilitated my near physical recovery from some grim life changes and, even though I don’t feel necessarily in “good shape”, I now feel that I’ve returned to a normal baseline of climbing fitness. (Though I definitely realize I will need more patience with this recuperation that I might have a few years ago.) 

THIS DONKEY THOUGHT HE WAS A SHEEP, TOP OF CEUSE 

Most of my time in July and August have been in Céüse, but I’ve also gotten to climb a few days in Orpierre and one hot-as-Hell day in Verdon Gorge. I even learned that just 13 km down the road from Céüse is Europe’s largest skydiving center. So I jumped out of a plane. What’s up. Also, my friend, Tye and I hiked to the top of Ceuse via the via feratta. Which was illegal. What’s up. 

Latok 1--Round Three!

I've been home for two weeks from my third trip in as many years to the north side of Latok 1. Unfortunately I don't have good news. This year the Karakorum had its biggest snow year since 1976, and snow conditions on the peak were terrible. Colin Haley, Dylan Johnson, and I climbed the right side of the North Face to reach the North Ridge just below 6000 meters. As soon as we hit the ridge we knew that our chances were slim, as there were unconsolidated house-sized snow mushrooms above us. After an interesting night out, with our tent perched on a double corniced ridge, we made a hasty retreat in the morning.

It's disappointing to have given so much time and effort to Latok without getting the proper conditions and weather for a decent attempt, but alpine climbing can be a fickle game. I'm certainly not the first person to be beaten back by Latok, as I know of at least 5 other climbers that have been on three expeditions to the peak. And there have been at least 35 unsuccessful expeditions to Latok in the last 40 years! Obviously it is not an easy mountain. Will I be back? I'm not sure. I wish I could say my obsession had run it's course, but I've never seen another peak that wrapped difficulty and beauty into such a perfect package. I don't think any climbers have been to Latok four times, maybe fourth time's the charm!

Hope you enjoy the photos. From top to bottom they are: Colin leading steep ice on Latok, Dylan and Colin on the lower North Face of Latok, and Latok at sunset during an acclimatization mission. I focused more on video this year, since I'm working on a film project with Chris Alstrin (The creator of Higher Ground and Luxury Liner), but you can also check out some cool photos over on Colin's blog (http://colinhaley.blogspot.com/). I want to thank Dean and Mike for their support on this project. I think it says a lot about Mammut's commitment to real-deal alpinism that they're willing to support a trip that obviously has a small chance of succeeding. Thanks guys!

Sawtooths-Mt. Heyburn/Stur Chimney

The Stur Chimney is a classic Sawtooth route that takes you to summit of Mt. Heyburn. Mt Heyburn is the spectacular peak that sits over the popular Redfish Lake outside of Stanley,Idaho.

Louis Stur, Jerry Fuller and Jim Ball made the first ascent in October 1958. Louis Stur found "pleasure in working with the stone, enjoying the landscapes and wildlife as much as the summit." In 1990, the American Alpine Journal remembered Louis Stur by commenting, "He wasn't a conqueror of mountains; his love for the mountains was too deep for that. Rather than tread upon them, he chose to climb among them." Having set his eyes on Mount Heyburn in the early days, he reflected "it's such an impressive, beautiful mountain that I thought it deserved a nice route," as if seeking to give the mountain something in return for its beauty.

Sawtooth Mountain Guides http://www.sawtoothguides.com/ gives it a 5.7 rating.....3 pitches....7 mile approach.......vertical gain 4000 feet.

Year round playground.

April 2009

Looking down on the Bench Lakes from the Silver Saddle.

Beautiful Stur Chimney

Blake Eagle enjoying time in the backyard!

Danny Irie...ohhh summit time!

Looking across and down on the Elephant's Perch.

Summit Mt. Heyburn 10,400

A swim in Redfish lake....then...cold beer and great food at the Redfish Lodge.

Blessings,

Danny Irie Walton