So last night when I walked through the door after a very long week and a half of working in Hopedale with the oil spill, I decided to take some photos. I was able to actually play with the setting in manual mode and snap a few good ones. I am searching for my identity in the photography world. There are so many variables in using a DSLR. I am over whelmed now but love the idea of taking great photos. Freezing a wonderful moment in time, or capturing a landscape in it's most natural untouched setting. I am trying to practice and acquaint myself with the aperture and shutter speed now so when we start our journey I will have a better handle on this D5000.

Enjoy these photos.

Arno came down to New Orleans and gave his Espresso Clinic. It was awesome!!!! Arno is a wonderful spirit and a pure joy to be around. I really enjoyed his clinic and hanging out with him. The Espresso clinic is a must attend for any climber at every level. The tools and exercises that he goes over in his book are great to learn first hand. I have read his most recent book Espresso Lessons and thumbed through Rock Warriors Way. Hell, I have even listened to several chapters of RWW audio CD on road trips to the rock in Alabama and Tennessee. Anyone out there interested in learning more about themselves in climbing I highly suggest contacting Arno asap.

At the clinic I bought don Juan. A DVD documentary about the first ascent of a 18 ft roof crack in Tennessee named don Juan. The company that put this DVD together has a ton of other footage that they were compiling from many areas in the southeast like Horse Pens, T-Wall, White Sides, just to name a few. But for some reason that DVD short featuring some of the video was never put together. What a bummer!!! The footage looks great and I would much rather buy my next climbing DVD featuring southern sandstone than........ anything else. So at your next clinic with Arno buy don Juan and ask Arno to push the peeps behind the footage to stop holding out and made a sand-rific movie.

I am heading to Zion this weekend for a short four days. Going to check out Kolob Canyon. Hiking the Narrows and maybe Angels Landing, who knows. Then on Tuesday night it's off to Chattanooga for some sand stone sending!!!! My buddy Blake and I are going to camp and kick it old school!!!!

Anyway here are a few shots from the clinic and I promise there will be many more photos to come.

Go Climb Something!!!!!

So Star and I had a blast in NE Washington. The weather was perfect. Blue skies and sunny all but one day. We took the mothers to brunch and ate a buffet that was great.

We spent a day fishing and caught four very small fish. We hung out with the in-laws. To fun.

On Wednesday the weather was to nice. Star, Rod and Robin, and I headed to the Tieton River area for some camping and climbing. The first day we climbed at the Royal Columns area. We hiked up and found the crag very easily. Oriented ourselves very fast and geared up. We climbed a couple of great routes and a couple of marginal routes. Orange Sunshine is a super fun line. Short at about 80 ft, it leaves you wishing it was another 200ft. The slightly over hung crux finger crack at the top is sooooo much fun. We also climbed a unmemorable 11a and 10b not so much fun sport lines. There was just not too much to them. We ended the day with a killer .9 corner crack that was hands and fingers. That night we camped and woke up to perfect conditions again. This time we went to an area called the Cave. But on this hike we ran into three rattle snakes!!!!!! I have never been that close to a rattler before. I was very spooked. So much that I could not focus for the first half of the day climbing. I was consumed with checking everywhere to make sure there were no snakes. I mean who could blame me, I was with my prego wife.

Anyway, we climbed some fun lines but had to check out around 4. We climbed sport this day. We ended on what I thought was an 11a, but turned out to be a project that only seemed to be an 11c. Still fun and if there were not so many snakes I'd make another trip there in July.

The next day we made it to Bellingham and met up with some friends from AAI. We picked up some great beta for Index and decided to climb there the next day.

Index is a magical place. The trad lines make me wish that I lived in Index. The Lower wall is amazing with the upper wall looking to be even more exciting. We only had time to climb at one area so we choose to check out the closer LW. It was cool. We climbed a few classic routes. We wanted to get on much more but could not due to the heard of people at the base. Index is a very popular area, and this the quality routes that we saw I know why. The most memorable was Godzilla. Super fun route with great moves.

We did not bring the camera to Index but I hope you enjoy the photos from the Tieton.

Next is Zion in a week and then A few trips to Chatty and LRC before going back to Washington in July.

Go climb something!!!!!!