Party Pictures!

Stephanie, Bridgette and Victoria...posing for the camera

Bridgette, Tanya and Ryan

Bridgette climbing @ Ryan's crag

Gotta love the carpenter kilt!


The guinea pig testing our homemade bridge


Jenn and Teague...notice the hardcore bandaging on my left arm
Shana and Brody


The girls against the boys

Misc Photos

< -- Yoga @ the Glenwood Springs Mansion
Jenn and Teague hangin out before dinner




<--Bridgette on the 2nd pitch 5.7 @ Cobb















Bridgette, Andy (we refuse to call him Drew) and his girlfriend









<-- Tanya and the twins...Jaden and Eli







Jenn trying to pull the roof on a 5.10b














The lovely Brett Buttera warming up on the same 5.10b @ the Wall of Justice

Glenwood Springs, CO

Holy crap am I ready for this rest day. Four days in a row of pretty hard sending! We slept in and then ate omelets that Ryan made for us...we seem to have a knack for staying with cooks or something. We stayed with Teague in Breckenridge and he made us Vegetable Tofu Coconut Curry and then buckwheat waffles with fresh blueberries and maple syrup. And poor Ben in Longmont cooked almost every night. I'm not sure what we're going to do when we have to fend for ourselves!

I got to visit with the infamous Dan of Breckenridge...one of the Cabana boys below :) He is doing well and I even got him to come climb with us. Of course he's ridiculously strong even though he hasn't climbed in God knows how long. Gotta love those off the couch 5.11 climbers.

hmmm, what else?

I guess not that much else is new. We are roaming around the Glenwood Springs mansion, playing some Buena Vista Social Club...dancing around the house, pretending it's ours...yeah. Ryan's house is stunning and it feels like our own little palace on a hill surrounded by mountains. We don't want to leave. We spent the morning doing yoga on one of the many decks they have. Bridgette was so inspired by the many decks and different views they offered that she did yoga almost anywhere she could fit her mat.

The weather is beautiful and I can't get over how quiet it is here.

We're climbing @ Ryan's crag tomorrow, that he bolted himself...so that should be fun. And we're supposed to go to the hot springs tonight...perfect for the sore muscles.

But for now, some lunch and more dancing.

Montezuma, Summitt County, CO...rest day for bridgette, aka jenn's photo shoot

Creating a super hard slab move....ok ok it's like an 8

Yeah! Jenn and Teague sending.

Conquering the stout 10b which beats me every time

Our Cabana boys working hard

takin it to the anchors...

Cobb Rock...Boulder Canyon CO

Crossing the river again...

Bridgette sending the second pitch @ Cobb...the Empour 5.7








View from the first belay ledge @ Cobb









Ben gearing up to send at Cobb... in Bridgette's send shades!

Will you go to the Devil's Baths with me?

Six days in and we're whooped! We've been climbing for the past three days. On the first day we went to Boulder Canyon Sport Park, the second to Clear Creek to meet up with the fabulous Leah, Tracy and Kara...and then back to Boulder Canyon on Day 3 to Cobb rock for a short 2 pitch 5.7.

Last night Ben took us to the Bovine Metropolis Theatre in Denver to see his friend's improv show. It's basically the same setup as 'whose line is it anyway.' Hilarious...and yes we all know i am easily amused, but really they were great. At the ticket counter, we were asked to write down something someone had said to us that day. Well, Chick had called Bridgette earlier (we are meeting him in Yosemite next week) and asked if we would want to go to the devil's baths...sort of a natural hot spring but not really. And lo and behold the poor impov-ers have to create a scene from that phrase...as you can imagine, pretty funny. Then we felt really cool because we got to go hang out with the whole group afterwards. We stayed out way too late and slept in until 11..and then ate mass quantities of food.

And then there was shopping. We went to Neptune, the largest climbing store ever. And spent many hours trying on different climbing shoes and various other articles of clothing. I settled on a flashy pair of Scarpas...and we both bought a Patagucci tank, way too expensive for my tastes, but i couldn't pass it up.

I'll try and get a few more pictures up but they'll be limited until we get access to high speed.
We did another crazy river crossing...a tyrolean traverse. In order to get to Cobb rock, we had to cross the river. But it wasn't as easy as the simple line across the river and hold on tight method that we have pictures of below. No No No, as climbers apparently it is necessary set up obstacle courses on our approaches. There was a rope securely anchored to a tree on either bank of the river, about 6 feet above the water. In order to get across, we had to clip into the rope (yes this requires a harness) and hand over hand it all the way to the other side...back to the water. Interesting and quite a warmup as it is uphill a bit both ways at the end. And then getting off the freaking rope is just as crazy because you're 6 feet off the ground...the fun just never stops. And did I mention we had full packs that we were hauling? :)

We are having fun meeting up with all our crazy climbing friends. Brett and Sara came over the other night for dinner. Brett was very excited about our amatuer website and thanks to him i think we'll have a separate link pretty soon where you can view ALL our pictures.

Well, we are off to see Nacho Libre. Oh yes, there will be a full movie review to come.

Later Gaters...

Boulder Canyon Sport Park

<-- RIVER CROSSING!! the current is surprisingly strong...and the water is freakin freezing
















<-- Bridgette 5.10 b ...she claims she will lead nothing all day, but masterfully onsights her second climb of the day









<-- Jenn 5.11a Don't be fooled...I get shut down after the next bolt :(

On the Road…and out of Cleveland 6-13

We have concluded, after many long hours of driving, that Iowa and Nebraska are pretty much the most retarded states ever and that we never want to drive through their never ending flatness ever again.

Iowa:

We spent a lot of time here. We stopped at a small, surprisingly crowded, diner that I convinced Bridgette would be really good. After all, it was a small town (good cooking) and there were a shitload of old people there (old people are picky). Ok, so I blew that one. Our middle-aged waitress looked at us skeptically when we asked if the salads were made with iceberg lettuce…like we were crazies or something. “Iceberg?” she scoffed, “I don’t know.” Like we were idiots for calling lettuce anything but lettuce. And then we ordered the soup instead.

Next stop the Broadway Motel! We roll into Des Moines, it is deathly hot and I think we had on the shortest shorts any Iowan had ever seen. The Broadway Motel was not the continental breakfast sort of place. The pot of coffee in the lobby in the morning was the same one that was there the night before. But we got to watch TV when we went to bed, so Iowa was not all bad.

Nebraska:

There is nothing here, even worse than Iowa. It is a trap, there are no gas stations here. I think all the people who live here must have just run out of gas, and now they are stuck.

Colorado:

Phew…we are here at last. We took a slight detour north for awhile. The author, usually a directional genius I swear, advised the driver to take a wrong turn.

And then the driver said “Weird it looks like we’re going north, see the sun is over there.”

“Impossible” I assured her, “this road only runs East and West.”

“No we are definitely going north…”

“No the map says West”

“But the sun…”

And then we both shut up and starting rocking out to No Doubt for a half hour, mesmerized by the desolation…and then we turned around.