Team Carbondale take 2nd Place at 2012 America's Uphill

This past Saturday 5 Carbondale Colorado uphill racing enthusiast came together as a team and took Second Place in the 2012 America’s Uphill at Aspen Mountain. The Race begins at the Little Nell base area and climbs 3,267 feet up Aspen Mountain to the finish at the Sundeck. Racers can choose their poison and race in running shoes, randonee, tele or track skis. At the start of the race it was obvious the fast runners had an advantage as Mike Kloser and his pack pulled away from all the skiers.  As far as the racers in the Heavy Metal Ski Catagory Team Carbondale hung onto 4 out of the top 9 spots. 

Racers gather at the starting line. (From AspenSpin.com)

Four members of Team Carbondale, Sari, Lindsay, Brian and John, are addicted Ski Mountaineer Racing. Even though our ski set ups are markedly heavier then a pair of running shoes we all suffer from the inability to put our skis down.  When not on my skis I go through a separation anxiety like getting left at school for the first time when I was 5 years old. Cory was our team’s only sensible athlete racing in a pair of light running shoes. We are hoping by 2013 we can facilitate her into an ultra light ski mountaineer race set up.

America’s Uphill is a pure love of mountain ascent. Crusty eyed racers pull against gravity for 2.7 miles as the morning sun rises. No matter how fast you go your lungs burn and every one’s heart pounds to reach the finish at 11,212 feet. All Team Carbondale Racers are committed to ski mountaineer racing and have centered a large part of our winters on the sport. We also all love Carbondale where we live. It was a lot of fun to come together as a town team to celebrate an exceptional sport and place.

Wind Horse

There’s nothing to get over the End of Winter Blues like a perfect day of rock climbing on dry granite in gleaming sunshine.  The trail up to the Notch, just outside of Carbondale, CO, was icy and treacherous with sections of post holing in decaying snow.  Several times the rubber of my shoes lost traction on the icy switch backs and I ended up and precarious split positions. I questioned whether old man winter had released his grasp on the crag. Arriving at the base of the cliff I was relieved we would be climbing and bathing in sunlight. 

DR on Wind Horse

 

It seems last summer the local climbing masters were working hard and produced some unfathomable lines, bigger then anyone’s imagination. Of particular attentions was Wind Horse. The route is so colossal, in order to tope rope it and have the belayers remain on the dirt, climbers first climb a pitch on a 60 meter rope and then untie and retie into an 80 meter rope. The climbing is brilliant with a very tricky crux requiring massive crimp strength, pinch strength and invisible feet. The route is so tall one really feels a loss of attachment to what’s below as the arête steepens and breeze stiffens.

Badger on the look out

Climbing at the Notch this past weekend was exhilarating.  From the road the Narrows and Notch looked suspect as loose rock bounced down the hillside and pinged off the jersey barriers protecting the parking lot. It is not until one ventures up the steep hillside that one is rewarded with high quality Crystal River Valley Granite climbing in all grades.  I got home from climbing Sunday evening more exited then a puppy just released from a kennel. I bounced up and down in our one room studio apartment nipping at my wife’s side. This form of climbing excitement wasn’t going to fly with her. She pointed to the front door and told me to go for a mandatory run.  I obediently laced up my running shoes and tiredly dragged my feet over red gravel excited for spring and local climbing.

Seasonal Affective Disorder

DR the "Dry Master" on Secret Sauce

Growing up my parents had a small cottage on a lake. Summers were spent by the water skipping rocks, looking for snapping turtles and watching my dad drink impossible amounts of beer.  The first week of September the cottage would get winterized and all of a sudden weekend trips to the lake would stop cold turkey.  I would withdrawal like a junkie.

I remember this being one of the most emotional times of my life.  I wouldn’t see “lake friends,” for a whole winter. Water skis would be traded for text books. Instead of smiling at friends on their docks while we cruised around the lake in our boat  I would walk around the school halls with my head down waiting to get pushed into a locker by Jeff King. Or worse he would give me a purple nurple so bad my chest would turn black and blue and then brown for two months.

Leaving the lake for the long winter tears would always well up in my eyes and I would feel a deep sadness. Being at home just was not the same. Our lake cottage was sold over 15 years ago and I have not felt this sadness for a long time until the other day. 

Recent winters have been filled with non stop back country skiing. A weak, shallow and terrifying snow pack has left a void this fall in my activities.  I had to look elsewhere for my activity fix.  One cool fall day Jeff Jackson invited me up to the Man Camp for some dry tooling. The name Man Camp should of tipped me off that this was going to be no casual day of cragging and I was going to walk away with a thick mane of hair on my chest.

I had previously only tinkered with dry tooling when necessary on an ice climb here and there. I had actually once owned a pair of Nomic dry tools. Last year I sold them to fund a trip to Denali. My vertical ice climbing tools would have to do.  (Many of you are shaking your heads at me selling my Nomics, I know, I know, it still makes me nauseous. To non climbers selling a pair of Nomics is like having a copy of the original King James Bible and trading it for a back rub.)

Jeff on Jesus Camp minus the ice

 

My first session at the Man Camp was rough.  I floundered up this climb called Jesus Camp. Without warning tools would blow off of holds as I monkeyed bolt to bolt questioning what I was doing with my life. Two prophets below spat out beta as I attempted to climb to the heavens. Like religious devotion, Jesus Camp would become a climb I would repeat a dozen more times. I no longer flail like a bird with it’s wings clipped on Jesus Camp. The climb has become more refreshing to my soul then an artesian water enema. 

My second session at the Man Camp I ventured onto a climb called Secret Sauce. For me and my lack of dry tool skill, Secret Sauce is like taking a 5.8 climber and putting them on the 5^th pitch of a 5.12c crux and lighting the rope on fire.  After hang dogging my way up 35ft my right tool got spit out of a crack like a mouth full of rotten fruit and tagged me just above the right eye. The next day I flew back east to my grandmother’s funeral with an egg sized bloody bruise on my face.

DR on Secret Sauce

 

As addictive as the climbing at the Man Camp is, I think the two guys I get to climb with make it such a sacred place.  I have never had a true sport idols or hero until this winter. I’ve always had a hard time with idolizing an athlete whom I had never met and gotten to know.  The passion, excitement and drive Jeff and DR climb with is like a continuous IV infusion of Red Bull. I climb several grades lower then these two guys. Time an again they patiently belay me offering kind advice and never do I feel judged for climbing so poorly.  Yesterday after a colossal top rope session, that probably gave Jeff an inguinal hernia from belaying me, on his new climb, Thumb Sucker, Jeff said, “Thank you, I really appreciate you going up there and pulling on those holds.”  If a hold in the Man Camp’s soft red sandstone can tolerate “VanNostrand Forces” then it is probably going to stick around until the next time I pull on it. As I was lowered off Thumb Sucker my head hung in disappointment with my performance but Jeff was right there with a lighthearted comment that brought my chin up smiling. These men are the real deal that young athletes should look up to.

 

Sometimes I get home from the Man Camp and my wife says, “What did you guys talk about.”  I’ve learned after 3 plus years of marriage to always answer her questions sincerely, accurately and completely. My mind swirls in blankness. How do we teach women the ways of man talk? I think about making some grunting noises because that will pretty much say everything but I know this is inappropriate. I laboriously draw up conversations from the Man Camp man talk dialogue box and find myself looking into a black hole.  I realize overall we have not said anything that translates into women terms.  But what I know is the three of us liked being there climbing and puzzle solving. And we all enjoyed each others company. Particularly we enjoyed getting to share such a special place with another person.

When DR asked me to strip the draws off of Jesus Camp yesterday a lump welled up in the back of my throat.  Unclipping each draw from the bolt felt sacrilegious. I thought of the lake growing up and the sorrow I felt every time I had to leave the lake for the final time in late summer.  But I know this is just the beginning of many winters.