Just under one month remains before Graham goes in for his double knee arthroscopy in Victoria to mend his pesky menisci. He'll be off his feet for about two weeks, and not back in full climbing form for at least 3 months. It will be very difficult to refrain from pushing it too hard during the healing process, but on the flip side, there are no limits on pushing it beforehand! This has sparked strong motivation to make the most of spring climbing - in a time of freshness and new beginnings (in between the rain days!)
From February 7-16 we travelled to Red Rocks, Nevada, for a climbing adventure with these beautiful people:
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Dan, Emrys, Yannick, Kirsten, Allison, Nicole and us.
"WE WENT TO LAS VEGAS... to be bums on rocks?" |
While we had to accept the unexpected twists of 9 hour flight-delays (thanks for the $8 voucher Allegiant...), strange tummy bugs (I will not expand), and no coffee pot (we remedied this), we also had seven glorious days of climbing. We spent most of our days sport climbing in the sun, with the exception of an adventurous multi-pitch day on "Dream of Wild Turkeys" (moonlight rapelling!).
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| Dan and I at the top of pitch 7, Dream of Wild Turkeys |
Red Rocks is a gorgeous place, with so much climbing that we could have spent weeks there. The rock is a gorgeous sandy red, and the desertscapes are beautiful. Here are a few of the photo highlights of the trip.
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| Day 1 sunset in Red Rock canyon |
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| Nicole and Dan being snazzy |
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| Delicate Kirsten [photo cred: the Emrys cam] |
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| Nicole and a sunbeam |
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| Emrys on Geometric Progression (5.12b) |
We could hardly believe how beautiful each day was.
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Graham climbing
The Gift (5.12d)
[photo cred: the Emrys cam] |
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Yannick climbing
Fear and Loathing (5.12a) |
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Kim climbing
Where Egos Dare (5.12a)
[photo cred: the Emrys cam] |
There were some very cool climbs that called for superstar moves as well, particularly at Trophy Wall...
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| Graham resting, Dan doing a superstar, and Yannick flying! |
Graham made some awesome progress on Monster Skank (5.13b). A bit more time and it probably would have gone.
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| Gearing up for Monster Skank |
All in all it was an awesome trip, and we can't wait to go again.
Back in Vancouver, the weather hasn't exactly been wonderful, so our days in Squamish have been fairly limited. Mother nature gave me a lovely birthday gift with sunshine on April 1st, however, so we headed up after work for an evening session. It's hard to believe the days are already long enough to climb until 8:00pm! I worked on Sloppy Poppy again and made some good progress, then we headed to a climb Graham had tried a couple years back and wanted to get on again. After working the sequence with friends Frank and Tom, and figuring out the blasted first move, Graham sent his very first V10: No Troublems. What a super exciting way to finish the day!! And to top it off, we got free birthday cake at the brewpub after our session :) :)
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| Graham on No Troublems, V10 |
All for now. Wish us good April weather and fast recovery from surgery in May <3
