Evan

Oct 31. , Ft Logan

Woah, such a fun time going on a long bike ride through the desert on a cheap bike with some people I luv. Guess I really am a #multisportathlete now. I also have even less respect for lance Armstrong but twice as much for Gary fisher. #legend #garyfishergeometrywaswayaheadofitstime #freshasadaisy 🌼 #stillgettingwarmedup

I top-roped Fitz Roy btw

A nice way to start my day

¿DOMO????

Little bit of this, little bit of that

Back home after a month on the road! Yosemite often feels a little overwhelming for me since there’s a million things I want to do and only so much skin on my fingertips, and energy in my body. I initially had a lot of rope-solo goals that I totally let go of for a few reasons. Probably the most stressful aspect I find in climbing is the uncertainty of how my body will physically feel when doing big objectives. Even though I feel way way better than I did a year ago with my Crohn’s I am still tuning in to how much rest/recovery time I need, how my body reacts when I am totally exhausted and what happens if I miss a day of medication. Will I “hit a wall” on pitch 10 out of 30? or feel too exhausted to start up by the time I get to the base? This has also made me really picky about who I choose to rope up with and is a big reason I have gotten so into rope-soloing. -I can do whatever I feel like without the responsibility of letting a partner down if I feel like shit and want to bail. I don’t have to add some dumb little disclaimer about feeling too tired to finish my leads or bailing etc.  Buttt, when I do get lucky and have Will around the valley, I am reminded of how much more fun it is to climb with a good friend and dang it feels good to fly up those walls in Yosemite!  I climbed Half-Dome, Mount Watkins (awesome), and part of Wayward Son’s earlier in the month and felt okay, but definitely not great on these routes. I felt pretty nervous going into an attempt on the Salathe Wall which has a bit of a reputation for being burly. An adjective which I definitely would not use to describe myself. Fortunately, route ended up being a totally epic experience and it felt soo good to feel great all day and synched up with Will’s energy (once I got my complaints about the heavy backpack I was following with on the bottom block and the “I told you we should have started earlier” out of the way 😉). As usual, Will was a beast and took a couple of extra pitches but couldn’t have asked for a better way to cap off my Yosemite trip.  (Also was beautiful to get a tiny taste of what it’s like to be a raven in the valley 🦅😈)

Fun flight and adventure on Notch Peak a weekish ago! Tavish and Lexi were kind enough to let me tag along on their Notch Peak plans. With Tavish in the lead all day, we climbed Western Hardman into Book of Saturday in whopping 10.5 hours. Big thank you to Tavish for getting the rope up and big thank you to Lexi for miraculously, not sending any rocks down on me. After shivering all day on the north wall, I got to shiver all night on top while Tavish and Lexi hiked down to our car shuttle. I was rewarded with a safe and beautiful 4k descent flight back to the truck. Systems still feel a bit heavy for free climbing with bivy gear and a wing on my back but it is soo worth it to me right now to compromise on climbing difficulty/style for the opportunity to camp on top and fly off. Such a treat to get to have experiences like this!

Getting to the age where I lowkey appreciate fall colors

Well, if I am going to use Instagram to complain about my health, I think it’s only fair I show some gratitude as well. After almost 18 months of feeling disabled from my Crohn’s disease, I am feeling significantly better and really appreciate the process of building back my strength and fitness and going on big adventures. Last Friday and Saturday (and 6 minutes into Sunday), I made a solo ascent of the Dunn-Westbay on Colorado’s most stunning alpine wall. I have been thinking about this route for a few years and while I am proud of what I did up there, the experience was tainted by fixed lines left on the final 160m of the route. I am hopeful these were left due to an emergency and not just by someone who is lazy, selfish, and has no respect for the Diamond and other climbers. If it’s too hard for you to pull up your lines after top roping your free climbing project, then imo, you should not be climbing on it. For full transparency, my comments should be taken with some hypocrisy because I ended up jugging the final 20m of C1 and a short 5.7 ramp pitch to escape a severe lightning-snow storm. I didn’t know how long the storm would last and I was scared about doing the exposed fourth class traverse to the north face rappels in the dark, in a snowstorm, with a haulbag on. I also put a jumar on the lines for extra security while making anchor transitions which are notoriously tricky on hanging, trad belays for rope soloing with a haulbag. If the fixed lines weren’t there I would have tightened my boots, put on my fish gloves, and climbed out. Despite my gripes, I had a great time up there and felt like I got the “whole package” with a snowy North Chimney, wet 5.10 free climbing, lots of ice-fall, a tiny bivy ledge, beaks, sky hooks, puking from altitude sickness, a wet snowstorm with no hardshell jacket, and a spliff with Tony. Thankful for my health and friends who support from afar! Oh, and next time, I am listening to Ronnie and bring my expensive arcteryx hardhsell, because “not wanting to mess-up the waterproof coating” isn’t a good reason to skimp on layers. ✌🏼❤️

Classic Monday night/ Tuesday sunrise-sky-surf session

A very sweaty but beautiful hike and fly from a morning in Annecy! The lifts in chamonix are hard to beat but there’s something about the hike that “makes” the flight. 🌭 🐌