Reconnecting

Scott crankin' down as Izzy-dog ponders the meaning of life

Scott dishing it up on Al's Diner, .13a

Yesterday Scott Gardner, Tom Smartt and I hit the Fins for an excellent mid-week session. It was Scott's first time up there and I believe he walked away with a very good impression of the place.

It was Scott's 3rd time back on rock this year after about a 6 year absence from climbing (he was mtn. biking hardcore during that time) The dude is an animal. The warmups out there are mainly 5.11 and Scott seemed to get to the anchors pretty easily, which is not an easy feat out there – especially if you have never been there before. It was inspiring to watch someone who has been climbing way longer than I have but has been out of the game a bit just seamlessly flow back into the movement, rhythm and mental structure of climbing. I can tell the technique, but most importantly passion, is still very much alive in Scott when it comes to climbing.

The definite climbing related highlight yesterday was Tom's sooooo close send of Al's Diner. The last move on the second crux is so critical on getting into a very hard to see left foot and then being able to hang on while stepping up on that tricky left foothold to get your right foot up onto a crimp. Your right arm is burning and your core muscles are very worked by then. He was seriously about 1/2 a move from exiting the crux. Pretty impressive for a "kid" that wrenched his ankle this April and hasn't done a whole lot of climbing since then. I tried Al's on lead but had a few hangs to get to the anchors. It was a high gravity day from me. However, I wanted to kick myself in the ass as on my next run as I opted for TR but then sent Al's clean – on TR though. Freakin idiot.

BTW, in regards to the title of this post: It was a pleasure climbing with Scott again (and Tom, like always) and catching up on friends that I haven't seen in years. Scott's always been this friend of mine that I've thought of as "someone who gets it". By "it" I mean that he understands reality – he isn't living to keep up with the Jones', keeps his shit together and hasn't succumbed to the mundane even though (like me) he has a family, house, job, etc. Plus hanging out with him reminded me that Britt and I need to make more of an effort to reconnect with old friends because we have been really bad at doing so. We've had some memorable times in the past with some of these people and we'd like to keep the friendships alive and healthy…even with life as hectic as it can seem.

And next time Al's Diner is going down.