How do you convince someone who’s never been anywhere else that the place that they’re from is special?

“It’s beautiful here” you say, meaning it.

“I wish it was flatter” they say, also meaning it.

When you’re a farmer, life in the mountains is hard. And when you plow the steep slopes with a bull, dress in traditional clothing, live in an adobe home and eat boiled corn three meals a day, every day, the white people that come to visit you seem exotic. You, after all, are very, very normal. Everyone you know is also a poor farmer, barely scraping out a life on a mountain top. Pumas, Andean Foxes, Oncillas and Spectacled Bears are nuisance animals that threaten livestock and crops – the fewer the better. And why worry about them, there are tons in the forest out there. And there is a lot of forest too - just look over there, can’t you see it?

We, with our money and our lily-white skin, seem very important here. We can go anywhere in the world, and see more of Ecuador than these same Ecuadorians ever will. They’re too polite and grounded in the unfairness of life to let escape more than the tiniest traces of envy. Though our importance might be overstated, our privilege cannot be. In fact, their assessment of our privilege is much more reliable than our own – we tend to only compare ourselves to other enormously privileged people.

I brought my laptop into one of the stores fronting the soccer game in Colepato on Sunday to show our friends Don José, Raúl, Ramiro, Wilfredo and a few others the photos we had taken with the camera traps. Someone commented on my computer, saying “this is one of the new kinds, isn’t it?” “No,” I replied, “es bastante viejo, ya tiene cuatro años.” “But,” the person protested, “weren’t the old ones much bigger? With the monitor así?” using his hands to indicate one of the older tube-style monitors. “Oh,” I replied, realizing my arrogant stupidity, “yes, those came before this kind.”

I pulled up the photos from the camera traps to show. My excitement over the photos of the Oncilla and the Puma was shared. “Grand-OH-te es” they observed of the Puma, with the typical exaggerated emphasis on a vowel to indicate the extent of the situation. “And fat, too.” It should be, it ate a whole alpaca the day before and another the night that photo was taken.

I showed them photos of the other animals, too. Don José and others rattled off the local names as soon as the photos flashed onto the screen.

“Cuchuchu.”

“Zhulpo.”

“Venado.” “No, venado es otro. Este es Zhibri.”

“Pavo de Monté.”

“Llamala.”

“Have you eaten this?” I ask Don José of the Mountain Paca.

“He’s eaten everything.” says one of the others.

A Mountain Paca is a small animal. It’s nocturnal but common, and rarely seen due, I suspect, to the fact that it’s reportedly quite tasty and evolution has selected for skittishness. And here we are, rich important people from far away, spending our time and money hiding cameras in the woods taking pictures of it. It, and the Oncilla, which is known locally almost exclusively for its ability to kill oodles of chickens in a single night. And Round River groups have been doing this sort of thing here for years. Gradually, I think, word is out in Colepato that their part of the world is, actually, quite special. We don’t think of ourselves as rich, naturally, but in terms of where we can go and what we can do, the world really is our oyster. Not admitting that would be unappreciative of it. And out of all the places in the world, we come to their little forest at the top of their too-steep hill. And so people in Colepato have begun to draw the only logical conclusion, which is that their home really is something very special. Which, over the course of six months, is the very same conclusion that I have come to.

I would like to acknowledge the role that Stuart White had in shaping my thoughts on this subject.

Playing Catch-Up

I know that my blog has been pretty thoroughly ignored, but I have been doing stuff and writing about it - I've just posted it in other places.

Here is a trip report I wrote for Cascade Climbers back in August for Joffre Peak after Nick and I climbed the Flavelle-Lane.

Here is a quick list of blog posts that I wrote for [my employer's] blog:

The camera trap photos (this is a really good post - all cool pictures)

A post with (not very good) writing by one of my students, but I included my pictures, so I'll include it here.

How do you convince someone who's never been anywhere else that the place that they're from is special?

This is by far the best (in my opinion). I'll likely repost it on this blog.

A post of photos

and another

Paragliding

“Yeah, how much do you weigh, anyway?” Shawn asks me as an afterthought in his living room in Whitehorse.

I lied.

He laughed. “Yeah, right.”

So I told the truth.

“Oh fuck. That is a lot. That’s a fuckton. Huh… ”

“Is it too much? Can we still go?”

“Yeah, we can still go. We’re just not gonna stay in the air very long.”

I met Shawn on the ferry from Juneau to Skagway this summer. I was asking around for a ride to Whitehorse, and got a ride with him. In a burst of generosity on the part of a nearly complete stranger, he offered to take me paragliding. In a burst of faith, I decided to sit on a perfect stranger’s lap and have him fly me around in a nylon diaper.
Paragliding seems to involve more guess-work and driving than even climbing. We were gonna go from a hill right behind his house, but then for some reason conditions didn’t look good. So we drove pretty far to a launching point on the way to Dawson. We went with a younger friend of his as well, who’s name I’ve forgotten. He was apparently from Whitehorse, but he had a look like Shawn had pulled him out of a discoteque in Bratislava, complete with a hangover. He didn’t wind up flying (he had his own wing), since he felt rotten, but he was a nice guy.
Shawn unfolded the wing in the grass at the top of the hill, but not until after he’d made me sign a waiver that included the hand-written sentence “I am fully informed that Shawn LastName is not a certified pilot” (I didn’t forget his last name, I’m just not sure that he’d necessarily appreciate being outed on my blog – FoG, and all that). The thermals, coming off the empty highway below, were apparently pretty good. I stood around trying to strike a balance between being a smart, helpful guy, and acknowledging that I didn’t know shit about what we were doing. I could more or less take directions like “don’t let this blow away” or “keep these lines from tangling”. Those two directions are pretty much all there is to alpine climbing, so I was not useless.
Shawn and I got strapped in. “When I say go! turn to the right and run downhill as fast as you can.” Normally these directions would be easy for even me to follow, but strapped to another person I was worried about being a clutz. “When we get airborne, just keep running. If we come back down its better to be running.” Okay.
So the gust came up, Shawn said go, and we took off running. We got airborne, and I kept running, dutifully. 40 or so feet in the air Shawn said “uh, you can stop running now.”
And we were flying! Shawn battled to keep us in the updraft, but we seemed to be climbing a bit at a time. We flew out away from the hillside over the valley. Everytime the kite sunk a little bit I came to a newer and more profound realization of how dangerous one of these things could be. We were flying over a burned spruce forest, and there would be little chance of walking away from a crash into the cris-crossing logs.
But Shawn wasn’t worried, so I relaxed. After a while we lost the updraft and just began sledding down, drifting back and forth. The flight lasted 10, maybe 15 minutes, and I soaked in the views. I should have taken a self-portrait, but oh well. As we approached the landing I began to realize that I couldn’t imagine a scenario where even a controlled landing didn’t end in a broken leg. I figured it must not always end that way, but I’m a realistic enough person to person to acknowledge that either way, I was going to find out.
As we came in we were just a little too far right of where we wanted to be, and crashed through a small stand of aspens. They arrested our speed perfectly, and I ended up sitting on my butt on the ground laughing, just past the aspen patch, more gently than if I’d sat down. Ah, that must be how to avoid a busted leg – hit some trees.
Anyway, thanks, Shawn.

Did I Ever Tell You About The Time That Smoking Saved My Life?

Its true. Next time someone tells you smoking is bad for you, you tell them this story.

It was my one and only ski tour. I refer to it as The Ski Tour. It taught me that I don't particularly like ski touring, and it taught Heidi Rader that she doesn't particularly like me. We all learned a lot.

Skiing up the Nelchina Glacier

It was the first real day of the tour, and we were side-hilling above the moraine of the Nelchina Glacier on our way to getting on the glacier. The four of us stopped to take a break. At the end of the break Yoshi pulled out the pipe.

A bit about Yo: Yoshi lives to ski tour and smoke dope. Frank claims he can tell when Yoshi runs out of pot because the pace of the trip changes so dramatically. At the time he was in his mid-thirties, lived with his mom, occasionally drove around Japanese tourists for work, and was generally more fulfilled by his life than either you or I. When Yoshi began to grow his own he effectively removed himself from the western economy as we know it. I saw him last week and it didn't seem that much has changed. We did discuss this story, though.

Yoshi

"Hey Yoshi, can I have some?" "Yeah, bro" came the rhetorical reply. Frank and Heidi were, as usual, re-packed before us and started skiing off. Yoshi and I sat a bit longer, smoking and procrastinating putting my shit back into the bag.

What came next was more of a surprise. Through now-glassy eyes, Yo pulled a big, beautiful bud out of his bag, and tossed it into the snow. "One for the spirits."

Laughing, "Yoshi, man, as soon as you ski away I'm gonna go get that."

With as much alarm has his fish-bowl eyes could muster "no man! Don't!"

I shrugged and laughed, and then turned myself back to attempting to pack my bag. I have problems getting organized enough as it is, and getting stoned was probably a passive-aggressive attempt to make myself slower. I hate ski touring, I just didn't know it yet.

Then Yoshi and I heard Frank shouting for us and sounding agitated. We responded, but we were downwind, and he couldn't hear. Finally Heidi saw us and settled Frank down.

"DID YOU SEE THAT???"

"guess not?"

"There was just a HUGE avalanche!!" and he gestured up the hill with his ski pole. Sure enough, there was a pretty big crown line on the hill above us.

"did that just happen?"

"yeah, it was right behind us! totally silent!"

"huh."

The slide path was quite big - at least 100 feet wide. I don't know how deep the debris was. Frank said it ran right behind him. Generally, I finish a break at least a minute behind whoever I'm with. If I hadn't stopped to smoke pot with Yoshi, I'd be a dead man.

Thanks, marijuana.

Clear and Apparent Concern (or, how could anything ever be difficult when you're on flat ground?)

A trip report from the Yosemite trip was briefly in high demand, but I was lazy and indifferent, and it didn't happen. But now I think I'll type it up (and will add pictures later - but don't get excited, I didn't take many and none are that good).

In April and May I went to the Valley for three weeks. After successfully soliciting a partner I met up with Jones. We both were keen to aid climb, and Jones had a decent bit of experience scattered across more than a decade, and I had none. Jones wanted a partner and I have a lousy sense of smell, so we were a natural pair.

The Prow

At first we dicked around and figured out what we were doing on boulders and the first 3 pitches of Dihedral Wall. Then we decided to put it to the test on our first wall, The Prow on Washington Column. We sent with two nights on the wall and one beautiful night on top, and almost everything worked out pretty well. Our only system that was a complete failure was our shit-system. I'll spare the gory details (in spite of the fact that they're hilarious), but I'll suffice to say that Jones' nickname is The Filth, and after a year of traveling in India and Africa not all is well with his guts. On the first morning he wiped out all of our supplies, and dirtied most of his clothes. Not everything worked out perfect for me, either, and it was a good thing that we had a lot of extra water, as we needed to clean off the ledge. However, I find that I could vacate my bowels exceptionally well while on the wall. Not totally because of anything specific to wall climbing, but because our close proximity whilst doing our duty caused Jones to retch and dry heave, and the resulting convulsions of gut-busting laughter were better than any enema or fad diet.

The climb was uneventful until the bitter end when Jones tried his best to have his haulbag murder him by threading a shoulder strap incorrectly. It busted off at the worst possible time, and nearly sent him cartwheeling down the whole North Dome Gully descent. We made it down amidst drizzle and bursts of spitting rain on the lower slabs, and by the time we got to The Caf it was a full fledged downpour.

Lurching Queers

We spent the next few days resting and congratulating ourselves. We set our sites higher. Though we averaged only 4 pitches per day, we thought that since we'd had the experience of this wall we'd certainly be faster on the next. Rita Mae argues otherwise, of course, since our systems stayed the same, but our confidence brimmed. We were most confident at roughly the mid-point between getting off the Prow and onto El Cap. We agreed that Lurking Fear was "so in the bag that we've practically already climbed it." and then decided we didn't need to do it at all since the whole thing was already done, except to prove to other people how easy it was for us.

We knew we had to get serious when Jones was well-rested enough to get himself a disorderly conduct charge in Camp 4. Way to stay under the radar, Filth.

I should give a nod to a guy named Gerke that we met in camp 4 before starting The Prow. Everything system we had was retarded, except the ones Gerke taught us. The whole time that we were lounging between routes he was up soloing Mescalito, including a day in a full-on snow storm. I got a wicked picture of him that I'll post later. We tended to ask ourselves on route, "WWGD?"

So after procrastination, we hiked loads to the base, planning to hike back up the next day and fix the first 4 pitches. We ended up hiking up late the next day and not climbing at all, due to a party in front of us.

Day 1: we fixed the first 4 pitches, and slept at the base.

Day 2: our biggest day. We jugged and hauled those 4 (fixed with three ropes) then did another 5 pitches to sleep on top of pitch 9. That was a short sentence I just wrote. But those 5 pitches took 3 hours each - combine that with the previous 3 and we had ourselves a 21 hour day. The last two leads of the day had fallen to me - well, I volunteered for them, since I'd recently ingested a caffeine pill and felt capable. The 2nd to last was a 10c (C1 for us) splitter offwidth, notable for the fact that it takes only #4 camalots for 80 feet. Since we had two, this means that I could be on only 1 at a time for the whole pitch, with no pro. Jones thought that it was a bold lead, but I had done it with no headlamp. By the time I got to the anchor, it was dark. Jones jugged on an anchor built by a blind guy. THAT was bold.

I led one more. A pitch that goes free at 10a (C1, again). By the time I got to the bivy - the appropriately-named Ledge of Despair - I had hit the wall. It was 1am, after 2 before we were in our bags.

A bit about Jones: I thoroughly enjoyed climbing with him. One of his best attributes is that in spite of being a non-smoker, he smokes a helluva lot. He chain-smoked the whole trip, in fact. And best yet? Hand rolled cigarettes. I have a tendency to be inefficient at times. You know, packing the whole bag and then realizing that I put the thing I need right away on the bottom. That kinda thing. Jed, for example, is a patient guy, but every once in a while he utters a complaint like, "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING??? JESUS TITTY-FUCKING CHRIST I COULDA FINISHED MY THESIS AND BUILT A FUCKING HOUSE IN THIS AMOUNT OF TIME!!!!" Jones, however, was much more amenable to the delays.

"hey, Jones, uh, sorry dude. Could you sit tight for a second while I deal with this?"

"yeah bro, no problem. I'm gonna smoke..." and the corners of his mouth would curl into a smile and his eyes soft-focus as his attention turns inward in anticipation of the nicotine hitting his nervous system. Smoking has a horrible reputation in our culture, and smokers are sub-human, but every once in a while I wonder if we're all actually really missing out on something.

Jones also has something of split-personality: his roots are thoroughly blue-collar, and he has that blue-collar work ethic, which he wears on his sleeve. But that is split by both a pinko upbringing and the firm belief that it is his moral imperative, as a citizen of this planet, to contribute as little as he can to our economic systems, which he sees as untenable in any form. He views any variety of financial ambition as a character flaw, and the verb he uses the most is undoubtedly "chillax", since he sees either "chill" or "relax" as insufficient by itself to adequately describe his intention to do fuck all.

So that night, we slept on the portaledge. We awoke in the morning utterly exhausted.

Day 3: by the time I had finished leading the first pitch of the day it was 1pm. In my defense, we had some delays.

In climbing films people refer to Alex Honnold as being some sort of a god. They say he's essentially fearless. This is bullshit. He looked decidedly scared, for example, when I gave him every reason to believe that I was going to fall on him.

He and Steve Su passed us during this pitch. They were climbing the route in a day, mixing free and aid, and seemed to be doing alright. Alex caught me right as I reached a spot that I couldn't figure out how to do. I bounce tested an RP and it blew, hitting me in the face, nearly breaking my glasses. I squealed, and Alex shrank in fright. He waited while I called for the cheater stick and clipped a high bolt. Then I was stuck, since I couldn't figure out how to unweight the damn cheater and the next moves were no easier. Finally Alex suggested (or maybe I offered) that he climb on by. In my defense, he referred to the spot that stymied me as "rather heinous" and yarded on my aider. The next move he handily freed, doing a boulder problem that could sit in my back-damn-yard for the rest of my life and I'd never be able to do it. I yarded up his aider and I was finally done with the pitch. Alex and Steve climbed on through. I didn't realize how much time had elapsed until Jones told me, with no inobvious amount of displeasure.

Behind Alex and Steve were two YOSAR guys, also climbing the route in a day (for fun, not work), but using mostly aid. We had met them at the base, since they had attempted two days before but had to abort less than a pitch up for reasons I won't bother with. Jones and I had a serious conference. It was late, we were tired, and we were clearly getting spanked by the route. We were too slow. And to make matter worse, the YOSAR guys brought us an updated weather forecast which could be summarized as "yer gonna get real wet and cold". The next pitch was described as "tricky" and the one after was no better. It was also completely horizontal, making hauling and jugging a bitch. But the topo said that they could be rapped in one pitch.

Jones and I conferenced.

"Pretty fuckin' gay." I said miserably (this was a now un-funny reference to a funny conversation we'd had on the ground, and not typical tasteless homophobia.)

"Pretty fuckin' gay." Jones agreed miserably.

We nicely asked a favor of the YOSAR guys as they passed.

"Better today than tomorrow, right?" we said as we clipped our tag line to Jake's haul loop, knowing full well that our dumb asses could turn into a rescue case if we didn't get to the top of the 14th pitch that day, as we'd planned. We jugged and hauled the next two pitches as one, and it saved us hours.

The day stretched into night. Jones led the last pitch to the top of 14. It wandered ruthlessly and went through trees and grotty, flaring chimneys that were described by muffled shouts from above as the "worst possible fucking aid feature". Pulling into the belay contained the usual nightmare - an unprotected 5.4 mantle with rope drag that threatened to rip off his ass cheeks. I'd had the same on a pitch on The Prow, and I knew his misery. It was time for sleep. We nearly had a serious disagreement over how much of the ledge was each person's share, and it was the only major drama of the whole trip. We were too tired for fighting, though, and either of us coulda slept hanging upside down by our toe nails.

Day 4: my first words were "that's rain." and Jones' were "fuck."

With the fire of instant fear in our hearts, we got up unusually quickly. Rain on the coming pitches was seriously bad news, as we were basically climbing a drainage.

Flash back a few days to the base, when we first met the YOSAR guys. Jones and I were so full of shit and ourselves that we hadn't looked at the weather forecast. They told us that there was a 20% chance of rain for a few days out, and that it was a larger pattern, not just one day. I had my first real taste of humility in terms of the route we were facing. Jones was imagining a brief spatter of rain one afternoon. I imagined the sort of weather we'd been having: long days of wet and cold misery, snow included. 5.4 unprotected mantles on wet slabs. "We'll aid that shit" Jones would retort. He had tunnel-vision and was blind to any possibility besides climbing the biggest rock in the valley. "You CAN'T aid it, that's the point" I would retort.

Throughout the trip we disagreed on many points. I was wrong just as often as I was right. But I was so APPALLINGLY right on this one count that there is no way I was going to leave it out of the blog.

"You fucking called this one, bro" Jones admitted between shivers, after leading the second pitch of the day, a flowing corner that ostensibly goes at 10b. I was wearing my puffy jacket and was tolerably comfortable, but I couldn't find my rain jacket in the haulbag (dumbass maneuver) and I knew that comfort wouldn't last as I got wetter.

As an interesting side note, while I belayed that pitch I got to watch a peregrine falcon ride up on the thermals and then blast back down the wall at top speed, obviously having a very nice time. Quite a sight, as they move extraordinarily fast.

The last pitch of the day, to a sheltered ledge (Thanksgiving Ledge), on top of pitch 17, was my lead. As I toiled my way up the 11d offwidth (C1, obviously) in the rain, I began to sing a song I had made up:

"heeeey ay... I wanna go to the buffet

I don't want to be on beeeelay,

I want to eat some bacon,

and see my girlfriend.

I wanna sit on a toilet,

and shit in private"

Actually it was better than that, but I forgot most of the lyrics now. The last pitch didn't give up without a pain-in-the-ass fight. Then, at the very top, just before the ledge, was the unprotected 5.7 boulder problem - complete with rope drag. There was no way I could do it. I belayed and hauled. Jones was fully miserable when he got to my belay, and asked expectantly after the ledge. I delivered the bad news "no man, that's the ledge up there. Its 5.7 getting to it."

Jones didn't hesitate, and climbed the 5.7 like it was 5.6. I've never witnessed a faster transformation of mood than when he got to the ledge and realized that it was indeed sheltered and dry. It was early afternoon, and we were done for the day. We ate. We slept. We watched the snow fall in the valley. We were two easy pitches from the top, and it was a great sense of relief. We slept all afternoon, and then all night.

Day 5: The next morning it wasn't raining. Jones led a C1 (10a) pitch, then I led a 5.3, topping out the route. We hooted. We hollered. But the writing was on the wall that we weren't done. For example, the anchors for that pitch were about 15 feet from the nearest good spot to unpack the bags - frigging a fixed line to get the pigs over there was a nuisance. Then the "4th class slabs" that I had poopooed at the base were actually fully hard (5th class) and a very dangerous place to fall (the only rain of the day came while Jones was leading something treacherous). We had the pigs to deal with (they were still mind-numbingly heavy, even less food and water) and when it wasn't loose gravel or a death slab it was manzanita-bashing bullshit. It was afternoon before we truly got on top.

Then we got lost. There are all sorts of factors, but describing them would be boring. It included Jones wanting to do the much longer descent that is only walking (Yosemite Falls Trail), and me initially agreeing but deciding that I'd rather do the shorter one with raps and downclimbs (east ledges). My haulbag, it turned out, was way heavier than his (but smaller and easier to carry - this is crucial later. I don't know how much it weighed, but an unscientific comparison to a 50-pound bag of rice put its weight at about 3 times that) . Lots of people get lost up there, apparently, so don't think we're too stupid. Finally, trudging through the woods in old snow, busting in ankle deep on every step and occasionally all the way in, I lost it:

"THIS IS NOT A FUCKING TRAIL!! WE'RE FOLLOWING ONE SET OF FUCKING FOOTPRINTS! WE'RE FOLLOWING SOMEONE ELSE THAT WAS FUCKING LOST, TOO!!!!"

We eventually decided that the only certain thing we could do was find the rim of El Cap, and then the top of the Nose. Then we'd know where we were for sure, finally. It turned out we had walked several miles too far. Along the way we walked over the true summit of El Cap. We saw a famous tree that we both recognized. It was turning into a extraordinarily beautiful evening in one of the prettiest places I've ever been. Jones relented to the idea of going down the east ledges. Then we saw Cedar Wright and his partner Nick (they were the first people we'd seen since the YOSAR boys). They told us, definitively, where to go, and agreed with us that we had one more bivy. We admitted that we left our last food on the ledge for the next party (since we didn't need it) and they cheerfully gave us each a can of Chef Boyardee. For whatever reason I'd assumed that Cedar must be some sort of an attitude-ridden Valley Dickhead, but I fell in love with the man. What a couple of sweeties!

We began the uneventful evening walk down to the top of the east ledges. At one point, stepping over a lichen-greased stream running over a slab, Jones slipped. At first, my reaction was to laugh. It was funny, there he was water-sliding off El Cap! Hilarious! Realizing in short order that it definitely, definitely was NOT funny, I became quite afraid. I was watching him die, I realized.

"Grab something!" I shouted, feeling about as useless as tits on a bull. It probably occurred to him to try that without me suggesting it.

Jones rocketed about 60 feet down the slab, gaining speed frightfully, before launching off a 10-foot drop. I couldn't see the bottom, but I could see logs piled up. Jones shouted in pain. I ditched my haul bag and busted down the manzanita on the side of the slab to see if he was okay. He was sitting in a puddle and groaning and miserable. "My ankle, my ass" were the complaints. It wasn't broken, we decided. It could be moved. He was gonna be okay, I decided. I immediately started laughing. Jones didn't see the humor, but I think was a bit relieved by the differences in our attitudes toward the situation.

After some conferencing we decided to continue to our camp spot at the top of the east ledges, but I would shuttle his haulbag down. Jones' stoke was blown.

Day 6: We went down the east ledges. We had a tiny amount of breakfast, and that was the end of the food. Jones was NOT feeling brave, still all-too aware of his near-death experience the day before, and the descent is scary. But that motherfucker, ever the trooper, carried his own haulbag down (though mine was quite a bit heavier, his was way, WAY harder to carry. It was roughly double the size, and any movement gets it going and it takes your body with it. Downclimbing in it is scary and dangerous.) But after a few hours we got down to the car.

I dropped my haulbag on the ground and kicked it.

We entered the store and shredded ice cream cones and started immediately demolishing them. We ate pizza and 5,000 calorie salads. We were so, so, so happy to be back on flat ground.

The next day I bolted. Susie was back from Africa, and I wanted nothing more to do with Yosemite. I lost weight. Lots of it. I don't know how much because I didn't weigh myself before or after, but it was immediately obvious when I looked in the mirror. Jones, it turned out, had broken three ribs in his tumble, in addition to spraining his ankle.

About a week after the wall I was stoked to go back. But I need to get faster.

Why were we so slow? Lots of reasons. We led slow, me especially. Cam hooks would help with this. So would a bit more mileage and complete sets of familiar gear (I have camalots, but Jones has some-other-fucking-things-that-he-found-somewhere and they don't go in anywhere quickly). We hauled slow, due to leg-hauling on a 3:1. We could never make body-hauling on a 1:1 work, but a few people have committed to showing me how to do it so it does. We didn't free climb anything. I wasn't in free shape at all, and neither of us was used to mixing it up. This is clearly something to practice by climbing shorter walls much faster. I move slow in general. This might be a permanent condition. But we'll get better. You'll see.

Home building a lo Colepato

While in Ecuador, Jesse, my co-leader, and I arranged homestays for the students - and for us - with families in the nearby indigenous community of Colepato (say: Co-lee-paw-tow). It was one of the highlights of the trip for me, in no small part because I finally came to a better understanding of the people there, who can be a tough egg to crack.

Jesse and I chose for ourselves the house-on-the-top-of-the-hill, a spot on the ridge-top with an incredible view into two valleys. We thought we were getting away with something, living in the Colepato equivalent of the Hamptons. Of course, it occurred to us later that no farmer wants to live on the top of a hill, and that our family was among the poorest, not the richest.

Our "host dad", Don Segundo, had a whole gaggle of kids. I forget how many now, but 14 wouldn't be an over-estimate. It may have been more like 11. This house, made of cement, is characteristic of those built with remittances (money sent home), and actually belongs to Don Segundo's son, who works for the "system of pipes" in Queens, NY. His daughter is in NY, too - going and working in the US is pretty common for people in rural Ecuador.

So I helped Don Segundo with his project - building a shepherd's cabin in his pasture in the forest about a half-hour hike into the mountains from his house.

Working on this shack was interesting on a lot of levels. Superficially, the construction part was interesting - in my past life (before I was a star rock climber) I was a master homebuilder, and seeing how a shack is built in the Andes was totally fun. But more so, a lot of what we were teaching and learning in Ecuador was community-based conservation and preservation of habitat and ecosystems. And a lot of the deforestation that occurs in the tropical Andes is not timber harvest by evil corporations, but simply land cleared by subsistence farmers. So, really this was it(!), this was the deforestation of a tropical biodiversity hot spot, and I was helping!! It really felt no different than a backyard project at home, so seeing it in its greater context of vicious, malevolent environmental destruction required doing a lot of reading of publications by the World Wildlife Fund.

On to the construction:

The shack was framed in a generally normal way when I got there. We had to add a couple more rafters, cut from trees in the forest. The rafters were held on with large nails. The hammer, whose handle was made out of the leg of a chair, had sort of a jumbo-sized burr that quickly gave me a wicked blister:

(we also had a fairly small assortment of tools...)

After the rafters were attached we had to put on cross-pieces, to support the grass roof. At first we used more sticks for this, but then ran out and had to venture into the forest to cut bamboo.

The horizontals were held in place by tying them down with this peculiar vine that we also collected from the forest. Don Segundo told me the name of it at least 5 times, and eventually I remembered the name for the rest of the day, but of course I've forgotten again. Anyway, the stuff was just like rope - even thickness and workable just like rope. As we were tying the horizontals into place Don Segundo said something to me that I hope I'll never forget:

"when I was a kid we were, well, we were rather poor. We used to have to build the houses entirely with (this vine). We didn't have the things we have now. Now we have nails."

Lets be clear that I'm really not one for bullshit sound bites and trite epiphanic moments. I've known people who had "life changing" experiences every 45-or-so minutes, and I'm not one of them. But something about the way he said "we didn't have the things we have now - now we have nails" resonated with me. Thing is: he was serious. He really meant it - he may have even been strutting a little. "Now we have nails - life is GOOOOOOD......." Its a bit like the realization that nothing can ever be difficult when you're on flat ground (see a future post). Anyway, the moment captured my attention as a poignant reminder of how good we really have it. Fuckin' eh, brah. We've got fuckin' nails.

Eventually, one of Segundo's daughters, Fannie, showed up, bringing us lunch. It was, of course, rice, lentils, and a corn-like food called mote (say: mow-tay). I was hungry enough that I was actually able to eat the entire enormous portion they gave me. These guys can eat lentils in a volume that would astonish even a 15-year employee of the food court in a Kansas City shopping mall.

Eventually we finished framing the roof, and we figured we may as well start on cutting some grass for the roofing. I helped a bit, but Fannie was roughly a billion times better than me at cutting the necron grass (warning: google has never heard of "necron grass". It does know what a "necron heavy destroyer" is, who "necron" the final boss in Final Fantasy IX is, and "nekron", the embodiment of death who FIRST appeared in Tales From The Green Lantern Corps. Anyway, the lesson here is don't run around writing about necron grass in your next Nature paper, since it seems pretty likely that I don't know how to spell it.) Anyway, cutting the grass wouldn't seem like skilled labor, but I seemed to move the machete a helluva lot more than I moved the grass. I was getting pretty tired, too, so I mostly wandered around and took pictures while they worked.

Don Segundo says the grass roof will be waterproof for about 5 years. Not bad. Anyway, this was a fascinating day in the hills.

Reasons That You Should Go Climbing With Me:

1. My job prospects are dismal, but climbing prospects are quite good.
2. I`m terribly out-of-shape. You`ll be able to catch up on your reading during the approach.
3. Climbing with me makes you a better person. Its true! Everyone knows that patience is a virtue, and you`ll learn lots of it while I second the pitch.
4. I`m down for whatever. I had going to the Rockies in mind for mid-April, Yosemite late April to early May, and then Bugs and more alpine in the summer. But I`m flexible. Yes, I`d like to climb that with you.
5. I swear to god, I`ll get better at climbing, and then you`ll have a functional partner. If I don`t, so help me, one of these days, I`m gonna jump.
6. I want to go to Yosemite, and I wanna learn this short-fixing fast mixed-free-and-aid business. I`ll get good at it quickly, and it won`t be so obvious that you`ve got a sack of potatoes for a climbing partner. Plus, teaching people stuff is fun. Make you feel like real big man!
7. You get to lead all the good pitches.
8. I won`t hold you up as much as you think I will. I`ll hold you up, but not as much as you think. Consider it a rest day, if you must.
9. Its fun.

Living On The Edge Of The Pig

I’m a mountaineer.
A mountain biker.
An extreme(ly mediocre) skier.
A rock climber.

I live on the edge. I’m an adrenaline junkie. An edge-of-his-seat, full-speed ahead kinda guy. But sometimes I have to take a break from my 30 pieces in a 20-meter pitch lifestyle, and earn some money. So here I am in Ecuador, living my work-a-day lifestyle. But just because I’m here, doesn’t mean that I don’t need my fix. Sometimes I can get it by pushing Big Blue over 60km/h on the Panamerican. I can put a plastic statue of the Virgin on the dashboard and paint Si dios quiere volveré on the bumper just to make sure the world knows that it is out of my hands whether or not I survive this next blind-corner pass on a mountain road. But even that doesn’t really give me what I need.

I had to play Clark Kent today and take care of business scouting the market for a gas can for Big Blue (see the previous post, with the caveat that he is still a Land Cruiser), when I wandered into the Lunch Zone. Of course, it was well after lunch time, and most of the Señoras had packed up for the day. No customers in sight, and the only people around were sweeping up. But I saw opportunity for a thrill. Pulse quickening, I approached the final remaining lady, and did my best to act casual,

“Señora, cuanto cobra un plato?”

She looked at me like I was nuts, and quoted me a price. I wasn’t listening, though, since price didn’t matter. I was a junkie looking to score.

That familiar thrill ran up my spine as she picked the remaining scraps of meat off of what was once a magnificent pig. To make sure I wasn’t get excited about nothing, I picked at a piece. Cold. I nearly started sweating. With her bare hands she starting picking up the mashed potato balls, feeling each one.
“I’m trying to find you the best of what’s here” she explained apologetically. I nearly kissed her.

“Quiere ensalada?” she added. I tried to stay calm.

“Gracias,” I replied.

Armed with the brimming plate, I took a seat. I tried to steady my shaking hands as I picked at pieces of meat. A piece of skin was fried crunchy, but was now stone cold. I bit in.

I was committed now. Commitment. That’s what it’s about. My true love is on the apron, of course, where vicious 5-pitch routes put you at the mercy of the party in front of you. But when I can’t have that, I’ll get it where I can. I took another bite. Mystery meat. Delicious. Dangerous.
I shoveled a bit of salad, lettuce and onions, freshly “washed”, into my mouth as well.

“YEAH!!!” I screamed inside my head, “I FUCKING LOVE THIS SHIT!!!!” What a rush!
Sometimes people ask why I take such risks. I say life would be nothing without it. Yeah, I’m aware of the consequences. I’ve lost friends into the bathroom, where they stayed for hours. And I’ve had my share of close shaves, stomach pain and near sharts. But it’s worth it.

Adrenaline sick, I picked at the last of the pig, and scooped up the last bits of corn, grateful for the calm reassurance of an almost-warm vegetable. Plate clear, I pushed it away and took a drink of my Red Bull. I’m okay. For now. Though the adrenaline rush is fading, I won’t know until the morning whether or not I really made it. Not out of the woods, yet.

I Love Big Blue

"Seriously?" you say, "this twit has been in Ecuador for a MONTH and his first blog post is about the goddamn car?!"

Yes.

You see, the thing is, I love Big Blue. But its not just that. Big Blue represents the near-completion of a nearly 10 year old dream to get to bump around in the Andes, with me at the wheel, of a capable vehicle.

And capable he is. I´m relieved he's not mine, of course, since he´s a bit of a monster. In a comment on my last post Fuller asked if the Land Cruiser was a hybrid. Yes, he is: half gas, half oil. As Stu (our main local contact, a gringo who´s been living here for over 30 years) put it after the usual cloud of smoke poured out of the tailpipe upon startup, "only the innocent believe he was named for his paint job."

Here´s why I love Big Blue: he´s a dinosaur, you see, a relic of an era of automotive engineering I sorely miss. He`s a 1990 with over 460,000 kilometers - and not easy kilometers, no LandCruiser in the Andes has an easy life - and still going strong. The concept of Grocery Getter just doesn´t apply - the lack of power steering alone is getting me into the best shape of my life.

But he´s not perfect. The previous program leaders regard him as something of an AntiChrist after repeated breakdowns, stranding them in the middle of no where. But to me, knock on wood, he´s been nothing but decent.

Recently he was getting alarmingly bad gas mileage - we went 120km on 18 gallons of gas. And the odor of gasoline was stifling. I had fun going to the mechanic with Patricio. Patricio is a bit of a character - he´s an engineer for a local NGO we work with (I almost wrote out the name, but once again FOG (Fear Of Google) scared me away.) and is mighty useful on all matters automotive. He suggested a mechanic, and I followed him there. Patricio has made it abundantly clear that he does not trust Martìn, Stu´s mechanic, and has made it clear that he doesn´t trust him because he´s Italian.

Watching Patricio´s mechanic work in the street outside his house gives a certain appreciation for the simplicity of the machine, as he used only a bent screw driver, a jumbo pair of pliers, one size of wrench, and a hammer for all the work. (I also learned that "pèlicula" doesn´t mean "movie", it means "film". I tried to imagine how using too-light-weight oil would cause a movie to form in the cylinders and allow oil to enter the combustion chamber and burn. Then I figured it out. Maybe now that I know to use heavier oil ol' Big Blue will re-adopt a more innocent connotation of his name).

Anyway, the new injectors for the carburator should clear up the problem with the gas consumption. Apparently they had widened with time and were shooting far too much gas into the cylinders, and gummed up the spark plugs. All this, and bleeding the brakes so I don´t die on the Panamerican, for $30.

Why does any of this matter? Why am I blogging about car repairs? Because I want to, fuck you. And because the horrific gas mileage was a real concern for Big Blue`s range - we are planning a trip to about 5 hours north on the Panamerican to a town called Rio Bamba. But on the return trip we'll descend to the lowlands on the eastern side of the eastern cordillera and, as long as landslides and other wet-season events don´t disrupt our plans, drive back up via a new road (dirt trail), called the Guamote-Macas road, right through the middle of Sangay National Park. This road, like all others in the Andes/Amazon, will bring hopeless and inevitable environmental destruction. But we´ll get to check it out before it does.

And I get to make the trip, through the tropical Andes, in the wet season, at the helm of my very-own-but-belongs-to-someone-else Toyota Land Cruiser.

I love you Big Blue.

Ecuador!

I'm in Ecuador for 3 months, working for (a great NGO whose name I´ve decided to remove so that Google doesn´t accidentally send someone to my blog and sully the name of a perfectly good organization).

Mostly I'm too busy to write blog posts. I've uploaded photos to my picasaweb site (www.picasaweb.google.com/seth.d.adams) so look at them. I just got a new camera, so if you divide the number of photos taken into the price of the camera you'll find that my earliest photos are among the most valuable, so the sooner you check them out the more each photo is worth.