The Organic Climber – Vegetarian running, cycling, swimming, rock climbing and raw foods.

For any athlete, there are always firsts; our rights of passage of sorts. For me, last night I purchased my first “fitted” pair of shoes from Luke’s Locker near Uptown in Dallas. When I say fitted, I mean somebody who actually knows what they are talking about and sat down with me: analyzed my foot, asked me questions about my running, watched me walk and run, and then made a couple recommendations for shoes. I tried on two pairs of shoes. The first pair were Asics, and the second Brooks. Both were brands of shoes I have never owned before, but based on the professional from Luke’s this was exactly what I needed.

Both shoes felt pretty good, but the Asics GT-2150 won out. As soon as I slipped them on, I felt instant comfort compared to my old shoes. I hadn’t been running long before Twitter friend @theclimbergirl of RockClimberGirl.com offered me a discount code with END Footwear –  a now defunct shoe company. I got the shoes at the low low price of $30, regularly priced at $95. The shoe was super light and comfortable. I felt fast in them, even though I was new to the sport. Prior to that I was running in my claud hopper North Face trail shoes. So, to slip on a pair of shoes that were meant for my feet felt quite amazing.

I also recently learned from looking at the wear pattern on my old shoes that I heel strike and overpronate a bit. This was confirmed when the sales associate at Luke’s Locker was helping me out. However, I’m not sure my problems are all over. When I had started this post I had yet go to on a run in the shoes. But today, I ran 3.5 miles on an indoor track. By the time I was finished my arches were hurting, as well as the outside edge of my foot.

I’m not sure if I didn’t have them laced tight enough or not, but I have a long run scheduled for Saturday, so if the problems persist I will be returning to Luke’s Locker for further evaluation of my foot. The nice thing about Luke’s is they have a 30 day return policy on their shoes. They are more interested in getting you the right shoe than just selling you something. But one thing is for sure, my old shoes are definitely done for.

The Tweetup

The reason for my trip to Luke’s wasn’t just for shoes. I was meeting fellow running Tweeps from the DFW area at the DFW Runners Tweetup. The event was organized by The Running Couple, who also organized a small Tweetup before the start of the White Rock Marathon, which I unfortunately missed due to not being able to find parking in time.  It was nice to put Twitter handles with faces and get to actually hear them speak more than 140 characters at a time.

During the Tweetup, Luke’s educated us on how the fit people for shoes and even used several of us as an example byplacing us on a treadmill provided by Landice Fitness. It was a very educational experience, and I learned a lot about how important it is to not just find a shoe that fits, but to find a shoe that fits your running style, your personality, and falls in line with your running goals. I never knew so much went into fitting somebody for a shoe.

After the meeting at Luke’s, several of us went across the street to Snookie’s – a local pub, and continued the Tweetup there. We swapped running stories, talking about different run tracking devices and even venting about other Tweets out in the Twittersphere that seem too good to follow back other fellow runners, even when they are engaged in conversation.

It was a really fun time, and I look forward to the next meeting. Hopefully our next gathering will involve a group run. As a result of going to the Tweetup I was inspired to go ahead an run the Cowtown Marathon (half) at the end of February. Originally I was planning on running the Rock and Roll Half Marathon, but the price was becoming an issue, but seeing as how Cowtown was $25 cheaper I decided to bite the bullet and register.

The best part of this is I will now have to be more disciplined in my training. I have three weekends left to get long runs in and I plan on using every one of them. One of them will be squeezed in to a climbing trip. It shouldn’t be a problem though; I have squeezed in 9 mile runs before going climbing in the past. I just have to wake up well before everybody else.

Cross Training, Running by OrganicClimber
asics, Cowtown Marathon, END, heel strike, overpronate, Running, shoes, tweetup, twitter
2 comments

---

Crab Eyes as seen from Lost Dome in the Wichita Mountains.

All week long the weather forecast called for partly cloudy skies with a high of 65 degrees in the Wichita Mountains. The plan was to go explore a rarely climbed area called Treasure Cove. I had wanted to explore this area some time, and I had finally found other climbers willing to make the journey, but things took a sudden turn Saturday morning before leaving. The forecast now was calling for rain through 10 a.m., but this was no big deal, as we would be arriving in the parking lot shortly after this, but what concerned me was the chance of thunderstorms at 2 p.m.

We still had a solid four hour window to get some climbs in, but since the beta I read about Treasure Cove indicated it was very difficult to get to we opted to head to Crab Eyes to climb Come Get Your Love, a 5.10a that I have had my heart set on for several months now. I was tempted to just give up on this too though and climb on Upper Mount Scott, which only requires a short 3-5 minute hike to the base of the climbs, but thankfully my climbing partners for the day were psyched to check out a new area.

So, about 10:30 a.m. we began making our trek to the well recognized rock formation known as Crab Eyes. As we made our journey down the trail I was surprised to see us arrive at the base of another formation called Echo Dome. I had been here before and Crab Eyes could even be seen off in the distance. So, we thought we must have been on the wrong trail and decided to just start blazing our own path towards the formation.

After climbing down about 75 yards or so we stumbled back upon a trail and figured we must be back on the right path, but was we journeyed further down the path we quickly realized it was taking us away from our destination, so being the smart climbers we are we decided to blaze our own train again and just start walking toward the tall formation. It was about this time I asked Naren if he brought a headlamp, he replied by saying, “I always bring a head lamp when I climb with you” ; followed up by accusations of being epic prone. Sure, I have had epics before, but I have way more successful climbing days than I do epics. He only remembers the epics.

After several minutes of hiking other rock formations began blocking our view of Crab Eyes, but after continuing on in the same direction we spotted the tops of the eyes just beyond another rock formation. We also saw another trail, so figured we were on the right path, but as we continued we noticed the trail becoming fainter, but saw karnes that seemed to be pointing us in the direction of Crab Eyes. We aimlessly followed these karnes into a field of boulders covered my thorns, so we back tracked a bit and once again began blazing our own trail, which once again brought us back on to a main trail and not soon after Crab Eyes were bigger than ever and the base of the climbs was well in our sight, but there was one problem – our climb was on Lost Dome, not Crab Eyes!

After viewing beta in two different guidebooks I got confused about where the actual climb was. Photos I saw made it appear that this climb was just a few hundred feet to the west of the formation, the guide book even referred to Lost Dome as “Crab Eyes Area”. So in my mind Lost Dome and Crab Eyes were one in the same, but boy was I wrong.

So after some hairy down scrambling off the west side of Crab Eyes we found the main trail again and referenced our guide book again and used the compass on my iPhone to get our bearings and discovered we were only a few feet from the trail split to Lost Dome. We didn’t realize this though until we started down the trail again. After a few paces I just happened to look left and see the train branching off. Shortly after that we found ourselves at the base of Lost Dome; and this time we where exactly were we needed to be.

Normally when stuff like this happens I get to the base of the climb and lose it, but this time I was still psyched. I was harnessed up and ready to go, gear and all, before my other partners. As I sat down and slipped on my shoes a smile came to my face and I muttered under my breath, “I’m so psyched!” This was they key indicator to me that I was ready to climb – I was ready to, “Get My Love On!”

The route looked easier than expected from the base, but as I began climbing my tune changed pretty quickly. The starting moves off the ground were pretty tricky and it required placing gear, but after a couple minutes of fooling around I was up on the rock placing a #1 red Black Diamond cam into a horizontal crack and making my way up to the first bolt, but not without some hesitance.

After clipping the first bolt I felt safer, but saw the run out to the next bolt was a little above my comfort level for such vertical terrain and the more difficult grade, although this section was no harder than 5.9. After standing there for a while I eventually made the moves to the second bolt and had my belayer hold me there while I evaluated the next moves. After analyzing the route I cooled my head a bit and placed a piece of supplemental protection that was purely a “mental piece”, and I was off again and made it to the third bolt without much of a problem, the next bolt was a little closer than the previous, so I continued up on thin edges and balancy moves, after clipping my quick draw I hung there again gearing up for the next moves.

From here I had one more bolt to clip and then the crux moves to another bolt. I was slightly hesitant here, but once again managed to calm my nerves, made the moves and clipped into the bolt, I was now at the crux section of the route. I was in a pretty good stance so was able to stand there a while and evaluate the route. It was going to be dicey: so after a couple of meager attempts I had my belayer hold me once again.

After evaluating the route a bit more and making several attempts I finally made one of the two crux moves and was now at waist level with the bolt. From here I was going to have to make another sketchy move up to a downward sloping ledge with some sharp edges to hold on to and nothing but smearing for foot placements. I hesitated a number of times and finally decided to just go for it, but I freaked out again, taking a 10-12 foot fall past the first crux move. Since I had already made the move I allowed myself to pull back up to where I was and give it another go.

This time I saw something I hadn’t seen the first time. I large slot that I could use as an under cling for my left hand. This ended up being key to pulling up onto the sloping ledge and standing up to clip the last bolt. After hanging the a bit and catching my breath I decided to go for it again and was back to where I was when I fell, this time with a cooler head, yet still with a sense of desperation, then suddenly I remembered the huge slot I could use as an undercling. I fired my left hand into the slot, smeared up the wall and then stood on the ledge. After this I was able to comfortably clip the bolt.

The route at this point was pretty much done. You could see the chains off to the right, but they were just out of reach. I was going to have to make one more move  to reach them. After evaluating the route I saw what I needed to do and began making the moves, but my rope wasn’t moving my belayer was keeping me tight an I yelled “ROPE” but it only got tighter, he had thought I wanted him to take in rope, I could feel myself being pulled off the wall, so I yelled, “SLACK”, and finally I was given the slack needed to comfortably clip into the anchor. For a moment I thought I was going to be taking another fall, but held on tight and avoided the effects of gravity.

After we all finished this climb I climbed the route again and then decided we should climb the interesting looking dihedral just to the right of Come Get Your Love. It wasn’t in the guidebook, but it looked fun. We doubt it was an FA, but for all we know it could have been. The start of the climb was very tricky, but after those initial moves the route eased up a bit and was a blast to climb.

After finishing this climb it was already 4 p.m. so we decided to head back to the car since it would be getting dark soon. We had cloud cover all day, but didn’t get one drop of rain until the hike back. We also discovered on the hike back we missed a key turn in our journey to Crab Eyes. After crossing a creek we should have taken a right, following a trail along the creek bed, but we continued on the trail straight. Had we followed the right path we would have easily gotten to Crab Eyes and still had time to correct our mistake and get in other climbs, but on the bright side we now know two different ways to get to Crab Eyes (not that we will ever climb there, the ratings on those routes are sick).

Some people might consider us crazy for driving the 2.5 hours for just two climbs, but to me it was well worth the journey. Especially since I had wanted to do this climb for a long time. Even if I didn’t climb it clean, I had fun and I got to take a nice fall, something I hadn’t done in a long time. I think taking small falls like that every now and then helps you become better. It reminds you that not much is going to happen if you fall. Falling really isn’t that bad, just so long as the gear holding you is solid.

Climbing, Trip Reports by OrganicClimber
5.10, come get your love, crab eyes, lost dome, rock climbing, Wichita Mountains
2 comments

---

One of my favorite raw foods is avocados, these creamy fruits are great as a snack with a bit of sea salt, in a salad, on a raw taco or a raw sandwich in this case. The thick creamy texture of this amazing fruit makes them ideal for sandwiches in my opinion.  Avocados are a staple food in my raw diet, along with nuts, they are one of my main sources of healthy fats. They are also a great source of calories. One medium sized avocado packs in 276 calories. I almost always have whole avocado in my salad every day.

Making this raw avocado sandwich is simple, and requires very little time to make. Although, not truly raw, for this recipe I use Ezekiel sprouted grain buns. Made from organically grown grains, these buns are cooked at low temperatures (higher than required to preserve enzymes) and are healthier than any of your typical store bough buns.

The Recipe

• 1 Ezekiel sprouted grain bun
• 1 roma tomato, cut into slices length wise
• 1 small avocado, cut into slices
• 1 slice of onion
• stone ground mustard

The Directions

Pile all the above ingredients onto your Ezekiel bun and spread the desired amount of stone ground mustard on the bun. Eat, and enjoy. If you want to make this meal 100% raw you can substitute the Ezekiel bread for a romaine lettuce leaf or any number of raw bread recipes.

As a side I had some of the flax seed crackers I made the other day. It was a nice filling meal.

RAW Food, Recipes by OrganicClimber
avocado, ezekiel, flax crackers, raw avocado sandwich, roma tomato, spinach, sprouted grain bread, stone ground mustard
6 comments

---

The other day I unexpectedly steeped into a raw food making frenzy. I think feeling run down, as if sickness was creeping up on me inspired me to create some raw foods. In addition to creating some of my raw granola, aka, raw buckwheat treats, I made some really simple flax seed crackers, which are perhaps the best I have made so far. This recipe is also simpler, in that it does not require soaking the seeds. It was purely accident that I did not soak the seeds. Normally I would, but it had been so long since I have made flax crackers I completely forgot about this step, but they still came out amazing.

The Recipe

• 1 cup of golden flax seeds
• 1 cup of brown flax seeds
• 2 TBSP onion granules
• generous amount of garlic salt
• 1/2 cup of Namu Shoyu
• 3/4 cups of water

Directions

1. Combine all ingredients into a food processor and pulse until well mixed
2. Spread the mixture onto a teflex dehydrator sheet, should but enough for one full sheet in a nine tray Excalibur dehydrator.
3. Score the mixture into desired shapes using a pizza roller or sharp knife
4. Dehydrate crackers at 95-100 degrees for about 8-10 hours.
5. Flip the crackers over and dehydrate for another 8-10 hours, until crisp.

These crackers have a slightly salty/spicy flavor without too much hint of garlic or onion. If you like a stronger garlic or onion taste, simply add more garlic salt or onion granules.

These are great just as a side item to a meal, or served as a snack with almond butter. They would also go great with a raw cheese spread or pizza sauce. Best part is, these will stay practically stay fresh forever.

RAW Food, Recipes by OrganicClimber
dehydrated, dehydrator, flax crackers, flax seed, garlic, onion, RAW Food, raw granola, raw snack
4 comments

---

This is a variation of my go-to mixed berry smoothie. This morning I was out of mixed berries but had a couple packages of frozen strawberries, some blueberries and some frozen bananas. Combined with some honey, rice milk and almond cashew butter it created a really delicious smoothie.

The Recipe

• About 2-3 oz of frozen blueberries
• About 4 oz of frozen strawberries
• 1 frozen banana
• 2 TBSp of raw honey
• 1 heaping TBSP of raw almond cashew butter (or just plain almond OR cashew butter)
• Your choice of greens or greens powder and hemp seed protein powder (optional but best)
• 1 cup of rice milk

Directions: Just blend!

For those of you who are not regulars on my page, I use a Vita-Mix blender. You can get free shipping on this wonderful machine through the Vita-Mix page on my site.

RAW Food, Smoothie Tuesday by OrganicClimber
almond butter, banana, blueberries, cashew butter, raw honey, rice milk, strawberries
No comments

---

Whenever people think of ice climbing Arkansas is probably one of the last that would come to mind, but that is exactly where we went this past weekend. Gary, who headed up the trip had been watching the temperatures over the past couple weeks and noticed there had been several day with temperatures below freezing and would continue to stay that way through the weekend we would be there. Despite knowing this I was still skeptical, after doing numerous Google searches for Arkansas ice climbing and turning up nothing I really began to wonder if our weekend adventure would allow us to dig an ice axe into a frozen waterfall.

Our adventure started at 6 a.m. on Saturday with a temperature of 6 degrees. After gearing up and eating breakfast we headed out to High Bank Falls near Cass Arkansas. This was the prime location we hoped to find ice to climb, but as we neared the falls it was very evident we where not going to be climbing ice here. There was plenty of ice at the base and the top of the falls, but it hadn’t been cold long enough for them ice formations to connect. So we did some more exploring in the area but didn’t find much of anything other than small ice flows across the Mulberry River.

But not wanting to give up we started back down the road we headed in on to check out some of the ice flows we saw on our way to Twin Banks. We ended up finding what looked like a good line heading up a dihedral. The ice was solid and connected all the way to the top of the cliff line, but would likely require just a little bit of dry tooling. Somehow I was suckered into being the one to go set up a top rope along with two other guys from the group. The task was not easy, the top of the cliff line was very steep, requiring three of us to rope up and simulclimb along the ridge to reach the top of the climb.

The process of setting up the rope took way longer than it should have. Two hours after we began making our way up the cliff line we reached the base of the climb by rappelling down a fixed line just right of our climb. By this time, the climb had already been baking in the sun for some time.

Despite the climb spending so much time baking we all had a chance to climb on the ice, but after each person climbed the more dry tooling was required. Each climber pulled off sections of ice. Had the climb not been in direct sun the ice would have been pretty awesome all the way to the top.

After finishing up on that climb we decided to inspect another area near by that Gary knew about close to the Ozark Highlands Trail. To our surprise we found quite a few ice flows, ranging from 20-60ft tall. So, we decided to head back the next day and climb the routes we found.

This time we decided to wake up earlier since we where going to be heading home that afternoon. After eating breakfast at the Waffle House the employees began warning us of sasquatch, aliens, white panthers and bears. Apparently all of them shared a home in the Ozark National Forest. But the folklore didn’t scare us away, we trotted off into the forest to climb the ice we found the previous day. The start of the morning was gorgeous, we were at a higher elevation, so there was snow covering a lot of the ground, I have found I really love the sound of snow crunching under my hiking boots as I walk over it.

This time setting up ropes was a bit easier, we were able to walk right up to the cliff line and set up anchors off trees. One of them was hard to set up, but still didn’t take as long as the day before, and we put up three climbs. After all of us rapped in we began climbing a line with a really hard and thick sheet of ice straight up a dihedral. The climb was dead vertical, likely a WI4+, but that is coming from the guy who had never climbed ice before that weekend.

After watching Gary climb and taking photos I decided to throw on the crampons and climb the route I had set up around the corner. At this point it had been baking in the sun for a while. At first glance the climb looked good, so I roped up grabbed the axes and threw in the pick only to see a large sheet of ice move, so I pulled my axe out and the sheet of ice moved away from the wall. An ascent on this route wasn’t going to happen, too bad too the upper section of ice was super thick and very solid. It’s a shame, because the day before after it had been in the shade half a day the ice was very solid. An afternoon trip that day might have been better.

So, after the other climb was free again I got on rope and began my ascent. I had a lot harder time than the previous day. My crampons wouldn’t stick quite right and my axes kept pulling out of the ice. The ice in this particular section was mostly clear, and from what I read later on clear ice isn’t exactly good ice. But after numerous tries I made my way past that section and up onto a ledge that began the dead vertical ice pillar inside a dihedral.

At first I really felt like I was getting the hang of it and began moving up the pillar, but then stared having the same problem of my axes not sticking. This time my crampons seemed solid though, but every time I would stand up and the slightest bit of pressure was taken off the axe I would go flying away from the pillar. Eventually I gained some more height by using the side of the dihedral, turning it into a mixed climb.

After gaining some more height I moved back into the pillar and gained some more height without the help of the rock face off to the side, but eventually I got to a place where I couldn’t find a good place for my axes up high and kept falling off the ice when I stood up. So after numerous tries I finally gave up and lowered off the route. I did get to experiment with placing an ice screw before lowering off though. It was actually easier than I thought it would be, but of course I wasn’t doing the placement on lead.

After everybody else finished climbing this route Naren, the only person in the group who had any real experience ice climbing decided to attempt to climb the largest ice flow we found, the only bad part was the bottom was very thin. After moving up a few feet and inspecting the thin curtain of ice more closely Naren decided to back down. Even though the ice past the curtain was extremely solid the risk of having a curtain of icicles fall on his head was far to great.

My first ice climbing experience was actually quite enjoyable, despite not doing very well at it aside from the first day. The climb we did wasn’t exactly a good beginner ice climbing route, but I enjoyed it enough to plan a trip to Ouray in late February, so if you will be around let me know and we can meet up.

We discovered that Arkansas DOES have ice, not just rock climbing. You just have to know where to find it. Other large ice flows were spotted from the road; we just didn’t have time to go check them out. I also discovered from online forums that the Buffalo National River offers some ice climbing. There is even a book called Sothern Fried Ice that features Arkansas ice climbs. But conditions have to be perfect for it. Some of the flows we found would have easily been climbable given more time to form in freezing temperatures. Now weather I will venture back to Arkansas for ice climbing is yet to be determined. I guess it will all depend on how addicted I get after visiting Ouray.

Climbing, Trip Reports by OrganicClimber
arkansas, crampons, High Bank Twins, ice, ice axe, ice climbing, rock climbing, southern, tools
2 comments

---

I’m usually not much for “teaser” blog posts, but I was too excited not to share this. Although our ice climbing trip to Arkansas was not was eventful as we hoped, I did get to slap on a pair of crampons for the first time and dig some ice tools into an a couple of ice flows. I liked it so much, I plan on going to Ouray in February.

Look for the trip report later this week.

Climbing, Trip Reports by OrganicClimber
arkansas, Climbing, crampons, ice axe, ice climbing, ice tool, ouray
1 comment

---

Inspired by Matt over at No Meat Athlete, I thought I would post a recent running mix I created. I have also used this as my “kick in the pants” mix when I need motivation at work, and it is sure to be used on upcoming climbing trips for road music. The current playlist is nearly two hours and twenty minutes long – enough to get me through a half marathon, and then some. I wish I had time to go through and provide iTunes links to each of the songs, but alas, I don’t have time right now. Perhaps I will go back in and add them later.

The songs highlighted in red are ones that never fail to get me moving faster. Now, if only I had a way to immediately jump to one of those songs when I feel like I’m lagging

My Ultimate Running Mix

• Arcade Fire – Neon Bible
• Ben Folds – Rockin’ The Suburbs
• Ben Folds – Dr. Yang
• Ben Folds – One Angry Dwarf And 200 Solemn Faces
• Blindside – Invert
• Flaming Lips – Kim’s Watermelon Gun
• Foo Fighters - Breakout
• Gomez – Airstream Driver
• Green Day – American Idiot
• Mates of State – My Only Offer
• Mates of State – The Re-Arranger
• Midlake – Kingfish Pies
• Midlake – Roller Skate (Farwell June)
• Modest Mouse – Truckers Atlas
• Modest Mouse – It’s Alright All Nice On Ice, Alright
• Modest Moue – We Were Dead Before The Ship Sank
• Pearl Jam – Comatose
• Pixies – U-Mass
• Primus – Laquer Head
• Primus – Ballard of Bodacious
• Radiohead – Bodysnatchers
• Radiohead – Idioteque
• Rage Against The Machine – Bullet in The Head
• Rage Against The Machine – Township Rebellion
• Red Hot Chili Peppers – Funky Monks
• Red Hot Chili Peppers – Suck My Kiss
• Red Hot Chili Peppers – Get On Top
• The Shins – Fighting In A Sack
• Stavesacre – Threshold
• The Toadies – Little Sin
• Vampire Weekend – Campus
• Vampire Weekend – Walcott
• Wilco – Casino Queen

Now if only I can find time to get a lot of my other music imported into my iTunes library I can have an even BETTER mix.

For all my climbing friends, be sure to check back next week for a trip-report on Arkansas ice climbing. A small group of us from the Texas Mountaineers are headed to Arkansas where the temperatures have been well bellow freezing for a solid week or more in hopes of finding some iced over water falls to climb. We think we know of a couple locations. Either way, I will provide a trip report – ice or no ice.

Cross Training, Health & Fitness, Running by OrganicClimber
best running songs, iPod, iTunes, mix, music, play list, playlist, Running
3 comments

---

The other day I found myself making another batch of almond butter in the Vita-Mix. My tradition is to always make a smoothie immediately afterwards, because of all the nut butter that sticks to the bottom of the blades. There are usually at least two tablespoons worth, if not more. By making a smoothie I don’t have to waste the almond butter by washing it out. This is also where I tend to go crazy and get creative rather than making my standard mixed berry smoothie.

For this particular smoothie I decided to use some Flax Seed oil since I was experiencing some inflammation. The flax seed oil also ads a nice flavor in my opinion. Some people may not like it, but I think it’s awesome. It’s also great as a base in salad dressings as well. I was also lacking in greens today so I tossed in a hand full of spinach to start with. After browsing the frozen fruit in my freezer I decided to keep it simple and just toss in some mangoes and bananas. I also added some honey to sweeten things up a bit and give the smoothie some more thickens.

The flavor of this one was a bit more “green” than I thought it was going to be. Usually just one banana will overpower a fairly large amount of spinach. So, if you aren’t a huge fan of the “green” flavor you may want to add more banana or sweetener to offset the green taste. I typically don’t like smoothies that taste strongly green, but this one I did enjoy. Just as I did my Granny drink your greens smoothie.

The Recipe

• 2 TBSP of almond butter (cashew would work well too)
• 2 TBSP of honey
• 1-2 TBSP of flax seed oil (optional, but good)
• 1-2 frozen bananas
• 1/4 package of frozen mangoes (10oz package)
• 1 hand full of spinach

This smoothie provides a good source of calcium and protein, and is anti-inflammatory. A great post climb or run recovery drink. For additional protein add a couple table spoons of hemp seed protein.

RAW Food, Smoothie Tuesday by OrganicClimber
almond butter, flax seed oil, inflammation, RAW Food, smoothie, spinach
No comments

---

Initially I was hoping my first climb of the new year would be in the Wichita Mountains with Arne (one of my climbing partners) but the weather was too cold for him, so I tried to make plans with others for Enchanted Rock, but everybody seemed to busy. Not too long after posting a request for a climbing partner I got an email from my friend Trish asking me to join a small group from our Wednesday night climbing group at Mineral Wells. Even though I’m not a huge fan of the top rope only climbing at Mineral Wells I jumped at the opportunity, I was dying to get some outdoor climbing in.

Scott and I left Denton about 8 a.m. to meet Ryan and Trish at the State park. We were the first to arrive, so we headed in to the climbing area and set up Hand Crack (5.8) and Connect the Pockets (5.9). We started off on Hand Crack which was harder than Connect the Pockets for me, just because I’m not the best crack climber. After both Scott and I finished the climb Ryan and Trish arrived and started off on Connect the Pockets, Ryan decided to create a variation of the climb that started far right of the actual start, turning the climb into what might have been a 5.10a. Trish repeated the same route with the greatest of ease.

After we all finished the two climbs we set up three other climbs across the canyon that were getting direct sunlight. The climbs were Solo Crack (5.9), Hilo Traverse (5.8) and Diving Board (5.8). The funnest of the three climbs was Diving Board the crux move is pulling a roof by using a rock that protrudes out from the wall resembling a diving board. The route gives even experience climbers a run for their money, but the moves are all there, you just have to commit. Hilo Traverse was an easy, fluid and fun climb. Solo Crack though was a whole different story. Solo Crack is mostly a lie back crack, some parts are finger thin. Not being a huge fan of cracks this one gave some problems. I had to take once towards the bottom of the route because I missed a key hand hold off to the side of the crack, but after that I muscled through the rest of the route, but not without some difficulty.

We ended our day by all taking a stab at the classic line Pee Wee’s (5.10c). This is the most popular line in the park for the more experience climber. The crux move is a long dynamic move to a small knobby lip that isn’t much wider than three fingers. None of us made the crux move. Trish however showed all the guys how the variation was done (likely 5.10a). I made my attempt at the variation after numerous tries of the 5.10c crux. Not wanting to take a huge pendulum swing (as my arms were feeling the pump) I decided to back down from the variation and try again later. I never got my second try though as the sun was starting to set and we needed to hit the road.

Despite the cold temperature and painfully sharp conglomerate rock it was an awesome day of climbing. I was really happy I went, what an awesome way to spend the first weekend of the new year – outdoors! This coming weekend should be even more exciting. I will be coordinating the trip to Reimer’s Ranch near Austin, Texas for the Texas Mountaineers.  A great limestone crag along the Pedernales River.

p.s. I will be posting Smoothie Tuesday tomorrow. I wanted to post this yesterday but was waiting on photos from a local newspaper photographer that was taking pictures of us. I still haven’t gotten copies of them so I jus posted some photos taken with Trish and Ryan’s camera.

Climbing, Trip Reports by OrganicClimber
Mineral Wells, rock climbing, texas, top rope, trip report
3 comments

---