I'm really a boulderer at heart, I've discovered- I'd prefer to do risky new moves 10 feet off the ground than an easy 5.8 climb 200 feet off the ground. But I'm just getting back into it after a while, so I'll get more adventurous soon, I 'spect.
A group of us (mountaineer friends) went to Climb Smart this last wknd, and it was quite an experience all the way around.
Somewhere in here we have to have Timmy O'Neill, because he's such a cool freak and made the wknd a lot more fun than it would have been without him.He did a lot of the emcee'ing at the Saturday night event... I wish I had taken pictures, because he came out through the fogger, strobe lights and heavy-beat dance music in his Halloween costume, an irish green superman complete with cape and tighty-whitey undies carrying a bucket full of free ice cold beers that he handed out while doing the Mick Jagger head thing to the music. And his new hair style is longer, and half of it sticks out at a defiant 45 degree angle.
He intro'd a Reel Rock film he was in, "First Ascent"- it was awesome- thrilling, touching, cool, great film-making. And he did the raffle too, in a stimulating rapid-fire manner that entertained most, but irritated one guy (who got irritated at other things that wknd- takes all kinds).
Enough about Timmy already. Except he also taught us some cool stuff in the bouldering class- how to smear on the "quartz manzanite dude"- maybe he didn't say dude, but that's how it sounded- "This is quartz manzanite, dude! It grips yours shoes."
Anyhow, my friend Arthur and I met up with Lauren and Adam and (his girlfriend) Julie. They're new to climbing (you can see info about their first bouldering and rappelling at Lauren's blog) and so the clinics etc. were going to be great for them. It helped all of us- Arthur and I got advanced tips on technique and anchoring (trad climbing) and the others got some good beginning info. We capped it off by climbing up to the first rappel station on Moosedog Tower.
A few other standouts I should mention are:
Saturday night's dinner: The refried beans tasted like they'd been cooked in an ashtray and the rice water supersoft and tasteless, but the catered enchiladas were ok (though we had no way to cut them) and the guacamole made up for it, a little. I found out today there had been ice cream and brownies they forgot to bring out! Hey man!
The 1 billion names of Lauren: Arthur and I for some reason had a total blast giving Lauren funny new names. It started when I saw that his cell phone name for her was Lauren von Hiker. Her real last name is Hogerheiden, so it's a german thing I guess. Anyhow, some of the better ones were:
- Lauren von Hikenberger (or 'von Hikenberger' or 'Hikenberger' for short)
- Lauren vince vaughn Hikenberger
- Laurence Olivier von Heikenbrenner
- Lauren von vacob vinglehiker schmidt (actually I finished that one here- it was a tongue twister)
- Lauren von Hikenstrudel (I just made that one up too. You get the gist.)
Ah, and the campfire guitar playing of me and Andy (some guy I'd never met)- great chemistry, two great guitarists and some truly inspired moments. As a humble guy, I'm saying it was good, real good. Everyone loved it and wouldn't let us stop playing!
And who could forget the beautiful moments we spent together digging sand and filling erosion holes? I'm not exaggerating when I say we all wept tears of joy and gratitude for this opportunity. Ok, I am exaggerating. We couldn't believe you had to give up an entire afternoon or morning to do a service project and how disorganized they were about it, but then we only paid $70 and 6 seminars are probably worth $400 alone, not to mention the camping, food, free prizes and entertainment.
The raffle and free prizes flying through the air Saturday night- I caught a Royal Robbins hat and a chalk bag.
Speaking of chalk bag... this guy Greg who camped next to us came to the costume party as a Chalk Bag- quite ingenious and low tech- a trash bag, chalk all over him, and the word 'chalk' spelled in green with tape on the back of his white t-shirt.
Arthur and I thought it was hilarious and deserved our full support, especially in light of some of the less appropriate, less imaginative, and frankly incomprehensible competition Chalk Bag was up against. So from the very beginning of the evening, we occasionally yelled out "CHALK BAG!" and more and more so as the costume competition approached.
It caught on... a guy in front of us started yelling it too. Our section of the room was the most passionate about any one competitor- that gave Chalk Bag a fighting chance to win the whole thing.
Chalk Bag's big nemesis turned out to be a guy dressed up as a swimmer- his costume? Goggles, a towel, and a speedo. "Check that out," said Timmy O'Neill, giving us plenty of time to do just that horrid thing.
Chalk Bag strove to protect his innocence by shielding his eyes with his hand, and moved a few competitors away from what Timmy called "Greg Lube-anus". Judging was done applause-o-meter style, and we wore out our throats and hands giving Chalk Bag the support he deserved. He won- it was the funniest thing, we were just giddy, having overthrown a serious election, exerting our will and our humor on the drunken mass of Climb Smart climbers.
Yes.
Long live Chalk Bag!
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