Tag Archives: Red Rock Canyon

Updates from the Dragon Wagon: Red Rock climbing

2 Replies

I figured I would post this up so you would know that we haven’t just been hanging out in a tent at a campground eating s’mores…This is a small sample of what we recorded during our time in Las Vegas. Most of the finished quality video that was shot by Nick is still under wraps but I was able to get some footage for updating purposes! I can’t begin to tell you about the work that went into getting some of these shots…but I am looking forward to my next video update which will included some behind the scenes goodies! I will mention that we are looking for help editing video, so if you or a friend has some time available and would like to get their name on a project, we could use the help processing what we are able to shoot.

This video is of Stefanie and I leading some climbs as well as the harder climb that I spent a couple days projecting. I plan to return and climb my project cleanly (no hangs) in March and when that happens it will be my hardest lead at 5.12a/b. It is also really exciting that Stefanie is starting to get on the sharp end and leading some. She broke her foot badly in 2007 while climbing and so getting back into lead climbing has been a big challenge for her to push back.

Climbing is a mental battle first. Having a top rope above you feels totally different than having the rope clipped below you (translation: if you peel off, you’re going for a bit of a ride!) and it is something that we are always aware of and struggle with. Then again, if it weren’t scary at times, there would be no point.

During the time we were in Vegas my sugar was pretty uncooperative (I think my insulin got “cooked” at some point) and so I was also struggling with high blood sugar a lot of the time. If insulin gets too hot or sits in the sunlight it loses its effectiveness and is pretty much useless. So that is another facet of my life with diabetes…keeping an eye on the sun all the time to make sure it doesn’t randomly despoil my medication. Fun.

Nevertheless, I felt really strong on this project and not quite “at my limit”. Close, but none of the individual moves was harder than I could do. Having the endurance to connect the moves was what got me. I had been trying to conserve my energy and not really push my limit with the difficulty of the climbing because I have been looking at this whole project as a war of attrition. Outlasting the clock. Oddly enough, that is no way to live because it gets routine. I started to get bored with climbing. I needed to get shut down. I needed to fall. I needed to get pissed off and hit the wall–because THAT is what makes me stronger. I suppose that I did NOT need to have a couple of cretins shrieking and yelling in the background as I was working my project, but I guess I can remember the first time I walked off of a paved road…Anyhow, setting the bar low–setting goals that you can easily reach won’t promote growth!

So now I have been moderating my climbing-some days I go lighter to give my fingers a chance to recover but when I am climbing harder, I am really going for it. In every aspect of life, there is something to be said for getting uncomfortable.

I want to THANK Nick Percell, Rick Percell and Lisa Percell for their tireless patience and hospitality to us while we were in Las Vegas. Without Nick’s help, there is no way we would have half of the footage we have amassed.

 

What happened in Vegas…

1 Reply

It has been 25 days, no breaks. To date, I have climbed 7650 feet.  After leaving Joshua Tree we headed out to Las Vegas, which has been a much needed change of pace.

I want to take a moment to thank Nick for all of his tremendous help in filming and shooting photos for us, entertaining us, putting us up, making us comfortable and for indulging my latenight coffee cravings and Stef’s Yogurtland trips…I cannot overstate how much work shooting film and video is for this kind of project and I honestly have NO idea how we are going to get even a fraction of the media shot when it is just Stef and I again. Nick’s generous allotment of time and effort was a colossal contribution that we are only just beginning to see the benefits of.

I also want to make mention of the fact that Nick’s family put us up so we were able to rest and eat in a warm, clean environment and their support has been a gift. The funny thing is none of the aforementioned folks would even think of what they are doing as being laudatory–making other people comfortable and happy seems to just be what they “do”.

So, as far as what WE have been doing…well there has been a lot going on for both Stef and me.  For me, this leg of the trip has been dedicated to projecting. This is a process of selecting a climbing route that is at or just beyond your abilities, working out the moves and ideally, linking them together and climbing the entire route from top to bottom without falling. This is called “sending” your project–it is basically like maxing out in weight lifting.

The inspiration for turning up the intensity came while Stef and I were on our way to Vegas from Joshua Tree and I admitted that I have been feeling a little bored because the routes I had been climbing had not consistently pushed me out of my comfort zone. I know that the “slow and steady” approach has merit on this lengthy of a climbing adventure, but staying excited and pushing the limits is equally vital. I have to be inspired to get out of bed (or sleeping bag) every day and go through the work of climbing.

I know that I will have to alternate my “limit-pushing” so as not to succumb to overuse injuries, but the whole point of this project is to consistently push limits. So we decided that it was time to start climbing harder, and pushing the difficulty up to the point that I would get shut down. Basically, opting to push so hard that I fail in order to get stronger and send.  So that’s what we’ve done here–and Nick has helped us get a good deal of video and pictures to document this process.

And it is a process–from the standpoint of filming there are many many pounds of extra gear, communication issues,logistics, complex rigging and setups in order to get the shot from the right angles and timing–knowing when to anticipate action. I am working on a short video that will show a bit of behind the scenes of the filming–that’s going to be a good one!

From the climbing perspective, it’s a huge battle against fear and anger and you have no one to blame but yourself, because you are choosing to run into the wall, so to speak! My battle has been just accepting the process. Accepting falling, the shredded finger tips, your hands giving out a second before you can make that last clip and going home every day feeling completely exhausted and often defeated when you keep falling short. Oddly enough I have been going through a rough patch with higher blood sugars and the same exact frustrations have been going hand in hand with that facet of my life so it has been a real grunt.

Hitting the wall between burns. Acceptance is the battle.

At the end of the day, I have been choosing to accept the reality of my situation because it’s who I am. Being diabetic and wrestling with my blood sugar is part of who I am and I can’t control everything–I can only control my response. Being a climber is who I am–I have dreamed of it long before I knew an injection from an infection and I am really in control of very little, in the big picture.  So today, was my last day to attempt the route that I have been projecting. It is as hard as anything I have ever tried. I really wanted to send it since we are leaving Vegas tomorrow (2.10.12). I was really worried that my high sugar would shut me down after going at it hard yesterday.

Feet? What feet?

Not a bad way to spend an afternoon.One more move to clear the crux...

I decided to to just keep trying. I didn’t send. I fell several times–but I did a whole lot better than I had done yesterday and we got AWESOME footage. The rock will still be there next time around–and I will be back! Tomorrow we are en route to Flagstaff AZ, where we will get to meet some of the awesome community of climbers and diabetic folk that reside in that area!

Denied.

Pull the rope and try it again!

Updates from Joshua Tree

Leave a reply

Climbed: 6,360′ (22 days so far)

Injected: I was down to HALF of my insulin intake due to increased sensitivity about a week ago as we were living in the backcountry–now, having a break from that, my sugar has returned to near normal doses from the outset–6u of Lantus 2x daily, and 3-5u of Humalog 2-3 times daily. The trickiest bit is working through the transitional periods where my insulin sensitivity is increasing or decreasing, because there is a lot of guess-work involved while you wait for it to settle out. It’s pretty nerve racking.

We left San Diego and arrived in Joshua Tree National Park at night on Monday. We were meeting our friends Nick and AJ who have been filming with us–they had arrived earlier in the afternoon and had established a base camp in the backcountry, so immediately upon arrival we had to pack up all of our gear (literally over 100 lbs each) and take on a night-time, cold, windy death march–just to get our camp set up. Without gear this hike isn’t so bad–only a couple of miles on easy terrain but the quantity of gear we had with us made it really stout. If you watch the video we will be posting shortly, that can help give a bit of scale to the enormity of that task, right out of the gate–but the video only shows 1 trip, so double what you see!

Living in camp was the crux of this stop–Joshua Tree is certainly sunnier and warmer than a lot of places in the world, but when the sun goes down, the wind comes up and dust is everywhere, its COLD and cooking, reading, cleaning, injecting insulin, taking a crap, taking notes on the days activities etc, all become a significant expenditure of energy. It was really hard for us–but we learned a lot.

  • Dust is everywhere–it seeks expensive camera gear specifically
  • Injecting yourself with 17 layers of clothing on is both frustrating and demoralizing–and still 100% essential to survival
  • Filming is an ENORMOUS amount of work–to say nothing of editing
  • There is merit to minimalism–moving fast and light. Perfectionism is punished harshly in climbing
  • Cold REALLY depletes batteries (this was the best test of our GoalZero products, full review to come!).
  • Being realistic about what we can accomplish and why we are out here in the first place is paramount
  • Don’t compare your climbing or your artistic projects to others
  • Suffering is a big part of making something incredible

We packed up after climbing for 4 days and hit the road–out to Las Vegas where our cameraman Nick lives. His family have graciously taken us in here, giving us respite from primitive camping for a few days before we continue on. We are climbing daily at the local crags here which are beautiful and entirely unlike what most people associate with Las Vegas.

More climbing and updates to follow as we move along…