January 2013 – The RV Project

The Tale of the Burning Man Wall

By SpenserStuff We're Psyched OnNo Comments

We are still in the Bay Area. Vikki’s got more work hours this week than most 9-5 people do, and I’m almost to the point of walking without crutches, so we’ll be back on the road soon (Sunday is the new goal). Bishop awaits, and the infamous Byron Wolter will be flying in this weekend for his birthday challenge, which we’ll of course be there to support. In the meantime, the exciting news (besides almost being able to walk again, woohoo!) is that Dead Point published a little article I wrote up about that time we took a climbing wall to Burning Man, in 2011! We even made a video about it. It’s at the bottom of the above article. Click on it. Read. Watch. Also, here’s a link to our blog when we were building that wall. Even now, two years later, it’s fun for us to look back on. In other news, we’re still crunching away at the video of Elliot Faber doing ZAP. It promises to be a good one, just need to get some more B Roll footage when we return to Bishop, and we’ll be all set. TTFN! (Ta Ta For Now!)

January 30, 2013

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Back When Spenser Had Two Good Heels…

By SpenserBouldering, ClimbingNo Comments

…he sent Xavier’s Roof! A nemesis rig from last year that went down quickly once we arrived back in Bishop late last year. Our friend, Jeramie Hildenbrand, from Project Wingspan did a fantastic edit: You have to watch the entire video, my favorite part is at the end (my best piece of filming work I’ve done to date, hehe). For a quick update, Spenser and I are back in the Bay Area for a bit. Oddly enough, Spenser was getting tired of sitting at Black Sheep all day, every day (and it was his Dad’s birthday on Saturday). Having both caught the flu, we figured we would take a hint and head up to Berkeley for some R&R. We’ve mostly been catching up with friends, enjoying his parents incredible cooking, and ending up pleasantly plump while not climbing. It’s time for me to get my lazy bum to the gym today, actually looking forward to visiting GWPC in Oakland! I bet all of the problems will be brand new to me! 😉 Hopefully back to Bishop this weekend (pending weather) with some renewed vigor to take down High Plains Drifter a la Miss Alison Bagby! AND Spenser should be losing the crutches in the next week or so, yay!

January 23, 2013

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La Vie Sans Pied

By SpenserStaying HealthyNo Comments

After a quick tour of the bouldering in Vegas, we’re back in our lovely little trailer in the Pit campground in Bishop. I’m getting pretty used to the gimp life. My left heel has been broken for nearly three weeks, and I won’t be able to put any weight on it for another few weeks. Being injured on a climbing trip is not my first choice, but all things considered, I’m not too disappointed. The biggest change is that I’m not climbing. Instead, I’ll crutch out to the boulders and watch Vikki, Steve, Angie, and others trying their projects. I offer beta when possible, take photos, and read. When the urge strikes, I’ll hop around and fondle holds, but I’m being extra cautious of climbing anything, for two reasons. One, a fall could be disastrous. Two, I’m taking this opportunity to give my elbow tendonitis some time to heal. I had never seen the boulders of Red Rocks before, and it was fun to hobble around and add problems to my mental ticklist. Due to the holidays, we encountered many climbers whom we knew from the Bay Area and elsewhere. However, seeing dozens of people doing what I couldn’t was almost too much to bear. It’s like Vikki hobbling around a non-gluten-free bakery: the torture of temptation. Still, it’s good to remind myself of what awesome climbs are out there. It would be easy to forget about climbing, to feel like my return is so far off that it doesn’t…

January 10, 2013

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Into the New Year

By SpenserClimbing, Staying Healthy, Trip Journal4 Comments

When starting this post, it was only five days into 2013 and I was watching people all around me break their New Year’s resolutions already. I guess that’s expected in Sin City? Vegas can be fun, for a short period of time. And by the 5th of January, I felt like we had outstayed our welcome. The trip started out great, being able to catch up with Miss Alana and getting to know her Portland home-girl, Ashley made the first few days go by quickly (it also didn’t hurt that we had an apartment to crash at, thank you, ladies!!). Although it seemed like most of our group was ready to leave sooner, we ended up extending our trip through last weekend so that I could get my computer fixed (read: I spilled coffee on my laptop back in Bishop, which is the one we use to edit all RV Project photos and videos…everyone should get a plastic keyboard cover, could have saved me almost $400). After New Year’s, we stayed at the Palace Station for a few days: the dredges of the casino-hotels in Las Vegas. We crammed 5 people into a room for 2, and happily paid about $5 each per night for a warm space to sleep. Since the computer was not going to be fixed until Monday, we decided to upgrade to the Flamingo. The room was much larger and included a view of the Strip. The Flamingo is one of the only hotels on the Strip…

January 8, 2013

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