Liz Lampson

2024 Wrapped - hiking edition 🏔️🥾 🏜️1-3 after about 7 years of wanting to do the Grand Canyon R2R2R in a day, I finally stopped waiting for the perfect training cycle and just committed to trying it in a day last October, because… 🏞️4-5 in September I decided to try hiking 40 miles in a day, since I’d done 30 something multiple times but never 40. It went much better than I expected so I figured 46 miles with 11k gain wasn’t that different than 40 miles with 7k gain. Other hiking highlights from the year include: 6 2024 New Year’s Day hike at Pinnacles NP. 7 Walking from Redwood City to the beach. 8 Double Dipsea hike with some friends who knew the parking beta. 9-12 Family trip to Mt Rainier, feat. Pinnacle Polish on Pinnacle Peak. 13 Clouds Rest Hike #57439 14 Cute little alpine meadow on the way to North Peak which I’d somehow never done before. 15 Birthday 34k hike 16 Hiking 18 miles in Yosemite on the way to the Grand Canyon just to make sure I wasn’t wildly out of shape before I did all that driving.

January walkies

I've been on top of Half Dome almost half a dozen times and never got a "diving board" picture before this. 🏞️ @austindonisan had never done Snek Dike so I benevolently let him lead all the pitches since I'd already led the whole thing a few years ago. 🏞️ We finished in just over 11 hours car to car, which is like 14 hours less than my previous time, which was a 25+ hour fiasco with a giant group. . . . . . . . . #HalfDome #SnakeDike #Yosemite #YosemiteNP #YosemiteClimbing #Climbing

Thanks to the stranger rappelling next to me who got some pictures of me flashing/onsighting this pitch that's allegedly a 10c finger crack crux but I thought the crux was the hand crack roof.

Accidentally caught up to my trad flash grade with my sport flash grade. Anyone know of any easy 10d/11a finger/hand cracks somewhere not on fire that I can flash so my trad grade is higher again lol 🏞️ 📷: @amaninaram Endless mostly patient belays: @austindonisan

There’s this neat loophole in climbing where you can try a sequence as many times as you want and still call it a send if you just downclimb to a rest and don’t actually fall. With that loophole I can claim to have flashed my first 10c (even if it is the softest 10c in the Valley), the creatively named “first pitch of the Salathe” (or Freeblast, depending on your guidebook). I’d love to be like “first 10c on gear” but at this point I only climb finger cracks and a first [grade] sport climb would probably be more impressive for me. I used to think I needed to “be a well-rounded climber” and be equally solid on every style at a grade before I even thought about moving on to a higher grade. I’ve since realized that’s kind of pointless because I can keep working on improving, but don’t need to limit myself to 5.8 in my ideal style just because I get stuck on 5.8 offwidths and chimneys. Thanks to @goatsonropes for the photos, and @austindonisan for the patient belay.

Weird how often the key to sending is just not taking. ✅ Snake Bite, 5.11- (first 5.11 ever and also first 11 on gear) ✅ Rawhide, 5.10d (first real project) ✅ Generic Crack, 5.10 (by far the hardest I've ever fought for an onsight/flash) As always thanks to @austindonisan for the almost endless patience in belaying. Now to get my other style max grades a bit closer to my finger crack grades. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . #climbing #rockclimbing #outdoorclimbing #tradisrad #traddad #tradclimbing #womenwhoclimb #girlswhoclimb #thegrotto #indiancreek #climbersofinstagram #climbersofig #crackclimbing #crackclimb #crackisback

At the end of February, I decided to get on Rawhide at the Grotto as my first real trad project, intending to fall all over it. Despite never having successfully toproped it, I one-hung it. Then I one-hung it about 5 more times over a couple sessions, each time feeling a bit better, and the final time falling above the crux only because I got through the crux and let go in surprise. On March 14 (the day most of these pictures were taken by @amaninaram ) I decided I'd easily send it in the next trip, and we could leave because it had started raining pretty heavily. The route itself was still dry, but my belayer would have had to stand in the rain. Obviously March 14, 2020 was a bad day to decide anything would happen in the near future, and I didn't come back to it for a while. When I went back on Friday, I fell every few moves on toprope trying to remember my beta. Yesterday during my first attempt - going piece to piece to dial the gear and beta - it started raining and snowing, and I thought there was no chance I'd send it soon. I hadn't actually worked on how to link a few of the sequences. Then on the 2nd attempt I somehow remembered how to climb, and sent it without the crux even feeling that hard. (Last photo by @austindonisan possibly to celebrate my send, possibly so we had a record of my gear beta, probably both.) Rawhide is 10d if you ask Mountain Project and 11a in the guidebook. I don't know if that means I climbed my first 11 or not, but either way it's my hardest send to date. Also my hardest send on gear, but I don't sport climb so that's not surprising. Thanks to @austindonisan for the endless patience at the belay (my 1st beta attempt yesterday was almost 2 hours by itself) and encouragement to try hard. Sorry I sent it with no try-hard noises.

I have some very exciting news for those of you who care about nail polish and glittery things (or anyone who needs a more unique color of gear-marking paint). I’m opening an Etsy store selling my own handmade nail polish, and I’m starting things off with a “Friends and Family” sale. This is of course partly to solicit Etsy sales so my shop looks better, but mostly because I’m very excited about these, and I want to share these with my friends at as low a price as I can. From Nov 1-8, the code FRIENDS30 will get you 30% off (plus free shipping if you spend over $35) at my Etsy store (link in my bio). In case you’re not an avid nail polish collector but just want to try a couple, most of my polishes are available in mini sizes. I’ll be gradually releasing a few more polishes in the coming weeks, and there will be a Black Friday sale, but this friends and family sale is going to be the biggest discount in the foreseeable future.

There's nobody I'd rather be stuck at the top of a route with for an hour and a half while an incompetent party figures out how to rappel*. Thanks for putting up with my ideas that involve too much walking and not enough real climbing. 🏞️🏕️⛰️ *The beginner party we came up behind was already being "rescued" by the party in front of them tagging up their rope. The front group also helped them get set up with the rappel. We didn't just sit around and watch some noobs almost kill themselves or anything.

I guess #nationalsiblingsday is a good occasion to post pictures from my sister's wedding (which happened last fall). I'm really glad she rescinded her decision as a 4-year-old to disown me as a sister and let me be the maid of honor on her special day. She even let me do her wedding nails. Also shoutout to my fake sister @missmarinana for being a part of my childhood. (Reposted to remove photos of minors)

Skins turned out to be a lot like 4WD in that mostly what they do is get me stuck places I can't comfortably get out of. . . . . . #skiing #backcountryskiing #laketahoe #emeraldbay #southlaketahoe