Friday, July 20, 2012

Riggins and the Search for cooler Temps

Lately, Kaiya and I have been following a pretty good pattern: work Monday through Thursday, all day, and then on Friday jet out of town with just enough time to make it up to the cave for an evening session. My favorite time to climb in Riggins is the evening. As soon as the sun goes behind the hill, this breeze kicks up and makes everything feel cooler. You can recover at a rest so much better, the headwall climbing is amazing that time of day. You are all alone on the 20 degree overhanging headwall, with 50 feet of pumpy climbing guarding the chains of most of the routes. This really is a place to get some good endurance built up.




This time of year kinda sucks though. It's 100 F in Boise, 100 F in Riggins, which means it's still 90 up at the cave, and I am not Paxti Usobiaga.


So now we wait.


The temps are WAAAAYYYY too hot to send. I was applying liquid chalk like it had crack in it last weekend, and still the hands looked like I'd just pulled my tips out of a butter bath. We met a crew from Spokane up there this weekend, and have been there with people from all over this summer. Portland, Salmon, one girl from San Francisco!!, people who live on the road full time, and obviously Boise. It has been a pretty good time so far, but for now we are out of luck for a few weeks with the temps soaring into the triple digits for at least a week or so.


To escape the hot temps, we have decided that we will head up into the Sawtooths if the weather in Riggins stays too hot. Last year I spent a fair amount of time up there at a new bouldering area called Braxon Lake. The sheer amount of quality rock there rivals any bouldering area I have ever been to, and the problems themselves are also amazing. The only catch is the approach.





For now, a massive amount of photos from the summer, some of climbing, some of not climbing that include funny stuff that the pup does, and some interesting photos of some of the Spokane guys...Ray in his purest of forms.


I am working on putting a video of the summer highlights together as well, and will post that as soon as I have something insightful and intelligent to say about it. So don't hold your breath.






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For now, we have decided to skip a weekend in Riggins and head off into the Sawtooths to Braxon Lake, and the amazing boulders there. It is the first trip of mine for the season, and the first time Kaiya will be visiting the boulders ever. It is a pretty amazing feeling walking up and over that pass, seeing the endless boulders in the bowl below, and knowing that you are one of less than 10 people who has ever climbed there.

I intend to shoot enough video to put together a pretty good length video, so get psyched for that! For now, enjoy all the photos and happy climbing!