Harsh dose of reality......

I obviously haven't posted on here in quite a while. It's not from boredom, but more from some confusion on my part. I have had to face a harsh dose of reality about a month and a half ago. I was climbing with my buddy and professional guide, Ian. While I was climbing my knee popped several times, and my 6 year old knee injury finally finished itself off.

For those who don't know, I tore my ACL in 2004 while serving in Iraq. (For those wanting to know the real story, I tore it playing soccer, but it WAS in Iraq. The field was full of mortar holes!) I was able to survive for six years based solely on my leg strength, though I did have times when it was quite sore. There were also times when I had to lay off for a week or so. This time, however, it was quite severe.

With this injury, I am unable to climb, and will require surgery. This kills the dream of guiding this summer, and pushes it back a year.

I am also living in a house now, with my friend and co-worker Eric. He and his girlfriend have very generously allowed me to live in their guest room for the summer. I am fortunate that I have such a good friend, and am having fun working on their backyard. I have also begun to shift my focus from climbing to something else.

This injury was a big slap in the face of my dream, and a true dose of reality about the consequence of injury to a mountain guide. With this I have decided that I still want to guide, but that I also want to have a more stable job that I can do full time.

I am now studying for my GRE test so I can apply to a Ph.D. program. There it is. I said it. To the world. It's official now. So there it is everyone.

What I am hoping for now is some feedback from everyone who reads this. Do you want to read more of my writing? Let me know, respond to this posting. If you do I will keep this going, and you will get to hear about my progress from knee surgery, and my march toward grad school. Let me know. I'm looking forward to hearing what you think!

Apologies, trips, and a ZBL update!

So I have been quite remiss in updating my blog, so I apologize to everyone. First of all, I want to say thanks to everyone who has been reading this, I'm extremely flattered! So the last week has been pretty crazy for me, and I'm not even sure why.

Easter Sunday, the day when all good Christians are supposed to recognize the sacrifice that Jesus made, I was out climbing with my Jewish friend. I'm going to hell. Anyway, I got the chance to play guide to him. We went out to Leavenworth to climb R&D, a 5.6 climb on the Yosemite Decimal System.

For those not down with the YDS, it is a numerical system used to rate the difficulty of climbs. Originally 5.9 was considered the hardest climb conceivable. This was back when people climbed in boots and used hemp ropes tied around their waist to climb.

Now a 5.6 is considered an easier climb, approaching moderate. I brought out my buddy, Lucky, to climb. This climb was a 4 pitch climb (4 rope lengths, roughly 500ft long or so total) that I had to onsight (climb without any real knowledge of the moves of the climb). This was great for me, since it is a realistic thing I would do with clients.

I was able to get through all the moves pretty easily, despite the cold snow falling on us off and on all day. Some of the route was wet, all of it was cold cold cold granite. Our fingers were freezing and Lucky had on a very uncomfortable pair of rock shoes. We were on the route for almost 4 hours. At the end he had a big smile on his face, since he got to do the hardest climb he has ever done.

That smile was all I needed to know that I am definitely in the right profession. It was a great day, and he was spent at the end of it. We drove back home without incident, and relaxed over some pizza at his place. He paid. It was a great tip to get as a homeless guide. Oh, and he let me use his shower. AWESOME! It's the little things that get me excited.

I worked the rest of the week, and went climbing with my buddy Ian (an amazing guide) Friday.
We hit up Leavenworth, and got to climb a bunch of harder routes. Again, the snow was falling on us intermittently, and the rock was COLD! Luckily all we had to do was shove our hands into the even colder cracks, wedge the backs of our hands against the sharp granite, and pull up our body weight. Over and over again.

Of course the cold makes the skin a bit more fragile, so I have some stellar cuts and scrapes. It's awesome.

ZBL UPDATE: He was pampered Thursday, getting new rear brakes (to the tune of $335, still cheaper than rent!) and a bath. That's the first bath since leaving Jersey. I'm pretty sure I heard him thank me somewhere in there. He is quite the champ, making both trips to Leavenworth over the past week. He totally deserves some pampering. Also, he has been given the past couple of nights off, as I am couch crashing for a couple of days. Don't worry though, I won't be getting too soft on everyone now though :-)

What happens when the dream becomes a nightmare?

So I am getting closer to the guiding season, and despite all of my workouts in the climbing gym and the gym gym I am not really ready for the mountains. For those who don't hike or climb, you may not know about mountain legs. They are kind of like sea legs, but they need to be much stronger and able to go for hours on end, day after day.

I haven't been able to climb much since we are getting a bunch of late season snow, so I decided to get in some skiing. I went out to Mt. Rainier on Wednesday to skin uphill, and slide back down. For those not familiar, Rainier is the mountain on the title section of this blog. It was a good day, and let me build my mountain legs a bit.

Last night I decided to load up a pack with quite a bit of my gear and hike Mt. Si early before work. As with many plans, I was waylaid. The parking lot for Si is known for car prowlers, and this was my primary concern. I thought that since I was going up at about 4:30am on a Friday morning I would be good to go. I should have been back to my car by around 7am or so. This is far earlier than thieves get up, right?

Wrong.

At 3:30am I woke up to headlights shining in on my car. I watched a car drive around the parking area (which is a secluded area that no one really has any business in besides hiking or stealing) and spin back with headlights right on my car. As they pulled closer I saw that there were three people in the car. I poked my head up above level of the window and they saw me, and immediately pointed their car out of the parking lot and left.

I still don't know what they were doing there. I checked again that my doors were locked and went back to sleep. From this point, however, I would not have a good nights sleep. As I dozed waiting for my alarm to wake me, I dreamed of cars pulling in. One was pointed right at me, but was parked with a note saying that the owner was off climbing, and please don't tow the car. After I sorted out this note, I saw another car driving directly toward me.

I was sleeping in my seat still, but aware of this dream car coming closer. It had its lights directly on me, and the driver got out of his car and came toward me. He opened my passenger door. I still didn't move. Then he tapped me on my shoulder, the shoulder closest to my drivers side door. I could literally feel the tapping, and it wasn't just in my dream. I tried to say something, but I couldn't. Suddenly I sprung awake, trying to shout "WHAT!". It came off my thick cottony tongue as "wht." I looked over, now awake, and SAW SOMEONE SITTING IN MY PASSENGER SEAT!

Now remember that I was still quite sleepy, and it was about 4am at this time. As I tried to swallow my heart back down I realized it was just my pile of clothes in the passenger seat.

I ended up not doing my hike, since it had just been too crazy in that small window of time. I went back to sleep until 6am, and drove back to Seattle. Now I was in a more wilderness area, but it wasn't bears or wolves that made me scared, but people. They are still the most dangerous thing around. The lack of predictability is just too much, and my mind was racing with the possibilities of what could go wrong.

Everything I own is in my car, and it would have been disastrous to have it stolen. For the first time I actually felt vulnerable, and I learned a valuable lesson that will serve me well for the rest of the summer. I am going to make darn sure that every trip I go on will have nothing in my car that could be appealing to someone with less than honorable intentions.

So this time living the dream was kind of tough, but it didn't deter me from pursuing what I want to do. It just showed me that sometimes I need to be more flexible, and that I have to be ready for changing plans.

For those of you who are waiting to hear more about Zbl, he is now sitting at 264,083miles and running strong! I think 400k is not out of the realm of possibility! And if you are wondering, a Honda Accord drivers seat folds almost completely flat to the back seat, and makes a fairly comfortable bed. Give it a try sometime!

Alright everyone, my parting words. Don't let the inevitable nightmares deter you from your dreams. If you look through the haze you'll find those fears might be nothing more than a pile of clothes next to you. Do your laundry!

Birthday Mania!

Sooooooooooo, today is my Dad's Birthday. He is 54. That really isn't that old, though when I was a teenager I would have thought 54 was quite old.

I also thought 30 was a long way away, but two days ago I hit that very age. So here I am, 30, homeless, and pursuing a job meant for guys ten years younger than me. How do I feel about that?

DAMN GOOD! Here I am, still young in my life and realizing what makes me happy. Many people I graduated with have jobs, kids, and the whole life. And they are jealous of me, and what I am going after. I am loving life in my third decade, and am quite sure that I am going after the right thing.

I had a great conversation with my loving girlfriend a week or so ago. We were imagining what we would do if we won the lottery. I realize that for the first time ever that even if I did win I would want to go down the same path. It's a great thing to be that confident about what you are doing in life. Sure the pay isn't that great, but you certainly can't beat the office views.

I am also excited because now I have finished my Level I Avalanche class, and my WFR course. This fall I am going to be taking an American Mountain Guide Association course with one of the most influential people in my climbing career, and a man whom I respect greatly. He really is one of my mentors. How many people get to have this opportunity?

What a great birthday. I am loving my choices, I have the support of my parents, a girlfriend who pushes me to be my best, and I am making definite measurable strides toward my goals. All because I was willing to take a big risk. I hope I can inspire others to take big risks in their life as well. You don't have to live out of your car, but you certainly can push your comfort zone a bit. You never know how good it might be!

Dying and selling out

So tomorrow is the last day of my Wilderness First Responder course. It has been a good time so far. We have had a mixture of lectures and practical exercises, learning and then putting to use the skills we have learned so far. I have learned more about the human body in the last 4 days than I have in the nearly 30 years prior!

Today was a mass casualty exercise. I was a victim. The background scenario is that I had brought out a group of people I met online to practice climbing for a trip we were taking to the Amazon. We weren't climbing rock, however, but trees. I was coaching people from the ground, and had four people in the tree, climbing simultaneously. The person toward the top fell, hitting all the others on the way down, who all fell on me. I was knocked unconscious and couldn't breathe.

Picture this now, four people I met four days ago were instructed to pile up on top of me. Wow. I had a girl laying half on me, and half next to me. She was screaming her lungs out. I had to be dead while someone gave me mouth to mouth. Now at least the mouth to mouth was simulated! It was quite an interesting situation, but as my gf would say, "In the name of learning".

During this simulation, I died.

Which leads me to my next topic. I sold out when I was down here. I have taken the last four days and have actually been living in a hotel room. Luckily for me I had the money saved up from being frugal enough. It's been nice though. The bed is comfy, and I have luxuries like a refrigerator and a stove. I don't even have people walking by and asking me what I'm cooking!

Oh, and I have a shower with just me in it. Pretty nice I must say. I think I might even enjoy a bath before I leave here.

So I did sell out a bit. I was going to live out of my car this week, but I decided that I didn't want to try to figure out a safe place to park in Portland, and I didn't want to subject my classmates to my week long stench. I'm sure they appreciated it, especially since they had to pile up on top of me :-)

All in all it has been a good week, and a good class. Hopefully I am doing well enough so far, and will do well on the final written exam. This really is a big step toward my dream though, and I am glad to be taking it. Check back tomorrow or Thursday to find out how I did. Also, Thursday I turn the big 3-0, so get my thoughts on that.

So all my readers, as always, follow your dreams and do what is right for you. It isn't always easy, but you will know if it's right for you. You won't want to do anything else.

Yoga-cizing

So those of you who know me know that I'm kind of a big dude. For those who don't, I'm 6' tall and about 200lbs. (See picture) Now small guys and gals can do things differently than big guys and gals, and vice versa. That pack on my back? Weighs around 35-40lbs, and feels like there is nothing there. My friend who was on this trip could have carried it, but it would have been a whole lot more for her to lug around.

Now while I am a good person to have around for lugging heavy packs, I am not the person you would look to for grace and flexibility. And that is why I have started yoga.

Imagine this: It's 5:30am, and my phone alarm started to go off. I was tucked into my cozy front seat, head on a pillow and couple of blankets warming me nicely. I knew that I had two options, pull myself out of my surprisingly comfortable drivers seat and go to yoga, or go back to bed.

I decided to go back to bed. This was at 5:30. At 5:47 I made the decision to get my ass moving and do something productive. For those of you who sleep in later, remember that the mornings are now darker after the time jump ahead. I grabbed my gym bag (I have figured out that I need to pack it the night before if I want to actually have underwear) and headed across the street for the class.

Today was my second day of yoga, and I learned from my mistakes already. I grabbed two mats so my poor knees had some padding. We started by sitting cross legged, hands on our knees. Everyone in the class looks serene doing this, just breathing and relaxing. I, however, was sitting with my knees much higher than everyone, hip flexors (misnomer) screaming and reminding me that I am not flexible AT ALL! We did this for about 5 minutes, in which time I had to change position at least 12 times. After this, we began the real workout.

I actually did alright, and was feeling pretty proud of myself. I was only corrected by the teacher a couple of times, and felt like I made it through the much more intense workout better than the easier class of the day before. I left the class still congratulating myself mentally. That was when I overheard a couple of the mid-sixties aged class members complaining that the instructor took it far too easy that day. So much for my ego......

Despite the easier class, I did enjoy it, and will be back. I also went climbing in the gym last night, and I am already seeing the benefits. It's not in the flexibility yet, but in the breathing and control. As I moved through the grades I was able to focus and really breathe, and it helped immensely. Now that is encouraging!

For those looking for a moral, don't be afraid to push yourself and try something new. You never know what the benefits might be. Happy St. Patrick's Day all!

I would rather not be buried by an avalanche

So yesterday and today I took the AIARE Level I avalanche course through Mountain Madness. It was pretty sweet because I got it for the low low price of free. I consider that a success in my career as a climbing bum.

It was a great course, filled with snow, snow, and some yellow snow. I do have enough experience to avoid this yellow snow, because contrary to popular opinion, it is not a lemon snowcone!

I am happy to have taken it, and am just a day away from Level I certification. That combined with my Wilderness First Responder course will make it two valuable certifications in the same month. Not too bad for a slacker living out of his car!

There was a guy in the course who was considering camping out for the night, but was a bit nervous about the cold and being in a tent. He also considered getting a hotel room, or crashing out in his car. As a public service I gave him the tips on how to comfortably spend a night in a car. I think he is going to try it. I'm curious to find out what happens!

So I am going to invite people who may be reading this blog to ask questions or to give suggestions on what you want to read about. We can tailor this to make it more interesting or helpful to you all. Also, it saves you from reading the narcissistic ramblings of me!

ZBL update: over 263,000 miles and running strong! What a champ.

Good night to all. Don't be afraid to push your limits, you don't know what you are capable of until you do.