Great Story/Learning Experience

So some friends of mine and I went down to Cedar City to do some climbing and for JD and Craig's (fore mentioned friends) Polo tournament on Friday/Saturday. We left Thursday morning and made record down to Cedar. Upon arrival we left civilization and took to the hills. I was driving my little 3'' clearance mercury Sable but JD's guidebook said that a high clearance vehicle was not required. We got off onto a dirt road that started OK and got steadily more ruff. At one point I should have turned around but to my bank account's dismay I did not. Soon I told JD and Craig to get out and guide more or less to lessen the weight in the car for the extra .0005'' but oh well it was a good thing because shortly after they began guiding JD noticed a trail of dripping behind the car. I got out and smelt it, turned out it was gasoline and my tank was punctured. We tried shoving numerous things into it like sticks and small rocks but nothing would stay, it was very small but there was a hairline crack about an inch long that made it so even a well stuck stick would not help. Inspiration hit me GUM! and gum it was that held enough gas in the tank for the trip back to civilization and thats just the beginning. When we got the estimate for the car we were in trouble 300 was more than all three of us combined had on us but luckily there was a Zions Bank right next door the mechanic. After removing everything from my account down to $0.00 (not to mention a very strange look from the bank lady - probably due to my gasoline smell and very dirty look) we found that we had just enough money to get the car fixed and filled up just enough to get home. We then learned the city quite well because we had nothing else to do other than roam toting our sleeping bags in our hand and as much food and supplies we could get out of the car and stuff into our small backpacks before we left it in the hands of the mechanic (food was not large in quantity/quality because we had planned to buy sandwich makings while down there). Our first order of business in our roaming was to find a place to spend the night. Luckily just about 6 blocks down and over the free way was a well fenced in church with a pavilion. We knew that you are not supposed to stay in church parking lots and such but we figured if anyone stopped us we'd ask if we could stay with them. Next we looked for the pool in which they would play in their tournament the next night (Friday) and we would be saved with food and a place to stay. It was not hard to find because we had been down there twice before for swim meets and knew its general area. We stayed out sorta late so we would not be seen coming into the pavilion at the church, laid out our sleeping bags and slept (sorta cold due to the concrete slabs we slept on's ability to hold its cold temperature under us). In the morning I went to check on the car only to find out that the tires that we thought about replacing before the trip needed replacing NOW. To make the long story short (too late) I had to call Mom and Dad and get their credit card over the phone for the tires which they were going to pay for anyway but only did the front two before the trip. Anyway we stayed with the water polo team that night at a competitors home who happened to be a farmer so we had fresh from the cow chilled milk (not bad actually) and a great breakfast unlike the morning before of a couple nutrigrain bars). In the end we did make it home.

Scott's Climbing Competition

These are some pictures (courtesy of Christy, Jared and Gavin) of me at the Climbing competition I went to on March 1st. It was loads of fun.

• A few points on Climbing-
• This type of climbing (without a rope) is called bouldering.
• All the tape marks the route that you take to get to the top, you can only use the holds (Little colored rock shaped things with tape coming off of them) that have the same color tape to get up to the top. Note: This includes foot holds, some think that you can use any holds to place your feet but the tape still applies.
• Using the textured wall as a foot hold to help get up is called smearing.
• Any features on the wall (not holds) that may be used to get to the top are called Arete features. Like an indent in the wall just jutting enough to get the tip of your toe on and push up.
  
• You start will all limbs off the ground and finish by 'Topping out." this is done by holding the top edge of the wall.
• Spotting is when a person on the ground basically holds out there hands to make sure that if you fall you fall forward and not on your side or head, basically anything to get you to land less horizontal and more vertical with head up. It is encouraged but not required when indoors because you can't get hurt too bad. (I did have a pretty bad experience with this and fell from the top of this indoor bouldering room perfectly horizontal, it knocked the wind out of me especially since I was wearing a belt with a large metal front piece, needless to say I now wear a fabric belt now.)
• A Dino is a move in a climb in which you jump from one position in order to reach the next hold if you 'stick' it you basically hold it while you hang from it because you left the wall entirely for a second in order to do the Dino.
• To Campus is to make a move using only arms, my friends and I call it 'Beast Mastering" we have a little competition to see who can do it best, I currently hold second of five Beast Masters.
• It is rated from easiest to hardest by V0, V1, V2,...V(big #'s) I have only gotten one v5 and usually climb v4's.
  

• Normal Climbing (with a rope) includes but is probably not limited to:
• Top rope- rope is pre 'set' at top of route so all you need is someone to belay you as you climb so if you fall your weight is supported by the rope strung around the top and held at the bottom by the belayer.
• Sport Climbing or Lead Climbing is when you take the rope up with you and hook it into preplaced attachments along the route.
• Traditional or "Trad" climbing is when you place your own attachments into cracks in the wall and set your rope in them.
• All of these are rated from 5.6, 5.7, 5.8, 5.9, 5.10a, 5.10b, 5.10c, 5.10d... it goes a through d on 5.10, 11, 12, 13, 14, and so on up. I have gotten a few 5.11c's.
  

This was probably my favorite climb next to the orange one below it because it had some really fun moves.

This was a fun and hard climb especially when my feet came off for a minute in the third picture down, luckily the right hand hold was really good.

I did finish this climb just didn't get a picture because the photographers were busy cheering me on.
Thanks guys.

Halloween

We had a great Halloween and the pumpkin carving hit a new high in creativity. From left to right: Chris/Jared/Gavin-Bats, Dad-Headless Horseman, Scott-Dracula, Mom-BOO!.

Irish Canyon's Blarney Slot

Dad and I went on this trip without mom because of it's awesome technicality. It had 3 required repels that were 40 feet and an optional one of about the same hight. The first picture is of me repelling the first drop (I didn't say until after but this was my first real repel hehe). The same drop is shown in the second picture of Dad. There were only a couple other pictures but the camera was dying so these are the best.

Willis Creek- Grand Staircase NP

well this is me climbing an entirely random rock (not really meant to be climbed) just because this hike was rather boring. It is a LOOong movie and I just could not edit it to make is shorter so here it is in all its slow glory. You will want to skip past the parts that I am not moving which is most of the climb because I was already higher than I really wanted to be without a rope at the point the movie starts. Mom, Dad and me all went to Willis Creek in Grand Staircase National Park over the 2007 fall break. We slept at a 1/4 star hotel and enjoyed every minute of the stay (just remember mom has no control over what is said in this blog). There were about 5 slots included in the trail and when we were all bored enough of the uneventful stroll we turned around due mostly to the fact that we did not know when the trail actually ended. It was a good vacation though and even the hike was not as bad as I make it out to be.

Adams Family

The Adams family has a blog! You need not be shocked due to a crazy idea that Mom and Dad figured out a computer, they are still not quite computer savvy enough to do it themselves but one day maybe...with a miracle. Until then I am running it-Scott.