Buggered up fingers lead to diversified outings!

I partially tore my A2 pulley in my middle finger, and it is taking for ever to heal. It feels good enough now that I can get out and at least screw around on rock a little. I decided that now would be as good a time as any to figure out this whole aid-climbing nonsense, since I can't "really" rock climb still. I got the required mess of slings, steps, hooks, mini speakers (so I can rock out to music while hanging/belaying) and grabbed Matt to go play at Broughtons. We first aided a very steep half bolted half traditional climb. This felt good, so we went over to a flaring, slightly funkier, crack. Matt pulled first lead, which was fine because it started with a bad hook move then a micro nut for the first two moves. Since there was no point belaying yet, I spotted him from the ground. He was able to weight and lightly bounce the micro nut, but after about a minute of it holding his body weight, the thing blew and he was plopped back onto the flat ground. No worse for wear, Matt donned climbing shoes and free'd the first 15 ft to get some gear in, then continued the aid climb uneventfully to the top. I did the same to finish it off.
I have ripped on aid climbers a lot over the years, and while I am not prepared to stop it entirely, I realized that aiding, especially a few hook moves, can feel just as scary as free climbing. Aid is definitely something good to have in the back pocket, but I can't wait to get my fingers curled around a nice big hold again soon!

Spring!

I recently celebrated my birthday, and I must give Colleen huge props for pulling together an awesome birthday weekend. Unfortunately work tried it's best to get in the way, but I managed to fend off the worst of it and still make it to the party. After a photo finish at work, we zipped up to a lovely sushi dinner friday night with Rachel, Jake, Dev, and Rhiannon, then went to the Roseland Theater to watch RJD2 live (instrumental electronica, kinda). It has been a really long time since I went to a small venue show like that, and I must say, it was great! I really want to go to more in the coming months (works well, especially because Matt Stasiak is a bouncer at the crystal ballroom) The show went until 2am, I went to Col's folks house to sleep for 2 hours, then I drove back to Corvallis to complete a spray project for OSU that started at 6am. Then it was back to Portland! On Sunday, Rhiannon, Dev, Col, and I went to Edgefield McMenamins to enjoy drinks at each of their 12 bars, sit in their hot baths, and walk the 300 ac of gardens. The gardening prowess of their master gardeners is amazing. I can think of only my Aunt Sandy who has a nicer, more creatively composed garden.

SNOW!

Winter is lurking... Meadows got over 4 feet of snow on 3 separate days, and I tore it up all 3 days. Heaven. And thanks to Graham, I found a whole bunch more terrain that suits me much better than what I have been playing on there. I think some of what I rode this week was the steepest I have ever been on. And with that much new snow, it was just heaven.

Don't Forget to Warm Up!

I have a project on my garage boulder wall I've been working it on and
off for months. I think Matt Stasiak and I first put it up last spring before
he left. The route traverses across the wall on wide spaced slopers,
with a large matching jug in the middle. The final moves are on large
gently curving slopes that get you spread out in all directions. At
this point, there are three options for movement, a left bump, right
hand dynamic barn door, or a "fuck-it" dyno to the finish hold,
skipping the intermediate sloper. Every combo of this has been tried
by many people, least of all me, with every attempt getting so close,
but ultimately failing. After ignoring the problem for most of fall, I
gave it another go. Lo and behold, working the finish moves, I found
another way, and after a few goes, was able to finish the problem's
last move! This got me all stoked for sending and I promptly spent the
next two boulder sessions trying to link the whole thing. The
strenuous moves early in the problem worked me over and I didn't send
in those two days of solid effort. I gave it another go a few days
later, and got a little hasty in my attempts. I hadnt warmed up
enough, knew it, ignored it, and in my haste for the big send promptly
blew out the pulley in my middle finger. It is a little disturbing to
hear an audible "pop" from your hand, and then involuntarily lose all
grip strength. The best diagnosis I can figure out, without going to a doctor, is that the pulley tendon at the base of my finger is partially torn (a full tear would show bulging finger tendons). So now I am bummin that I pretty much can't rock climb for spring.
On the plus side, I have made great use of my 10 time pass at Mt Hood Meadows, and have gotten out to climb mountains the last few weekends. The most recent adventure was an attempt on Shasta, which fell short due to a storm moving in a little earlier than planned. We camped at treeline (I got to use my new Mountain Hardwear EV3 tent!!!!) and got some really nice turns from about 10,000 ft down. We made the right decision on not climbing; a fatality occurred that morning due to AMS (?) after two climbers bivied near the summit. RIP.