Archive for the ‘Adventures’ Category

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Lost

Saturday, March 7th, 2009

I kinda felt like one of the folks on the TV series “Lost” as we ran care free and naked (ok maybe not naked) on our own tropical deserted island for an entire day.  Jim and the guides from Boquete Outdoor Adventures did a great job running the trip.  Jim moved to Panama from Ridgway about a year ago to run from Boquete Outdoor Adventures, an adventure guide services that operates rafting trips, sea and white water kayaking trips, island tours and hikes
Our day began at 7:00 am in Boquete where we loaded into a van filled with food, beer, snorkel gear and sea kayaks.  We drove about 45 min down to David where we had one last pit stop before we headed out to Pedregal, a small fishing village just a few minutes outside David.  From there we loaded up a boat and spent about an hour getting to Isla Gamez, a small island on the Pacific Coast.  It was amazing to me that in two hours you could go from mountains to the sea and a deserted island none the less!  The boat ride was beautiful, much of it navigating through the Mangrove Forests.  On the island we swam, snorkeled, did a little sea kayaking and opened several coconuts, both green and ripe.  The fresh coconut water was amazing!  so much better than the stuff we get in the states.  The flesh is soft enough to eat with a spoon and has the texture of a gummy bear.  It was super yummy!  Jim’s guide Rolando did a great job helping us learn to roll in the sea kayaks.  Zane almost had it down!  I would love to get him on a mellow river trip with these guys.  He is really comfortable in the water.  Jason saw a huge sea turtle…he said is was as big as him.  Unfortunately, we don’t have many pictures as Jason’s camera went on the blink as soon as we got there.  Hopefully, we can get it working again.
I think we will leave here tomorrow and head to the Osa.  This (Boquete) is an easy place to hang…really mellow, comfortable and safe.

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Virigins and Volcanos

Wednesday, March 4th, 2009

(Intro by Jason)
Well from what I remember from the stories is that you’re suppose to throw a virgin into a volcano when you get to the top.  I don’t understand why you would want to do something like that.  Something along the same reasons you have grape juice and a cracker at catholic mass I suppose.  So when I got to the top of the mountain, Lisa informed me that she wasn’t a virgin, and thus I was not able to throw her into it.  With her having a son Zane, I should have put two and two together.  I am just a male after all and sometimes we miss things.  There was no bubbling lava so I suppose it would have been fairly uneventful anyway.  Just some tumbling, bruises and a very angry wife.  Instead, there was lots of walking.. and then we turned around and walked back down.

(by Lisa)
…and that’s just what we did…for 9 hours, 15 miles (roundtrip) and 8000 feet of vertical gain.  Jason and I hiked the Vocano Baru (11,400 ft., the highest peak in Panama) today while Zane volunteered at the animal refuge.  It was a big day for all of us!  We walked our asses off and Zane got to hire is first cab…in Panama none the less!  Mission accomplished for all!

We started the day at 3:30 am, began hiking a litte after 5:00 am and finshed  at 2:30pm. At the summit you can see both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.  Let me say that this was a HUGE day for me.  Like a Cross Fit workout or a hard lead climb, I had to break it into pieces to wrap my head around it.  I really wasn’t sure I was going to summit…my legs wern’t working very well for me in the beginning.  I have to say that determination goes a long way for me.  I just kept moving.  Anyway, just wanted to you guys to know we are still suffering and working our bodies here in Panama…but right now I’m sitting on a couch with ice on my kneese drinking a very strong drink.  Cheers!

(Jason again here)
You have to really like hiking to enjoy the Vocan Baru thing.  It’s a constantly steep jeep road that really doesn’t have much scenery, besides a wall of forest.  The road rarely flattens out, and doesn’t affor many view either until you near the top.  I guess you can ascend it by the Cerro Punta side for a more adventures single track.  You need a guide to do it this way, and hiring a guide to do something like going for a long walk would be hard on my ego.  It was also a quickly planned adventure, so climbing it from the other side would have been much more difficult logistically.

We don’t really like hiking for the sake of hiking, and thus, although we are glad we did it, it’s not a walk I would like to do again.  My knees and feet hurt, there was next to no wildlife, no diversity, and not much in the way of aesthetics.  The hike up was long, and the hike back down felt even longer.  We can say we did it now and we have a story to tell.

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Boquete day 1

Sunday, March 1st, 2009

Our first day in Boquete was great.  After a good nights rest we were ready to explore the area.  The town is quite small and safe.  The temps are great and the scenery is beautiful.  You can walk pretty much anywhere you need to go but if you do need a taxi, they are very inexpensive.  We have a dorm type room in a hostel, but we have the whole room to ourselves.  It’s big, light and sunny with several windows that open to the river which runs behind the building.  We have our own bathroom with a huge shower and plenty of hot water. There is a fully equipped kitchen downstairs, although I’m not sure how much cooking I will do as eating out here is VERY cheap.  It’s simple but good food although getting veggies is a challenge…lots of rice and beans and bread.  A person (Alan…Tammy?) would have a very hard time on the Paleo Diet here.
Today we went to an animal refuge (Paradise Gardens) for endangered species.  It was great!  How many times in your life will a person have a chance to hold a baby ant eater? We also go to see an Otter Cat, Monkey’s, a baby Screech Owl, Parrots, an Ocelot, and Toucans.

Zane loved it and is scheduled to volunteer there three afternoons this week.  It will be a great experience for him. I feel like letting him wander here is fine…it’s very safe and quiet.  Not like the streets of Playa Del Carmen, where you feel like your in a frogger game trying to cross the street.
We ended our afternoon with pizza and then a coffee, the later being better then the first.  Boquete produces award winning coffee and the plantations are plentiful here.  It would be great to take a tour, if it’s in our budget.
We have been getting some of our cross fit  work outs in, but they are pretty simple and not nearly as much fun as Hypoxia! Tomorrow we plan to check out the climbing.

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Viajando a Panama

Sunday, March 1st, 2009
Architecture, or lack thereof
Architecture, or lack thereof

Well, we arrived in Boquete, Panama last night about almost 30 hrs of travel from Las Vegas. Las Vegas to Denver to San Jose via airplanes took up the night. Two taxi rides in San Jose took us not very far, but ate up some time, as the first taxi left us at the wrong bus station. A long, cramped bus ride on Tacopa, apparently a locals bus as we were the only foreigners, took us to the border of Panama. Some finagling, dragging our suitcases around, waiting in lines, and trying to understand what we needed to do ensued. Why do border crossing need to be such a hassle?
We couldn’t bear two more bus rides (one to David and then one to Boquete), so we let a taxi coerce us into a ride the rest of the way. It was a good move. The taxi was comfy, and it was an hour and half ride for $50.
The was no staff at the Hostal we had planned on staying at, so another hour was killed by the time we got a taxi to another one. Sleep found me quickly.
The bus ride yesterday was long, and uncomfortable, but a least it was interesting. In between fading in and out of sleep, there were mountains, valleys, and painted piles of cinder blocks and corrugated tin they refer to as towns. I was surprised that once in Panama, the roads became wider, the houses were nicer, and there seemed to be a much higher standard of living. I would have thought the opposite.
Gotta go now and see what this Panama place is all about.

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Red Rocks

Sunday, March 1st, 2009
Cross the Gap

We don’t have many great stories from Vegas.  Besides, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas right?  We did a little climbing, which was humbling.  The mixed climbing fitness didn’t translate directly to steep crimps.  Oh well, we’ll revist that issue when we return from South America.  Hopefully it won’t be an issue then.  Not sure how we’ll feel after being in the jungle and on the beach, but well… yes I know… it will be humbling once again. In the photo, I’m taking a little short cut to get to the climbing.

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Red Bull and Vodka

Wednesday, February 18th, 2009

With my friend Jack having moved to Vail this past year, spending a few weekends climbing in Vail was on the must do list this year.  I sent most of the first pitch routes in the Fang Amphitheater, including the 3rd ascent of Steel Balls (M9).    My main Vail goat was a route called Red Bull and Vodka (M11) that I had seen Harry Berger and Ines Papert get the first ascents of a couple years ago. On Ines’ redpoint attempt, she got to the ice and a horizontal fracture line appeared going about 40 ft.   The whole Fang pillar, that was not yet touching down, cut loose and plummeted toward me and my friends.  It was surreal and in slow motion, it seemed I had plenty of time to run away.  In retrospect, I wouldn’t have gotten hit by it, but it was so big that the sky went dark as it passed by.

So why would I want to climb such a thing? That’s a good question.  I guess because it’s one of the coolest looking and hardest routes in Vail.  My buddy Jack, worked the route out for me, gave me the beta, and I got the “hero” send on it.  I’m not sure if getting instructions yelled from about 50 ft. while upside down on a horizontal roof is really helpful, but the company was nice.  My send of the route was either the 3rd or 4th ascent of the route.  Yes, the thought of the Fang Pillar snapping on me did occur as I stemmed over onto it.  It was so good to get my weight off my arms that I was pretty OK with it though.  The ice went for about 35 ft. and was bullet hard, like glass.  The fusion ice tools have too steep of a pick angle, and thus I had to work hard to finish the final section.

Thanks to Stanley (Stanislav Vrba) for taking these photos!

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Ouray Ice Park

Thursday, February 12th, 2009

Being so convienient, you can’t help be climb in the Ice Park.  Besides, it’s acutally quite pretty in there.  After doing 80 pullups in five minutes at crossfit, plus some other feats of strength, Lisa and I went down to the Ice Park to get our photo taken by our friend Helen Richardson from the Denver Post.  There wasn’t much open, as it was a busy weekend in the Ice Park.  Grandma’s Glass Pony Shop WI5+/6 was open however and so we did that one.   Lisa didn’t know that it was one of the hardest pitches of ice in the Ice Park. Hee hee… she should know who she’s climbing with.  The route is pretty much 140 ft. of sustained, vertical ice climbing.

There’s a few other photos on a route called Super Dave, those are the ones on the rock.  I wasn’t even aware those were being taken.

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Evil Has No Boundaries

Tuesday, February 10th, 2009

I was feeling like there wasn’t much left for me to climb aroud here.  I’ve done most of the hard routes around.  I noticed in the guidebook that the route “Evil Has No Boundaries” was the hardest route in the Ouray Ice Park, and that it only had a couple of ascents.  The seemed like a logical one to get done, so I set to it.  I put quickdraws on it one day, and returned the following day to climb it. My friend Helen, a photographer for the Denver Post, happend to be in the park that day with her camera and got some great shots for me.

On my first go, I broke a hold in the begining, but caught myself before I fell.  “Crap, that was an important one.” The next hold was pretty far away, so I crouched up, and jumped for it.  My tool stuck it and I was back on track.  Not for long however.  I was setting up for the next big move, and both holds my picks were on simutaniously broke off taking me with them.

I lowered back to the base, shook it off, and got ready to go again.  I worked past the missing holds by jumping past them and with big powerful lunges.  The holds are not very big on Evil Has No Boundaries and so you really need to be careful about keeping the direction of pull on your tools consistent.  I finished the route by traversing over to a hanging dagger that was pouring with water from road run-off.    That’s about that. Evil Has No Boundaries was rated M10, and how much harder it is now, I don’t know.

Hope you enjoy the images.  They are cropped in the thumbnail version, but when you click on them, you’ll get the full version.

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Jason takes 4th at Ouray Ice Festival

Sunday, January 25th, 2009
Jason at the Ouray Ice Festival

Jason at the Ouray Ice Festival

One week before the Ice Festival, I separated/dislocated my shoulder just a few hundred feet away from the comp route.  I wasn’t sure if I would be able to compete, until just before the event.  I ended up getting fourth place.  My shoulder didn’t seem to bother me during the route.  I think the mental aspect of being injured was worse than the physical in this case.  I really wanted to make the top 3, but I’m happy to do as good as I did given my state.

More Here…

Climbing.com – good pic of me

Ouray Plaindealer Newspaper – Story and Pic

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Gravity’s Rainbow

Thursday, December 18th, 2008

Gravity takes over

Gravity’s Rainbow was one of the few classic climbs that I hadn’t yet done in the Ouray area.  Whenever the sun comes out, the climb instantly falls down, so you have to wait for a period of bad weather to climb this route. It’s been snowy for several days now.  I drove up to check it out last night and it looked well formed.  The parts I could see anyway.  Under all those snowy bits, the ice is total junk and just falls apart.  You end up swinging your pick into the rock most of the time.<.p>

Gravity's Rainbow

For those wondering… yes Gravity’s Rainbow is climbable, but it is very thin, there’s lots of crappy ice, and lots of crust covered rock.  Protection is occansional, and you’re forced to put ice screws in the places they tell you not to in the “How to Ice Climb” book.   My ice tool picks are now flattened stubs, and I’ll probably have to get most of my ice screws resharpened too.  It does however make for an adventure.

gravity's Rainbow pics

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