Climbers in your Computer!?!?

Click here for a little fun.

Pizza Party Cont’d

A 1 minute video of Lisa talking to Santa

Fun With Rocks Christmas Party

We had a good turnout considering it was a Sunday night and a Vikings game was on. Mel, Lisa, Barb, Dianne, Tan, Liz, Seth, Andy, and Mike. Some photos of our party.

 

Adventure Climbing In Joshua Tree

This fellow’s blog is subtitled “How I stopped worrying and learned to rock climb.” In this post, he tells the story of getting fooled into climbing a route not in his guidebook.  He’s a relative newcomer to climbing and posts his trips of easy to moderate climbs he does, mostly in California. (So many stories on the internet are about the 5.13 climbers, it’s kinda fun to read about someone just starting out. )

Go To Thailand & Help

This ad offers free room and board in exchange for help in developing a climbing park. They will also have the “world’s largest hammock.” So that you can rest after a long day of climbing, I guess.

Do Not Get On The Naughty List

Even Jack Bauer breaks down when he finds out he’s on Santa’s naughty list.

Little Po In China

This woman has an entire blog devoted to climbing in China.

Climbing Park In Jackson Hole

Because Jackson Hole is so far away from any natural rock climbing area, they are building a rock climbing park in town.

“The space was patterned after “The Enclosure,” a circle of rocks located on top of a breathtaking peak near the Grand Teton that are believed to be placed there by Native Americans for a sacred ritual, although the exact use and purpose of the rocks is still shrouded in mystery.”

Skiing Denali

These Black Diamond sponsored climbers wanted to ski 8,000 vertical feet on the south face of Denali. You can see in the approx 4 minute video, they had to bring a lot of gear to attempt it. They skiied over 60 miles and 15,000 feet but didn’t meet their goal because of snow conditions.

“Being delusional is a character trait that all big mountain adventurers share. You have to believe that when things are bad they will get better before you have to leave.”

BD athlete Kevin Mahoney attempts ski descent of Denali's 8000-foot South Face from Black Diamond Equipment on Vimeo.

Do You Like Going To The Beach?

When you’re deep water soloing at the ocean, this might be why you like going to the beach:

“Turns out, somewhere between 130,000 to 190,000 years ago, the human species was reduced to less than 1000 breeding individuals--just a few thousand people in total….His team eventually found a site, dating to 164,000 years ago, that shows evidence of humans eating shellfish, working with natural pigments and creating technologically sophisticated tools. He thinks this could be the remnants of the humans of the bottleneck--ancestors of everyone alive today.”

I bet they had way cool retro swim togs and I bet they didn’t have to use all that SPF lotion either.

Yarusso’s And Sunday Party

Someone has asked me to post the map again on how to get to Yarusso’s. I won’t mention the person’s name so as to not embarrass him (Ron) so I’ve enclosed a map below along with an award-winning video showing people eating huge amounts of pasta at Yarusso’s.

 

View Larger Map

A Rare Cameo

A rare cameo by A1 and Lisa doing the hard moves on her project.

Homer’s Ice Conditions

As of Thursday about 4PM, here’s what the ice looks like. Good enough to climb but still very thin.

st. Paul Ice Climbing Information

Ice Climbing

Contact
Park Permit Office

Email

1100 North Hamline Ave.
Saint Paul, MN 55108

Ph: (651) 632-5111
Fx: (651) 632-5115

Hours
Office Hours
7:00 am - 3:45 pm
Monday - Friday

Hours of Operation
Sunrise - Sunset
Monday - Sunday

2009/2010 Season will run from November 1, 2009 through March 31, 2010

Based on feedback from participants, we have changed the permit season to run from November 1 through March 31.

The cost of the annual permit is $25.00

In order to participate in our park system, we require all ice climbers to obtain a permit before they climb. The permit includes a signed waiver by the participant, an annual fee, and approval of Parks staff.

We hope you have an enjoyable and safe experience when using Saint Paul parks for your leisure activities.

We have many locations available for your use:

• Five at the Lilydale Brickyard - Map

(Click below for individual site map at Lilydale)
East
Off East
West
Middle (main)
Water Fall

• One at Crosby Park (Super Gully - Shepard & Homer) - Map
• One at Shadow Falls (Mississippi & Summit) - Map

Please view the following material for more location information:

• Lilydale map
• Environmentally friendly use of the park

Training When Not Climbing

This is a post by Steph Davis, a professional climber, that describes core-strengthening exercises. Here’s one suggestion she makes:

“The other thing that gives you a pretty big bang for the buck is increasing your turn-out in your hips. If you can’t suck your pelvis up against the rock, you have less weight on your feet and have to pull more with your arms. If you can glue your crotch to the wall (sorry), suddenly you don’t have to exert any strength at all to be solid on the rock. I have literally gone from holding on hard to just standing there, when I started paying more attention to pulling my hips in on climbs.”