time for some action

Well, I forgot to post the rest of this post last night… opps. Now I’m at the Oakland airport, waiting at gate 22 to board a plane that is going to take me to SLC where I’ll to the donkey show that is outdoor retailer. I haven’t gotten enough sleep in the past few nights, so hopefully I get some much needed rest tonight (not likely).

(<<<NOT ME, but I wish it was) Much has happened since my last post… OB (ocean beach, SF, for those who are unfamiliar with the acronym) saw the best run of surf since the summer, and possibly in the last few years (?) which I wasn’t allowing myself to partake in. But in the end, the sacrifice was more than worth it. Climbing is WAY more important to me than surfing will ever be, even though I often fantasize that I’m a pro surfer instead of, well, whatever I am. The rest did my shoulders well, and I’ve climbed 4 of the last five days, one of which was actually on real rock! My shoulders are feeling pretty good, and soreness is down to a minimum. I have to say that despite having only climbed a little bit lately, I don’t feel like I’ve lost much in the way of endurance and all around strength. My power seems to have suffered a little, but I’m sure it’ll come back soon enough, and hopefully I’ll shed the extra 8 lbs I’ve been carrying around for the last couple months

(Daniel, or Simba?) Unfortunately we didn’t take a whole lot of videos and pics of our little outing on Sunday, and most of the ones we did take accidentally got erased, but we managed to salvage a little sample vid. The place we went is one of two area’s near Columbia college in Sonora, CA. The area we got a little tour of is called the Arboredum, the other that we didn’t check out is the Labyrinth. Apparently the who place used to be burried underground until sometime in the 20′s or so, people looking presumeably for gold, hydromined the crap out of it and exposed all these rad limestone corridors. It’s doens’t have the man-made feel at all though like a quarry might. Quite the opposite in fact. You feel pretty far removed when you are in the maze of water sculpted boulders, even though we were never more than 500 feet from the road. Hehe, accelerated erosion: may be a good thing in certain situations. The rock is really grippy, especially on the newer problems, and the features are amazing. Lots of clean faces with cracks, pockets, knobs, runnels and big horns at the tops of many of the boulders. It’s like no other place Ive climbed. It’s also on private property, and access hasn’t been completely ironed out yet, so if you do go looking for it, and actually mamage to stumble upon it, which you won’t, don’t go breaking your leg and try to sew.

Sonora Bouldering (The Arboretum) 1/18/09 from Ethan Pringle on Vimeo

. (<<<Pics stolen from Cuz’s facebook… The arete is Gramma Death, funky V10 ish arete that he sent this weekend, and super classic sandbagged V6, Cellar Door, next to it) A few quick notes about this Vid: first off, that thing Daniel and I backed off of is way taller than it looks in this video! Secondly, that roof problem I climbed feet first, was originally done by Ben Palonco climbing hands first out the roof and was way harder (I only send things by finding the tall person cheater beta). There is also another problem if you start on that arete at the end of the roof and climb back the other way, but it started on two very poor holds, so daniel and I decided that the big rail (that I do the big move to with my left hand with my right on the ham-hock at the end of the problem, in the video) would be a better starting hold. So we jump-started to that rail, then down-climbed and reversed those ending moves, climbed out the roof in the opposite direction and exited the roof on the other side. The funny thing is the moves actually flowed really well! We aslo went to another little area in the upper Arboredum with two classic problems, but the vids we took got erased and it was pretty dark by the time we sent the harder line. I didn’t figure it out and send until it was practically dark out! Props to Cuz and Daniel for their sends. Matt and Mark will surely send Swing Dance next time!

The united states has a new president (thank goodness!) Good bye bushy… Welcome Da-boma! I feel happier with life already. For the past 8 years, it seems as though there has been a dark cloud looming over this country, a cloud that has finally lifted. Things are lookiing up for 2009. I’m fu*&ing excited!

I’m also excited to compete in the SCS nationals this weekend in SLC in conjunction with the Outdoor Retailer show, which I’ve attended off and on since I was like 14. It’s fun because you get to see a lot of cool people you only get to see at events like that. It also gives me a chance to check in with all my sponsors, to say hello in person. But it’s damn overwhelming. All the people, the booths, the florescent overhead lights… it slowly sucks your soul. Like I said though, I’m exceted for the comp even though I’m not in the best shape of my life. Last year I went to the winter show even though I was on crutches, mostly so I could be at the golden piton ceremony, but watching the comp was pretty torturous since I was sure I could have done well if I hadn’t had a broken heel. So this year hopefully I’ll do as well as I thought i would have done last year, if I had competed. After the comp and trade show I’m sticking around SLC for a few days to hang out and ski up at snowbird and park city. It’s pretty sad that I used to go with my parents up to tahoe every other weekend to snowboard, and I haven’t gone even once in the past 4 years! But I grabbed my old Libtech board out of the garage, knocked the dust off that puppy and had it tuned up. J’yeah! Psyched.

Have you guys heard the band …and you will know us by the trail of dead? They’re freaken awesome! My new favorite! My three favorite albums are “So Divided” and “Worlds Apart”. I suggest you check them out! OK, I didn’t know they were classified as “Christian Rock” until I went to their myspace page just now, but listening to their music I had no idea… Just give ‘em a chance is all I’m saying, or maybe they sound just like Faith + 1 and I have no idea. Now maybe I’m begind the curve of music this year, but I’ve also been intriduced to a few other bands/musicians that I’ve taken a liking to recently. Beck has a new album he did with Dangermouse, Modern Guilt, which is pretty good. I’m still not sure if I like The Broken West‘s whole album Now or Heaven, or just the second song, Auctioneer, but I’ll give it a second listen ans see if it grown on me. Also, the album Autom of the Seraphs, by Pinback is another amazing album and definitetly one of my recent favorites, especially when getting psyched for a run. Obviously Vampire Weekend‘s self titled album is really good, if you are in the mood for some happy, up-beat melodies. Finally, folk wonder Sun Kill Moon has a great album called April, and another more alternative sounding folk band The Dutchess and the Duke‘s album, She’s the Dutchess, He’s the Duke is freaken awesome! One more folk band I was introduced to 5 minutes ago: The Snake The Cross The Crown. Sounds like a folk version of cold war kids. I’m not gonna go any further with the music, because my mom is probbaly the only one who is going to read this, and she ain’t got time to check out all this music.

Aieet, one last thing to get you PS-SYKED! An amazing vid of my Andy Mann (get it?) making a slightly assisted ascent of Sky, a V14 in South Africa, first ascended by D woods. This vid gets me SO psyched to get down there this summer. There’s HOPE for us all!

And here are two more that get me psyched for the two other bouldering destinations I’m going to check out this spring. Well, their fall to be polite. F#c&ing c’mon yes!