Slice of life 5.13d/8b, Rifle

Sam Elias cruising Slice of life 5.13d in The Wicked Cave, Rifle.

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To soon to leave

"It's not like you wasted your time" was Said's respons to my complaints over how fast six weeks go by. I guess it's true as time seems to accelerate along with how much I enjoy myself. I can't think of any trip I made where I experienced as much and met so many new friends. Not once have I been bored or felt that I had to come up with something to do. The few times when we sat still for a change, I actually relished, which is rather unusual for being me.

The last couple of days in Boulder were nice and kinda relaxed. We did some climbing in Cleer creak canyon (Primowall is AWESOME) and bouldered in Flagstaff. Most of the time however were spent hanging out with friends, enjoying just being around. 

Christian Griffith repeating Undercling traverse at Flagstaff. A problem that he climbed "perhaps about a 1000 times", to use his own words.

Normaly when a trip comes to an end I'm pretty tired and can see some bright sides about being back home. This time is no different in terms of me being tired, but not of travelling, so I could just as well have taken some rest in Boulder and then kept going. But I guess I will have to get used to the thought of climbing in minus degrees around Stockholm for a while, which is also quite nice. Only not as nice as climbing in Rifle or Smith. 

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Back to Boulder

So came the day when it was time to move on from Smith Rock. I would have loved to stay longer, but as we had two weeks of good weather that over our last couple of days in the area turned pretty grim, I felt alright leaving. 

Said working Scarface, one of many classic Smith testpieces. Seing how much climbing has been moving forward in the last years, it's amazing that Scott Franklin put up this hard route already back in 1987.

In the end I'm quite happy with the techy sandstone-routes I managed to get up. It's by no means anything to brag about, but I think I did close to the best I could considering the shape I'm in. I climbed some of the routes I'd been wanting to get on, including some ultra classics like Chain reaction, Churning in the wake, Kings of rap and Darkness at noon. The perhaps best of them was Darkness at noon. 30 meters sustained, technical climbing up a beautiful vertical to slightly overhanging wall, makes for one of my all time favorites. Smith is packed with quality climbs like that, in varried difficulties. Many of them I would love to get on and I hope to be back soon, as psyched but much stronger.

Yours truly climbing Churning in the wake. Photo: Said Belhaj.

Since we left Smith on monday night we passed trough Salt lake city to re-visit some friends and then headed to Moab for the second time this trip. Down there we got a bit of climbing in at Potach road and also spent a day squeezing our selfs (litterly spoken) up chimneys to the top of Castleton tower. A very unigue and frightening experience as I have no trust in my own abilties placing gear. 

As from last night we are back in Boulder where the trip began six weeks ago. I can't believe we only have a few more days before flying home. If I could I would cancel my ticket and stay here climbing until I'd get borred with it, which would probably be never. But every trip comes to an end and to see something good about that, it means I can start planning the next one.

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Said just do(es) it

I really admire Said's drive and motivation. During our time here in Smith he's climbed so many routes. Regardless of the difficulty, he walks up to whatever he finds appealing and most of the times, does it in a couple of goes. He is by no means chasing numbers. In Smith he's rather been chasing classics. A route that he's been talking about ever since we left Sweden some weeks ago, is "Just do it" on The Monkeyface. It might be the best line in Smith and also happens to be that hardest. The route was put up by Jean-Baptiste Tribout back 1992 and has an iconic status among the gems of the area. Over the last almost two weeks, we made the heinous walk over the hill a couple of times for him to try the route. Each time, he dogged up it once. No more. He's been saying that he wants to save his skin for the redpoint attempt. Only to walk back over the hill to climb a couple of "easy" classics. 

Today he met up with an old friend that offered to come belay him on the route. I was glad not to have to fill my legs with lactic acid and stay on the route I was working and get my forearms pumped instead. But when Said came back with a smile on his face, I wished I'd went along to witness an amazing achivement!

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Smith Rock

Since a bit more than a week, we are in Smith Rock, Oregon. So far we've managed to climb six full days, which is just about as much as my skin has been able to take, perhaps a bit to much acually. The rock here is sharp, but a side from that this place is incredible in many ways. The area is beautiful, the climbing is awesome and so far, weather has been good pretty much the whole time (except for at one point when a halestorm came in just as I was doing a burn on a route a was trying).

It's hard to know where to start with so many good routes to try. I would love to spend some time on some (for me) slightly harder climbs, at the same time as there are tons of moderate stuff that I also want to do. I was hoping that I would be able to do a bit better here than I have in the areas we been to before on this trip, seing how the style of climbing here should suite me really well. But the last year of injuries, laziness and being undisciplined seems to haunt me here also. Still, it's good to travel as it gives me even more motivation than I had before we went on this trip, to keep climbing and get back to (and beyond) where I was a couple of years ago. 

Said on his way to the rocks.

 
 

If weather stays good we'll be sticking around for another week, which should be enough time for me to take down at least a couple of more routes. Which ones to go for I have not decided, but it really doesn't matter that much as all of them are good and fun to climb.

 


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Trick or treat

After a couple of days climbing in Maple Canyon on the most funky rock I've ever seen, we moved on to Salt Lake City on Thursday night. Our plan was to only stay during our restday and then move on towards Smith Rocks. But when we where invited to spend Halloween with Sam Ellias and friends, plans changed.

It was fun to be parts of this holiday in its cradle. During the day we went bouldering in Little Cottonwood Canyon (LCC) with Ronnie Jenkins and Lauren Callaway. They gave us the grand tour of the area and pointed us towards all the best climb. As sun set over SLC we drove back down from the mountains and headed to Sam's place for burgers and off course, Halloween candy. The house was filled with people and we ate, drank and talked all night. 

Yesterday morning we jumped back in our very small rental car, perhaps the smallest thing on four wheels in the entire US, and continued west. On the way we did a quick stop in Idaho city of rocks. It was nice to break up the long drive with some climbing and to see yet another great crag.

While Said has been driving I've been scanning the Smith Rocks guidebook and I can already say that the two weeks we are planning to stay wont be enough.

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