that’s whacked

Shasta Soreness

Sunday, Jul 6. 2008  –  Category: Outdoors, Travel

I headed up to Mt. Shasta for the July 4th weekend with Jaime & Zac, and after two days there, I think I’m about as sore as I’ve ever been in my life.

On Friday, we ran 5 miles in the Mt. Shasta 4th of July Fun Run. Jaime and I kept pace with each other and came in at 51 minutes (10:12/mile). I’ve no idea whether that’s a good pace or not (Zac came in at 38 minutes, so I suspect not :-P) but that was the first time I’ve ever done a timed race past P.E. class in high school, so I was pretty happy. That was also the first time I’ve run any distance more than a mile or two, and I felt it…

The rest of Friday was spent stretching groaning calves and quads.

A sane person probably would have taken Saturday off to rest and recover. Instead, we chose to hike 2 miles in (with a 1200 foot elevation gain) in Castle Crags State Park to the base of Six Toe Rock, where we climbed Six Toe Crack, an absolutely gorgeous 5.7-5.8 3 pitch crack. The weather was beautiful… sunny (but the route was in the shade) with a cool breeze. The first pitch had a tough start, and a tough second crack - but was definitely doable and within the 5.7/5.8 rating. The second pitch was where things got tough. I took my longest trad leaderfall yet, falling about 20 feet. I placed a #7 Trango Flexcam, got about 5 feet above it, and was stuck in an off-width 5.9 shoulder jam. I worked it for a minute or two, thought I was making progress and ended up pitching off, and falling my total 20 feet.

It was strange, it happened so quickly - I don’t even remember the fall. All I recall is my left hand losing grip, me pitching backwards, screaming (yes - my first scream of my climbing career too… this weekend was full of firsts), and coming to a stop looking down at the sky and my feet. Yup, I’d managed to completely invert myself. I righted myself, took a few seconds to catch my breath (some combination of the fall and the harness tightening had knocked the wind out of me), and checked myself out for injuries. I ended up hitting my left calf against an outcropping getting some road rash (all superficial, so it should heal fine - though showers will be a bitch for the next few days), and getting a nasty nasty rope burn on my right bicep (which strangely doesn’t hurt - but is making for a real pretty bruise).

Anyway, I took a 5.7 variation off to the right hand side after that, finished the pitch and brought Jaime & Zac up. After some route-finding (the guidebook was vague as to the finish for this climb), we ended up on the summit, rewarded with a fairly large summit top, and a gorgeous 360 degree view of the rest of Castle Crags, and Mt. Shasta in the distance.

This was definitely the most challenging lead of my life so far… this whole day I’ve been thinking “What if that #7 cam hadn’t held?” I would have ended up pitching down about 40 feet - almost certainly injuring myself seriously. I’m thankful I sank that cam, and I’m really thankful it held. Taking a leaderfall occasionally is a good reminder not to get lazy and run things out unnecessarily.

Some thoughts and notes for anyone looking to climb this rock: The guidebook is good, but gives no sense of scale. I went in thinking this would be like Castle Rock in Saratoga… a meandering trail with rocks scattered here and there to climb. WRONG. The hike isn’t easy (though the trail is fantastic), and the rocks are MASSIVE. Purportedly there is a 8 pitch 1000′ climb (which I’m dying to do next time I can get up there). The rock quality is great (not as good as Tuolumne/Yosemite, but definitely better than the sandstone we get here in the Bay Area). I highly recommend Six Toe Crack - it’s one of the most beautiful cracks I’ve done, and is a great rewarding climb with solid anchors. (3 pitches, the first belay station is 2 old bolts backed up with a new bolt, new chains, and new webbing. Second belay station is a solid outcropping/flake slung with at least 6 pieces of webbing and rap rings. Contrary to what the guidebook says, the summit is topped with one old sketchy bolt (the one it says to rap off of), with two brand new bolts and two shiny shiny chains). We ended up rapping the three pitches back down the crack instead of doing the sketchy looking descent gully.

Cathedral Summit, deux.

Wednesday, Jun 25. 2008  –  Category: Outdoors

This past weekend, Zac and I successfully climbed and summited Cathedral Peak. This was the 4th time I’ve tried Cathedral, the 2nd time I’ve been successful, and the 1st time I’ve pulled it off without any disaster. (hmm..power of 2 pattern emerging there)

The trip went perfectly… Zac, Jaime, and I left SF @ noon, got up to Tuolumne and despite only having a reserved permit for 2 people for Saturday night, we were able to change it to a permit for both Friday & Saturday night for 3 people.

We hiked in along the climber’s trail, and ended up camping virtually at the base of the Southeast Buttress. It was warm enough that I decided to ditch the tent and save some weight by just bringing the sleeping bag and tarp. This would have worked out perfectly if there weren’t a million mosquitoes around… at 9700 feet, no less! After slathering on the Jungle Juice, we finished consuming our gigantic Safeway $5 sub for dinner, and went to sleep. My only thoughts for that night were that the moon is insanely bright at that high an elevation. I thought there was someone shining a flashlight in my face.

I woke up at 5am to the mosquitoes, and slathered on more Jungle Juice and started arranging the rack. Jaime & Zac made breakfast (bacon!!) and we racked up and got started. The plan was for Zac and I to climb, me leading the whole route up, Zac following and cleaning gear while Jaime hiked up the backside to meet us up top. We ended up doing the Supertopo C variation (mostly 5.6 with one section of 5.7), and according to our EXIF data, summited at 11:14am PDT.

Throughout the climb, we noticed clouds far off in the horizon. By the time we summited, they’d gotten significantly closer… from all 360 degrees. Given my last experience climbing Cathedral, I was wary of the famous Tuolumne afternoon showers, so we spent about 5-10 minutes on the summit debating between the sketchy downclimb descent versus leaving a nut and sling to rappel off of. I took one more look at the clouds, left a nut and sling and we rapped off the backside.

We met up with Jaime who led us down the backside scramble around the eastern side of Cathedral where we stopped for a quick one-pitch lead (for me) and top-rope (for Jaime) so she could get some climbing in, and then headed back to camp to pack up. We hiked out, noticing the overcast clouds the entire time, and about 10 minutes from our car thunder clapped and the storm broke. Hopefully that nut and sling I left up at the summit was useful for anyone up there needing to escape in a hurry.

Our climb victorious, we drove to the Evergreen Lodge for the most well-deserved blue cheese and pancetta burger before driving back home.

I’m psyched we climbed Cathedral without incident, I was really happy with Zac as a climbing partner - he kicked ass and climbed great. We’re looking to go to Castle Crags up by Shasta for July 4th weekend now where they have a ton of climbing - up to 6 pitch 1000′ climbs!

catchup rambling

Friday, Feb 8. 2008  –  Category: OpenSolaris, OpenSource, Outdoors, Pets, Songbird

i propose starting a new trend in web 2.0. first there was blogging. then there was microblogging (aka twitter’ing). i propose to start time-batch concatenating micro-blogging, or twitter with a touch of both diarrhea and constipation if you will.

so here’s my spew of random micro-blogging-type thoughts, concatenated into one post.

• psyched to be going to London for a week. looking forward to hopefully dropping by the LOSUG meeting while i’m there. would give my left nut to get tickets to the Arsenal/AC Milan Champions League game.

• super-psyched about FOSDEM. little bit nervous to be presenting my first conference preso about Songbird. looking forward to moules et frites with timf, catching up with other various OpenSolaris folk, and meeting more of the Mozilla Community.

• steak and bj day. seriously. i’m so in.

• i’m so desperate to go up to the sierras. i haven’t gone snowboarding at all this winter, and its been dumping lately. sigh. brand new snowboard and everything.

• work is keeping me so busy. feel like every day i finish 5 tasks only to add 7 more to the plate. i was expecting as much when i left Sun… and i love the work and my coworkers, but wow i could use a few days off.

• had a shite day at the gym yesterday, couldn’t get up the V2 & V3 routes i was able to do two weeks ago. ugh. starting to get really psyched about climbing Cathedral Peak with jesse in june though. i think my strength is there, but i could definitely do with some sustained route-climbing to build up the endurance. should probably go out somewhere (diablo maybe?) to practice some trad placements in case my rusty.

• isis is definitely getting worse. we’re taking her to the vet on saturday, but i suspect her time is near. she’s eating slower, and starting to strain so hard her body shakes a lot of the time she’s awake. her 10th birthday is in 10 days. bumming me out.

• great to see benr, tamr, and to finally meet derek c at redmonk’s party a couple of nights ago. cheers to sogrady for a great party and for the beer.

• i feel like i’m spending so much time in front of my computer lately, and not nearly enough time outdoors or with the dogs. gotta figure out this work/life balance thing.

an epic day, indeed…. and a renewed faith in customer service

Sunday, Jan 27. 2008  –  Category: Cars, Outdoors

wendy and i headed up to tahoe this weekend for a fun, weekend snowboarding. the snow promised to be fantastic with a storm having dumped fresh powder all thursday & friday.

we left saturday morning, and everything was going great until my engine imploded somewhere going up the donner pass. all of a sudden my power sapped, i heard a whooshing sound, and i was flooring the engine going about 30mph up the pass. initially i thought a vacuum tube had broken and i’d lost my turbo or something - but realised that full-throttle going 30mph in 2nd gear was something bigger than that. i nursed it up to the summit of the pass, gave much thanks when i saw the “steep descent/downhill next 5 miles” and brought the car limping into a gas station/mechanic in Truckee.

the service guy there asked me turn the engine on so he could hear what was wrong and had me immediately turn it off after 1 second. “i’ll save you the $95 diagnostic: your engine’s blown, it’ll need a rebuild. tow it to your favourite dealer or mechanic”.

ouch.

he pulled the oil dipstick and showed me metal flakes in the oil indicating something inside the engine went nuts and blew chunks. sigh.

we called some people, checked out our options, and eventually decided to tow the car to Incline Village, rent a U-Haul + auto trailer, and tow my Audi back to Oakland.

so this is normally where i’d be pissed and annoyed; but instead i was actually pretty happy and satisfied. i was expecting people around every corner trying to rip us off, instead what i got was the following…

i called AAA and asked for a tow to Incline Village, the operator said my basic membership only covered 5 miles, and each additional mile was $7. i got off the phone and asked the service guy how far from Truckee to Incline Village. he said about 20-25 miles so that would have been about a $140 tow! he then suggested upgrading to AAA Plus which would get me 100 miles of free towing.

i called AAA back and asked very clearly “my car is dead. i’m stuck and need a tow. can i upgrade to AAA Plus right now and have it take effect immediately for a further tow?”

3 minutes, and a credit card charge of $16.73 later, and i was AAA Plus member being told to expect a tow truck driver in the next 45 minutes. sweet! we were a little worried though because the U-Haul closed at 1pm (by this time it was 11:49).

5 minutes later, a tow truck showed up. 1 minute after that, i got an automated call from AAA saying to expect my driver in 5-10 minutes. awesome. @ 12:20, we were on our way - and the tow truck driver got us into the U-Haul right on the dot at 1pm…

… where the U-Haul guy was holding up shop waiting for us, having already gotten the truck and the trailer ready leaving enough room in the parking lot for the tow truck to unload my Audi.

we unloaded, got it secured on the trailer, and went upstairs to sign paperwork where he gave us a discount, gave us his card and said give him a call next time and he’d hook us up with Diamond Peak discount tickets. at 1:34 we were leaving the U-Haul on our way back to the Bay Area.

so, all in all - yes, the day sucked. yes the weekend sucked. my car needs a new engine. we didn’t get to snowboard. and i spent 10 hours driving up to Tahoe and back yesterday.

but because every single person whom we encountered: the mechanic, the AAA operator, the tow truck driver, and the U-Haul guy were so amazingly helpful, and sympathetic… i’m left surprisingly happy with a renewed faith in customer service.

… and wendy’s happy because i think this qualifies as a settlement to our running debate as to whose car we should sell to buy the Audi TT we want as our next car. i think we’re going to sell the A4.

death at Cathedral

Friday, Jan 4. 2008  –  Category: Outdoors

Oakland climber dies descending Cathedral Peak

A bit late, but I only just found out about this from the SuperTopo monthly email. A bummer to hear about, to be sure - especially with them having already ascended, and descended and only being a mile and a half from 120.

I have my own love-hate-hate relationship with Cathedral Peak having tried to climb it 3 times and only been successful once. Indeed, two summers ago we got stuck in our own late-afternoon Tuolumne-special storm, though early August is considerably more forgiving than mid-November.

Jesse and I have planned to tackle Cathedral Peak again this summer. I’m hoping to bump my success rate from 33% to 50%; but we’ll see… I know I’m bringing a barometer and will be pushing for an early morning, early summer start.

Sigh. It’s always a little unnerving to hear about someone dying on a route you’ve climbed… worse yet when it’s a route you’re planning to climb in the near future. My sympathies go out to Noble’s family and friends. At least he died doing something he loved.

power up!

Saturday, Dec 1. 2007  –  Category: Outdoors

just came back from the great western power company, the new climbing gym that just opened (last week!) in downtown Oakland.

man, it felt great. i haven’t really really climbed in a few years now, so it felt great to just go there for a couple of hours, and boulder by myself. the gym staff were friendly, the other solo boulderers offered good spots and even better advice, and i had a fun time despite not completing the V1 i swore i would do today. (just couldn’t match my hands on the last hold, and came tumbling down everytime). but i was able to do one V1, for what little that’s worth.

my hands are all dried and scuffed, i’ve got scabs on both my knees, and my arms are pumped beyond belief.

i bought a membership.

what a weekend

Thursday, Mar 1. 2007  –  Category: Outdoors, Travel

i still miss that utah snow

erik: you threw an awesome bachelor party. it was everything i thought it’d be…. 3 days of kick-ass powder. it was great to just be able to ride hard non-stop and then crash in the hot tub and chow down afterwards.

thanks again everyone for coming - i had a blast…. the riding was great, the snow was amazing, the food was heavenly (from the goat cheese ravioli…mmmm…droool…. even to the corn dogs), the drink was plentiful, and the company was brilliant.

even if i did “crap my pants”

cheers, steve da pimp

(thanks for taking the photos dan!)

heaven

Monday, Feb 26. 2007  –  Category: Outdoors, Travel

i’m not religious… but i do believe in heaven.

not only do i believe in it…. i was just there.

heaven (or at least something akin to it) is flying down a double-black on your brand new snowboard crashing through fresh untracked fluffy light powder…. and then doing it again…. and again….. and again. repeat for 3 days straight… toss in a great dinner, great friends, and a ridiculous amount of eggs, corn dogs, beer, and a bottle of Laphroig - and you have the recipe for an awesome bachelor party.

epicness

Thursday, Feb 22. 2007  –  Category: Outdoors, Travel

between MLK day, all the jurassic (home directory server) outages on tuesday & wednesday, and me leaving soon for a weekend of epic awesomeness in the snow at Park City, this has got to be one of my shortest work-weeks ever.

… for which i do feel guilty …

but i can’t help but be psyched for this weekend. i haven’t seen some of these guys in a while, and i’m looking forward to 3 days of boarding in the powder. i’ve only been up to tahoe twice so far this year in our winter-of-crappiness we’ve been having, so i’m feeling totally ill-prepared for this weekend. but oh well… i’ve got my asthma inhaler and a crapload of ibuprofen - i should be set, right?

(utterly) inflexible

Wednesday, Oct 11. 2006  –  Category: Outdoors

i’m about as flexible as a lamp post.

that was my observation today during my first yoga class. i’ve decided to try yoga in my ongoing effort to ensure i don’t bonk heavily while attempting to summit/board Mt. Shasta next year.

“focus on your triangle, the space in between your hands… focus!” the instructor says calmly and clearly as we are all in the downward dog pose.

ugh. all i can focus on is the sweat dripping off my forehead down to the ground… into the space in between my hands. oddly enough, it was a strangely effective thing to focus on.

needless to say, an hour of yoga kicked my ass. it felt pretty good though, and i’m hopeful it will at least help drive some of the kinks out of my lower back.

i’ve been reading more accident reports and trip reports of Shasta. i tell myself its in the interest of being fully prepared for all things that may happen, but in reality my mindset is more along the lines of “whatever you do… don’t do something so utterly embarrassing and stupid you end up as an event in these accident reports”… like the girl who held her ice axe upside down, dripped, and ended up giving herself a tracheotomy. ugh.

/me is still wearing his snowboard boots around the house