October 2012 – The RV Project

Back to the Desert

By SpenserBouldering, Trip Journal4 Comments

The last post was October 10th? It’s October 30th? I know dudes in the Arctic Ocean who post more regularly. Is this okay? Let’s ask Will Smith: So real quick-like with the ketchup… Since we finished the last video, I spent much time running back and forth to Home Depot and similar stores (learn more here about them). After picking up building supplies and batteries and solar panels that is to be installed by roofing contractors Rapid City alongside all kinds of other goodies are get us ready for life in a trailer (again). A video tour of our little trailer setup will be up shortly. Combine a large amount of work with a limited amount of experience, and you have a big pot of this-project-took-way-longer-than-I-thought stew. We finally left Brad’s house on Wednesday (October 17) and camped in the mountains near the sport crag known as The Monastery. The next morning we met Kyle and Reiko at Bear Lake for one last run up to Emerald Lake to try our projects. The day was clear and sunny, but the wind was so strong that staying warm was impossible and we retreated after taking a couple of burns on Whispers of Wisdom and The Kind. Sadly, no sends, but I did reach a highpoint on Whispers. We spent the next two nights in Denver, parked outside of Rachel and Jered’s, tying up some last loose ends, fixing the bookshelf that I’d under-built, and seeing Vikki’s sister. On Saturday morning we gassed…

October 30, 2012

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A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering … Slowness

By SpenserClimbing, Trip Journal6 Comments

The long awaited RV Project Episode 9 has finally arrived! It chronicles our mishaps and slip-ups between leaving the Red River Gorge and arriving in Colorado. After dropping off the trailer in Indiana for repairs, we went to the east coast to watch my little brother Eliot and cousin Alec graduate college. In between it all, we tried to climb but, predictably, it was always either too hot or raining. We made the most of it anyway, meeting friendly locals and sleeping in Bert. Summer doesn’t make for very good climbing in New England, and we only shot a few decent climbs. We are also novice with the camera, so the amount of quality footage is even more diminished by that fact. We decided to spice it up the only way we could think of: with stop-motion animation and poetic narration. I wish we had production footage for this film. It would be cool for our previous episodes too, and I think of the boom on top of boulders in Horse Pens, or setting up timelapses on top of the old trailer. But for this, we went through many steps to create, cut out, and manipulate the paper cutouts, then learn how to add them in to the video. We spent hours watching tutorials. Then we laughed ourselves silly while writing the narration. We struggled through the basics of After Effects and Premiere Pro, but after three months we finally finished it, and had fun doing it too. Frankly, you might not…

October 10, 2012

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Up The Poudre

By SpenserBouldering, Trip JournalNo Comments

Last Tuesday, our good friends Will and Courtney dropped by on their way from the Pacific Northwest to the Red River Gorge. It’s quite a journey, as we can attest, so they took advantage of our proximity to I-80 to snag a shower, some groceries, some friend time, and to get in one last boulder sesh before roping up for the foreseeable future. The weather was still early-fall-warm, but due to time constraints we didn’t want to hoof it all the way in to the Park. We decided instead on the long-ish drive up Poudre Canyon and the negligible approaches that the canyon areas provide. In particular, we wanted to check out Gandalf V7, which I’ve been told is one of the best, if not the best boulder problem in the canyon. The drive is always longer than you think. Leaving Fort Collins and turning onto the windy road doesn’t take long, but then you must settle in for 40-some miles of windy beauty, marred by fire damage (beautiful in its own way). After an hour of twists and turns, you arrive at your parking area. For us, it’s a lovely little picnic pullout. The last time we tried to check out Gandalf, the water was too high and we bouldered at the 420s instead. This time, the water was very low, making crossing quite easy. Well, Will got his pants a little wet, but no big deal. Right in front of the river is a boulder with Crimes V9 and Against HumanityV7,…

October 5, 2012

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No Pain, No Gain…No, Really.

By SpenserClimbing, Staying Healthy, The Exterior, Training, Trip Journal8 Comments

Again, I’ve made the mistake of ignoring the nagging feeling in the back of my mind, that feeling that something is just not right with my body. The first time was when I ended up getting diagnosed with Celiac Disease. Not sure why I didn’t learn my lesson the first time… I was in physical therapy before leaving on this road trip for recurring shoulder pain. I made some minimal changes, but overall I didn’t trust my physical therapist. I thought she was full of it. Ok, just partially full of it. She assigned a few back exercises and stretches and sternly told me that I needed to climb less frequently for a while. Whenever I asked for an explanation, she gave me a half-ass response. Whenever I asked a follow-up question, she dismissed me. She was scatterbrained and always in a rush and I didn’t like that about her mode of therapy. So I only half listened to her. I was so busy with work and leaving my life in SF (renting out my apartment, packing up, etc.) that I barely had time to climb anyway – I was focused on getting out of the Bay Area and on the road. I changed up my daily habits a bit, things that were obvious to me, such as not holding the phone between my shoulder and head while typing and carrying an ergonomic backpack during my daily walks to/form the BART station. My shoulder pain went away without me doing…

October 1, 2012

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