zib and alex

Updates

2008-08-21T21:15:00.000-07:00

For those of you who have been getting updates from us through your email we have changed our blog website.
The new address is

www.zibandalex.com

This is the site that we will be updating from now on. We will try to send out a group email when we have new posts. So go check it out. We finally have a new post.

Elephants in Manhattan

2008-05-07T07:00:00.000-07:00

The Ringling Bros. Circus came to town a few months ago. The tradition is to drop off the elephants in Queens and walk them through the Queens Tunnel to Manhattan down 34th St to Madison Square Gardens. We patiently waited for them until 1am along with many others. For anyone that has seen Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind you may remember the elephant scene. They filmed that when the elephants were coming to town.

Random Update

2008-02-25T18:45:00.001-08:00

Over the past few weekends, Elizabeth and I have been driving north from NYC to spend time in the snow. In early February, we spent a weekend in the Berkshires, near the border or New York state and Massachusetts. We snowboarded at a small mountain called Catamount which had a family friendly vibe where everyone seemed to know one another. The following weekend - Superbowl Sunday actually - we took a bus to Hunter Mountain. In short, we will never ride at Hunter again. Aside from the horrible conditions, the other skiers and snowboarders made the day miserable. There were tons of people smoking outside the lodge and on the runs. Nothing like some brisk mountain air a cigarette to kick start a run down the mountain. After our dreadful Hunter Mountain experience though, we we rewarded on the subsequent weekend with excellent powder at Bretton Woods in New Hampshire.
On this particular weekend, we stayed in Conway, New Hampshire with Becky, whose son Casey started Couchsurfing. Becky made sure we met up with her friends who assured us that Bretton Woods was the place with the best snow. Always trust locals when it comes to snow or waves. Aside from snowboarding, we also attended the Mount Washington Valley Ice Fest in North Conway where Elizabeth and I took a glacier travel and crevasse rescue course. At the ice fest Elizabeth ran into some girls who were in her ice climbing course in the Adriondacks a few weeks earlier. In the evenings we attended a series of slide shows and short films made by climbers about their recent journeys to the various mountain regions of the world. On top of all this fun, Elizabeth bought $20 worth of raffle tickets and ended up winning a new Mammut coat and climbing rope. At some point during the month, Elizabeth contracted pink eye (photos not show in this post) and we spent one day walking through Riverside Park. Within Riverside park, somewhere in the 90's, we found a very long stone wall that would be perfect for basic balance and rock climbing (first photo in this post). More recently, we had our first big snowstorm in NYC. We brought out the camera and snapped off a couple of images from Central Park. The best of the bunch include Zib running (pictured above) and Stuart (my morning running partner) and I posing in front of the reservoir (below).

Adirondack Mountain Festival

2008-01-18T14:13:00.001-08:00

Cold Axe Bitches: l. to r. Naz, Emilie ( guide), Annie, Shyana, me, Uly, Hannah, & Becky (guide)

After an unusually warm week in the Northeast, we feared our weekend in the Adirondacks may be canceled due to a severe lack of ice (a very important component when ice climbing). We took our chances and headed north for a weekend away if nothing else. We took the opportunity to couchsurf with a native Californian (also from Sonoma County) now living in Saranac Lake, just outside Lake Placid. We arrived Friday evening to Jacob's wonderful apartment above a shop on main street in Saranac Lake, and to our pleasant surprise he informed us all the beginning ice climbing classes were still on for the next morning.
The festival was sponsered by an array of outdoor companies that provided demo gear for our ice climbing adventure. After gearing up, Alex & I split into groups of our respective genders. My all womens group had been cleverly named "Cold Axe Bitches" and was headed up by an incredible woman climber Emilie Drinkwater. Emilie appeared to be dancing up the ice as she gave us a quick demo at our first climb "Lions on the Beach." My group was comprised of women who all had at least some rock climbing experience and a few with some ice climbing exposure. As it came to my turn on the ice, I discovered climbing ice was much more difficult than Emilie made it look. I successfully climbed the two routes at Lions, and was sufficiently soaked after my last climb. The "frozen" waterfall that we were climbing was actively melting, adding a very cold and wet element to the climb. After each having a few goes at the climbs we decided to give the guys group an opportunity to switch routes with us. They were just a short walk from us at another location called "Happy Hour," which stood at approx. 30ft compared to the first wall at about 80ft. This allowed us to get some more climbing in on an easier wall, with our already sore and tired arms. In addition we were able to experience climbing ice that was more solid requiring a slighlty different swing of the ice axe. I stuck around the first wall so I could snap off some photos of Alex climbing.
Alex took to ice climbing with relative ease as he does with most things he tries. He also managed to stand out in his group as he was one of only a few guys that had any climbing experience at all. One of Jacob's friends, a fellow journalist named Mike, was enrolled in Alex's group and ended up writing a piece for the local paper. You can check it out here.
http://adirondackdailyenterprise.com/news/articles.asp?articleID=10008
We were told by Jacob that a photo of Alex was included in the final print. We have yet to see it for ourselves so we can't confirm, but it is possible that Alex is a big star up in the small Adirondack town of Saranac Lake (pop. 5000) There are some photos below of Alex climbing at "Lions on the Beach."

New Year's 2008

2008-01-07T06:55:00.000-08:00

A belated Happy New Year to everyone. We spent the New Year's weekend visiting Matt and Beth in Vermont. Once again we took the train and stayed with matt and Beth in Essex Junction. Elizabeth continued to build up her snowboarding skills during the two days we snowbaorded at Bolton Valley and Stowe. We also spent a day driving around northern/central Vermont and stopped by the Ben & Jerry's plant, a Cabot cheese outlet-type place, and a cider mill.

The day we rode at Stowe (with Matt as well), was a bit chilly and snowy, but with plenty of fluffy powder. We arrived at Stowe and ate one of the worst meals we have had in a long time at a small inn adjacent to the lower part of the mountain prior to riding that afternoon. We rode excellent but cold conditions for about 5 hours. As we hopped on the lift for our last ride of the day, Matt noted that the guy a couple of chairs ahead of us was his boss and inventor of snowboarding, Jake Burton Carpenter. At the top, we followed the route called, "Toll Road", which is a meandering and incredibly fun 3.7 mile run that brought us back to where we started five hours earlier.

New Year's eve was spent playing a video game "Rock Band" in Matt and Beth's basement with a handful of their friends who came over to celebrate for the night. Pretty much anyone who has played Rock Band or Guitar Hero knows how addictive these games are - even for people like Elizabeth and I who are generally averse to video games.

This is a clip (about 2:15 in length) of Zib ripping up the bottom of the Toll Road at the end of our day at Stowe. We used our Canon digital camera's video feature to make this short movie. And, because the temps were somewhere in the mid-teens (F not C) my hand was about to fall off from the cold. Enjoy!

Savannah, Georgia

2007-11-26T07:08:00.000-08:00

Forsyth Park

Alex & I spent an amazing weekend in Savannah, Ga back in November. I am just a little late with this post. The initial motivation behind our trip was to visit a childhood friend of Alex & Bryans. Travis (aka Captain Krug) is stationed at Fort Stewart anxiously awaiting the completion of his service to this country. He lives just outside Savannah with his lovely wife Annie and their new adorable son Finley. Bryan & Jane were planning a trip out there so we decided to coordinate our trips. When deciding on our mode of transportation, we threw around the idea of taking the train. Alex & I have become big train advocates since living in the Northeast, in addition to all other alternative modes of transport. Upon further investigation we discovered you can rent a "roomete" on Amtrak for overnight trips. I was sold, sleeping on a train in my own little compartment, too cool! The train tickets were comprable to a plane ticket, plus an extra $150 for the room, which we justified by thinking we would have to rent a hotel room for the same price if we arrived in the evenning anyway. Plus the pain and suffering of air travel would be avoided. All we had to do was take the subway to Penn Station, hop on our train and 15.5hrs later we would be in Savannah. The price of our tickets included dinner and breakfast in the dining car and our fabulous little room, equipped with sink and toilet in addition to our bunk beds. I claimed the top bunk and struggled to sleep through the excitement of our train adventure. We left Penn Station (NYC) around 3:15pm and early the next morning at 6:45am, we pulled into the station at Savannah. Train travel is definately the way to go. Far more enjoyable then dealing with the security, delays, and hassles of air travel. Now if we could just figure out this ban on bikes situation we would be huge Amtrak supporters.
Due to the early arrival time of our train, Alex & I had much of the morning to explore Savannnah before Bryan & Jane arrived in the afternoon.
As I am a big fan of the book "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" by John Berendt, I was already somewhat familiar with the town of Savannah. For those of you who have not read the book or seen the movie, starring John Cusack and Kevin Spacy, I'll give a brief explanation. The book is written by a nyc journalist who went to Savannah and fell in love with the quirky charm and spent many years there. While he was living there a man, Jim Williams shot and killed his young boy lover in his grand home, the Mercer House on Monterey Square, shown in the photo to the left. The majority of the book describes the charm of the town and all the eccentric characters he meets while living there. Of course, this meant I had to go visit the Mercer House. Once Bryan & Jane arrived we took a tour of the inside of the home, where Jim William's sister still lives to this day. The town of Savannah is divided into 21 squares, which are basically big garden roundabouts every few blocks. The historic distric is quite small and very easy to navigate when wandering around town. Bryan had arranged a rental home for the weekend and once they arrived we were able to settle into our wonderful little apartment which was directly across the street from The Cathedral of St. John the Baptist. An amazing location with a wonderful little balcony that served us well during the Veterans Day Parade, which started in front of the cathedral.
Our friends Annie, Travis, & Finley soon arrived to wander the streets with us and join us for dinner. Finley was just born at the end of August, making him just under 3 months when we were there, but by the look of him you'd think he was closer to 6 months. It looks like Finley is going to be a big boy like his daddy.

We had a wonderful visit with everyone and plenty of time to explore the intriquing town of Savannah. We took a ghost tour one night, a barbeque at the Krugs another evening where I tried alligator tail and kicked Alex's butt at ping pong, and enjoyed the Veterans Day Parade from our balcony. We stopped at Wormsloe Plantation, but due to limited time just took this cool pictures and then were on our way.

I can't forget to mention Sammie and Cooper, a Sharpei and a Boxer who are members of the Krug Family. As many of you know I am crazy for dogs as is Alex, so we spent much of our time rolling around on the floor with the dogs. I think they were enjoying the attention. Bryan & Jane had to leave early Monday, but our train didn't leave Savannah until 7pm so we got to spend the day with the Krugs. They took us to Fort Stewart, the base where Travis is stationed, and showed us around the area. When it was time for us to leave, I didn't have to dread all the hassles of air travel. We were dropped off at the train station, settled into our little room on the train, had some dinner, went to sleep, and the next morning we were back in the city. How can you not love the train!

Bryan, Jane, Annie, Travis, Finley, me, & Alex

The Boys

W.80th Street, International Short Film Festival

2007-11-14T19:58:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago (on 20 October, I think), a friend of mine from high school, Stan Cho visited us in NYC. Stan came to NYC in part to see us, but also in part to see a couple of his friends from Mexico - Raul and Carlos.
So, on Friday night, we went out to dinner as a group and were talking about how cool it would be to watch everyone's films. We decided to use our projector and host a small short film festival on our roof. During the summer, rooftop films are all the rage in NYC. Although this one was little late in the season we decided to go for it anyways.
On Saturday we called a couple of friends and let them know that we were planning to have a festival of short films that night. As a result, in addition to the filmmakers and their hosts our crowd included Assaf, Nivi, Marta and Clint. Basically, I work with Assaf and Marta and they also happen to live in NYC. Nivi is Assaf's wife and is an accomplished artist here in NYC. And Clint is our neighbor, above whose ceiling the festival occurred.
Assaf, Nivi, and Marta brought a cornucopia of fruits, and we busted out the rare belgian beer collection from the back of the fridge. A few blankets and pillows - Voila! everything was set up.

We started around 11pm and finished sometime after 2am. by the end we were all pretty sleepy but the final scene in Carlos's film (Brief Story) was incredible. We'll screen the film at a future festival so we don't want to ruin the surprise ending in text.

Anyways, the films we screened that night were:
A Happy Man by Carlos Morelli
The Last Night on Earth by Carlos Morelli
Una Larga Sombra (A Long Shadow) by Raul Lopez Echevarria
Mallory by Stan Cho
Nevertheless by Stan Cho
Brief Story by Carlos Morelli

Thanks to the filmmakers for sharing and thanks to the small crew of people on hand to enjoy the brisk air and big screen on our roof.

Yosemite and the Eastern Sierras

2007-10-17T19:42:00.000-07:00

As the previous post points out, there will eventually be a post about our post wedding adventure. A month after the fact is as good a time as any.
Picking up where Zib left off...
We left Jarrod and Sarah's house pretty early in the morning and drove north on the 41, stopping for gas along the way. Into Yosemite we drove, no crowds. This was the first time I had been to Yosemite since I have become more serious about climbing, and Elizabeth hadn't been since she was a wee short person. Hiking in Yosemite is cool and the valley is pretty to see. But having rock climbing on your mind and driving into the valley - its what I imagine speed to be like. Our heads were whipping around looking up at every cliff, trying to find the famous wall we have been reading about for the past year. Every time we saw cars parked along the road, we anxiously looked up the trail and through the trees to catch a glimpse of climbers enjoying the most famous granite in the world.
We left the valley and drove up to Tuolemne Meadows where we planned to jump onto the John Muir Trail (southbound) and make our way up Cathedral Peak. We wanted to ascend Cathedral Peak via its easiest route as the first step of getting used to being in real mountains - once again - and being prepared for our attempt at Whitney's summit later in the week.
After going off-trail towards Cathedral, we ascended the huge slabs of granite to a series of ledges near the summit. We put on our rock climbing shoes for the last 20 meters to the summit. However, with about 10 meters to go, the wind picked up and the thunder/lighting that was once across the valley had finally arrived nearby. Some climbers who had climbed up from the other side quickly took our photo and made a hasty retreat down the route we had just climbed. A moment later, a light shower made the rock pretty slick and the thunder kept getting louder. So, we decided to get off the mountain ASAP. Looking around the corner, to the route to the top, we could see some serious exposure and a 5 meter crack in the rock to get to the top. Considering the weather, and knowing that we didn't want to be a statistic in the next issue of "Accidents in North American Mountaineering", we gave up our attempt at the summit block and turned to head down. The slick rock made our descent more treacherous than coming up. Fortunately we brought some rope and were able to rappel/lower off the upper ledges of Cathedral down onto less vertical granite - wherein we high-tailed it back down the JMT to the truck. Here is our route from the John Muir Trail up and back down from Cathedral peak. After driving over Tioga pass we went south on 395. In high school, I spent quite a few hours driving 395 from Valencia to snowboard at Mammoth Mountain and June Lake. Driving in the dark reminded me of how much I miss that part of the country. We drove south past Mammoth to a turn off I knew of, where I could surprise Elizabeth with some hot spring dipping. After an easy night of sleep, we woke in the morning to a brilliant sun rising over the White Mountains to the east. After driving for a bit and stopping to have breakfast next to a stream meandering through a meadow, we finally found one of the hot springs... thank god! This made Elizabeth's morning.
Cleaned up and ready to roll, we made our way down to Bishop for some supplies and to get a permit for climbing Whitney. After discovering a great running shop for women, Sage to Summit, we drove up through the Buttermilks to the North Lake trailhead and jumped on the Lamarck Lakes Trail at around noon. We hiked to Upper Lamarck Lake and set up camp just before dark. After a yummy dinner of dehydrated Tasty Bites prepared and pawned off to us in Berkeley by Sayo, we took in some more sleep. After a night at about 10,000 feet (approximately 3050 meters) we woke with the sun and headed up towards Lamarck Col. Once we dropped into the valley beneath the Col, the icy wind swooped down from the top of the pass and introduced itself to us. A few hours later, we had battled a stiff wind but made it over the col (click here to see our route up to the top of the col) and descended (click here to see our route) in to the Evolution Basin. Staring up at Darwin and Mendel I Elizabeth conviced me that we would be crazy to try to get up either peak that day. So, we settled for a close view and and tough-ass hike back up to Lamarck Pass. A short glissade down the Lamarck Glacier helped boost our spirits in time to catch sight of a trail runner and encourage us to jaunt on the downhill sections. Once back to camp, we broke everything down and were back to the car by 4 in the afternoon. Back to Bishop for some Mexican food we had spied the previous morning and then down into Lone Pine to pick up our permit at the night drop box.
My first time up Mt. Whitney I went up the Main Trail with Adam Zimmerman and another firend, Miles, from UCSB. When we hiked the 20 miles round trip, we went up without a permit. We were stopped about half-way up by a couple of rangers who were intent on sending us back down the trail to our car. After 20 minutes of discussion, we worked out a deal to clean the solar toilets and pick up human shit (and toilet paper) from the rocks around the solar toilets. Ahhh, but on that day victory was ours because we happily cleaned up the rocks and toilets and then went on our merry way to the summit without ever having to get a permit.
Also, that day was September 12 2001. The other half of the day we eneded up telling various hikers and campers about some planes that had crashed into some buildings in NYC.
On September 13, 2007 Zib and I woke up at 4 am to get a good jump on our ascent of Whitney's Mountaineer's Route. Following the route was pretty easy except for missing a turn at Upper Boy Scout Lake. But, we corrected ourselves after about 20 minutes of walking the wrong direction. Iceberg Lake sits at the base of a 1000 foot chute which is the heart and soul of the Mountaineer's Route. At Iceberg Lake, we fueled up with gels and Clif bars and chatted with a couple of climbers our age who were going to do the East Butress to the summit of Whitney. As they departed for their route, we left for ours. By and large the chute is filled with scree and lots of loose rocks. However, by staying to the right side we were able to have an enjoyable scamble to a small saddle just below the summit. From the saddle, we traversed around towards the backside of Whitney before finding ourselves on the WINDY slope to the summit. Five minutes later we found oursleves watching a couple of bodies rise from the edge of the abyss that is the eastern edge of Whitney's summit. The bodies belogned to the young climbers we had talked with at Iceberg Lake. Some small talk revealed that one fo the climbers had in fact traveled on a bus to the small town of Lee Vining with an old roommate of mine from Durango, Jamie Harris. Like many other communities climbing circles can get quite small.
After a few photos and some chasing of a resident summit Marmot, we began the trek down the main trail. We will never hike on the main trail again - IT IS LONG, with a ton of switch backs. Aside from a couple of mildly exposed sections, the Mountaineer's route is far more direct, and less crowded than the main trail. If anyone is considering going to the top of Whitney, climb the Mountaineer's Route - you don't need gear (at least at the end of summer anyways) and you won't be disappointed. We spent the night in a small motel in Bishop before bailing the next morning headed for NYC in the truck.
Aside from being stuck in traffic in Loveland Pass in Colorado due to a multiple fatality accident that shut down the interstate, and watching the Nebraska vs. USC game in North Platte, Nebraska, the drive was uneventful.
So, after Bishop we stayed in Green River, Utah. Then we made it to North Platte, Nebraska and the following night we were in South Bend, Indiana before finally arriving back home in the big apple.

A Berkeley Wedding

2007-09-23T10:09:00.000-07:00

Alex's childhood friend Kevin Bell recently married his beautiful bride Devon at the Brazilian room in Berkeley, California. It was a gorgeous location for a wedding, nestled amongst the pine tress of Tilden Regional Park, high in the Berkeley hills.

Among the attendees of the wedding, were old Valencia (the town in S.California where Alex grew up) family friends as well as Alex's parents, Leonard and Lauri. We both agree the setting for this wedding could not have been
more perfect and the married couple looked radiantly in love. It was a wonderful oppotunity for Alex to play catch up on all the high school gossip and for me to meet all the people that played such a large part in Alex's young life. We spent the weekend of the wedding with our friend Sayo and were able to stay at her family's home in Berkeley. Their

house is the outdoor enthusiast dream, with an extensive collection of outdoor adventure literature and a backyard full of apple trees and other treasures. Lately, our visits with Sayo have
been limited to quick 24 hr catch up sessions and this was no different. However, as always it was still wonderful to see her and we all promised to make our next visit a bit longer. Taking advantage of our time in Berkeley, we spent hours waundering the streets and hit up every used book store we encountered. Alex's best friend Bryan and his wife Jane, came into Berkeley for an afternoon to meet us and we were also able to spend a quick night at their place in Palo Alto earlier in the week. While we were with them, Bryan mentioned Barak Obama would be speaking the following afternoon in San Francisco. We were able to get tickets that evening and attend a Women for Obama rally the next day. We were both awed by the charismatic and articulate Barak Obama. We kept saying to ourselves, "If only everyone could see him speak in person. There would be no question who would be the democratic nominee."
The last morning in Berkeley was the big "first meeting" of the parents. My mom drove down from Santa Rosa and we all had a eventful lunch at Cafe Gratitude, an all organic, vegan, raw food restuarant. All items on the menu began with "I am..." For example, "I am thrilled" or "I am bedazzled." Once an item is ordered the waitress would then repeat back to you, "You are delighted" or "You are eternally youthful." It was pretty hilarious. My mom especially got a big kick out of the whole experience. The parents were quite fond of eachother and were able to share their mutual longing for grandchildren. A wish that will not be soon fullfilled by us anytime soon, nor our siblings. Sorry moms and dads.
Following the "meeting of the parents" Alex and I set our for a week of mountain climbing in Yosemite and the Eastern Sierras. But first we spent one last night in a warm comfortable bed. We stayed in Fresno at our new friends Jarrod and Sarah's home. Jarrod was the best man at the wedding and we were invited to their house Sunday evening, adorable boston terrier puppies were included in the deal. I was in heaven.

Lovely Little Mia

2007-09-18T12:51:00.000-07:00

My good friend Talia had a beautiful baby girl on July 6, 2007. I recently had the pleasure of meeting Mia and seeing the radiant new momma a few weeks ago in San Francisco. I just couldn't help but post a few photos of the little lady. She is simply too cute! Mia is very animated and makes all kinds of adorable little cooing sounds. It seems she has a lot she wants to tell us.

Rappelling, Raspberries & Rashes

2007-07-26T16:45:00.000-07:00

A few weekends ago Alex & I were treated to a private lesson with our friend Brian Gaas on the art of rappelling. Brian is currently the ropes coordinator for the NJ Search and Rescue Team and the guy to know if you want to learn anything about ropes and rappelling. We took Brian up to Inwood Park, which lies at the very tip of Manhattan on the Hudson River, where we had heard of a few climbing spots. As we tromped through the shrubbery in search of a good rock, we had the pleasure of encountering an abundance of raspberries bushes. A good portion of the day was spent collecting berries and consuming them, although we did eventually do some rappelling. After learning some cool new knots and setting up our anchor we took turns rappelling. At the bottom, Brian showed us how to use a prusik to pull ourselves back up the rope and do it all over again.

Alex is giving a fine demonstration of the use of a prusik in the photos above. While Brian is rappelling in the following photo.

You may be wondering why "rashes" was included in this posts title, I'll explain. As mentioned above there was a lot tromping through the bushes that went on throughout the day, as well as some clearing away of the brush to allow room to anchor to a tree. Unfortunately, unknown to all three of us, we were actually surrounded by poison ivy. In fact, it was later discovered once poison ivy was identified by studying the Internet, it was nearly as abundant as all those lovely raspberries bushes. The next few weeks were rather painful and uncomfortable, but after a course of prednisone and plenty of oatmeal bathes, I only have a few scars left to prove the poison ivy was ever there. Alex & I have become experts at identifying the nasty stuff if anyone has any doubts about what is or isn't poison ivy.

Bull Pond

2007-06-26T20:25:00.000-07:00

We should have posted these pics and a few words a couple of weeks ago. Sorry. We spent the weekend of 23-24 June at Bull Pond located on land owned by West Point Military Academy. Our friend's Jen and Bridget invited us to join them at a cabin located on Bull Pond. Our understanding is that the cabin can only be rented out by West Point personnel. The cabin is the only structure on the pond/lake and is nestled on military property somewhere near Long Mountain, NY - about 35 miles of NYC.
So we took the New Jersey Transit train on Saturday morning from Penn Station to Harriman. As a daily commuter on NJ Transit, we knew we would have much better luck with our bikes compared to our Vermont fiasco covered in a previous post. It also turned out this happened to be Elizabeth's first long and hilly ride on her newly converted fixed-gear. Other than having to walk our bikes up a couple of pretty steep mountain roads on the way to the cabin, the ride was a blast. Once at the cabin we discovered that US Army makes a solid effort to encourage serious R&R when using their facilities. We had our choice of 3 different types of boats to use on the lake. And aside from a few local fishermen we had this body of water to ourselves. So, we took the paddle boat for a spin around the lake to scout out possible bouldering sites and to go for a dip in the cool waters after our warm ride 7 mile ride to the cabin. The weekend pretty much went according to plan - get out of the warm city and relax next to a lake in the hills to the north. At some point on Saturday night, after several rounds of horsehsoes, Jen wanted to show us The Squat. Apparently this position is used by much of the world when waiting for anything, anywhere, anytime. We look forward to seeing it being used, first hand, away from a beer-fueled campfire semi-circle. I think if we tried to use this waiting for the subway in NYC, people would have fecal expectations - unfortunately such "movements" are not as uncommon as one would think in NYC's subways.Again, the point of the weekend was to relax, so Sunday started kind of late but was started off with an easy jog in the morning which was followed up by using one of the boats to access a small boulder field we had spied on Saturday.
After climbing around Elizabeth had to work Monday so we had to row back across the lake and race back to the train station. We didn't stay at the cabin nearly as long as we would have liked, but we are thankful Jen and Bridget invited us up to share the little slice of Hudson Highlands heaven. And yes, I took John Kim's advice and cut my hair. The stress of getting close to finishing grad school must be causing my hair to recede a bit... either that or I'm getting old.

Weekend Wedding in Vermont

2007-06-12T19:17:00.000-07:00

Beth Farnham is now married to my old roommate Matt Ames! We took the Amtrak train from NYC to White River Junction, VT to attend Matt and Beth's wedding. Matt was one of my roommates from El Nido while we were at UCSB. Matt claims to have never read an entire book, nor did he take any sort of math class while at UCSB. Yet, of the group of us who lived together for a couple years in Isla Vista, Matt currently has the pimpest job (works at Burton) and owns a home in a pretty nice place - Essex Junction (outside Burlington, VT). Plus, he is now married to a cool Vermonter, Beth.
When we first received the invitation to the wedding, Elizabeth began trying to figure out the transportation, and made the suggestion that we should take the train to White River Junction, and then ride our bikes about 20 miles to the wedding at Lake Morey Resort.
On the train ride to Vermont, we had to work with the train staff to keep our bikes on the train. Apparently, two years ago Amtrak removed the baggage car from the Vermonter trains. The problem for us is that the baggage cars have bike racks wherein a bike can simply be walked into the car and stored until one arrives at their destination.If no baggage car is available, Amtrak's policy states that bikes need to be boxed otherwise they are not permitted on the train.
Yep, cyclists who have no room to carry boxes whilst riding around, are supposed to make a thin and mobile item cumbersome and difficult to handle prior to boarding the train. The conductors were sympathetic to our dilemma. They let us stay on the train and would allow us to return with our bikes, only if we took off the wheels and covered them with garbage bags. The main reason for covering the bikes was to prevent a "monkey-see, monkey-do" effect with other passengers. The Vermonter conductor, Mike, lamented how nice it used to be when the baggage car was on the train, but now he has to be a bad guy quite often because of Amtrak's outdated bike policy.

Regardless, after 2 hours of train delays we hopped off the train in White River Junction at about 8:30 Friday night to begin our ride to Lake Morey. We turned on our bike lights and started out on a twilight ride. We had decent light for about another hour, at which point we had to slow down a bit to avoid rough sections of road. The highlight of the ride to Lake Morey was the firefly show. Once the sky began to darken, the sides of the road began to light up disco-style. To date, the fireflies haven't been too active in Central Park. However, the fireflies along the Connecticut River were in full force and turned, what would otherwise have been an arduous final 10 miles in the dark, into a Star Wars-esque ride on our bikes.
Once at the Lake Morey Resort, Beth and Matt were glad to see us. And after a quick shower and power dinner of Fig Newmans, Clif bars, and mixed nuts, we headed downstairs to talk with the families to be wedded and the small group of Californians. After talking with Mutzy, Ali, Matt, and Morgan at various points late into the night, we retired to our room ready for sleep.
Saturday was filled with kayaking on and riding bikes around Lake Morey until Matt and Beth's ceremony at 4pm. All the while, one of Matt's best men was en route to the lake after finally navigating a cancelled flight debacle from the previous evening. The morning drizzle opened up into a glistening and warm ceremony overlooking the lake (with both best men in place). Aside from some asshole in a motor boat who made a couple passes, the ceremony was beautiful, short, and focused on Matt and Beth.

It's funny, we have been to a handful of weddings over the past two years and have found that the bride and bride-groom love to dance. Regardless of whatever inhibitions they may generally have, the newly married couple always lets loose at their reception. Aside from the gnar-bomb drink that the bartender mixed for Mutzy and I (I believe it was a "Grateful Dead") the night was a great opportunity to talk with all of the Californians, including Dave who had spent the previous day on call at the hospital and the past 14 hours trying to get from Portland, Oregon to Vermont.

The next morning, we were awakened by the same sound of rain that we had heard the previous morning. With some reluctance, we suited up, donned our bags and moved out onto the road. We ended up declining several offers for rides to White River Junction because we wanted to see the terrain we had ridden through two nights earlier.

Once on the road, the rain was steady for about another hour before finally yielding to light whale-spit during our arrival in White River Junction. A few blocks before we reached the train station, we had to stop at the supermarket and stock up on food for the train ride and garbage bags to conceal our bikes. Riding through town to the train station the local bank sign read 56F.So, cold and damp we arrived at the train station where we were able to change into dry clothes, bag our bikes, and warm up prior to boarding the train. Shortly after the train departed, with us and our bikes, we could see the sky open up into a bright sunshine.

Masanutten 100 Mile Run

2007-05-23T19:27:00.000-07:00

Yes, some ultra runners are weird and like to wear mango colored women's panties on their head while running.

We went to northern Virginia to crew for our friend Brennen's 100 mile run. The crew included Brennen's wife Debra, his best friend Danny, and Elizabeth and I. We all piled into Danny's Jetta Thursday afternoon and were at Brennen's brother's place in Towson, MD by dinner-time. The next morning, we woke up and were on the road to George Washington National Forest by mid-morning. We arrived at the hokey campground in the mid afternoon - just in time for Brennen to attend the course briefing. Elizabeth and I also attended for about 10 minutes. At which point we were bored out of our minds and needed to go for a trail run on the last few miles of the course. Elizabeth wasn't too stoked that I was dragging her along because there was a light drizzle and she had not been having very good runs recently. But, once her legs started moving and we found our way climbing up the final downhill of the course, she felt pretty good about the run (plus the drizzle had subsided). Our run ended up being a Bryan-Alex run (named after years of confused trail finding during runs involving Bryan Kirk and the author of this post). A Bryan-Alex run has the intention of following some sort of designated trail but more or less ends up being twice as long as intended for a multitude of reasons. None of these reasons really make sense once the run is complete. The only thing one remembers from a Bryan-Alex run is that there were some moments of wondering where one is relative to where one desires to finish. Yet, Bryan-Alex runs end up being more pleasant in hindsight and quite tiring. So, Elizabeth endured a Bryan-Alex run that included a 30 minute downhill on a beautiful dirt road that wound its way through the misty chill of the northern end of the Blue Ridge mountains.
We arrived back from our run to find Danny and Brennen discussing crew and pacing strategy for the next day. Danny was walking around showing off his poncho and how it might be the best way to stay dry while running.
The next morning Brennen started the Race with a friend from last year's race, Kelly Korovec. Kelly and Brennen ended up running near each other for the first 20-some-odd miles, just like last year. During last year's race, Debra, Elizabeth, and I ended up getting attached to helping Kelly complete the race. This ultimately led to me pacing him for several hours through the night. If nothing else, he reminded me of myself during my first few ultras - so it was nice to run with another young guy who is stoked about seeing how far he can push himself. Unfortunately, both Brennen and Kelly had to deal with getting what is perhaps the shittiest shirt from a race EVER. I know JFK had an ugly shirt this year (bright orange with an image of JFK on the front) But the Masanutten shirt was a disappointment. The primary reason the shirt was disappointing was because the RD or whoever chose the shirt made a horrible assumption about racer's style preferences when not running. Bad decision. Racers are quirky people and come from all segments of the population. As a result our clothing styles are all over the map. Pretty much the only thing we are guaranteed to have in common is running. So, as an RD why not play it safe and give everyone a shirt that can be used for - oh, I don't know - running? Do not give people a faux denim pseudo-cowboy western shirt with your race logo embroidered on it. If in fact you do decide to give a tacky shirt to your runners, at least have some balls and get a real western shirt with snap buttons, embroidered rope designs and bucking broncos. I should note that the only non-running item that seems to be widely accepted by runners - out of tradition and the roots of the sport - is the gaudy belt buckle. In an effort to make the most out of a horrible race shirt, we cut the sleeves off with the hopes of having me blend in with the rural inhabitants of the surrounding Appalachian region. Danny went for the eastern bloc emigré coach. Both Brennen and Kelly had decent runs during daylight hours, with Brennen pulling slowly away from Kelly as the day wore on. Throughout the day, while waiting at aid stations for the runners we had the pleasure of lounging in the warm Virginia sun.During one of these lounging sessions, Danny and I had the pleasure of sitting near some genuine Virginia road kill.Oddly though, the road kill was missing some of the primest cuts of meat.

All ultra-runners should be forced to crew for someone. Being a crew person for a 100 mile run requires a different type of stamina and endurance compared to running the race. Literally this is like walking in someone else's shoes for a day. The other side of the experience is the run. There isn't too much I can say about Brennen's run, because I didn't experience it in the first person. My personal opinion though, after watching him do the same race 2 years in a row is that he was much more psychologically ready to "run" this year.
My guess is that his training was a bit more intense this year and that he knew the course (which always helps), but I think most importantly he knew the level of pain that he would have to endure and he was prepared to see if he could endure more than the last time around. Needless to say, he finally suffered - in a good way. He felt like shit after the race and was as cranky as a rusty Schwinn. From my past races, it also helps to have one of your best friends from your youth involved in the pacing/crew. Danny definitely helped keep Brennen and Debra at ease because he has known Brennen the longest and has the opportunity to see him at the lowest moments of his life. So, Danny could look at Brennen at any point during the race and know that he looks alright. He may smell and look pretty beat up, but man you shoulda seen him this one time...

Brennen finished in the wee hours of the morning. After showering he and Debra hung around to watch some of the other runners come across the finish line. We all subsequently slept for a few hours, posed for a victory photo and took off for our 9 hour drive home through the beautiful congestion of Delaware.

Bouldering in Central Park

2007-05-16T06:16:00.000-07:00

Spring has finally come to NYC, so instead of going to the rock climbing gym, we have been bouldering in Central Park. There are a few different rocks that you can climb throughout the park. We enjoy this spot, called Rat Rock, as does virtually every other climber in the city. Lucky for us we had the rock to ourselves on Sunday. Rat Rock is in the south of the park with great views of all the hotels and residences of Central Park South. Alex & I use to climb at another easier rock, but lately I am finally able to do some of the climbs at Rat Rock. We are now in the market for a crash pad, as the drop from the top of this rock is a bit rough on the feet for my liking. Although, not far enough to do any real damage, so don't worry all you parents out there.

We have an extra pair of womens and mens rock climbing shoes if anyone ever wants to come out and join us!

Pull-ups & Toproping

2007-05-11T07:22:00.000-07:00

 As most of you know, Alex & I have been getting into climbing this past year. We became members of the City Climbers Club which has a climbing gym on 59th St in one of the city recreation centers. We have also been bouldering in Central Park as the spring weather has been quite lovely. Thanks to our wonderful friend Adam, who insisted he continue his daily regimen of pull-ups while visiting us last year, we have a rock pull-up bar in our door way to work on our upper body strength. This is something that Alex & I were severely lacking. After many months, I am finally capable of doing a pull up on my own!

Alex has some experience with outdoor climbing from his UCSB Outdoor Adventure Program days. He use to lead climbing trips and was in charge of setting up top ropes for the group. We have slowly been accumulating climbing equipment so that we could go outdoors and do some roped climbs. This past weekend we finally purchased the last items, climbing helmets and belay devices, and set out to Harriman State Park. We took the same train we take most weekends when we go running and hiked in about 30 mins from the train station. Alex has been scoping this cliffs out for many months and just last weekend we saw a dad and son with a rope set up doing some climbing. It turns out this guy use to climb in Harriman all the time 20 something years ago but gave up climbing to have a family. Apparently it use to be a pretty popular climbing spot, but Alex & I have never seen anyone there over the past 3 years. All the climbers go to the gunks, a famous climbing spot outside New Paltz, NY. So we had the rocks to ourselves and we set out setting up a top rope to try out our climbing skills and Alex's old climbing knowledge. We set up a toprope at 2 different spots and ended up climbing around on the cliffs for the entire morning and afternoon. Don't worry moms and dads we wore our helmets the entire time and we were always very safe! Check out some more photos of us below.

This is a view of the cliffs that we were climbing

Mount Marcy 5,344 feet, Adirondacks, NY

2007-04-25T11:12:00.000-07:00

Alex & I decided the highest peak in NY State just had to be summited by us. The fact that we were doing this during winter was of course Alex's idea. We rented a car and drove up to the Adirondacks on a Friday, arriving at High Peaks Visitors Center about 10pm. We pulled out our tent and set it up on a lovely patch of soft snow and turned in for the night. The next morning we set out on the trail, equipped with our snowshoes and new fancy collapsable hiking poles, bought just for this occasion.

Mount Marcy's summit can be accessed by 2 different trails, from either the east or west. Both trails are well marked with blazes, however at times the 6 feet of snow cover the blazes completely. This was one of the easy to spot blazes(see photo above), but as we got higher on the mountain they were virtually impossible to locate. For those of you who aren't familiar with blazes, they are usually well above Alex's head at 6'1."

We set out to hike the ~7 mile trail that heads up Marcy from the east. Preferring not to be stuck on the mountain in the dark we were hoping to hike the shorter route. We ended up following a couple that were just ahead of us and to our benefit were doing all the hard work of breaking trail in 6 feet deep snow. The trail had not been hiked in quite sometime. This inadvertently set us on the other trail to the summit which is a bit longer at ~9 miles. The trail was beautiful and the only sign of other humans was the freshly broken trail. As long as we were moving we kept fairly warm in the 25 degree temperatures, armed with our fancy cold weather gear.

We finally caught up with the couple in front of us about a mile from the summit. They had decided to turn around, assuring they wouldn't get stuck out in the dark. They were locals and weren't too sad about missing the summit as they had seen it many times already. Alex & I felt differently and kept trudging on, now breaking our own trail. Or I should say Alex was breaking our trail. The last mile was where we lost blazes frequently and had a very difficult time keeping ourselves on trail. We were frequently pulling ourselves out of tree wells that we were falling into up to our waists. The poles were becoming very useful at this point.

After a frustrating hour of hiking and a turn around time had been set for 2:30, we finally made it above the tree line. Visibility was fairly limited, so those fantastic views at the summit were out. Luckily, the winds blow all the snow from the west over the summit so we were able to see the cairns that mark the trail.

We happen to stumble upon the summit by noticing ski tracks at what appeared to be the highest point around. Success was confirmed when we found the plaque marking the top of Mt. Marcy.

After a few mountain photos were taken we started to make our way down the opposite side of the mountain. We learned from some backcountry skiers that we were walking on ~25 feet of snow when coming down from the summit. They said there was an entire forest beneath us! As we were hiking down the clouds finally cleared up and we had a beautiful view. By the time we got back to the visitors center it was 6pm and we had been out on the trail for 11 hours. A wonderful Italian dinner followed at a restaurant in Lake Placid and then we started the drive home. We both had a great time on the hike and it only served to fuel our interest in mountain climbing. We will let you know where our next adventure takes us.