Another shortish day.

Today I was back at the cave in Upper Haffner. I think we got to the cliff around noon. Because I was still pretty tired from the previous days I decided to make it a fitness day rather than practice climbing unfamiliar routes.

Getting near the lip of Caveman.

After a lap on the warmup route I was back on Caveman. On the first lap I felt kinda tired. After the other two guys I was with had climbed I did a second lap that went a little better. The third lap I climbed to the lip of the cave where it gets easy, then down climbed back down to near the start. I was pretty amazed how much longer I could hold on after getting to the lip and feeling pretty tired.

We finished off the day by doing a couple more laps on the warmup. Climbing and then down climbing it made for a really good pump in my forearms. I think we all left with our forearms pretty blasted and we still got back to the car before dark.

Short day

Today was an easier day. After yesterday I didn't really feel like trying too hard so I didn't have much of an agenda. I just wanted to get outside and do something so I ended up back out at Haffner, except we went to Upper sector where the cave is. I climbed the warmup and felt pretty good. Since I'm here to train I figured I should at least get on Caveman and practice my horizontal climbing.

Starting Caveman you climb backward for a couple moves before turning around.

Turned around and starting to climb out the roof.

Other than forgetting half the moves the first burn on it went pretty good. With running beta from John I was able to climb pretty efficiently and I didn't really start to get too pumped until right near the lip of the cave.

Pulling around the lip of the overhang.

Because it went so well, for my next turn I did another lap. After yesterday I was still really tired so I only climbed four times and finished up back on the warmup.

Back to the Mountains!!

Saturday morning I was up at 4:30 AM to catch my flight to Calgary. 9 hours later I was out in the Ghost Valley hiking up to Wicked Wanda.

 On the last trip I had hiked up to this route but it was really wet so we decided not to climb it. This time it was still really wet but we had come better prepared for the conditions. Grant lead the 1st pitch up to the shelf and I quickly followed. After a quick changeover I was headed up the second pitch. From the ground the route looked easy, but up close the ice was a chandeliered mess.

 After a little soul searching I committed to the climbing and started up the lacy ice. A lot of delicate climbing a few bad screws later I was at the top.

Grant sorting gear at the base.

Looking out across the valley  from the base.

 Yesterday we went to Lower Haffener Creek. After a few warmups I got on the hardest route listed for the sector. "The Girl Without..." which is supposed to be M9+.

Grant trying his hand at mixed climbing.

"The Boyd Mystery" one of my warmups.

Topping out.

Starting up GWNT

 Starting out the climbing was straight forward enough. But soon the holds became very difficult to find which meant hanging out while scanning the rock for anywhere that looked like it might have a hold and then reaching up and finding it was no good.

 After what seemed like an eternity I was near the top and so tired. So many times I wanted to quit and hang on the rope. Not finding the holds and getting so pumped was very discouraging as the moves weren't very hard once I figured out where to go.  45min+ and I was finally digging through the snow at the top and clipping into the anchor, so tired I could barely hang on.

Getting close, but still so far away from the top. It took over a half hour to get to that point.

Back in Ontario

I've been back a few sleep deprived days and I figured I better get caught up here.

Sunday, Jen Olson and I spent the afternoon training at Malcom's gym in Calgary. For being a short day it wasn't very easy. I was still pretty worked from climbing all week, but I think I still got some good training time in. We talked a lot about strategy. Being strong is very important, but its usually the smartest, most efficient climber who wins.

Driving to Calgary.

Starting up one of the warm-ups.

Monday I went to The Playground outside Canmore with Jen and my friend Brenden. It was fun to see Brenden getting psyched on mixed climbing. After a long break from drytooling I may have got him hooked back on it. Because I had to fly out in the evening it was also a little bit of a short day, thankfully I still got to get a pretty good pump in my arms before it was time to go. After a week of climbing it didn't really take too much anyway.

Climbing at the Playground.

I'd like to give a huge THANK YOU to my friend Grant Parkin. He picked me up at the airport, drove me around to go climbing, let me borrow his Jeep on the days he couldn't get out and he let me crash at his place for most of my trip.

My chauffeur, Grant.

Thank you also to Jen, Brenden & Pat for rides, belays and places to sleep.

Training, training, training......

l'm doing some more mobile posting while I have some down time.

Friday was a training day with actual real traing. My teammate Jen Olson and I climbed in a gym and got put through the wringer by British World Cup climber Malcom Kent. After warming up with some climbing we basiclly just did training drills until our arms were putty. Learned a lot about training and I'm excited to get back home to set up some more training boards.

Yesterday Jen and I went to Bear Spirit Crag for an active rest day. We were hoping to just climb some easy ice but there wasn't much in yet. When we got to the cliff there was already a small group climing the ice, so we jumped on a couple of the mixed lines. It was a lot of fun to drytool up the rock and climb onto hanging ice. Around the time we were losing interest in the mixed routes the other group finished up and we got to pump out a few laps on some fun ice.

Today its back to the gym.

Another pretty good day at Haffner. Got a pretty good workout and redpointed Caveman. I also found some weaknesses I need to work on, which is good.

Finally some hard climbing!!

Had a great day today. I went to Haffner Creek and got to do some hard drytooing. I onsighted a route called Fire Roasted which is somewhere in the M10 range.

I'm going back tomorrow and will finally get to climb with my Team Canada teammate Gord McArthur. We'll be in a group of three so hopefully we will get some pictures.