With the great taste of honey

(perfect camp burritos being prepared)

I started camping when I was a wee small boy and since I started climbing, I seem to end up camping even more. Planning for trips usually involves me pouring over maps, checking out routes, approaches, directions etc. What I often neglect to spend enough time on is FOOD, which sadly is the most important part. Nothing makes a trip worse than not having enough tasty food, so I hope to provide some recipes that have served me well when out in the woods. For the best beginners guide to cooking in the outdoors I can't recommend enough the Nol's Cookery, it is excellent and was recently updated with 100+ new pages of info.

Hot cocoa - SHOULD go without saying. Tip: if it's winter and you're camping, make enough to fill a nalgene before you go to bed. Helps you get down a lot of fluids and will make falling asleep easier. I try to avoid coffee when climbing in the winter due to the effect it can have on circulation. Cocoa helps serve as somewhat of a substitute.

PB&H +C - Peanut butter and honey is well known as a perfect sandwich combo, but wait, it can be better - add cinnamon, lots of it. It's can do all this and more.

Egg burritos with tomato, black beans and avocados - this protein packed meal is perfect after a long day of climbing to help heal those sore muscles. Add garlic and a little cheese to make it the perfect balance of carbs, fat and protein. You will send the next day.

Dessert! I love falling asleep with the taste of something sweet in my mouth which makes brushing my teeth hard sometimes (sorry Mom). The biggest piece of advice I have is to make this stuff ahead of time and try to refrain from eating it all on the car/plane/boat/bike travel until your trip has actually started and you are in the middle of nowhere, it will taste better.
-Make brownies, lots of them
-make cookies, lots of them * will post my favorite recipe soon*

More outdoor recipe ideas to come.....

Never too fat to kill

You may be 5' 8" and weigh 300+lbs but that don't mean you can't run up a flight of stairs and cap somebody - the jury is in, you can't be too fat too kill

Jury Convicts Man Who Used Too-Fat-To-Kill Defense

Hardest route in the Red goes down!

Major props to my buddy Adam for sending the Golden Ticket last Sunday....

His work has been picked up by a few others -

Climbing Magazine

Climbing Narc

9b World Climbers Party

Gets me motivated to try hard this Fall!

Why do i climb the mountains....?

A frozen Tweeter?

You may be thinking I'm talking about someones "tweets" from Twitter...but you are very wrong.

I'm actually talking about what happens to a man when he swims here:

Yes, thats Lofoten, an archipelago in the county of Nordland, Norway, which is located within the ARCTIC CIRCLE.

I have a good friend there currently climbing and exploring the area....I just got a little trip report and it sounds awesome. 13 pitch routes, and cold as hell swimming. The full description is hilarious (involves some sort of mild hypothermia and numb body parts). However, in respect to my body I can't publish it all. Let's put it this way, wet suits are recommended.

RIP John Bachar 1957-2009

Read more at UKClimbing.com

Supertopo.com has started a thread to offer your condolences: John Bachar - In memory of a great man 1957 – 2009

http://www.climbing.com/news/hotflashes/john_bachar_1957-2009/

Second Readers blog is up...

NYC is energy

Went back to the big Apple - it's always a whirlwind of a time. I left lexington at 4:30am Monday on the motobike, hopped the plane from LVille to NYC and went straight into my meeting with the CURC steerers and KAB folks. It was actually more productive then I had guessed and I'm glad to have seen old friends and meet new ones....here's to moving forward with all the great work CURC wants to accomplish this year.

After the meeting my sister met up with me, really, really awesome to see her! She is the best host you could ask for in this city. Wish I got to come up here more often, lots of energy to feed off of. We had really tasty thai food and then I was off to play basketball in central park with my old buddy Dennis (and then had my second dinner of some tasty pizza)!

I wish I had brought a camera, I hate posting stuff without pics, oh well, next time!

Will be heading to north cackalacky Friday for an awesome Indian wedding and to the beach. Can't wait!!

Weekend wrap up: oil rigs, grandma's, new cliffs, wedding at Al's

Another eventful weekend has come and gone and I wanted to post some highlights on some of the action. My man Ron and his wife Morgan kicked things off with their Friday a.m. wedding at Al's Bar on 6th and Lime (watch the video here). I am guessing that was the first (but probably not the last) wedding to be held at Al's....really awesome.

Saturday was off to the gorge for cliff exploration. It has been a LONG time since I spent a day exploring new cliff lines outside of the gorge proper. Nothing too impressive to report back on (wink, wink). It's no secret that their is plenty of undeveloped climbing areas around the Red; the trick is finding it and keeping the motivation to put work in. There's nothing more satisfying then spraying about your "secret crag" either, it makes you feel so special and elite. While everyone else is spewing about their projects at the 'Lode and Purgatory you can slyly refer to your secret projs no one knows how to get too. But I'll be honest; Adam and I really just spent 7 hours riding the bike around getting soaked, muddy and falling a lot in mud and water. The most interesting discovery was a severly leaking oil rig back out in the woods. EPA/DOE anyone!?

Sunday was a relaxing visit in Louisville with my spry grandmother, she is amazing and great to spend time with.

What's up with this?

To the ville:

Best southern region vehicle

Wedding at Al's!

Motorcycles may be more fun then climbing...

But as my buddy Adam wisely noted, it is more likely that driving a motorcycle is just such a new phenomenon for me that it feels that way. Luckily, I think I have the best of both worlds, a bike that I can cruise 70 mph down the parkway and then switch gears and head down fixer rode on the way to the Southern Region. I put about 200 miles on the KLR this weekend breaking it in on the pavement, through the woods and creeks of the gorge and across the farm. It rode smooth and supposedly only gets better after the initial break-in period.

I paid the additional insurance to have the bike covered for theft (since I'm 0-2 thought it was worth the added costs...). I also purchased a version of this chain (but a DIY version for way cheaper from McMaster-Carr, they ship fast as hell too!) I plan to install a floor anchor system to the concret in the garage, hope that is enough discouragement...

Future plans for the bike include getting some aluminum panniers installed and rigging some way to transport Munter...

Farm is violated...again

Hard to believe, almost three months ago exactly, the farm was broken into. On Sunday, May 31st (probably in the evening) the crooks struck again.
Luckily they didn't break the door, but they made there way in.

A couple lessons I learned: buy renters insurance! It's cheap...

Lock things up if possible and keep anything of value UPSTAIRS if you can, thief's are less likely to venture up where they could become trapped.

Lastly, don't buy things that cost a lot of money.....(this includes, macbooks, chainsaws, ice climbing boots, italian shotguns, firearms in general, crystal chandeliers, and bentley's).

Climbing.com Reader Blogs

Keep up with what the pros are doing at the Climbing.com Pros Blog.
For everyone else there's a Readers Blog. I'll be contributing for as long as they keep me around ;)

My first article recounts some time I spent contemplating life in the Chamonix hospital...I hope the pictures are at least interesting....ha!

I need a wacky one for next time, I'm thinking some story about the red, let me know if you have any ideas...
peace!
Niles

Month of May, please stay!

May is a great month to be in the bluegrass: Bike Lexington is in full effect and staying indoors becomes increasingly harder as the weather gets nicer.
A great crew took advantage of the "Progressive Bike Dinner" last night. Starting at Kentucky Ale's brewery, we sampled (or in my case, chugged) the brews and beer cheese. We headed to Mia's for dinner and closed the night out at Natasha's for desserts and coffee.

Check us out! (all photos courtesy twinkle tots):

I won the home wall giveaway!!!

Sometimes the karma train starts heading back towards you instead of away from you. Folks know my house got broken into a while back. They stole valuable things, sentimental things, broke my door and window and got away with it all. Hoping they'll get theirs eventually....

Well, the climbing gods (namely, Hanuman, thank you sharma) must be smiling on me because I recently found out I have won the Dead Point Magazine home climbing wall giveaway contest sponsored by Etch Holds and Climbing Holds.com!

What this means is that I have the opportunity to build a new woody. There are of course already half a dozen stellar woodys in Lexington, (my favorites being MB's, Cooper, and Ray's).
So I feel a bit in a dilemma.

On the one hand I could be a little bit like a hold fairy, sprinkling new holds around the exisiting gyms I frequent. Most of these gyms already have a pretty stellar array of holds though. My other option is to build a wall out at the farm. This presents many dilemmas in of itself.
First, part of the fun of bouldering indoors is the motivation I get hanging with buddies. Not to mention the deep conversations we get to have concerning Proust and Ezra Pound. Second, I don't have a really good indoor spot for a wall at the farm. All the barns, which normally would be perfect are being used as barns (full of farm implements, tractors, hay, corn, tools, welders, etc). I could do an outdoor wall but the downside of that is that it rains here a lot. Third, I'm not sure who would want to drive out to the farm to boulder when there are good home gyms in Lex. The exit right after the farm is the Mtn. Parkway (might as well go to the Red).

My other option is just to be a hoarder which sounds like an awful idea. These holds need to get used! I still need to investigate all the options, but I'm leaning towards trying to do something at the farm....we'll see.

Boulder CO wrap-up - Fun in the mountains

Boulder is really cool. Forget what you've heard about it being a town of super trendy, sport obsessed wankers who somehow have lots of money to play outside.
Well, that's actually how it is for some people there (oh yes, I saw them). BUT, there are tons of cool, normal people scraping by and having a blast.
Jenna and I spent a week with her sister and Jay who were very gracious hosts. AK was our designated tour guide and all around packi kasami. We had a blast, visiting Flagstaff Mountain our first day for hiking and bouldering. We also toured Eldorado canyon, Clear Creek Canyon, snowshoed in RMNP, ate sushi, drank lots of awesome beer (avery, mountain sun, etc) and met up with old friends and new. Sadly, it only lasted a week. We shall return...

Gardens and other goodies that are green

If you aren't "going green" right now you are way uncool. I mean, after all, green is the new black.
Below are some ways I'm living right now ( i mean going green right now...)

Planning to have a Spring/Summer/Fall garden out at the Farm starting pronto. Dug up the earth last weekend with Jenna and her sister and the rain we've been having has broken it up into a good consistency. First up: Kale, cabbage, basil, rosemary, beans. Green abounds.

A REALLY cool thing happened Saturday that is also very GREEN. Miguel's Pizza is now hooked up with recycling so all those party animals drinking milk and juice can now ensure those bottles stay out of a landfill. It's about time, many props to everyone who helped make it happen, y'all know who you are...(Dario, I want free pizza for life, green of course).

Interviewed the GREEN man who brought the GREEN Machines to U of K's exercise emporium known as the Johnson (or Wang) Center. Ever thought that someone should hook a generator up to those aerobics machines to harness the energy folks are burning off? Well, too late, someone already did and they are rocking the new technology at UK.

Last bit of green - going to Phoenix this Weds to help the wonderful Greenbuild folks pick sessions for next years conference. Should be a good time with some smart (green) people.
That's all for now, hope all y'all are living happy green lives.

The almighty "breathe" in climbing...

I hadn’t been climbing very long when I first had my belayer tell me to “breathe”. I was leading a route in the Red River Gorge, and was starting to crux out. My movement had become jerky, arms chicken winging out to the side, leg starting to shake like Elvis and I was sweating like I had just gotten up from a bad dream. Out of seemingly nowhere, up wafted those calming, soothing words, “just breathe man, relax, breathe…” my attentive belayer even made a whooshing sound as he exhaled (I guess as a reminder of what “breathe” actually means). What I didn’t realize until much later was that when climbers say “breathe” they usually simply mean, EXHALE!

It’s not news to any athlete that how you breathe has a direct effect on your performance. I think in climbing, the effect is even more powerful due to the mental effect breathing has on one’s perception of fear and relative comfort. Breathing in a controlled manner helps bring the heart beat under control and contributes to mental focus. I remember feeling like it was going to be my crazy fast-beating heart that was going to be the reason I fell on one particularly scary slab route at Looking Glass in North Carolina. Luckily, at just the right moment I remembered the thoughtful words of my belayer and started focusing on my breathing.
It’s no coincidence of course that one of the biggest names in climbing apparel takes their name from “breathe”. In Yoga, breathing is where the practice starts and ends and provides the foundation throughout all the poses. It’s equally important to learn to relax during an inhale as an exhale. Exhaling naturally is relaxing, inhaling can bring the nerves right back.

Every hard route I've ever redpointed I have consciously thought about my breathing and reminded myself of it.
What about you? Do you actively think about your breath as you climb? How does it affect you if at all?

War Movies!

Whats your favorite? Mine is hands down Full Metal Jacket. It doesn't get much more twisted than that. However, Platoon is also a favorite due to the character named Sgt. Barnes. The best quote of all time -

"Barnes has been shot seven times and he ain't dead, does that mean anything to you, huh? Barnes ain't meant to die! The only thing that can kill Barnes is Barnes"



And the best motivational speech of all time from Full Metal Jacket:

The end of an era....Cobra Command Center rolls on....

With a tear in one eye, I must announce that the Cobra is no more. It has found a new owner and a new life. I never got out of it everything I had dreamed (no epic road trip across America) but I certainly had some fun in it and it will forever help to define a certain epoch in my life.
What epoch was that you may ask?
It was a tumultuous time of change in my life. The bad and good but mostly the good. I was a newly minted college graduate and had ideas of traveling the country climbing, living a simple nomadic life of self discovery and constant change.
That didn't happen but lots of really great things did happen.
I may not have the van now, but I do have cash and no longer have to feel bad about owning a polluting monstrosity. Plus, Munter gets to take baths with benjamins...

Weekend wrap-up: Cheddar dog and chap stic

The first HOT weekend hit KY - temps in the 70's and lots of sunshine. Apparently, the warm weather meant every jack-a-lope within a 33 state radius of the RRG decided it was a good time to go climbing. Saturday, we went to possibly the most crowded crag depending on which consensus you read. Matt was surprised by the consensus results actually. Sorry, that's an inside joke that isn't really funny anymore.

Anyways, the Gallery was hopping with more people than I'm accustomed too. There were the euro climber wannabes eating ramen noodles and smoking cigarettes. The aging rock jocks blasting rage against the machine and of course Lynn Hill (who else?) and her entourage. Throw in a few other various random folks and our crew, and you've got the weirdest group of people in one place...ever.
For me, the hardest part of climbing at a busy crag is having to wait in line to get on a route while others line up after you to get on the same route. Feeling rushed is no good, but I also hate being that guy hogging a route all day.

Even with all the people, it actually was a fun day and I think we all got sufficiently worked. It's hard to complain when you get to hang out in shorts with all the dogs and friends. Plus, I got to take some fotos.

Adam warming up on Zen and the art of masturbation

Munters Beer

Everyones favorite Doctor - Massey!

The worlds next top model even stopped by

A special hot dog for Aaron Kupferer

Sorry....