Epic Experience and the GoPro Mountain Games

This past weekend I drove up to Vail to watch the bouldering World Cup and to compete in the Citizens Competition the next day. The Mountain Games competition is one of the few comps which I regularly attend. Its always a good time with friends who I see rarely and great problems!

As usual, the WC was awesome, I always find it cool to watch climbers who have honed their skills on plastic so well! The next day we went to compete in the Citizens Comp. The problems were well set as always and ranged from V0 to around easy V10. I was unable to complete problems 31 and 32, which kept me off the podium. However I still made 5th place in the open category which I can be happy with.

I also want to take this chance to plug for a great charity I have recently become involved in. It's called  Epic Experience.  Epic Experience is a organization which offers free week-long outdoor experiences to adults who have been diagnosed with cancer in Sweetwater, CO. Through adventure based activities such as  snow shoeing, cross-country skiing or kayaking we will push our participants and celebrate their accomplishments, all the while teaching them that cancer no longer defines them; that, in fact life does continue even after a cancer diagnosis. 

I and other athletes from around Colorado and the U.S. are trying to raise money for this program and any amount of donation is appreciated. So if you think that this organization is worth while support it!

-SGP

Study Break!

The only unfortunate aspect of being a philosophy student is that come the weeks surrounding finals, instead of the threat of test looming in the future I have papers. Many papers. eight to be exact, some relatively short, some very long, but all dense and confusing. I've been working on these torturous little exercises for the past few days, practicably non-stop, I'm either in class, talking with my professors  or writing until I go to sleep. Finally today I cracked and made a study break trip up to the Darkside Morrison boulders. Although last year I ticked off the best boulder over there (Arrowhead Assis), I still had some things to do, and its only 20 minutes away from my house.

After arriving I quickly jogged up the trail until I reached the top of the ridgeline where Dionysian Ecstasy lies (Dionysian ecstasy refers to a concept in The Birth of Tragedy. I can't even escape Nietzsche while climbing!) which, after brushing up all of the holds, I managed to flash. While hiking toward my next objective, I saw a amazing tidal wave bloc that had not bee cleaned (or apparently climbed) so I put some time in on cleaning all the holds and the top out and chalking everything up. I then climbed it calling in Authenticity (in keeping with the existential theme). The bloc is not hard but is very aesthetic, and I encourage more people to climb it (a description is on Mountain project).

I also climbed a neat bloc called Known Secret which felt significantly harder than Dionysian Ecstasy. I shot video of the first two climb, and made a quick edit enjoy! Now I'm  rushing through this post on another paper break! Spring is here people!! GET PSYCHED!!

-SGP



Two from the Darkside from Stephen Palermo on Vimeo.

Setting

This past week I had the opportunity to set for a USA Climbing local competition at the Lakewood Link (the gym where I coach). This was a new experience for me, although I had set for and forerun for a few comps in the past, setting routes which were suitable for youth climbers and held grades as high as upper end 5.13 seemed like it would be more difficult. I was stoked. When I came into the gym after my Tuesday classes, I was welcomed by a blank canvas and stripped walls.

For me seeing this always incites a bit of anxiety, which is usually followed by a few ideas (mostly of moves I think would be cool). The goal of the week was to set 30 routes from 5.6 to mid level 5.13, this in itself was a bit shocking as the 25 foot gym usually tops out grade wise at hard 5.12 maybe easy 13. 

Within an hour, TJ, Travis and I had finished washing all of the holds and began to slap them on the wall focusing on the harder routes first as sequencing and movement on hard climbs is harder to get perfect. By 8:30 we called it a night with around 5 routes completed. We returned around 10 for the next two days and put in about 8 hours each day. Finally, we completed all the routes and began my favorite part of competition setting, forerunning! This means that we climb all the routes at least once tweaking moves, holds and whatnot until the route is perfect. I was especially psyched to climb on these routes and focus my attention on running the hard stuff. By Friday afternoon, at least on of us had sent every one of the routes and made the  necessary changes. 

The next day was the comp, and although I did not attend, I was excited to hear that all the routes but one 13a and the 13c were climbed and that we had a massive turn out of over 160 climbers. It's super rewarding for me to hear about and see climbers getting on and enjoying routes that I've set. After having put all that energy into putting them up, I can't wait till the next one!

-SGP