Greetings!

I’ve been waiting to write this with the hope that I would either have sent something meaningful or roped a guest-writer in to write something interesting. It is the end of September, and neither of those things have happened! There are some more exciting things coming down the pipe (influencer voice: so stay tuned!), but this edition is more or less of a rambling catch-up: I went on a lovely climbing trip at the end of August with my girlfriend Hoai-Nam, and have since been engaged in full-time school for the first time since I was seventeen.

If you’re reading, I hope the change of season has been treating you well. Here’s a list of things that I have found delightful:

I’ve joined the swaths of retirees and bought a cruiser e-bike. I feel guilty when I think about how delighted I feel passing cyclists with little effort on a big hill.
Side note, Karma may have taken this into account: I ate it on my bike the other night. I flew, and thought I broke my wrist, but did not. I now pass the cyclists solemnly.

School has actually been (mostly) delightful. I’m in my third year of a Bachelor’s of Social Work. The courses are very focused and the professor’s seem to be mostly concerned with making you a badass social worker. That is exciting and inspiring!

My girlfriend and I got a Corgi over the summer. That has been delightful (again, mostly, I did have a panic attack at the crag when she didn’t stop barking once, *raises shoulders and cues inaccurate New York City accent* But hey, what are ya gonna do?)

My friends. Too corny for you? I don’t CARE!

Fred Again…’s Boiler Room session. The soundtrack to my life lately (I think “Strong” was playing when I fell off my bike).

Okay. Back to the spray.

As I said, I was putting off writing this in the hope that I would tie up one of the many loose strings of my life into a nice bow. That—I’ve learned—is not the phase that I am in! If anything, I’m just adding more strings. Fine by me.

One of those strings is Blackbeard’s Tears, a mega, single pitch tucked away on the Redwood Coast, at a crag called The Promontory. My girlfriend and I drove down from Squamish and met up with my friends Carlo and Connor (you use: namedrop. It’s not very effective.)  I met these two in the spring and really enjoyed sharing a day of climbing with them. Blackbeard’s was more of the same. I learned a lot about the craft from climbing with both of them, but mostly just enjoyed hearing the different perspectives of two very different people in very different stages of life and climbing. They were great company.

 

The setting of Blackbeard’s is a big part of the line’s majesty. It overhangs the Pacific Ocean, and despite being nearly roadside, the vibe feels quite remote. There’s no service, and you get the feeling that few people beyond the Arcata-faithful—who were very kind—spend much time at The Promontory.

I re-learned a valuable lesson on Blackbeard’s about expectation and possession in climbing. Basically, I surprised myself and sorted out all the moves faster than I anticipated (it is more of an endurance route, so this actually doesn’t mean too much) and hastily switched into redpoint mode: shit got serious! When I found myself at the crux, far, far too pumped to even ponder executing the sequence, I was disappointed? In the matter of a week I had gone from thinking “it’d be great to do all the moves” to pissed because I didn’t send the hardest I’d ever tried in a week—ridiculous! I’m quite excited to ponder these teachings for a year and return to The Promontory next summer.

After a week, Hoai-Nam and I headed to Donner Summit, which was also awesome! The short approaches accommodated her recovery from a concussion, and we got to catch up with a few friends (thanks, Lisa, Cory, Erik, and great to see you Emily!). I also find myself re-learning, again and again, that climbing performance is anything but linear. In the span of a week I had one of the best climbing days of my life and one of the worst. I’m certainly less susceptible to the brutality of that swinging pendulum than I used to be, but I still have a lot of identity wrapped up in climbing and climbing well. Hey, what are ya gonna do?

We drove across the state of Nevada listening to Neil Gaiman’s American Gods and spent a night in Salt Lake City with my dear friends Danny and Ashley. They’re eccentric folk, and I’m always excited to hear what antics they have been up to since we last spoke. This time was no different: Danny is now a budding amateur mycologist and Ashley is volunteering for an organization that reintroduces Beaver into previously lost habitat (I’m probably explaining that quite poorly). They’ve been putting up with me since I was nineteen—a whopping four years ago—and I love them. I caught a flight out of SLC the next morning to buckle down for school at the centre of the climbing universe: Kamloops, BC; SERIOUSLY, WHAT THE HELL ARE YA GONNA DO? SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME.

It has been a strange month. Strange, but good. Some friends here have made the transition easier, but I do feel isolated from my larger community. Nothing Halloween in Indian Creek can’t solve!

Thanks for reading, and remember, you only get so many Octobers,

Nat