Rain and New Arrivals

Today we are sitting out our third day of rain in a row. ARGH! I'm exceedingly antsy to go out and climb. My skin is rock hard and I have fresh muscles to exhaust. There is only so much to do around the house and Internet is WEAK in town so there is not much to be gained from that. Ideally we'd be doing something cool like a safari or brai but those also require good weather.

Alan and Amna arrived a few days ago and Lyn, Paul, and Cam arrive tonight. Hopefully they'll bring us some good weather.

Our first day of rain wasn't too heavy and it was a scheduled rest day anyway. After going to town for groceries Becky and I decided to check out a little more of the property that is owned by the Strauss family (they own the house we're staying in). The coolest thing we found was some amazing rock art in one of the small roofs by a pretty little stream. We did a modest hike too and found some boulders. Nothing mind blowing but some potential for sure.

Hopefully sun tomorrow.

The Fighting Zebra

Peter, harnessing his inner Zebra on 'Springbok'...so good!

We returned to the Sassies' yesterday with several high class lines in mind. The 'Pinotage' boulder is perhaps the finest boulder in the developed Rocklands, certainly the best I've seen so far. It has a plethora of excellent warm-ups with friendly holds, several more difficult moderates of impeccable quality, a beautiful looking highball, and the boulder's namesake, which is one of my all-time favorites.

Its funny, each day we go go out I don't have much preference as to where we should go. This is a somewhat new sensation to me. Usually I have an agenda of sorts. Don't get me wrong, there are things here I really want to do, but I'm not feeling pressed for time. Its all new and its all fantastic. I'm sure that will change over time as I start to project a few things but for now, the Rocklands is my oyster and it is delicious.

Some post domino game artwork

Update

Our back porch

Well, we've gotten our hands on some crutches, courtesy of a kind women in the administration office. There were none available in the hospital but she had some at her home and is allowing us to borrow them. Hopefully this will make it easier for Becky to get around and still enjoy the magic of this place.

Another relatively minor health issue, I came down with a bad cold from all of the travel. I'm hoping I'm over the hump and I'm taking two days off to recover a bit. I'm afraid I'm going to infect the whole house though. There's not a lot of room to quarantine ones self here.

Sunrise out our kitchen window

After waking every morning well before sunrise for most of our first week, I think I'm adjusting to a normal sleeping pattern finally. This, combined with clearing sinuses will hopefully translate to some hard sends in the near future. Off to lunch now, cheap cheap!

From Heaven to Hell

There's no easy way to say it so I'll just state it bluntly, Becky seriously injured her knee today on our second day of climbing. She was trying another of the fantastic problems here, one that involved a slight dyno. She partially latched the hold but came loose and fell hard and awkwardly. Judging from her scream I expected to see a compound fracture. Fortunately that was not the case. Unfortunately, the doctor in town believes she partially tore her MCL. He did not have access to an X-ray or MRI but seemed very confident in his diagnosis. I'm not sure what we're going to do, all I know is that right now we're really upset and a bit bewildered.

We'll try an update everyone when we figure things out. Hopefully next time we'll have better news.

Publish Post

Heaven Is a Place On Earth

Well, we made it. It was a absurdly long journey. About 50 hours from the time we woke up to leave at 3:30am Monday morning (CA time) till the time we arrived at the Ernie house where we'll be staying for the next two months. I got about 8 hours sleep mixed in there somewhere, but I'm not sure. I made a little video about our journey but the connection here is prohibitively slow so I won't be able to share that for a while.

The destination was well worth the headaches. This place is unbelievable. If I weren't a climber, I'd still be in awe. Its a gorgeous place. Its as if Dr. Suess and Albert Bierstadt collaborated with God to make this wonderland come alive. As a climber, I'm having a hard time coming up with reasons for why this isn't the best bouldering area I've ever been to.

I'm thrilled to be here with great friends and I feel so lucky knowing that even more are on the way. For those of you who haven't been yet (Paul, Lyn, Randy, and Alan) you won't be disappointed.

I already miss my Turtle but I hear she recently posed for some advertising photos and may be able to pay my bills when I return...Good Dog!

To wrap it up, I'll leave you all with a photo of Becky on a great problem called 'Schwupp' from our first full day out at the boulders.

Anticipation

My upcoming trip to South Africa is easily the most eagerly anticipated trip of my life, climbing or otherwise. Its been over a year since I first started planning it, and more than three years since I first started day dreaming about making the journey.

Over the years I've often thought about following a regular training regimen for climbing, but a lack of discipline and my desire to spend my time on real stone has kept me from spending more than a week or two on any given program. Only with the Rocklands trip in mind, was I able to buckle down and spend six weeks on a Paul Barraza's training program. As a result, I feel like I'm in the best bouldering shape of my life and, right or wrong, I expect a payoff in the form of many coveted boulders.

My goals for this trip are pretty general at this point, but they are important. Most importantly I want to have a 'full' travel experience. I want new experiences, new faces, and unexpected things to cross my path. I want to see penguins, I want to learn something about South African history, and I want to eat white rhino like a great white hunter!

As far as climbing goals go...I want to climb a bunch of classics and I want to climb some harder stuff too. I'd really like to find a testpiece that will challenge me more than any boulder problem has before AND I'd like to climb it. A tall order, I know, but this may be a once in a lifetime experience so I want it all and more.

I'll do my best to update this blog when I can. There have been times in my life when I couldn't travel or climb as much as I'd have liked, during those times it was the climbing blogs of people like Sock Hands, Jamie Emerson, and others that kept me motivated for the times when I could. I'll do my best to pay it forward, as saying goes, for those of you who are stuck in a cube, broke, or injured and unable to travel this summer.

For those of you that have or will be making the pilgrimage this summer, I'll see you in Africa!

-Justin

Howl at the Moon

I went back to Burnside Lake this weekend to climb with the one and only Noah Kaufman. I was really psyched to do the project we'd tried at the end of my last day there. Here's the video of our little session.

The Wolf Pack from Princess on Vimeo.

Afterward we went back to Noah and Siemay's pad and watched an amazing movie, 'King of Kong'. I can't recommend this documentary enough. The film follows an esoteric group of characters obsessed with old school video games like Donkey Kong and Mrs. Pacman. Watch this movie.

On Day two of the weekend, I found myself at the Saddle with a posse from the Bay. It was absurd how many people were there. Both parking areas were beyond capacity and there were people parked on the road. I goofed off there a bit, not too motivated. We finally made it over to the Future boulder, which I hadn't seen before, and it looked really nice. I didn't have much time so I chucked myself at a few problems but to no avail. I'll have to go back sometime for a more concerted effort.

A final note. I leave for South Africa in one week, YESSSS!!!