Climbs With Cullen

Figured it was time to do a little blog update. Last fall the Niblack project shut down and I was shipped off to Carlin, Nevada (hell). It afforded me several opportunities to get to Indian Creek and remember what it feels like to get totally shamed! Got to climb with my good friend Jason's wife Lisa Nelson for the first time which was a real treat. After she left I linked up with Hunter Brown from Juneau and introduced him to the world of crack climbing. A few days of climbing with Hunter and one night of debauchery in Moab with some familiar Juneau faces and it was back to NV for two weeks.

Caught a bus to SLC, a ride with Lisa's Brother to Moab, a ride with Gabe's sister to the Creek. I'm back round two. I haven't seen Cullen since Zodiac. We head out for a day or two of cragging then a route on the backside of the Bridger Jack Mesa (on which my performance was less than awesome). We had discussed going up to Zion for some brown underwear aid climbing, but opted to go to some obscure cliffs in Northern Arizona Instead.The dreaded American Death Triangle!Thats better!Cullen on the Summit

When you are fat and out of shape you'd better be good at carrying heavy loads on top rope

Cullen had been climbing around these Kaibab cliff bands a bit over the last few years and had a line that had been giving him some grief on a formation called the Tooth. This large desert monolith had the most striking lines I had seen in the area and it's East Buttress definitely had that "come hither" appeal. We hiked to the base packed for bear and worked our way up several hundred feet of extremely loose rock to a decent bivy beneath the first two pitches of technical climbing. It was a lovely night looking out over the Grand CanyonThe next morning found us jumaring up the first aid pitch of the headwall and launching into 3 more engaging aid pitches followed by another few hundred feet of 5th class to a beautiful summit. It was a wonderful 2nd ascent of an asthetic adventerous route on a lonely piece of stone in an overlooked part of the American West.
Cullen and I met up two weeks later for three weeks in Ouray. We decided to rent a condo for our stay and after having done that, I will never do it any other way. We had cable so we were able to watch a college bowl game almost every night of the trip. We got a ton of climbing in. The Ribbon, Ames, Birdbrain, Whorehoses, Goldline, Hoser's Hwy, Stairway, a day at Skylight, a bunch of time in the park, an attempt on Bridal Veil (the ice was in miserable shape). Cullen took off and I had the place to myself for a few days. I linked up with Mike O'Donnell for a couple short days of climbing. Hung out with Jason and just enjoyed the party that is the Ouray Ice Festival.

Can't have a blog post without a butt shot. This is near the top of Birdbrain.

Following the second pitch of Ames.

I think we are all caught up. I am waiting for my flight out of Elko right now. I have three weeks back in Juneau hope to get some ice in. Peace