Summer update from the Sheep Ranch Part 1: California Dreaming

Trying to find motivation to keep this blog alive is often hard and time consuming. Especially since I feel like most of the climbing stories are all quite the same. You brag about how awesome you are, how much amazing stuff you climbed and how much of a badass you are. This blog definitely fulfills all three of these attributes, in the pursuit to reach money, fame and success. Unfortunately is this still not the case. 

I am broke. Driving around in an old Chevy Malibu with it's check engine light on most of the time. The interior hold together by purple duct tape. The seats filled with so much sweat and dust particles that they could be seen as a biological hazard if they would ever leave the inside of my car. 

Yet, my life couldn't be better. Then the reality is neither am I on the edge of starvation, nor am I about to drop out of school. It is summer again in Wyoming and this means besides the usual occupation as a full time student, most days involve some type of climbing activity. In the following, there will be a short summary with the biggest highlights of the last months of climbing and living out of my Malibu, which is definitely not the right vehicle to pick up women. 

So where did it all start? 

Gong Show Crag

The weather was nice and sunny when I touched down in SFO in the mid of May. With a big haul bag as luggage, the plans for my home visit were big. Unfortunately, was there some sort of conspiracy led by the weather. The results were devastating. A 60%< chance of rain for most of the time I would be in California. Not being discouraged by this weather however, did Alex and I decide to head to the East Side. No, we were not flying to the Bronx to hang out with the Boyz in tha Hood. Keeping the spirit of the California mind set alive, which means everything behind Reno is a black hole, we were heading to Bishop, CA. For Californians, this is basically the east coast. With the goal to sample some sweet Sierra Alpine Granite and check out the infamous Buttermilks. Highlights of this rain filled week, were most definitely a visit at the Pine Creek climbing area, where Alex and I climbed the super classic crack Sheila. A beautiful 40m corner in white granite. Also worthy of mentioning was the Gong Show Crag, with some amazing granite splitter cracks and face climbing as well as our visit at the Buttermilks. 

The Buttermilks

Team Sauerkraut in the Buttermilks

What impressed me most about the Buttermilks, was it's enormous size. Having seen only videos before, I did not realize the size of this area. The boulders are huge. Problems like Ambrosia or Evilution were taller than I could ever imagine and the fact that those problems are climbed on a somewhat regular basis without a rope seems to me simply unbelievable. But the size of the boulders, which we completely underestimated, also put us in front of another problem. Showing up with only one crashpad, definitely made ascents of many problems more of a suicide mission than anything else. Fortunately, did we meet some very nice climbers, which we teamed up with for the day. Alistair, Joseph and Casey. Psyched by the good vibes and positive motivation, Alistair and I made quick ascents of the super classic benchmark V7 High Plains Drifter. Probably one of the best boulder problems I ever climbed. We then proceeded to the Ironman Traverse, which also saw an ascent by Alistair, Joseph and myself. During all the crushing we all exchanged our different stories,  about why we were stranded in Bishop, in a time when this area is totally out of season. While Alistair was visiting the US from the UK, Joseph and Casey were on a year long road trip through the US, trying to sample as much climbing as they could. A link to their blog can be found here. With the day coming to an end and the weather report giving a better forecast for my last week in California, Alex and I decided to head back west towards the Mecca of American crack climbing. The one and only Yosemite Valley. Trying to avoid big crowds on big walls, Alex and I decided to settle for a more remote route. The south face of Liberty Cap. 

Liberty Cap

Put up by no other person than the infamous Warren Harding, the South Face of Liberty Cap (5.9 C2+) was the route BAT-Hooks were used for the first time in climbing history. Equipped with a fresh topo, by Yosemite Big Wall Author Roger Putnam, a heavy rack of Iron and a high psyche, we started the approach up towards Nevada Falls with pure excitement. An hour and a half later, Alex and I made it to the base and short after, Alex was cruising through amazing 5.10 granite splitter cracks with some aid and french free in short sections in between. 

Alex getting ready for pitch 1

Alex high up on Pitch 1

At the end of the day, 3 pitches were fixed and we enjoyed a delicious Bivi meal consisting of Cheese and Canned Soup on the Bivi Ledge. The next day, we got up early ascended the fixed lines and started climbing. For Breakfast, we had a nice C2+ button head bolt ladder waiting, which required a lot of top stepping in a slightly overhanging wall. It was fun and a nice wake up. Keeping the excitement high. This was followed by another amazing 60m corner pitch, with a death flake at the top, according to the topo, we were done with the hardest parts of the climb.

C2+ Button Head Pitch

This would have been the case, if at that point we wouldn't have started to run out of water. Being a south face, the route was baking in the hot California sun for most of the day and with that our water consumption was higher than we expected. Yet were we not discouraged and continued to push the rope higher and higher and finally, after several pitches of bushwhacking, Yosemite Fire Ants in our pants and the hardest 5.8 death slab as top, Alex and I made it to the top with some solid dehydration. 

We survived!!!

With another great wall of the tick list, I headed back to the Wyoming Sheep Ranch, were snow slowly started to melt.

Stay tuned for more exciting stories. Till then climb now and work later.....

Spring Time Ice Adventures

It was a casual Tuesday morning. Barely awake, I carried myself through my lectures pumped up on cheap drip coffee, when my friend Drew Thayer texted me. 

“What are your plans for this Weekend?”. 

“None Drew. What do you have in mind? 

“Wanna go and do Hallet Peak? It’s in and will be epic!”

Without any hesitation, I agreed and 4 days later found myself in the passenger seat of Drew’s Toaster  on the way to Estes Park, CO. Our plan for the first day, was to check out a sport climbing area called the Wizzards Gate, somewhere close to the Twin Sisters. Disregarding the fact, that the 1 hour approach was through a thick Forrest on a north facing hill slope, which was covered in knee deep snow, we started our ascent. Two hours later, after endless amounts of post-holing through talus and rotten woods, we made it to the base of the Wizzard’s Gate fully soaked, wet and cold. After cursing on the idea of coming here, psyche came back amazingly fast and 5 min later I was tied in and made my way up an amazing face filled with chicken heads. For the rest of the day, Drew and I continued cragging around, sampling routes here and there between 5.10 and 12a. As dusk set in, we decided it would be a good idea to pack our things up and start our descent and with the last amount of light, we made it back to the car. An hour later, we were filled up with some pasta, and all gear was packed up for the next day.

Drew infant of Hallet Peak

The familiar sound of a phone alarm was ringing in my ears. It was 5 am, and cold outside. Before I 

knew what was going on, Drew jumped out of the tent.

“Dude get psyched it’s time for some adventures”.

Growling I leave the refuge of my warm and cozy down filled sleeping back, pull over my long johns, pants, fleece and puffy jacket. Another day of being cold and miserable was on the agenda also known as ice climbing.  Soon the smell of coffee was filling the air, and we were back on the road driving through the gates of RMNP and with the first shines of light, we were at the Glacier Gorge parking lot heading towards the face of Hallet Peak. The route we had in mind, was the Hallet Chimney Route. A mixed line, rated at Al5, M5. Having never mixed climbed in my life before, I was nervous, doubting my abilities of being able of scaling this intimidating face., which was patched with ice, loose rock, frozen moss and a large amount of suspect fixed gear. Yet as we got closer, fear disappeared and excitement set in.  We racked up and started our ascent. After soloing the first stretch of the chimney, which consisted mostly off  low angle snow fields and some short stretches of exposed rock, which needed to be scrambled over, we made it to the first chock stone pitch. Before I knew what was going on, Drew unpacked the ropes and handed me the sharp end.

Drew on the first couple of pitches

“Time to dig deep German, you have the honor of the first lead!”, said Drew to me, with a bright smile on his face. I tied in, racked up, eye balled the pitch, shook out my arms one last time, took a deep breath and started my ascent up.  Soon I was in the flow. Placed a Camelot for protection, jammed my ice tools into a thin crack, pasted my crampons onto some crimps and made my progress upward. A little while later,  I got to the anchor and Drew quickly made his way up to me.  Then it was his turn, to take over the sharp end.  Carefully maneuvering his way through a lot of frozen moss, in which Drew buried his ice tools, Drew scaled his way up.  I just followed the line in awe and amazement about Drew’s performance. The next pitch consisted again of 2 chock stones, which formed snow mushrooms that blocked the way.  While looking up, I was highly skeptical about my abilities of leading these pitches. Drew noticed my hesitation, and encouraged me to give it a shot. So  I racked up again, and charged up towards the mushrooms. When I arrived at the first chock stone, a mysterious piece of webbing greeted me. Despite it’s questionable quality, I clipped in quickdraw, since it was the only available piece of protection. 

Johnny Sauerkraut battling with some SMOW

Then I carefully started my way up the mushroom. Unfortunately, did it not consists of good hard frozen snow. Instead it was a loose ball of powder pressed together. Leaving for only one option of ascending up.  Squeezing my way up between the gigantic snow cone and the rock wall of the chimney to it’s side. After applying several techniques, such as chicken wings, stemming and worming my way up, I found myself on top of snow mushroom, while a soft breeze blew spindrift into my face and down my back into my jacket. A new type of climbing was born. SMOW climbing. Also known as Snow Mushroom Offwidthing. 

Drew following on the SMOW pitch

Soon later, I made my way up to the next anchor.  Then it was Drew’s turn again. However, this time the battle consisted of  climbing over several overhanging chock stones, which normally form an icicle. However on the day of our ascent, no ice was found on this pitch. This required Drew to pack out all tricks we had in our tool box and through the use of aiding and pulling on some fixed gear, even this obstacle seemed to be no problem for our ascent. This proved to be wrong unfortunately. On the next pitch, an even more gigantic snow cone blocked the way of any farther ascent. The walls on both side of it, where blank. The snow became increasingly soft and given the quality of the snow, and farther ascent seemed like a bad idea.  Yet our hopes kept our ambitions up and I started crawling my way up through the hip deep powder. But soon after, we had to accept that the further ascent was impossible. Heavy hearted, we had to start our descent. Five rappels later, we were back at the base packed up and started our way back towards Laramie. Questioning ourselves if bailing was the right decision or not. Given that the ice season was basically over, we both agreed that we would come back next year, with the hope for better conditions.

The Ice Guru and The German Kid

Trying to predict the weather for climbing in Wyoming is like trying to become the President of the United States, if you were not born in the United States. -Johnny Sauerkraut

It all started on a Wednesday morning at 8am. My alarm goes off and some thoughtful Juicy J lyrics start to fill the warm air in the muscle basement. After carefully maneuvering through the usual chaos in my room, consisting of random clothing, slings, a Bosh drill, ice tools and a book about Gender Equality, I made it into the kitchen to heat up the warm, moist and pleasantly fragrant power juice. 5 minutes later I find myself back in bed, balancing my coffee in one hand and my laptop in the other checking the weather report. Winter weather hazard was written on the top of the page, indicating that pretty soon the weather in Laradise would be wet can shitty again. Leading to only one logical thing to do. It was time to sharpen up the ice tools and crampons again, and call up the Guru.

Ice Guru Rob

Loch Vail Part 1: The Beginning
Two days later I found myself back on the road with Ice Guru Rob, heading towards Rocky Mountain National Park, to check out the Loch Vail. A small valley near Bear Lake, which is filled with dagger like ice pillars and impressive ice curtains. After a short approach of just a couple of miles, Rob and I made quick work of multiple WI3 lines. While Rob cruised most of the ice, I still had to work on adjusting my swinging of the ice tools a bit before I had the honor to tie into the sharp end and lead my first WI3 line.
When I started ice climbing, many people told me that hanging off an ice tool feels like hanging off a jug. While this is technically true, many people are not aware of how strenuous ice climbing can be. Hanging on your arms, swinging the tool into the ice, looking off on an ice tool to move upward and placing ice screws, is often more physical then expected.
Five pitches later, a blizzard moving in and the ever lasting problem of huge masses of Colorado Climbers filling up the crag, we decided to pack things up and head out. When I saw an ice route called Crystal Meth, which was hanging over heads. While looking at this imposing ice curtain, I had a feeling that the curtain was calling my name, telling me I should climb it. However being rated WI4/5, Crystal Meth seemed to hard for me. All ice climbing books recommend that before stepping into the arena of WI4, one should top rope at least 50 pitches of WI4. To this point I hadn't even led one. I left Loch Vale, with the ambition to return the next year, hopefully prepared to attack Crystal
Meth.

Rob following a WI3 at Loch Vale

Hidden Falls

After our day at Loch Vail, Rob and I were psyched and my desire to climb more ice was eager then ever. Three days later, I realized that I had a week day off from school and so we laid our eyes onto Hidden Falls. An impressive 90-100 foot frozen waterfall, in the Wild Basin part of RMNP. Rated at WI3-4, it seemed that it would be a good route to break into the upper WI3 and lower WI4 grade range. The only exciting part of the day, where the relative warm temperatures. At 5 degree Celsius, water tends to be more liquid than frozen, which led to some exciting and wet climbing conditions. Multiple times during my warm up on a mellow WI2, water was flowing out under my ice tools and the ice was behaving very plastic like, making the ice tools go in like butter. Rob decided to skip the warm up and jumped straight onto the main Hidden Falls route, making quick work up the 90 foot beast. Leading smooth, fast and efficiently. Then it was my time to try the route. After going through the inner debate if I would have the skill set to lead Hidden or not and some encouraging words from Rob. I pulled the rope, geared up and went for the lead. As being surrounded by an aura of pure focus, rhythmically I swung my ice tools into the ice, carefully placing protection along the way and before I knew it, I stood on top of Hidden Falls. Warm sunlight was shining into my face, drying off the wet snow from my face and a sense of joy set in. I fell back into the rope and lowered off.

JKraut on Hidden Falls WI3/4

Loch Vale Part 2: Crystal Meth

Both Rob and me being confident in our skills after the trip to Hidden Falls, it was back to return back to Loch Vale, to try some routes higher up around the Loch Lake. Due to a lot of snow fall, during the previous days, the approach became extremely difficult and postholing and breaking trail as well as avalanche danger, made it impossible to approach the route we had in mind. This meant, that returning into the Loch Vail George, seemed the most logical thing to do. After stopping on a short virgin ice pillar to warm up, once again we found ourselves below the intimidating ice curtain that is called Crystal Meth.

Rob warming up on some virgin ice

Not sure, what we should jump on we started to walk around looking at the ice quality of several routes in the area. Some of the routes offered very thin delicate ice, with no chance to place protection. Other's just didn't seem appealing. This is when the call of Crystal Meth started to sound in my ears again. Similar to Lord of the Rings, when the Ring started to call Frodo, Crystal Meth was calling me. After eyeing the line again, I told Rob I would go for the lead, started to rack up, pulled a pair of gloves over my hands and started to lead up the ice curtain. Quickly, I moved up to the rest ledge in the middle of the curtain, before the steep head wall. Placing good ice screws was difficult, since the ice curtain had many marks of previous climbers, making it appear similar to a piece of Swiss Cheese. Moving around these holes is sometimes more difficult then climbing fresh ice. After shaking out multiple times and trying to figure out a strategy to efficiently climbing up the head wall, I pounded my ice tools into the curtain and carefully started to move up. For each ice tool swing, two crampons kicked up into the ice a little higher. Gaining a little more elevation, soon I started to forget the surrounding nature around me and full concentration was focused onto my swing and steps. Occasionally snow from trees above me showered onto me, making cold water running down my spine. Brittle ice dislodged by my ice tools, fell onto my helmet, before shattering into small pieces and disappearing below me in an endless sea of white powdered snow.  Slowly I am getting closer to the final bulge, while a pump is creeping up in my forearms. I start breathing deeply. My lungs fill with cold crisp air. Fighting the pump, I place another ice screw of dubious quality and hammer my tools into the ice above the bulge. The ice is covered by loose snow, which makes telling the quality of your pick placements rather difficult. The only thing I rely on is the sound my picks make, when they penetrate the ice. Carefully I weight the tools. My grip becomes tighter. Robs voice sounding from far distance: "Come on Phil, you got this". I step up and pull the bulge and find myself on top of Crystal Meth, something that seemed impossible just a week ago. Relief sets in, before I realize that without the mentor-ship and encouragement of the Guru, all these ice adventures wouldn't have been possible.

Crystal Meth

Choss, Blood, Wind: The Daily Struggle of a Kraut

My fingers are stiff. Most of them have splits, blood blisters or flappers on their tips. The back side of my hand looks like Dresden, after the Royal Army bombed the hell out of it at the end of World War II. 24 days of climbing do such things to you.  Yet the only thing in my mind is: "Why I am not outside climbing instead of writing this lousy blog?", well the answer is quite simple. Laramie got hit by a blizzard once again, making climbing outside impossible. With wind gusts as high as 25 mph and temps of about -10 degrees Celsius, climbing outside doesn't make a lot of sense. So here I sit, writing about the the last month of climbing on the Wyoming Sheep Ranch.

Makes typing up this blog so much fun

School, Climb and Sleep. The flame in me ignited again. The obsession with climbing, the drive to climb as much as possible on every give day, was back. However this obsession, can be quite the challenge in Laramie. Most of the time Vedauwoo is to windy in the winter and it's elevation of 8000 feet, doesn't make it any better. However, Rogers Canyon the Mecca of sport climbing offers wind sheltered climbing in the sun.

Wind and Snow Sheltered. Rogers has it all

With this in mind, Andrew and I started hitting Rogers hard. However, soon we found ourselves exposed to a typical problem in Rogers Canyon. We started to run out of routes to climb. However, soon the lines in between the lines started to appear in front of our inner eyes and a day later, armed with enough bolts and Bosch's to bolt the world, we rolled into the Canyon like the Ocean's 11 crew rolled into a Casino. At the end of the day, 6 new routes were established, ranging in difficulty from low 5.12 to probably mid 5.13. 

Sorting out Gear, before drilling a new route

Andrew on the FA of a new 5.12- in Rogers

But Rogers isn't the only place, for winter climbing around Laramie. Other places, with high quality climbing are Horsetooth Reservoir and Carter Lake in Colorado. Both offering excellent sandstone and no shirt climbing. However, the finest winter climbing is of course in Wyoming at a place called Guernsey State Park.  

Temo and J. Sauerkraut, being typical Colorado Boulderling Bro's. Beanies and no shirt in February.

Guernsey State Park,is every climbers dream. Located 1.5 hours North East of Laramie, and is the Sport Climbing version of the infamous Fisher Towers in Utah. Guernsey has it all. From suspect looking home made bolts, to mud curtains, to Guillotine Flakes hanging over your head to changes in rock type from Sandstone to Dolomite.  Summed up, it is Lord Chossums (The Saint of all Choss Piles) temple. However it is probably the only place in Wyoming that is wind sheltered and warm even with a cloud cover. 

Choss Roof's of Guernsey. Photo by Katherine

Suspect Bolts. Photo by Katherine

Andrew Flexing. Photo by Katherine

Stay tuned for more news from the Sheep Ranch. It's time to go climbing....

Lessons Learned: The Quest for the Right Partner

Partnership in climbing is in my opinion one of the most important input variables there is. You can be a strong competent climber, but the wrong partner can hold you back from reaching your personal summit or achieving your best. I see a climbing partnerships similar to friendships in our daily life. In normal friendships, there are good and not so good friends. The good friend, will in a normal case always support you on your ways and you should do the same. While the not so good friend only supports you, when he sees a personal benefit in it, but other then that never calls you up to return the favor.

I started climbing, with my dad, Alex, and my brother. By the time I picked up climbing, my dad was already in the game for 20 years and for the first 7 to 8 years of my climbing, I basically never had to look for a partner. I basically only climbed with my dad or my brother for most of the time and as in a healthy family, we all supported each other in finishing off our projects and become better climbers. Cheered each other up, exchanged beta and went on some of the greatest adventures. I climbed nearly all of my hard routes with one of them. I climbed El Cap, Half Dome and some other true Big Walls, with my dad, besides an endless amount of mulit-pitch routes all over Europe and the US. With Big Walls, I mean real Big Walls. Like John Middendorf puts it: 

Big wall climbs are all about getting out in the wilderness and spending multiple days and nights on the largest rock faces in the world. 

El Cap

When I first came to Wyoming, I thought it wouldn't take long to find someone reliable to climb with, to continue some exciting climbing adventures. Yet, when I look back, on the 1.5 years since I started my time in Wyoming, I can count all reliable partners down on a single hand, even though I climbed with much more people over that amount of time. But how did it come so far? So I started thinking, what actually determines a good partner in my eyes?

1. A good partnership foundation is based on similar goals. 

All of us, have goals in climbing and in life. While I talk about some of my bigger goals I have in my climbing. Usually I try to be fairly humble about it, even tho it doesn't always work. The first step in finding a climbing partner is somebody who has the same commitment and dedication to a similar or the same goal. This can transform into going out to belay your partner on his project, even tho you already climbed it and there is nothing else in the area for you to do. Or no matter how miserable cold and shitty the conditions are going to be, when your partner calls you up to go climb a mountain, you go with him without a doubt, because he is your partner and you will support him on his goal, the best you can. 

2. First choose your partner, then your goal

When I first came to Wyoming, all I wanted to do was climbing. I thought school would go along easily and I basically thought I went to college only to climb more. With this idea, it was a stupid idea by the way, I started to recruit whoever I knew as a climbing partner to go climbing with me. Finding a so called "Belay Bitch", a person who is basically only there, to belay you for an extended amount of time without getting anything back in return, for climbing seemed right. I wanted to climb all the time, no matter how shitty the conditions where or what my plan was, so I saw myself in constant demand for partners.  Once or twice I could have gotten hurt pretty bad by those exploits, due to figuring out, that my partners didn't even knew how to belay and in general did not have the proper knowledge to guarantee my safety, so looking back at it definitely wasn't the greatest thing to do. But as I recruited some people to have constant belayers to make Vedauwoo unsafe, I also got recruited as a so called "Wall Bitch". The difference between a Wall Bitch and a Belay Bitch is simple. The belay bitch has the honor to just belay. A wall bitch has the honor to also lead all pitches and give the recruiter the full service of a fully equipped safe toprope, so he can claim that he has done a certain route for his tick list. I had the pleasure to experience this great honor on a fairly serious multi-pitch climbing close to Laramie. The route consisted in major parts mostly of  rock choss. Even though, when I look back, it was a fun adventure, I also realize I got fully tricked into it. By advertisements, like "you have to climb this route, if you are a real climber at UW", and all kinds of other stuff to tickle my ego, and saying things like we totally gonna switch leads after every pitch, something that never happened. So what is the message out of this? Because obviously I disobeyed this rule as much as other people did. What I learned is, that this is not a good foundation for partnership. From all the people I bitch called or people who bitch called me, I got into arguments and now barely even talk to anymore. Do I fell sad about it? Of course I am not happy with it. Some of those people definitely were nice people, but I learned over the time that bitch calling may work out over a short amount of time. But after some time, people realize like similar to the example with the bad friend, you only get called for helping somebody else achieve his goal, without ever getting help in achieving your on goal in return.

3. Think in the long run not on a short term

This idea builds up on the previous point. Like in many sports, a team rarely performs on their absolute limit on their first game., rather achieving your absolute maximum, is a step by step process. If we look for example at Basketball. When the Miami Heat first signed Lebron James, they didn't win the championship the first year, because in fact the team wasn't a full functioning unit yet. However in the following 2 years, they dominated the NBA, becoming back to back Champions. In climbing a partnership is very similar and evolves over years to a point, where you feel the connection to your partner through the rope, or where you and your partner work as one big individual. For me, the latter happened when I climbed the Nose of El Captain with my father. At no point of the route, I had to worry about anything else, except the pitch I was leading at that point, because I knew I could fully rely on Alex. This is something every party should work to achieve. It is the most efficient and effective a party will ever be. Therefor it is no wonder, that both Alex and I climbed most of our hard routes always when we climbed together, because we were a functioning unit. On the other hand, there is the point when a partnership becomes more harmful to somebodies climbing then beneficial. A good example about this was for me the summer of 2014, when a former friend of mine called me at 10 pm in the evening, ranting about how all his climbing partners bitched out climbing his dream route with him, and how I would be the only person that could help him, achieving his dream. The route he wanted to climb, was on my list of goals for the season too, so teaming up seemed like the right thing to do, so I answered that we could consider it. So when I got back home a week later, I received a message on my phone, saying that this week we had to go climb the particular route. Not only was the weather report fairly bad, I also haven't teamed up with the guy for over a year. Especially in multi-pitch climbing, where the dependency on your partner is fairly high, for me this seemed like a fairly big risk factor. Besides the fact that there was a clear disapproval of each other in the first place. While it felt to me, that my only role in this partnership was to haul up gear and lead pitches as efficient as possible to guarantee success of the ascent, I on the other hand, expected some recognition from my partner and being able to give some input into the planning, rather then being just told what I am supposed to do. This disagreement in partner equality and trying to force a success onto a mountain, led in the end to a complete failure of the climbing partnership. None of us, achieve their climbing goal, we didn't even went climbing once. Looking back at it, the contrast couldn't have been any better. While like the Miami Heat in their time form 2011-2013 my dad and I climbed together over a long amount of time, to achieve one of our biggest dreams to climb El Captain, the short term partnership that was meant to create direct and forced success, like the Brooklyn Nets in their 2013/14 season failed on their way to the title due to the motto that the team consisted of individual players rather then one big unit. 

4. Honesty and Support

Similar to a marriage, your climbing partnership can become deep. I am usually very open to my climbing partners about my life, because I prefer to clear my head of all thoughts, before I go climbing. The same as I try to offer my help in and outside of climbing to my partners. Therefor I think to have an effective climbing partnership, honesty is one of the most important things. Your partner should know what you think about him and shouldn't take critique personally, instead he should try to learn from it. Of course sometimes, there are things you refuse to change, like I refuse to change how I belay with a Grigri for example, but telling your partner for example that you don't feel like climbing this route is a good idea, because it seems to dangerous is better then saying nothing and then climbing hesitant on a route. Since in climbing, often there are routes where returning is fairly difficult, so once you commit, you need to be fully committed. The second part of a successful partnership is supporting your partner. This doesn't mean you have to go to his house and clean it once a week, because he is to buys to do it himself, but means more that if he or she are having a bad time in their normal life, you are also their to back them up. There are many examples of such support. Conrad Anker, taking care of Alex Lowe's family after Lowe dies in an avalanche would be one of this, or one of my climbing partners giving me advice on where to go in my academics, and how this will impact my life. But support doesn't just mean, helping your partner out, it also means helping him to push his limits. Positive competition, where both support each other and wait work on a project until both achieve it. 

Finding the right climbing partner can be a long and strenuous quest, that can take some on an endless quest and some find their perfect climbing partner on their first day out. 

My long term partner Alex and Me after El Cap

Any situations named in this article are completely fictional....ok maybe not.

R&R---End of the Year Shenanigans at Rogers

The semester has slowly come to and end, and it is time to leave the Wyoming Sheep Ranch, to shave off some sheep wool and hibernate. Even though I really like Laramie, being in town for almost an entire year for school left it's toll on Johnny Sauerkraut. However I would not be able to leave town without climbing around Laramie one last time in the beloved Wyoming cold. On the last day in Laramie, after I took my last final, I ended up going to one of my favorite climbing areas around Laramie. Rogers Canyon. Home of sharp and painful holds, as well as wind and freezing cold. Earlier this year, I came to Rogers, to experience some of the coldest climbing I ever. So to finish off the year properly, Andrew and I decided that temps of about -5 degrees Celsius would be prime conditions at Rogers to finish the year in a right style. Before heading out to Rogers, I bumped into Laramie climbing legend Davin B. who politely denied my offer to join us at Rogers with the words, "Good Luck Surviving", which meant that we would be up for a feast of prime climbing conditions. Armed with a America Swag, a stove, down jackets, long underwear and many other layers, we made the drive out accompanied by a Rogers Canyon virgin, the honorable Josh, as well as Spencer. The  route to finish the semester was the Rogers Canyon classic called The Hueco Rode aka The Toilet Bowl, which crux is to mantle into a guano filled pot. But catching the Hanta Virus seemed like a brilliant idea to finish of the year, right?  Motivated by Andrew's motto "We only climb for the Facebook likes" soon layers came of and the posing began. Posing included climbing in long underwear, t-shirts and in general brag about how great the conditions were. However, soon all of us were cold enough to leave Rogers again, to drive home to pack and enjoy the end of the semester. In the following are some pictures, to capture the magic of this lovely day, as well as some pics from the previous weekends which included some ice climbing at Lincoln Falls in Colorado.

The Boyz in the Hood. Johnny S, Josh and Spencer

Andrew taking advantage of prime conditions

Climbing America Style Bro

Prime summer temps or maybe not so much

Ice Mentor Rob psyched for some FroYo

Lincoln Falls

Happy Holidays  form Rogers Canyon

Stay tuned for the next story about Wool Shaving...... 

Merry Christmas! 

Euro-trash Invasion in the Buffalo Republic

Euro-trash Climber: An individual in the pursuit to bolt every piece of rock he can find. Euro-trash climbers are most easily recognized by comparing climbing area's to Europe, wearing hand jamies, lay back cracks and yell encouraging words such as Allez or Venga in excess.

A typical Euro Trash Climber. The camo doesn't help.

 The year is almost over and more and more snow starts to accumulate in front of my window. It is dark at 4 in the afternoon, and 0 degrees Celsius can be considered short and flip flop weather, here on the sheep ranch. However, recently my good friend Andrew and I invested an incredible amount of time into developing a new area called the Confederate Territory. No, this climbing area is not south of the Mason Dixon Line. nor does it have any other southern characteristic. There is no form of sedimentary rock, no fried chicken, no swamps and also no cotton. However, there is an incredible amount of smooth, golden granite, that just asked to be bolted. And you know why? Because Eurotrash Johnny Sauerkraut, got his dirty euro fingers on a good amount of bolts and a Bosch.  So after a shorter exploration hike, to assess the quality of the rock and the difficulty of the approach, Andrew and I started our hike up the Calvary, fully equipped with 2 Bosch's, about 30 nice and shiny 3/8 expansion bolts and the essential crowbar. Our little expedition was joined by Andrews brother Chris and Ryan. After a pilgrimage through dark forests, big talus fields and some other vegetation, we finally arrived at the Mississippi Burning Wall. The first wall in a series of shark fins, that rise from the Wyoming plains. In the following is a photographic collection of some of the new routes that went up. 

Chris, Andrew and Ryan getting psyched

Ryan on the ground up FA of The White Knights 5.9

The White Knights 5.9, 

Andrew on the FA of Trailer park fire 5.11

Johnny S. on Trailer Park Fire

Chris on Florida Georgia Line Approved 5.10 

Chris on Florida Georgia Line Approved

Andrew on Trailer Park Fire