The weather around here has been very curious as of late. It seems to have gone directly from a late winter into an early summer. Who needs spring? Not me. I gave my two weeks notice to Voile yesterday and when I did so they gave me the green light to go ahead and take off early or come in late if I was caught up with the work that had to be done (as long as I told them ahead of time). I took advantage of this new policy today and left at lunch in order to meet Jer for our first day out climbing of the year. We met around 1:30 and then headed up to an old standby, Parley's Canyon. When we arrived there was one other group climbing. They just happened to be on the climb we wanted to do. We walked
around for a while and neither of us had the confidence to lead any of the other climbs on this wall - give us a break, we hardly climbed last year at all! Finally, we decided to top rope the overhanging 5.9c on the west side of the wall. We then both climbed it with ease. This was a good way to build our confidence. By this time our friends had gone, but a couple of older dudes had shown up. They were pretty good climbers. I only hope that Jer and I are climbing 5.11 at age 45. I climbed second and I cleared the gear up top before rappelling down. It is so much fun to do this kind of stuff while I am terrified of heights. I love it. Che
ck out the photos below of me rappelling. I especially like the one with the bug in the middle of the shot. The new camera was worth it just for that shot. We then moved over to the long climb that the group was on earlier and prepared to climb out. Climbing out is more fun than hiking out,
but even more so in Parley's because the hike out totally sucks... ask my wife - she hates it! It is just too steep and there is nothing to hold onto nor really to step onto. Jer led this climb (5.8), then we cleared the rope of the quickdraws and he hauled the gear to the top. This proved difficult since we do not have a pulle
y system or anything (now on my list of things to get) and Jer had to simply just pull the gear the 120 ft to the top. Once that was taken care of, I then climbed and cleaned all the draws from the rock. It felt great. I really do like this climb. It is long and not too difficult. I love getting super high off the ground and having that feeling of excitement, fear, confidence, etc. The weather was super nice out today so I did this second climb shirtless. I may have looked like the guy who wants to look like a climber, but fails miserably; but it felt nice and I think I may do this more often. As we cleaned up our gear, Jer and I discussed how much fun climbing is
and how we are suckers for not doing it more last year. I imagine with my new job with one of the top climbing (if not THE top climbing) company in the world, that I will be climbing a lot more this year than I did last. On Rock.
The weather around here has been very curious as of late. It seems to have gone directly from a late winter into an early summer. Who needs spring? Not me. I gave my two weeks notice to Voile yesterday and when I did so they gave me the green light to go ahead and take off early or come in late if I was caught up with the work that had to be done (as long as I told them ahead of time). I took advantage of this new policy today and left at lunch in order to meet Jer for our first day out climbing of the year. We met around 1:30 and then headed up to an old standby, Parley's Canyon. When we arrived there was one other group climbing. They just happened to be on the climb we wanted to do. We walked 
around for a while and neither of us had the confidence to lead any of the other climbs on this wall - give us a break, we hardly climbed last year at all! Finally, we decided to top rope the overhanging 5.9c on the west side of the wall. We then both climbed it with ease. This was a good way to build our confidence. By this time our friends had gone, but a couple of older dudes had shown up. They were pretty good climbers. I only hope that Jer and I are climbing 5.11 at age 45. I climbed second and I cleared the gear up top before rappelling down. It is so much fun to do this kind of stuff while I am terrified of heights. I love it. Che
ck out the photos below of me rappelling. I especially like the one with the bug in the middle of the shot. The new camera was worth it just for that shot. We then moved over to the long climb that the group was on earlier and prepared to climb out. Climbing out is more fun than hiking out, 
but even more so in Parley's because the hike out totally sucks... ask my wife - she hates it! It is just too steep and there is nothing to hold onto nor really to step onto. Jer led this climb (5.8), then we cleared the rope of the quickdraws and he hauled the gear to the top. This proved difficult since we do not have a pulle
y system or anything (now on my list of things to get) and Jer had to simply just pull the gear the 120 ft to the top. Once that was taken care of, I then climbed and cleaned all the draws from the rock. It felt great. I really do like this climb. It is long and not too difficult. I love getting super high off the ground and having that feeling of excitement, fear, confidence, etc. The weather was super nice out today so I did this second climb shirtless. I may have looked like the guy who wants to look like a climber, but fails miserably; but it felt nice and I think I may do this more often. As we cleaned up our gear, Jer and I discussed how much fun climbing is
and how we are suckers for not doing it more last year. I imagine with my new job with one of the top climbing (if not THE top climbing) company in the world, that I will be climbing a lot more this year than I did last. On Rock.
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