Neel Parikh

It’s been a pretty miserable summer here in Toronto, and pretty much everywhere else on the east coast. It’s either raining or hot and humid, not really ideal conditions for doing anything but sitting at home with a cold drink watching videos of Dani Andrada doing pinky pullups, or completely owning Picacho (9b+?).. i swear, the man should just change his name to The Hulk.

Whenever the weather lets up a bit, I’ve been heading down to The Glen for some bouldering, where I’ve been working on a neat little cave problem with my buddy Daren. I’m not really much of a boulderer, but the Glen is nice and shady, so on those hot humid days, it’s so much better than a sun baked crag. That being said, I still haven’t made it up to Lion’s Head this summer, what a shame. I am on the other hand absolutely frikin’ stoked about Rocktoberfest down in Red River Gorge. It was an absolute blast last year, and I will kick you in the left nut if you try to stop me from going this year. Day 1 last year went something like this:

Friday, 9am: Wake up. Decide to skip work to get a bit of rest for the long drive ahead…. try going back to sleep… fail. Get up, pack up stuff.

12pm: Have some food… harass John and Justin to get off work early so we can hit the road. They both agree, and we decide to head out at 3pm.

3pm: Get to John’s place, tip toe through hairballs and other indistinguishable floor ornaments (for lack of better word). Pack up car, call Justin. Find out that Justin’s stuck at work. Try to sleep… fail… again.

8pm: Meet Justin at Bar Burrito. Declare that they should be ranked somewhere above taco bell, but somewhere below “recommended eating”. (see notes on Transitive Properties of Inequalities“)

12:30am: Cross the US border at Detroit, drive through some shady neighbourhoods while trying to link back onto I-75. Realize that going for burritos immediately prior to sitting in a car with Justin is an olfactory nightmare.

4:30am: Hand off driving to Justin. Try to sleep… fail… again.

6:30am: Pull into Miguel’s Pizza. Try to sleep… fail… sigh.

7am: Breakfast

8am: Hiking up Roadside Attraction.

9am: At the top of my first route ready to clean anchors. Look at my harness, no draws, no atc.

9:03am: Guy on the route next to me tosses me an ATC and a sling. Thanks, random guy on route next to me… Game on!

9:06am: On the ground again. time for another 5 hour energy drink

The rest of the weekend just got better and better with a great party, bouldering comp, free schwag, clinics, a screening of the Sharp End, and a whole bunch of money going toward the RRG Climbers Coalition. Be there, or be somewhere else. But be warned, if you’re somewhere else, you’re missing out.

“… total commitment. Execution. Perfection.” That’s what freesoloing means to Alex Honnold. Here’s an interview with Honnold from last year. The man has balls of steel – I don’t even know where to begin. Take a look at the caption on the picture at the top of the article. If you need inspiration and motivation, that’s where you get it… when you’re struggling on a multipitch 5.10d crack, and all of a sudden, Alex Honnold sneaks up behind you at a belay station… “Hey, I’m Alex, I don’t have a rope.. all I have is this chalk bag, some protein bars, and oh yah, my balls of steel, do you mind if I pass you?”. Not exactly verbatim, but you get the point. Forget being ridiculously physically strong, I’d love to have that kind of mental strength. That’s right, I want Alex’s balls (of steel). There, i said it.

Here’s a pretty cool video of the man in action at Indian Creek.

… another tick that is, for Will Stanhope – this time it’s the 5th Ascent of the Cobra Crack. I was up there last week and got to catch the man in action taking a couple runs at it, some valiant attempts, but to no avail. Well Sonnie Trotter posted a couple days ago that Will finally sent it – so congrats to you Will! Even with fingers torn to shreds, he can still send like the best of them. It’s like watching an artist paint. ..ahem.. an artist with bloody flappers packed full of chalk.

I don’t think I’ll ever climb the world’s hardest 5.14 trad lines, or even be the
world’s fastest table boulderer, but it’s just awesome and incredibly inspiring to watch these guys do what they do best – if anything, I’ll give me that extra push to put in another session on the hangboard, and to stop worrying about falling 10 feet on some bolts… after watching a 30 foot whipper on a sketchy umbrellaed cam placement. yikes.

A couple days ago a message appeared in my Facebook inbox.  Climbers Micah Dash and Johnny Copp had gone missing from Mt. Edgar, China along with Sender Film’s Wade Johnson who was filming a new piece. Donations were being accepted to help in the Search and Rescue, and immediate there was a huge outpour of support from the community.

From Adventurefilm.org’s blog:

• At midnight last night, a notoriously impoverished local climber – and good friend of the team – showed up at search headquarters, threw his passport on the table and said that for the first time in his life he has two thousand dollars to his name, and he wants to spend it on a flight to Chengdu to be one of the first Americans on the ground to help out with the search.
• This morning at 9 AM, a guiding client of Micah’s wired $25,000 to search headquarters to make sure the search did not slow down due to a financial bog-down.
• Companies who compete with the sponsors of these athletes are paying for their own athletes with Chinese visas to get to get to China as quickly as possible.
• People have offered up the 65,000 frequent flyer miles needed on United to get to China.
• Senators have pressured the Chinese embassy to expedite visas for American search volunteers.

It’s so incredible to see a community get together under times of stress, but it saddens me to hear that the bodies of both Johnny Copp, and Wade Johnson have been found, burried by an avalanche. Blizzard conditions are hampering the search efforts, but here’s hoping for the safe return of Micah. I have never met any of them personally, but this event has resonated across the climbing community. As my own personal tribute, I’ll be throwing my copy of The Sharp End and having a drink in their honour. Rest in Peace.

The Ontario Access Coalition has recently released Interim Guidelines for Bouldering at the Glen.

I had heard about the potential access issues last year, but my first visit to Niagara Glen wasn’t until a couple weekends ago. I was absolutely blown away at the number of awesome problems and the fantastic view of the river (along with mentally kicking myself in the head for never having made the trip there before). I’m not much of a boulderer, but there’s something there for everyone – so I’m positive that The Glen will provide years of problems to work on. It looks like it’s going to be my new “goto” place for a day-trip, and I sincerely hope that others respect the new guidelines, which in my opinion are pretty much common sense.