Lame

I'd like to state right up front that I'm a pretty lame ice climber. I'm actually quite good at it; I believe that the nature of my work lends itself to me being good at ice climbing: standing on an I-beam, drilling over your head into steel with a heavy, high-speed drill that could seize up and break your wrist at any second is not totally unlike balancing on front-points on a frozen waterfall trying to get a pick in over your head. So yeah, I climb ice pretty hard. On top-rope.

Ice climbing is more of a pain in the ass than rock. In terms of getting geared up and out there. Hard to motivate, especially for the first time in the season. Hey, it's like a 3 hour drive from where we live!

So I have to confess... We decided that it is TOO FUCKING COLD to go ice climbing this weekend. Yes! We are lame!! Try again next weekend.

And yeah, I'll definitely post pictures!

Welcome!

So this is a project I've been thinking about doing for a long time now: a years worth of Climbing Journal. I've been a climber for over 10 years now (!), and the experience is deeply intense and at the same time very ephemeral. I've done a little writing about it, but I'd like to try to document a year of my climbing activities: mostly rock, with some ice and steel.

Writing about climbing is tricky. It is easy to slip into the trap of numbers and jargon (Dude, I was stemming up this rad 5.10 dihedral and I was really sketched out but I placed a #1 Camalot...) Very few people (in my not very humble opinion) write about climbing well. Jon Krakauer is one, but he is mainly a mountaineer, which (to the befuddlement of non-climbing friends and family) I am emphatically NOT. Anyway, I'll do my best to make this journal well-written and interesting even to the non-climber. No promises. Screw it, it's mainly for my own consumption anyway. Though you, gentle reader, are of course welcome to read too. Maybe I'll even post pictures!