Tag: climbing

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exploits update

After this weekend, my number of states visited in the US has shot up to 6. Well, that’s counting DC, which I’m pretty sure isn’t a state (but cbatg). And not counting California, as I don’t think spending an hour wandering around on the streets really qualifies. So we have

States visited: GA, VA, MD, DC, WV, PA

And today, at the supercrag that is Great Falls, VA, I learnt how cold rock can really get. There was no snow on the ground, but as soon as you started a climb, the rock would just suck the heat from your hands. I had a hand warmer sachet in my chalkbag and was using the chalk bag in an attempt to regain some sensation in my fingers, rather than for chalk.

Still haven’t eaten an Ipod Shuffle.

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climbing general

tonsai and the tsunami

Some photos of the tsunami taken in and around Tonsai Beach, Thailand. My flatmate was rockclimbing there – she was actually up on the cliffs by the beach when it hit. This area was lucky, and there was relatively little damage, and very little loss of life – I think none on Tonsai Beach itself. Things didn’t go so well for Phi Phi (which is actually where climbing first kicked off in Thailand). For anyone who is interested in more information about the people from those climbing areas you loved (or how to donate to those affected areas) look here, here, and here.

tonsai bay

This photo is from a series that was taken up on Thaiwand Wall. It was actually printed in a few different newspapers.

freedom bar

The wave hitting the Freedom Bar on Tonsai Beach.

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climbing general

good old days at the mill

Bryden at the Mill.

Bryden bouldering at the Mill. hopefully all the rumours are true, and we’ll have new bouldering areas opening up close to the city. the loss of the mill followed by the burning of vic ranges has left a bit of a gap in the melbourne gym climbing world.

(meanwhile i’ve been busy incorporating all of my old photo sections into the site. soon there’ll be a nice shiny climbing link on the sidebar. however the next/previous page links at the bottom of the page keep refusing to load at the bottom of the page, unless you refresh)

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climbing general

weekending at arapiles

spent the weekend at arapiles. we didn’t get a whole lot done. wandering up a climb on dunes buttress on sunday, we managed to spend at least an hour sleeping on one of the belay stations, watching the hoards streaming up missing link, with none of us feeling particularly motivated to do the final pitch of our own climb. in the end i was convinced to do it, on the grounds that i’d been climbing the longest – despite my defence that it was someone elses turn, as i’d just led the last pitch (just being probably an hour ago by the time we got around to moving again) . and my convincing arguments that corey should do it because he was stronger, or that maria should do it, because she’d led the first pitch. all of this over 25 metres of grade 12, mmm, sweet summer apathy.

a few photos from the trip …

rope pile

corey’s attractive rope, shimmering in the sunlight

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updates…

america trip: Apparently I should get the DS2019 form in the next few days (woo), then I have to continue filling out forms, and be interviewed and things like that: “Do you seek to enter the United States to engage in … subversive or terrorist activities?…. Have you ever participated in genocide?”

dreadlocks: Getting dreadier and messier as we speak. They’ve been left to their own devices of late. A fair few loops, messy roots, mutant dreads trying to cannibalise others, that sort of thing.

climbing: Haven’t been doing much, people keep injuring themselves or be working, and then I’ve had to be working late a bit, so no climbing for the last couple of weeks or so.

other things: Went to be support for friends doing 12 hour mountain bike thing on the weekend. Was going to compete, but then another guy dropped out, so our team was the wrong size, so I dropped out as well. Not that worried about that, as the course was super muddy. The next day a few of us hiked up Mount Cobbler. Awesome summit. This photo is taken from the false summit as you cross the saddle to the real summit. It felt very Middle Earth/ New Zealandish. Which is of course the same thing really.