Comments/The Untimely Death Of Adam 'Remo' Remus

I routinely state that my favorite part of this silly little site is the comments. I really do think they're great. I could say that my favorite part is the community aspect or that everyone has a little meeting place but that'd be a lie.

My favorite part about the comments is that inevitably ALL comment strings end in us starting to talk about food, cake, candy or booze. Oh, and cheese. Every now and then some cheese is thrown in there.

Fun fact of the day right now. The last time we had a post on here that didn't get at least one comment was July 16 of last year. Fucking hell. Well done guys. Good to see you're just as bored as me most of the time.

Now, that said, we have to collectively mourn the loss of Remo. For those that don't know he sprained his ankle while playing with a frisbee. Really? I mean it's just like soccer for hippies. Either way Remo, it's been nice knowing you but I do believe it's off to the glue factory for ya.

I'll spill a bit of Whisky on the ground tonight for you. Gonna miss you man.

Alpine Club

So Alpine Club just got another repeat. Kyle from Milwaukee did it with the bump method which seems to be gaining momentum as the way to do the move.

I'm not going to comment on difficulty cause that's just stupid and it doesn't matter. I just think it's great that the line got another repeat. I think it's fantastic actually.

I haven't tried the problem since last fall when I got frustrated with it and moved my short attention span over to other boulders. I'm very excited to try it again this year, both to see just how hard the bump beta is as well as try and do it the "original" way.

Like always I'm really just excited to see people out enjoying the lake and getting out. That problem truly is one of the gems.

Choss Can Be Good

"I still want to get down there and see what kinds of animals Katie has." - Josh

Quote of the day right there.

There's something fun about the little out of the way crags in the middle of the country. They're charming, small, endearing and tend to be super chossy and full of fun eliminates.

Mr. Josh took me out last night to tug on some good ol' midwestern choss.

It was good. We went to a small bluff near Somerset right on the river. Not a bad setting for a casual night.

Josh showed me around all of the eliminates and I was actually really impressed with the place. With a bit of love the holds were in surprisingly good shape. On top of that the holds themselves were kind of amazing. Flat crimps with cool thumb catches and little crappy slopers with ribs all over them. Not bad.

We played around on a few of the better problems and talked shop/gossip while Barnaby/Beanbag/Barnum n Bailey played in the river.

And yes, in case you were wondering, conditions were amazing. Cool. Crisp. High friction. Everything you'd imagine in a summer bouldering session.

Prime.

Then Josh turned around and saw some smoke on the river.

"Is that....nope. No, that's a humidity cloud."

Sure enough, just rolling down the river was a cloud full of good conditions. We decided to call it and head to Dairy Queen instead. Solid choice.

Really glad I was able to get out with him while I was in town. Made for a fun night.

Thanks Bud.

The Miniature Big Apple

This industry is a funny one. I'm sitting in a lonely hotel room in Minneapolis right now getting ready to peddle my wares and show off some jackets, t-shirts and trail running shoes tomorrow. Customers on the "outside" won't see these products until next year at the earliest.

Pete and I get absurdly excited about seeing the new shoes in the Montrail line. Pete has good reason since he runs, but I don't even run that much. I just like seeing new shoes/innovation. It's really interesting to me for some reason.

Take the Team 5.10 shoe that debuted last year from Five Ten. They did a magnificent job on the shoe itself, not even mentioning the launch. Brian, Remo and I all got to see a pair of prototypes that Nic had early last year. Along with Paul Robinson being photographed in them the shoes started receiving more and more attention as the summer progressed. It was fun to watch.

First Brian posted pics of Nic in the shoes, then a couple days later, he promptly blurred the shoes out of the pictures which created quite the hullabaloo. Fun to watch.

Pretty soon rumors started swirling and people started getting excited for the shoe. It so resembled the old V10 that many climbers wanted pairs sight unseen.

I was lucky enough to see a finished sample in the beginning of July at a trade show. What I saw was nearly perfect. The toe rubber was finally dialed in and fit seemed to be close to perfect. (Oddly enough take a look at the link here. I was lucky enough to see an early prototype of the Lace Up Projects last summer at the same show. Very promising and something I hope to see soon.)

To this day the only thing I'd change would be the pull tabs. Switch them out for the Dragon pull tabs and they'd be perfect. They're a very impressive piece of workmanship.

As it stands Five Ten had a very successful launch of the shoe and it's the only shoe I've bought for a second time in many years. Thanks Five Ten.

On a separate note it seems some other companies have taken notice in the trail running category. Merrell, Inov-8, Salomon and Montrail have all had mini "leaks" of their own in the last couple of weeks for Spring 2011. They all seem to be taking a hint from Five Ten in the great book of "How to build hype".

What can I say, I'm a sucker for a good shoe. Hopefully I get to climb a bit this week. Sounds promising.

Also!!! CONGRATS TO NIC!!!! For those that don't know he got engaged this past weekend. VERY happy for him! CANNOT BELIEVE SHE PUTS UP WITH YOU!!!! Have fun in Swizzy!

Guess That Beer

Guess it. What'd I drink last night? It was good.


Also, we got a coconut last night for Katie's hermit crabs. If you've never opened one before I highly recommend it. After you drain it you get to wail on it with a hammer.




And, Katie got me a Moon Board. Psyched.

N.P.G.A.

Ray and Katie looking excited....and Ray's awesome fire chief hat.

It was humid. It was steamy. It was greasy.

Devils Lake was not in prime shape. We went out anyways cause we're tough like that.

We had a nice ferry ride up in the morning and kept laughing at Ray for being so mystified with the ferry. It was like he just couldn't comprehend it. Super funny. Was also pretty funny watching him look absolutely horrified when we told him that he needed to eat deep fried cheese curds before he left wisco.

I really do love the midwest.

So we told RV we'd meet him up at the Dumpster Boulder to warm up. He had to "unload the chamber". As he started sprinting towards the bathrooms we decided to warm up on Pete's Pebble instead. We set everything up and started grabbing onto the greasy holds. I made a vain attempt at chalking up the topout holds but everything was full of super grease.

Ray and Katie traded goes until we spotted RV halfway up the 500 Ft. field. We called him back down and he begrudgingly turned around and started down the field.

He did the problem second or third go and really liked it. Ray and Katie both followed suit and Katie in particular was quite pleased. The sketchy topout provides a nice end to such a good problem.

Katie Sending

Sofie always smiles when she tries hard....always.

Next stop was at the Dumpster boulder. Everyone else set up pads and I ran up into the talus field above us. I had two missions.

1 - Go pee.
2 - Find rad boulders.

After quickly accomplishing my first mission I set out to the task at hand. The further i ventured up the better things looked and eventually I got to a point that looked like it had some potential. Most of it was in the woods but I can't wait to go back this fall once the leaves are gone.

I turned around and saw one of the coolest features I'd seen at the lake. It's hard to describe but look here.

Who knows, it could be a total heartbreaker. Not a great start hold sadly but it's a downright amazing feature. Very excited to head back that way with pads.

As I was coming down the talus I saw Katie topping out Dumpster Diving. Nice one to finish up and she was happy to have done a couple of new boulders. Sofie did all the moves on it but couldn't quite find the juice to link it.

We hauled a couple pads over to Half Dome next to see how that felt. In short, pretty damn horrible.

I've done the first move on it twice, once with Katie and another with Remo. Needless to say, it felt miles harder today. After maybe 30-40 tries I was able to get a good pause on the hold and am pretty confident I haven't lost that much ground on it. The holds had a mandatory brush on them after each go and conditions couldn't have been much worse.

All that said, I think I know what I have to do on it.

I have a goal. I have focus. I know what I need to do. Now I just have to execute.

RV and Ray helped me rule out any other sequences and I'm very excited about this one. I think it'll be a great addition to hard climbing at the lake.

After maybe an hour there we made our way back to the talus field for the long awaited Pad Golf rematch between RV and I. The last two matches were close but in the end I was able to pull them out with relative comfort.

This time round Ray was joining the fray as well. It proved to be a good match. Ray started out with the early lead and I quickly brought up the caboose. A bit of worry set in before things started to even themselves out.

By three throws in we were all within 10-20 feet of each other and it was coming down to the last throw at the steepest part of the course. I being the caboose, went first with possibly my best, and most clutch throw to date. I had a couple good rolls and our voices got more and more excited with each new bounce. When the dust settled I was in a very good lie with an easy throw to the trail.

Ray had the second throw and got a bit too much air under his pad. While it took a few good rolls it stopped relatively quickly in somewhat of a pit.

RV stepped up with both Ray and I warning him not to punt. Knowing the gravity of the situation his knees locked up, he started sweating bullets and began to shake uncontrollably.

He punted. While his throw wasn't bad, it sure wasn't good.

I'll let him and Ray argue over who got second and who got third. All we need to know is that I was the winner, once again.

It's with that story that I'm announcing that I'll be going Pro with the National Pad Golf Association. I feel that the future is much brighter for me in that arena and that I'll truly be able to push my personal limits with the N.P.G.A. They're a fine organization and I look forward to crushing all fools who think they can play with me.

My future is as bright as a Nite Lite.

Reverse Oreo

I think it's safe to say that psych has been rather low lately for everyone in town. Dobbe and Aaron were rained out on Saturday. Sad. Ray, a summer transplant from Wyoming, was rained out too on his first trip to the DL. Even more sad. Nic was rained out from coming down our way on Sunday and sadly couldn't get any "Reverse Oreo" action.

Nic + RV + Me = Reverse Oreo. Obviously.

What is even more sad is that it was mostly dry on Sunday. Maybe if you would have come down here you wouldn't have gotten that hunk of metal in your eye. Sadness abounds.

We're hoping that will end this Saturday. Radness will ensue. Honestly I just want to get out and climb some stuff. I miss real rock. I miss the boat. I miss eating ice cream even if I don't send a damn thing. I miss the DL.

Projects

Enough talk about poop, triathlons and Jade. On to much more rad stuff now.

Projects seem to go in waves. We saw it last fall with Moj and saw it at dodge a couple years ago with Highly Executed and Battle of the Bulge. All of a sudden interest is high and people go out in droves to try the sick project. It's fun to watch.

Right before I did Moj, Runnells, Tony and Kevin were all EXTREMELY close to sending the rig. Both Kevin and Tony had fallen after the crux move and for Brian it was just coming down to doing it once and he'd do the problem. The whole atmosphere added to the urgency of doing the problem and gave us all a bit more adrenaline than expected. Days like those are fun.

We've still got a bunch of good projects out there right now and it seems that none of them are getting any play. Time to suss em out boys.

Half Dome Project - This one feels a good deal harder than any other project I've played on at the lake. The start can feel kind of awkward though, especially if you're a bit taller. Right Runnells? The first move is tough, but not bad, but the second move felt absolutely brutal to me. It's been almost a year since I've been on it though so I'm interested to try it again. Could be hard. Felt harder than Moj or Beautiful Soup.

Seam Project - While I think the stand start on the boulder is kind of stupid, it's still a really hard move. The left hand start on the sloping rail will be very hard. Personally I'm much more interested in the lower left start.

Jack Backwards - One of the more impressive unclimbed walls at the lake. Sven's guide seems to put the project as the dirty corner but the real gem is the wall itself. Seems like some pretty bad holds lead to a good jug and another possibly hard sequence to reach the lip. Tall and cool looking.

Impossiproject - I wish this one had a perfect "putting green" landing. I just wish. It'd be one of the best lines out there but instead it's kind of a heartbreaker. It'll be an amazing problem when it gets done but the landing definitely takes away a little bit. The arete itself is downright amazing and after looking at it again this spring I've no doubt that it'll get done eventually.

Any other big projects I'm missing out there. We've got 4 relatively prime projects right now. Get after it!

Juicy Gossip

Sweaty said he wanted some juicy gossip so here it is.

Sweaty is now a triathlete. I'm sad to see someone who was so promising meet such a grim fate. but he now joins the ranks of fallen soldiers alongside Steve "sweatyasamotherfucker" Day. Such a sad end.

But really, why be good at one sport when you can be moderately OK at three different sports! HAH!

Don't worry Rhoadsy, you're still badass in my book!

Triathlete humor aside we're all moved in and, aside from our old landlord being a total dick, are done with our old house. Yay.

Climbing rocks can't resume soon enough.

For now I'll give you a topic to discuss. What will change in your daily life now that Jade has been downgraded from the arbitrary number of 15 to the arbitrary number of 14? Will your eating habits change? Maybe your bowel movements? Possibly your liquor intake or your bedtime?

Please tell me. I care. Really, I do.