Stories [Blog] – Page 6 – The RV Project

Fun is Life and Death

By SpenserBirthday Challenges, Musings, The InteriorOne Comment

“I am deadly serious about us having fun” – Michael Franti, In The Middle I think one of the secrets to happiness and success is to take the non-serious things in life seriously, and the serious things less so. Or, since we are the ones who decide what is serious and what isn’t, perhaps it’s more accurate to say that one must allocate their gravitas wisely for the sake of happiness, and survival. Proper Seriosity Birthdays generally fall into the non-serious category. How many times have we “celebrated” someone’s unique, fleeting existence on this planet by sitting in a crowded restaurant, lucky to be within earshot of the birthday boy or girl? How many birthdays do we let pass with little more than a few cheap “you’re old now” jokes? Answering for myself: many. As a child, comforted, cared for, and complacent, my birthday was an occasion for gifts. As an adolescent, I craved little except simple, good times. My birthday falls during the summer, and more than anything I remember wanting my birthday to be more like any other summer day than any other summer day, which at the time meant 2 on 2 basketball, deli sandwiches, and MarioKart 64 (or sports on network TV). Birthday Challenges are the opposite. We take a silly day and make it silly hard, and we try like hell to complete some silly goals. We even train for them. Why? Well, that’s a very involved question, but a short answer might be, “to…

October 21, 2014

Love2

Back to America, Back to Birthday Challenges

By VikkiBirthday Challenges, Trip Journal2 Comments

We pulled into our usual campground in Joe’s Valley, Utah in the wee hours on Thursday morning. We ended up staying in Salt Lake City longer than expected to finish some editing, and Katie was sleeping, curled up in the back of her white Scion coupe, when we arrived. “Should we wake her up?” “Absolutely” We knew we couldn’t wait. We ran and pressed our faces against the side window of the small white car. Unable to contain our laughter, we promptly woke Katie up and she squealed with joy as she unlocked her car and jumped out. This reunion was a big moment for all of us. We met Katie and her then-boyfriend, Niko, at the Food Ranch in Joe’s Valley in April of last year. They were in the midst of their year-long road trip and we became fast friends (an understatement, as Katie wrote in her post “suddenly we found ourselves huddled around a fire with strangers who would become family overnight”). They helped us film 5.10 vs. LaSportiva that Spring and we continued to meet up on the road as much as possible for the remainder of their road trip. We desperately wanted them to stay on the road so that we could continue to travel together forever…but, you can’t always get what you want. Katie is now persuing her career in the outdoor industry based in Denver, CO. Niko is managing the local climbing gym in Talahasee, FL. Things change, but our love for these two, together and separate, is…

October 18, 2014

Love0

Hyperextension of the Volar Plate

By SpenserGym Climbing, The Interior, Trip Journal7 Comments

You know the sound that is created by pulling masking tape off of a wall? That, apparently, is a pretty good approximation for the sound of tearing ligaments. It was on Sunday, September 28th that I got my finger painfully stuck in a slot, hyperextending the PIP joint of my left middle finger. I went down the dark rabbit hole of internet research, fully convinced that, at the least, I’d broken my finger and contracted ebola. On Wednesday, October 1st, I saw Dr. Vedder at the University of Washington Hand Center at the Sports Medicine Clinic in Seattle, WA. My close friend Evan, graduate of UW’s Physician Assistant program, recommended their clinic; he’d gone there when he injured the medial collateral ligament of the PIP joint of his ring finger (I think that’s what he injured…). In such situations, you can contact attorneys from LaCourse Law to claim compensation for the injuries caused. Also, if you are being injured while driving a car, you can check out here for attorney options. If you need help with medical claims for personal injuries, you can hire personal injury Law Firm practicing in Charlotte from here! I was checked in quickly, X-rayed quickly, and diagnosed within 45 minutes of walking in the door. I can’t really express how refreshing a breezy trip through check-in was. I knew I was in the right place when the nurse who took my height and weight remarked, “ah, another rock climber.” For medical malpractice claims from an…

October 6, 2014

Love2

My Very First Finger Injury

By SpenserTrip Journal4 Comments

It looked like you had a rubber hand for a second. – Michelle Yalowega The Squamish Music Festival was big this summer, so big that every single hotel in town was sutffed to the gills with spirited fans of Eminem, Arcade Fire, and cheap colorful plastic body ornamentation. Even AirBnB rentals were booked. My parents and my little brother Eliot had set aside the weekend to visit Squamish, but without a place to stay, the trip had to be rescheduled, because of the injury and involving a medical lawyer, but for this we used the best legal resources from this useful reference to help us with this. We look forward to having people come to visit us wherever we are staying. We get to play hosts and guides and show them around an area we’ve come to love. Unfortunately, this was not to happen this time around. The festival happened, the forest didn’t seem to notice, and Highway 99 went back to being mostly empty. You can read full post to understand how to legally deal with this. A few weeks later, we solidified our plans to stay in Squamish through the month of September, and my parents were able to plan another weekend. In need of some non-climbing conversation and some fancy meals out (well, the latter isn’t exactly a need, per se), we eagerly awaited their arrival, double-cleaning everything and anxiously checking the weather. On Friday, September 26th, we awoke to another dreary, soaked day. It had rained…

October 1, 2014

Love0

Latest Video: Kelowna Boulderfields

By VikkiBouldering, Climbing, Exclude From Site, FilmNo Comments

At the end of June this year, we decided to travel to Kelowna, British Columbia to attend the Rock the Blocs Boulderfest. Outdoor bouldering comps are a guaranteed good time. This one did not disappoint and we decided to shoot a few boulder problems the day after the competition. Kelowna Boulderfields: Ripe for the Picking from The RV Project on Vimeo. I’m especially excited/anxious to release this video- it’s the first edit in a long time that I’ve done the majority of on my own, making it an incredibly personal project. After the initial frustration and exasperation ebbed, I remembered how much I truly enjoy the editing process. It became my “I’m back in the editing game” piece. Although it took an inexcusably long time to complete, I am happy with the finished product. I even got to beef up my After Effects chops and create a map graphic (a full day of work for 9 seconds of video… somehow totally worth it in the end). Next up for me is finishing up a film about Spenser’s first ascent in Bishop, CA this past April. With rain in the forecast after this weekend, we’ll hopefully be getting a lot of editing done in the next week. Quite the line…here’s a screenshot.

September 20, 2014

Love0

It’s My Birthday & I’ll Abstain from Doing a Birthday Challenge if I Want To

By VikkiMusings, Trip JournalNo Comments

Today is my birthday. And… I’m not doing a birthday challenge. After a summer of challenges, I’m burnt out. For me, the most difficult aspect of Spenser’s challenge was an inability to plan ahead. With the unpredictable weather Squamish is infamous for, plans always hinge upon a smile from up above. I couldn’t stand waking up most mornings not knowing what the day had in store for us. Our plans inevitably fell apart, our back-up plans often had to be reworked. I’m tired of planning. It’s not that I feel burnt out with the birthday challenge idea. I’m still really psyched for you to do a birthday challenge. I also had a great time and learned a lot from mine last year. It’s just not what I want to do this year. Other than not having to plan, I have no clue what I want to do and, since we have to go to Vancouver to take a friend to the airport in the morning, it’s surprise Vikki Vancouver Birthday! (Brought to me by Spenser.) You may (or may not) have noticed that I haven’t written in a while. Now that Spenser’s challenge has been over for a weeks, I’ve had time to digest what the hell happened this summer. It’s been an incredible whirlwind, with some of the highest highs I’ve ever felt. Usually the highs are complemented by concurrent lows, but for the past few months the scale was tipped. Don’t get me wrong, there’s been fighting and crying. Disappointments, headaches, and times…

September 13, 2014

Love0

Carlo Traversi’s Birthday Challenge- Insane

By SpenserBirthday Challenges, Climbing, Exclude From Site, FilmNo Comments

Folks, I’ve done some bouldering, and I’ve pushed my limits. I’ve even done a few harder problems, up to V11. I’ve also done literally hundreds of boulder problems in a day. I’ve been at it long enough to genuinely surprise myself from time to time. What I have no freaking chance of ever doing is doing a fraction of the hard climbing that Carlo Traversi does for his 26th Birthday Challenge. Attempting 26 boulder problems V5 or harder in Colorado meant doing an awful lot of harder climbs, since the bouldering skews in favor of the higher grades there. This is partly why his ticklist (below) is so totally absurd. Plus, I think Carlo just enjoys climbing hard climbs and making it appear effortless. Of course, it’s not all good…anyone who’s bouldered knows how important it is to have skin in order to complete a problem. And guess what happens to your skin after a dozen hard climbs? Will he complete his challenge? Press play to find out… 1. The Kind V5 2. Mr. Wimpy V7 3. The Kind Traverse V11 4. Crack Line V7 5. Whispers Of Wisdom V10 6. Storm Shadow Stand V10 7. Unnamed V6 (Cube Boulder) 8. Unnamed V5 (Cube Boulder) 9. Unnamed V6 (Cube Boulder) 10. Real Large V9 11. Hi Fi V11 12. Arete V8 13. Tommy’s (Other) Arete V8 14. The Donut Thief V9 15. Veritas Assis V11 16. Stripes V8 17. Menwax V7 18. Bulgin’ Out V8 19. Child Of God V10 20. Suzuki Boulder V5…

September 9, 2014

Love0

30-Day Birthday Challenge Wrap Up

By SpenserBirthday Challenges5 Comments

So…done? SO done. How done? So done that I couldn’t muster the energy to write this until, what are we now, damn near two weeks out from my finish date. The last thing I updated anyone about was our trip to Salt Lake City to film and support Steve Edwards’ 54th BDC. He has since begun chemotherapy, and you can follow along on his wild ride by clicking here. So that was Monday, when we got back. Monday night, kinda late, like 1AM. We were tired. Day 24 (Tuesday)- 30 Pitches Led on Gear The next day had rain in the forecast, so we woke up relatively leisurely to head into town and grab sustenance. Consistent showers had our spirits down, but hashbrowns and pancakes brought them back up. While we waited for the world to dry, we planned the rest of the remaining BDC week by reserving a bike for the bike park, arranging to stay with Scot and Michelle at Alta Lake, and staring at the Chief in hopes of divining three easy ways up the face. If you are looking for a new, high performance mountain bike, then you should seriously consider looking into what is known as the PK Rippers for sale. This company is well known throughout the mountain biking community for being on the cutting edge of mountain bike technology. Their products not only come highly regarded for being functional, but they also are designed with mountain bikers in mind. Their mountain bikes for sale come in…

September 2, 2014

Love0

Alex Honnold’s Birthday Challenge: A Year’s Supply of Climbing

By SpenserBirthday Challenges, Climbing7 Comments

I can’t contain myself, this is just one of the coolest things ever and I have to get it off my chest. After talking about my 360 boulder problem day, Alex Honnold decided to do a Birthday Challenge. To reword that slightly: one of my biggest inspirations was inspired by me. It’s weird, because he’s also a friend and he treats people like equals (in other words, is a normal human being…normal-ish, anyway). If I complain about people being ahead of me on a route at 8am, he dryly observes that the sun comes up at 5 (fair point). If he makes fun of my challenges for sounding heinous, I have tons of ammo to fire back with. And as I reported the trials and triumphs of my various hard days, he began toying with the idea of doing 290 pitches on his birthday, August 17th. It sounded really hard: 10 hours of climbing means roughly a pitch every 2 minutes. After a little bit of discussion, which included talk of the logistical difficulties (travel between routes, passing other climbers) and what would hurt most (feet and legs, followed by hands), he seemed to dismiss the idea. A few days later, Stacey mentioned that he’d gone through the guidebook and counted pitches on the Apron routes. We knew it was on. He’d been bitten by the challenge bug. Sunday 5AM We meet in the Apron parking lot. The sun is not yet showing itself, but some morning stratus clouds lend a dull blue-grey…

August 22, 2014

Love0

Day 23 (Still)

By SpenserBirthday Challenges, Trip Journal7 Comments

It is with a very strong passion that I hate the TSA. You may not agree with me. Maybe you think that being made to take off your shoes, dump out your water, and stand in a microwave somehow makes us collectively safer. Maybe you think that safety is the most important thing in life. I suppose everyone is entitled to their opinion, and mine is that the TSA is only good for making complete idiots feel safer. Moreover, only complete idiots think that safety is more important than things like fun and adventure. Goodness. I haven’t even started and I’ve digressed. I’m typing this from a small chair about 6 miles higher than where you’re reading this from. The chair is hurtling north through the rarified air toward Canada. We’ve just departed from Salt Lake City, where we had flown on Friday to support an original birthday challenger. This guy: Steve Edwards, AKA Manny Varjak, Emmanuel Overdrive, and a load more pseudonyms based on various films. So, I’m still on Birthday Challenge Day 23 because, well, we changed our plans. You see, we had to fly out to Salt Lake to support this particular challenge. I should back up just a bit so you know why. Starting when I turned 24, Steve and I have had a bit of a rapport over email regarding birthday challenges and climbing and coffee and other things essential to living a decent life. He lives in SLC. We went to the winter OR…

August 12, 2014

Love0

Day 22- Writing on a Rest Day

By SpenserBirthday Challenges, Climbing, Trip Journal14 Comments

Since the last post, I’ve done a few things. Day 14- Win and Lose I fully expected 30 free throws to be the hardest (least likely) element. Not so much when I first thought of it, but upon subsequent thinkings, it only seemed to get harder and harder. Will Wolcott kindly pointed out that, if shooting at an 80% rate, I stand a way-less-than-1% chance of succeeding at 30 consecutive free throws. I countered that each shot was not an independent event, statistically speaking. There is such a thing as being “on fire” and “in a groove” and whatnot. F the haters. I’m gonna make baskets. I spent an hour looking for an indoor basketball hoop in this icy land of hockey, and found one at the Totem Hall, a community center for the First Nation folk of Squamish. I shot free throws in an empty gym for the next 2.5 hours. At first I improved. I went from streaks of 8-10 to streaks of 12-15, hitting 18 in a row a couple of times. Then it all went to shit. My eyes stopped working properly and my focus waned. Best to call it a practice round. Besides, I had another challenge to attempt. So that was the lose part. The win part is way better. When Jeremy and I did our “test” run up the Grand Wall a few weeks back, it took us 5:40 because we were stuck behind slower parties. We figured that if we hustled and…

August 6, 2014

Love0

BDC Update- The Suffering Begins

By SpenserBirthday Challenges, Climbing2 Comments

Seems like I manage an update every 4 days. Sounds fair, I suppose. I mean, 4’s a pretty cool number. 2+2 is 4, 2×2 is 4, 2^2 is 4. It’s a nice neat number. Birthday Challenges have been in the air lately. There was Pat Campbell’s leiderhosen-clad challenge. And then on Saturday July 26th, Lizzy Asher (who was born in a completely different month) celebrated her birthday by going for 28 V-points’ worth of Squamish highballs. They were all climbs she hadn’t done before, and were on her list as climbs to do before leaving Canada for thesis writing in California. On her list were Ride the Lightning (V8), Teenage Lobotomy (V7), Funeral Arrangements (V6) and Black Slabbath (V7). She managed to “bop” her way through each one, though I’ll leave it at that and suggest instead that you wait for the EpicTV episode we’ve got coming. Oh yeah, BTW, we filmed it. If you need attorney for reckless driving claims, you can get them from here! We also filmed last year when a few people tried the same lines. Click the link to watch it. But what of the Spenser Challenge? Ah yes, here we go… Day 9- Reeling from 360 V-Points So yeah, I slept in. Got up just in time for Toonie ($2) swim at the rec center. Because it’s summer and it was raining and it costs $2 for a jacuzzi, a diving board, and a shower, lots and lots of climbers filled the pool area, campusing around on the wooden play thingy…

July 29, 2014

Love0

BDC Update: Day…8?

By SpenserBirthday Challenges5 Comments

It’s July 23rd and it’s raining. Such is the folly of long-term schedules for weather-dependent outdoor activities in a temperate rainforest. In other words, the schedule that I’d carefully laid out has unraveled (lying on the floor, it’s come undone). Assuming a finite number of clear climbing days, I need to be strategic about them and fit the other elements of my challenge around them. It feels like sitting at basecamp waiting for a storm to clear. That was meant to be a matephor, but I suppose it’s damn near literal in this case. Day 5- I didn’t do shit. It rained. I stared at a screen for most of the day. Vikki volunteered to help trail-build in the North Walls, and that night we saw some films at the Squamish Mountain Festival. Day 6- Juggling Anyway, to pick up from the last post, I haven’t yet done the 3 minute breath hold. I haven’t tried it yet. But on the next morning, Day 5, I got up, walked outside, peed, and grabbed my balls. I tossed my balls in the air and they didn’t hit the ground once in 30 minutes. You see, I managed to juggle for half an hour straight, first try. It was weird…my eyes hurt, as expected, and my sides hurt too because of the micro-adjustments to posture I was making. As my mind might wander, so did the balls, and I was forced to stay focused and present in the moment. If I were a spirit guide, I…

July 24, 2014

Love0

BDC Update Day 4

By SpenserBirthday Challenges2 Comments

Captain’s Log, July 18th. The challenge is under way. I have begun hiking the mountain, an overwhelming series of tasks now in front of me. We’re gonna need a bigger boat… That’s why I gonna recommend my favorite online shop, you will find any kind of boats, take a look on shoppok – walleye. Day 1- Run the 3rd peak in 36 minutes or less Day 1 was, well, wow. Made it to the 3rd peak in ridiculously record time. Started at 9:05am on the dot and got to the peak at 9:41am. Okay, so if I’m totally honest, I think my total time was about 36 minutes plus 20 seconds or so, but I’ll tell you this: I hiked/ran my ass off. The strategy was simple: prepare the morning of as best as I could; hike/run at the fastest possible pace that I could sustain for 36 minutes; run like fuck from 2nd to 3rd peak and bulldoze the roots and rocks like they were just belts on a treadmill. I hit the 1st signpost at just over 8 minutes, 2nd at 18 minutes, and got to the base of the 2nd peak’s mini-Death Slabs in 25 minutes. According to Vikki I had 7 minutes left when she saw me dashing across the flats near the 2nd…apparently the slabs took a long time (I recall feeling like I was walking through molasses), but I sprinted like a demon until the 3rd peak. I passed Vikki, who was dutifully manning the tripod, as…

July 18, 2014

Love0

The Final Countdown to My Birthday Challenge

By SpenserBirthday Challenges, Climbing, Training7 Comments

I’m not normally the kind of guy to spray the world about my birthday. I’ve never been one for huge laser tag parties or making all my friends invite their friends to a big group takeover of some moderately expensive restaurant. Birthdays are weird…the only time I’ve felt compelled or entitled to a big gathering of any sort was when I turned it into a charity event. Interestingly, that one was also a birthday challenge. This time, I’m spraying for a few reasons. I’m stoked. I’m kinda marketing for our EpicTV series, and my challenge will be part of it. I have trouble following through with audacious personal goals unless other people know about them. I have a lot less trouble with audacious goals if others expect me to at least try really hard. One more thing: if I can, in some way, inspire others to do something similarly audacious (physical or otherwise), that’s all for the better. I really, really hope this isn’t spilling over into obnoxious narcissism (my parents are psychologists, so I’m very self-conscious about this sort of thing). But I digress… Last night I hiked a tripod up to the 3rd peak and stashed it, so that Vikki will only have a camera bag to carry with her to film my first element on Tuesday. It was my second time up there in two days and my legs are feeling it today, but I’ve got three days to rest and a killer set of recovery tools in the…

July 14, 2014

Love1

My BDC- Long Term Beatdown

By SpenserBirthday Challenges, Bolt Clipping, Bouldering2 Comments

“Just so you know, Georgie, I’ll be sprinting this one as fast as I can, since I’m training and all that.” “No worries, you can go ahead of me.” And so I sprinted up the first set of stairs on the trail that eventually gains 700 meters of elevation, bound for the 3rd Peak. About 150 stairs later, I was cooked. My legs felt like molten slag, and the air I was sucking didn’t seem to contain any oxygen, despite being at sea level. What began as running quickly turned into plodding. “I think you’re hosing yourself by not warming up” No shit. And so Georgie and I huffed our way up to the pinnacle of the 2nd Peak, arriving exactly 36 minutes after we began the hike. There is a trail, you see, that goes directly to the 3rd Peak, but it is vicious. Roots and rocks. The type of terrain that eats inferior ankles for breakfast. There is no moving quickly over that kind of trail. I think that, physically, the single hardest part of my birthday challenge will be this run, 36 minutes or less to the 3rd Peak. So why did we go to the 2nd? To see if the trail was faster, if longer. And it was. Despite lingering on the top of the 2nd Peak for a few minutes and dawdling over to the 3rd, we made it to the 3rd Peak in 51 minutes. That’s 1 minute faster than when I did the 3rd peak trail…

July 7, 2014

Love1

Random Acts of Kindness

By VikkiMusings, Trip JournalNo Comments

Today I’m supposed to pick up one of my very best girlfriends from the Vancouver airport late at night. A couple hours ago, Spenser noticed that both headlamps on the truck were not working. When he told me, I chuckled a little. If it’s not one thing, it’s another. EH? Thankfully, the Ford dealership is a stone’s throw away from the coffee shop we are posted up at on this rainy Friday. It’s Friday at 2pm. They’re clearly busy. The service parking lot is completely full so I pull in and park next to the side of the building. I walk in and immediately beg the first person I see for help. Without hesitation, he walks outside with me to see what’s going on. Gawd, I love Canadians. He re-checked the fuses that Spenser had already taken a look at. Nothing blown. Next, the bulbs. It was strange that both had gone out at the same time, but that could be coincidental. Or, more likely, we didn’t notice when only one was working. Bingo! Phew, it’s the bulbs. After figuring out the problem, Greg, the ridiculously kind Ontario native, showed me how to change the bulbs on my own to save us some cash. Then he told me where I could buy a new pair of bulbs for much cheaper than what the Ford dealership would charge us. Gawd, I love Canadians. I’ll be honest. At this point, with the rain and my usual avoidance of dealing with truck issues (Bert is one intimidating beast!), I…

June 27, 2014

Love0

Kelowna | The Boulderfields

By VikkiClimbing, Local Beta, Road Trip Beta2 Comments

Last summer was all about Squamish, but we knew British Columbia had more boulders to offer. When we found out about the 2nd annual Rock the Blocs Boulderfest outdoor bouldering competition in Kelowna, we decided to take a mini road trip East and give’r a go. The town of Kelowna is located on the eastern side of the massive Okanagan Lake. The Boulderfields are just south of town and take about 45 minutes to get to by a windy dirt road. There’s some rocky spots, but we took it nice and slow and were able to make it with the trailer. The Boulderfields have a seemingly endless expanse of gneiss rock (think Chaos Canyon at Rocky Mountain National Park). The area is highly concentrated but some hiking is involved, many choice areas require a bit more of a commitment to get to with some scrambling over talus à la Chaos Canyon. Contrary to Squamish bouldering, there are holds! Tiny crimps, textured slopers, good edges- whatever your heart desires. In previous years, a few sport routes have been put up across the area and now, with the hard work of a few developers, there’s also the up-and-coming bouldering playground. Both Spenser and I had a blast at the comp, quickly forgetting we were running on just an hour of sleep. Spenser got the second and third ascents of a couple spectacular steep lines, while I struggled a bit with some of the top cruxes and fell off more climbs than I finished. Nonetheless, I took in as many easy and moderate climbs as the…

June 25, 2014

Love0

Hair on Fire

By SpenserBirthday Challenges, Gym Climbing, TrainingNo Comments

I’m not ready to turn 30. The saying goes that time flies when you’re having fun. Strangely, I find that time flies when I’m standing still. Take the past two months for example. The RV Project moved its headquarters into my parents’ house, where we soaked up the comforts of a house and a doting mother and father who love to cook delicious food. A 2 month hiatus from the road seemed like a great chance to catch up with the videos we’re making, do some needed maintenance on the trailer, see our non-nomadic friends, and for me to prepare for my upcoming Birthday Challenge. The problem is, it feels like I’m just starting to train, and we’ve already left. It’s now less than a month from my birthday, and I am already dreading many of the elements I’ve set for myself. I’m not in poor shape, but the list of challenges is long. Time is fast dwindling, moreso as I’ll want to taper for a week or so before the challenge. I spent most of my time in the gym lifting weights and gaining endurance. I followed the format of Phase 1 of John Long’s Workout From Hell. I’d done the entire cycle once before, and remember feeling much pain and suffering during the 30-rep phase, but I also recall that my body felt as solid as a tree, as though bullets would bounce off my chest. I figured this would be a good way to train for my 300,000-pound lifting day,…

June 19, 2014

Love0

SF in the SE

By SpenserBouldering, ClimbingNo Comments

Climbing is about trying hard, pushing your limits, and getting out of your comfort zone. Right? By surrounding ourselves with climbing all the time, we sometimes conflate the importance of our sport. Sometimes we forget that it’s also about fun. That’s why it’s refreshing when our hometown homies come out for climbing trips. We don’t know many crews as tightly knit and as motivated to just have fun as our San Francisco friends. On top of that, they also climb hard. You may recall Highball Day, in which Mark Heal, Josh Horsley, and literally dozens of other climbers sessioned on 7 of Squamish’s best tall problems. Despite many different strengths and ability levels, the SF crew has the uncanny ability to work together and stay psyched, rain or sub-zero temperatures be damned. This past winter, the crew descended upon Chattanooga. On one particularly frigid day at Rocktown, a day that also happened to be Josh’s birthday, the San Franciscans swarmed all over the classics and dispatched a whole lot of stars’ worth of boulder problems. Please take a few minutes and check out the video we made for Organic Climbing, because it’s never too soon to get psyched and start planning a Southeast Sandstone Bouldering Rampage for the upcoming season! And when you’re done with our video, check out Will Wolcott’s awesome edit. More shenanigans, more sending, and some epic fails on Flying High.

June 10, 2014

Love0

The Blog