My original plan was for an almost horizontal roof in the basement rafters but they have been unreachable due to the fact that I need a large workshop (for renovations) and the amount of crap Emily and I are storing in the basement. Saturdays are for brainstorming and working on house projects, so as I was organizing some stuff downstairs I realized I had a perfect start for the climbing wall under my stairwell due to my recent stair replacement project.

I started on the easiest to reach stair by cutting a piece of plywood and reinforcing it to the stair frame. Then, I attached a second plywood piece two stairs up. I opened my box of climbing holds [Thanks, Dave!] and decided on the optimum placement for each. Then I tested and played around until my hands lost most of their skin and I could no longer do a pull-up.

Future plans include filling the space between the two existing frames to smooth out the transition and continue up the stairwell for at least 4 more stairs. By then, I’ll need more holds and probably some sort of crash prevention system. It is important to note that you don’t want to screw up and fall, otherwise you’re in for quite a beating — remember, I’m climbing over a set of stairs.

One lesson I’ve learned is that an ultimate bachelor pad is incomplete without a climbing wall. This will be the prize attraction at my house for some time to come. I do fear that the cool factor is a bit lost on Emily and would probably be lost on the house’s next owners. But in the meantime, this thing ROCKS!

This is definitely in my list of things to do in 2008. I’ll need to wait until we’ve had a period of warm dry days — the area this is in has a lot of ground seepage so things are always damp.

Dave took some great pictures of some bouldering we did at Rocks State Park on Thanksgiving Day. The picture above is from that album. Check out my picasaweb gallery for the rest of the pictures.

The bummer came towards the end of the night after trying some “easy” routes that were setup by Jason Kehl. I say “easy” because they were only rated 5.10 but were damn hard and took a few tries to figure out. I don’t think it was anything in particular that I did… I never heard a snap or a pop or anything. It didn’t even hurt much during the evening but the next morning my finger was swollen and hurt like crazy when I curled it in to my palm. It’s an old-school injury from when I was just out of high school rearing its ugly head again (at least, I’m pretty sure). It’s a fracture of the right index finger right at the big knuckle where the tendon from the palm pulls on the knuckle. It just ends up pulling a little chip off the bone which then floats around and hurts like crazy.

I’ll find out for sure on Wednesday when I have my appointment with the hand specialist. In the meantime, I’ve splinted my finger and I’m not climbing. What a drag. I’m not sure what I could have done to prevent this from happening again. This is the 4th or 5th time it has happened now. All from playing one stupid game of basketball in high school gym class and getting my finger jammed. I hate that game.

Update (12/21/07): Nothing conclusive came up with the doctor visit. The swelling went down after 2 days and after a little time off things felt great. I climbed again on 12/18 and again on 12/20 with no pain. Not sure what happened but I’m happy to say things are just fine as of now.

Beyond that, I’ve been very successful climbing routes in the gym this week. I flashed a 5.11a this evening and began working on a 5.12a that spit me off three times on the first try and once on the second try. I was burnt out after that and wasn’t too successful on my third or fourth tries. I’ll be sure to give the route a try sometime next week and hopefully surpass one of my previous goals which was to simply “work” on climbing 5.12′s, not necessarily send them. Boulder-wise, last week I flashed a couple v5′s which was nice but no news on breaking through the v7 barrier that I’ve been stuck on. Soon, soon.

The weather looks drab on Friday. I was really hoping for some good weather and the possibility of some more bouldering over at Rocks State Park. Last Friday Dave and I went there and had an awesome day. We setup two top ropes along Breakaway Wall and climbed 5 different routes. One of my best days climbing, ever!

Normally when I visit a crag, there’ll be a few climbs easily marked out from one of our guidebooks. The problem with Rocks is that it’s really big so I felt very overwhelmed. It’s really hard to know which wall you’re looking at. The bottom isn’t easily accessible and from the top it’s simply impossible to see where the good climbing is 50ft below you. I climbed down to the bottom. Emphasis on CLIMB — it wasn’t the easiest with a bunch of gear. Funny enough, Emily dropped Dave’s water bottle and the bottom split so he had to drink from the bottom. Dave stayed at the top and we yelled back and forth until we found a great beginner wall, Breakaway wall. We stuck to the right side of the climb on a route called Vertical which was rated 5.6.

Setting up anchors for the top rope was an interesting process because we were simply on a little shelf at the top of a big wall with more rocks above us. We found one great one and one decent one but when you’re used to tying your rope around a couple trees it can be freaky to trust a smaller crack or rock to support things. But hey, that’s why we have a backup rope!

After setting things up and managing to get everyone and all the gear to the bottom I tied in only to realize we setup the rope about 20 feet too far to the left of the climb we wanted to do. The choice was clear, climb and know I’ll have a big swing if I fall or scramble/climb back up the side. Either way would take some time and I knew the climb would be very reasonable so I went for the actual climb. It’s a little freaky being that high and knowing if you fall you’re going to be a little pendulum. It worked out though. At the top I fixed the ropes and everyone else got their climbs in. We didn’t have time to do more than one climb each but now that I’ve been there once I think we’ll be a bit more prepared for next time. I also want to find a couple of the bouldering problems I’ve been reading about. More pictures can be found on my picasaweb album.

I don’t think the Gunpowder is really considered much of a hot spot for bouldering and I’ll admit from other videos of places like Bishop on YouTube this doesn’t really compare. Gunpowder is just a small 20ft cave with a 45 degree roof that is about 12 or so feet high. Still, it’s really fun and I can see myself going there a little more once the weather gets cooler. It was super hot and humid — 88F with 90% humidity.

Since the area isn’t all that popular, I actually can’t find any information on what climbs are there. That means whatever we do there we’re just making up. That part was actually quite fun. I found what I thought the easiest route would be and figured it out in a couple tries. It’s not that serious of a route and would probably rate something along the lines of a v3. My parents came along, which meant extra spotters so one of us could videotape.

One of the trickiest things was the first time I got to the top I realized it was entirely covered in leaves. My parents threw up a brush and I cleaned it off, but it was a little dicey hanging on to the top and cleaning everything.

After losing interest on the first route I made up, I moved on to one that starts at the back of the cave. Hopefully I’ll work that out and get a video on that one.

Videos: The first is Emily trying the route with a few little modifications of her own since she’s shorter than me. The second is me doing the route for the 4th or 5th time.

It was worth it though. I found some cool bouldering in a little cave just off the trail. The picture below was taken before I put my five fingers on and tried climbing in them. Unfortunately, I was a little high so I needed Chris to spot me which means no pictures of what I ended up putting together. My plan is to go back there on Saturday with a crash pad, real climbing shoes, and a brush or two to clean the rock. I forgot how annoying dirt was. I also forgot how sharp real rocks feel compared to rocks in the gym. Hope I don’t tear up my hands too bad!

I worked on my hardest top route to date that day, a 5.11c/d. I don’t normally work on really hard top rope climbs (I prefer to boulder hard) but I think I was a little inspired by seeing both my mom and dad as well as having Chris there with us. After 3 tries I was clean up until the second to last hold. After the fall, I’d perform the last 2 holds clean but I just couldn’t get a good rest in between. I’ll work on this again, probably next week. If I can start pulling 5.11c’s off consistently, I’d be really happy to begin doing projects on 5.12′s.

I’m still stuck on v6 boulder problems. I’ve done one v7 but for the most part the 6′s really take some work to complete. Emily and I went down to Rockville’s Earth Treks to visit a friend of hers and climb down there a couple weekends ago. There was this slick v4 with a dyno into a 2 finger pocket that I really don’t think was a v4. It was just totally insane when I stuck it. I love that flying-then-catching-a-super-tiny-flake-with-nothing-on-it feeling.

First, I had the bout of poison ivy which ended up all over my arms — something you wouldn’t want to climb with.

I figured I’d be back to it sometime this week but on Sunday I grazed my fingertip on my middle finger left hand with a nail from a nailgun. It took off a good quarter of my nail and has left my finger feeling quite bruised. I knew nailguns were dangerous and thought I was being pretty careful but obviously I need to take a couple extra precautions to prevent nails that decide to bend on me from hitting my fingers. Quite a “doh” moment and quite scary that it could have been a lot worse a few centimeters closer to the center of the finger.