A lot of random days of Late.

More Mastadons than the last Ice age!

Last Saturday Alex, Art and myself guided our friends from Mammut North America on Mt Monroe. It was great to socialize and climb with these folks whom we often contact through email, but rarely see or meet. One group skied Monroe Brook while another hiked Mt Monroe. It was surprisingly full on winter conditions for this late in the season, with almost a foot of fresh snow and full on white out conditions. Art wrote up a great post on the day for the Mammut Athlete’s blog here

Malcom hanging tough on No Money Down

Izzy climbed super well, here on Lies and Propaganda

The Next day I was back at Rumney joining fellow MMG guide Todd Goodman. Todd is a teacher at Milton Academy near Boston, a school with an incredible outdoor program. He came up with a handful of solid climbers who were stoked test their strength from winter climbing on plastic, against the real rock at Rumney. The students were all solid technically and climbed well, being stymied only by the hardest routes we set up. Todd wrote up a nice blog on the day for the MMG blog here

Finally, my regular fall and spring routine has slowly been coming back together as the weather allows. Sneaking in morning and evening sessions with friends and afternoons with the Holderness Climbing Team. Yesterday was a breakthrough day for a handful of my students, with a couple of them tackling their first 5.8’s and one starting to learn leading skills. For my self, I’m happy to report that I feel surprisingly injury free on the rock. My finger injury from almost a year ago now isn’t haunting me, and the discomfort from a broken toe this winter so far has been bearable when crammed into my tortuously small sport climbing shoes. While my arms feel like lead on anything steer than 85 degrees, I’ve been climbing on my old projects at Wiamea and getting excited to regain strength and stoke throughout the summer!

Good to be back on this cliff after avoiding it last year due to injury

The gorgeous Orange Rock of Beat Junkie. This is a favorite early season route of mine as it builds strength fast and isn’t overly tweaky. Not to mention its a blast!

After climbing Van sessions with our friends from the South

Matty Zane crushing hard on China Beach. So Close.