Air Miles

A phrase that was used at Stephan Koch's lecture in Ouray was "I got my arse handed to me" well that about sums up our week at lake city. We went there to try Jedi Mind Tricks and I thought I would be able to give it a good go. BUT the cold, the altitude, the cold, the walk in, the colds but most of all the route battered me!!! It is (in my limited experience) an amazing line that is best not to look at in one go, I found I could break it in to 4 sections (and another one above the lip which I "forgot" about!). I only climbed the first section and did the moves on 2 and 3. But never felt like I had climbed at my best, not that that would have been good enough anyway. Hopefully I will be back?????

All photos thanks to Daniel Alonso



Turning my back on Jedi.........The fixed ropes from Gods Crag

So now we have run away to Vail and found a small cave and lit a fire

Comp Photos

Click HERE for Pavel Dobrinskiy's photos of Ouray 2008

Swings and Roundabouts

Ouray after the festival was quiet so we took the opportunity to jump on a couple of the lines that were out of bounds over the weekend.

The results.......



Stone Free (Dan Alonso)

Seamstress (Dan Alonso)

As for Gods Crag, we were there on the second day Jeff and Boris were at the crag when Jeff made an impressive ascent of Jedi (the first without spurs?)



ph. Dan Alonso



bonkers...... view full screen for full effect !

It was as much as I could do to get to the climb let alone pull a move! The following day was an improvement and at least I picked up my tools but it was -33 deg C up there so my hands froze and sadly not in a closed positon. Rest day today as tired from walking and we had visitors.

Ouray 2008

It was the comp finals yesterday and this year there is another new champion. Between climbs we were watching the last few qualifiers climb; Jeff Mercier made a huge effort to top out with 1 of his 20 minutes remaining then Ines Papert cruised up to the final move with bags of time to spare but then couldn't make the move despite about 5 attempts at a dyno from a fig4. Then came Evgeny Kryvosheytsev who flew up the route locking deep moves on the rock section to miss out holds every one else used. He had it in the bag for sure until his tool blew from a plastic hold on the 45 degree finishing board. Jeff Mercier wins........next week he will be on Jedi Mind Tricks when we are there.........come on arms.

Jeff Mercier giving it all and hooking the top of the steep finishing board (Dan Alonso)



Evgeny K on the qualifying route.

Not competition photos.................



A Fistfull of Steel (Dan Alonso)



Another Fistfull of Steel (Dan Alonso)

I love it when a plan comes together

It has been a pretty amazing few days so far, a bit of a grind getting the last few bits of gear together before leaving early sat then two days travel to get to Ouray. And it has been a bit of an adventure of lost bags (for a short time) and lost Malc and Kat (for hours!). When we finally pulled out of the car hire place in an oversize 4x4 (Dodge Durango) it seemed like an overkill, it wasn't, as we were to find out later. First we collected Dan and his gear and this filled the truck then the snow started.



The pkoto is of a single lane with 1 metre high banks of snow, later in the journey it snowed and it was only the banks that showed where the road went. We have also found time to do some climbing........


Dan on The Troglodyte


Malc


Me clipsticking past the hard moves.

After the steep climbing I tried some mixed lines where you can use your feet. Shit. I have a lot to learn!!