Sam's Climbing Blog: Hoog Sammie, kijk omhoog Sammie, want dan wordt je lekker nat

The car is in the pocket. Finally freedom and no more walking to buy stuff. It's a 20 year old volvo 740, and it still drives pretty smooth. Only, the left front light is broken, there is no right mirror, the speedometer and odometer are broken. The horn sounds like a coughing chain smoker when honking, and the knalpot is as good as disappeared. Walter, we have baptised our car, old but undestroyable.

How has the climbing been, well not much "soeps", rain, rain and again rain. Last week, before we get rained out, we did Alaska Highway (5 pitches). A really nice route but it felt so hard for me. The second pitch is a bit overhanging with chimneys. So you have to squeeze and press your a way up. both technical and physical, in the end i did more aid climbing, just pulling on the gear. A really got multiple slabs in the face, also in the next pitch. Offwidths and chimneys are hell if you don't know the technique.

After Alaska highway, you have a ledge and then you can continue with the Calling, what we did. It was already too late to finish the route, so we only did the first 2 pitches, and the second pitch is an amazingly incredible perfect and at least 30m crack. I laybacked it (i can't fucking properly handjam yet). I never shouted so loud in a route before. I finished it with pumped chickenwings.

After that it startyed raining, untill the rain was pouring into our tent. Stinky, humid sleeping bag = not cool. Now both me and my sleeping bag have become first class "dirtbags". I went with Siebe to Murrin park (we call it urine, go to nightmare rock there and you'll know why) to do some single pitches and take a bit easier. We also went to Cheakamus canyon, apparently the only sportclimbing area in the neighborhood. Here we discovered a totally different kind of climbing. The rock is gneiss, a kind of granite bit less rough. Nice to feel sharp crimpers under my fingers again, peeling off layer after layer of skin. We did some 7th degrees and I could do 8a+ in the big overhang at the end of the day, while being totally frozen, fossilized and feeling cripple like an 80 year old man. That's the time to send things. Bompa Sam did it again.

Yesterday evening Tim went to the presentation of Nina Caprez for the Squamish Mountain festival, while I stayed with siebe in Cheakamus to do the 8a+. When he came back, he was followed by a policecar, but didn't notice it. A liitle bit further he saw the cap and pulled over at the next intersection. He got a fine of 250 bucks, cuz he was driving to fast (speedometer doesn't work remember) and apparently he neglected the the policeofficer in his car. The fact that half of the car is broken, there were 2 people to much in the car, and Tim that had drunken a beer didn't seem to be a problem for the cop (well we can discuss about Tim's alcohol test when the cop couldn't figure out how to use the alcohol blow thing and instead asked "breathe in my face", probably that's the fininf reason) but seeking a safe stopplace and fining you for that is the world going around in squares. If we don't pay in 30 days, we'll get a conviction and we'll have to do collective work instead of the payment. Lol we're moving our asses out of here in the next weeks, so no payment and no problems, although a dry night in the cell is worth the consideration, just a little.