ROAD TRIP!!

So I am currently on a road trip to visit my best friends in Colorado, Texas, and Arizona and I am having the time of my life!

I started this trip on September 30th and have traveled roughly 2000 miles since it started 8 days ago talk about a long trip, haha and it's only about half way over!! 

The first big stop for me was in Las Vegas Nevada where I spent some time climbing at Kraft Boulders in Red Rocks.
I had a great time and met a few people including Catrina Sisco a cute girl sponsored by Mad Rock. It was a bit warm so I didn't really finish any hard climbs but I did try some fun ones on the warm up boulder. 

From there I headed out to Arizona and stayed at some random free campground where I slept in the back of my car for the first time on my pads staked on the back seat.(add pic) This was definitely a change since my pads are maybe a foot from the roof of my car but it was comfortable enough, plus sleeping laying down beats sleeping in the driver seat anytime! haha From there I drove to the four corners monument and took a couple pictures there as well as read all of the cool little tidbits about how and when the state lines for AZ, UT, NM, and CO were drawn as well as by who.

 

 

From there It was just a short hour or two drive to my friend Nicks house in Durango, CO. I stayed at Nicks house and met a bunch of people at his weekly cultural night on Wednesday. The next day Nick and I went to do a bit of bouldering at Turtle Lake in Durango. Got on some fun stuff and I'll post the vids and links to them when I get the chance. 

 The next day Nick had to go on a class trip for the weekend so since I no longer had a place to stay or people to chill with I headed to Denver. I didn't make it all the way there in one shot though, due to tiredness I ended up staying at Antero Reservoir. 

Some bugs decided to mate on my car the morning I woke up. haha

That morning I drove into Denver to explore the city. One of the first things I noticed about Denver was the horrible smell it gave off as I entered it. I hadn't really thought about big cities smelling bad until I entered Denver. I think a lot of that has to do with me living out in the wilderness of bishop for a month prior to my road trip. Haha It's funny how things like living out doors can change you even if you don't realise it.
















As I was driving through Denver I tried to get a hold of my friend TJ who lives there. Unfortunately we didn't get a chance to meet up so I ended up going to a brewery he recommended in Golden, CO called Mountain Toad Brewing. Due to my lack of food that day the two pints of beer put me over my limit and I had to sleep in my car for a few hours. lol

After my nap I drove towards Boulder, CO to meet up with my friend Mike. Since it was so late I decided to sleep at this free camping I found way out in the middle of nowhere called Gross Reservoir. I even had trouble finding the place because I was using my gps on my phone to locate it and there was no service. So it was a bit hard to find out where I was going and had to pull over at one point to find out if I was going in the right direction. But it was beautiful when I woke up to see I was on the top of this hill looking down into endless forests.

I found this cool looking log that was burned by some previous occupants that looked just like a horse leg!!

It was a bit windy that morning so I took a little video showing the surrounding area plus capturing the wind noise.

When I got to Boulder the next morning I found out that Mike was sick. Since he was sick and couldn't come out to climb with me I ended up going up to boulder canyon to climb by myself.

I wandered around for at least an hour trying to figure out where I could climb and how I could make it across the river to boulder on the other side, which is where most of the bouldering was. lol
I was only able to really climb on one boulder, The Graham Boulder. Sent a quick few problems on it and checked out The Game(v15) that Daniel Woods did the FA of a couple years ago.

That Climb is ridiculous I checked out the holds and angle of the climb and am baffled on how he climbed it! Plus the landing gets like every caution in the book! lol

Driving the miles

Yesterday I had my longest drive yet of my trip. I was in my car for a total of 18 hours! Luckily I was not that tired during the drive even though I had only gotten about 4 1/2 hours of sleep the night before.

The trip was from Fort Worth Texas to Glendale Arizona and was probably only about 16 hours of driving maybe even 15 1/2 the rest was eating or I took a nap about 2 hours outside of phoenix for 45 min. I was good to go after that, I did grab a monster just in case and was listening to The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and then started Star Ship Troopers.

Some of the other Audiobooks I've gone through on this trip are: the maze runner series(), the divergent series(Divergent, Insurgent, and Allegiant), and the casual vacancy. I can't remember if I am missing any at the moment but that's the majority of them. 

In Arizona I got to chill with my long time friend Antonio for a couple days that was a ton of fun getting to see him and his brother Sam again. They showed me around the city and all their favourite bars and such. 

After my short stint with Antonio I headed once more off to bishop the drive was around 11 hours and boy was I tired when I finally got back. Plus this weekend I'm off to Yosemite to climb for the weekend. I'm sure I'll have more to say after that. 

Till then peace out!

The Irish King

Durango Livin

So since I've been in Durango, Colorado for a few days I've gotten the chance to edit and upload a few vids of some of the trips I've been on since my days of being a dirtbag have started. One of the days I went to check out the loaf boulder in the buttermilks in bishop and sent some fun problems on it. One was called The Rising and another was called Nan Bread I also did a few warmup problems on the boulder that can also be found on my youtube page as well as all the other vids I've been able to post so far.

I'm probably about 100 vids or so behind in my posting but I'm doing my best with my limited internet access. =) So keep looking and I'm sure you'll see plenty more videos in the future.

Also if you know I have video of you sending some of your projects make sure to contact me if you want the video out sooner than later. That way I can make sure to prioritize your climbs because the way I'm doing it right now is completely random with me editing what ever I feel like at the time.  If you don't already have my number then message me on facebook or keep looking on youtube for your vids to come out.

Peace from Durango!

The Irish King