A summer at home

I just got home from a short 10 day trip to Washington and Northern Idaho. The first half of the trip Heather and I spent visiting her family, eating good food in Seattle and lounging on the back deck with my Father-in-Law who recently had a series of heart related surgeries. After some good quality time with family we headed to the small town of Riggins in Northern Idaho where we met up with some close friends from home in Eastern Idaho. Riggins offers a great limestone area high in the Seven Devils Mountains; a superb place to beat the summer heat! A cold front moved in and we were blessed with daytime highs in the mid 40's... perfect for climbing difficult limestone routes!

I climbed my new favorite route at the Projects Sector called So Thin, So Fat. This line is brilliant 70ft line of difficult crimps, side-pulls, and big moves on a gently overhung chunk of limestone in the midst of a dense pine forest. Beautiful!

The fat section of So Thin, So Fat 5.13+

the thin section of So Thin, So Fat

Closer to home, I've been developing a new Sector called the Pines in Palisades Creek. This crag requires a nice 2 mile hike up a well traveled and scenic trail to reach the cave.

The Bandwagon (project)

My wife, Heather working on my favorite line at "The Pines" i called Ages of You 5.13a

The weather for most of the summer here in Idaho has been on the mild side which allowed me to spend a lot of time establishing new boulder problems in the Lower Teton River Canyon below the old Teton Dam Site. All said and done, 60+ new boulder problems up to V9 in difficulty were established. Two of my favorite problems were The Chambermaid V8 and Bela Lugosi V6

My friend Joe Crane working on The Chambermaid V8

Bela Lugosi

It's been a great summer here in Idaho and i am looking forward to the change of seasons. A big thanks to Mammut for all of the support and great gear!

Dean Lords

"Don't Call it a Comeback!"

Starting to let myself dream big again!

Our new Estes friend. Welcome guest, until he ripped the door off our shed at 3am.

Well...I guess you could call it a comeback. Anyone who has ever had a broken bone casted knows how quickly and severely muscle atrophy sets in, and with my broken L1 and L2 I was in a full body brace for nearly three months! Needless to say, my "climb" back towards fitness is a steep one.

But fortunately, it looks like all the silly water aerobics, walks, and theraband rehab I did while I was injured has paid off. I've been able to climb for the last two weeks. Mostly toproping in the gym, but a few days outside as well. It'll take a while to get any real power back, but after barely managing to climb 5.10 on my first day, I'm now getting up easy 5.12s pretty consistently. I even shocked everyone, especially myself, by managing to toprope a .13a at the local crag yesterday!

It feels so great to be pushing myself, and climbing again! Psyched for some trips this fall, maybe the Valley with Whit, and Patagonia this winter. Thanks again to everyone for their kind notes and calls, and especially all the folks that have been letting me mooch topropes the last two weeks! I hope to return the favor soon.

Below is a link to a little bouldering video from last winter's Patagonia trip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHLsK10Ni6Y

Sorry for the low quality, but it was a fun learning process and I hope to improve my editing and filming skills in the future. Brian Gillmore deserves most of the credit for breaking out the camera while we were out climbing. Now that HD cameras are getting so compact, I think the possibilities for creating some truly cool videos from the alpine world, without a giant film crew in tow, is becoming reality.

Hope you're all having a great summer!
Cheers,
JW

Bozeman Boulders

Check out the Bozeman Boulder initiative blog......a great community effort to bring bouldering to everyone. My business Stronghold Fabrication is building them. Lots of thanks to Mammut for donating raffle items that helped us raise the money to build the last two.

http://bozemanboulders.blogspot.com/

Whit Magro

The Home Stretch

We had been driving almost straight thru two nights and a day with a few hours sleep in the back of the van each night. Early Wednesday morning I crawled out of the bed in the back of the van and started driving, 15 minutes later I heard a loud WHACK and saw four hooves flying in my peripheral vision...as these audible and visual sensory experiences slowly crept thru the foggy layers of my time travel warped brain I started to realize that I had just crushed some poor creature. I hadn't seen a thing nor hardly felt the impact, but the very real smoke pouring out from the hood informed me that I had also crushed the radiator and we were screwed.

Out of cell phone service range in the middle of nowhere upper Michigan....SCREWED! I ran down the road a mile to the nearest phone and called a wrecker who towed us to a tiny dodge dealership in a town with one gas station/store and the dealership and maybe 500 residents. They informed me that it was gonna be at least two or three days until they could get the right radiator for the Sprinter. So for the past few days we have been hanging out on lake superior waiting and exploring the small towns in a rental car from the dealership.

Fortunately, before all of this we had a wonderful week in the Canadian Rockies exploring Lake Louise and Banff National Park. I had heard of a 5.14R trad route called "The Path" that Sonnie Trotter established at Lake Louise a few years ago and I was super stoked to be in one place long enough to sink my teeth into a project as exciting as that.

Right in front of the crag at the back of Lake Lousie, Jovial and the boys out on the silt flats.
After one day of sampling some of the classics I then climbed around to the right of this face to set up a top rope on the 130ft face where lies "The Path". It goes off of a ledge at 60 ft up through the yellow streaks, over the two roofs then the black streaks and straight up to where you see me at the anchor.



Bodhi playing with fire.
Shoeing up with a brand new pair of Samurai's for one last top rope burn before trying to lead it. I must admit I had a hard time with my mind on this route. It had been a long time since I'd tried anything this spicy and the night before I was going to lead it I found myself laying in bed with my heart rate going a little too rapidly as I went thru the moves and gear placements in my head. The gear is mostly good...I put three pieces in a horizontal at the ledge as an anchor. The picture below shows the first crux climbing above the ledge, you do a fairly hard balancy move to get the horizontal 8 feet above my head where you get the first piece. If you fell you'd have to jump out a bit to clear the ledge and it would be kinda violent when you came into the wall. The piece you get is good but there are little crumblies and dust in the crack which made me worry a bit about the cam lobes skating out.

You then do another crux to gain the slot just below my left foot in the above photo. Then some slightly easier moves up to the bigger roof above my head where I put two small cams in another horizontal that also had some crumblies in it.
After one more crux past a bomber alien a body length below my feet in the above photo you get a decent shake out and a good micro cam before a hard three move boulder problem going left with this nasty crossover move to a little pencil edge. I barely managed sticking it poorly, was able to readjust and hit the better edge to the left (below).

You then run it out on easier but still pumpy steep moves for 20 feet until another micro cam just before the anchor. I felt super lucky to have sent this scary route on my first lead attempt...big anxiety relief... and we were due to start driving back to Vermont and didn't want to have to make my family wait around another day if I hadn't sent. I believe this is the 4th ascent of this rad route. Overall one of the best pitches of rock climbing I've done!

Now back to New England and the undone projects waiting for me there.

cheers

Peter Kamitses

Round the country in 49 days

My family and I are nearing the end of a giant road trip for our Bitters and Tonics business. Though it has been a pretty busy schedule of work it has been nice to get some good cragging along the way and work routesetting at climbing gyms along the west coast when we were stuck in cities. We started in Denver and have been to Los Angeles and up the whole west coast. We have one more day of work here in Seattle then its off to the Canadian Rockies for straight unadulterated rock climbing as we work our way back to Vermont.

I suffered a partial finger pulley/ligament tear in my left ring finger in the end of March, so my spring was pretty much a bust. I did have a great time down at the New River Rendezvous with Dean and Doug...did some easy cragging....a little too much partying and a great projecting and redpointing clinic for some super psyched folks.

My finger is doing pretty well and I have managed a few 5.13 redpoints recently and am in decent shape. I can't wait for Canada!!!!

Here are some shots from our journey thus far.

Cragging in Boulder Canyon, a great 12a arete climb
A great day of bouldering at a new area on Mt Evans outside of Boulder called Lincoln Lake. Got to catch up with old friends Dave Graham, Luke Parady and Chad Greedy, TONS of potential for new problems, we all pout up first ascents that day.
Camping in Rifle with my wife and two sons who were the fire masters. In the background our new Urban Moonshine mobile the monster Sprinter Van that we are living in.
My older son Bodhi toproping in Rifle in the Mammut minifant shoes...awesome adjustable kids climbing shoe with a heal strap that tightens to keep their toes in the front of the shoe.
Bodhi taking the monster swing off the anchor of Pumporama at the arsenal in Rifle.
All smiles after initial worries.
Exploring the Big Sur coastline between LA and SF.
A day of cragging at Mickeys Beach just north of SF, awesome location right above the tidepools. Sporting the new Togir light harness, super comfy and supportive, the high performance Samurai rock shoes and the element key lock draw sets with the indicator slings....great sport climibing draw.
Also wanted to send best wishes and healing vibes to Josh Wharton. Good thing he's such a tough hombre, gonna bounce back stronger than ever no doubt!

Enjoy the rest of summer and I'll post again after Canada.

cheers

Peter Kamitses

Peter Kamitses