Really Deep Thoughts: August 2006

The Last of Squamish

Paul on some 11d sport action at Cheakamus, Squamish

David bouldering...Chief Boulders Squamish

Lauren @ the Chief Boulders

Greg can't help but take good pictures

Paul @ the Grand?

Greg on the 11d @ Cheakamus

one last day...spent @ Brown Lake

Home again Home again

The send train is back in cleveland finally. After a grueling 56 straight hours home and a week long bout of car lag we are recovered. I'll get the last of the Squamish pictures up shortly.

But have no fear, the send train is taking an unexpected detour to europe! Yes, the send train will keep chugging. I leave on September 12th for paris. Still avoiding the "real job" like a pro. I haven't decided exactly what I'll do/see there, but definitely lots of sightseeing and climbing.

I spent the last few days in Montreal with David and his amazing french friends. They were gracious enough to pretend like my french was not the most absurd crap they'd ever heard. They chatted away and i daydreamed about one day understanding what the heck they were saying. It's wierd. Americans aren't really ever put in positions that demand them to know a language other than english. It's a whole other world being the minority let me tell you. But after a few months i should make some progress right????

Temps peux seulement dire.

Mean French People

We've been in Squamish for almost a week and we are climbing way better than we did in Smith. Bridgette will soon redpoint an 11a...Partners in Climb, i'm actually leading trad, and David led his first trad climb yesterday like it was some kind of joke. We're doin ok.

So two days ago it got super hot and none of us dressed for the heat because it had been rather cool that morning. Bridgette only had a long sleeve shirt so she snagged David's sleeveless French table tennis shirt and rolled her pants up over her thighs. There are very good pics of this below. We put up a 5.9 and then rapped off the anchors of an 11c so that we could work it on TR and these french people came up to the climb just as we had set up the TR. Well, David and Bridgette were up at the top and the French people were trying to talk to me in French so I got really bold and made up one whole sentence that ended up meaning the opposite of what I was trying to say. But I was so happy to get the chance to speak to real French people...apparently they weren't too thrilled to speak to me because they looked at me like I had 5 eyes or something. They also had no idea that David was French. They carried on for a half hour in french talking about us, and David just sat listening, laughing to himself. First, they critiqued his shoes, which are falling apart; he will soon be better off climbing barefoot. They talked about his shoes trying to figure out what kind of climber he was. And why were we toproping this, these people look like hard climbers. In comes Bridgette. Woah, what the heck is this girl wearing? Why is she wearing a French Ping Pong shirt, maybe she palyed in a tournanment a long time ago, but really where did she get this shirt. (Maybe they are too numb in the head to think that maybe one of us is french) And they talk about her outfit for awhile. And then they get really frusterated that we're climbing this on toprope. But the best part is when we start to climb. I am first and the beginning gives me trouble, rightly so it is 11c. And then Bridgette comes and does it pretty smoothly but it still looks hard. By this time they are like, hmmm are you sure you know what grade this is? Maybe it is 7a (some sort of 12)...and they start to pack up and leave. Funny mean french people. Of course, this is the censored version we got from David, who knows what else they had to say. We got some good laughs out of it anyway. Then we watched them flail on it the next day...climber's revenge :)

Time for dinner...and some eagle watching.