10 Days and 2,800 Miles Later

That about sums it up!  On the 21st I headed up to Denver for a flight back to Ohio.  The days prior were filled with getting things ready for January 3rd when I am officially the sole classroom teacher, getting the dog shots, packing, and playing Santa.  I got to the airport with plenty of time and graded all the papers that were  in need so I didn't have to worry about doing it at home.  The flight was uneventful, which is good.  Anytime there is something in particular to talk about in reference to flying it really isn't good.  It is something like "I sat next to a man who was 400 years old, and weighed the same, and was wearing a jacket from the civil war era that hadn't been washed since then."  That was the case when I flew to Denver to see Matt when he lived here.  Anyway, I was able to smash a whole lot into the trip home.  I enjoyed all of it.  I was able to climb at an old gym, set at my old gym, see old friends, spend time with new friends, have Christmas Movie Night, eat at restaurants that I missed, play hockey on Christmas with the family, spend Christmas with family, celebrate with my brother and his wonderful now fiance, eat good food, drink good beer and the like.  So lets back up for a second and say congratulations to Matt and Jamie who were engaged over the break.  I am so happy for both of you and am so excited you two have found exactly what you both have been looking for.  Jamie you are a great addition to our family.  With that being said I am almost more excited to embarrass both you and Matt since he has made the mistake of asking me to be his best man.  The possibilities are endless. Don't let it deter you from looking forward to the wedding but expect the worst.  Or at least expect an inappropriate speech from an inappropriately drunk part of the groom's party.  Woops.  Sorry in advance.

I woke up on the 27th to come home and felt like I had been run over by the same train 14 times.  I didn't know trains could go forward and backward like that.  I could not even imagine that I was that hungover.  I didn't really have that much to drink and I typically don't get hungover at all.  I could not fathom it.  Well at about noon I had decidedly said that my feeling bad was NOT a hangover.  I had never felt so awful in my life.  I fell asleep on the floor of the Cincinnati airport while fighting back Fiesta Charra from the day before.  I got to DIA and did the same while waiting for my bag.  After several minutes of waiting I started (at random mind you) sweating profusely.  I stripped down to just my t-shirt as it continued.  The feelings of Fiesta Charra's re-entering my life came back just as all the people around me most likely thought I was strung out from a month long binge on some hardcore hallucinogens.  I did not care.  I felt too awful to pay attention or explain to them my state of physical and mental being.  The drive home was no different.  Every bump I hit I nearly vomited.  So that was a nice surprise.  I picked Sharma up from the puppy hotel and got home as quickly as possible.  I was very excited to see him and luckily he was tired so we went to sleep together on my floor in front of the fire.  By about 8pm I started to feel better.  I hadn't been able to eat or drink anything all day and started to think it was food poisoning.  All the symptoms were pointing towards it.  By the next morning I felt significantly better however my stomach was still not a fan of me.  I do not know whether or not it was sushi, or mexican food from the day prior to my departure.  Either way I don't care.  It was awful.  So by noon yesterday I felt fine.  Nothing nata, as if it hadn't happened.  What a horrible way to travel.  I was however pleased that it had come and gone so quickly.

So on a better and less disgusting note I took Sharma hiking yesterday across the street from where we (me and the animals) live which I have started calling the Garbage Steeps, or the Steeps for short.  We hiked for an hour or so and I got ahold of Drew Halliday, or Drew Hallahomo as he is so affectionately listed in my phone, because he and Brad Brobst are coming to visit today for new years etc.  Sharma was happy to be back out hiking.  After our hike I dropped him off and headed out to go climb.  There is a place called Ute Valley Park which I had been to twice before.  I had wanted to go back there for a while now because of one specific problem.  It is on a beautiful 30 degree or so overhung wall that is sustained for between 15 and 18 feet.  It isn't real easy to find a wall of that height and consistency outside.  It obviously isn't that they don't exist, they just aren't around every corner.  Now aside from this problem, which is just beautiful, there is an awesome traverse that tops out after about 15 feet, and two short quality problems on what is called the wave boulder.  These are all pretty good warmups which I needed because the problem I was going to try and send is in the v7 ballpark.  I haven't listed a name because I am not quite sure if what I did is one single problem, or a combination of 2.  In the guidebook the descriptions are quite vague and it doesn't differentiate where the two are separated.  One is called "Chick Power," which is listed as v7/v8 and the other is called "Floater," which is listed at v5/v6.  I thought it felt harder than v5 for sure, and I could have seen it being harder than v6.  At this point my expert opinion comes from Kevin Branford and his thoughts were what I did was around v7.  Either way, as any of you who know me know, I don't really care about the number.  It was a badass climb and I really enjoyed the send so I do not really care.  Well I guess I gave it away.  I did send it and was really stoked about it.  The top out is easy, however the move to the lip is a little scary.  You go from two tenuous slopers with very bad foot chips, and huck up four or so feet to a nice hold.  The problem for me was, the hands aren't great, and you don't have good feet to push from, so you just have to deadpoint it in the right spot.  Sidebar for Mom...The Great Outdoors.com defines a deadpoint as, "A dynamic move which involves precision movement in order to catch the hold at the peak of the move before momentum waivers and gravity starts taking over."  I actually missed the move once which was a little scary because at this point your feet are 12-15 feet off the deck.  I have become quite good at pad placement since most of my time bouldering is spent by myself or with the dog, who isn't a very good spotter despite my persistent emphasis on the need to be.  He still ignores me.  

So I got home last night and made dinner for Kevin and Jessie Branford (Kevin is this funny?  Jessie I know you find it entertaining.).  I made them enchiladas which are a recipe of my old friend Scott Pun.  Both enjoyed them so thanks Scott.  I do make them quite often so the thanks is from them and me.  Afterward I logged and edited video that I shot from the day climbing and made it to bed a shade before midnight.  Now take a guess where I am and what I am doing.  Yep, drinking coffee, listening to music, looking out my window at the mountains, and planning the rest of my day, which involves making out reports cards, and who am I kidding, going rock climbing.  Maybe day two on the bloody arete?  I kind of hope not.  Either way, time to carpe diem....seize the carp. (Out Cold reference anyone?)

When the mountains speak, wise men listen.

-John Muir

 The dog has made the executive decision that all of my belongings are now his pillows.

Matt's Christmas gift...coal.

 Christmas Movie Night, Obviously.

This picture is not relevant except for the fact that I just found it.  This is a picture, framed, and on the wall at a bar in Luxembourg.  Kinda funny.

Oh My goodness!  So this is not very nice.  I'll preface with that.  I was sitting here at my kitchen table before I left for Ohio and looked out my window to see a man doing what can only be described as, really bad yoga with a mix of  a 3rd grader's karate attempt.  He was in the street, directly out in front of my window.  How could I resist.  It went on for about 15 minutes, and here is a video of about a minute of it.  Enjoy.  It's not nice, but please, he is bringing it upon himself by doing it in the middle of the frickin street, directly outside my home.

Now here is the climbing video from today.  

4th graders, Powder, Stones and Trails

That pretty much sums it up.  If I spend any time doing something that doesn't involve one of those things it is pretty out of the ordinary.  So my last report was to talk about The Slapper for the final time. Thank god.  I haven't touched the holds on the route one time since.  As of now the  next time I go back to school I will be the sole teacher in the room, which is pretty crazy to think about.  I don't feel like I am old enough to be instructing children.  Oh well, apparently I am.  So the last two weeks of school have been good.  Nothing out of the ordinary.  The last week was off the chain because we had two field trips, and two parties.  This doesn't bode well for productivity.  Now its not like I am all for productivity, which most of you know, but still.  Our field trips were both good.  They got to go to the power plant, which was quite cool, and to Garden of the Gods.  I obviously was stoked to take them to the Garden.  I did get a little comedy out of the trip.  While we were there my kids saw two people climbing and were all pretty stunned.  The route they were one was about 300 ft.  One of the kids looked at me and said, "Mr. Cady, is that what you do?  Do you go up that high?"  I responded by asking if they remembered me talking about climbing the third flatiron and told them that the third was three times as high as one of the fins in the garden.   All of the kids just kind of looked and me with confused faces until one responded with, "so, so, you're like crazy then right?"  I got a good laugh out of that.  

Oh I forgot.  I also was the DJ for the school dance last Friday.  That was interesting.  I had to search long and hard for music that was appropriate for third graders.

The Saturday after the DJing Nick and I went up to Breckenridge to board.  Another great day for that. We came back to Denver for John Ward's christmas party...which Nick and I were overwhelmingly unprepared for.  We were still wearing snow gear and didn't have christmas sweaters.  Fortunately John and his wife Meredith had extras.  Im sure those pictures will surface soon enough, unfortunately. I stayed in Denver that night at Nick's with Sharma.  We slept on the floor together.   By the way together is referencing me and my dog, not me and Nick.  Anyway this was not because there wasn't anywhere comfortable to sleep, but because the dumb dog is spoiled and complains if we are in a strange place and I don't sleep next to him.

So yesterday I woke up at about six to decide if I was going to go board or not.  I looked at snow reports, weather reports and driving reports and made the decision that I wanted to go.  I drove up to Denver then West because the back roads were still pretty bad that early.  It took me three and a half frickin hours to get to A-Basin.  I was not so thrilled about that however it was the first day the back bowl of the mountain was open so I was pretty excited.  Sharma of course came with me.  I spent literally the entire day in the back bowl doing powder runs through the trees while listening to Kid Cudi.  That might has well be considered a religious experience.  The snow was unbelievable and there was virtually no one doing the tree runs I was on.  Unbelievable.  I paused about halfway through the day to call Matt to hear the news.  As a sidenote I am so happy for both of you.  Although it doesn't change the fact that I think you (Matt)  are a huge pile of shit.  Anyway, the riding was sick.  The drive back was not so sick.  I took the back roads because I didn't want to sit stagnantly on 70.  The back way is actually really scenic, but slow going.  It took about the same time to get back home.  A lot of driving for one day.  That night I went to a friend's house that I work with to hang out.  

This morning I was up at the normal stupid time.  I was semi productive.  I had breakfast with Nick, Tracy, and Jessy at King Chef, my favorite place ever.  I always get something called a "bent over grump."  A bent over grump is this...a layer of hash browns, a layer of sausage, eggs, cheese, gravy, and green chili.  It is so good, or bad depending on the point of view.  I decided afterward that climbing was necessary.  I went home, picked up the dog, and headed up to Ute Pass.  After The Slapper Kevin Branford suggested that my next project be "The Bloody Arete" up in Ute Pass.  I had seen it before and it looked absolutely horrendous.  Well I figured I would go start to work it today.  I didn't even get the first move.  I was getting really close and dialing it until my friend the middle finger started bleeding.  No wonder it is called what it is.  Just from the start hold I was bleeding.  It is going to be interesting.  It will go sometime.  My last attempt at the first move felt pretty good so at least I made some progress. 

Now I am watching biking, drinking gin and sitting by my animals and the fire.  One more day in Colorado then back to Oxford.  Very excited to see everyone.  I am also very excited for Christmas Movie Night, which is always a disaster.  Hope everyone has a good holiday (to be PC) season.

Nick and Meredith at the Christmas Party (Meredith is actually pregnant, Nick is not)

The funniest place ever.  And most practical.

 Apparently I look angry while I am driving... I was unaware.

 At least Sharma looks content.

 

The Slapper...Final Chapter

This update will be short and sweet...or something like that.  I cannot believe that it is December fourth!  Time goes so fast.  I am really excited to get back to Ohio for Christmas, and Christmas movie night of course.  As mentioned this will be quick so here we go.  For Thanksgiving Rosco came to visit which was probably too much fun.  We were able to get up to the mountains three times to board.  We got to Breck, A Basin, and Vail (before Rosco got here).  All were awesome.  

That weekend Rosco, Kevin Branford and I went to climb at the Garden.  I told Rosco that my project was there and I may try it, and to be ready to either see me cry due to another day filled with failed redpoint attempts, or see me shit my pants of excitement if I was to actually send it.  The first two goes, both went with no success, however they both felt really close.  The next time I tried it I changed the approach a little.  I had thought of new beta for the crux section the week prior, but didn't want to try it because it had felt so close the last couple times with current beta.  This time I thought more about it and Kevin also thought it may be the way to go.  I decided to try it the new way.  The first few moves felt really solid.  I got to the crux section and before I knew it I was past it.  The new beta was it I guess.  It was really tenuous but not as bad as it could have been.  After that move it is pretty easy climbing for another five moves.  I sat up on top of the boulder in silence for the next few minutes.  It just kind of felt like a dream.  I had been working on it for just short of 7 months (by 2 days) and had just finally sent it.  It was really surreal.  Now I understand I sound like a crazy person (to those that do not climb) but just go with it.  

Rosco was kind enough to ask if I was alright, and if I was going to come down.

He took off the following Monday and I went back to work.  Another solid week teaching, and a good weekend.  

Here is the final video in "The Slapper" series.

For some reason the play button on the videos has been acting funny.  If you click on play, and it won't go, just move the mouse to other spots around the actual button and try clicking there.  It sounds dumb but it works! 

  

Co Springs sunrise

It was 8 degrees at the base of the mountain, not counting wind chill.

I love Breckenridge.

Co Springs sunrise

 Finally organized my gear room.

 View from the gandala in Vail.