Great Success Gypsy! The Cobra Crack is complete! Yes, the world continues to turn. President Bush is still the leader of the “free world”, 37 year old Kelly Slater has just about clenched his 9th world title, and the roads are constantly changing here in Squamish, but yesterday the earth stopped spinning for a moment so that I could climb the Cobra Crack from bottom to top without falling. It was so reminiscent of last summer on realization it’s uncanny. Coming agonizingly close to sending after making quick progress, beating the crap out of my fingers and having to leave the route, then coming back with all kinds of doubts if I could even do it, and finally sending. But on this route there were no other holds to find. I just needed to know the route and all the moves well enough to climb relaxed and fire it. After pulling the crux I found myself kind of sad that it was over, so I took my time on the top, savoring the last moments. Of course I am very psyched and relieved, but it always amazes me how quickly the high from sending a hard project fades. I’m already thinking about what’s next…
Oh boy, I’m beat. I’m sitting here in the Vancouver airport, waiting for Kevin Jorgeson to arrive, make it through customs, and hopefully make it out into the great wide open. Let’s hope his bags don’t get lost like mine did. Mine came on the next flight which was an hour later, but our friend Charlie, who was supposed to come meet me, probably got tired and left until Kevin gets here. Let’s hope…
Yo. I’m at the Portland airport right now, en route to Salt Lake Silly, the salty load, for the Trade Show and Comp. A quick in out, if you will, then it’s back to Squish to hopefully send the Cobra and end the painful epic. I am pretty psyched to be away from Squamish for a few days. The crowds, the road construction, all of it was starting to irritate me a little. I just need a few days to rest my body and re-gain some psyche.
Before I start my rant, I just have to say that I have not completed the Dream Catcher! Gripped.com reported that I did the 2nd ascent, and people on facebook have been congratulating me, but I still haven’t done it! I hope it doesn’t turn into the boy who cried catcher, so when I actually do it no one believes me… I think it may be because the editors of climbing.com somehow got the notion that I did it last summer (even though in the blog that they themselves published I said I didn’t do it) and wrote it in the little “pro blog” blurb listing my accomplishments, and I never noticed until months later, by which time I was no longer blogging for them. Please cease and desist all Dream Catcher spray! I havne’t done it yet, because it’s really hard, I haven’t put in the tries and I have been epicing on the Cobra. So simmer down now!
A quick update… Wow! A lot can happen in two days. It was my second try of the day, third day on the route, and my third RP attempt on the Cobra. I came frustratingly close, falling at the last hard move after my right pinkie greased out of one of the last side-pulls on the route, and since I was so close to doing it, of course I tore a huge goby on my pinkie in the process… Devastating! Dickey got it all on footage too, so expect to see that… I have no idea when. I just checked the 10 day forecast and… it’s not looking good. Rain is schedule to fall for like a week straight! Why meeeeeee???????? This reminds me of when I barn-doored off the very top of just do it, ripping a huge flapper in my finger and had to wait around another week for the weather to get good again. Except this time it might take a whole year for the weather to get good again, even though my goby might heal in a week. Things feel very uncertain at the moment.
Welcome to the third installment of my trip reports of my Canadian tour… Sounds more official that way. Right now I am on a rest day after a day TRing on the Cobra and a day working the Catcher. We are chillin at the Howe Sound Brew Pub here in town, snaking the Internet and sippin’ on free water. Ahhh, the climber bum lifestyle.
(Photo by Cory Richards) I awoke today barley able to move my body. I think I tweaked some muscles in my back yesterday on the Catcher after getting on it without a propper warm-up. It hurt like hell and I felt like I wouldn’t be bale to walk. It hurt to breath. After getting some food in my body and taking care of the triple S’s, the blood began flowing and the pain in my back subsided. It’s still there but, mildly, but I feel alive again. I am still sore as heck and my tips are about as thin as they could be without being non-exsistent… I’ll live.
Yoyoyo! So after a very scenic ten hour drive yesterday we have arrived late last night in Squamish, BC baby! Pretty psyched to be here. As we drove past the chief last night I was remembering how beautiful the forest is and how nice the rock is. I am hoping to do some free climbing on the chief at least a couple days before I leave for the trade show around the 7th of august, but first it’s project mode on the Cobra Crack with Matty and on the Dream Catcher.
So! Here we are up in Canadastan (© John Dickey), lovin’ it. The Perfecto premier in SD was good, if a little low on the attendance, but a very personal atmosphere. Against my doctors orders to stay out of the water for a whole week because of the lipture (lip + rupture) which is now almost completely healed, I had myself a fun surf at moonlight beach in San Diego with one of the investors of Momentum who was very freindly and hospitable. The SF premier the next night was a good time because so many close friends came out and all seemed to enjoy the show. Everyone insisted that, despite my own low self esteem, I didn’t sound like a complete bumbling idiot in the interviews in the film. I think most people don’t like the way they are captured on film, at least talking to the camera. Some people definitely interview better than others. I think I fall into the ‘others’ category. I was also able to get in a few last gym sessions before taking off for Canalandia, which will hopefully help because I will most likely not be touching plastic until the comp at the trade show. Not sure if my foot will be ready for outside bouldering when we arrive in Squamish in a few days, but with all the bouldering in the gym I’ve been doing in the last few weeks I’m confident I’ll be fine in the comp.
Yesterday I realized that I couldn’t rock the white-trash mullet anymore. I strolled the down the block, back to the place I got it cut and had them “fix” it, demanding it was lop-sided, sloppy and not at all what I wanted. He offered to work on it a bit, maybe craft it into something more desirable and stylish, but my mullet phase was over. While rocking the mullet I started seeing people everywhere with them, Like fixies… so I had to ditch it. Plus, I saw a friend who’s mullet was superb and subtle, just the look I was going for, and he sure as heck didn’t pay fifty bucks for it! Now I look exactly like I do in Perfecto..
So it is pretty much back to the fantasy life at this point. I’m feeling pretty strong again, traveling and climbing non-stop. I have been bouldering in the gym a bit… risky, I know. But that’s the way I live: on the edge! Speaking of which, I hadn’t had a haircut for about 9 months, since I buzzed it really short on September 4th, the day after I did realization, and as of recently had an almost too full head of hair. I looked like a member of the Beatles, or the Monkeys. It was long, and my bangs were getting annoying, always falling in my eyes while I was trying to climb. Obviously it was time for another cut. I wanted to cut it short again, since it is summer after all, but it felt like a waist to just cut all the hair off at once, and I’ve been waiting a long time to do something crazy with my hair, it just never felt like the right time. So today, I went to the super-hip salon a block away from my house on the way home from Mission Cliffs and went all out,