Smooth Moves With The Gentleman

Many of my readers know the 'Gentleman' closely. Others do not. I've been in talks with Mr. Aaron "The Gentleman" Kaetterhenry for the past month or so about possibly having a quarterly lifestyle column to help enlighten my readers.

The Gentleman has graciously accepted my offer of continued radness in exchange for an occasional piece of dating advice. While I don't need it, obviously, I know that many of my readers may need some helpful advice on the subject.

So here it is, the inaugural installment of "Smooth Moves With The Gentleman". Enjoy.


How to Punt on a first Date


For the purposes protecting identities of all those involved in the following special correspondence for Mr. Schultz’s blog, names have been changed...

While entertaining Mr. and Mrs. Schultz with the story of a date gone horribly awry, Steve asked if I would share my story and all the lesson that I learned. “What lesson” you ask, at which point I correct you by saying, “what lesson(s)”…

Lesson #1 – Never bring a box of frozen food to a first date.

First off, planning a date that starts at 10:30pm on a week night, when you get up for work at 7:00am is probably not a good idea unless you plan on it being one of those good kind of dates. This wasn’t that.

After planning to meet.., let’s call her Wanda because who names their daughter Wanda, I stayed at the climbing gym until 10pm, remember kickoff was at 10:30pm, and left little time and far too few option for the dinner I agreed to pick up. Wanda asked for anything but frozen pizza, which pretty much was all I could think of.

What can you get at 10pm at night that’s classy, easy to make and tastes delicious? Stouffers Frozen Lasagna. Even after being warned by two separate people that this is a bad idea I went ahead (hey, it’s not like it was hot pockets).

Showing up for a first date with a box of frozen lasagna under your arms is not smart, funny, but not smart. Wanda was cool though and laughed it off until we both realized said lasagna, frozen, takes two hours to cook. Who knew? I ended up ordering pizza. (I let Wanda keep the lasagna).


Lesson #2 – Under no circumstances is it ok to flirt with your dates’ roommate even if she starts it.

Wanda and I were in her living room chatting while we ate pizza, getting to know each other and having a pretty good time when Wanda’s roommate, who for the purpose of this article will be known as Jezebel, and her boyfriend enter the apartment a little tipsy (and by a little tipsy I mean pretty hammered) and decided to keep us company.

I can be a funny guy, sometimes, but apparently Jezebel found me ab-so-lutely hilarious. So much so, that she thought shouting, “I love him” and “bring him over again” and several other declarations of affection were a good idea. I thought I was just being nice to her drunk roommate but maybe I was too nice to Jezebel because Wanda gave my number to Jezebel... That right there may have been the moment it all went down in flames, but somehow, this sad soap opera got to play out a little further. (See lesson #3).

Lesson #3 – Never say you’re sorry after kissing a girl

To let this horrific date play out this long, Wanda is a trooper, but to actually let the guy who brought her boxed lasagna kiss her good night? That pretty much makes her an all star. Yes, after all of the above Wanda and I actually kissed but why, why, why would anyone ever apologize to someone after kissing them for the first time. I have no idea. None. Zip. But I did it. Hi, have we met? My name is dumbass. Needless to say that had to be the end of this epic fail, right? Not hardly.

Lesson #4 – See lesson two.

Remember when I said Wanda gave Jezebel my phone number? Jezebel made sure to text bright and early, jokingly (or flirtingly… is that a word?) apologizing for treating me like a monkey (that’s a whole other tangent to go off on). I replied with a funny haiku, bad move… Never write poetry, no matter how funny, to someone other than the person you went on a date with. That pretty will much end any and all correspondence you will have with the original date. Wanda kindly but firmly informed me that our pre-planned second date activity was on hold… permanently. I don’t blame her. None of the other girls that have heard this story blame her either.

Conclusion

There are so many other little nuances of badness I could recall from that one date, like showing her my friends climbing blog so I could show her a tasteful picture series of a RV peeing, or when the 5lbs of frozen lasagna fell out of the freezer and almost broke Wanda’s toe or when Jezebel (remember, she’s hammered drunk at this point) wanted to compare tattoos with me… even the one on her butt (Wanda sitting right next to me). Let me end this tale of epic failure with a few final reflections:

1) I will never again do any of the above ever again.
2) I will never again do any of the above ever again.
3) Murphy’s Law is true: when something can go bad, it will go bad - amazingly bad
4) I will bring boxed or bagged frozen food on a date again. I hope.
5) I can live comfortably knowing that if I ever get another girl to agree to go on date with me again it can’t go any worse. I hope.

End Of A Good Season

Chris trying, and failing, to get a better look at Alpine Club.

Yesterday marked the end of my bouldering season for the year. At the end of October while setting for the comp at Boulders I started to feel a dull pain at the base of my left ring finger. I obviously ignored it and tried to climb through it but it only got worse over the past month. After talking to RV a little bit and looking at the excellent training and injury site on Nicros's website I was able to figure out that it was a partially torn A2 Pulley.

I decided that Wednesday would be my last day for the year and I'm gonna take a month to month and a half off. I want it to heal and I want to come back strong and injury free. Should be interesting to see how I fare.

With all that in mind, I was able to round up a really good crew for Wednesday and we had a fantastic time. Katie decided to sit this one out in fear of actually freezing to a boulder. Early forecasts indicated a high of about 35 degrees and we were ready for the worst. The actual high temps came in at a rather nice 39 degrees and the four of us had a phenomenal day.

After a nice ferry ride up Chris, Dobbe, Remo and I hiked up to Anchorpoint to warm up a little. We lapped the classics there and we each took multiple turns on the Trust Fund slab. I love that wall. We all talked about how lucky we are with the bouldering at the lake and I couldn't agree more. We're spoiled.

Chris on one of his many 'Steve forced me so he could take pictures' laps.

I flailed on Intercourse Arete and got a bit worried for the day. It was a funny moment though as I came off of the topout. Grim start, to say the least.

We hiked down the talus and over to Beautiful Soup. As most of you know, Keymaker was high on my list and I was beyond excited to try it from the start. Setting up the pads I had to actively calm myself down as I was getting too nervous.

Organic shout out.  Might be the best landing ever seen at the lake.  And the most colorful!

We got everything set and brushed and I had no choice but to start off the day. I pulled on and the moves on the traverse felt good. I was happy to make the big move to the start hold on Beautiful Soup first go but as I pulled harder on my left hand I could feel my tweaky tendon fighting back. I grabbed the high crimp but came off in fear of hurting my finger even more. I was worried that my day was done and took a quick break.

Chris and Remo started trying Beautiful Soup and Chris got warmed up to the crux move again. Remo FINALLY tried my beta and came down happy, knowing that it'd work for him.

I chalked up again and worked my way through the traverse and again the long move felt easy. My finger felt good as I moved my feet around and the crimp felt fantastic. I stepped up into the undercling and stuck the jump move first go! Not sure I've ever been this surprised to stick a move I've done before!! I threw up a high right heel and tried to calm myself down. For whatever reason the high right felt super uncomfortable as I tried to go up to the first crimp past the rail.

I tried once, but came back to the rail and chalked up. I tried again but came up short, again coming back to the rail. I could tell I was getting fatigued and gave it one more effort but couldn't hold on when I finally reached it and came crashing to the pads.

SO PSYCHED!!!!!!!!!! I 100% did not expect to link to the rail. So very happy!!!! I took a nice break to calm down and watched Remo and Chris throw themselves at Beautiful Soup. Chris stuck the rail a couple times but each time couldn't figure out what to do at the end.

I chalked up and set for another go at Keymaker. Once more I made it through the traverse but as I was reaching up for the crimp my right foot blew off. I could feel my muscles getting more and more tired and sat down to take a break. One more go was all I had in me from the start and I didn't even make the long move at the end of the traverse.

Needless to say I was disappointed that I couldn't get another chance to try and link Keymaker together but I was still so happy that I had one really good go. The problem is doable and will go next year for sure!

While we were sitting around I mentioned to Remo that we could probably boost each other up to the rail to figure out the moves and he took me up on the offer. The three of us grabbed his ass and pushed him to the rail, laughing the whole time. Hilarious!

The three of us were taking turns getting boosted up to the rail with Chris and Remo trying to figure out Beautiful Soup and me trying to figure out Keymaker. I quickly found out that it was easier for me to just campus the move off of the rail to the first crimp and then get the right heel up. On my last try I campus'd the first move and got two fingers on the second crimp before I came off. PSYCHED!!

Next year.

In that time Remo had figured out amazing V5 beta for the exit move and they started trying it again from the start. I grabbed my camera and watched as Chris gave it a go.

Sticking the rail no problem...

Coming over to the double meathooks...

Matching the lousy crimp no problem...end in sight....

BOOM!  Finished!!!

Right after that last picture was taken Chris rolled over onto the sloping ledge and promptly got scared. He eventually made it down ok but it was funny nonetheless.

Dobbe pushed me in the right direction and told me I should just finish Beautiful Soup and leave Keymaker for another day. Without trying their finish beta I stepped up to give Beautiful Soup some effort. I stuck the rail and even though I stacked my fingers on the hold, the move itself felt somewhat trivial. It felt easy. Like there was no way I couldn't stick it. It was a great feeling to have.

I traversed the rail but instead of meathooking like Remo and Chris I crossed on it. This put me in a worse position and after I matched the high crimp I had issues setting my feet correctly. I shifted my weight and rolled over for the finish jug and just as I had my hand on it, down I came.

All I remember was screaming 'PUNT!' as loud as I could. I could not believe it!! Dobbe calmed me down nicely and after a minute or so I stepped up again, determined not to come down this time.

Each move felt perfect. Almost too good. It felt like I'd done it a million times before. We all have those moments every now and then when things just feel easy. It's a phenomenon for me and I still don't understand it. I saw Beautiful Soup for the first time in 2004 on Todd's Birthday Challenge and I tried it for the first time in the fall of 2005. I fully expected to do it that fall. There was no doubt in my mind. I'd do it and then move on to bigger and better challenges.

I was obviously wrong and spent some amount of time on it each of the subsequent years. Every time I made the hike up there I came down empty handed, wondering if I'd ever finish it off. Doubting myself and my abilities. Even after I finally stuck the jump move earlier this month I had to walk down the talus thinking about how I failed to finish it, yet again.

This problem meant so much to me and I invested so much of myself into doing it and thinking about it that I didn't know what to do with myself when I matched the crimp for the second time yesterday. I brought my left hand up and it felt like a jug. It was a perfect moment. I leaned over and grabbed the finish jug and let out a yell. It's a moment I won't soon forget.

I came down and couldn't take the smile off of my face. It was totally unexpected and a highlight of my season. I don't think I could have ended my season any better.

We walked down and threw some pads under Alpine Club. Dobbe had been saving himself in hopes of doing that thing. He'd tried it once in the summer but was really hoping the cooler temps would make it feel a bit better.

Sadly, it seems that cooler temps don't really help that miserable sloper. Dobbe had multiple very close attempts and the picture below has him basically on the hold. I'm not really sure how he didn't do it then.

Starting Alpine Club.

Dobbe nearly sticking the crux.  So close!!!

Chris tried it a couple times and wants to come back to try it some more. I'm excited to work it next year with renewed enthusiasm.

After that we took a quick trip over to Massive Vertigo. Everyone was keen on trying out the new Knee Pad beta that Nic and Jeff made so popular.

First up was Dobbe. On his first go he fell going to the juggy sloper at the end! So close to a flash! He tried some weird beta on his second try and then satched it up on his third go. Quick work!

Stick...

He passed the knee pad to Chris who promptly flashed the rig. He made it look easy. I was getting inspired!!

Stack...

Remo stepped up next and did it on his first go! So much easier than the heel hook!!!

Stuck...

Well, I was all excited to try it out again and finish this thing up. I mean I didn't want to be the only punter, did I??? I chalked up and did the first two moves. They felt good but the right hand felt a little greasy. I kept telling myself, just get the next hold and it'll be over. Then, out of nowhere, as I was getting my heel up my right hand dry fired off of the first crimp.

You know, the sharp incut one. What the fuck?

"I'm done."

I laid there for a few minutes in a pile of numb fingers and self pity. Thanks to Remo for grabbing my puffy and putting it over me. At least I think it was Remo. Not sure as I had my eyes shut.

Just before I came off.

Note the middle finger.  They were making fun of me.

I don't know if I've felt pain like that in a long long time. My fingers were still tingling later that night and I've got two bruises/blood blisters on my right hand. Hands down the worst dry fire I've ever had.

And that was it! We packed up our things and hiked down looking at projects the whole way. The potential of this place struck me one last time and I can't wait for next year.

Yesterday was such a perfect way to end the year. Perfect temps, a good crew and lots of sending. Things got done.

As I sit here snow is falling in Madison and while some people will still be able to get out again I'm pretty happy with how things went this year. I never thought I'd see this much interest in bouldering at the lake. It makes me so happy to see.

I'll leave you with two pictures. Remo, Chris.....you guys should know better by now...

Rib Recap

A cozy little crag pup.

So we thought it'd be a little chilly last Friday. We knew that it was only gonna be around a high of 40, at best, up at Rib. We thought, "We'll be fine...We're tough...ish.".

Wrong. It was f-ing freezing!!!

As we drove up the road going to the parking lot we actually had to drive through two patches of man made snow from the ski area just over the hill. Very entertaining.

After a small run in with the Property Manager we eventually made it into the park and Aaron gave us a mini tour of the main areas. We were gonna try and stay in the sun as much as possible due to the chilly conditions. The high for the day ended up being a balmy 35 degrees.

We warmed up a bit on some really cool moderates that I forgot the names of while Katie and Sara pulled the pads over to No Reservations and some mantle problem just around the corner.

Aaron being awesome.

After a couple of laps on a really nice juggy arete thing Aaron stuck me on a nice eliminate that took off all of the aforementioned jugs and put me at maximum reach.

Close, but not quite there.

I failed to do the problem in a few tries and lost all possible interest. I went around the corner and watched as the group threw themselves at No Reservations. Katie tried it a few times and Aaron followed suit trying to repeat it. Soon after both Josh and Chris started trying. I got my shoes out as Josh taped his right index finger for the crux crimp. After one go he tore through the tape.

Chris had been trying it as well and he confirmed that it was indeed THAT finger and I promptly took my shoes off and stopped obsessively chalking up. I've got bigger goals in mind.

After about a half hour everyone gave up on No Reservations and we moved pads over to the Raptor. I re-warmed up so that I could have a good flash attempt on it. The first move was easy but really painful but I didn't see the key heel toe beta and fell getting my right hand up into the undercling. Oh well. I tried it a couple more times before taking my shoes off. I'd gotten really close, maybe a half inch from the bottom of the only hold on the face but couldn't quite reach it.

I gave Chris a bit of a rundown on the beta hoping that he'd flash it. In the end he did it second go in a really impressive effort. It seemed that the problem was made specifically for him! It was sick to see and I'm glad he did it.

Chris repeating the line for the camera.  Photo: Aaron K.

Sticking the good hold up high.  Photo: Aaron K.

I stepped up after taking a short break and gave it another round of attempts. Sadly the day was only getting colder and I was losing feeling in my heels and it was coming and going from my fingers. I had one really close go where I actually went past the hold and jammed all four of my fingers on the back of the face.

Fingers still throbbing, I gave it one more go. As I came out of the hand jam and into the undercling I could feel two of my calluses rip off. I sucked it up, relaxed and threw for the hold...

Photographic evidence that I had my hand on the hold.

Failure.

I ended up walking away empty handed and down two calluses on my right ring finger. While the problem is cool enough to make a return trip the pain factor makes it a little less cool. Seth's Sacrifice on the other hand looks really cool and the project left of the Raptor looks pretty fun too. We will return in the spring!

Aaron stepped up to the plate in my absence and repeated the Raptor as well. Here are a couple shots of him playing around.




We messed around on the backside and looked at Seth's Sacrifice. It's too bad it was frozen. Icicles don't make the best footholds. I'm looking forward to making a return trip in the spring as the area definitely deserves a couple more trips. Not a ton of problems but what's there is fun and super concentrated.

Here are some more pics from the day.

Josh came absurdly close to repeating it as well.  I woulda been the lone duck if it weren't for his failure.  Thanks for the company Josh.

Chris not being able to hold back his love for Aaron's rear any longer.

He just can't take his eyes off of it can he?!?

A very cold wife.

Katie on the Mantle Problem.

About a half second before her foot popped and Chris caught her out of mid air.

Me at my absolute best.  Click to see how hot I am in this pic.

Rrrrrrrrribs

A quick post to wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving.

Katie and I are hoping to meet up with Chris, Sarah and Aaron at Rib Mountain on Friday. The weather looks to be a perfect 41 and sunny up there. I just hope it doesn't snow too much the day before!

Seth's Sacrifice and the Raptor are high on my list and hopefully I'll do one or both of them! Excited to see the place after 3-4 years of telling Seth that I'd go up there.

Should be good!

Keymaker, Uno

We've been blessed this season with a pretty good spell of nice November weather. This past Saturday was no exception. Although it was a bit humid for this time of year, conditions were very good!

We got up to the lake around 11:30 or so and went to Beautiful Soup. Sweaty and I had been texting all morning and were planning on meeting there to climb for a bit. They were already up at Moj and Jenga but were gonna come down after that. Sadly it wasn't in the cards as we left a mere 10 minutes before they showed their faces at Alpine Club.

Congrats go out to Sweaty for finishing up Alpine Club! Sick work! He figured out different beta for it and used the right hand bump method to get the good crimp. Nicely done!

Anyways, back to Katie and I. I ran up top and threw a rope down as I wanted to try out the moves on Keymaker. Two bomber cams and a big ol' tree made it pretty easy to setup and as I was finishing up I saw Chris and Sarah come up through the talus. We were hoping they'd join us!!

I came down and then jugged my way up with a bit of help from Chris.

The holds are definitely all there. I was excited about that. While the left hand crimp looks horrible from below it's actually an okish 1/4 pad crimp. It's a bit worse than the crimp you use for the jump move but still usable.

I tried to do the move the way Nic did but I don't think I've got the lockoff for that. I was happy to see that there is another, albeit worse, crimp about halfway between the rail and the high right hand edge. I should be able to use that as an intermediate.

I tried the move a couple more times and then moved on to the upper section. I wasn't really sure what to think of it from the ground as the holds look really improbable. Again, it's all there. There aren't any real cruxy moves after you get the good high edge but you're way the hell up there. After about 6 moves you get a really good undercling jug and the climb slabs out on good holds.

It was cool being up there for the first time and seeing the holds. I had a hard time keeping my psych to myself and I kept on jabbering about it to Katie. I'm glad she puts up with it.

After that I took a quick break and Chris warmed up and tried Beautiful Soup again. He tried the throw once but came down and vowed to REALLY try my betas. It took him a couple of tries to get the feeling of standing up right but once he did it came a bit more naturally.

While he rested I started to work on trying Keymaker from the start. It took me a few tries to get the traverse figured out again but I eventually stuck the big move to the start hold on Beautiful Soup. Both Chris and I think it's a V5 traverse but we could be wrong. It's not trivial at least.

The one really big move to link into Beautiful Soup is pretty hard but it felt good to do it again. Pretty soon I'd linked the traverse into Beautiful Soup and grabbed the high right crimp before the throw. My feet were wrong though and I was super stretched out so I just stepped off and quickly figured out beta to get around that. Shouldn't be a problem.

I took my shoes off and Chris stepped up to the plate again. He tried the big move again and stuck it! It looked so easy. Then without warning he just jumped off and asked me what he had to do next!!

Chris sticking the rail for the first time.

After a bit of a beta exchange he got on again and, well, I'll let the pictures talk a little...

First he stuck the throw again...

Got the right foot...

Made a monkey face...

Shook out a bit cuz he's a silly little spurt climber...

Got his foot way out right....

Reached for the crimp....And........

......punt.....

He came so close!!! Next time! Right Chris?? Oh well, he's definitely psyched to finish it up. You could see it when we were packing up and he looked at me and said "So, uh, if you wanna come back with someone to spot you on Keymaker.....call me.....I'd be down. I'm pretty excited about this one...". It was quality.

We all packed up and drove the cars over to Burma Road. Sarah and Chris had been here once in the past in the heat of summer and written the spot off. Burma is hands down the worst spot in the summer. So bad.

We hiked out there to find some very green, but relatively dry boulders. We screwed around on the front wall with Chris and I repeating the highball warmup that is classic in every sense of the word. I love that problem! After that I dragged Chris over to do Murder Slab with me. While I was doing it I really tried not to let on how sketchy it was that day. Most of the holds were wet or at least partially covered in a beautiful bright green moss. I looked down at one point and noticed a bit of moss on my shoe.

Fun stuff!

Chris followed after me but in a vain attempt to keep his shoes dry on the downclimb he took a 4th class gully. Instead of just getting his shoes wet, he got all of himself wet. Well done!

We moved some of the pads over the the left sector and messed around on the short but incredibly fun problems there. Katie finished up the reachy problem she'd worked a month ago. After topping out in wet leaves she didn't seem too thrilled about it.

I told Chris that he had to do the dyno. I told him it was a must do moderate dyno but really cool!! He stepped up and did it as a reach problem. Tall bastard.

In passing I mentioned that there was a static way to do that line. He tried with all his might but couldn't figure out a way to do it. It was fun to watch at least.

I booted up and after a couple of rough goes, figured things out and did the problem both ways. We spent the next 15-20 minutes watching Chris flail trying to do this version of the problem. After watching for too long Katie stepped up and almost did the problem on her first go!

Chris got a worried look on his face and stepped his efforts up. Eventually he sacked up and did the problem making it look WAAAAY hard. He easily spent more time on this than he did on Jenga. It was one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time.

Katie stepped up and did the problem a second after Chris. We all laughed.

Days like this are so much fun. Try hard on a couple of projects and then go somewhere and try even harder on stupid, pointless, eliminates, joking around the whole time. It reminds me of how much fun this piddly little sport can be.

I like this life.

PHHHHUUUUUUUUPY!

Oh yeah. We got a puppy. We think her name is gonna be Bandit but we're not sure. I'm also partial to Talus.

Post up here with your plans for the weekend. I'm still not sure what our plan is. Head up Saturday morning and play it from there I guess!

Rest Days

As I sit here writing this I feel absolutely destroyed. I could barely get out of bed this morning. I'm sore.

I'm curious what everyone else does for rest days? This is both a "What you do" and a "How often" question. Katie and I normally don't go more than 3 days on ever but every now and then we lapse and climb for extended periods of time. Right now we've been in the groove of 2-3 on, 1-2 off. It all depends on when we can get out to some real rock though.

Right now I'm planning to take two off so I can be somewhat fresh for Saturday, which will hopefully be a big one! What do you guys do?? I'm really curious what others do or if you have as many problems taking an actual rest day as we do.

The other part of this is something I'm sure we've all experienced before. The "non-rest" rest day. This happened to us when we moved this past spring and basically took a month off of climbing. The skin on my hands was tore up and my muscles were destroyed. I felt like a train wreck and couldn't even fathom climbing even after multiple weeks off.

Katie had one of these days a couple weeks ago when she decided to rake all the leaves in our yard on a Friday rest day. It started out fine, but then she broke our rake. She's just too damn strong!

The old rake.  She's so strong!

New Rake!

After she bought a replacement rake she started to realize just how many leaves we have in our yard. I think we have 4-5 massive trees covering our backyard right now. She had to get a bedsheet to transport them all to the front for the city to pick up.

Too many leaves....

The worst of it was when she was done and realized that there were another 5-10 sheets worth of leaves still on the ground or in the trees. She was less than excited to climb the next day and was sore for 3-4 days after it.

I want your stories! Out with them!

On the climbing front it looks like we're going to Beautiful Soup in the Morning on Saturday and possibly driving out to Dodge to meet up with Chris and Sarah after that. Should be a fun day. Who's in?? Sweaty?? Eggnuts?? Narc??

The more pads the merrier!