Flagstaff!!

Kaiya and I arrived in Flagstaff last night with virtually no idea where we were going to sleep (Priest Draw was my first though...) and walked into a coffee shop to check hotels and directions to the Draw to camp. Just so happened that the coffee shop that Kaiya chose employed a friend that I met through Jeff Hamlin a couple years ago named Tedd! Scored a place to crash while we are here and looking for a place to live in January.

I also managed to remove myself completely from 8a on a complete accident. I was so eager to log on and post my sends that I tried to do it at Subway somewhere between Joe's and Flag, and now that website won't work due to some random infiltration into Kaiya's computer by the "Wildblue Service Activation". If anyone knows how to fix it PLEASE!!!!!!

Looking back on the near two months spent in Joe's Valley we managed to make two very good new friends, Darryl Dodson and Claire Hayati. They are on a 9 month trip and had been in Joe's for a month before we got there. Darryl, while we were there sent the actual sit to Worm Turns, starting on the big foothold as a crimp and doing a huge move out to the tufa and finishing on it...in the V13 range for sure but he refuses to grade it.



Claire sent her very first ever V7 here, a short powerful problem on the Small One boulder called the Runt (ironic, it should be renamed the Ninja Smurf). She also has been sending a lot of hard problems in the V5-7 range. Here is Claire sending Runt at the UMWA area.



Mike and Tammy McClure periodically stopped in on off days at the winery for some sending and beer drinking. Using their patent pending SEARCH AND DESTROY method of climbing, they both ticked off ascents quickly, Tammy sending Runt, Chips and too close on Bring the Heat(whol). Mike almost flashed the Skeleton Key, sending in sub 15 minutes on the second trip of the fall, after a successful trip sending the Masterpiece, a V13 first done by James Litz and Andoni Txertudi.



Through the entire trip Kaiya was the more consistent of us, ticking off V7 and V8 with amazing quickness and finally on the last day finding a project to come back to: Groundation. It was flashed and sent quickly by Ben Spanish and Ryan Silven and the grade they estimated and settled on is V9, so Kaiya was really psyched that she stuck the crux moves on her first session on the problem and then we had to leave.

Here she is on the send of Sunshine Daydream, making the long lockoff to the crux moves.



Mike and I did a little joint FA called the Black Dahlia, one of the best and most amazing looking lines at Joe's, here is a photo of me doing the huge "shoot from the hip" move and the inspiration behind the name...



And the photo of the climb



Arthur Debowski and his friend Tris Tarantino joined us for a week and Arthur tore the place apart...here he is on one of 7 sends on day 1, Big Boy, a sandbagged and hard V7 at Area 51



Hueco starts on the 2nd of December, so we will be heading out from Flag that morning or the night before, we are headed to look at apartments right now, while keeping the minds on climbing...until next time here is a vid of me on Dunkin' Donuts and Claire on the unnamed V6 at Area 51

Back in Joe's Valley...for a few More Days

After an exodus from the skin tearing granite of Bishop, Kaiya and I started to send once again in the Shangri-La of Joe's Valley. I managed to send some more problems in the 10-12 range, including the 3rd ascent of Kill List, the 2nd of Dunkin' Donuts, and I made the FA of an amazing problem called the Black Dahlia, a V10 that would be a contender for the best problem in Joe's Valley...

Kaiya has also been on a tear, since we returned she has ticked a V6, 7, and 2 V8's: Sunshine Daydream and Dark Continent. Darryl Dodson and Claire Hayati, our two friends that we met here and quickly became climbing partners with have also been sending, Claire sent her first V7, Runt on the small one near the UMWA boulder on the right fork. Darryl is currently working on the Vegas Project, a V10/11 that broke and is now nearing the 13/14 range and very, very reachy. I can't span the holds to do the first move...He is headed out tomorrow to do Hydrogenated Oils and the sit to Beyond Life, a V11 and 12 respectively. The first video is of Kaiya on Dark Continent and Arthur Debowski, a friend from Spokane, climbing the Kraken, a 30 foot V5 near Raiden on the left fork. Two days from now, we are headed out to Flagstaff, AZ to find somewhere to live in January, and then to HUECO BABY!!!!!!

Flambe!!!!!