I wrapped things up in Boulder a few weeks back. Through December I was steady training, seeing friends and enjoying the holidays. We brought in 2013 with an awesome night, and since then the pace has been back to non-stop as usual. A couple weeks ago I packed up the truck, ate a few last home cooked meals (Thanks Mom) and said goodbye to Colorado for a while. Off to Vegas.
Heading South-West to Vegas has become an annual event for me. I totally fell in love with the place- the climbing, community, the scene- a few years back and since then every year I've planned a return. It's an incredible place to be in the Winter. Sunny days, plenty of stone, running, reliable weather and good friends. I'll always consider Colorado, furthermore Boulder, my home, but in reality I've spent more time in Las Vegas than anywhere else for the last couple years. This year is no exception.
I'll be hanging in the Vegas area through April, with a handful of close proximity trips planned, and plenty to keep my busy close by. So far I've spent my time settling into my new place (* That's right! I'm actually paying rent... I have a room to call my own!), getting out into the sun, and preparing a couple projects for more serious effort as the weather improves.
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| Having fun in the sun, just before the take down of a rad little bouldery rig, 'Tsunami' 13c |
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| 'SOS' 13a, Weidner Photo |
The Bouldering scene at Red Rocks is really emerging as a better and better area, and it's hard to resist when it's in your backyard. The quality there continues to impress me - it's not Hueco or Bishop, but it's pretty damn worthy. Awesome problems like 'Fear of a Black Hat' V9, '600 Bucks' V9, 'Plumbers Crack Traverse' V10, 'Kraft Dinner' V8, 'Plunger' V9 and 'Beat Meat Manifesto' V9 are all in a consolidated area and totally worth doing. It's been fun to climb these and check out the brilliant 'Clockwork Orange' V12/13 and 'Burnt' V12 as well. I even added a little boulder of my own, called '
Phazed'. Always a rad fall back for me, bouldering days have been super fun.
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| Annie Tedesco on a super impressive 2nd try success of 'Slice N Dice' V9 |
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| Chris Weidner working out a burly V8 traverse in Red Rocks. |
More recently I've also been exploring some of the nearby limestone. I made my way back to Arrow Canyon last week and have spent some time cleaning up another amazing project. Definitely VERY stoked. Looks like I'll be getting sucked in again... not a bad place to spend some time.
I've also got my eye on a handful of other close by zones-- as weather improves I'm sure that I'll be super busy. SO much to do. I love it there. I say there because right now I'm actually on a short trip to Salt Lake City for the Winter OR show. I'll be presenting 'Viva La Via' yet again tonight at Momentum Gym in Sandy, teaming up with the Access Fund and certainly having a rad night. Come down!
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| Dinners, chatting, laughing with rad dudes like these. Good Trade Show. |
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| Inversion. Sucky. Limited visibility, rad air quality. Can you find Beau? |
Otherwise the show went very well. Good people, good times. I can't talk enough about how proud I am to represent these companies I work with... I feel very lucky no doubt. Lastly, this morning I taped an hour long interview with Chris Kalous and the Enormocast PodCast - my episode will be a little while yet but check out other ones here --
http://enormocast.com/podcasts/ --it's really well done and Chris does a great job.
Lastly, check out this rad short video about 'The Making of Tommy Caldwell' with some killer footage of our efforts on the Dawn Wall this year, and a brief cameo by yours truly...
