Hiking and Drawing

The Priest Draw that is. Although the weather is hot and Humid we still headed out to climb some roofs. Here are a few shots of Collin and Dustin on "Twister".


The other morning I did a Hike/run up Mt Humphrey. It was supposed to be an easy day for me so I Mostly hiked up and then ran down. It was only the second time I have hiked to the top of the mountain, and just like last time I was the first person of the day to summit.
It's hard to tell from the photos, but some of the burned areas are still smoking quite a bit. I guess the fire is not completely out yet. I sure hope it doesn't flare up again.

Imogene Training Continues

I haven't mentioned it in a while but the Imogene Pass Race training is continuing. I hit a snag a few weeks back when my main training run got closed and burned by the fire up on the mountain. So I decided to do some lower elevation speed training, but the worked my way back to the hills.
Yesterday morning I got up early and ran from Buffalo Park, 7000', to the top of Mt Elden, 9200'.It was a 7 mile run up and a 6 mile run down. I took a shortcut down Upper Oldam trail which was awesome! So totaling 13 miles, which is the furthest I've run for a while, it felt pretty tough because there was a lot of steep uphill sections. But it was a great training run and I think I learned a lot about how I will have to run for the race. I am looking forward to going to Colorado at the end of the month to do some real training runs up some 14er's!!

Le Petit

We've been spending a lot of time @ The Pit recently. The afternoon temperatures have been nice and conducive to climbing hard. I finally sent "Total Recall" 5.13b, and Kim is getting Very close to sending her first 13, "No Joke".
This past week though, the Monsoons have finally started rolling in during the early afternoons and ruining the rest of the day with lots of humidity, but we still are trying.
This past weekend Dustin and I got on "Terminal Vector", an old project of mine, and while it was fun the humidity prevented any sends.

Winslow Wall

We did not go far for this holiday weekend, which may not make sense to sum, but makes perfect sense to me. Before I lived in Flagstaff we would always go to Flagstaff for the Holiday weekends. The climbing here didn't get worse just because I live here now.
So Saturday we stayed very local and worked our projects @ The Pit. No sends, but several high points. Sunday however, we headed to the Winslow Wall.
We were not the only people with that idea. There was more people there than I had ever seen before. Everybody needs to quite telling their friends how good the place is or it will be impossible to climb there.
Although it was crowded and hot, Jonathan climbed very well and came away with the send of the day by onsighting "Standin on a Corner" 5.10+. Way to go J-Mo!

Fire destroys that which feeds it. - Simone Weil

As most everyone knows, Mt Humphreys has been burning for the last week. It started last Sunday when some campers failed to extinguish their camp fire. This photo was taken the first day just one block east of my house.
This photo was also taken the first day by someone hiking up the east side of the mountain only to summit to the site of the west side on the mountain burning. I took this photo from his blog where he has many more amazing photos. Just click on the photo below and it will take you to his blog.


So at this time the fire is pretty well under control, with mop up operations still underway. I guess things could have been worse, but most of the east side of the mountain burned, along with a lot of the trail that I was running on as training for the Imogene race. If all goes well they say that people will be allowed back on the mountain by July 21.

When in doubt, go BIG

June 19th and 20th, the team heads back to the Enchanted Tower. We all have high aspirations but we are feeling fit and ready to send.
On Saturday after warming up, Kim and I start working our projects before they go into the sun for the afternoon. Unfortunately neither of us sent in the morning, but we decided to give them one more try in the evening after the sun had set. This strategy proved successful for me at least as I sent the 115' long "Ripped Van Winkle" with the last bits of light left in the day!

Jeff pulling into the second half of "Ripped Van Winkle"
Sunday morning we were up bright and early again, and Kim was highly motivated as usual. This time it did pay off and she sent her route "David" first try of the day.

After Kim's send, we headed over to the Frog Prince wall where our friend from Salt Lake City, Elizabeth, decided she wanted to climb the short, yet extremely steep and powerful, "Frog Prince". After a quick session to learn the moves, she made short work of that route!
And so was the end of another trip to the Land of Enchantment.....but.......to be continued.........

Interdisaplinary Programs

XKCD
I always knew I wanted to be a Physics major. They get to do the best experiments.
There is a link to this website over on the right side of the blog under "My Blog List". I know I talk about it regularly so more of you should check it out.