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"The Shampoo Squeeze"

If you know me well at all, you know that I hate my birthday. I'm not so fond of the whole aging thing. I'm particularly concerned with how aging will negatively affect my climbing.

Bearing this in mind I thought maybe if I went bouldering with a bunch of old dudes I'd feel better about myself. It sort of worked until Noah pointed out the inverse relationship between the respective ages of the climbers present and their climbing abilities. Bugger, this only reaffirmed my fears.

Despite the looming cloud of misery I dragged around all day I managed to have a good time and climb a few problems. I even snagged a first ascent! The legendary Dave Hatchett was kind enough to show me around Sugar Pine 3, where he has put in a ton of work cleaning and climbing new lines. At the end of the day he took us over to one he'd tried the previous year but never finished, and after a few attempts I got to the top. Dave and Noah both followed suit soon after. I called the problem the "The Shampoo Squeeze" (there a story behind it) and it was the last thing I climbed in my twenties.

Two other climbing highlights included Charlie Barrett's "Space Balls" and Joel Zerr's "Freeloader".

Freeloader from Princess on Vimeo.

Serpentine

Here's another iphone video, this time from Becky. We spent a week in Mammoth early last month. I only climbed two days though, the bugs sucked the motivation right out of me.

Way Lake 2010 from Becky Trafecanty on Vimeo.

Dog Days

It is officially summer and I'm not so psyched on the weather, the driving, or pretty much anything other than chilling out. Actually, I'm pretty happy with my new iphone! Check out the video I shot with it. Pretty damn good quality for fucking phone!

Mosquito Season from Princess on Vimeo.

Victory!!!

INIESTA!!

Not In Colorado Anymore

On the way up to the Hallett Boulder, Melissa Strong's photo.

Work and Climb

The theme for the past few weeks has been 'no rest for the wicked'. This is a good thing. I've been occupied with climbing, hiking, Adam's version of cross-fit (tree work) and not much else. The only downside is how tired I've been in the evenings (and mornings) as a result. I've even fallen asleep while talking to Becky on video chat.

Just about every climber I talked to about tree work warned me of the debilitating fatigue I'd suffer from. They all said every climber that does construction or some other type of manual labor for a living is always too tired to climb. In response I've tried to keep a positive outlook by thinking of all the burly climbers that manage to make the combination work, guys like Jesse Bonin, Adam Strong, and Ramon Julian Puigblanque.

Though the fatigue is definitely there, I feel like my body has adapted pretty well and I've managed to get up a couple of really cool boulder problems. This Wednesday was a perfect example of a very exhausting, but satisfying day. Woke up at 7am, at work by 8am. Work ended a little early around 3pm so I headed back to the house to run Turtle. Bolted from there to the grocery store for food and then drove up to the Rocky Mountain National Park to meet up with my friend Herm. Finally, we headed up the trail to Chaos Canyon around 5:45pm (approximately 1,500' elevation gain). Arrived to the 'Green 45' boulder in Chaos to find some cold dry conditions. Barely managed to warm-up and snuck in an ascent of an outstanding boulder problem called "Wildcat" before heading back down to the cars after 8pm. Got back to the house around 9:20pm, which left me just enough time to eat and video chat with Becky briefly before going to bed.

Its a good feeling being tired for the reasons that I'm tired.

I think I could get used to this lifestyle.

Brief Update for Estes Park

The weather here has been rapidly improving for climbing (today's freakish mid-day cold spell aside). I've managed to do most of the early season problems on my list now, and I'm basically chomping at the bit to get up to Chaos Canyon. Unfortunately there is still a ton of snow up there and it will take a lot of work and sunshine to get things climbable.

No new media on my part, but fortunately Becky was nice enough to put together a little video of my ascent of "Shadow Warrior" in Yosemite a few weeks ago.

Shadow Warrior (V12) from Becky Trafecanty on Vimeo.