Tom Grundy's Flagstaff early 2009 Page
In January I flew back to Phoenix and on to Flagstaff. Soon I was post-holing through the snow to the pit and climbing without a shirt in the sun. It was very nice to see the sun and climb again even if I was awfully weak and my skin was soft. We also went out to Lake Mary to scope it out and to skate, but the ice wasn't very good (too much refrozen snow made it not flat and not solid). A later look revealed a lot of open water - definitely not good for skating.
Julie pretends she is a figure skater
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Other activities included using an adze and pick and shovel to clear the icy wall of snow that the plow had put up in front of the driveway and mailbox, eating yummy food, processing and uploading pics, reading, etc. Did I mention snow? It snowed a fair amount, and some of the piles were taller than me, especially where it slid off the roof. The one pile was taller than the top of the windows! Needless to say, this made shoveling a bit of a pain.
The front of the house, with snow piles
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The biggest snow pile in front of the windows
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looking out the window at the pile
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We hiked up Bear Mountain near Sedona. It was pretty scenic, and there was enough snow to make it interesting, but not enough to really get in the way. Not surprisingly the amount of snow on the north slopes and higher elevations was a lot more than on the south slopes and lower elevations.
Bear Mountain view
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Bear Mountain from biking below later
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Bear Mountain panoramic view
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On a trip to Jack's Canyon, we had to walk much of the way in because of snow and slick mud on the road. Despite the cooler temperatures and threatening weather we got some good climbing in.
Julie models a new hoodie and scarfs noodles
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Julie on my new mini-skis
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My latest project has been learning to ski. I am not very good, but I borrowed some skis from Jason and skinned up at the Snowbowl ski area (skins stick to the bottom of the ski and have hairs pointing towards the back so you can shuffle uphill). Then I slid back down. If nothing else it is good exercise, and I am getting better. Hopefully someday I'll either take a heap of padding for my camera up, or I'll feel skilled enough so I don't think I'll destroy it if I crash - then I'll have some pics. I do have a pic of Julie from when we messed around on the bunny slope (testing out my new skis). Julie had never been on downhill skis, but she did fairly well (although slowly as befits the low angled slope and slushy afternoon snow).
I took advantage of the March family Friday afternoon cheap ticket price to get a lift pass one icy afternoon and skied many runs. Including one with a weighted backpack (training). I think I got better, although I crashed more on my last run down than any of the others. Still, I didn't feel as much apprehension heading down the steep runs, and although I wasn't able to do the steepest runs once the tallest lift shut down, I was able to head down some of the other runs quite quickly and stop when I wanted to.
Once I got my skins, I skinned up a few more times and skied down. I guess this is frowned upon by the ski area, although everyone I saw was nice and waved at me as I went up. I even got brave enough to take up my camera. One day the ski area was closed despite some blown around fresh snow. I could see tracks of at least 3 other people who had skinned up that morning although I didn't see any of them on the mountain. It was much nicer skiing on the patches of fresh snow than the old ice.
Panorama of the Arizona Snowbowl from near the top
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I also went snow kiting with Sam and Jason. The first time I was trying to use a snowboard, and the wind was sporadic and fickle. I didn't do very well, although I did get yanked into the air a few times. The next time I had my skis, so I used them. Unfortunately the snow was partly melted away, so hitting rocks and dirt patches was a hazard. The wind however was much better, and I did much better too, although I still got bouted a number of times. Dawn came out and got some much better photographs.
Sam kite boarding in the field
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That's me and a kite
(Dawn Kish Photograph)
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Sam flies through the air, while Jason skis in the background
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I went to paddle Oak Creek with the Yogaslackers. It turned into a mini-epic, but was fun, and I didn't get too cold. They made a little youtube video which can be seen here:...
yogaslacker Oak Creek packraft video
I actually hadn't paddle a packraft since last August, and it was probably class III for the start. Still, nice to see some video of it. I think they blogged about it too.
yogaslacker Oak Creek / training blog entry
(it has the video embedded in it)
On another trip to the Sedona area we biked around on some roads enjoying the views and warm weather as well as visiting Honanki ruins, a series of 700? year old Sinaguan ruins along a cliff face with many pictgraphs.
Julie biking near Sedona
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Cactus by Honanki Ruins
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Honanki Ruins
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Panorama of some of the Honanki ruins
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More Climbing
In more climbing news, I finally sent my project, known as "no joke" which starts up "the joker" and then cuts over after the 4th bolt to "total recall" through it's upper crux. I worked this route a lot, starting in the fal of 2008 when I actually managed to climb up through the crux move before just losing all ability to hold on with my left hand. When I started again in 2009 it took a while to get back to the point where I was even getting up to the crux (a sideways deadpoint) without falling. I changed a few bits of beta and slowly improved my strength and endurance as well as getting my sequence really dialed in. After a number of tries where I was getting close, I managed to get the redpoint on what was my last day climbing at the pit for some time. I felt really solid on the whole climb when I finally got it. This is probably the hardest climb I have done so far, so I am pretty pleased to finally get it. These pictures of me were taken by Tim a few days before I actually got the redpoint. It was a bit too cold and my fingers were getting a bit numb. On the one I took of Zoltan, you can see the steep parts are causing shadows.
I head up "no joke"
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The last of the hard moves on "no joke"
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Zoltan on "no joke"
(showing about the bottom 2/3)
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Ted warms up on "purple shark"
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