Squamish

The Rockzilla comp!

We are currently on a rest day in Squamish after four awesome days of climbing here.  We left from Napa, California, after attending an awesome bouldering competition at Rockzilla.  I placed 4th for the women, and Eric placed 4th in men's in terms of points, but there was a three-way tie for 3rd, which put him on spot out of finals.  Finals were really intense!  

Giovanni Traversi on Men's Problem #3

After a nice sleep in the back of the car, we hit the road!  It was a beautiful drive and before we knew it, we were in Eugene, Oregon.  We met up with some great friends from Cal Poly, Ben and Chrissa (recently engaged!).  They lent us some inner tubes and we had a relaxing float down the river.  

After the nice cool off, we jumped back in the car and motored up to  Portland.  There we stopped at Rogue brewery for a good beer and then headed to VooDoo for some crazy doughnuts.  We were welcomed into our friend Casey's apartment with gracious hospitality, and got another good night of snoozin before we hit the road in the morning to head further North.  We made a quick stop in Seattle at REI and before we knew it we were crossing the border into Canada.

It was slightly stressful at first, trying to keep my speed at the right kilometers per hour while navigating through Vancouver.  At one point I headed the wrong way down a one way street, but crisis was averted and we made it to Squamish as it got dark.

We spent the night in the car and were able to find a sweet camp spot the following morning.  Then it was off to the forest in search of awesome boulders!  We were not disappointed by the awesome granite blocks that filled up the forest floor.  Everyone told me that Squamish grades were soft, so I was expecting to crush.  Well, it seems that I may be a bit out of shape, because not too much crushing has occured yet.

Nonetheless, we are having an awesome time getting on super classic problems.  We have also gotten on a bunch of awesome routes.  We took the Snake (5.9) up the Apron.  It was 5 pitches and we swapped leads up a fun corner.

We are looking forward to getting on some more long trad climbs in the days to come.  A good friend from my Planet Granite days, Sarah, showed up a few days after us and we have been enjoying her spirited and enthusiastic company, as well as the company of a Canadian named Brian.  Yesterday we all headed to Cheakamus for some sport climbing.

On our rest day, we headed to the farmers market and got some awesome deals on veggies.  At one stand, they let you fit as many bell peppers as you can into a plastic bag, and the bag costs $4.  We were able to fit 6!  We also headed to Alice Lake for a swim and to the Rec Center for a shower.  Squamish is BEAUTIFUL!  Really loving it!

This post is a little scatter-brained, but at least it provides an update :)  The bad news so far is that I blew out my trad climbing shoes on our second day here!  Noooo!  The one re-soler in town was going to charge me $60 to fix them (and that's Canadian dollars!), which is about 50%+ of the price of a brand new (full-priced) shoe.  Bummer.  Other than that, we are all smiles!