Here are the pictures I promised to upload.

We are just finishing the slog to the steep slog.

Nearing the resting point and start of the technical section. Our end for the day.

It's not too hard to see how bad I feel.

South Ridge of Mt. Superior

I had made plans to attempt the South Ridge of Mt. Superior this morning. Unfortunately, I woke up very ill this morning. I had body aches like i've never felt in my life; almost unbearable.

I still met eRik at the park n ride at 6am and we drove up in my car. After getting there and suiting up eRik realized he left his ice axe in his car, so we had to drive back down and get it.

We finally started hiking around 7am under a beautiful dark sky. From our first steps we were post-holing and moving very slow. There were only a few very limited segments where the snow firmed up and allowed us to front point.

We got to the notch and start of the technical section by 9:15, much later than we had hoped. I was fighting everything in me not to pass out and the aches and pains I had in my lower back, shoulder, and hips had gotten to such a point that I knew we were going to have to turn back.

Descending, we stepped down into the open shoulder and hopped on our shovels. I was so happy to have them because they allowed us to slide down nearly all of the mountain. I almost collapsed when we got back to the car and drove to work in excruciating pain.

Now, on Lortab and two Ibuprofen I'm able to sit at work in semi-comfort and a complete fog.

My apologies to eRik. Normally I am solid in the mountains, very confident on snow, and a goat when it comes to scrambling. There are several people who can validate that.Today (and the last few days) hasjust been a low point for me physically . We'll make another attempt in a week or two.

Pictures coming soon.

Gym Climbing

While the snow is sitting on the ground and the chances of me being able to travel anywhere are out of the question I have been spending more and more time in the gym. It makes sense considering I do a lot of my climbing during my lunch hour or on a cold Thursday night.

Within the last month I've started focusing more on routes. While in my heart I am still a boulderer, I don't particularly enjoy it in the gym. I'm not very good at it and I haven't seen any real progression in the last year and a half or so. Thus, I've turned my focus to clipping bolts. Not only is it fun and helping me with endurance (which I have little of), but it's really nice to watch myself make significant steps forward, something I haven't seen in my climbing life in quite some time.

In just under a month I've gone from redpointing mid-11s to now where I've redpointed two 12Bs and on-sighted several 12- climbs. I hope to hit 13a by the time its warm enough to get back outside.

We'll see.

Skiing, Finally

I was able to go skiing a couple of times the last week or so, once with Tyler and my family and once at the Alta free ski with some friends. Here are a couple of pictures from the time out with the family.