Solo climb of Montana's Granite Peak

Maybe it doesn't quite count as soloing Granite Peak (Montana's highest at 12,799 feet), since I did do the technical section with two guys from Salt Lake, but I did free solo the ascent and was fully prepared to go it alone. In fact, I was overprepared and was carrying far too much weight on this trip, which (along with the route itself) made for a miserable descent. Frankly, I would not recommend the Froze-to-Death route to anyone. I haven't done it personally, but I know two people who have done the Avalanche Lake route, and it sounds highly preferable. The technical part, which is after those two routes meet, was a lot of fun and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who is really comfortable rock climbing. Of course it's not necessary to ascend ropeless, there was a guided group ahead of us roped up, but there really isn't much exposure on the few truly fifth-class pitches.
In short, it was great to knock of highpoint #38 (especially after failing two years ago), and I would definitely rank it as the second most difficult of the state highpoints I've done so far (and I anticipate it remaining so once I'm done), behind Denali.

Denali: Training

My physical training to climb Denali specifically was limited to roughly three weeks after Ironman Texas before leaving for Alaska (after a week to recover). Ironman covered the cardio and endurance needed for the climb (and the leg strength), I just needed to refamiliarize myself with carrying a heavy backpack. I did this by doing laps up and down "the hill of life," a roughly 200 foot vertical rocky trail near my office. It is the most vertical gain within a distance feasible for making two or three trips a week. I did about an hour of repeats per visit. I started with 40 pounds of old textbooks, and added 5 pounds each time I went back. When the pack was lighter, I managed to do 4 times down and up (starting from the top); when it got to 70 pounds, I only did 3 laps in the one hour. I found it fun carrying a heavy pack and passing people with either a light pack or nothing at all.
The technical training for this trip was done in February on Mt. Rainier, and since then just trying to practice some of the skills. I didn't find a way to practice crevasse rescue, but I did practice ascending a rope using prusiks and a mechanical ascender in the rock gym. Climbing Denali (at least by the standard route) doesn't require rock climbing, I just did some for fun.

Road/Climbing Trip 2011: Gannett Peak

On Monday, July 11, I set out from Pinedale, Wyoming on a 4-day trek to Gannett Peak, the highest mountain in the state, which peaks at 13,809 feet above sea level, and is part of the Wind River range. Due mainly to the slog of a 16-mile approach just to get into place for summit day, I think it was physically the hardest thing I've ever done, and I'm quite pleased to be able to say that I was successful, even more so that I did it solo, with no support other than following other parties the whole way. I don't think that summit day was that much harder than Rainier was, but including having to cross Bonney Pass both ways, and sections at are steeper than Rainier, it was at least a little harder. However, thanks to better physical conditioning and better altitude acclimatization (I don't think I was below 5,000 feet elevation in the week before this climb), I felt better than I did when I climbed Rainier two years ago. [Note: day 1 and 2 reports were written those evenings, days 3 and 4 were written after returning home]

Road/Climbing Trip 2011: Borah Peak

After a couple days of rest with my aunt and uncle in Bozeman, I drove to Idaho by way of Helena in order to attempt to climb Borah Peak (curiously also referred to at Mt. Borah), Idaho's highest point on July 9. After the most technically difficult I've done solo so far, I was proud to have bagged another state highpoint. But, as the saying goes, the top is only halfway, and I still had a challenging climb back down to my car.

Road/Climbing Trip 2011: Prelude to Granite

After approximately 36 hours in Austin following my New York trip, I set off Thursday, June 30, for the next phase of my sabbatical. The main time constraint was that I had to be in Cody, WY on July 2 for some climbing training prior to the start of the actual Granite Peak climb on the 3rd. Since the direct route would have gotten me into Cody slightly earlier than necessary, I decided to make the route a bit more circuitous and tour a few State Capitols that I had previously only breezed by, stopping long enough for a picture with my bike.

Rock Climbing

After work on Tuesday I went with a coworker to see Drag Me to Hell, Sam Raimi's new movie. Other than that Mac guy, it was pretty awesome genre fare. There were a lot of gross-out gags that had me cringing. At one point early on, I was really sorry to be eating at that moment.

I went rollerblading Monday, rode the bicycle Wednesday and Friday and hiked the hill of life 3 times on Thursday.

I slept a lot later on Saturday than I have in a long time, until 8:45. I puttered about for a while, then I went to the South Austin Rock Gym for the first time. I had a bit of trouble finding the place at first, since it's in an industrial complex with very few signs to tell you what's inside. When I got there around 10:30 I found it was a generous space, but not huge, with the walls covered in rock climbing holds. I signed a release and put on rental climbing shoes, then got a quick lesson in belaying. I didn't know they didn't have an auto-belay system, so without a partner I couldn't do the walls that require ropes. I did get some pretty good use out of the bouldering walls, starting out with a few easy routes. I was a little uneasy with the height at first, being about 10 feet off the ground with only some padding to break my fall. I felt a little more confident after I completed a route or two and made it back to the ground safely. I tried some of the harder routes, but didn't make it very far, so I just played around, using whatever holds I wanted. By noon my arms were getting pretty tired and I was losing grip strength, but I didn't want to leave, I wanted to get my money's worth. Since there was nobody on the high roped walls, I did some climbing and traversing staying within ~8 feet of the floor. I finally threw in the towel around 1 when I could barely grip the easiest holds. Overall, it was pretty fun, and a pretty good workout- in addition to the burning forearms I was sweating despite the A/C. It was kind of expensive, and not really applicable to the Rainier climb, so I won't be in a rush to go back. I went and had lunch at Home Slice, then went home and took a nap. Once I finally woke up and dusted off the cobwebs, I had some dinner and went to check out the sale at REI. I bought a few things, then went and parked along the hike-and-bike trail. I set out on a jog and actually did better than I thought I might. I maintained a jogging pace all the way from MoPac to Lamar, about a mile and a half. I got into a decent pace, keeping my heart rate around 175. I took something of a breather on the Pfluger bridge and stretched a bit, then started jogging on the other side of the river. I didn't make it nearly as far, I slowed down to a walk when I got to the Barton Creek bridge, then started to jog again at town lake. I barely made it any distance before my legs started hurting and I slowed back to a walk for the rest of the way back to the car.

I woke up close to 9 again on Sunday, but had a hard time getting out of bed since I'd stayed up until 2:30 for no reason Saturday night. After breakfast I packed up the big bag and went to the greenbelt to do the hill of life. I was sweating pretty good the first time up the hill, and was soaked the second time up. I went down a third time and went all the way down to the water. I took off my boots and went in. The water wasn't all that cold, but it was refreshing. We've been in a drought for so long, the creek is barely flowing- I was at the only falls with water. That made it a little popular, but it was such a hot day there weren't many people in the greenbelt. There were four people there when I got there, then two more showed up, chatted with two that were already there, then those two left. I had a bit of lunch while I drip-dried. When I was mostly dry I put my boots back on for one last trip up the hill. I thought about doing a little bit extra, but it was hot and I was tired, so I just went home and took a nap. After an overly long ~2 hour nap I took a shower and had dinner at Doc's, then watched the drag race for a while.