Cross One Off the List!

I love Thoroughfare, and I have loved it since the first time I climbed it on a top-rope close to a decade ago. At that time, if anyone would have asked if I would ever lead it, or any 5.11 trad route for that matter, I would have told them they were crazy! Even my considerably bolder early-twenties self would have thought leading 5.11 on gear was unlikely - I just did not have the mindset, commitment, or process that I do now. Latching the jug you see me holding in the picture below, is the result of over a year-and-a-half of hard work, dedication and commitment to a process. Two years ago this was an impossibility, and last night it became a reality - it won't land me in any of the mags next month and #Thoroughfare won't be trending on Twitter anytime soon, but I accomplished a goal I was not even aware that I had until recently and considered impossible up until a few months ago. There is no secret to doing this, and I really believe anyone can do it...set a goal, create a plan, and work the plan. It will take sacrifices along the way, but that moment, where you blow so far through any prior expectations you could have conceived of for yourself, is worth every bit of sacrifice along the way - the smile on my face speaks for itself.

James Schroeder, hitting the jug at the end of the difficulties on Thoroughfare (5.11a) at Devil's Lake - Jay Knower Photo

Some of the best days...

People tend to avoid climbing on days with bad forecasts like they tend to avoid hazardous material spills. While the latter of these avoidances is generally a good decision, the former is not...at least not at Devil's Lake. At the Lake, spring, summer and fall storms tend to be short and intense, but clear quickly - some locals have speculated that this is due to the Baraboo Range's tendency to "split" storm systems. I am no meteorologist, but I have witnessed this strange weather pattern firsthand in the past, and have come to believe in it, if nothing more, as a useful heuristic to get me off the couch and out to the bluffs.

WAGG Day 13 - Goes 37-39

05/21/15 (weight 178.2, AMRHR 52)

We had to put our beloved dog, Jenny, down today, and I needed to get out of the house - so I headed up to Necedah to meet Nate and drown my sorrows with a few goes on Whiskey. It was a nice evening, maybe a little warmer than ideal for climbing, but great temps for just being outside. At the end, while cleaning the anchors, I was treated to the beautiful sunset below.

A Quick Note From Friday Night

My good friend Eric came met me after work for a few hours of climbing last Friday, we wanted to tick a few pitches off, and here's what we did:

Opening Weekend at Devil's Lake - March 7-8, 2015

The weather over this past weekend was amazing! On Saturday, I met Matthew shortly after noon at the CCC parking lot, and we headed up to the East Bluff for an afternoon of fun in the sun. It was a little chilly in the valley, but by the time we made it to the top of the CCC trail we were sweating. The sun was out, the rock was warm and we were psyched.

The Winter of 2014/15 (so far)

So far it has been a mediocre winter for climbing in southwest Wisconsin, and real life has kept me from traveling too far afield since my trip to Jackson Falls over Halloween weekend. A quick check of my records shows only forty "pitches" in the last three months, more than half of which were laps on the short waterfall at the head of Cox Hollow in Governor Dodge State Park. I have been doing a lot of running, lifting, skiing and training on my campus and finger boards, but that is a weak substitute for the real thing. The ten-day forecast does not inspire any confidence either, and I think I am coming down with a solid case of cabin fever (despite seventeen-odd miles on skis and/or foot and about 400 feet of climbing in the last week).

WAGG Day 6 - Goes 19-21

Originally I had planned on skipping climbing altogether this weekend since I had just returned from an all-out, six-day effort in New Hampshire - but, Saturday afternoon rolled around and the siren-song of Whiskey a Go-Go started calling me. I was sore, from an ill-advised campus session on Friday night, but the soreness felt good and I needed more. So I sent out a few texts, and even posted for partners on Facebook...in the end, my good friend Matthew came through and agreed to meet me at Necedah Sunday morning.

Catching up...

I have been slacking...actually I have been working really hard on my AAC/TNF LYD trip report, and other than Whiskey a Go-Go updates I have not been keeping up with recent activities - so this will basically be a quick photo/video dump that I need to catch up on.

A Rad Weekend of Climbing in Wisconsin!

I had a great weekend climbing in Wisconsin this past weekend! It started on Saturday with a trip to Hillbilly Hollow. I met Justin, Matthew and Brittany in the parking lot and we headed back to the cliff.

Fun little Tuesday night

Last night was the perfect way to ease back into the climbing saddle. The weather was perfect and I got to meet a pair of new friends from Connecticut. I pulled into the CCC lot, where Liz and Matt were waiting for me. They were up for a quick run on some of the local classic moderates.

Rest day, and last week!

Wow, it has been 10 days since my last post. I am sorry, I have been working on some longer posts that will be coming out when I have time, and on top of that, I have been climbing/ training a lot, so I have been too busy with that to devote an appropriate amount of time, again, I apologize.

Since the last update I have been pretty busy, starting out on Saturday, June 7th.

Catching Up

Sorry I have been lazy about keeping the blog up over the last week or so. I needed a rest week from training, climbing and, I guess from blogging too.

By my judgement I had a good May, at least in comparison to my climbing over the last decade. The days leading up to, and including, Memorial Day weekend were no exception to that trend. I kicked my Memorial Day weekend off on Wednesday with a top rope send of a long-standing nemesis of mine at Horse Rampart. I took Thursday off from climbing, so I could see the Doctor about the nagging pain in shoulder/neck. On Friday, Christina and I agreed to meet my friends Willie and Heather at the Lake for a little more climbing.

Chasing Fitness Part 1 - Overview

DISCLAIMER: I am not a doctor, a nutritionist, or any other kind of expert so this is not professional advice - it is merely a record of what I did to lose some weight and gain a modicum of fitness. It worked for me, it might or might not work for you. Be safe, and check with a qualified professional before starting any diet or fitness program.

Back in January my friend Jay started suggesting that I join him on a climbing trip this spring. I was hesitant because Jay is an exceptionally strong climber, and even twelve years ago when I was at my fittest I could not keep up with him. In the time between, Jay has become stronger while I have lost some ground.

In February, Jay finally convinced me to pull the trigger on tickets to Palm Springs, California - Joshua Tree National Park would be the destination for our trip. I suddenly found myself with two months to prepare. A winter of cross-country skiing and coaching peewee hockey had left me with a reasonable cardiovascular base, but standing 6'3" and tipping the scale at 206# my body mass index (BMI) was still on the wrong side of twenty-five. BMI is not perfect, but it was pretty clear I was overweight. I needed to drop weight and get stronger and I needed to do both of them fast.

Weekend Report 4/26-4/27 2014

John and Paul came up to the house on Friday night so we could get an early start Saturday morning. Which would have worked, except we had a lot to catch up on and stayed up until the wee hours of the morning doing so. Somehow we managed to leave my place shortly after nine, and pulled into the South Shore parking lot at the Lake just before ten. Justin was already there waiting for us, and Matthew, Brittany and Katie had already started walking down the railroad tracks toward Horse Rampart. John, Paul, Justin and I quickly followed suit.

Weekend Report for 4/5/14 - 4/6/14

Saturday

If you read my post from late Saturday night, then you are probably under the correct assumption that I had a good weekend, but A Red Recollection was just a small part of it. I met my friend Justin by the horse-trailer lot at Governor Dodge State Park a little after 10am on Saturday morning. We headed up the Qual Wall for some sandstone sport climbing. We started out on Warm Up 1 and Warm Up 2. We both agreed that Warm Up 2 has gotten easier because a new hold has evolved over the winter - it is definitely the easier of the two warm ups now.

A Red Recollection

I am psyched! I say that with the full knowledge that what I am psyched about means very little to very few, other than me. I onsighted a 5.11a sport climb today - which in the greater climbing community is about as noteworthy as me having successfully put my socks on this morning. Climbing a 5.11a sport climb is not easy, but it is not even remotely cutting edge, nor has it been for forty or fifty years. I will not be coming to the "Hot Flashes" section of a Climbing Magazine near you anytime soon.

My experience in climbing is that it vacillates between an intensely personal pursuit at the local cliff and a small team pursuit in the mountains - my accomplishment today was of the former sort. After over a decade of climbing taking a backseat to the rest of my life, I have entered a period of my life where it can be one of my top focuses - only my family being more important. As such, I have been faithfully counting calories and training for nearly two months in preparation for an upcoming climbing trip, and hopping on A Red Recollection today was meant to be a test of the effectiveness of that preparation (photo). I am exceedingly happy with the results. Today, at thirty-four, I led (in better style mind you) as hard of a sport route as I ever have in the past (and that was fourteen years ago when I was only twenty). To me this is a big deal, but more so because of the relative experience and the way it played out than the simple grade of the route. I have done harder and scarier things in the past, but this felt like a big step for me - today.

Weekend Report 03/29/14 - 03/30/14

What a rad weekend! My old friend Phil and his family came up to the house to visit my family and me. Phil and I are planning a big trip later in the summer, but this weekend was about reacquainting and spending some excellent time out on the rock at Devil's Lake. I wrote about some plans last Thursday, but they (as they always do) changed. This is how it actually shook out.

Hatching Weekend Plans

It is spring in Wisconsin, which means, among many other things, that most Wisconsin climbers are feeling a bit lethargic from winter's low-activity levels and compensatory over-indulgences. Which is of course the nice way of saying that a lot of us probably spent too much time on our couches while consuming too much cheese and too many beers. I was lucky enough back in early February to have a good friend talk me into a "spring break" a trip to Joshua Tree National Park and have been working a diet/workout plan hard since. I plan on posting the details of that system along with a trip report from J-Tree when I get back.

For the last six weeks or so I have been working the hangboard, pull-ups, push-ups, core-routine and cardio pretty hard. I have dropped 20 pounds and gotten stronger.

Two Stellar Saturdays

It is March, and in the Midwest that can mean unbelievably good conditions or unbelievably bad conditions - often within hours of each other. I have been itching to get out climbing since February, because I want to test out my new winter fitness program and get some mileage under my belt before an upcoming trip to Joshua Tree. The last two Saturdays have had decent, maybe even great by recent standards, conditions and called for some climbing. The difficulty lies in finding partners willing to chance bad conditions for the opportunity to luck out with great conditions. Luckily I managed and my friend Justin from Madison came up both Saturdays.

Reuniting with old friends - a day at Devil's Lake.

This post was started in 2009, it's finally finished below:

The compressed snow is solid underfoot - the repetitive cycles of thawing and freezing have left it more like concrete than ice. My pack is heavy, laden with a full rack, a rope, winter clothes and a thermos full of coffee. Like an older brother, the pack scolds me for my winter sloth. As the trail steepens the snow dissipates, no longer strong enough to fight the all-day sunlight on the southern aspect of the bluff. My heart-rate quickens, and every breath burns as the crisp morning air fills my lungs. I consider for a moment that, like the snow, perhaps I too have lost the strength to face my own challenges on this bluff.