BAM! Climbing and more in the South and Beyond: A New York State of Mind

It's been far too long since my last post, my apologies. I'll try to recap the last couple of months as quickly as possible and then talk about recent happenings.

After getting back from Mexico I felt tired and beat up, needing a rest physically and mentally. I took a few weeks off in January and then started climbing again, almost entirely in the gym except for a half day in Vegas. Work got very busy in a good way as I was asked to participate in a very large scientific collaboration. That work is still ongoing and should yield some very interesting results. Work also got busy in not such a good way, taking a lot of my time and leaving me mentally drained from dealing with political issues. Hopefully the worst part of this has passed but we shall see how things play out in the near future.

In early March we had spring break and I headed to the Red. The weather apparently didn't get the memo about it being spring as we had rain, sleet, and snow in the span of a week. Lots of routes were wet which, combined with the trying weather, made the trip less than successful. On a positive note, Vinod flew in halfway through the trip and as always we had a great time. We visited some walls we'd never before ventured to (Long Wall, The Zoo) and made the best of the conditions.

Once I got home from the Red I climbed some outside and some in the gym but my motivation was extremely low. Most of the time it felt like I was going climbing because that's what I normally do on the weekend, instead of being excited to go outside and go climbing. The fact that I wasn't climbing very well (too much training time devoted to endurance, not enough to power) certainly didn't help my psyche.

In mid-March I tried a route I've been meaning to get on for years, Unshackled the Movie, a 13c at the Unshackled cliff at Little River. This was during a weekend camping trip that Theresa and I took with the girls that was super fun and very relaxing. The route went okay, not particular well and I wasn't super stoked to return and started working on it seriously. However, a week later some folks from the gym wanted a tour of Unshackled so we headed out there. While I didn't climb particularly well, I had a blast hanging out with the guys and enjoying rock climbing for the first time in a while. I'm still not sure why I had so much fun that day but it definitely energized me to climb again and to return to Unshackled.

After that trip I began trying Unshackled the Movie in earnest, making the drive a few times and slowly piecing the route together. I finally managed to put it together, redpointing it on I think my 14th try. This leads to the somewhat cryptic title of this post. A while back Theresa and I were chatting and she asked me when I was going to climb 5.14. I laughed and replied never. I went as far as to say that if I ever climbed 13c we'd go on a non-climbing vacation. We joked about it, saying we'd head to New York City for a long weekend of eating and drinking if I ever got serious and did a route of that grade. Well, look what happened! I guess we're off to NYC, the city that never sleeps, we just need to figure out a weekend that works. I'm really looking forward to this for two reasons. The first is simple, I love New York. The city is truly one of the great cities of the world and features world class food and drinks at many price points. The second reason is more personal. I want to use the trip to say thanks to Theresa for always supporting me, always being there with an encouraging word or belaying in cold conditions when I couldn't find anyone else when I'm sure she had other thing she'd much rather do. Her selflessness clearly shows how much she loves me and I want to use this trip to show how much I love and appreciate her for everything she does for me.

Okay, enough sappiness! How about some pictures?