My trip to Salt Lake City, August 6-10, started with the Outdoor Retailer show and ended with a day trip to Maple Canyon. In the middle was the Psicobloc competition. That was an "experience" that I had to describe in a separate blog.
THE OR SHOW
The OR show was packed wall-to-wall with outdoor business booths from around the country. It was a little overwhelming when I first entered the main building. After figuring out how to navigate through the action packed venue, it was pretty cool to meet some of the most influential people in the industry that are responsible for many of the products that we use.
Photographer: Elodie Saracco
Photographer (for my pic): Elodie Saracco
During my first day at the event I participated in a poster signing session at the Evolv booth with Chris Sharma, Alex Johnson and Ashima Shiraishi. I had a lot of fun interacting and meeting so many new people that share my same addiction to climbing. As a bonus for doing the poster signing session at the Evolv booth, Alex Johnson gave me an autographed poster. The only thing was, it was my poster! And she had drawn Ashima's hair style on me and autographed her "artwork" as a present. NO WAY I'm posting her "artwork" of Kai-shima!
Photographer: Eric Horst
The next day I participated in a “Young Gun” poster signing at the Maxim booth with Cameron and Jonathan Horst. I had fun hanging out with them and other Maxim climbers, including their dad Eric Horst. We even got to take a neat “John Long pose” picture with Hans Florine.
Before leaving the OR show, I also enjoyed hanging out with my Salewa representatives and prAna athletes at a team luncheon. Once I left the venue, my stomach started bubbling up inside as I headed to the Psicobloc competition wall to test out the wall and take my first “Psycho Jump” from 50 feet, into the pool below! See my PSICOBLOC blog post for details.
MAPLE CANYON
After recovering from my incredible “Psicobloc Experience”, Momentum Climbing gym team members agreed to take me to Maple Canyon the next day to climb at the Pipe Dream cave.
The 30 minute, all uphill hike to the crag kind of killed my initial excitement; however, once I reached the cave, it was unlike anything (or place) I had ever seen. Maple Canyon has conglomerate cobblestone rock. It looks like someone piled massive stacks of small rocks into one huge hill and then super glued it all together. The cave was a super tall, very overhanging, and pretty amazing! Quickly, the misery of the hike disappeared, and all excitement returned. With climbing team friends and an amazing climbing cave, I was in paradise and ready to enjoy my usual half climb/ half hang out session at the crag :-) .
Photographer: Jonathan Vickers- Momentum Climbing Gym (Pipe Dream Cave)
I was glad that my friend, Dru Mack, from the Red River Gorge area (and one of my favorite belayers, next to Mom of course) happened to be in the area and joined us at the cave. He knows my climbing style and directed me to several climbs that he thought I would enjoy.
I started off warming up on a slight overhanging 5.11c route. I took my time climbing the route, trying to get used to the cobblestone textures. Next, I had initially planned to climb The Diggler (5.13a); however, as I was approaching the anchors of that route, I felt really good and decided to continue and complete Mexican Rodeo (5.13d). I was proud to have onsighted the route.
Next, I moved on to preview (and climb) the classic Pipe Dream route (5.14a). This is a really neat, extremely overhanging line. After tying in, I headed up the route across the roof section, and started to get a little confused about the sequence. I took a while to look over the section, and I tried several sequences to clear the lip of the route. Someone then shouted out and asked if I wanted beta. Normally I would say yes, especially since I still had a LONG way to go to the anchors and had already burned a lot of time on the route. For some reason, I shouted out "No". I wanted to figure it out on my own. After a moment, I came up with another plan, committed, and pushed through that section of the route. As I continued navigating through the climb, I encountered a few more sections that were not straight forward and I had to keep locking off to search for holds. As I approached the anchors, then clipped, I was excited to tick off my first 5.14a onsight!
Photographer: Jonathan Vickers- Momentum Climbing Gym (Pipe Dream Cave)
Photographer: Jonathan Vickers- Momentum Climbing Gym (Pipe Dream Cave)
I rested a while and decided to take on the toughest route in the cave, Divine Fury (5.14b). This is a LONG 20 bolt route, which starts in the back of the cave, continued through a long roof section, and then linked up with the final 4 bolts of Pipe Dream. As I entered the roof section, I quickly got confused and even after asking for beta, I was unable to complete a tough kneebar sequence. I decided to call take, beg someone to throw up knee pads, and dig in to find a sequence that worked for me. I fumbled around on the roof for a LONG time trying to find an efficient sequence. For me efficiency is mandatory on long sport routes. After falling numerous times, and fumbling my way up to the anchors, I took my shoes off and went over to hang out, eat, and rest.
Photographer: Jonathan Vickers- Momentum Climbing Gym (Pipe Dream Cave)