Sunday, December 30, 2007

Rope Climbing?

Even though I’ve been rock climbing for almost a decade now, I have only climbed on a rope outside a dozen or so times. Basically I’ve always been satisfied bouldering, and I could never get any of the crew to escort me on a roped adventure. I can’t blame them really. I am a sandbag belayer, and I can’t lead climb to save my life (in fact I’ve never led a route outside in my life…..Wow.)

But somehow all this training got me motivated enough to go climb at the Tor. Yesterday I drove up to Santa Maria with Elijah and we met up with Andy and Mary, who by the way, are fucking awesome folks. They’re both strong as nails, and I rarely meet people this nice who like to climb rocks. Not that Elijah isn’t a nice guy, it’s just that Andy and Mary are new and exciting, thus more noteworthy. However, anyone doubting Elijah’s radness, will have a change of heart as soon as they see him get on a rope at the Owl Tor. Watching him attempt to redpoint Hard Boiled, an extremely tricky 5.13b is a treat. You’re gonna get it real soon buddy.

I warmed up top roping the 5.11b warmup at Mr. Lees and then bouldered the first few moves of Wild Kingdom (I actually hung that terrible mono). The highlight of my day was getting on the Power of Eating, 5.11d in the front area on lead and climbing it bolt to bolt a few times. Normal climbers wouldn’t think much of this less than noteworthy feat, but successfully getting up my first route on lead was exciting and motivating. Screwed around on Auto Magic, 5.12a as well, after watching Andy come real close to a redpoint.

After the long drive home, me and the roomies met up with the wonderful Bridget and her clan of awesome friends for dinner and drinks at the Stateside….

DO NOT EAT HERE!
I don’t know what was worse, the service, the food, or the floor managers ridiculous toupe. The soup was cold, the fish overcooked; the prices high and the portions low; the dining room poorly decorated, the staff overly dressed; and no one had a clue how to perform their job efficiently. I’d rather eat cliff bars only for the rest of my life than give this shithole any more of my money.

Actually had some work today, so no time for training.... just some simple yoga and pranayama. Big swim tommorow hopefully.

2 comments:

bob banks said...

You are probably the 10th person that I've heard say how badly Statehouse sucks ass.

Micah said...

Yeah, it's pretty bad.

How dumb are these people that throw all this money into clubs that suck balls? C'mon. It's not that hard to create a nice place to hang out, eat, etc. Especically when you got thousands and thousands of dollars to play with.