I went out to Willow yesterday with Micah, Rochelle, and Zach, and ran into Bobby and Garrison out there. I hadn't climbed with any of these people, and it was really fun. They were all solid climbers and belayers. We were in two belay teams, and Micah and Rochelle got on the warm-up, so I decided to hang draws on Sudden Daydreams, a 12a that had the last word a few weeks ago when I failed to flash it, and then failed to do it on my second and third tries.

Sudden Daydreams, from Mountain Project.

I hung the draws, and did get a little pumped, but everything felt reasonable. Much easier than last time. I got started on it, and never got very tired. When I got to the knee-bar, which others have said is hard to get (hahahah!) I worked it in, and got back just about all of my strength, which carried me clean to the anchors. It felt good to finally send a 12 at Willow. That place is truly humbling. I have never been shut down so hard by any crag anywhere, ever (if you normalize for ability).
Then I saw that Bobby and Garrison had hung draws on Natural Selection (a Willow 12c), and, though a little tired, I thought I could do it, if I could sort out the beta. On my first try, I worked out the moves pretty well and fell one move into the crux, way towards the top - working up to "the softball", on the remote chance that any MN climbers read this. I blew that, and managed to swing back on and jug back up the rope. Then I finished it no problem from there, but as I lowered, I felt a deep tiredness setting in. None of the moves are hard, but there are many of them, and endurance is not my thing.
My second go went better. I fell a couple of moves above my first fall, while clipping. I also made the most amazing clip ever.

Natural Selection, from Mountain Project.

See this: I was hanging from the softball from my left hand, and bumbled the clip with my right a couple times, and screamed really loud - "much louder than anyone or anything else", I was later told. I made the clip as both of my feet blew off, and my right hand, having just clipped, dynoed, seemingly of its own volition, out to the right, and caught a good hold! I put my feet back on, and reached up to the crux crimp. If I could hold this, I would get to the next jug, and make a semi-powerful move to a huge jug. Unfortunately, my left hand was incapable of holding weight. The flexor superficialis on that side still had some gas, but it was a crimp, and the only thing that was going to do it was the flexor profundus. I stared it down, and screamed at it, thinking, 'it might hold anyway', and threw to the next right hand, but lost the left crimp as I went. I took a good whip, and had to boink to get back on (First time boinking. I was told that I did well). I finished it from there, lowered, and had a happy smile. I will do it next time, I think, what with coming in fresh and knowing all the moves. A very satisfying session.
Garrison asked about Organic, a toprope that I did the first of on the MN strip in 07. I hadn't thought about it for a while, and no one has done it since I did, to my knowledge. That's not for lack of strong climbers. It is, however, for lack of strong climbers willing to set up topropes. Maybe he'll be the second. Or the first real ascent, if he leads it. He asked about leading it, which I think would be possible, but probably not a very good idea. It will be R rated, I'm pretty sure, and it's not that great a route, to be honest. A fun toprope, but a scary as hell and insecure lead, it would be.

Here's a picture of Al Pacino and Christopher Walken looking cool as shit. Get the f*k outta here with that tie and those pants, Walken. Found here, my new favorite blog.

When I got back to my lair at 1, the five hours of sleep a night and little food that I'd been sustaining myself with for the last few weeks told me I was going to now feel pain. I could feel the tetany coming on on the way home, and drank maybe three liters of gatorade to head it off, which it just barely did. I had planned to study, but all I could feel was a need for food and sleep. I ate and slept until six at night. I was pretty wrecked the rest of the night, and lots of icy hot was liberally applied. I studied some neuro for a few hours at a crappy coffee shop (where the damn barista kept playing this whiny shit music, which was this certain pitch that perfectly penetrated my ear plugs: 75% Productivity), and then collapsed into a camphorous haze until morning. I woke up feeling a little better, and have been studying Neurology ever since. It's going alright. Despite being miserable during Neuroscience, I'm actually kind of enjoying this. I think some of it is sticking.
I can still feel this deep ache over much of my body. That's one of the things I love about very steep climbing. It engages your whole body. Maybe I overdid it a little yesterday...

Here's a picture of me looking unusually intense. I took it last year in Leavenworth. I had just done something that felt very dangerous, as I recall.

Yoga and 200 Practice Questions Today

I did some practice questions all day today, and did fine on them. I did notice that my numbers went down as the day went on, which I think has more to do with interest or energy than it does with knowledge. Something I'll have to keep in check during the actual test. The program records what everyone chooses for the questions, so you can see what your peers (everyone else that uses the test) thought was the right answer. For these questions, I was dead average, which I guess is neither good nor bad. Of course, I can do better, and in the next short interval, I will improve.
Maybe it doesn't seem like it, but 200 questions is quite a bit. I'm using the World QBank, and they give these carefully written explanations of the questions and answers. It takes a while to get through both the questions, and the explanations after. My endurance is building.
I also tried out a new-to-me yoga studio (Your Yoga - just eight easy blocks from my house) which was balls nasty.

It was almost completely empty. The undergrads are finally gone?! Impossible! I think they might be. The instructor was friendly, set a good pace, and put up with the fact that I did what she said about 80% of the time. I suppose not surprisingly, she was also shockingly flexible. I mean, even for a yoga instructor. Maybe it's just been a while since I've been in a yoga studio. Also, there was this shockingly strong and impressively hairy man in front of me that was doing all these crazy moves, so that was pretty great as well. Well done, super strong hairy man. If he were a supervillian, he'd be the Bendy Hair Monster.
There's a feeling I get when I leave finish a yoga session that I just don't get from any other physical or nonphysical activity. It's a rich, floating euphoria. Everything around me is sharpened, and lovely. It's usually about an hour before it wears off, but for a little while there, I am completely at peace with where I am in the universe.
Eventually, the real world creeps back in, and the euphoria dissipates. I always feel about one step better afterwards, even after the come-down, than I did before going in. I'm now officially two days behind my review schedule, and am already forgetting things that I learned at the beginning (Micro, Immuno, Biochem). It's a bit much, but I'll have to go back through those to learn that stuff one more time. And catch up these two days. I'll have one for musculoskeletal/connective tissue/skin and one for respiratory. I've done better on those sections than others, but I still need to make that time count. Tomorrow I start work on Neuro, certainly one of the more dreaded topics on the test, even if I seem to do alright on it. Better than biochem, anyway.
Before I dive in, I'm going to Willow with a gang of cool cats for a few hours first.

News and Notes

I've made some progress with the studying. The pressure is ramping up as I get closer to the date, but I seem to still be moving at a reasonable pace. Today is the first day that I'm behind. It doesn't feel all that great, honestly, but I'll get back at it once I've written this.
At this point, I've reviewed more than I have not reviewed. Endocrinology is going easier than I expected, although I got tripped up on the idea about needing to do a high dose dexamethasone test to identify the pituitary tumor, and the intracellular mediators of particular signalling cascades. The latter always takes me a while to remember. I spent a little more time on renal than I did on the other sections, and I think it will pay off. 
I've stayed relatively sane, probably about the same as always, anyway. I seem to be sleeping enough, and I'm still exercising pretty much every day, even if it's only to walk or ride my bike. Climbing at the coop a few nights a week. There's a shadow looming over me, but I think I can confront it successfully when it comes. Afterwards, I will take some time to recover, and take a trip out west. I've moved back my date once now, and don't want to have to do it again, so I'll have to start putting in more hours, or working smarter, or something to that effect. I could be a real basket base in the last two weeks.
One really great thing about this is that I'm finding very little that I never knew. In other words, I've heard of most of it, and was able to recall it on a test at some point. It is, indeed, review. That was sure a relief to discover. I must have learned something after all in these first two years. It has been satisfying to pull things together, and to understand things that I learned first year on a deeper level. You start to be able to see a bigger picture. When I am past this and in the next stage of training, that understanding will only be richer and more satisfying. I can't tell you how grateful I am to have chosen a career that has endless potential to expand my mind.

Oh, and this guy, and his wonderful wife Susan, will be here soon.

Books I've Read Lately

The Score
Richard Stark
This series was recommended by Jose a few months ago. Well done. Fast paced and smart. If you like crime thrillers, this book was great. I can't wait to read the rest of the series (20+ books!). I say that now, but I'll probably be bored with them by number 5, when they all suddenly look completely identical. We shall see.

Fidelity
Thomas Perry
I mentioned this one before, and I just wanted to follow up and say that I ended up feeling positively about it. It's not groundbreaking in terms of plot, language, and the rest, but it does have a few surprises for you. Some of the overused devices are turned around successfully.

The Dark Knight Returns
Frank Miller
Of all graphic novels, comic books, and graphic works, this is my favorite. In some ways, I suppose that's sad. I first read it when I was maybe 14, and thought it was the best thing I'd ever read. Many years followed where I looked for anything that could approach its greatness. Several things did: Ronin, Hellboy, Dragonball and DBZ, and Watchmen, but none gave the thrill of this work. When I read it, I had already been collecting Batman comics and books for years.
As a kid, I fantasized about being Batman. As I grew a little older, and I thought, 'well maybe I can't do that', my appreciation for him changed. I realized that what I loved so much about him was his work ethic, determination, intelligence, and physical prowess. He's a modern day Odysseus, only with a touch more mystery and darkness, and a touch less foxy guile. He's truly a character to emulate.
I think one of the problems, maybe with appreciating the character is that he's been so many different things to so many different writers, artists, and readers. At some point, I realized that that was fine. This isn't about continuity; it's about mythology. The Batman mythology has only gotten more satisfying as the years have gone on (including the new films), and you can point directly to this book for getting it moving in that direction.*

Vampire Hunter D, Vol 1
When I picked this up in the bookstore, I was sure that the writing would be embarrassing. The anime was good, I thought. Very good for its time. I doubted that this book could bring anything to the table that would make it worthwhile. The first sentence was good. So was the second. I bought it, and it ended up being an entertaining and easy read. Post-apocalyptic vampire hunter aids young attractive vulnerable woman against a vicious, ancient evil.

Darkwalker on Moonshae
I read a mostly fantasy type things in the last week, I'm realizing. This one was way more geeky than the others, because it was in the Forgotten Realms series of the Dungeons and Dragons world. It follows a band of adventurers as the find treasure, battle monsters, say things that support their character sketches, and improve themselves. Which is the premise of basically every other D&D story, and the premise of the game. I read somewhere that this was the best D&D book ever written, and figured I'd give it a go.
I don't think I would have bought it again if I'd known what it would be like. I can't say why, but after I just had this sense that I needed to get up and do something really important, because I had just done something incredibly indulgent and meaningless.

I'm three weeks in, with three weeks to go. Wish me luck.

*And away from the Joel Schumachers of the world. Shudder.

Bike Functional! Sean Ride Fast!

It's been about a year since my bike was really up and running. However, I'm tired of driving everywhere, so I decided to get it fixed. I realized that basically everything that I do here in the cities (except for outdoor climbing), can be accessed by bike. Some rotations will be impractical, but most will be fine, I think.

I went the ultra lazy route and had the bike shop replace and fix a few things that I could have done myself. I still enjoy working on my truck, but for some reason I do not quite love working on my bicycle. They fixed the hell out of it, and I rode really fast today. It was exciting all the way around, because before the bike was working, there were fewer places that were accessible for studying. I prefer to get places by my own energy when I can (rather than oil), and this has suddenly become a new chance to do that. It reminds me of when I used to ride every day to work  in Bend. I used to feel very strongly about it.

The highlight so far was riding to the Coop last night. I climbed for a couple of hours, and worked some flash cards on cardiovascular disease drugs. One thing you forget is how unbelievably fast you can go on a bike, and how much better you feel afterwards than if you'd driven your car. 




Here's me when I am pensive (right):

Blah

I just wrote a post, but Google has decided to change the way the blogger works, and all of the text formatting was destroyed. For instance, this is a new paragraph. I'll wait until they've sorted it out, and post it later.

Studying for Boards

Now* is neither the time to be reading books for fun, nor to be writing blog posts about them. I am taking the most important test of my life in four weeks, and I should be studying biochemistry. Nevertheless!  

Sacred Evil Heather Graham
I don't read scary books very often, and honestly, this one was a little too much for me. It is a thriller set in modern day New York. Some of the characters are paranormal investigators from the FBI (a novel idea), and ghosts play a central role in the plot. A romance develops in a tolerably believable way. It is about as unimaginative as it sounds, but I did keep wondering what was going to happen, and skipped out on social events to read as much as I could before I had to go to bed.  

The Magicians Lev Grossman
This book has a lot to offer. It's easy to say, "Harry Potter rip-off, Name of the Wind derivative", and yes, it uses the same conceit, but it is not really like those. It has something more to say: something like, look at this Jack Kerouac style existentialism meets the insanely grueling training of wizards. One of the things it does very well, is to instill in the reader a sense that really nasty things can happen to the main characters. Violent, horrific things. On this score, it does deliver. The thing about leaving it satisfied or not is the combination of the use of existentialism in the genre of fantasy. I don't know about you, but when I go to read about some magicians, I'm expecting that these guys are going to have goals and quests and kick some ass, and... well...have a point to their lives. Grossman's characters are struggling with exactly the same thing I am, and most of us are, which is to find that meaning.
While unexpected, even once you get a sense that this is what the book is doing, it does convey that Desolation Angels flavor of despair. I'm not sure I want to read another one, though. It's a bit like watching people screw up over and over, and then horrible things happen to them, and they can't do anything about it. (Which is, I'm sure, pretty much what my life looks like from the outside - it certainly looks that way from the inside).
A very positive thing about it is that the characters work very hard to be able to do magic, which is where I'm putting my mind now with my studies. Brice, knower of all that is valuable in fiction, says the sequel is better. I'll let you know.

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell William Blake
I have been meaning to read this for a long time. I don't know for sure, but I have a sense that it's one of the earliest known manifestations of a graphic novel in the English language. That is, a combination of text and images. It was surprisingly brief - twenty minutes of reading at the most, with some commentary. I'm glad I finally read the thing- it's been on my shelf since the early 2000's, but I was not all that wild about it. One high point of it:
Rintrah roars and shakes his fires in the burdend air, 
Hungry clouds swag on the deep. 
Once meek, and in a perilous path 
The just man kept his course along The Vale of Death. 
Roses are planted where thorns grow, 
And on the barren heath Sing the honey bees. 
Then the perilous path was planted, 
And a river and a spring 
On every cliff and tomb; 
And on the bleached bones Red clay brought forth: 
Till the villain left the paths of ease 
To walk in perilous paths, and drive 
The just man into barren climes. 
Now the sneaking serpent walks 
In mild humility ; 
And the just man rages in the wilds 
Where Uons roam. 
Rintrah roars and shakes his fires in the burdened air, 
Hungry clouds swag on the deep.

Beautiful, no? I almost named my new pet Rimtrah, but settled on Pathos. It was also exciting to hear that he thought Milton, "...was a true poet, and of the Devil's party without knowing it". I could have told you that. Lucifer's the only likable character in the book.
One other thing that really stood out was that he comments on man's relationship with nature. In the "Bible of Hell", he writes, Where man is not, nature is barren. He is saying that only those who follow a "Bible of Hell" would embrace the belief that without man, nature has no value. Or, more bluntly, realize that you are only a part of nature, not the center of it, or you will burn forever in Hell. Work it, Blake.
Disturbing things for the contemporary reader are also present, however:

O Jew, leave counting gold; 
return to thy oil and wine! 
African, black African! (Go, winged thought, widen his forehead.)

Reading that was gross, but I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. It was a different time. Slavery would still be legal in the US for almost a hundred years. Hell, contemporary conservatives sometimes write similar things, and presumably actually believe them. God knows what they say to each other in private. Sorry, it upsets me, too. Not a positive note to end a post on. Oh, wait, I read another book.

Fidelity Thomas Perry
Well, I'm not quite done with it, but I didn't want to leave you with that bad taste in your mouth. So far, it's satisfying. Like any good mystery, you feel a sense of tension and danger. The main character is a strong woman, which I appreciate. It is a rare thing in film, and relatively rare in fiction. I am always dubious, however, when reading a book by a man about the innermost thoughts of a woman. How can he know? How can any man know what they are thinking? It's all so impossibly confusing. Just when you think you do understand, that's when you start to realize that you actually have no idea whatsoever. I always have the sense that women are reading it, and chuckling, going, "yeah, that's what we would think in that situation, sure". At least, that is exactly the feeling I get when reading about the thoughts of a male protagonist as written by a woman. That said, Perry at least made a woman his chief protagonist, and she's kicking all kinds of ass. She's physically strong, and faster thinking than her male costars, many of whom can't seem to drag themselves out of the bottle. I've been reading this fiction to quiet my mind a bit before I go to sleep at night. Still, I have dreams and nightmares wherein I am trying to remember tiny details from my review, and am unable to remember them. Back to the battle.

* I wrote this a few days ago, but there were technical difficulties with Google's new blog thing. It seems to be fixed.

Listening to the Wind

It is hard to divorce the ugly realities of my life at that time from the joy of living in my truck. In some ways, I was happier in the back of that truck than I have ever been in any bedroom. I would open a sliding window and feel the breeze, or huddle under every piece of clothing I could find, depending on the season.
I listened to the wind. Most nights, I found myself smiling before I fell asleep.
Feeling the weather in this way is something that everyone should experience. The first time I experienced this was when I was 20 and I had dropped out of college. I was sleeping in the desert in west Texas. I slept in the same spot outside for several weeks, and got used to the landscape. Something was different, one night. After lying there for an hour, I realized that I could not sleep. I got up out of my bag, stepped out of my tent, and looked around. What I saw felt like a smack in the face - it was a full moon. I could see the desert for miles; it felt supernatural. I had been there for so long without even thinking about the idea that the phases of the moon could have any influence, however small, on my life.
Another night, a dust storm blew through, and I woke up in the middle of the night because the tent was being flattened so hard by the wind that its ceiling touched my face. Over the course of the next few hours, three poles snapped. I had a few pieces of duct tape, and some twist ties from tortilla bags. Wind and sand ripped at my face for the hours that I spent keeping the tent together. I wrapped the twist ties around the overlapped poles, and duct taped around that. One by one the poles snapped, but the pegs never came out of the ground, and the thing was still standing in the morning. The wind died down by dawn, and I was even able to get a little sleep in it.
These things filled me with an energy that I had never experienced. For the first time, I had a sense that I was part of a world that changed, that was indifferent to me. That, if I put myself in the right places, I would be forced to adapt to it. It was a taste of a world that was much bigger than me, that I could not control. The touch of the natural world was thrilling.
Living in the truck often gave me the same feelings. I have spent five or ten stretches in the truck, usually traveling, on climbing trips, or between schools, so that I rarely spent more than one night in the same place. There was one time, however, when I was in the same place for quite a while, and it forever changed the way that I looked at living in the truck.
I was at North Hennepin Community College, taking Organic Chemistry, Chem 2, and Genetics, trying to get As in some prereqs. It was the only place in the cities that I could find openings in these classes. I started attending classes during the day, and sleeping in the truck at night.
My power steering started leaking one day, and after some investigation in the truck and online, I found that I had to replace a part. I drove over to a gas station, and pulled out my tool box and the part ($60 at Napa). I started working on it, when someone walked over to me and said that If I made a mess she would personally make my life a living hell. Before I could say anything, she was walking away. I still do not fully understand this. Maybe it was about status, and my obvious lack of it. I looked down at myself. I had on a dirty shirt, a rag in one greasy hand, and a wrench in the other. It could have been more than my appearance. My position in society was in full view when I pulled my truck up to do some repairs: I did not have a driveway, and did not know anyone with a driveway that I could use.
In the second week of the term, I realized that taking three lab classes, and two chemistry courses concurrently (especially since Chem 2 was a prereq for Organic), was not going to work. All of my teachers that term were challenging people to work with, but the Chem 2 guy was the worst. He had set up a profoundly inefficient and ineffective class, and I was spending hours each day struggling with required assignments on an online program that constantly failed. I was learning nothing, and spending a hell of a lot of time doing it. I realized, after a couple of conversations, that battling with that asshole was not going to work, and I decided to cut my losses, and just do the best I could in the other two classes. It gave me pause to choose Organic, not having had Chem 2, yet, but I decided to just go ahead and give it a shot. To my surprise, I was good at it, and it ended up being an intellectual love affair for years. I finished my Organic in central Oregon about a year later, and was a classroom assistant and tutor in it the next.
I got in my paperwork to drop Chem 2 the Monday after the Friday when I could get out without a W showing up on my transcript. I was devastated. They told me there was no chance of an exception being made, which I understood and accepted. I would have a W on my transcript from a community college, and I was trying to get into med school. I felt that that was it: I would never get in. I was a 24 year old sleeping in parking lots. The delusions had finally come to an end; I realized that I had no chance of achieving this dream, and the realization washed over me like a cold shower. I wondered how I possibly could have been so stupid as to think that it would work all the time before. It started raining, and did not stop for a week.
I found out that my grandfather was in the hospital, two thousand miles away. The last time I talked to him, it was raining outside the community college, and I was standing under a concrete eave, my truck parked a hundred feet away. It was a Saturday, and I was the only one in the lot. He was extremely tired, and barely spoke, but he recognized me, and sounded happy to talk to me. When I asked him how he was, he told me that he was good, but thirsty. It meant everything to me to speak with him.
He told me that I needed to stay where I was; that what I was doing was important. It was cold, and I shuffled my wet sneakers back and forth, leaving little half shoe-shaped wet spots on the concrete. I was ashamed that I had achieved so little, and that someone who had given me so much respected me and loved me still. He died soon after. I was standing under the same eave when I heard.
I walked back to the truck. I was having trouble keeping the truck sealed, and when I got back, I found that this blanket that I had used since boarding school in seventh grade was completely soaked. I pulled it out of the back of the truck, and I guess because it was so worn and heavy with water, it ripped almost in half. Now I would not call this a security blanket, but even as an adult, you get attached to your bedding. When you live in your truck, things like this have even more value. I sunk my head down a little further, and carried the two pieces of blanket over to a trash can at the corner of the parking lot, and stuffed this meaningful possession through the anonymous little slot.
At the time, I could not afford to have a membership at the gym, so I was not climbing. I was, unfortunately, eating the same amount of food that I had been when I was working out all the time, and if anything, I started eating more. Before the term was over, I had gained thirty pounds. It would take me almost two years to lose that weight.
Going back to the truck on those nights, after being put down in my classes by instructors, was difficult. When I lived in it and traveled, it symbolized freedom, a connection to weather and nature. It was different now. I was not climbing, I was gaining weight, and I would not achieve my dreams. I was surrounded by concrete, and it was getting colder by the day.
Still, at night, when I was falling asleep, I would listen to the wind, and sometimes, I would find myself smiling.

First of all, thanks to everyone that has been so helpful and supportive in my first couple years of this journey I'm on right now. Secondly, the next six months will be unusually challenging. In the past, I have gotten freaked out enough during test times to write long, elaborate emails to people aout why I dislike them. I do not want this to happen this time, or anyihing like it, but if it does, pleaase realize that it is mainly the stress overreacting to stuff. I f you can tolerate me for the next six months, I think you can tolerate me under any circumstances.

Bad Dreams, and An Idea Boulders List

I'm not normally up this late, but I went to bed at eleven, and woke up what felt like ages later from horrific dreams. I'm totally disturbed, and drinking lots of tea to try to recover. Details are hard for me to deal with as a med student. For anyone else, they would be much more uncool. It will have to suffice to say that a medical school education should never be used by your subconscious to develop horrific dreams. They are way too painful, scary, and realistic.
I studied for an hour, and I thought I'd write a short post.

Dream boulders:

Rocktown, GA: Golden Harvest, v10

Stuff at Joe's: Wind Below, probably a bunch of other awesome stuff there. Eh. I've heard that it sucks to hang out there. We'll see if I care to make the trip. It's not at the top, even if it does have some of the coolest looking rock anywhere.

Hell Belly, hard v11. Beautiful problem! This is totally my style, and if I'm ever climbing this hard, you will find me set up beneath this problem come January.

Stuff at Stone Fort, Tennessee (Little Rock City) - I've got a guidebook coming that should be here any day now. I'll have to mentally update the list when it shows up.

Midnight Lightning, v8/v9 and Thriller v10, Yosemite - I've never made a concerted effort to boulder in Yosemite. When I've run around with pads, I've found it extremely sandbagged and slick. But I heard that it's only this way in Camp 4. Didn't Wilder write a book about this? I'll have to check that out.

RMNP. God. I have no idea what I want to do there. I have no idea what I can do there. When I've been to Colorado for climbing (flatirons and eldorado canyon), I've found it good, but never amazing. And for the record, I thought Eldo was ugly stupid choss. Although I did randomly climb a really cool 10d R there, which I think I would have onsighted if this guy hadn't walked up beforehand and told me all about the ways to die climbing it. It really wasn't that bad. A shaky pin that you could back up with a good piece five feet below. And the crux was like 11a.
So I have the Emerson guidebook now, and am thinking of maybe heading back to CO for RMNP bouldering at some point. I like climbing southern sandstone in the winter, so I think that'll be my big thing this year again. At some point, I'll go for summer alpine bouldering in RMNP.
I'd want to check out Whispers of Wisdom v10, Autobot v5?, and The Kind v5?. Second on the list would be Full Chaos v10, and Veritas v11. The other stuff on the veritas boulder looks cool, too.
There's just way too much there to know beyond that. I'd probably show up and be completely sucked into a single area and not want to leave until I do all the best and hardest problems there. The whole area has this mystique about it that's totally intimidating. Honestly, it is going to take some serious guts (for me) to even put myself in a position of trying some of those classic, impossible looking lines. It's an intimidating proposition, and, I feel that, to keep growing as a climber, I'll need to face this area at some point.
I feel like I'm kind of done with Ozarks bouldering at this point (until I can climb v9, v10, v11 in a couple of tries, there isn't much left). Maybe RMNP will be my next two year obsession?

Leavenworth: On reflection, doing The Coffee Cup was like completing a lifetime dream project for me. I didn't leave feeling like I had to climb anything else there to be satisfied. I think, however, it would be totally possible to go back and find another beautiful, impossible project like The Coffee Cup, and be completely overwhelmed with the joy of working on it. Some ideas for now: WAS, v8 (almost did it last time!); The Sail, v9; Equinox, v10 at Gold Bar; Span Man, v10.


Non-bouldering projects:

Badman, 14a. Although I worked it for five or six months, I never did this 14a at Smith. In the December before I would come to medical school, and back to midwest, I started working the route, not able to do any of the cruxes. I got so that I could do all the moves on command, and could link any two sections. But there are like eight cruxes or something, and the best I ever managed on this was five falls.
I think working this project was hugely important for my development. I learned that power endurance is a big deal for me. Power, I am best at, endurance, eh a little, but power endurance is where I am just weak. I also learned that climbing outdoors is just not a great way for me to train. I don't get enough mileage when I have to coordinate with others, tie in, rap off, etc. I don't get enough variety of movement, and Smith didn't have enough steep stuff to keep strong on. My abs went to crap while I lived there.
I've been much more successful since I started spending more time climbing in the gym for training at night, and climbing outside when I can get out.
I know this route was hard like 20 years ago or something for pro climbers, but it is truly hard for me. Again, going back to Smith would be like stepping back into a much more challenging, almost darker, time in my life (no offense to those of you that were there - it's not you). Working Badman would be, in effect, facing where I was at that point in my life, as well as working what is, for me, an extremely challenging climb. I don't think I'm ready to do that, yet. Maybe someday.

Mango Tango, 14a. This has been a dream climb for me since I saw the Climb X Media video in, jeez, maybe 2002? Can't remember. As I get closer to the point where I have a shot on it, I realize more and more that it totally fits my style and aesthetics for climbing. It's powerful and short. It's got huge moves off marginal holds. Perfect rock. Relaxed environment. I don't give a damn if I do anything else in the New River Gorge for now - maybe I'll change my mind when I get there. Right now, I know I want to climb Mango Tango. And I'd like to do it, soon.

The Rostrum, 11c. What to say? Classic hard Yosemite trad with an offwidth, and other goodies. Because of falcon closures until the fall, and the fact that all school schedules always book you in the F*G fall (the best time to climb in the US), I have never been able to get out there. I have no idea when I will try to do this. As I get further along, however, it's feeling more and more possible.


Finally, because I never listed what I wished I had done while I was there, and would like to do if I ever go back:

An Ozarks list of dream projects undone:
Cloud of Stars, v9
Moondye, v9
Daily Planet, v9 !!!!
Fred's Roof v10/v11 !!!
Typhoon v10/v11
The Full Package v-Impossible for Sean


I'll have some more tea, and study more, and then please wish me luck for not dreaming about nerve pathway specific vivisection.