Kelly's 2004 Season Climbing Log

28 February - A-Basin w/ Sean & Cheyenne: Sean was finally ready, and we got him out on steep bumps on Pali today, for his first double-black on teles. We cut the day short after near-zero-vis conditions and a good number of training runs, but still enough to tire us out and get an excellent workout.

29 February - Crosstraining w/ Sean, 12.4 mile trail run in Boulder to see how much better I'd feel about it this week. Yep, I feel a little better about it. A little. The Academy Awards were very dull. My jalepeno poppers weren't.

5 March - Breck w/ Florida Bill: As a warmup day for Bill, we went to Breck for the day; he hadn't seen the snow conditions yet this year, nor the new developments on Peak 7. We had as much fun as humanly possible.

6 March - Vail w/ Dynah & Florida Bill: Conditions were difficult on south-facing slopes, we soon discovered; after a few tries in the bowls, we gave up and stuck to north-facing slopes where the ice hadn't set up as heavily. I was very proud of Dynah for following us down Blue Ox today, her first double-black and a heinously long bump run to boot. We skied ourselves out before heading to the condo for scrumptious pork chops on the barbie.

7 March - Keystone w/ Dynah & Florida Bill: Trees, tighter than she liked, were the order of the day. We did a few runs and had a couple of stellar ones even here at Keystone (it's a hated place due to the proliferation of snowboarders and scraped-to-ice runs in general), and worked ourselves completely to exhaustion. I'm most proud of my last run of the day, in the last turns under the lift; turn in bumps, turn in bumps, turn on what appeared to be a bump but was in fact a large rock, and faceplant resoundingly right at the base of the mountain at high speed. Yum. Ouch. I really need some more serious training if I'm gonna ski like this hard!

13 March - Crosstraining, solo, 13.5 mile road-and-crosscountry trail run on North Table Mountain in Golden, 1450' of gain/loss and several cacti straight through the running shoes. Excellent off-trail run and noone there to bother with except the two deer herds I bumped into.

15 March - Crosstraining, solo, 6.66 mile hill road loop around Bear Creek Park. Just a little training run to see where the roads went.

17 March - Crosstraining, solo, 13.9 mile up & down hill ride from home to the top of Cheyenne Canyon, 1320' gain/loss in 1:22. Yowza - I thought I was gonna die by the time I reached the parking lot. The sun was set by then, and my blue goosepimply arms were certainly happy to be home twenty (very fast) minutes later.

20 March - Canyonlands Half Marathon, Moab, w/ Sean & Anne: This is what we were training for. Well, sort of. I needed an interim goal to keep my interest and motivation up, and this was convenient. The course runs the last 11 miles of the river road and then turns south into Moab, with killer scenery the whole way. Today it was hot - like, 20 degrees above normal, and several degrees above the previous record high. I stopped sweating the last three miles in the sun, and two people passed out next to me in the last mile; and still, I got a PR for the distance in 1:55:37 chip time. Fun run, and the training's paid off nicely.

21 March - Crosstraining w/ Sean & Anne: Round Mountain loop in Castleton Valley, ~4 miles of trail running in the hot hot sun on the way home from Moab today to work the acids out of our muscles from yesterday's heat-fest. Unfortunately Sean forgot his climbing shoes at home, so we just headed back a few hours earlier than otherwise we might have for food and rest.

24 March - Crosstraining, solo: 2110' of gain/loss and 8.52 miles of road and trail on the Section 16 loop from home today after work. Somewhere around the top of the climb, the sun set... It was a long, quiet, and dark run down.

25 March - Crosstraining w/ Sean K: Sean burned me up pretty good this evening; we took Gold Camp to Columbine, and had ideas of tackling Captain Jacks afterwards. It was dark by the time we reached the upper parking lot, though, so we just buzzed on home to a 16.45 mile ride with a couple of thousand feet of gain on it. I'm a big fan of my rechargable bike headlight now.

27 March - 11Mile w/ Bekah: Meeting new partners is always fun. Bekah just came back to the Springs after surfing in Cali for the past few years, and she's done more fun climbing than I ever hope to do. We had fun introducing her to the SPlatte starting on Arch Rock with Hollow Flake (6) for a warmup, and then Captain Fist to Arch Rock Route (8 sandbag to 7R). I couldn't get the 9ish roof that I remembered being so much fun last summer, and Bekah's bad wrist kept her from mantling it cleanly, so we decided that, what, with the wind, and the cold, and it had been snowing, and it was our first day out for the year, more or less, to take the easier road and bail down Village Idiot. :) We both led Moby Grape (7) on 11Mile Dome before heading back to town for food, naps, and more fun later on - oh geez, did I really agree to go run the 12 Hours of InSanitas in Boulder tomorrow?!? I musta been drinking last night or something. Looking forward to getting out with an at-least-equal partner on the rock over the summer! Oh - and somehow my jacket pocket came unzipped (how did that happen...) on Moby, and one of my radios took a 70-footer. It broke the battery pack, but the radio was fine except for a broken snap closure on the battery case. Whoops. But duct tape'll fix that.

28 March - 12 Hours of (In)Sanitas w/ Sean H.: It was fun while it lasted, but as we've started to learn, it sure hurts when you stop. Our modest goal was 4 laps on Sanitas, at 1400' in 1.4 miles with a 1.7 mile downhill afterward; the second lap was brutal but after that I actually started to feel really good. I was being lapped by some of the faster runners who turned out, and I didn't feel so great about that at the time. As it turns out, just about everyone else there (besides Sean and I) is a nationally ranked ultra runner. I feel much better about being lapped by such company, now. After 4 Sean suggested 'just one more lap' and I said yes. That was probably not such a good idea. :) So, after 15.5 miles and 7000' of gain/loss for the morning, we stopped. My back is not happy with me today; too much pounding without a good orthotic. But, based on how we felt after 5 laps, we're both pretty confident in our ability to do something really fun soon, like an R2R2R in Arizona. Yay, pain.

3 April - Vail w/ Phany: It was short-lived, unfortunately. The snow has set up completely as corn in the back bowls, and It Was Good. Slushy excitement in the lower bumps, down in mashed-potato land, and excellent all around. Unfortunately, after a late mellow start (well heck, the forecast was for major winter storm with 1-3 the day before and 10" more today) we crossed over Vail Pass to blue sunny skies. And I'd based my packing list completely on the forecast, and had no sunscreen. Then, 3-1/2 runs in (good ones, long, too), I blew my binding for the year. Broke the binding completely in half, and ripped it out of the ski. A ways up on Blue Sky Basin, as far back as one can get on Vail (and that's a long ways back). Feeling very manly, I opted to ski all the way back down and out on one ski. It was good. I felt very pleased with my survival skiing technique in 4" of slush and water on one telemark ski. Cute snowboarders gave me props as I did it. It was good. Hehe. The new pair of skis and bindings, it being the end of the year and all, only set me back $400.

4 April - Vail w/ Dynah: I wasn't convinced on the new skis until I'd put them on and given them a thorough testing, hi-speed corn, bumps, slush, traverses, and some moderately steep stuff. God, it's amazing what edges are like again, after 6 years on the old crap (it's not the skis, it's the skier - repeat x3). I think I like 'em. We had fun, and Dynah got to taste corn for the first time. While she was still fresh and warmed up (not having been fed much for breakfast, my mistake) she enjoyed it and got a good new experience. Afterwards, the heavy aspect to the slush screwed with her knee and her confidence. It was a wonderful warm day, though, and I sure wish I hadn't listened to the meteorologists (see previous entry). Some peeling will probably ensue. It should balance with my happiness on being on cool, excellent new skis (Atomic 184 TM:EX midfats with G3s, instead of 7-year old Rossi Cut 10.4 187 rental-breeds with BD Riva-Z Comps, lifted).

8 April - Canyonlands, Utah w/ Dynah: Starting a biking-in-the-desert weekend. Drove out to Moab and found a nice patch of BLM land to camp on near Island in the Sky, before getting a little 3.86 mile out-and-back warmup on the isolated jeep roads before it started raining on us. It's cooler than we expected for this time of year in the desert.

9 April - Moab, Utah w/ Dynah: Rode the Monitor-Merrimac loop today, 12.36 miles RT with little sidetrips, learning to enjoy slickrock and hate sand. Wonderful scenery and a good introductory ride. The Jeep Safari going on this weekend is definitely here, with big groups of 4x4s around messing up our solitude, unfortunately.

10 April - Moab, Utah w/ Dynah: Rode the Behind the Butte jeep trail today,14.31 RT. It didn't quite go as expected, as a number of the jeep roads aren't on the recent maps and we missed our loop around Prostitute Butte. We ended up doing a kinda nutso loop on the jeep trail proper, and had a mile and a half highway uphill back to the 4x2 parking area we started from.

11 April - Arches, Utah w/ Dynah: Rode out from Devil's Garden along Salt Valley to Tower Arch and back for our big ride, 23.86 miles RT to a more quiet area than the rest of the park.

12 April- Fruita w/ Dynah: Rode Mary's Loop and Horsethief Bench, 12.72 miles RT, 67.11 total for the weekend, on the way home. No climbing this trip, unfortunately; too tired to do any decent bouldering at Big Bend on the way home, but explored around the Trail Through Time at the border before getting in a hot ride and long painful ride back to Golden.

14 April - Crosstraining, solo: 6.72 miles and 800' of gain/loss running a loop past Section 16, back to Bear Creek Nature Center, and along the trails to the dog run and then home. My legs are still tired from the biking and I think I'm a bit run-down from a week of camping and driving without a good bed. Need to take it a little easy for awhile and still get some training in for my big upcoming weekend in AZ.

17 April - Turkey w/ Rob, Dan, Bekah, Bill, & Heather: Too much snow in place after last weekend's storms to do our possible planned activities, either the Prow on Kit Carson or the Y or Railroad colouirs on Pikes, so we rounded up a bunch of people to head tradding instead. "Warmed up" on Ragger Bagger on lead, only a 7 with a deal of OW, and bloodied myself up nicely - my head game's in pieces after so long away from leading. Followed Robbie up Reefer Madness next, and then spent the afternoon critiquing and coaching Heather and Bill on crack technique to enhance their enjoyment for the day and for days to come. We're proud of Heather for starting to climb after taking a header on the boulder-hopping down to the Perch, knocking her forehead on the rock after an 8-foot freefall, and then picking up some beginning crack skills and taking out Left Handed Jew's 8+ crux with no problems. Windy day, but sunny and lots of fun.

18 April - Crosstraining w/ Dynah & Sean K.: I still don't see what's fun about riding one's bike uphill for 9 miles for a couple miles of downhill trail riding. It was cold and windy coming around the corner on Gold Camp onto the dirt, and my quads just weren't up for it today. Buckhorn uphill was too much for my legs today, and Captain Jacks coming down to the road just wasn't good enough for me to appreciate the uphill that preceded it. Maybe on a day where I didn't feel so rough (after the offwidth monster spits me out the day prior)... 17.63 miles total, on an 'easy' ride. Bleagh.

19 April - Tapering off, just a 2.3 mile jog with the new orthotic around the neighborhood today to see how it felt. Some mild ankle twinging as it forces my arch outward, but not too bad after a quarter mile of adjustment.

21 April - Shelf w/ Surfer Scotty: With weather threatening to make CO a mess for the rest of the week, and with full intentions of keeping it mellow until the weekend AZ trip, we nixed the Garden this afternoon and instead jaunted down to Shelf Road for a little climbing after an early day at work. Scotty's never been here, despite having been one of my prime partners when we were young and stupid(er). We walked along Cactus Cliff as he gawked at the routes, and finally came around to Chompin' at the Cholla (9), something I thought would give us a good flavor for the area without being strenuous. I took my precious time getting up it, nervous on the lead after too long without a good solid lead head, and sent the direct (10ish) clean on TR after Scott had his fill on it. Moving over to Spiny Ridge, we went a step easier with Cheers (8+) in the evening light, fun with good movement, but decidedly un-Shelf-like. It started spitting snow on us as we walked back for another route, so we headed home instead; fun afternoon, and proof that you can get a few routes in down there if you get moving after work early enough with our DST light.

25 April - The Big Ditch, R2R2R w/ Sean H.: 48 miles, 13,100' gain and loss, 18 hours 47 minutes - my first ultra, an adventure run with Sean across the Grand Canyon from the South Rim (tourist haven) to the North Rim via Bright Angel and North Kaibab, and return, unsupported, nonstop. I guess the training runs paid off, as we ran a good 35 miles of it and hiked (at best speed, depending on where into the route we were) the rest. It's truly a shame that most people just get out of their cars and look at the Canyon from the South Rim; it's a beautiful place to go into, and the North Kaibab trail is unbelievably pretty and cool. The biggest disappointment was our sandwiches, cached in the Bright Angel creek at the bottom to keep them cool, completely getting waterlogged by faulty ziplocks. Carrying out the disgusting mush was much worse than having a yummy healthy sandwich to power us up the last ten miles of trail. Although I haven't gotten around to processing my pictures or to writing a TR for this adventure run, Sean has: His run-description of the trek and a bunch of pictures from the run are located here.

1 May - A rousing game of bocci ball and a little frisbee tossing around Golden city park this evening, after a crispy crunchy half-mid-day skiing at A-Basin.

2 May - Apparently 'taking it easy' isn't really in my vocabulary. Today we did a nice, mellow, easy 21 mile road ride through Golden and Wheat Ridge on the paved trail system. Nothing too out there.

7 May - Turkey w/ Bill, Dan, & Rob: We headed for the Leftovers today to escape the potential crowds on a sunny day at the crag; we were about the only ones there, as it turned out. Happy days! We explored the drop-off options in Turkey Ranch Estates and doing a rotating run-to-get-the-car thing as well, and it was good. :) Dan and Rob led up and then switched on Captain Fist (8) and Prime Rib (8), and as Bill and I TRd them Dan went on up Too Much Crack (10a); we all finished up on top together after a second and third pitch, and then wandered further left. I wanted to start getting a head back on, and led up Hang Ten (7) while Dan and Rob came up the second easy pitch of Chicken Feet. I packed up and ran down (and way up) for the truck as the boys played on Mellow Yellow (8). Geez, I really need a lead head again.

8 May - First Flatiron w/ Dynah: Something easy, something fun, long and mellow - all 9-1/2 pitches of it roped, as I knew the perfect rope-stretcher belay stances already. It was most amusing to hear both D and the party ahead of us continually ask 'this isn't the top yet?!?' with 6, 5, and 4 pitches left to go. Nice day in the sun, if a long one.

15 May - Parachute w/ Dan: Dan just wanted something hard today to make sure his head was ready for his Gunks trip next month. I wanted to start getting a head on, and led Texas DJ (8) for my warmup. Some kind soul has placed bolts at the top of all of the walls for easy descents - thank you! Instead of reminding Dan that he hadn't warmed up on a lead yet, I let him go - he went right for True Religion (10c), and pulled it off for a great redpoint. Using the wall for practice, I put up Flake Route (8+) next, and we then TRd Rip Cord (10a), my first 10 onsight several years ago. We finished the beautiful day hanging with some other parties and having Dan lead up The Caped One (9), one of my favorites. Excellent day.

16 May - 11Mile w/ RC.c group: I'd planned on perhaps heading to 11mile for the nighttime festivites, but realized last afternoon that I didn't have any money for the entrance fee. Besides, the hot tub and a bed sounded really good after a long, hard trad day. I got up early and me up with Reno for his Relocating Rendevous as they were finishing breakfast. Jeff and I put up Armanj Das (5) for a warmup, and then I foolishly pulled the rope on Ben Dover (9+), a sport climb I found way too vertical and reachy on lead with no headgame. Jeff finished the route to the last bolt, then took a whipper, and I went back up and did the last moves to the clip. Talk about laying siege to a sport climb! BobD and Kcrag had put up a new route immediately next to it, and although I felt finished, I was coerced into giving it a try, with slidy oversized shoes and all. Anne Taykit (11b/c) was right over my head, but with some serious hangdogging I worked through it and realized how far I've got to go... A quick dinner at La Casita on the way back to Denver for the crew, and a good day with friends I don't get to see often enough. Good luck in Arizona, Jeff!

17 May - Cheyenne Canon w/ Kirra: I redeemed myself today with Jason's friend from Arizona, Kirra - I put up both pitches of Crack Parallel (8) in Cheyenne Canyon with the heady direct finish, after a lazy morning with plenty of sleeping in on a day off.

18 May - The Martyr w/ Dan: The weather today looked promising higher, but not so down in town - Dan and I headed up Old Stage to the semi-secret crack crags. A sea of clouds below us was our first reward. Unfortunately, after finding the correct shortest path (for the first time) to the top of the crag, Dan's biorythyms were screwed up and we just didn't make it. The raps down were intimidating, and a ways up the first pitch we backed down, content with a good and safe morning but not willing to push it when we weren't in the right mindset for it. We'll be back - it's the best rock near town, and a fantastic climb.

21 May - Ruby Beach and Hoh Rainforest, Olympic National Park, WA: Took some personal time on a long weekend trip to take some photographs at the beach and rain forest, two of my favorite places. The light wasn't great, but it was good enough. :)

22 May - Crosstraining, solo, at Point Defiance, Tacoma, WA: There's a really nice 5-mile loop run around Point Defiance, through semi-rain forest, right in town. I took it to burn off some steam and have some exercise today before the wedding that the trip was about in the first place. Very neat place - I highly recommend it if you're ever in the area.

29 May - 11 Mile w/ Dan & Surfer Scotty: On a quiet holiday weekend, we set off for some more mellow climbing (less committing, anyway) at 11Mile. Dan led Face Value (8+), a sport route that I hadn't been on before, and I pulled the rope and re-led it; after a cursing match with South Face Direct (10b) and my follow, we ventured down to hang with Rob and the familial unit at Turret Dome until the lightning, thunder, and quickly lowering temperatures chased us off.

13 June - Horsetooth Mountain Trail Run in Fort Collins, w/ Sean & Anne: (8 miles, 1800')

27 June - Crosstraining w/ Sean: Eldorado Springs/South Boulder Diversion Canal (6.7 miles)

July-mid September - no climbing, really - a couple of days here and there, a tour on the First Flatiron, but mostly a lot of personal shit. Got laid off, selling my old house, bought a new one and working hard on fixing it up, bought another bike for cyclocross, commuting, and training, and been doing a lot of training rides. Probably try to keep this more up to date now that I have a little more stability in the world, for the first time in a few months.

13-17 September - Travel to St. Louis for work. I fully intended to get out and log some runs, but we ended up staying at a hotel in an industrial park, a 'safe' place for my co-workers, miles from anyplace that I wanted to try a run at (riverfront, forest park, kady trail) or anywhere but chain restaurants to eat. I got out a couple of times for runs around the industrial park in the mornings, so it wasn't a total loss. We did spend an hour or two down at the Arch and came away with a little bit of nice photography, if rushed, though.

17 September - Trash Bash @ Flagstaff w/ Sean, Anne, and Daniel: Absolutely exhausted from the trip and flight back, I nevertheless packed the cyclo bike on the car and headed up for the goodwill event. We rode the bikes up the mountain and I absolutely died before we spent our time picking up garbage and later drinking beer at the event.

18 September - Long MTB ride up in the Fraser Valley across from Winter Park w/ Sean, 30 mile loop with 6 miles of fun singletrack on the High Lonesome.

19 September - Training w/ Sean: Plans for a long road ride were nixed by high winds, so we just biked a mellow 28 or so around Louisville and the eastern roads for a relatively short but blustery training day.

23-24 September - Travel to Ogden UT for work. With just one overnight, I couldn't get out for anything really productive; packing ten pounds of shit into a five pound sack was the order of the day, and even the sunset photography on Antelope Island suffered. One run with a couple of laps around the Layton Mall was all I can claim from this one.

25 September - Monarch Crest trail ride w/ Sean & Daniel: We took the normal 30-mile first half to 285 along the Crest and then down Silver Creek, and then Sean and I decided to continue to beat ourselves senseless on a 10+ mile extra that would hopefully take us on into Salida. The map was way off, as was our beta on this section; we climbed about 2500' up the 1000' climb and topped out in near-darkness, then took a wild ride down the fairly advanced downride to the last six miles of in-the-dark hike-a-bike, turning it into a near-epic. Glad I've learned my lessons about carrying a headlamp everywhere. More singletrack and climbing than I really bargained for; two weeks to the big ride out in Canyonlands now.

26 September - Too beat up to do anything else today, I focused on shooting as Sean and Daniel played with fly fishing on the Arkansas. Practiced casting a little, but mostly just took pictures and enjoyed being outside in the quiet and sun.

2 October - Took a hike in Golden Gate state park to see what might be there, look for colorful trees, and generally just get outside this afternoon. The light wasn't particularly cooperative this afternoon - too dull with the clouds coming in over the mountains - but it still was a nice outing.

3 October - Another day off from adventuring, and instead went and tooled around Red Rocks and the dinosaur interpretive center near Morrison. I suppose that if I got my boots muddy it counts as having done something; it was a pretty good down day, and I must say that I've enjoyed the weekend.

9 October - WRIAD w/ Sean. White Rim In A Day, unsupported 101-mile mountain bike loop around Island in the Sky in Canyonlands; it's a unnatural thing in an unnaturally cool and beautiful place. The light wasn't with us for photography except for about 20 minutes in the early morning, but Sean reminded me (correctly) that we were there to ride anyway... and, he had plenty of time to do photography waiting on me after each section we broke the ride into. It didn't start off particularly well - my front brake assembly exploded about a mile into the trail, after an apparently-botched maintenance job at the bike store, leaving me with one brake (30%) for the whole ride. I had no idea a hundred miles was, well, so darn long. After a righteous bonk around mile 86, I had a nice long uphill walk/ride back to the parking lot in the dark (as both of my light systems failed, about the same time as I ran out of food, water, and energy). The bonk went away, eventually (sometime on Monday, as I recall). Anyway, I finished, under my own power, without assistance; a little more slowly than I'd have liked, but mostly due to the Big Bonk and just having started biking, in 14:38 elapsed time.

7 November - Yeah, I took some time off after the last adventure. Today, I went and explored a 20-mile look on the cyclo bike around Littleton, enjoying the last warm and sunny days of the sesason and looking forward to snow soon.

8-11 November - Work trip to Jacksonville, FL. Didn't get to do everything I wanted while I was gone, but did spend the morning Thursday running on the beach and splashing through the surf.

13 November - 1st day skiing for the season, warming up at Breck for the afternoon. Nice change to try being social and extroverted while I was doing it - met some really interesting people out there. Was planning on doing some backcountry on Sunday, but closing down Cecilia's with friends put the kibosh on that idea. It was a pretty darn good weekend all the way around.

19 November - Closed out on the sale of my old CoSpgs house, finally, as well as my old CJ5 today. I hope this will allow my finances to come back into some semblance of order and will give me more playtime rather than having to maintain stuff 70 miles away!

21 November - A small group of us went up to the Basin for some turns today; Arlene forgot her poles and nabbed a bamboo pole to practice with as a lurk. We finished the day with an excellent run down Loveland Pass on the way home.

25 November - Thanksgiving skiing at the Basin with Dan, turkey and fixin's under blue skies at 11k'.

26 November - The car was acting a little strange today, so I dropped it at the shop and rode the cyclo bike back and forth to work today. It's really beginning to get too cold for this sort of venture! It probably also helped aggravate this nasty cough/cold that I've been fighting down for the last week. Really, I'm much (cough, hack) better.

4 December - Keystone w/ Sean & Cheyenne, found some wonderful bumps on North Peak that were of course labeled 'early season conditions', but we hit them anyway! Nothing beats a good bump day with a few rocks thrown in for good measure - and Keystone is great for early season conditions when there's just the right amount of snow!!

11 December - Vail w/ Cheyenne, I CANNOT believe it's still only December with snow like this. I got first trax on Dragon's Teeth in 14" of fresh, and beat the living bejeesus out of poor Cheyenne on a south-facing cement slope on his 5th tele day. We spent a lot of the afternoon working on technique to get him out of alpine survival ski mode, and had very definite progress. This rocks, and bodes well for the rest of the season.

19 December - Breckenridge w/ Dan & Cheyenne, decided mid-flight to hit the cold windy place. Dan had never skied here so I took him on the grand overview tour until we found something with good soft snow on Rounders. We skied all day and were exhausted by the end of the day, marvelling on how few people were up on a perfectly good Sunday. I wish all the runs were that good and there were as few people as we had around all day, all season. :)

24 December - A Basin w/ Dan & Cheyenne: What a stellar day. The upper mountain was almost entirely open, but with no manning only Lenawee was open to carry us up. I didn't think I was going to be on game today when we got started, but after a couple of runs I found my mojo skiing the bumps under the lift. Numerous bump runs and plowing through 3" of fresh windblow ensued - no lines all day (what, are people celebrating something today?). We even talked Dan into talking to the cute Swedish liftie and giving her his number for future, uh, skiing adventures up in the County. Good for Dan! heh. By the way, Dan, "God Jul" is the phrase we were trying, Feliz Navidad in Swedish. :)

Kelly goes surfing.

Check out the photo albums (slideshow format, broadband recommended) here, if they're still online:
Surf album 1
A couple of more, mostly San Jose.

27 December - Surfing, Playa Tamarindo, Nicoya peninsula, Costa Rica. Sean told me I should give this a try. In light of my move and job change over the summer, I couldn't do my previously planned trek in Patagonia, and decided around turkey day to do something as a consolation prize. Learning how to surf and trying something tropical, which I haven't ever tried before, surfing sounded pretty decent. Plus I'll have another expensive sport to pursue, and what else is there in life but expensive sports? So anyway, here I am at Witches Rock surf camp, wondering how much water I'll swallow and if old water phobias will rear. Unfortunately, my lesson isn't until late this afternoon, so I just acclimate and explore the beach and town today until 1600. It's a big adjustment from the cold snap and snow at home last week, but pretty welcome. After 2 days of travel from home, to COS, to DFW, to Miami, to San Jose, and then by the slow local bus to the beach, I'm ready for something, anything, but travel. Thank goodness I'm getting used to delays and long layovers and crowded flights from my work stuff. I'm completely unplugged for 9 days, for the first extended period in years. It's not bad; I think about it, wonder what's going on, but find that it really doesn't matter, so long as the surf is okay.

I suppose I should have gone and tried out a board earlier in the day, but not knowing anything at all I might have started out teaching myself poor habits that would work against me. I only have a couple of hours before sunset for surfing when we start, with our first instructor, Briege, a new addition to the faculty from Wales. She's very cute and obviously loves surfing, but I don't get the warm fuzzy about surfing instruction from our brief beach lesson on how to jump up onto the board; I start out in the whitewater, low 1 to 2 foot breakers close to shore, no more than waist deep, letting the breaks propel me instead of paddling. I stand a couple of times, sort of, and fall off a lot more often than not. I don't see the attraction here yet, but then it's the bunny slope. Perhaps tomorrow!

28 December - Surfing, Playa Tamarindo. Another day, another dollar. Well, not really, since this is holiday, but nevertheless. The most amusing part of surfing so far has been having relatively open sinus cavities (if you do as well and have tried surfing, you'll completely understand this one without my saying any more!). I certainly didn't expect it, but then I haven't been diving in a number of years either. Be careful turning your head to take a bite of food after surfing, or you might, uh, dribble unexpectedly. ;) I played alone and practiced, mostly without much success, this morning, and tried starting out a bit farther. Green is very different from white when trying to figure out the timing. I proceeded to get pounded regularly and learned the fine arts of dipping the tip and washing machine action all by myself. I'm getting pretty tired, already, of the neoprene-topped beginner longboard. Nevertheless, after a couple of hours of beating, a decent lunch, and a couple of cervezas, I'm ready for my lesson.

Today again I have Briege, and the missing surfer from my group yesterday, a guy from Toronto off doing a canopy tour yesterday, shows up. So much for a solo lesson. We start to work, mildly, on easy green waves since we supposedly "know" how to stand up now. I'm still being way too aggressive with my stance, wanting to stand as though on a carving (snow)board, feet angled forward, instead of completely sideways like a freestyle boarder (sorry, dude). Briege lets us flummox and fall, and tries mostly in vain to get us up before the waves break right on top of us. A couple of minor successes each and we feel better about it all. At least the scenery (instructor) is good. I don't feel so badly about this after this afternoon, but I wonder still if only 4-1/2 days will be enough to get a feel for this.

The food here ranges from very bland (good, but basic, casado, which is rice and black beans with some course of meat grilled and served with it) to just-less-bland (actually tasty, but without much spice, mostly mahi and random semi-american fare). I'm experimenting around town, and finding a wide range of quality of fare. It's all pretty decent, but nothing except the cubanos and pescado burritos at the Tropicali are really standing out. I love the hotel, Mamiri, that I found, except for the hard foam mattress. It feels like camping. I love the room, done in a rustic and asian theme, and the grounds are quiet and heavenly. There's a kitchen and fridge, hammocks, and plenty of space to relax - even though I'm spending all of my waking hours on the beach surfing or trying to recover with a beer! I certainly don't miss anything, but I'm not completely entranced by the food - and I'm eating as much as I can, much more than my usual 1 meal a day, to keep up my strength and ability to keep going for a number of days.

29 December - Surfing, Playa Grande. Yesterday I discovered the most amusing thing about surfing, and today I figured out one of the more annoying, again something completely unexpected. I never really realized that seawater melts earwax. This is most annoying, because now I can't hear out of one ear about half the time. Gosh darn it, it makes me want to go hold my head under until it's all gone!!

I again start out early and solo, since I feel I can practice alone relatively safely, being completely proficient at finding the surface and holding my board and the fins away from me when I dip and whirl (which happens quite often still). I'm basically standing around in neck-deep water, waiting to see something promising. When I do (and I'm getting slightly better at reading swells a couple hundred meters out) I'll hop on and see what I can do. My timing sucks. Too often I'm too far behind the wave, and far too often I'm just too far ahead, and getting pounded. I can't seem to find a balance. I DO, however, figure out a paddling technique that seems far faster on the wide boards, hands twisting and dipping below the board. That's something I'd have liked to have known from a lesson. I decided that I was quite finished with the neoprene rash abrasion on the beginner boards and picked out an 8'6" instead today, with no idea if the wax was okay or not. No idea how it is supposed to go, or isn't. Heck, it sorta works, so it's all good.

The board is a little twitchier and narrower, and I have a couple of embarrassing moments turning while laying on it, where I just roll over and ditch, sitting in the water waiting for a wave. Not for the last time! Eventually I pick up a couple and don't feel so badly. Again today we have Briege, and it's supposed to be solo; however, another lesson has a never-before beginner and another guy, Boaz, who's been about 20 days, so we grab him. We talk Briege into bringing her board today, so we can learn from seeing as well as listening. I'm tired and beat up, but we decide to go a step further today and try angling the shoulders over on the next beach north, Playa Grande just across the river mouth. There's a pretty good rip drawing us toward the rocks that line the north edge of the estuary, but I'm frankly more worried about the waves, which are much more consistent. And larger. And more frequent. It seems that I'm getting hit harder and harder over here, even trying to start off with some lateral motion. Briege briefly discusses taking lateral lines to catch longer rides on waves that don't close out all afront and at the same time, and we head in to see what that means in person. I guess that I'm picking directions wrong and still don't have timing set correctly - Briege notices this, too. Since I'm drifting and still getting beaten so badly, I take a break after a half hour and sit on the beach for a few minutes. Boaz and Briege are riding nicely, and I'm jealous. I go back up the beach and descend again into the rougher water, and actually catch a couple of 3-4 footers, riding them just off of straight. More often than not still, though, I'm not putting it all together just right. I go back shortly after my last and best ride of the day, walking and swimming back to the main beach, leaving Boaz and Briege to catch a few more. I'm too exhausted to get anything going, and I know it.

Tamarindo is an interesting small town. It reminds me of Breckenridge without the fancy places to eat a lot, with maybe 1000 permanent residents but more and more tourists and ticos piling into town all week, making it very busy and dusty. The road is being repaired today; most of the roads in town are just dirt, but the main drag is paving stones. A bunch of workers have started ripping them out and replacing them, by hand, after sort of leveling the dirt base underneath. It's like a big cheap patio, and I can't tell the difference after they're done. The dust in the main part of town is much worse, though, particularly with the winds sustaining at 10 knots from the NE, inland. More traffic appears each day, and more city folk on their vacations.

30 December - Surfing, La Finca Sur. I'm confident enough today to go and buy myself a rash guard, instead of using my borrowed gear from Sean; I find a decent deal and a shirt I like, something that stands out just a little bit more. What's interesting today, I realize, is that I'm still pretty solo here. I haven't really met any people. I imagined that surf camp would be more friendly and open, that there would be a group of people that I would see again and again and get to know. Nothing doing. I am pretty sure that because I'm at a hotel on the far side of town I'm not really in the 'in' place to meet people, but I'm not exactly hiding from people, either. The small classes (generally 2 of us) and distance between accommodations are fighting me. That's okay, too, though. I'm pretty happy being alone, and it does keep me nicely focused on what I'm doing. No distractions.

There's no lesson today. Instead, we have an early trip to a quiet beach, an hour and a half ride from Tamarindo (which by straight line means maybe 20 miles). We're supposed to be there to get boards and leave at 0515. I'm the only one there at 0500. I'm still pretty much the only one there at 0530. Tico time takes a new meaning. We're all gathered and off by about 0615, though, maybe 20 of us in two bus-vans. Other people seem to have come in groups, or have gotten to know a few people, and I end up in the bumpy rear end of one bus, and just take in the scenery. The beach is deserted as we arrive, just a few fishermen on an outcropping on the south end of the cove. Again I've chosen an 8'6" board, and we all go out to play. The waves are rollers, smallish except on the north end where the bottom is rocky and the more advanced kids head immediately. As the morning progresses quickly I find I can't catch a bloody thing - the breaks are much less consistent than back at Tamarindo, and I'm always ahead or behind. My feet don't seem to want to cooperate when I try to mount the board - too much built-in memory wants me to throw my body, and feet, dead forward instead of the proper-for-surfing perpendicular that this sport requires. It's a challenge to think through it with so many things going on at the same time, and I eat lots of boardtip. After 45 minutes of beating, I have had enough.

I wanted to do some basic photography on this trip, and brought a couple of pocket cameras for the chance. With the waterproof case wrapped around my climbing camera, I wade and swim out to see what I can't catch of those people that actually CAN stand up here. Being a sports photographer is a lot more challenging without a tripod and super telephoto lens sitting on the beach! I get hit and rolled all over the place with no floatation devices or weights to keep me centered, but I'm much more free to get in close to the other people from the school. And what I find as being really strange is that it's easier to meet people this way. When we're all surfing we're all very focused and engrossed in what we're doing, unless we're in a calm bit between sets; even then, on a board, everyone is watching for the next wave, and it's very quiet. With a photographer, it seems to get people interested in talking, in performing, in finding out why you're not on your board. I try to get some pictures of everyone, try to get people catching things instead of sitting in the water; my results are mixed. The ISO on the camera wasn't set high enough and I end up with some blur in even my best shots. Darn slow response times on the older digis!! It's quite worthwhile, though. I don't get back on my board for the trip. As we're all heading out of the water, I wade out to the beach. I was over in the rocks with the advanced kids earlier and figured out what they were all about on the feet, but just walking off the sand is easy. Ten feet from the edge though, hundreds of feet from the nearest rock, and hidden in six inches of foamy water I step onto the only rock on the beach and fall. It hurts. Dammit.

The ride back is more interesting than the ride out to the beach. We stop at a bar that the surf camp is fond of, somewhere in the country, and have a beer. I sit down, still fairly isolated, and the videographer, Alberto, from the school sits there as well. Being new, he apparently doesn't feel as though he is 'in' either. Alberto is from Venezuela; we chat a little. The bar offers some food that we're encouraged to try - first, their ceviche, which is excellent and highly recommended, and then what they describe in halting english as sea-cockraoches. Now this, this is interesting. I don't know what to make of it. I have no idea what the food might be, but it's a mix of rice and small meaty things. It's quite good, actually, and I'm still wondering about it. It helps to be adventurous sometimes when you're hungry (that doesn't include trying sea urchin again, yech!). I'm invited over by a couple from DC to their table where there is a space; I bumped into Mike and Cindy in the water taking photographs and they seem quite friendly and open. I quite enjoy the company. Back at Tamarindo later, I want to get back out, and do; I end up surfing a couple of more sessions and am in the water for seven hours. It's good, but not great. I try a slightly shorter and more edgy board, but still only a 7'10", and it's much less stable. I can't stand on it. I'm exhausted by the end but feel I'm not losing ground for a change.

31 December - Surfing, Playa Avellanas. Oh, no, the last day, and I can't surf yet!! Help! Darn it, I really want this, and want to come away knowing how to do this, even just a little bit. I'll settle for not being as good at this as telemark - heck, I live in the mountains - but I want to feel good about it, and be able to catch things that I can see are surfable now. I just want to feel like I'm up to the mild blues (from a skiing perspective). Stuck in the greens (skiing again, not the waves) and getting hammered all day kinda bites, I'm finding. I'm sick and tired of being washing-machined from a lack of timing. I'm thoroughly enjoying being hammered all the time, though, so it's not a complete loss - it's a darn good thing I'm masochistic enough to try this. Especially this morning. Yep, both of my feet are definitely broken. Oh well. So it hurts a little, walking in the surf and wearing flipflops. Ibuprofen and beer are wonderful painkillers.

Actually this morning, I have a different instructor. And a different class partner - Melissa, from NYC. We grab Carlos and head out to the beach. Now Carlos, he's a character. I don't know what to make of him, but he's a hotdog (like me skiing). Carlos has a very different style from Briege, and I welcome it. He sits us on the beach and describes the timing we need, shows us different break types and etiquette order with sand sculpture, and hints at a few more small things that have been missing. I wish I'd had Carlos the first few days. Sure, he can walk back and forth on the board, catch anything, and do headstands while riding, but he also really has a great sense of what to tell a beginner and how.

Since being pushed is cheating to catch anything, we only get an occassional shove when we're going to miss something; it doesn't feel natural and we're both happy to be able to be in position when it happens and excited when we start to feel what the timing should be like. I actually start to catch a few things, more frequently than before, even though I'm getting tired and sometimes my feet go forward instead of sideways when I stand. It's all about focusing on each small element individually, in their own time, and realizing that you have enough time to think instead of being carried away by events. I can't do everything I want, but I'm feeling much more graceful now. Timing is key, I realize, and I can start to sense it, even though I don't have it yet.

There's very little after this lesson; we're off to another beach and it's late in the afternoon now, and I only have an hour or so left before this is over. This is scheduled to be a sunset tour, surf until the sun sets. I do. I've found that my first ride after a long break is usually a good one, even if it all breaks down after that. I take a break midway through, and go to the van for a camera that I leave with Alberto. He seems happy to have someone to talk with as well. I catch my first ride back out, with maybe 15 minutes left. People start leaving the water, but I stay and sit there, waiting for one more. I try a couple but they're not right. The sky turns more orange with offshore clouds. One more, and I dip my nose and roll; for the first time I notice that the sand at this beach is grittier, and it embeds itself under my lycra. I can't wash it out, sitting here, but it really doesn't matter.

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There's only a few minutes left now, and I head back out to where the most consistent rolls seem to start. I pick one, miss, pick another, and I'm late; I'm close to the last out here now, but finally one looks promising again. I paddle, looking back, the wave getting closer. I think maybe I've picked a good one this time, not too large, not too small. I'm in the right position, I'm in the right time. And somehow, it works. I ride it green, slightly left. It breaks at some point shortly after I get on, and chases me. It follows me in, catching up as we go flat; but now we're only in 9 inches and I've ridden it all the way in. I step off. The last one was the best of the week and satisfies me.

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