22 Climbers to Jackson falls, So Ill

And no injuries!  And all had a great time!  Very fun weekend with True Adventures.  We had seven cars, three of which went early.  Of those three, only one was able to decipher the last bit of directions .2 miles is quite different from 2 miles.  No worries, we caravanned at the end and managed to pick them all up – cell phones are fabulous.  We also all managed to stay in the same campsite.  I love Jackson Falls as there are no rules, and even better no cost, camping is free, and the area is beautiful.  We arrived late Friday night and everybody managed to get their tents up and sleep. 

View of our campsite at Jackson Falls

 Will and I headed to the rocks early Saturday morning and got the ropes set on a few climbs.  It’s a bit tricky to get newbies into the canyon as you have to go hand over hand backwards down a knotted rope, maybe 30 feet down a steeply angled cliff.  Got everybody on the rock both Saturday and Sunday, lots of smiles and frustration and people accomplishing more than they thought and learning new skills and getting scared and stretching themselves.

Another highlight in my mind was the waterfall – falls about 25 feet into a small pool – that is great for swimming.  I’d say at least half of the crew went swimming.  And two of us jumped off the cliff into the pool, which was pretty scary as it’s only about 10 feet deep and has rocks around.  You need to hit your landing area fairly well.  Provided another burst of adrenaline for me.  I flailed on the climb Lovely Arete, though did managed to make all the moves actually easily, just was a weenie on lead, need more practice on on-sight leading.  Check the video of some other fellows jumping that gave us the inspiration.

In front of Lovely Arete (11a) at Jackson Falls, Southern Illinois

Lots of people got ticks – not tiny deer ticks that carry lyme disease, just regular ticks that are still not so great to have around and pull out of your skin.

Great weekend, Jackson Falls is terrific and all the folks on the trip made it that much better.

Colorado! (and out of gas in Nebraska)

In my favorite state in the USA, Colorado.  I love the mountains.  Staying in Breckenridge for a few days.  Skiied Snowmass three days over the weekend with the family and sister’s in-laws – such terrific people and so fun.  Aspen is gorgeous and fun and pleasant and has such a great vibe.

I had quite an adventurous road trip out here from Chicago.  Ran out of gas in the middle of nowhere Nebraska, ten miles from anything.  I stood on the side of the highway freezing for about ten minutes, thumb out…  and watched the 18-wheelers rumble by, full speed, one after another.  Moving over a lone for me.  I have great

Out of gas and cold in Nebraska, I-70

video of my forlorn truck out in the middle of Nebraska cornfields, but forgot my cord to download.  Ended up calling triple A, 25 minutes later a fellow arrived, poured 2 gallons in my tank, collected $5 from me plus a $5 tip, and off I went.  No big deal.  Had time to take video, make a pb&j, and make some calls.  The reason I ran out is because well a) I’m a space cadet sometimes, and b) because I was in a good conversation on the phone.  The trip went by so fast, I was busy working most of the time. 

Outside of Denver I was going 76 up I-70, very excited to be in the mountains, passing people, and managed to get pulled over and get a ticket from a cop I apparently cut off, whoops.

Now chilling in Breckenridge, having a great time, looking forward to the next couple weeks.  Tried couchsurfing.com, met a fellow who didn’t quite have room – house was, how shall we say, a pit.  I couldn’t take it and exited gracefully with the claim of dog allergies, which is somewhat true.  spent the night in my truck with the seats down, very comfy and slept great, brought a winter sleeping bag and sleeping pad, parked in the hotel lot that had closed down their front desk for the night.  Was pretty fun and cheap.  Tonight in a B&B right downtown.  Having a second home here in Breckenridge is my plan, practicing living here to see if I really like it.  Which I have to say I do, very much so far.

Planning to stay with a buddy in Vail and do some backcountry skiing, kayaking next week if it’s nice in Golden, maybe climbing a 14er tomorrow.  Good living.  In a coffee shop working most of the afternoon today.   Did a nice hike up Baldy road, off Boreas pass road, good spot for backcountry skiing.  Blue sky and sunny here, high 55. 

Yesterday I drove through Glenwood springs and stopped at the hot springs/pool there.  HAd a good time, laid out in the sun, just my bathing suit on for a good few hours in the afternoon.  Who’d have thought I could do that in late winter in the Colorado mountains?  Incidentally that’s where Doc holiday spent his last years as he had some chest/breathing ailments and the sulfur hot springs helped him feel better.  There were actually a number of old folks and special needs folks there, maybe for the healing properties, or just because it feels good.

Favorite Adventure Quotes and Interesting Life Quotes

Here are a handful of my favorite quotes about adventure and living life:

Not all those who wander are lost.
-JRR Tolkien

Today is the day! – Rob Wood

Endeavor to live the life you have imagined
- Emerson

From a book called “Deep Survival” out of a chapter about a man named Steve Callahan after about 50+ days on a liferaft adrift in the Atlantic ocean, starving and struggling mightily to survive:   “He sees a rainbow and writes, ‘I feel as if I am passing down the corridor of a heavenly vault of irreproducible grandeur and color.’      He saw that to lose everything at the edge of such a glorious eternity is far sweeter than to win by plodding through a cautious, painless, and featureless life.  And that, of course, is why people undertake adventures such as solo voyages of the Atlantic to begin with.  The true survivor isn’t someone with nothing to lose.  He has something precious to lose.  But at the same time, he’s willing to bet it all on himself.  And it makes what he has that much richer.  Days stolen are always sweeter than days given.”

It’s not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly…. Who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.
-Teddy Roosevelt

From G.K.Chesterton on Courage:
Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die. “He that will lose his life, the same shall save it,” is not a piece of mysticism for saints and heroes. It is a piece of everyday advice for sailors or mountaineers. It might be printed in an Alpine guide or a drill book. The paradox is the whole principle of courage, even of quite earthly or quite brutal courage. A man cut off by the sea may save his life if he will risk it on the precipice. He can only get away from death by continually stepping within an inch of it. A soldier surrounded by enemies, if he is to cut his way out, needs to combine a strong desire for living with a strange carelessness about dying. He must not merely cling to live, for then he will be a coward, and will not escape. He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, and will not escape. He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it; he must desire life like water and yet drink death like wine.

John Templeton once wrote, “A successful life depends less on how long you live than on how much you can pack into the time you have. If you can find a way to make every day an adventure – even if it’s only a matter of walking down an unfamiliar street or ordering an untried cut of meat – you will find that your life becomes more productive, richer, and more interesting. You also become more interesting to others.”

An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered.
-GK Chesterton

If you can fall in love with just one thing about him, her, them, it, or you, just once a day, and speak it aloud, you’ll be surprised at how quickly this will transform your entire life.
-TUT

If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us.
- Hermann Hesse

Adventurous men enjoy shipwrecks, mutinies, earthquakes, conflagrations, and all sorts Of unpleasant experiences.  They say to themselves, for example, ’so this is what an earthquake is like,’ and it gives them pleasure to have their knowledge of the world increased by this new item.

-Bertrand Russell

Barack Obama’s neighborhood

Drove through Hyde Park today on the way back from an attempted shrink-wrapping of my boat at Crowley’s, went to get lunch at a spot in Hyde Park and wandered through Obama’s neighborhood.  Very pretty area with some gorgeous homes.  Police cars and fences block off all the surrounding streets around, and at least seven police cars are parked out in front of his place.  Below are some clips.  I hear he plans to maintain an office in the loop in Chicago during his presidency.

Last Days of the Chicago Sailing Season, the Sweeter for it

Took some older folks out sailing this evening from a Church group, they were in from around the country and I did it as a favor.  Though I always love taking people sailing, always so special and memorable for them.  And sailing myself – I am always looking for an excuse to go out.  6-8 knots, enough to move, cruised out of the city under sail out towards the red and white water intake plant which I tell people who ask that it’s the International Clown Hotel.  Some buy it.  Most don’t.

The crew tonight started off slow and were a bit uncomfortable, but later loosened up and started telling stories and joking – something special happens when you’re on a boat, in tight quarters.  It’s always great bonding and nearly always not just fun but extraordinarily fun.  I had a blast.  They started out not so helpful – but I’ve learned through the years as a captain that you often simply need to ask people to do something and they cheerfully do so.  I eventually had people steering, grilling, and getting food and serving drinks so I didn’t have to do it all.  Was great.  So many stories from the guys about trouble they’d gotten into as teens – most often I find women do the talking, tonight was different as the men dominated the conversation.  One fellow managed to shoot him self high up his leg near his groin.  Another set a street on fire.  Yours truly drove a pizza delivery guy’s car around the block and spent the night in jail for his efforts.  Some threw apples and water balloons at passing cars.

After I dropped them off I cruised slowly back to the buoy and just hung out, savoring the last days of my boating season in Chicago.  It was a spectacular, crystal clear fall night with the sky still lit, a full moon shining brightly, and the city lights stark against the painted clouds.  I emailed, texted, stared at the city, had powerful, positive energy flowing through me and was so so grateful to be fortunate enough to have a boat and be so thrilled with life so often.  Such an amazing city and country and planet we all live on.

Working Out

I set a goal earlier this year to be able to bench press 205 pounds, which is a bunch for a guy who weighs 155 pounds.  Goal accomplished! 

Next goal is 225 pounds.

Sailboat Racing Season Begins!

Just got home from our first yacht-racing practice of the season.  So much fun – and a bunch of hard work.  I trained on the foredeck tonight – lot of pulling of halyards and sheets and running around and packing sails and putting them up and down. 

Racing the Valkyrie in Chicago, Steve Daley, Jon Martin in the cockpit

Great to be out with all my good friends – been racing with them for 4 or 5 years now – can’t help but form some solid relationships with them.  And being in some crazy situations helps forge the bonds stronger.  By nature of what we’re doing it attracts folks in a simlar mindset, looking for adventure and excitement and challenge.  Gets pretty friggin’ hairy out on the water some days, with high winds, storms, everything, we just sail righ through them, trying to go faster than the next guy.  Which means necessarily having more sail up than the next guy and taking bigger risks.  Nutty. 

And so 2008 begins!  With a post-sail 20-oz beer shotgun.  Like the grownups that we are.

Racing the Valkyrie J120, Tom Trimmer, Mike Lovatt and Jon Martin.

Climbing at Mississippi Palisades

Spent the weekend climbing and camping at Mississippi Palisades State Park – MPSP for short.  Very cool place, great campground and pretty terrific climbing considering it’s only 3 hours from Chicago.  Got on some good routes and had a bunch of fun.  We also dragged my buddy’s canoe all the way out there and back – without putting it in the water.  Kind of funny.  The last day we were planning on canoeing but the wind was too strong for Lisa’s taste so we decided not to and went for a hike on a little trail through the marshlands of the Mississippi – quite cool, lots of birds.  We also saw some white pelicans – who knew we had pelicans this far north and inland?

Checked out Galena and had dinner there, quite a beautiful and prosperous town, the land around it on the drive in was idyllic – big rolling hills and nice neat farms off in the distance.  We ate at a bar advertising the city’s best burgers – false advertising – or if that’s the best Galena’s got I’m sorry for them.

Major storm Sunday night – was something – we crashed in the car just in case – judging by the pools of water in the tent that was the right call.  The lightning was just about constant – so amazing – flash after flash in the clouds, very pretty.

Whitewater rafting in Wisconsin

It was amazing!  So much fun – class I II and III+ – terrific.  We got to go in three-man boats – no guide, so it was really fun being in control and trying to read the river.  So many people got flipped in the different rapids – and they were actually pretty big and intimidating considering it was Wisconsin  I was duly impressed.  Tried the one-man rafts also – got flipped and learned some respect for the power of the river.  Very cool.  And I know lots of other folks did as well.  Had about 30+ from church, and I’d say it was a resounding success.  Big barbecue afterwards.  we actually ran the river twice.  It’s called the Peshtigo and we stayed at WildmanRanch, got four cabins.  I actually didn’t get a bed and slept outside two nights – but I had a winter bag so it was great, under the stars the first night, then on a covered porch for a rainy second night.  Monday a small group of us went and rafted the Menominee with Tarka -the 8th ranked rafting guide in the world, he was from Nepal which happens to be my favorite country in the world, so it was fun saying Namaste and chatting in the tiny bit of Nepalese I know.  It was cold and rainy and there were actually three very cool girls and 3 guys – super fun, we got along great.  The river was right on the border of the upper peninsula of Michigan.  It was about 7 times larger than the Peshtigo, and the rapids were class 4 – we did them twice.  Giant waves swamped the boat but it eventually drained out.  Monday the executive staff from Park came up – so much fun hanging with them, they were terrific.  Had a blas and rafted the peshtigo yet another 2 times – again really fun and a great day – swam when I was in the one-man ducky.  Sort of scary actually.  Which is good for you in my opinion – forces aa bit of courage and fear-fighting, always a good skill to have.

Rock Climbing at Mississippi Palisades

Snuck out of work with a couple buddies and went to climb the bluffs on the Mississippi river.  It was beautiful, only 2.5 hours from Chicago, two fun buddies, and a great adventure.  We managed to find the bluffs, which didn’t open until one due to turkey hunting season in the park.  We had some beta on where to climb but couldn’t find the Sentinel, ended up just walking along the cliff band and picking a place that looked good.  We scrambled up the back up a steep chute and I helped Jeff and Joe set the top ropes up (wussy I know, but no bolts allowed and rock was too chossy for trad leading imo). 

Climbing at Mississippi Palisades, Jeff Lemaster

Then we had a blast climbing, or attempting to climb our unknown routes.  It was right on the river, had a gorgeous view, sun was shining.  And I couldn’t get up the first one, too weak or couldn’t suss out the moves.  Joe, who climbs like twice a year was able to do it – amazing.  The second climb provided redemption as I was able to make it over a big old overhang, feeling very strong and confiednt as I remembered the always valuable rock climbing advice of “get your feet up”, combined with boatloads of encouragement and cheering from my compadres.  What a great day and so much fun climbing with them, so easy-going, lots of laughs and a casual day, despite having my blackberry with me and actually working a good bit of the drive there and back.  We’re thinking of going again for Memorial Day with our girlfriends.

Climb we did at Mississippi Palisades, Tom Trimmer, Jeff Lemaster