Girl Clothes in Jackson Hole, The Teton Bouldering Project inspires skirt wearing and fund raising

Tonight, I went out to the Performing Arts venue in Jackson Hole with my new friend, Bill Briggs, to see the movie 180 Degrees South.

I wasn't really sure what to expect, I didn't know what the movie was going to be about, just that Bill asked me to go, and that Yvon Chuinard would be introducing the film. That was good enough for me.

I decided to scrounge up some girl clothes, since I only brought ski gear and dirty jeans to Jackson. I headed over to the thrift store here to see if I could find a skirt and a nice pair of flip flops to wear to this shindig, but the store was closed.

Counting my money carefully, so far, its on'y cost me $27 to be in Jackson Hole for three days, I decided to head over to the Teton Mountaineering, since I hadn't been in yet, and I do like to visit the mountain shop in whatever town I'm bumming around in. (By he way, thanks, Nato for letting me sleep in your guest room, these are luxury diggs! It beats the heck out of sleeping in my Suby (although that's fun, too...))

I finally settled on my first ever Patagonia dress, comfortable, flattering, only $65. I ran around town trying to find a cheap pair of comfy heels to wear with my new girl clothes, a very tall order in Jackson, and finally, with about 20 minutes till the movie started, I found the perfect pair for about $30. It took some looking. I changed in the shoe store, wiped the hiking dirt off my legs with a paper towel while the shoe store girl laughed at me, put my hair in a clip I found at a souvenir shop for about $5 and and went headed on over to the event.

I wasn't sure how I was going to find Bill with the phones off, and I didn't know anyone else in town, but I figured, what the hell, the movie is bound to be good. It turns out I was overdressed, but I didn't really care, I so rarely put on a skirt and feel feminine that I enjoyed the hell out of it.

I found Bill almost immediately, and he brought me over to introduce me to some of his friends. I found myself standing in a small group of people having a conversation about how it was hard to climb when you are in your 70s, and so these guys are spending more time fly fishing. Arthritis in the fingers makes it painful to spend much time on rock. I suggested that they get on that new self healing soft fake ice inside, (I was KIDDING), and that of course is like suggesting that if you can't hike anymore you should go watch IMAX movies about wildflowers.

These guys need to be outside just like we all do, and leaving a part of your life that has been so essential for so long has to be painful. It was cool to hear that there is life after climbing, which they've found in fly-fishing and surfing.

It turns out I was talking with Yvon Chouinard, the founder of Patagonia, and a legendary climber, and the event organizer, Christian Beckwith, the erstwhile founder of Alpinist Magazine, who is now up to his eyeballs in all sorts of new ventures, including the Teton Boulder Project.

I asked Yvon about the film, and he told me that he and his friend Doug (Tompkins, founder of The North Face) had taken a trip to Chile in 1968 and filmed it, and this young guy Jeff had found the footage and wanted to reproduce the trip. Doug and Yvon ended up becoming a part of Jeff's journey, and the result was a really wonderful film. Yvon said he hadn't planned on getting so involved, and in the end, he found himself climbing on camera yet again.

It was a treat to chat with Yvon, I loved to hear his stories, and it gave me an idea about cataloging all these amazing off the cuff stories that I'm hearing from so many people, from Cal Cantrell, to Mike Hickey, to Weems, to Bill Briggs, to Pepi, to my own ski partners, Alisa, Angela, Kurt... we all have these stories of adventure. So there is this thing percolating in my mind... stay tuned...

Anyhow, it was a wonderful night, they raised a bunch of money for the Teton Boulder Project, which will be the largest outdoor artificial bouldering in North America here in Jackson Hole.



This is a truly revolutionary community project, it reminds me of a lot of projects like this that tried for years to get off the ground in Southern California, and its wonderful to see it coming to fruition here in Jackson, really a central home of the birth of American Alpinism.

Wow, that was scary!

Bodhi and I are going to stay home while Tom and Ethan go to City of Rocks. Bodhi had the highest fever I've ever seen in a kid last night, sweating even in the palms of his hands, he was so hot to the touch that he was burning me while sitting on my lap, I had to put towels down. He was hallucinating, had terrible frigtening vertigo, and then spent the rest of the night until about 11 this morning throwing up.

So... perhaps six hours in the car is a bad idea, although he really wants to go. Looks like two days of Power Rangers movies for us on the couch! Have fun Tom and Ethan, and...

Happy Birthday, Virginia! Sorry we missed it. xoxo

Off to City of Rocks!

Bye, guys! I'll do some mobile posts if I have any reception, if not, I'll catch up to y'all on Tuesday! The boys and I are meeting Virginia and Jesse at the City of Rocks for four days of climbing and camping! YAY!

Climbing at Allenspur, near Pray, MT

Today was a very unusual day!

This morning, all the boys camped out on the couch together watching Power Rangers Turbo, the Movie, and then...

Tom and I went climbing together for the first time in eight years. It was unbelievably fun. We drove down to Livingston, and then headed toward Chico. We parked just over the river (which was at VERY high water, all the fields and part of the parking lot and road are flooded) and walked through a soggy field and past some beautiful horses, and then climbed up this very narrow, steep, scree filled climbers trail to the rock.



The rock is limestone, and it has such beautiful texture! It's pocketed by the run of, so it has all these little spurs you can stand on, the feet are plentiful! I led a 5.7 right off the bat, which I was psyched to do, it was my first time on a rope in, god, five years? And my first time in climbing shoes in about a year.

I top roped the 5.7 next to it, and then Tom led a beautiful 5.10b on an arrette around the corner, and I top roped it! I had to take a couple of times on the bottom, but then I linked a bunch of moves together, and kind of remembered how to climb! It was GREAT!

Tom climbed a couple more 5.10s around the corner, and I was psyched to try more, but my arm, where its still a little broken, was kind of sore from pulling on the rock, so I gave it a rest. We had an awesome, energetic hike out, and hopped in the car hot, soggy from the adventure in the flooded field, sunburnt, chalky and pumped! What a great feeling.



For more photos of Allenspur, click here!

More test driving of various and sundry broken body parts

I thought I'd truck up Kirk Hill and see if my knee could handle hiking up a steep pitch, as it did alright running on the flats for about 2 miles yesterday. I put on my iPod, cranked up this mix that I made for a friend of mine, and powered up the hill. It was a BEAUTIFUL evening, and I felt really good, but I started feeling my knee at the first vista point. I decided to keep going and see if it intensified, I really REALLY wanted to go all the way to the fire road, and then, if it felt good, do the full loop.

But I am trying TRYING to be conservative, and listen to my body so I don't over train, which I am prone to, especially when I have a performance jump, like I just did (which also often coincides with injury for some reason!)

So I turned around before the fire road and went home. I talked with a friend in need on the way down the hill, connecting again, which was lovely, and am sending good thoughts to them today: Hang in there, this too shall pass!

I'm off to go climbing with Tom at Allenspur today, its our first time climbing together in EIGHT years, we figured it out exactly. Incredible.

Have a beautiful day, go find your BLISS!

The Rebirth of Tom

Here is living proof that no matter how hard life kicks you in the teeth you can become the person you want to be. Tom is climbing again!

Training Log: Climbin' with Tom

I neglected to post some training log items: The week before last, Tom and I managed to climb together at lunch again, and again YESTERDAY, so now we have climbed alone together three times!

Its amazing, I really had thought I hated climbing, that I was just so sososososo SO done with it. But it turns out that was because an evil man had stolen our gym from us, and that I was just too heavy and out of shape to climb. And incredibly enough, with all the bosu balance work I've been doing for skiing, my core has gotten stronger than it has ever been, and now I am climbing well!

This is Tom at the Happy Boulders in Bishop, CA, the last time we climbed hard before the gym went nuts and I got pregnant. We had just been on the most amazing trip to Thailand, climbing, swimming, laying in the sun, and dreaming about one day having kids and taking them there.

SO. WE'RE GOIN' BACK! Yes. Yes we are, Tom and I are determined to get back to Thailand with the kids and climb our little hearts out in Railay. I don't think it will happen this year, but 2008-2009 season, we are saving for it.

Guess what? Dreams come TRUE in Montana!!

Okay, other training log items catch up: Last week, Liat and I were in the gym only twice, and we did a hard chest day and a hard back day. We generally don't hit the gym on the weekend, because we are doing some epic hike or bike or whatever.

Today was leg day, and it was PUNISHING! Doing glute exercises always makes me feel like I am going to puke. But hey, my ass is getting hard, so that's what counts, right? ha ha.

We have plans for a 22 miler this weekend for Liat's Birthday, and to try and start swimming the reservoir at the end of the week.

We have to re-tool the slackline in our yard because the forces are too strong, but look for some training to begin on that next week.

That's it for the training log update! Thanks for reading!

Training Log: June 26: CLIMBING!

Yay, yay and more yay. Tom and I took the boys bouldering outside of Gardiner, and that was fun. But even BETTER than that was the two and a half hours of climbing that we did ALL BY OURSELVES tonight at Spire Climbing Center in Bozeman! YEAH!

Tom and I started out as climbing buddies... well, actually, we started out as coach and client... it cost me $360 in private lessons to get a date with him. And then, years later, we opened our own climbing gym, but by then, I was nursing a 3 month old... and then we had another baby... so in the last 7 years or so, we haven't done ANY climbing together!

We both coached, he climbed with the strong guys in SoCal when he could (but man, for two people who owned a gym, neither of us climbed at all..), and I coached, but was too fat, weak and pregnant to climb at all. And WAY to heavy for it to be fun.

Over time, we just got sad and kind of gave up on climbing together. I figured i was going to always be a fat mom, and when we lost our business to our evil landlord a couple of years ago, we were both so sickened by that loss that we figured we'd never climb again.

Guess what? Tonight, it was a blast. It was like when we first started dating only better, because we were just climbing, no expectations, coaching or anything. Ahhhhh.... climbing with my sexy hubby at last...

Here you go, here is True Love In Action: Tom is the ultimate Cheater Stone, giving me a boost in Thailand in 1999.

Also, been busy building up the training fund so I can go to Mt Hood in August! Visit my Ebay Store: Uuber Baby to buy all the crap I have laying around in my garage. Its actually very swank baby clothes from a designer friend of mine. Makes great shower gifts. She does Rock n Roll t-shirts and such for toddlers. V. Cute.