I am a water-whore from out west, too. I still find myself bringing between 3 - 4 liters of water for a day of climbing. Then again, the air is thick here, and the heat has this wetness to it that I have yet grown accustomed to. I sweat like crazy regardless of the season.

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Too much crap in the pack for an alpine ascent. Though, I agree that Canon is the most alpine-like setting in the North East. It is not, however, alpine in my opinion. I carry a super small pack when doing summer alpine stuff. Usually 3ltrs of water, a rain jacket, first aid kit, lunch, and maybe one of my tent groundcloths for emergency shelter. Total weight depends on the water as everything else is super light.

Light is right and speed in an alpine situation, or on an inherently dangerous precipice can make/break a sucessful ascent.

I am a water-whore from out west, too. I still find myself bringing between 3 - 4 liters of water for a day of climbing. Then again, the air is thick here, and the heat has this wetness to it that I have yet grown accustomed to. I sweat like crazy regardless of the season.

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Too much crap in the pack for an alpine ascent. Though, I agree that Canon is the most alpine-like setting in the North East. It is not, however, alpine in my opinion. I carry a super small pack when doing summer alpine stuff. Usually 3ltrs of water, a rain jacket, first aid kit, lunch, and maybe one of my tent groundcloths for emergency shelter. Total weight depends on the water as everything else is super light.

Light is right and speed in an alpine situation, or on an inherently dangerous precipice can make/break a sucessful ascent.

It wasn't the 5.8 grade that was a problem. I'm pretty solid on 5.8 in general. Some 5.8 trad climbs push me while others come quite easily. It's vertical crack in particular that is difficult for me.

But just because I really don't like vertical crack that doesn't mean I'm going shy away from it. I mean, you have to keep trying to stuff get better at it. I'll admit that I'm not very good at getting better at crack, but it is what it is. I told my partner that day that I didn't think I could lead Reppy's, so she did. I really don't understand what is so irresponsible about that. I've never in my life heard anything that said I had to be able to lead in order to second.

My partner led Reppy's and she did fine. I fell all over the place as the second. I really don't see why falling on a specific type of feature is grounds for immediate descent. Other than a few cracks here and there the rest of the way, it's pretty much face and slab after Reppy's (depending on how you do the Finger of Faith). The roof has a jam crack, too, but I actually got past that part and had both feet up over the roof. I only fell on the Triangle Roof because my foot slipped. I landed awkwardly and hurt my ankle. if I hadn't hurt my ankle then I wouldn't have retreated. I wouldn't have even thought about retreating, in fact.

There was nothing to suggest that we should have turned back. There was no reason to think there was an imminent injury waiting for us above. It's an absurd assumption to say that because the first pitch was hard for me we should have turned around. I actually pulled the roof on P3 and had a solid hand jam that I felt good moving from. MY FOOT SLIPPED! That's it! If I hadn't tweaked my ankle then I would have gone back up and made sure not to let my foot slip.

This is the last I'm going to comment on this particular subject. If you think I never should have been on Moby in the first place then fine, we'll be shooting bullets past each other. Weather permitting, I fully plan on going back up to Moby again before the year is out.

That's all fine and it may indeed be that simple. But you wrote it up on your blog as a major epic. I've seen less melodramatic writing about entire Himalayan ascents than what you crammed into describing a 160' 5.8 hand crack. If you're gonna go off the deep end of hyperbole in your writing, then you have to expect people are going to react to that rather than the "real" story, especially if you decide to obscure the latter.

That's fair criticism. Thanks.

How do you know a guide at a party?










He'll tell you.

As if this blog wasn't already pathetic enough, now he's deleted all the negative comments posted in response (I saw them before they were deleted so I know they were negative).

Much loss of face.

JL

I deleted the ones that were anonymous

I deleted the ones that were anonymous (yes, the Messner one was also anonymous). If you've got something to say then put your name on it. I've not been a coward standing up here replying to folks, and everyone knows my name. I expect folks who comment to do the same.

For clarity, they were negative as he says. That is irrelevant. I've kept negative comments on the blog before.

You can't disable anonymous posting in any way? Would you prefer that I use a pseudonym instead of 'anonymous'?

Is this at a gym? Afterschool? PE program? etc.

One of my favorite games is the PB & J game. Basically you have two teams and you have to swing from one gym mat to the other. Each round, you switch directions and moves the mats further apart. The further apart they get, the more teamwork it takes to get your team across.

As far as sharks and minnows, instead of saying "fishy fishy, cross my ocean", you could say "climber climber climb my mountain" and the "IT" could be a Yeti or something.

Obstacle course are always fun. We also do the climber olympics and have different events. Just be creative and make stuff up.

Good luck!

Josh

This is a new series on the blog. The hope is to give light to the lives of guides and not just focus on the climbing.

The focus of this series is less about the "how to" of climbing / guiding and more about the personal side instead.

This first post, An Unpleasant Start, is a new series on the ups and downs of being a guide: from networking trips gone wrong, to personal sacrifices (money, relationships, travel, climbing for work's sake vs. having fun), and how a hired trip can start off bad and end up good. It's about being young and learning.

BTW - if there are any guides out there who would like to contribute, please let me know. We're looking for different perspectives.

There is absolutely nothing in this tripe that even remotely resembles the "life of a guide" other than some bullshit pity party on behalf the person who wrote it.


You've gotta be fucking kidding me....

If you've got something to say then put your name on it.

If that's the way you feel that's perfectly acceptable (and honestly it doesn't make much sense to allow anon comments anyway, you're basically begging for spam and other bullshit), however you need to reconfigure your site to disable anon commenting immediately. Otherwise you can't (with any kind of credibility) say you're deleting unsigned comments and censorship has nothing to do with it.

While you're in the midst of this massive shit throwing contest something you might want to consider: there are several pro bloggers that make rent off "you're a fucking gumby" style hatemail. A large reader base of folks who absolutely hate your fucking guts can generate as much (or more) revenue for a blog than normal readers. It's because the ones that hate you will keep coming back to see what kind of response their flame got from the rest of the echo chamber. They'll also revisit your post and re-read it several times looking for new things to nitpick. That's ad revenue right there.

If that's the way you feel that's perfectly acceptable (and honestly it doesn't make much sense to allow anon comments anyway, you're basically begging for spam and other bullshit), however you need to reconfigure your site to disable anon commenting immediately. Otherwise you can't (with any kind of credibility) say you're deleting unsigned comments and censorship has nothing to do with it.

While you're in the midst of this massive shit throwing contest something you might want to consider: there are several pro bloggers that make rent off "you're a fucking gumby" style hatemail. A large reader base of folks who absolutely hate your fucking guts can generate as much (or more) revenue for a blog than normal readers. It's because the ones that hate you will keep coming back to see what kind of response their flame got from the rest of the echo chamber. They'll also revisit your post and re-read it several times looking for new things to nitpick. That's ad revenue right there.