{ Green Monster }

Climbing outside is a new-ish thing to me, so, as you could guess, I'm not super familiar with the outside climbing areas in the local canyons yet. Thankfully, when I went rock climbing with some buddies a few weeks ago, one of them left a guide book to the canyons in my car (which I have been using rather than returning. I should really give that back soon...) But it's been a total blessing.

Me, Katy and her friend/my new friend Holly, headed up Rock Canyon on Friday to check out some new areas and do a little climbing, thanks to the recently atypical beautiful weather. Our scouting of a new place, however, only yielded the discovery of a weenie climb we decided to forgo in hopes of finding a better one. Instead, we headed back to a familiar spot and did a new climb there.

The wall we hit was Green Monster, and we did the crack climb (totally ligit name) up it's face. For sure deemed as one of the best decisions of the day.


Me, Holly and Katy at the mouth of the Provo Canyon as we were hiking up.


Me and Kates trying to confirm the weenie route we saw on the rock with the corresponding weenie route in the book. I need to scout all the places soon so I don't need to carry around the newbie-identifying book anymore.


Gearing up after we left the lame climb and got to the Green Monster wall.


Holly was the first to try the Green Monster crack. She topped out right about here. But Holly doesn't climb. And we kinda made her try it. So I think that would count as "rocked it."


Break as Kates was putting on her shoes to climb the crack.


Kates killing it on the wall. She climbed second.


Kates killing it #2.


Nicki Schmidt belay (PS -- thank you Holly for taking no less that 141 pictures from our climbing caper. NOTE: I had written "climbing adventure" but thought adventure was a far-too-used word. Thank you Mac thesaurus for the "caper" suggestion instead).


I climbed third. The start.


Nicki crossover towards the top.


And me and Kates walking out of the canyon after we packed up shop. NOTE: It was 9:20pm when this picture was taken. 9:20PM! Man I love summer! Too bad the days get shorter from now on. But, let it be said, I noted the abundance of light with thanks.

{ Well Worth It }

A friend of mine stopped by on Saturday, and this is what happened with about 20 minutes worth of effort. Sweet success.

(If we would have done diagonal too, it would have been even cooler.)

{ Most Recent }

I was recently called in the LDS church to serve as the Stake Publicity Director in my area. Basically I'm in charge of all the publicizing within the stake. So, as part of my calling, I was asked to make a 24x30 inch poster advertising stake choir practice. They wanted it to be reusable so every time they had a practice, they could just put it up at church on the day of, and people would know. This was my solution. Hope they like it (and that it's affective, since that's important too).

{ First Moab Trip of the Summer }

I'm not sure how much better it can get than waking up to climbing in Moab. Last weekend my ward took their annual trip down there. About 60 people total came, and we slept in the yard of one of our ward-member's family's house. It may not have been as pretty as waking up surrounded by redrock in one of the canyons, but I am a huge fan of "camping" with the availability of plumbing, so I was good with it.

We headed down after work Friday night, got some dinner once we rolled into town, and then headed over to the McKinnon's (above mentioned family's) house to set up our tent. We then jumped on their giant trampoline, listened to a powerpoint-guided lecture on the universe (projected on the side of the house so we got to sit under the stars while listening), ate a smore around a camp fire, then hunkered down for the night in Marie's 5-woman tent.

We got up early and headed over to Wall Street on Potash road to do some climbing. I led a 5.10a route (not too shabby for my second lead ever), which, by the way, still scares me a bit, but I think it's a good kind of scary. Waking up to climbing in Moab is pretty beautiful. The wall we were on sat right next to the Colorado River -- only separated by a two-lane road from the water. So so beautiful.

After each climbing the route, we packed up shop and headed out to go mountain biking on some Moab slickrock -- so killer. The ride was super fun till we got lost and had to walk our bikes through a bunch of technical rock and sand :) Tired + hot sun + mike getting a flat tire + lost = kind of grumpy. But all was better once we go back to the car and headed back into town for dinner at Wendy's.

All in all a great trip with great people. Next time I go down I will be going here click here for awesome future place to visit #1 and here click here to view awesome future place to visit #2. The picture at the top of the post is the same as awesome place #2. Me and kates are in the far ground checking out potential routes. Marie-b is in the foreground.


Me and Kates in town before we headed to the Broken Oar for dinner.


Attempting to rock scramble to top-rope the climbing route before opting to lead instead. The scramble was a bit sketchville; witnessed by my willingness to lead climb rather than take the scramble chance.


Half way through the climb. Note my good-looking climbing pants. They = favorites.


Me at the top of the climb with Meesh on belay.


Jennie Litster in the coolest picture of the day.


Evidence of how happy we were to wake up to climbing in Moab. You can't fake those kinds of smiles.


The ladies.
From left to right: Marie, Jennie, Meesh, Nicki (that's me), Katy


Jennie, Marie and Meesh biking/resting while biking on the slick rock.


Me in my helmet, check. And check out how beautiful that sky was!


Marie looking stylish while protecting her already-sunburned chest. Good-looking sun protection.

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In other news, I went on an evening bike ride today and this was what the sky looked like as I got back to my house. Talk about serene. Thank you nature for being so pretty.

{ Moose Tracks }

I wasn't around to witness this, but my roommate totally took this picture just outside my condo complex today (that's it in the background). For the record, that's a moose. Or possibly a moose-ito -- Alison, the photographer, said it looked like a little moose. We may live at the base of a canyon, but come on! This is Provo, not Alaska! A MOOSE?! Holy nuts and awesome, batman! I'm sad I missed it.