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Some years the ice-climbing season just vanishes a pile of cash left on a table the POOF gone. I noticed kestrels looking to roost in a flicker nest box I nailed to our utility pole surely raptors fornicating and eating every vole on the property is incompatible with mixed? Better to set said skunk up on the bar the season is toast unless the alpine bug bites, its just no good anymore...
This is good. Seasons have a way of hanging around too long. Already there are unbelievably bright orange Italians slippers in a brown box on the front porch when I get home from Neurology. They are bright, sleek and European (like my car) and hint at long airy boulder poblems on a perfect Colorado day.
After all, there must always be a few of those...
I always prefer to end the season with a project something that lends closure to the winter by giving some inkling as to how and if I have progressed at all. This past winter some guys I know hand-placed a line of bolts right of Hidden Falls in Rocky Mountain National Park an odd boulder-problem type line engineered to surmount a prow so unusual for a mixed climb.
The lads worked it a bit then didn't word reached me interlopers via top-rope had laid siege time to take matters into one's own hands.
My first day out I try to on-sight but forgot my glove bag due to last minute gear-carrying reassignments. A cold day to go bare knuckled not so much the cold as my fear of getting cut. I had my tools stacked up on the crux pretty tight but had trouble getting my body position correct to go up for the sloping key hold I tried repeatedly but to no avail.
Back in the gym the lab as it were I practiced the dead-arm crank that seemed requisite for the move so a week later Simone's beau Vito, Cormac and I drove back up loaded for bear. This time I had had two days off from work felt rested the sky azure blue beyond comprehension three lads wandering in the mountains got lost (thought we did anyway) found the climbing did HF Vito giddy with his climbing.
Last year I had Cormac with me for the Svengali send and as before I went right up making all the clips dead-armed the crux lip to set up the move which now seemed rather forthright. Just as quickly it was over stuck the ice stemmed over happy to have the screws there then we pack hurriedly haul ass back to town as Cormac has lacrosse practice.
Cormac has Vito's camera shoots B&W stills which Vito tweaks so the image above was born a man his son his daughter's beau all out in a Mini Cooper ripping around the Rocky Mountains with sacks of kit all on the last of a winter's day not the hardest day but my day, finally...
Guest Post: Rob was climbing in the gym the other day in preparation for his send of the route, Noodle Bowl and on an impulse called me and our climbing partner, Ian, down to shoot him climbing a lap. While Ian shot some beast stills I was on my tripod with his little point-and-shoot camera trying to get some footage. Unfortunately the tripod wasn't set up quite right so the footage was a little odd. To make up for the mistakes I made in the camera work I took the junk into iMovie and added some effects. After that I worked around in garage band with some of the default loops and created an alright tune to go with the video. Near the end I got lazy and put in Slipknot. Anyways, I hope you enjoy the video here, and feel free to see another climbing video of Rob I created at this link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvIj_LU-d_g&annotation_id=annotation_81932&feature=iv
I hope you enjoy and feel free to post any suggestions or comments you have.
(anything negative or hateful will be dealt with. Constructive criticism only please.)
Thanks for all your support of Rob over the years fans, and if you haven't already become a fan on Facebook here, at your leisure of course- http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/Rob-Cordery-Cotter/30257156314?ref=ts
-Cormac C-C
Winter is now pretty much a wrap I say this because even though there is a blizzard outside spring officially begins tomorrow. By now I have been climbing ice for 5 months: I see no immediate abatement in this trend as the mountains from floor 5 of research tower 2 seem utterly plastered each morning's new light.
And what a season...
Hyalite, Vail, Ouray, Rocky, Redstone I did it all, me, Simone, Cormac and an overstuffed Mini Cooper up and down the Rockies. I competed, sent, climbed with one of the planet's most beautiful women and in general scared the shit out of myself and what colossal fun it has been. Just Monday Vito, Cormac and I hiked to Hidden Falls (twice) sky so azure blue it hurt to look at come to settle the score with a new 5-bolt wonder. Tentatively referred to as Two Stoned Guys and a Drill the route was conceived of by Ryan Bogus then hand-bolted by Eli Helmuth hence the name. I am feeling a little bad about climbing everyone else routes though I now occupy some role in the west as an arbiter of the freshly drilled. I have had limited success with some of these routes projects for future days on the hill you shouldn't (maybe) get to sleep with every woman so it must go with dry-tooling lines.
A trend did emerge though in that the farmed recycled route in Ouray and the bolts-to-nowhere Hyalite line did not peak my interest which brought it home that I am and will die an ice-climber dry-tooling with no ice finish is in my mind too much fore-play sans consummation. To this end I climbed several ice climbs just one-pitch waterfalls mind you but a giddy reminder of more harrowing past exploits. More importantly I learned to climb anew taking the F2s everywhere nary a day going by when I did not caress and hold them.
The last outing to Rockie was a bit weird in that I had begun to doubt my 2s why was this reach so hard for me? I felt strong but I hurled myself at the objective making for some sore arms but no send thus fiendishly repeating a trend seen at the end of 2008-09 season. I have good or bad days my degree of fatigue from work or the crew I am with all having profound affect on how I climb. And maybe I am just not strong/clever/motivated who can say? I suppose if every outing were a known entity in advance there would be little point in going so little element of adventure contained therein. Dry-tooling has that effect on me all bravado in the car snug warm listening to Turbulence "Blood Dem Out" this changes sweating-huffing-puffing-chilling (literally) under looming stone the clips dishearteningly distant.
Mind you I train for this consider myself "professional" at least in how I approach my climbing thus when I get stuffed I have no one to blame but myself. Really though I feel a little starved of spectacle having climbed mostly with other Americans a drab affair to watch them in their crow-black pants all climbing exactly alike grasping mid-shaft and squeezing as tight as possible. My three-hour session with Ines (okay Simone, 4) the one bright spot her minimalist style calm pauses near yoga-like in execution better always to live comfortably/sanely in your own head.
Probably I just no longer give a rats ass for what anyone else is doing if a route appeals then yields this was what suited me if not on to the next potential conquest.
I finally stopped moving this weekend or more accurately driving my 2009 two-tone Mellow Yellow Mini Cooper all over the western US. I am excited about this having done three tournaments/festivals (Bozeman/Ouray/Redstone) in the last several months as well as "training days" to RMNP and Vail. A wild ride at speeds up to 114 mph not to mention M-whatever. I have been demonstrating my Euro-acquired Free-Tooling style a mode of winter climbing most akin to rock-climbing even though I don't know how to even rock-climb. Really I don't like extra weight (e.g., heel-plates) extra points (heel-plates, spikes/adzes) or decisions about what to climb in/with (I climb everything from waterfalls to dry routes in Fusion 2s and Ice Dragons). Learning to climb all over again has been an interesting if not humbling experience with several notable "no-sends" this season which irk me a bit but who said this would be easy?
The car has been a big part of the year as much a partner as any of the lost boys who have gradually melted away from the scene this winter leaving me with virtually no one to even ring-up. I have explored some good terrain though most recently Le Drool Integrale my first time up the thing, solo, ostensibly a tribute to the late-great Guy Lacelle. I felt utterly relaxed on this moderate test-piece cameras whirred and so I achieved a closure of sorts accepting my friend was dead so I would no longer see him out climbing.
Aside from the car there are the new F2s a tool so cunning you could put a tail on it and call it a weasel. To the gathering clog of detractors I say the 1990s called and they want their climbing style BACK. Sure, Nomics work but so did spurs, leashes, cutting steps and the Atatl. I am giddy every time I pick this piolet up that relegated every other tool I own to the museum, and what a museum it has become.
In a word I am now more into the FUN and spontaneity of it all the sending/spraying/posing rather bores me after all I have an occupation/profession so I don't need to live through climbing. Blasting around Colorado in a a Mini stuffed to the gills with climbing gear rolling out in eye-watering neon trousers for a session, moments of joy, quizzical stares, and ah, those instances of near-terror, always...
Winter climbing comprises four elements; 1)Waterfall, 2)Mixed/Dry-tool, 3)Competition, 4)Solo. In the interest of modernity I have refrained from speaking yea or nay of the 2 until I have had a chance to put this instrument through the paces. Usually this proving assumes the form of scaring the shit out of myself a form of mental catharsis I at times crave. We all have our little nuances...
I had seen an early prototype of what was to be Fusion 2 in November 2007 spent some time top-roping with this set at the Hyalite then heard little more until a rather well-worn pair of advanced prototypes arrived in February 2009. These lacked the molded over-grip and rocked precariously on small holds, hmmm...
My own pair of production 2s appeared at the laboratory one day among the cases of plastic tissue culture flasks and other lab paraphernalia. I produced their jagged medieval forms from within the brown cardboard then ran about the bays howling-ranting about foreign-sounding place-names a story still being told two months later.
Living has never been the same since, those life-altering instances happen every so often, I am ass-over-teakettle in love with this tool. I get asked a lot of questions about whether 2 fills the shoes of Fusion 1 which is a bit like asking Cleopatra who was a more rewarding fuck Julius Caesar or Marc Anthony, 2 has erased all memory of Fusion 1 and so it ends there.
Whereas Fusion 1 was cruelly efficient 2 is pure fun totally reinvigorating the winter climbing experience which brings me back to the four pillars of winter climbing. I should mention that as an older athlete with some mileage under my rig I anxiously scan the horizon for an trick or gimmick to hold my interest. Not that Fusion 1 was a bad tool I still have two pairs in my inventory I simply no longer hold them in such esteem. In the quest for less in the bag I prefer a one-tool solution much as I no longer climb with a heel-plate if light is right then not having to think about what to take is divine.
An early test was to be Secret Probation solo but solo with no sussing just walk up and do the thing. Now I have seen ratings ascribed to this route raging from M4+ to M7 the lower grades reflecting perhaps extensive ice buildup or more likely fanciful thinking on the part of lap-top alpinists. That frigid morning the ice was steep near bullet-proof and smokin' cold. Once you perform the dry-tooling down-climbing is really not an option I never carry a rope on such outings so it's do or die.
Next came Bulldog World another M7-M9 affair in Hyalite. In all fairness I deployed my best Squid jiggery and pokery on this little number sent on my second try and returned the following day to add the elegant Yaniro at the crux for the perfect moment.
Finally comes Ouray the adventure-demo under the Lower bridge where I climbed up having a pretty good idea where there might be some bolts to add quick-draws to another cold, cold morning where it was ill-advised to hit the squeakin' dagger too hard lest the scattered fans get more of a show than I had ever bargained for.
The Invitational on Saturday was all it could be with weird chimney climbing and a sit-start I had unknowingly practiced daily in the confines of my home gym, I wasn't even pumped when I timed out and lowered off.
So, what does it all mean? That I trust my life to this 2. There is no greater endorsement, my gloved hands ever at ease cradled with-on the black rubber-stuff or whatever it is. The Fusion Pick is an obvious choice for mixed where any degree of dry-tooling is anticipated but Laser works too very sticky on waterfall ice. I have added a layer of rubber tape to the grip as the overall profile is fairly slim then again I have always preferred diminutive women as well.
In a rare moment of humility I will concede that 2 climbs better than I do my penchant for on-sight climbing as opposed to planning and working a riute has cost me several sends already. My failures (if that's what they are) barely off-set by my successes, it's hard to always be "on" particularly in front of a crowd and a severely hung-over crowd at that.
What you will need for 2 is a good wrench the flat BD number that comes with the tool being utterly inadequate. I have a 14mm Bost that I got in a hardware store in Chamonix only then can I put enough fire on the lone head bolt to feel secure. A good mill file is a second necessity and truth be told I replace the chome-moly bolts that hold the butt-hook (get yer' mind out of the gutter!) on preferring stainless replacements from the Downtown Ace Hardware.
Bill Belcourt of Black Diamond equal parts Merlin and Leonardo conceived of this tool his stated goal at the time being a tool that climbed ice superbly while still conserving (most) of the dry-tool prowess of the Fusion 1 seems to have beaned the prez' on this one (SON OF A DOG!) proving that Arabs can't throw worth a shit. I believe he threw out the figure of 80% although 2 is more like 90%+ plus that extra sexiness that will get me up every time.
And if you aren't inspired to climb, what's the point of new kit anyway?
Postscript: I should mention that the longish 2nd prototype underwent substantial re-working the toll now being rather-shorter a good thing too as this returned stability to the tool including virtually no pick-shift when transitioning to the upper grip. 2 clears ice features very well owing to enhanced hydro-formed sculpting, I don't know anything about this so I won't be boring but this technology enables the curve of the thing to exceed anything you can create by merely bending aluminum tubes. One high-end climbing athlete seemed to think the plastic tail hook (there, happy?) was slippery, it kind of is but after purchasing my first sports-car this year I can appreciate the need for speed AND for fun, sometimes the safest place to be when in the company of a thoroughbred is squarely astride that mount legs wrapped fingers locked in the mane.
What all this means is that I'm not sure 2 is the easiest tool to use might take some time to learn to "drive" it. I say this as a lot of people hated Fusion 1 which enabled the mediocre Nomic to thrive with its erector-set appeal all the while Fusion 1 was putting up the hardest routes in the world. "it's not the arrow it's the Indian" my local shaman and medicine-man Ryan would say, true enough...
I have trained very, very, hard this year I anticipation of the Ouray Invitational an odd proposition as being an invitational with no qualifier I never know if the invitation is to be forthcoming or not. As of late it has become fashionable to carp ceaselessly about 2009 a year of great personal transition for me not to mention indirect tragedy. I took the Guy Lacelle killed during the Hyalite IceBreaker tourney particularly hard Guy having been my hyperactive partner in two Festiglace du Quebec events in 2006 and '07. Guy was not a man to shun risk in the name of adventure nor competition during one turn at the rope in 2006 he bouldered up after a distant bolt even as I offered to stick-clip the anchor for him no sooner had he scraped his way up the suspect wall of tottering shale when BOOM down came Guy cradle and all flat on his back atop an ice boss. He swarmed back up but no doubt a man already in his fifties would have been feeling a tad stiff later that night.
But it was not Guy's own drive that slew this Geant du Cascade rather the combined hubris of individuals athletes and organizer alike at the aforementioned IceBreaker an event billed as "this ain't Ouray..." by event author Joe Josephson. Indeed, Guy withstood many spirited runs at Ouray largely unscathed only to perish in his second turn in the now infamous IceBreaker, senselessly consumed by an avalanche triggered by a party in the gulley above. That high winds, snowfall and bitter cold had drastically altered avalanche conbditions in Hyalite in the preceding 24 hours advancing a "moderate" risk to patently suicidal seems to have escaped the attention of both Joe and the participating athletes. From the 5th floor of RC2 NOAA forecasts for Hyalite and the surrounding mountains were quite express, I watched the impending grinder take shape relieved to have been snubbed for 2008.
Accidents certainly happen and while there may be no "blame" per se there is culpability galore to go around. The following week I hit town mostly to retrieve my daughter Simone a freshman at MSU but also to climb. In conversations with some of the competitors one of whom actually was involved in triggering the slide that swept Guy to his destruction it became apparent that neither in the athlete meeting nor in the pre-dawn start was any discussion of the avalanche potential undertaken an omission of near-criminal proportions. Even still the party of Josh Wharton and Sam Magro who set off the fatal slide had in fact endured one near-death experience moments earlier when JW was swept down the gulley leaving an ice tool in the ice above.
Now many persons (including me) would have promptly and correctly asserted THIS IS FUCKED and retreated but no the lure of one's name engraved on the golden piolet on display at Barrel Mountaineering was so great these blokes opted to continue and they weren't the only ones as Guy despite decades of experience in the Candian Rockies that included a harrowing near-miss under Gimme Shelter in the '90s pressed on right into the cross-hairs of what Sam described as being struck by "18 sheets of dry-wall". That this wasn't a double or even triple fatality seems to have escaped everyone's attention in the subsequent rush to memorialize the late Quebequois before returning promptly to the leisure-based lifestyle of non-stop climbing. After all, the show must go on, oui?
Perhaps, but only just. Having ice-climbed my entire adult life I really know no different as even my son Cormac succintly stated "what else are you going to do all winter!?', indeed. But the world just got a little bleaker the Ouray event a shade gloomier without the fierce Lacelle to compete against. We were after all both of an earlier era one of sodden wool and ice-glazed primitive implements where the consequences of error could be immediate and exceptionally violent. In glancing about the ranks of such veterans has thinned considerably to the point where I feel conspicuous there are old climbers, bold climbers, but no old, bold climbers, correct?
Yet Guy was the exception proof that the old saw was just another load of crap his perceived risk enormous as he completed breath-taking solo ascents of creaking frozen Leviathans across three continents. After a 1993 ascent of Curtain Call with Susanne I noted that some cat named Guy Lacelle had sent the line solo an effort that no amount of training or leashless wizardry would prompt me to undertake to this day.
So what went wrong? In a word, competition... As one particpant of this fateful event pointed out to me en route back to Bozeman from Hyalite, in competition the athletes involved are blind to the hazards roiling about them they see only the prize and no one exposed to a new partner as the draw ensured wishes to be the chicken the one to pull the plug. I know this because this is precisely what I had done in the same event in 2007 when paired with an individual I quickly ascertained to be not only incompetent but plainly a danger to my well-being. For a year I wore the "no-score" I opted for an albatros about my thick hairy neck only now feeling poorly vindicated for my cantankerousness.
So who missed the flags? Certainly anyone hosting such an event must have the safety of the athletes firmly in mind above any lingering gripe against oragnized "sport" events represented by the likes of Ouray or the Ice World Cup. Simply put no half-assed adventure comp' is worth the life of a man like Guy nor any other soul. In short a little humility shown by all might have gone a long way that black day even saved a man's life...
Then Ouray 2010 would have been like old times Gut and me toe to toe in the comp' friends yet rivals old bulls off in some meadow snorting and pawing antlers locked in some farsical contest then the obligatory arm around the shoulder self-portrait of us both one more for the scrap-book.
Not this year though, nor any other for all time.
