Athlete • Speaker • Guide 
Athlete • Speaker • Guide Date: 11th February 2012
A big thanks to everyone who commented on the Grand Delusion piece in Explore–very powerful for me to ready our emails, comments on Facebook, and in person. Thank you. Stewart is doing better, hope to visit him later this week. There are a couple of other pieces at the same link I’ve written for Explore also. That’s a good magazine.
Spray Ice Update: Tim Emmett and Klemen Premel have pushed Spray on all the way to the top, and named their route Spray On Top, ha ha! Very cool, here’s the topo, go after it! This year we had a good crew in the cave; I was only able to stay a few days and wasn’t slaying it too much due to some injuries, but man is that huge cave wild, good job Tim and Klem!! The Helmcken Falls Lodge is really just a great place (check out Sarah’s blog for some photos and her words both on the lodge and the climbing). Tim and Klem’s route builds on one Will Mayo and Chris Geisler bolted, it’s just nuts. The upper pitches involve a fair amount of dry tooling; the whole cave is a dry tooling mecca where there isn’t ice… Let’s just says the potential for amazingly hard mixed routes is also very, very high… I’m focused on the ice right now, but Spray On Top definitely shows the future.Next year!
I did managed to get two good new routes done on natural gear this fall, with Chris Geisler. Climbing steep (vertical to gently overhanging) spray ice on spectres in the foam and some good rock gear is just awesome, and opens up a lot more terrain in the cave for people who don’t climb M10 and harder. And Chris G. bolted a new line that’s good fun and “moderate,” and Sarah and John Freeman also bolted a line Chris and I cleaned, description her site.
So now there are at least eight or nine good lines to do in the cave and on the buttress on the way in at various difficulty levels, and of course every year it’s going to be different and wild! This year the ice floor was fully 80 feet higher than it was last year, which meant we were starting climbing at the top of the first pitch from last year. This made absolutely no difference to the fun level. I am absolutely stoked to have been part of a revolution in ice climbing, thanks to everyone who has made the journey to the lodge and falls during the last three years! And you can get the very cool video Josh and Brett made about last year’s trip here, wicked.
If you haven’t been reading Andy Kirkpatrick’s writing then you should be, it’s interesting, available here. I recently got an email with the title, “Gay Lycra” in the subject. I was almost afraid to open it, but inside was a book about grip strength that he wrote to raise funds for his daughter’s cheerleading team. The book is good, but ya gotta admire someone who writes a (good) book to raise money for his daughter. Check it out here.
Tufts VICE show and Mount Washington Valley Ice Festivals
A big thanks to Sterling Ropes (and JB, yeah!), the VICE team at Tufts and the Mount Washington Valley Ice Festival for an absolutely great four days on the east coast! It destroyed me in the best possible way–too much socializing, talking, climbing, drinking, recreating and just generally having at it out east. Awesome to see so many old friends, get inspired, and get outside. On my last day there I had a good tour up Huntington’s ravine on Mt. Washington. Left the car a little before 11:00 (alpine start, yeah), and cruised into Huntington’s. I’d never climbed there before and was just stoked to tick some classics on a great sunny day. Up the uber-classic and historical Pinnacle, down Central Gully, up O’dells, and the best boot skiing ever down this insane luge run on Lion’s Head, I totally crashed a couple of times. So much fun! Back at the car a little before 3, good to get a good aerobic burn on and get rid of all the airplane dust. I managed a quick thrash at Metro rock before I collapsed onto my flight home, perfect.
Posted in: Blog
Will,
Really appreciated your Grand Delusion article in Explore. I hope that you will continue that story, as I think there is much to be learned as you traverse through those 5 stages of grief. Regarding the 5 stages, I’m not sure that it is a linear transition from denial to acceptance, or if we are ever in just one of those stages.
I am getting back into climbing /skiing after 6 years off after my first child was born, and there has been much contemplation about taking these risks again (even though my risk tolerance is very low). Essentially, going beyond the denial that they are risky activities and recognizing despite that, I need those experiences to be full again.
Also wanted to give you my secret to grip strength. Two words: Milk Cow. My wife and I got a milk cow 1 1/2 years ago and nothing works grip strength better than milking!
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