Honestly (and Rod could sense this), after our first day of shooting at goat rock, I had my doubts about how many usable pictures Rod was gonna come up with… the scenes we were shooting just seemed too staged and cheesy, and the art director wasn’t really directing…. Even after our second day of shooting at the endless bummer rock… well, I had my doubts. Sorry Rod! After he told me his plan of taking 15 shots and splicing them into one amazing image to use for the cover I was thinking, “why doesn’t he just go shoot from the freaken perch like everyone else? At least he could see get the city in the shot from there?” Even Ben, my friend and loyal belayer of the day (he got to send Endless and work out the moves on Surf Sarafi so don’t feel too bad for him) who is on the quite side, had voiced his disbelief in Rod’s artistic direction… sorry again! But, the man had a plan and was one step ahead. Basically, we didn’t realize how much of a photoshop wizard Rod really was. He spliced the original iamge, the one SF Mag adopted for the cover, from about 15 different raw files that we’re taken that afternoon, many from different vantage points. He couldn’t actually see the city or any distinguishing features thereof from the place he shot me on the wall, so from the base of the climb he shot several pictures of the city and the horizon, including Monterrey bay, which can be seen in the OG image. Then he took several closeups of me, full frame on the route itself with no background and spliced them in there too. Then he took pics of a few of the rocks surrounding the climb on the hillside and in the foreground. He took all those shots, worked his magic, and wallah! When he emailed me the preliminary image I was, pleasantly surprised to say the least. After the mag came out I was at mission cliffs and ran into Scott Fry (the old-school hard man/bay area climbing legend who FA’ed Endless Bummer and surf Safari in the mid-90s). He said he bought a copy of the mag after he saw it at a store and wondered how someone had managed to snag the angle that had alluded Ansel Adams, who shot Ron Kauk on the route many years earlier… that made me chuckle.

I used to frown upon pics in climbing mags with bad artificial light or a posed down feel (and I still do) not that either of those are a part of the above images, but I think in the case of the the SF Mag cover, a little doctoring was just fine and produced an image that I’m proud to be a part of. Ok I’ll stop slobbing my own nob now. Check out Rod’s site and blog if you haven’t already. Here is an interesting blog post written by Rod on the above subject. Also, thanks to Rob for framing a bunch of photos for me, including a blown-up version of the cover shot. WERD.

Check out the Flickr set!

And a short little Vimeo.

Red Rocks, Jan. ‘10 from Ethan Pringle on Vimeo.

Chikity-check the Flickr set, Phu!

I also went to the tradeshow but I somehow didn’t take one single picture or video… probably for the best. Those things are better forgotten anyway.

I have a series of shoe demos for 5.10 at the Planet Granite Gyms next week- Monday at 6pm at Belmont, Wednesday at Sunnyvale and Thursday at PG SF. If you’re near any of those places and want to come check out some new 5.10s… come one down!

Also this weekend I plan on finalizing travel plans to the Hueco Rock Rodeo and the Red Rock Rendezvous! Psyched to get to both event a few days early and get some climbing in.

Red Rocks blog post coming later today… finally learned how to compress 1280X720P for Vimeo without loosing too much Quality but keeping it under 500 MB… It’s hard when the vid is 8 mins long… screw iMovie! I need to learn to edit with FCP! Later

Now I will attempt to clear the cobwebs, knock the dust off and scrape the grime out of the crevasses… Hopefully there isn’t too much built up that it isn’t impossible to clean.

Since my last post I’ve completed my second semester of college! I took an Intro to Archaeology class with an amazing professor, Matthew Kennedy. I took a fun yet slightly stressful (because I kind of suck at it) Argumentation and Debate class with a funny and eloquent professor, Dr. Whalen. I took a very interesting Oceanography class with the knowledgeable, yet sometimes slightly misleading Robert Anima, and I took an elementary piano class with a super nice and patient instructor, Jim… can’t remember his last name… Mcfadden I think. I don’t mean to brag but, I got all A’s and a B in the Piano class! Even though it’s only junior collage and some of you smarty-pants’ out there might scoff at this, it’s a huge deal for me since I was never very good a school, especially high school! Even though it’s totally embarassing and I thought I did a pretty bad job, here is a really funny video a classmate posted of one of my debates in argumentation on the topic of reducing vs. not reducing the US’s nuclear arsenal: http://playphotovideo.com/debate/debate4.mov. Ugh… sorry to my debate partner and my apponents if you didn’t want anyone seeing this… oh man! Why am I posting this?!? Oh well. I also went to a rookie debate tounrnement with my debate partner for extra credit and paced fifth in the tourniment and got a little trouphy! Wooo hooo! So I’m pretty proud of myself for this one, I’ve got to say!

Speaking of that sin, Pride I mean, I’m also very proud of myself for making my first Magazine cover! So which one you ask? Climbing magazine, Rock and Ice, Urban climber, Alpanist for god’s sake? Nah my friend, nah. The magazine that I’m proud to be representing on the cover of, is this month’s issue of San Francisco! Being a SF native, born, raised and still residing in the city, I think it’s appropriate that my first (and possibly only?!?) cover be on my city’s namesake magazine. Here’s a link to their website: http://www.sanfranmag.com/ Go pick up a copy! The Photog who took the pics of Natasha and I is a great guy and a really professional photog, not to mention a photoshop wizard! His name is Rod McLean and his website is right here. The first day we went out to goat rock up in Sonoma which is a cool, fun little bouldering area but didn’t really offer anyphoto opportunities worthy of the cover, so a few days later we went out to the Endless Bummer/Surf Safari rock that hosts two really fun, short and photogenic climbs and I’m really glad we did because we scored some amazing images! I sent these two climbs in the same day way back when I was 15 on a day trip there with Kevin Jorgeson… when we went back out to get the shots I knew my shoulder wasn’t anywhere near in the shape it had to be in to actually repeat the route, but I was suprised at how doable the moves and everything on the route felt so early in my recovery. I think I could definitely send Endless bummer now, but surf safari would be sketchy considering the crux is a big throw with the left hand… but who knows!?! I’m going to the gym in a bit so we’ll see just how much of a gain I’ve made after the last few rest days.

The article that I was interviewed for is about alternative healers in the bay area and my PT’s (Jim Donak- www.divingbuddah.com) name and website ended up on the cover and in the article as well. One healer that I told the writer about that who’s info they didn’t end up using in the article but who deserves to be in there just as much is my good friend and body worker Mike Papciak. Mike is magical with his hands and as a climber (actually one of the strongest climbers in the bay area in the 90’s) he really knows how to find the knots and aches in climbers bodies and work them away. I don’t think he has a website yet (c’mon Mike!) but if you live in the bay area and are curios what a deep tissue/triggerpoint massage is like, shoot the man an email at mike.papciak@gmail.com!

So on to the next subject: shoulders (fucken a..)! So after about four months of rehabbing and stretching, I finally just got antsy and decided to try some super-easy climbing back in October. I started off doing 5.8s and 9s, basically with only my right arm and only using my left for balance. Little by little I ramped it up to the point where I was doing easy 12s about a month later, but still favoring my right arm alot. I can’t say that the grades I’ve climbed since then have gone up dramatically (I’ve done 13a and V7-8ish in the gym) since then, but I’m using my left arm a lot more now and I’ve made leaps and bounds of progress with it in the last couple months. I can finally dead hang on both arms again, do chin-ups and pull-ups and do some campusing on the campus board and on the ladder. Next I’m going to start putting some weight on the arm by it’s self, little by little of course. I think as soon as I can dead hang on it by it’s self then I’ll start to make leaps and bounds of progress in my climbing.

Since I started climbing again back in October, I’ve gone on some fun trips to Yosemite Valley, Tuolumne, Humboldt, Pinnacles National Monument and most recently Red Rocks. check out the blogs if you haven’t already! There are some pretty great “best of 2009″ blogs on Fiveten’s blog to whaste your time reading, and as always, there are some pretty great blogs from all the amazing Petzl athletes on their blog as well! It’s been really great to be outside again and just move over the rock. Just to feel the texture of the rock under my finger tips again has been magic. I’d be lying though if I said I didn’t care that much about climbing hard again, so I’m going to be training and pushing harder and harder in the next few months until I can do a one arm with the left arm (which is something I’ve never actually be able to do anyway, even with my arm was healthy). I have many climbing-related goals left to accomplish and I’ll be damned if I let a wee little surgery get in my way! Heck no!

As the list of climbers grow, I get more an more comforted that I’m not the only one out there who’s had shoulder problems and gotten the surgery, as messed up as that sounds (But I know they think the same thing about me). Beth Rodden, the poor girl, has recently had the labral surgery and has been documenting her recovery with some regularity here and here. The legendary comp climber Patxi Usobiaga also recently had the surgery just before Christmas! This is crazy for me tho think about since that guy always seemed so invincible to me, but I guess when you train that hard…something bad is bound to happen eventually. There are also a bunch of people from the bay area that have had, or have to get the surgery soon. Good luck to everybody that is facing this life-changing transformation and I wish you all a safe and speedy recovery! And trust me when I say that I know how you feel! One guy who doesn’t seem to need any luck to regain his prior strength is Chris Webb Parsons. He had the surgery about two months before me and just sent the Mandala the other day! Good on ya Mate! You are an inspiration!

What else is new… Not a whole lot really. Just kinda the same old sheeeit. Oh! I got back in the water and surfed for the first time last week! I went down to Linda Mar in Pacifica with a couple friends and went out with a long board! I was really nervous that I was going to wreck my shoulder but you really don’t have to paddle that hard on a long board and the waves were pretty mellow so I ended up catching a couple fun rides among the closeouts and stayed out for about an hour and a half! Wooo Hooo!

I start my spring semester at CCSF one week from today (eeeek!) so I’ll try to get a post up about my recent trip to Red Rocks before then with some pics and vids. I just got a new little point and shoot at best buy, a Canon SD780, to take on climbing trips so hopefully I’ll be able to take a bunch of pics and share ‘em with Y’all! Ok I’m going to get up off my lazy ass right now and go outside before the next rain comes!!! The good thing about the rain is that means snow for the Sierras this weekend!

Here are some recent pics:

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So, what have I been up to? Where am I? Was my left arm amputated? Am I even still alive? These are problably the sorts of questions you have been asking yourselves since for the last 5 months since my last post, as you hit the ethanpringle.com tab on your web browser and frantically click the refresh button every five minutes thinkng, “he still hasn’t responded to my comment!”

Riiiiiiiiiiight. Truth is, I’ve just been really lazy, flacky and downright unmotivated since I hurt my shoulder almost six months ago (got damn it seems like forever)… that’s just what happens when your drivin force is laterally torn away from you. Climbing, traveling, more climbing, a little resting, spraying about climbing- that’s what I do, what I love, that’s all I really know. So now that I can’t do that stuff anymore I think: what the F#@k do I do now?!? Lemme just say that life is pretty dull without climbing. Remember all those moments around a campfire of at the gym or wherever, when someone (maybe even you?) says, “but who really cares right? Cuz it’s only climbing.” I even said something just like that to a few people the night I ripped my shoulder apart at the nationals on problem 4. One of those people was Andrew Bisharat and he replied with a “well, I don’t know about that.” I was tricking myself into believeing there was a whole world out there just waiting to be tapped into, a world where I’ll rediscover myself and discover and help others and learn new things, and become a more well rounded person… Well, there is, definitely. But I still trying to figure out how to be interested enough in it to actually tap into it. Maybe I’m a spoiled brat. Yes, I definitely am, but I can’t help it if life doens’t seem as interesting without the seemingly silly persuit of climbing rocks. So for all your psyched little groms out there, lemme give you a suggestion, either you don’t ever take climbing as seriously as I have in the last five years, or don’t get as injured as I did! Be car-fool!

So why now, you may be asking yourself. Why the update? Why the heck not, that’s why. I’m that bored and have pretty much nothing else to do, even though it’s another beautiful sunny day outside. C’mon, I took the dogs to Dolores Park this morning!?!

Ok, onto the shoulder business. So… I did go through with the surgery. It’s freaken crazy how many people I know have jacked their shoulders in the past year. I guess once you hurt yourself you start to pay attention to eveyone else who is complaining about the same injury and you just grvitate twards each other… but I digress. I gave my shoulder over three months to see how it would heal, which it did, a little, but not nearly enough for me to climb anywhere close to the level I was used to. All the signs pointed twards surgery and a few doctors (including Roger Rogalski- thanks so much for all the advice) told me that getting it scoped was probably the right course of action. On the morning of June 3rd afer watching the previous night’s daily show and colbert report on my own little personal screen in the ICU, and getting the most painful IV ever (she dug and searched my forarm for a vein for like three minutes until I told her to just look in my hand, dang it woman) I was brought into the main surgery center and given general anesthesia. I woke up about two hours later with intense pain in my shoulder and begged for the morphine (oh sweet morphine). I was released from the hospital that same day, about seven hours after I had entered, all groggy from the drugs. I took the Vicodin for a couple days before it no longer hurt enough to necessitate it. My shoulder hurt pretty bad for abot a week and was really unomfortable all the time. It was really hard to sleep most nights, which I guess is kind of normal for me. Then every day it felt a lot better then the last. There was a time when I thought I was screwing it up again, or undoing the work that the doctors had done when I would move the wrong way or trip on a crack in the sidewalk or something and it would twinge really bad, but after the one month mark when I didn’t have to wear the sling anymore, all the twinging stopped. Since then I have been going to physical therapy at kaiser and getting my shoulder all sretched out. It’s sort of a tight rope walk between stretcing out the joint and gettng it all moblie again and strengthing it. So I’ve been doing some strengthening exercises with the yellow theraband and stretching it as well. Nothing too heavy. I have heard people climb again after this surgery, have taken anywhere from three months to six months off after the surgery. Chris Webb says his doctor told him six months, and his friend who had the same surgery was climbing lite again after five. Either way, I’m gonna take it slow. I’m not trying to get overly excited again and re-injure myself. Uh-uh. Negative. Of course I want to climb hard again and continue to challange myself once I’, back in shape, but for now I’m just going to take it one day at a time.

Obviously, a lot has happened in the last five months. A lot. I ain’t about to talk about it all right now. But I’ll just give a quick update of some significant events that have happened in my life as of late. I… turned 23, and was dragged by a plane by our (I was strapped to an eastern European girl named Val) parachute on my birthday, just after my first skydiving experience in Lodi. That same day my dad woke up in am ambulance on his way to SF general after a bad biking accident where he smacked his head on the cement after apparently hitting a parked car and flying over the handle bars and suffering a severe concussion (he had some memory loss for about four hours after the accident and a henius black eye/gash o his fore head from his helmet which wasn’t on very tight…). I’ll write a post about that day soon with a detailed description of the near fatal skydiving freak accident. I finished my first semester of college (whoo hoo) although I still don’t know what grades I got because my teachers still haven’t entered them into the system… I most likely didn’t receive an A for either class since I crammed last minute for every test and wasn’t too confident about the outcome, especially on the History tests. I am committed to learn to do my work as soon as it’s assigned to me in the coming semester though! Riiiiight. It was a quick six week course which is pretty awesome because it’s over before you know it. More details on all that soon enough.

So besides that, I’ve just been chilling in the city, goofing around and going to the sierras for a couple quick gettaways. My friend Ben and I climbed snakehike back in may which was really fun and made me want to actually start climbing walls, like a real California native should… can you believe I’ve lived here my whole life and never gotten on El Cap? Shameful. What else… not much really. I have been jonesing so hard lately to go climbing it’s rediculous. I have aspirations of things to accomplish in the next few years of my life such as learning a misical instrument, learning to sketch and finally learning spanish, but one thing at a time… right? Now to figure out what that one thing is going to be… enjoy yhe pics and video and I’ll update again soon.

-E

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Seriously, does it get anymore CLASSIC than that?

I remember last time this year, sitting at home with a debilitating injury, not being able to walk, hearing about lots of friends being exactly where they want to be, climbing on real rock and sending climbs I’m dreaming of… I hope this doesn’t become a yearly tradition for me! On the bright side though, my shoulder is feeling slightly more normal everyday. I can tell that even pulling on jugs, even hanging on a pull-up bar is still a long ways off for me, which is a really weird feeling. I get depressed when I think about climbing because of this feeling, sometimes. And other times I get super-psyched and stay home in front of the TV and computer for hours watching climbing movies and looking at peoples blogs and looking at pics, fantasizing about the moment when I’ll be able to feel rock under my fingertips again, to move freely without any fear… this might be awhile, but hey, I’m a lifer! As far as the staying inside a lot lately, in my defense, it’s been raining like every day for the last week! It’s pretty rad actually. Even with all this rain, which seems like way more rain than Ive ever seen in SF, probably because I don’t normally spend this much time in SF, we’re still catching up on our yearly average… or so I hear. Coulda fooled me!

Here is a copy of the Email that Roger Rogalski Sent me after reviewing my MR with his radiology expert:

Ethan,
There was a small irregularity we all saw in the long head of your biceps which would be consistent with a tear.  The biceps anchor is at the glenoid labrum and when the labrum pulls away from the glenoid that’s commonly referred to as a SLAP lesion.  If the labrum pulls away from the glenoid lower down it usually is more consistent with something called a Bankart lesion and indicative of anterior/inferior instability, either acute or chronic.  I wouldn’t rush to any surgical decision at this point.  Your MR findings are pretty subtle and there was a little bit of diagnostic disagreement.   Reasonably, I think you should give yourself more time and rest before venturing off to the surgical suite.  You’re not burning any bridges by giving nature a little time: the surgery’s no more difficult later and any delay won’t necessarily impair the end result.  You’re young, fit and have tremendous healing potential. The pendulum for treatment of first time dislocations/subluxations has swung back and forth a number of times in my career.  For now it’s in the the non-operative deadpoint.  Also, not all mild SLAPs are symptomatic. The corollary to the adage no hold’s to big to fall from is there’s no problem so bad we can’t make it worse with surgery.  Your decision should be based on your symptoms, not subtle MR findings.  I know you’re anxious but it’s always better to not make a decision in that state.  I don’t mind if you paste this to your blog but you have to remember that I’m only looking at a MRI.  You need to be examined and as part of the Kaiser system start having an honest, communicative relationship with your doctor there as well.  Let me know how things progress.  Go to NZ.  You’ll have more fun there then stressing about whether to have early surgery or not.  I’ve seen extraordinary climbers, pitchers, quarterbacks, etc.with shoulders a thousand times worse.  I’d bet $ you’ll be back to your former level.

Well, pretty… er, decent news huh! So the bottom line is that I should just wait to see what my shoulder feels like after some rehab before making any big decisions… I was under the impression that if I were to wait that it would be harder to repair the tear later if I did decie to go under the knife, but apparently that’s not the case. In an earlier E-mail Roger said he usually gives the time frame of 4-6 weeks to heal a “mild SLAP tear”, which would put me right at the date of my ticket to NZ 6 weeks after the injury… well, I’m still not completely writing it off of course, but the way I think about it is, if I can get a credit for my ticket, I can always make my trip to NZ next year. Even though I’ve been wanting to climb at castle hill and the gramps for years, they’re not going anywhere, and neither am I. I know some people will say that this is the wrong attitude to have, but I kind of don’t want to travel almost as far across the globe as you can get from California, to a place I’ve dreamt about visiting and climbing amazing highballs and surfing, to not surf at all, maybe climb V5s if I’m really lucky, and risking the chance of getting over-excited and re-injuring myself… right now, the time just doesn’t seem right to go. But who knows! A lot can happen in 3 weeks so like I said, I’m not ruling it out yet! I’d like to thanks Dr. Rogalski and his Radiology tech for looking at my MRI and giving me such great advice! For now I’m just gonna take it one step at a time, one day at a time, eventually one move at a time.

I had a visit to a body work/trainer/expert guy up on bernal heights today. I gave him the history of the shoulder problems, he gave me and exam, did some passive stretches, and showed me some good exercises and stretches to do. He was the second person to tell me that the center of pain or sensitivity in my shoulder was my supra-spinatus, first person to tell me, you know whoyou are- thanks and keep up the good work! For my shoulder, tomorrow will be a rest day (for the most part, I don’t know if I can stay off of Brian’s fixe!), so we’re going to see a matinee of the watchmen- I’m so psyched!!!

So for all of those like me who need a little extra motivation and want to fuel their dreams of untouched, featured granite boulders in paradise, get a load of these puppies my friend sent me a link to…

Well, Since multiple winners already found the treasure, I guess there’s really no point in telling you, But I guess you can still win to be entered into the raffle or ust follow it for fun! I think it was a rad experiment, and I was payched to be a part of it. I think next time all the clues should be released and published at the same time so it’ll be more like a race!

What else is new… Hmmm. Well, tomorrow the 6th is my moms 39th birthday (jk… that would be really young to have kids actually)! I was blessed with the greatest mom in the whole world, even though sometimes she doesn’t ask me o wlk the dog until like 11pm! Mompiece, you are the best! Thanks for spawning me! Yesterday I accompanied my parents to sleep train where I made the mistake of walking directly over to the the temperpedic beds and flopping down on the first one I saw.. long story short, my parents ended up walking out of there with a next day delivery of the top-notch, california king-sized matress which coasted… more than I willing to say right now, but it was not pocket change for most people. But screw it! You only live twice, why not make the golden years as enjoyable as your youth, since your supposed to spend a third of your life asleep anyway (obviously not true for me, typing this at 1:52am…) why not invest in a matress that’ll allow you to make the time spent getting Zzz, as quality as possible (and for my mom, that’s a lot of time!)

In parting I leave you with this gut-busting hialrious vid:

Oh shit on a shingle! I almost forgot! I’m hosting a two part advanced lead climbing clinic at mission cliffs (sans demonstrations this time) this Sunday and the next, the 8th and 15. So if you want me to give you that unsolicited advice I’ve always been itching to dish out, come down and take my clinic. The main purpse of the clinic is to learn how to climb staying more relaxed, especially when going for it on moves at your limit above the bolt! We’ll also cover stuff like propper belay, clipping and falling techniques and as much one on one counseling as we can fit into four hours. At less than $20 an hour for members, I think it’s a bargain compared to most coaching programs.

Aieet, it’s way past my bed time. Earlier bedtimes start tomorrow, as well as core training (as if), running 10 miles everyday (W/E) and no eating sugar (yeah right)! And no more facebook…

OK, my brother just walked in and helped me find the leak. Fixed. No dying of poisonous gases in my sleep. BTW, look at this crazy catch. What a majestic beast! Hopefully they release it back into the wild, and don’t try to fry it up and make chips out of it! Oh, how crazy is this world we live in!

So on Friday I got the MRI (which was like listening to really bad trance music, sort of a redundancy I know, in an open ended coffin) and yesterday my sports med doctor finally called me back after four days of festering… he said he looked at the MRI after a radiology expert, and neither of them found any significant tears in either the labrum or the rotator cuff in any of the images. He said it looked like there was some swelling in certain parts of my shoulder that are usually associated with tendonosis, which is what I thought my right shoulder originally had. He said even though it felt like a rip/tear when it happened, it could have been a subluxation- a quick, subtle, dislocation of my shoulder. A quick popping, or stretching, out and back in. I asked him if maybe he couldn’t see any tear because my arm was at a funny angle during the MRI or maybe the image was blurry because I was moving or something, but he said that the image quality was “pretty decent” and usually the radiology people throw their own two cents into the report if the image quality is bad, and they didn’t have anything to say about it this time. Pretty great news huh?!? I know what you are all thinking: oh that Ethan, such a little melodramatic twerp sometimes. But for serious, I thought I would never be able to lift my arm above my head after it happened, let alone climb sheer rock faces again! It felt pretty bad. More like a ripping or tearing feeling, rather than a popping one. But what do I know, I’m no doctor. Then today (Wednesday, technically yesterday at this point) my doctor calles me again to say an orthopedic surgeon looked at the MRI and thought he saw a slight tear in the Labrum, which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense since it’s definitely the area around my rotator cuff that is in pain. I sent a copy of my MRI to a climber who climbs often at jailhouse, who is also a surgeon in Carson City, NV. I am very grateful for this, and eager to hear what he, as someone who see hundreds of patients with similar injuries, and also knows the stress and abuse a climbers body sometimes take and can endure.

So, obviously I’m pretty GDd psyched that I might be getting off the hook a lot easier than I originally thought, possibly without surgery, and possibly with only weeks instead of months of recovery time! Who-Hoo! I know I shouldn’t get my panties all in a bunch quite yet, but I may even be able to make my flight to NZ on April 1st! We’ll see about that, but the chances seem much better that I’ll be back on the rock sooner rather than later.

You always want what you can’t have right? Well, I always get sooo psyched to climb when I’m forced to rest… I re-watch climbing movies that I’ve see ten times already, and try to get a bunch of new ones. Fortunately right now, there are some rad ones to see. Tomorrow I’m going to see the Nor-Cal premier of Pure, a bouldering movie produced by Chuck Fryberger featuring young-gun, Finnish hard man Nalle Hukkataival, and and another friend of mine, highball master Kevin Jorgeson. Looks to be pretty rad. Kevin said it’s bitchen, and taking into account most climbers think less of the movies they are in, this one should be a doosy. I guess Chuck did a good job editing Kevo’s interviews… Another movie I’m psyched to check out is Call it what you want. I’m not gonna write a review about it since for 1) it’s one in te morning, and 2) I haven’t seen it. But I want to so anyone who knows where to order this film, or when it wil be available let me know. This movie looks cool because it has some very dangerous looking climbing in it, which is always exciting to watch, I think a friend of mine, Mason may appear in it for a brief time, and it just looks different than most climbing porn. And of course how I forget the Stonealliance film tour featuring highlights from three kick-ass new climbing flicks created by three gifted, veteran filmmakers. The San Francisco premier is March 18th, so I want everyone to mark their calendars, and tell all their friends to mark their calenders. I don’t know how much of my segment in The Players will be shown during the premier, but I’ll bet my fall and subsequent decking will be shown, and that’ll be well worth the entrance fee!

2009 Stone Alliance Film Tour from Brian Solano on Vimeo.

Its crazy how hard people are pulling down these days! Just go to climbingnarc and see for yourself. I mean, people are f-ing string now! It’s not even funny… people climbing 5.15 and V14 is a weekly occurrence now. 13 year olds are sending 5.14+… people are flashing V12 left and right, and sedning V13 like there is no tomorrow! It depresses me because I feel like I have to be anorexic to ever be that strong, which will never happen because of my complete lack of self control when it comes to food, but it also inspires me to no end to hear about amazing feats of climbing talent.

It’s interesting to note that in climbing, like surfing and snowboarding and may other extreme sports, even though younger and younger prodigies are stepping up to the plate faster and with more consistency and meeting the highest level of difficulty in the sport, but for the most part the guys (and gals now too) who actually raise the bar and set new standards are the ones who are a little older, wiser and with more years of experience under their belts. Is this because once you get to a certain age, and no longer live on the dole, you have to make a nitch for yourself in order to actually make a living in extreme sports? To put a roof over your head, to bring home the fake-in, to actually make a decent living being nothing but a “professional climber” is pretty hard to do, so the people doing it have to raise the bar in some way for the younger generation to follow, while there isnt as much pressure on the younger generation to seek out new challanges that haven’t been sought out yet? Feel free to chime in with your two cents.

I’d also like to make everyone aware of a special event going on this Saturday at the infamous Hueco Tanks, TX. Most of you probably already know, but it’s the 16th (there have really been 16 of them? where the hell have I been, living under a rock or something?) annual Hueco Rock Rodeo sponsored by one of my biggest supporters for the last ten years of my climbing career- FIVETEN. 5.10 has been giving me the most important tools of the trade since I was just a wee little tyke. I think I just wouldn’t know how to climb in any other shoe at this point. This weekend there will be a fury of sending in Hueco, followed by a huge after-party complete with prizes and a raging bonfire, and some drunken debauchery… not always the safest combo, but always the most fun! Sounds like there are a number of sick strong people in Hueco right now that will still be there to compete this weekend, so it should be an impressive show. Wish I could be there to bear witness and do a little thrashing myself (sniffle). No worries, there’s always next year, and best believe I’ll be ready then!… unless I pop a pulley or something.

I was pleasantly surprised to see this caption at the bottom of the ‘departments’ section on page 7 of this month’s beautiful Rock & Ice photo annual- Parting shot: what’s the perfect shot to end the photo issue with? Did you say Ethan Pringe’s Ass”? Good, good. So I guess someone out there thinks I have an ass attractive enough to devote a whole page of R&I to? Right on! I guess I should be slightly disturbed that my behind was the subject of the “parting shot”, but I’m pretty flattered and please that I was part of an image that was a lot less ordinary and conventional than most climbing shots. If you haven’t already, go pick up a copy! It’s tits.

Lastly, I’d like to thank everybody who supported me, called me up, wrote me emails, blooged about me (you know who you are) and just reassured me that I was gonna be alright. Honestly, I was freaked out, and still am a little. I still don’t know exactly what happened to my shoulder, or how long it’s going to take to heal. I do know that you never know the true value of something until you feel like you’ve lost it. Every time I hurt myself and the I’m shown the mortality of my life as a “pro” climber, I’m reminded how much climbing means to me, how much it’s given me, and how much I have to be thankful for that I get to live this blessed,  fantasy existence. My motivation for climbing has fluctuated a lot in the last few months, but right now it feels at an all time high. Whenever my body is ready to climb again, so will I. I’ll keep all of you posted on status of my recovery, hopefully with a little more frequency in the coming weeks. Thanks again. Peace out!

I know I shouldn’t say this, or even think this right now, because a) my sponsors will probably drop me like 3rd period french (JK, I hope), b) I don’t even know what’s really wrong yet, and c) people say one’s thinking can effect the way you heal your body…. but right now I feel as if my climbing career is over! Yeah, I had a good run- climbed some difficult and beautiful rocks, placed well in a few comps, and got to see the world, or at a few wonderful places, but right now I feel like Mickey Rorke in the wrestler, after his heart attack, and I’m not even trying to be dramatic just for the sake of it. But I can’t lie, it’s just how I feel right now! Demolalized! But who knows. I could wake tomorrow morning (assuming I can actually go to sleep) and crank out 15 one-arms, but more than likely my shoulder will still hurt like hell and I’ll still be really bummed. What’s done is done, so there is no point in saying, or even thinking I could or should have done or not done anything differently. All I can do now is hope it’s something that can heal without surgery and be optimistic… at least I can still type! Actually typing makes it sore too;(

The weekend was going well prevuous to the explosion of my shoulder… even though I was kinda bummed I wasn’t feeling stronger, I was still having a good time and getting to catch up with old friends. I placed 8th in the quallies, behind some really strong kids. It’s crazy how strong the kids are these days. I think there were probably only two guys in the finals who were older than I am. In my mind I keep reliving the moments leading up to the demise of my shoulder… I’m not really trying to, the memories just keep flooding back. The best way I can describe what happened on the second move of men’s final #2 was that I extended my arm to do this huge campus/dyno rose move and as soon as my left shoulder took the first bit of my body weight, it went snap, crackle, pop, like a rice krispy. I knew it was OVER for me. My shoulder was filled with white hot pain, and so was my head. Even thouh I wasn’t in all that much pain, I was in shock from realizing the gravity of what I had just done… so ironic that I just announced a new sponsor, planned a five month trip oversees, and got really psyched up to start training and going outside again! I’m gonna call up my doctor and make an appointment for tomorow, assuming I can get one then, and go get an MRI as soon as I can. I’ll try to keep everyone posted.