roadtrip Archives -

Independence.

By Steve on April 3, 2014 in LivingVertical

Change comes slowly. But with progress, it DOES occur. I’ll cut to the chase because this isn’t another rambling post about one of my existential crises. Yet. Maybe in a few paragraphs…for now it’s an announcement!

The LivingVertical Shop…is, at long last, open! This means that you can now buy DVDs of the Project365 documentary, (also available as digital download) and LivingVertical Tees. In the future, we will be selling books and limited edition photo prints as well!

This is a big step. Ok, fine, to be fair, it’s still me selling tees and DVDs out of cardboard boxes in my CRV. It’s far from a Swiss-watch merchandising operation. It’s going to be another slow path that will undoubtedly contain bumps and ruts. The good news is that it’s a starting point-and who knows where that can lead!

LivingVertical has always been supported by you-real people who connect with the message of diabetes empowerment and get behind it. That support has been a gift-because you were willing to invest in an idea that couldn’t initially stand on its own. It gives me a lot of hope and excitement to be able to actually offer products that represent the fruit of those investments-and opportunities for this message to grow as Team LivingVertical is gathering steam to do some incredible things in the coming months and years partnering with Insulin for Life.

I’ve said many times that I’d love to find corporate support that would allow us to give tees and DVDs away for free and simply focus on climbing projects and outreach-but now that’s a luxury, not a necessity. Getting the message of empowerment out to as many people who will look or listen-that’s always been the goal. The official opening of a shop, even a jingus, duct-tape-and-shoestring one, brings us closer to the assurance that we can be sustainable.

If you love what we’re doing, share these products on your social media. Help us get the word out. If you hate what we’re doing, subscribe to our YouTube Channel-remember, at 5k subscribers we will release the full documentary free, online-so you can remove 2/3rds of our inventory that way too…

Suffering is your friend

By Steve on April 2, 2014 in Fitness, team livingvertical

We are exploring the theme of “change” as a team-and we are looking through a variety of “lenses” at what this means for us as we each deal with diabetes in our own way. I’ll kick things off…

This morning I did something very unusual. Well, for me, it was a BIG change. I went running-that’s right, on purpose! Before you runners get all excited and label me a “convert”, please understand that this is just cross training for the Team LivingVertical 2014 LEAD expedition. It’s a necessary evil. Just kidding. Sort of.

If you haven’t yet guessed, I am not a runner. When I lace up my kicks and start going for it, I begin hating life within a few short moments. It’s not like climbing which makes me feel alive-running makes me feel like I am dying. As I was doing my best to embrace this process as a “good” thing, I was struck with a relatively interesting thought: suffering, self denial, discomfort, inconvenience are all necessary to create the benefit of fully appreciating and understanding ones fitness and health.

“Up early”. “Running”. Words which DO NOT often apply to me. Time for a change!

I posted a version of this musing up on the Facebook Page and it spawned some discussion-some agreeing, some dissenting.

Post by LivingVertical.

First off there is the obvious fact that suffering makes you appreciate what you have. For example, being out in the elements always “improves” the comforts of home by simply changing our attitude toward what we take for granted. The process of running, no matter how hateful at first, will ultimately benefit me through improving my metabolism, cardio-function, insulin sensitivity etc-and it will improve my climbing abilities on some level-assuming I continue to push through the part where I hate it.

Beyond this, however, it occurred to me that it is only through significant challenge (this is a more objective way of saying “suffering”, just so we don’t wind up playing semantic tiddlywinks later in the comments section) that we gain awareness of how complex our bodies are. How they respond to changes in our sleep. Our diet. Our thinking and emotions. I know that without diabetes, I would not have the awareness of how these variables produce measurable change in my performance.

But even beyond diabetes-try sitting in a chair all the time. Don’t break a sweat. Avoid physical effort at all costs. Suddenly being fit or healthy loses a lot of value. You can be dehydrated, sleep deprived, weak, poorly nourished-and still get by without a measurable incentive to change those things if your lifestyle is sedentary. If you’re not taking on challenges that make the fitness matter-tangibly-then what’s the point? It’s really hard to prioritize fitness that you don’t test-and it’s hard to test anything without pushing it to the limit.

I’m speaking from my personal experience, because for the last several months, that has been my life. Recently, I embraced change and I got off my behind to start dedicating time to training. I began to make better food choices. I began to feel the difference between 5 and 7 hours of sleep in a very real way. Drinking nothing but coffee and coke zero began to exact a very painful toll on me as I attempted to climb or run-so I began going to bed earlier. Drinking more water. Eating (and drinking!) less junk-and feeling the benefit in the moments of hateful exertion.

It’s surely a process. I know that the point of suffering is to gain durability and transcend the discomfort. Push that limit. Then, start over and push that new limit further. Change is a constant. Pushing limits is a constant process of growth. Few things provoke my ire more than when people say (in response to what we are doing here, with climbing) “Oh I could never do that. That’s for extreme athletes. I’m not at that level. I struggle with basic fitness-I’m not like you.”

Newsflash: I struggle all the time.

Headline: It’s not pretty or easy-I have just accepted that struggle as part of the process.

Pushing limits is pushing limits. As your limit changes, you will always be pushing it. That means if your limit is taking the stairs at work three times a week and you are bumping it up to five times a week, you ARE getting after it as much as we are when we go hundreds of feet up a wall or into the wilderness to explore unclimbed routes. That means we are working on the same project as long as we are pushing BACK. Don’t EVER diminish your struggle because of how you think it measures up to someone elses. I am guilty of that a lot. I always feel like a slouch because I feel like I don’t climb “hard enough”. I need to not do that-especially since I am asking you, my esteemed reader not to.

From the beginning of LivingVertical and Project365 I never aimed to inspire people by being a “great athlete”-because as compared to other climbers I am mediocre, sometimes just a little better on a good day. I’m not being modest. That’s a simple fact. Go into any climbing gym and you’ll find a handful of climbers who can send 5.12 with regularity. I’ve climbed two 5.12s in my life and both were gargantuan efforts for me. The real takeaway is what WE are doing together, every time we face our limit, whatever it may be and say, ‘yeah, I know this is going to suck but I am still going to try again’.

Agree? Disagree? Can’t decide? Sound off in the comments below-after subscribing to the LivingVertical YouTube Channel!

The LivingVertical roadshow

By Steve on March 25, 2014 in team livingvertical

This year is a journey. Literally and figuratively. One that will include a month long backcountry expedition and my first experience with parenthood. Living in Utah to train for the spring has been only marginally effective as most of the last several months were spent nursing my injured hand-and not climbing. Healing. Growing comfortable. Now with the birth of my daughter approaching in just over a month, I have a limited time to do everything and be everywhere.

As I look at my predicament, I decide that challenges are an opportunity to design our response to become who we want to be. They give us incentive to grow, and without these challenges we stagnate. We need difficulty. Like diabetes. Like climbing. Like family life. Like all of those rolled into one big ball of wax. I don’t know how I’ll sort it all out-I don’t have a cut and dried plan for the next five years. All I know is what I need to do right now.

I’m going back on the road starting in early April, living out of my car for the next 6 months, give or take. I know that becoming a hobo doesn’t sound like much of a solution-but to be fair, I’m not looking for solutions. Destinations. I’m looking to get down to the nitty gritty and go back to the last place I felt the clarity of struggle, where creativity and inspiration breathe. Sitting in front of the computer, biding my time I only feel the irritation of uncertainty. If I have to get my hands dirty, I want to have something to show for it. I need to climb, train, connect and create-while logistically positioning myself closer to the east coast where the delivery will take place in May. Then after a short time, the 2014 LEAD expedition is on the queue, from July 14-August 14. I may as well go for it!

This will be my home. Again. I’m excited about the shelf-ish that I created for greater organization-because that is the biggest challenge of life on the road. To make it even better, it’s all abandoned/found wood and cardboard. I didn’t have to buy anything new to make it!

So here’s the plan. I’ll be on the road to promote diabetes awareness and empowerment. Again. Climbing wherever possible along the way and I’d like you to join me. Or I’ll join you for a coffee. My goal is to connect with as many people as possible and climb at new areas that I haven’t visited during Project365 or before. I’ll have tee shirts and DVDs and if you’d like, we can even set up a documentary screening when I’m passing through. Here’s the rough map of my planned sojourn (although you’ll want to follow along on our Facebook Page to get the fine details once I hit the road!).

I’ll be updating the blog and social media-there should be lots of photos to share-and I will be posting video blogs on our YouTube Channel so you can see inside the glamorous life of a diabetic climbing hobo. I can’t promise anything. Things might go perfectly to schedule, beautiful weather and no unexpected mishaps. Or the opposite of that. Not knowing, but going for it-that’s a great recipe for adventure!

Great success!

By Steve on February 13, 2014 in project 365

Ok, I know it flies in the face of article VII of the “bloggers manifesto” to publish on a Thursday. Too late in the week, people are already tuning out for the weekend and posting old selfies on instagram with the #tbt hashtag. No one wants to read anything longer than a few characters. But I’m not a blogger, so I don’t know any better. I should also know better than titling my post after watching Borat, but hopefully that will be the extent of my tastelessness in this particular iteration.

What many people don’t know is that when Stefanie and I first decided to start LivingVertical and take on Project365 we weren’t received with open arms. We didn’t have people slapping us on the back saying “great job”. We had people saying that we were jerks for taking money from sick kids to go on a climbing vacation. We had diabetes organizations dismiss our efforts because we weren’t taking the traditional “fund raise for a cure” path. The message was the point-and the message was pretty abstract. People didn’t “get it”-and often reacted with ignorant and rude comments. Comments that cut to the bone, when we sold everything for the luxury of living out of a broken down piece of crap car, doing the work of the talent, PR, film crew and production all at once.

People implied that we were trying to make a buck or get famous. Profiteering. Greed. Irresponsible. Misleading. Vacation. Those were all words that got thrown in our faces too many times. They all hurt, but vacation-that one really got my shorts in a twist. If I had a nickel for every irate blog post I wrote during that year (and subsequently thought better of and deleted) I wouldn’t have to beg you to click over to our YouTube channel and subscribe so we can keep doing what we do…

I ultimately had to accept the fact that instead of getting pissed off about the way people viewed Project365, I had to do a better job of clarifying our aims and intentions. I had to be more honest about the challenges we faced so people could SEE that it was anything but a vacation. I had to let go of the idea that everyone would “get it”. Facing the criticism from those on the outside and the apathy from those on the inside proved to be more valuable than I could have ever anticipated. They forced me to look for the weak points in my own work and messaging. They still do that.

These moments of criticism also did something else. They brought out the kindness and protectiveness in our supporters. I always felt a surge of pride seeing how our friends would defend our work-and in those moments I would gain a window into just how much those friends “got it”-and that always made it worth going on.

So thats what I did. I just “went on”, and left the critics and the detractors in the back of my mind. However recently, while posting on a climbing forum about the completion of the short Project365 documentary, a fellow who had been quite critical of the Project back when I had first announced it there had this to say:

Steve, I have been very vocal in my opinion that almost all “climb for a cause” endeavors do little to further the cause they purport to benefit. Instead, most of these endeavors are just a thinly veiled way for individuals to get others to fund their recreational pursuits. I may very well have posted something to this effect in one of your earlier posts about your “1 year, no days off” challenge. After watching your video, I feel that I may have drastically misjudged you.

I was inspired by your video and impressed by the fact that you financed this on your own. That makes a bold statement regarding your commitment to this cause. You not only demonstrate how someone with a potentially debilitating condition can push past their limits, but also how one person with a vision and drive can make a positive impact on the world. You have done something very good here, not only for yourself but for others that are battling diabetes. Cheers, and much respect to you!

I wish you much success with the distribution of your film. If I ever see you at the crag, the beers and dinner are on me!

I can’t tell you how amazing it felt to read this. I wished I could have reached through the computer and hugged this guy. I don’t even know his name actually. But it made me realize that seeing the negative reactions made me try harder and do better. It made me hold myself to a higher standard and shaped the whole endeavor.

I know this all seems kind of random and maybe it is. I get tired of just giving updates about the movie and events. This validation today really meant a lot to me and crystallized what LivingVertical is all about.

I will close with a photo I forgot to post on Instagram today…and the most poignant statement of WHY LivingVertical exists:

“Living in fear of (a disease) IS a disease in itself. Fortunately, there is a cure for fear.” (excerpt from “Afloat” by Jeremy Collins, Alpinist Magazine #45)

Sick

By matt on January 29, 2014 in Diabetes, team livingvertical, Travel

sulton pigeon

I could see myself in the reflection of his sunglasses as he walked down the aisle towards the back of the bus, towards us. Michelle slept a contortionist’s sleep, one leg bent up on the seat and the other hooked below. Somewhere during the night the chaos of Istanbul vanished, lost beneath a tide of traffic and salt-water air and swirls of rich tobacco smoke. A car had burst into flames on the outbound freeway and instead of putting it out or continuing by we all parked and watched the brilliant orange lap wildly at the cooling blackness of the Anatolian night.

He lit up and the clicking of his polished shoes rose above the idling bus, keeping sync with the seconds of the new day. From one seat to the next, as the sun rose and the bus’s shadow stretched way out onto the warming plain, he inspected the tickets of the early morning riders who had just boarded.

Their eyes had gazed into ours sympathetically, knowing the route we’d begun 16 hours ago; one that began in the anarchic expressionism of 14 million. In a city where only two bridges can cast you out, millions park on a freeway simply to observe the time go by.

He exhaled and the smoke wafted through the hazy air of the bus and the sun grabbed it and played beautifully. Soon all of Istanbul’s eccentricities became memories, remembered as dreams are remembered, but my blood sugars seemed to hold on to the cities peculiarities.
Perhaps it was the truck stops. Vibrantly glowing oases of red and green and silver neon, painted every few hundred kilometers on the side of the highway. My cramped body, my painfully tingling toes, my restless legs anticipating the ten minutes of refuge, warming to the thoughts of stretching and moving.

Perhaps it was as it is with Pavlov’s Law; my taste buds swelling, my olfactory memory playing tricks, creating scents of the poppy seed candies and baklava I had purchased at the other dream infused stops so many kilometers ago. Perhaps there is nothing peculiar about eating junk and sitting for hours and having your blood sugar rise and rise and rise and then, feeling ill, dousing yourself with insulin only to drop too fast so that you are forced to place one of those delicious, golden candies onto your tongue and let the hardness dissolve into a sweet gel.

It was like this; my blood sugar in full pendulum, as I watched the long, tan fingers tufted with hair reach out and grab the passes that jutted from the little metal slits above each seat. Click. Click. Click. I heard his approaching shoes as I reached down for my bag of supplies; a slew of syringes and test strip bottles, a letter from the Multnomah County Health Department, another from the OHSU Endocrinology Clinic, used test strips, extra lancets, vials, everything loose and hectic. I drew out 10 units, enough to keep me healthy, enough to bring me down and react with the candies.

Maybe I was too hunched. Maybe I was acting too sneaky. I tended to be shifty when I injected in foreign countries (from Africa, to Europe, to Central America, places you don’t want to be accused of using or transporting drugs, I have always hunched and looked over my shoulder before injecting). Then the clicking of his steps stopped. A speck of grey ash slowly floated down and settled on to the neatly shined shoes; that amazingly sweet smell of Turkish tobacco filled the air.

“You can’t do that on here!” That was the limit of his English. The rest was in Turkish, but he explained with his expressions and resonance and by pointing to my syringe and leaning closer and saying again, “You can’t do that on here!” Is there an international sign for diabetic? Some sort of hand gesture? But, what good would it be? I mean, how could I sign with one hand pinching my stomach and the other injecting the drug?

My face bloomed in his glasses as he bent towards me. Blood shot eyes, bags beneath, my oily skin…for him, these were sure signs of a junkie. No matter the smoke filled bus, or the hours of sleeplessness, or the foot wide seats. No matter the erratic blood sugars. He had caught me.

Here, with all the other passengers looking on, with Michelle startled awake and uncertain to what was happening, I had to explain my disease to him. I needed to somehow get across genetics and gene mutation and science and drug usage in a few words.

“I’m sick,” I said and it sounded absurd. “Sick,” but not sick. Somewhere down the line, on my mother’s side, evolution occurred. Sometimes it’s not for the best.

“Di-a-bet-ic,” I said, sounding out the word as if he could understand English if it were spoken slowly, as if I could understand Turkish if he would just sit down and say, “Türkçe biliyor musunuz?”

But “di-a-bet-ic” is a foreign word to most, drastically simplified with sentences like, “oh, you just have to watch what you eat.” I grabbed my medical note, my permission slip for diabetes, and held it up. It explained nothing.

Outside, the soft, grassy plain stretched golden brown beneath the faded denim sky. In the distance, in every direction, mountains rose like teeth, forming a long, sea-less archipelago. How many millennia cycled by to create this? How much ice, thickening and fading and then thickening again, flowed between each mountain top island, isolating species to create this landscape’s unique evolution? Plant endemism. Human uniqueness. Individuals. The idling bus coughed and a plume of exhaust ribboned through a group of fig trees that bordered the terminal.

A man picked at the fruit and rolled it around in his hand. Fig mosaic disease, it prevails throughout Turkey, an endemic characteristic that has evolved in this region. You must spray the trees infected with it—treat them in order for them to become healthy. That’s all. Similarly, somewhere along the chaos of my genetic lineage, changes occurred that have become uniquely mine, changes that need mending, and I must take shots in order to hold everything together. That’s some of it.

“Seker hastası,” an elderly lady sitting across from us said. The man turned to her for a moment and they spoke. A beautifully intricate headscarf wove around her head, its smooth lines contrasted with the deep etched wrinkles of her face. She smiled toothlessly and nodded to the man who then turned back to me. “Sorry,” he said. “Sick.” That’s all. Then, he continued down the aisle, reaching out and checking each passenger’s ticket stub. Up front, the driver closed the door and slowly began to pull back out onto the highway.

I looked out the window and saw the mountains that kept watch over Antalya and Geyikbayiri. We would arrive soon to the climber’s camp that was settled in these mountains, nestled beneath towering limestone walls where tufas crawled upwards like enormous serpents. Michelle turned to me wide eyed and I shrugged my shoulders. “Seker hastası,” I said, smiling.

Later I found out it means, “having diabetes,” and at times it is chaotic. But it’s manageable. I’m adaptable. I bent down to my bag and pulled out a small plastic pouch. As I unrolled the top and the sweet aroma of candied poppy seeds engulfed me. Closing my eyes, I placed the last candy on my tongue and let everything melt away.

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Neuropathy and climbing.

Neuropathy and climbing.

By Steve on December 23, 2013 in team living vertical

My feet hurt. The neuropathy in my feet has stopped my running and long day hikes. Even walking hurts at times. So, when I put my climbing shoes on at the start of a day, I know that my feet are going to hurt that much more by the end of the day. But while I am climbing, thoughts of my feet disappear, as do all the other thoughts that clutter my mind. Between routes I take my shoes off and slip on my soft sandals or if I am lucky I have soft sand or gravel to massage my feet with.

As the day wears on, I wonder which will give out first, my feet or my arms. Either way, the walk back to the car will be slow and I hope that I can miss the worst of the rocks along the way. In an attempt to ward off the feelings that someone has hit the soles of my feet with a baseball bat, I immediately put my feet into soft shoes once back at the car. Additionally I take medication to combat the pain.

Sometimes I wonder if I should keep climbing and putting my feet at risk. But as I inspect my feet for any sores or cuts that would need attention, I know that I will continue climbing. The calmness that climbing provides to my mind is much too important these days to have it robbed from me as the neuropathy has done with my running and hiking.

To the ones who do not have any neuropathy in their feet, believe me, it is real and it is not fun. Keep your BG’s stable and keep climbing.

tell us about your experience with neuropathy-does it impact your life with diabetes?
Want to give some feedback about this post? Leave a comment below!

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Getting old.

Getting old.

By Steve on September 11, 2012 in project 365

Once you’re past 21 there is no joy in the thought of getting older. Suddenly you’re a few years away from proctological exams and being another statistic cited in a Viagra commercial and before you’re able to mash the imaginary brakes you’re finding gray hairs at the bottom of the shower. Bang. You’re old!

Ok, maybe I’ve just revealed some of my characteristic self loathing and cynicism, but in truth, I have always seen my time on earth as being precious due to the somewhat arbitrary nature of diabetes related complications. I’ve never envisioned living into my golden years but rather succumbing to complications or falling off a mountain or being eaten by a yeti.

I can’t help how my mind works, but I have been able to use this neurotic and ostensibly depressing world view to take each day and seize it-which has resonated with others who take part in this grim caper of living deliberately with an illness that is invisible and almost always misunderstood.

So while I was thinking about entering my fourth decade of life I got a phone call from Stefanie. Usual, routine stuff telling me about her day of flights and describing the traffic now that she was back in NYC. I didn’t really feel like talking because I was in the shower and I felt like this conversation would keep for a few minutes until I was better able to talk.

About a minute after we hung up, Stefanie walked in the room-she had been playing me all along. Apparently I looked surprised. I know it took me a couple hours to accept that she really showed up out of the blue! This made my day beyond what I can put into words.

We sat around and talked with Rob about what we should do for the evening. He suggested that we go up on the mesa outside of town- there was bouldering and spectacular views-so naturally we were sold.

We took Robs Jeep (cj-5 for those of you who know and love old jeeps) up a horrific and steep dirt road called Crybaby Hill, so named by cyclists. The dirt road was a jumble of loose rock and ruts and it’s pitch was unrelenting but eventually we made it to the top and had all of Springdale and Zion spread out below us.

The clouds and light were making otherworldly patterns in the sky-on one hand a magical sunset was taking shape and on the other, violent thunderstorms were pounding the higher peaks in the distance.

I set up cameras to capture as much as I could but the storms were out in the distance so my quarry (a good lightning shot) eluded me. As night fell a new round of storms kicked up, with more explosive lighting. I kept shooting and we all relished our perch up on the edge of the mesa, overlooking the valley below.

At one point Stefanie remarked that the lightning seemed to be moving towards us.

Not only was she right, but we had been unable to calculate just how fast it was coming for us-within 2 minutes it was almost upon us and we frantically scrambled for the Jeep, hoping to to make it back down off the mesa before we were either electrocuted or the steep dirt road became an impassible mud pit on the edge of a yawning chasm.

Faced with two certain means of death nipping at our heels I made damn sure my camera was properly put away and all memory cards were accounted for and that all electronics had been weatherproofed. I was too stoked on these shots to lose them through carelessness!

So I guess it’s obvious at this point that no one perished but there were about 10 minutes where it was serious and risk was amplified. During those minutes I felt alive and I wasn’t in the grasp of my neuroses-and if that’s a foreshadowing of what my 30s will bring then I say game on!

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The road less traveled

The road less traveled

By Steve on September 9, 2012 in LivingVertical

Being back in Zion with beautiful climbing temps (sub 90 degrees!) has been awesome. I am hitting my stride again and have been doing more 3rd and 4th class climbing rather than hard pulling in order to increase my cardio fitness for the second half of September when I will be shooting in the mountains of British Columbia and will need more endurance than power in order to stack on the vertical footage and the video footage! I have stopped fretting as much about the things I can’t control and accepting where I am and the opportunities that are all around me in Springdale. As of today (day 237) I have accumulated 49,380 ft! Please help us complete the necessary funding for Project 365 by liking this video through your YouTube account and sharing it with all your friends. Each like on the video will generate $1 from our sponsor Roche, the makers of Accu-Chek.

“Hey dude, you wanna explore this flat area I found on the map?” Rob asked me over breakfast. I caught myself as I was about to simply fire back with an affirmative response. Explore a flat area? Something sounded…off about this request considering that it was coming from Rob. I quickly backpedaled and inquired about the terrain leading up to this “flat area”.

Rob allowed that we would be traversing the backcountry on the east side of the park and that there would be no established routes, paths or set agenda other than exploring some topography that he had found engaging while poring over one of the many maps that litter the kitchen table and cover the walls of the apartment. We plotted a general route south from the road and in towards Parunaweap Canyon, a cousin to Zion Canyon, which is essentially cut off from the outside world.

The price of admittance is steep but costs little money-I began to realize that this oft-romanticized narrative of the backcountry is far from what any normal person would think of as “fun”. Immediately after leaving the pavement, we started down a sandy wash, in towards a dry creek bed that we planned to follow overland. I can think of few things as hateful as hiking through sand. I tried to postpone my complaining until we had been on the move for more than two minutes. A short time later we cut up a slickrock slope that was pitched at about 60 degrees. My lungs burned and I stopped to take a picture. I gnawed on a half of a Builders Bar to counteract the sugar that I knew was being consumed. Better to stay ahead of the game-cardio tanks my sugar if it is sustained and when I looked up, Rob was about 200 feet ahead of me, a distance that he covered in a remarkably short time.

Shit. I have to catch up. Don’t want to gum up the works and I certainly dont want to be downclimbing this mess by headlamp!

I found it harder and harder to keep moving as the climb went on, not because I was out of energy, but because there was so much to photograph! Knowing that almost no one goes back in this area made everything suddenly more interesting and more genuine. This was my experience alone-to enjoy and then share! The higher we climbed the more the rock quality deteriorated. Large slabby layers of the typical whitish sandstone would cut loose while you stood on it like a giant surfboard. Most of the rock seemed to be held together by pressed sand, which made for an entertaining guessing game called “Will this hold fail?”. Each move you were guessing if your next move would be clawing for a rescue hold as the previous one gives way.

Some sections were steeper than others and looking up from the bottom the moves seemed straightforward. I looked back down a few times and remember feeling less excited at the grim steepness littered with rock that was more akin to oatmeal or crushed saltines. Nevertheless, with a bit of perseverance, Rob and I tagged the summit of this unnamed peak-which we named Mount Frank Reynolds in honor of one of our favorite sitcom characters. We had just enough light to spend 10 minutes on the summit looking down into Parunaweap. We sat there taking in spectacular views and I took stock of what this adventure had cost me in terms of energy and willingness to accept suffering. I marveled at the fact that millions of people a year are in Zion National Park but in a given year if more than 3 or 4 people stood at the summit where we were, that would be a lot.

As we began descending in the waning light, I found the downclimbing on rotten rock to be as horrifying as I expected, but I also found myself more adept at negotiating the terrain than I had initially imagined. I realized that the future of my climbing will include more exploratory routes. The pictures I brought back capture some of the beauty but the feeling of empowerment that comes from exploring new ground…that is still sitting up on top of Mount Frank Reynolds, waiting for the next person willing to tempt fate and leave behind all the things that have already been done to death.

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Forget diabetes!

Forget diabetes!

By Steve on September 5, 2012 in LivingVertical, project 365

Ever have a night where you stay up for hours writing what you are certain is a very poignant blog only to wind up re reading it the next day and deleting the whole thing? I had one of those nights last night. I will summarize:

I read a study that deals with the link between diabetes and brain shrinkage. It basically states that people with diabetes are likely to experience loss of memory and difficulty processing emotions. I have experienced both of those phenomena in spades over the last 5 years especially and I never really put two and two together. This was a huge drag and made me feel hopeless and depressed because I have noticed these symptoms despite having a track record of excellent blood glucose control. I also have been reading about the reality of death in climbing and the ways that it can be a compulsive behavior that is used to quiet personal demons and that also put me in a very melancholy frame of mind. There were some other things that I wrote but I forgot what they were so I just got really fed up and decided to move onto something more relevant…

I cant really afford to fixate on things that I can’t control, so my mission is essentially the same as before. Climb safe, take nothing for granted and manage my diabetes rather than it managing me. It definitely rattled me though, but I dont really have the luxury of entertaining those kinds of fears right now and ideally I’ll be able to stay busy enough for the rest of my days that I never have the time to stew over things beyond my control. Do more, fret less.

So. Here is what I am choosing to focus on: I am in one of the most incredible places in the world and I have an awesome climbing partner (Rob) who is again graciously hosting me. I have been getting out with him and also shooting a lot, which has been really good.

My license plates get here tomorrow-finally. Rob has decided not to let me leave because next week is my birthday and we are going to celebrate in fine style by climbing another big wall here in Zion taking a couple days and really doing it up now that the weather is cool enough. Think Moonlight buttress only a bit taller and better hydration and BGs (hopefully!). Oh and I’ll officially be a year older. Hopefully the Alzheimers will kick in by next week and I’ll forget my age enough to crush it on Prodigal Son!

In other uplifting news, Stefanie will be rejoining me shortly after my birthday and we will be climbing together in Squamish, The Bugaboos and points eastward from there as we try to make up for lost time and cover some ground on the itinerary. I can’t explain how hard it has been being away from her, and it’s probably better that I don’t try because that won’t help me make it day by day, but suffice to say, it totally bites being without her and it will be refreshing to get back on the road with her on board even if its only for a couple of weeks.

I am keeping a running tally of my vertical gains and as of day 232 I am at 47,780 ft. I am hoping to break 100k by the end of the project. Big days and small days, they all are adding up but I am excited to have some bigger days coming together (starting on my birthday) and lots of long cruiser routes in British Columbia and Wyoming that will happen later this month!

Shooting all this on my own has been tricky but it’s keeping me psyched for what is coming next! Momentum in the project and some long routes with two of my favorite people! Until then I’ll be doing all the guess work and head scratching that is part and parcel of documenting my journey!

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Day 230

Day 230

By Steve on September 3, 2012 in LivingVertical, project 365

Im not sure if anyone else wondered how long I could keep going making up silly titles for each blog post before I just copped out and started titling posts according to the current day in the project. Well, I know I have been wondering about that, and the answer is NOW. TODAY.

So for those of you who didnt hear, I am still marooned without the use of a vehicle because the license plates are somewhere in the ethers. I have called, harassed, bothered, bullyragged, berated, notified, begged, and cajoled every person at every possible agency responsible for the delay and the answer has universally been the same: “tough sh*t, they’ll get there when they get there!”

To be fair, I havent gotten to the inmates at the federal penitentiaries where the plates are actually made, so maybe it is my fault for being too out of the loop…

But I took the time waiting for my plates to reconnect with Nick in Vegas and to fly back east to see my wife for not nearly enough time. Climbing with so much traveling has been less than stellar, and mentally, being away from Stefanie is grinding me down majorly. So I decided to take action and get out of Vegas and back to Zion where there is decidedly more climbing within walking distance! I was super paranoid driving with an expired tag but I drive like a 90 year old, so I was pretty sure I wouldn’t get hassled between Vegas and Utah.

So now I am back in Springdale and its kind of an odd feeling because its actually cooling down here and larger climbing objectives are becoming more reasonable and I am getting stoked for the fall and winter in the southwest! To whit, today I took a trip up Angels Landing for 1500 feet of gain (2:38 shuttle to shuttle, 2:07 with photo-foolery time subtracted!) to give my “pull” muscles a break.

I kept trying to get moving but then I’d see the sun setting and the light going off in the canyon…its a beautiful thing.

On the opposite end of the spectrum we have the Angels Landing outhouses. I have opined on the good, bad and ugly in the world of non-flushing sanitation. You may recall my praising those found in Idaho (still, hands down the best and cleaner than many peoples bathrooms) and the one in Smith Rock in Oregon. To balance the spectrum these are the most foul and malodorous examples I have ever encountered. My research is not complete so this is not being put forward as a final assessment…but I couldn’t get much closer than this to investigate because of concerns regarding asphyxiation.

So this is the main formation of Angels Landing. Obviously the 3rd-4th class route I took today is not technical climbing but there are some spots that can give you pause if you’re not comfortable with exposure and as an adventure it still demands attention the whole way up and down. Rob and I are discussing climbing a technical route up the formation at some point-you’ll know about that as it develops!

Approaching the ridge requires negotiating these switchbacks. There are a lot of them. Its like a big stairmaster. Eat your greens before you try this one!

Bumped into this little fellow on the way up-despite his relentless pursuit of spreading the Hanta virus, he took some time off to pose for the camera.

So that said, I am making the best of my time and am not feeling stranded. I have been shooting a lot of video and stills here in town at the Globe which is a great bouldering spot and very easy to photograph. Thats one thing that is nice about this project, when the climbing becomes less auspicious, there is always lots to shoot, once I get in the right headspace. I am to still planning to get into the Pacific NW if the plates come in time. I am learning patience in this endeavor, and I am thankful for that, if somewhat irritated by it.

I would love to have this project go according to plan and never have hitches in my itinerary. Being realistic, most of this project has been a hitch in the itinerary and I am left with a choice to focus on what I need to do to keep going or I can have a meltdown because I am not getting to climb in the venues I wanted to spend my time at. I have definitely experimented with both and the best result seems to come from not throwing fits and just climbing in the place that I am in. This helps me stay positive and that always is important when so much of the shooting requires extra legwork ON TOP OF the climbing itself to capture footage and images. It also is exciting because there is SO much I have to do beyond the scope of this particular project. Day 365 will just be the beginning!

accu-check adventure bishop bouldering canyon clif bar climbing darntough dblog diabetes dlife documentary fitness Goal Zero gopro icebreaker JDRF living vertical merino wool mountain nano nonprofit nutrition occupy occupy diabetes outdoors paleo patagonia PCGI photography project 365 raw food roadtrip Rock climbing rockclimbing san diego steve richert Stevesmountain tourism travel type 1 diabetes type1 zion national park

Made it out west. Now what?

Made it out west. Now what?

By Steve on August 16, 2012 in project 365

The last several days I have been living out of my “new” car and driving west. I headed to Utah because I have to register my car here before I set off on the next leg of the project, which will take me somewhere into the Northwest.

The drive across the Midwest was tedious-largely because I had little time to stop and visit with friends and relatives since I have time constraints that are impending. To be fair I have a hard time relaxing in flat terrain and there is a lot of that between NY and UT!

My mind wandered a lot as I watched mile after mile of corn fly past. I thought about the developments of the past month and a half and I struggled with feelings of failure from a personal standpoint. I lost momentum on my filming and climbing. I had a lot of running around to do and found it harder and harder to “fit in” life on the road.

It has been very hard for me to feel good about the fact that I haven’t pushed myself climbing-wise for a good while. I am now trying to find balance in the desire to get back in a personal stride while still sharing the project with people.

What this means realistically speaking is that I am going to be prioritizing climbing whenever possible and using this next month to get my stride back-and to catch up on filming and photos in the mountains.

This will mean fewer blogs and less technological connections. Updating the Facebook page with photos and updates is likely to be happening with greater frequency since that can happen on the fly.

It’s time to get back to business. I feel like I have lost my edge and I am not ok with doing the bare minimum. I must push back and get back out on the edge. That’s where all the answers and the beauty of it all come together. See you out there!

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Two PWD, one rope.

Two PWD, one rope.

By Steve on July 11, 2012 in project 365

I have a lot going on and very little constants in my life other than diabetes and climbing. I don’t know if its possible for life to be more abnormal than this.

That said I am enjoying some aspects of being back at my childhood home with my dad. Sharing a car with him is a challenge and I think I had more space in the dragon wagon than in my old room here but it’s a reasonable trade off for the running water and refrigeration.

Being in NY has afforded me a chance to see Stefanie for the second time since early May. If it wasn’t apparent from the last still frame in my Yosemite video, Stefanie is now a flight attendant for a major commercial airline which is one of the only jobs that is almost as chaotic as mine. Don’t laugh. I may not be punching a clock but this is project is more work than any of the jobs I have been paid to do in my past!

In any event Stef is based in NYC and staying with family so I am geographically closer to her but logistics keep us apart since she is on call 6 days a week and I am several hours from the city.

So we are both going 50 different directions, living back with relatives to get through this time of upheaval and somehow surviving. I would go as far as to say “thriving”.

The project is not a cream puff but it’s beginning to blow up (in a good way,stay tuned!) and Stefs job is going to yield dividends in terms of travel benefits in the future when it is time to tour the country to present our finished documentary!

It’s like building a foundation-laying blocks, course upon course and the more progress you make, the deeper in you find yourself. It takes time until you can climb out of the hole and can see from above, and the floor plan begins to come into focus.

That’s what we are telling ourselves. I’ll be honest and tell you that I only laid blocks for two summers and I was intolerably incompetent…

The personal element of this project continues to eclipse the climbing in terms of difficulty…but the climbing is still progressing! I got out at my home crag in the Hudson Valley with Jess, a fellow T1 and certified diabadass!

It was my first time sharing a rope with another T1 outdoors and it reinforced my stereotype of T1Ds as being able to crush it on command.

Moments like this remind me of why we are doing all of this in the first place-and confirms that it’s worth the struggle.

Also we got to witness a quick rain shower which was a real treat considering that the west where I have been up till this point is dryer than a box of stale Triscuits.

So, progress is at hand and there are growing pains that go hand in hand with that. Tomorrow I will be heading down to Manhattan for some bouldering in Central Park and to handle some business that I alluded to in yesterday’s blog. Maybe chasing rainbows is the pot of gold in itself. I’ll report back!

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Change comes slowly. But with progress, it DOES occur. I’ll cut to the chase because this isn’t another rambling post about one of my existential crises. Yet. Maybe in a few paragraphs…for now it’s an announcement!

The LivingVertical Shop…is, at long last, open! This means that you can now buy DVDs of the Project365 documentary, (also available as digital download) and LivingVertical Tees. In the future, we will be selling books and limited edition photo prints as well!

We are exploring the theme of “change” as a team-and we are looking through a variety of “lenses” at what this means for us as we each deal with diabetes in our own way. I’ll kick things off…

Newsflash: I struggle all the time.

Headline: It’s not pretty or easy-I have just accepted that struggle as part of the process.

I know this all seems kind of random and maybe it is. I get tired of just giving updates about the movie and events. This validation today really meant a lot to me and crystallized what LivingVertical is all about.

I will close with a photo I forgot to post on Instagram today…and the most poignant statement of WHY LivingVertical exists:

“Living in fear of (a disease) IS a disease in itself. Fortunately, there is a cure for fear.” (excerpt from “Afloat” by Jeremy Collins, Alpinist Magazine #45)

Their eyes had gazed into ours sympathetically, knowing the route we’d begun 16 hours ago; one that began in the anarchic expressionism of 14 million. In a city where only two bridges can cast you out, millions park on a freeway simply to observe the time go by.

My face bloomed in his glasses as he bent towards me. Blood shot eyes, bags beneath, my oily skin…for him, these were sure signs of a junkie. No matter the smoke filled bus, or the hours of sleeplessness, or the foot wide seats. No matter the erratic blood sugars. He had caught me.

Here, with all the other passengers looking on, with Michelle startled awake and uncertain to what was happening, I had to explain my disease to him. I needed to somehow get across genetics and gene mutation and science and drug usage in a few words.

“I’m sick,” I said and it sounded absurd. “Sick,” but not sick. Somewhere down the line, on my mother’s side, evolution occurred. Sometimes it’s not for the best.

“Di-a-bet-ic,” I said, sounding out the word as if he could understand English if it were spoken slowly, as if I could understand Turkish if he would just sit down and say, “Türkçe biliyor musunuz?”

But “di-a-bet-ic” is a foreign word to most, drastically simplified with sentences like, “oh, you just have to watch what you eat.” I grabbed my medical note, my permission slip for diabetes, and held it up. It explained nothing.

To the ones who do not have any neuropathy in their feet, believe me, it is real and it is not fun. Keep your BG’s stable and keep climbing.

tell us about your experience with neuropathy-does it impact your life with diabetes? Want to give some feedback about this post? Leave a comment below!

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tell us about your experience with neuropathy-does it impact your life with diabetes?
Want to give some feedback about this post? Leave a comment below!