Lessons from THE FRONT...

It is an inescapable fact of life on the Front Range that in climbing if you cant' pull you don't matter for shit. In 1992 when I first lived here I couldn't believe the stone so much in so little time. The girls were nice too...

Now the place is overrun with fat chicks hailing from Ames or Omaha or Wheatridge out-eating me 2:1 at the local pub in half the time. The stone is way more crowded but lately unbelievably the stone has been vacant near my house red yellow cool to the touch yet fierce.

Mind you Vito was set to work and created Le Panel very air I breath always a hand-ripping good time. Not that the stone is any less enjoyable only love-making sans arousal is fairly tense so having a fine pair of guns good for the soul on stone...

The hot breath of summer lingers another fucked autumn as climate change uses up the last fun bits of living on earth. Hot dry crowded like the man said; no doubt time then for ME to retire spin yarns...

"When I was your age it used to SNOW in TARGETADO (they used to call it 'Colorado' before SUPER-TARGET replaced the Constitution)", and so on...

The Junk

My daughter is home from University now she has wryly observed the inability of her brother and father to clean up after themselves. I find this interesting because up until now, my wife has done all the cleaning unless she was tired and then I could not get a moment of peace without doing what she asked. We have insisted upon engaging in barbaric activities such as drytooling and lacrosse, such past times amuse us because they involve sharp metal objects that we can bludgeon inanimate objects and other men with. While my daughter, who has the patience of a saint, tries to watch her harmless television show about the repressed nature of sexuality in America I sit to her right gnashing toast under my crooked teeth, hidden by my sea creature-like mustache. But this is all in the life of an ice climber. Which reminds me, I have made a recent convert. His name is Vito. He was an innocent; had not experienced the siren pull of the ice until a jaunt into Hyalite Canyon, Montana with a boy scout troop. Upon emerging from the wilderness, he had seen the light. It may have subsided, but he came to The Den during his Spring Break. He entered THE CAVE and all hope was lost. My daughter could only stand by and watch as her boyfriend became enamored with the Black Diamond Fusion and the dry tooling walls I constructed in my gym. He left with his eyes spinning and full of wonderment. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a new addition to the force. Let us welcome Vito to the brethren with open arms.


~ Guest Post written by Simone Cordery-Cotter

End of Days: Part 2

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...

End Of Days

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...

SaLvAtIoN video

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

Reflections on a Season

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.

On Movement...

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...