Games

Guards of Atlantis II

stanarich

My family was one of solidarity when it came to gaming. All too often someone might express uncertainty during a game, and then the pieces or whatever secrets lurked in hand or beyond the game’s screening mechanism would be revealed. Many times, Scrabble found us staring at a person’s tiles to unearth the best move. Takebacks in chess arose whenever a blunder would ruin a game. The desire to not have oversight provoke a loss, or win, served as a norm.

However, this sense of community does not pervade the competitive scene. Exceptions arise, and I’m pleased that the folk who populate tables at which I find myself tend to lean toward communication and forgiveness rather than hardlines geared toward victory, though winning does remain the goal of many a soul, myself included.

Though, competitive games tend to not encourage openness. Instead, you generally turn to cooperative games, which often thrive from open dialogue. Frustrating, though, how words can destroy an experience, should a person-turned-megaphone dominate the experience. Anyone who has played cooperative games with a wide mix of people has at least once witnessed a tyrant emerge to dictate actions, transforming what should have been a communal experience to a solo game with everyone else as barnacles affixed to the dominator, along for the ride. Or, the converse undesirable fate develops where the group falls prey to consensus-driven actions, with bad options being promoted in that they receive more consideration than warranted, with the risk that the group will accept a poor decision rather than be seen to dismiss another person’s preference. Because the lizard-person in each of us might become exasperated, declaring: “humans” in response to the frustration that, well, humans invoke, designs to prevent verbalized solidarity proliferate in the cooperative gaming space.

Can’t we have competitive games that inspire dialogue and cooperation, yet need not be a cooperative game? Is there a means to retain one’s autonomy, pushing against the games that silence or heavily restrict communication, while maintaining the conflict inherent in competitive games? The answer is yes. Pair the players; marry the two.

It’s not an uncommon idea. Some bedrock card games—such, as Spades, Bridge, among others—arise from this conceit, thus most people who game know of, and have experienced, such fare. However, it’s not a common aspect of games in terms of the board gaming community who are likely to visit a site like BGG.com, and what such players tend to play are either games like Battlestar Galactica or The Resistance—where traitors oftentimes exist—or social, often word-based, games such as Codenames or Decrypto. However, it’s somewhat rare to have teammates, know who the “enemies” are, and not be within the realm of a party game.

Such games do exist, but they surely represent a sliver of the universe, and not many of them excel at the convention. However, and here’s where we get to the focus of this review, Guards of Atlantis II has become my go-to teammates board game experience. It provides a 2v2 – 5v5 adventure that fosters cooperation as well as transparency within a conflict-infused landscape.

I love that you’re not in it all alone. You’re not one against many. Rather, you band together with others, scheming—openly. Solidarity. You work together, trying to make the most of your asymmetric characters while tackling those of the opposition. Thus, Guards of Atlantis II lets me discuss strategies openly with friends, for that’s the requirement. After cards get played and actions accrue, sometimes we share perspectives with the other team, for the open nature of the interactions encourages debriefing each other as to why each player did what they did or didn’t do what you had anticipated. There’s a generally communal feel even though 50% of the table serves as your enemy.

All communication must be open; no whispering or absconding to another room to scheme. No sneak peeks at cards. While within its embrace, you live in a realm devoid of conspiracy. If you want to convey info, then everyone gets in on the action. You care what every other player is doing, at least that’s the way the single-lane map goes, where everyone is essentially piled atop each other, sniping opportunities within the interstices of opportunity. More than once I’ve spoken with a teammate as one or more players on the other team listen to the conversation, trying to divine their best options based on what we’ve shared. On the double-lane map, teams get split into mini-teams, which can crossover, thus your focus narrows more to those who are where your hero is, though you keep a pulse on the other primary region for opportunities to assist or to summon an ally to your aid.

Then, once the action begins a shroud of silence descends. No spoken words sound beyond the banal. You may read cards aloud, share a preference as to who acts first should you tie in initiate (i.e., turn order) with a teammate, and the like. Yet, thoughts churn within every spectator awaiting their moment to become actor. I often find myself reciting a mantra as I try to force my will upon my teammate to get them to do, or not do, a given something. I say in my mind, “read my card, read my card, read my mind” hoping they’ll realize not to block a given spot on the board, to attack, or not to attack a certain minion or hero. It’s tense. It’s exciting. It’s a beautiful system.

I wish that I were at a table with friends. Guards of Atlantis II, it’s present too – a friend amongst many. I imagine something akin to Waiting for Godot where Godot is whatever happens post Guards. An unknown existence for we cycle game state into game state, an eternal set of experiences, one after another, reminiscent of one’s beating heart. For whenever a game concludes, the hope arises that another person will say, “again?” Or, even better, that we sync ourselves in that as soon as a winner emerges people gravitate into new teams, grabbing new characters, and we discover ourselves looped into game after game as the stars rise and fall, evidence of meals accumulates in the compost and sink, alongside an ever-increasingly depleted pantry and fridge. For, the game becomes a “forward experience” as it ensues. As if its presence equates to continuance, reminiscent, perhaps, of the occasional death trap in the form of a chess game where you’re the king alongside human-size pieces, with checkmate being your savior or your demise. There is the game, nothing else.

Hyperbole, sure, but behind every jest lies a kernel of truth, and from the center springs forth possibility. Yet, I digress, for life is Guards of Atlantis, and more breathes of this opus of gaming I must intake. Ahem, let me recenter this writeup and speak now of possibility.

Of the approximately fifteen games in which I’ve participated, only one of these felt like a blowout, and it ended quickly. New players, not aware of the strategy found themselves on the wrong side of the push whereas my team was in place to cause a double push following the end of the next round. It was decisive. Were you to turn the romp into a clap, it’d be resounding. You’d think it was a gong played within a chasm. There would be an echo. Excluding this outlier, it’s invariably been tense, with either team able to envision a path toward besting their foes, and on a handful of occasions despite being behind the team with a questionable fate managed to secure the win. We have not witnessed situations where you know you are doomed yet have no hope to secure salvation. The one tragedy that I mentioned above ended swiftly. It was a mortal wound, delivered quickly, with mercy. If we had been at a dinner table, you might have heard, “please pass the defeat,” in lieu of the salt, and the entire ordeal passed as swiftly as the scenario I have just described.

All to say, I’m enamored by the game. I look for angles that might get it to the table. Recruiting new souls who might also adore it has become my goal. I may not proselytize religion, yet I will proclaim the joy that this game brings. Sing it loud, sing it proud, sing it and then sing it some more. Glory be to those who sit at the Guards of Atlantis II table.

It invades my life beyond time spent alongside cardboard. I learned to code in SwiftUI so that I could make an app that contains photos of the cards, so that I can look at characters lovingly, and learn of them while not playing. I added in FAQ materials for each, as well as the iconography provided for each character, with explanations of what the icons means. I tinker on the app near daily, adding little flourishes. It’s my time with the game when not playing it. I painted the figures. I would buy the figures again to paint them again. Alternates, if you will.

What I’m saying is that this game is wonderful. I recommend that you all find a way to play it. If you’re in Seattle, WE CAN PLAY IT TOGETHER.

Games

Memories of Through the Ages

stanarich

Through the Ages is magnificent, provided you’re willing to spend hours playing a game rife with tension and inevitable brutality. It’s an implementation of a civilization game that forgoes a common territory-acquiring board. Instead, you use action points to improve your tableau so that it generates culture (i.e., points), ore (i.e., building resources), and science (i.e., a resource to gain technologies), while also ensuring that you have military might to either ward off various forms of attacks or conduct your own onslaughts. You also need to obtain and spend food to recruit population for which you spend ore to create buildings that generate the various resources (i.e., culture, ore, science, food, or military).

You rarely have enough actions to accomplish all that you desire, and the game imposes restrictions on you in that you must have enough ore and science to build per your plan. Plus, buildings provide limits on how many workers they can accommodate, and you have a hand limit that corresponds to the number of action points you may spend on a turn. Adding to the complexity is that if you accumulate too many resources then you lose ore due to corruption (i.e., you acquire but do not spend the ore). Corruption can arise due to various reasons, but a common one is that you lack food to produce population and thus do not have a means of spending ore due to using ore to turn population into buildings is a primary way of spending ore. Altogether, you navigate numerous constraints while planning the current turn with a mind toward opportunities ahead.

These actions points may also be expended to draft cards from a flowing river of options that represents the passing of time, in that the faster cards are removed from the display the quicker the game advances through the four ages (i.e., a quasi-stand-in for rounds), such that cards serve as a timer and a representation of society’s evolution into more powerful versions of options that arose during prior ages of the game. Thus, you must continually decide whether to invest in an improvement that one age offers or wait for a successor age’s version of the card, forgoing benefits earlier in the game (that will continue to accrue during later ages) or save resources at the given moment to bump to an improved version of that card later. Given that you shuffle the cards for each age before you begin the game, you never quite know how many turns you might wait before you see what you want. Other players may want the same card, forcing you to gamble that you will be positioned to grab it before an opponent manages to do so.

Outside of a handful of situations, culture tends to not do much for you in terms of improving your game state. Various cards produce culture or earn you culture points, but culture itself does not provide any benefit other than being the goal of the game. For whomever has the most culture at the end of the game wins. When to start your means to generate culture remains a forefront quandary during any game, for the early you start it oftentimes means you’re forgoing or at least reducing your ability to generate some of integral engine-building component, which might cause your empire to stall out later in the game. If you wait too long to acquire culture, then you may never catch up to those that began to accrue culture earlier. It’s wonderful dynamic, which gets further complicated by how important military strength is for ensuring your opponents do not dominate you.

Cards you can draft—alongside additional “tactics cards,” that I won’t get into as well as certain leaders who boost your military—enable you to increase your military strength. At the start of each player’s turn the person can choose to seed and event that will arise later or conduct an aggression against another player who has a lower military strength. Even if you have more military strength, your card can play cards or sacrifice military units to increase their defense capabilities, resulting in many aggressions not necessarily being sure things. Events you seed run the gamut in terms of what they might do, but many reward or harm players depending on whether they have the most or least military might, so you generally want to ensure you’re not the weakest to avoid aggressions as well as events that target weakest civilizations. This produces another sort of resource (i.e., military) that plays out as a ranking mechanism across players and can provide benefits but may not do so, but lacking it raises the risk that you get hammered due to disregarding its importance. With military, along with culture, being things you need but not necessarily things you want to invest in at various times in the game, you’ll be negotiating your goals with the realities of the game state, thereby—along with the variability of the river that is cards figuratively passing through time—ensuring that each turn feels dynamic, for you cannot script future turns based on the moment due to how what others do on their turns will surely influence your next turn.

Without the military aspect, your turns may feel somewhat like navigating Excel spreadsheets to ferret out maximizations. This sort of thinking is admittedly fun for many gamers (me included). However, with the military aspect, you find yourself interested in what other players are doing, and how their actions might impact you forces you to move your focus from your Excel sheet to considerations of how others are conducting their own efficiency puzzles. That the cards coming down the options river are also limited and that Age III event cards provide culture based on who is ranked where for different tableau builds, you’ll oftentimes need to shore up your weaknesses even though you have no other intrinsic wish to do so. Thus, Through the Ages foremost has you care about your personal board state while also remaining ever mindful of what others are up to.

Through the Ages is one of my foundational games. Not that it represents the birth of my gaming hobby or necessarily is part of the first, nor second, phase of games that entered my life. Rather, it’s one of the games that saw ample play during my first dedicated gaming group. Prior to 2008, with 2010 being the banner year for consistent gaming, I would entice roommates and other friends to play various games, but nothing stuck in terms of being regular, and an experience like Through the Ages was not realistic if you’re not going to have repeat performances given its learning curve and length. Once a committed, consistent group of us arose, Power Grid, El Grande, and Through the Ages became our go-to options. With each of these gems, as the ending drew near, we would stand over the pieces, staring down, and immersed in conversation and planning as our final attempts to secure the winning position manifested. My desire to play El Grande and Power Grid have lessened, yet Through the Ages remains something I’d love to throw down, even though it’s not an option available for no one I know seems to play it. Consequently, I’ll play the AI in the app version during a long flight or other period where downtime persists, but otherwise it largely resides in nostalgia, prompting a smile for time spent amongst friends and laughter, tinged with ruthlessness.

I’ll add that I’m sort of terrible at the game, which is another facet that I love. Any game that beats me down, finds me inevitably losing, but retains is focus of my desire has some manner of cachet that warrants a prominent location on my game shelf.

Games

Hadrian’s Wall

stanarich

Hadrian’s Wall plays largely as a solo game. Interaction is primarily reserved for leveraging an icon on another person’s card where the benefit of doing so outweighs the boon you may provide them in the form of a paid resource. If you’re staring deep into another person’s strategy, you can influence them in minor ways (e.g., in a two-player game you can trigger extra attacks from the Pict that you might be able to handle better than your opponent or you might play a card with a good you know that they’ll need), but generally you’re probably better off focusing on your own game and then allowing happenstance to prompt interaction. Though, I will say that we’ve had an oddly cooperative experience in that I or my partner might lament missing a particular resource which begets helpful suggestions.

 

The game is designed well in that you usually feel like there’s an option. You might not be able to do what you want to do, but there’s at least some means to expend rather than squander your resources. With a varied panoply of tracks, you can continue your victory-point march ever forward.

 

You’ll spend an hour marking boxes; however, this time passes quickly. Downtime is minimal, only occurring should you finish a round ahead of the other player or players. Our experience has been that we’ve generally aligned the conclusion of our turns. And, I will add that glancing over to see what another player has left inspires me to adjust my speed of play. If the other player’s reserve is low, I’ll expedite my decision-making. If I’m finishing first, background music serves as a distraction, as does my phone, a bathroom break, a quest for sustenance, etc.

 

If you enjoy Excel, you’ll probably love this game. If maximizing efficiencies appeals to you, ditto. You like X-ing off items from a to-do list, then Hadrian’s Wall may be for you. I’ll add that there’s something delightfully absurd and fulfilling about the chains of cascading benefits you can accrue. More than once, you will discover yourself trading in a yellow worker for a purple one to get a yellow to get a purple to grab a stone that gives you back a yellow worker and so on.

 

Want direct interaction? Perhaps move on. Have terrible eyesight? Grab a magnifying glass, or perhaps move on.

 

The different categories of population are color coded. If you’re like me, you might only easily remember that the purple meeples are slaves (though, the instructions label them as servants). If you’re like me in that I then found it harder to recall that black meeples are soldiers and blue ones are builders, then you, like me, might have to do some soul searching… Soul searching I didn’t realize I had to embark upon had I never opened the game’s box. But, it strike me that I’d say, “grabbing a blue person, grabbing a black person, getting a yellow, need a slave.”

 

Recognize that the teach will take some time. A person may need time to internalize the rules, as well as recover from having ingested them. Teaching this game is one of those swallow-a-large-pill moments.

Games

My City

stanarich

My City was a great experience. The rules are simple. You shuffle a deck of cards, with each card’s face showing a different Tetris-like piece that you possess. You flip the deck card-by-card to learn which piece next needs to be placed on your personal player board.

 

However, you’re juggling multiple conditions at any one time, which is what creates the puzzle. I paused a few times during our first games to marvel that there’s more going on that I had initially realized. Conversely, it’s not an unbounded playpen, which fortunately means the options, while myriad, shouldn’t lead many people into analysis paralysis. Given that you can expect to play nearly every piece that you have, you can pre-plan moves, which also expedites the gameplay. Yet, since each play must be contiguous to a piece you’ve already placed, the timing of when a card arrives may not fit your plan. Fortunately, most games allow you to skip most pieces at the loss of a point, so even in a damnable situation where you truly don’t want to play a given shape, you often can forgo doing so.

 

What’s genius here is that your final score is calculated after twenty-four games, with the winner of a game securing points toward the final score, alongside there often being additional ways to accruing such points as well that don’t require you to have won the game. Meaning, it’s no big deal if you get blown out in a given game since the final score isn’t based on differentials from the individual games that you play, and you don’t need to win the majority or plurality of the games either. Also, the winner of a given game typically receives changes to the personal game board that make it a touch harder to win future games whereas the loser gets benefits to increase the score of future games.

 

Given that this is a legacy game, in that it evolves and continues across a span of games, each game tweaks the rules, with some changes being somewhat trivial to some changes being rather intense. Intense being proportionate to a game that involves placing polynomials in a landscape grid; nowhere did the rules say to smack your opponent or cut oneself as penance for losing three successive games, which is something that I definitely experienced, the losing not the hypothetical penance.

 

So, I’m familiar with legacy games. Some friends and I played Pandemic Season 1. We grew bored. Which feels like sacrilege to confess given how loved the game is by the community. Yet, we abandoned it after completing about three fourths of the game. Most of the games felt like straightforward wins. Inevitable. Foregone conclusions. Perhaps we should have recruited a fourth, with three-player Pandemic simply being a touch too easy, or maybe we missed some integral rule or rules. But, assuming all went as it should have gone, it just wasn’t all that engaging – we had more fun trying to win vanilla Pandemic with six or seven epidemics.

 

A different group of us completed Gloomhaven and Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion, though due to various happenstances we never quite finished Forgotten Circles. We’re still mid-scenario traveling upward within what had been feeling like an ever-rising tower. Holidays, travel, covid, and my relocation to Seattle effectively taped that box up, perhaps for good. Sometimes it’s hard to sleep at night knowing that my character remains entombed mid-stride, nearly exhausted, all while surrounded by cardboard standees. We all took photos of the game state. On dark stormy nights as I drink a dark and stormy, I’ll sometimes load up the images, text my friends, and imagine one day we’ll be forced by the fates to reunite, perhaps to save humanity, with it turning out that cardboard adventures reverberate in import across the mortal plane that is our actuality.

 

But, while I am still working through my relationship with unresolved legacy games, as well as my unrelenting desire to play The Rise of Fenris legacy version of Scythe – one day — Kelly had not yet played any game that evolves. I told her multiple times: “Yes, you can write on the board.” “No, you won’t be teleported to hell.” “It’s ok.” Oddly, though, applying stickers seemed like less of a shock for her. Pens are indelible. Glues, merely sticky. I don’t claim to be immune to morality or sympathy or whatever sparked the concern she demonstrated. For, upon being instructed to rip up cards in Gloomhaven, I’d set them aside. Until, one day, after realizing I had spent innumerable moments sorting through materials to set up and tear down gaming sessions, that destruction meant incremental liberation freed me from my hang up. Heaving game components into the trash, freed us ounce by ounce from what was and remains, even after such cardboard carnage, a ridiculous box brimming with nearly unyielding content.

 

So, yes, legacy games replicate the evolving nature of life, teaching us to evolve as much as to let go. And, beauty of My City is that the modifications are invariably incremental, with the accreting and dissolving of rules as you apply stickers and then sometimes proceed to cover such stickers. The rules keep moving, and I won’t label every particular change to be stellar but none of the modifications were off putting. You keep flowing, and that the game is generally engaging alongside the excitement to see what changes next and how it influences your decision-making kept us going.

 

The other thing to note about a competitive legacy game is that there’s the terror that a participant will crush the competition, or that someone will simply get trounced and get dragged through dozens of games, ever reminded that life is meaningless with each accruing defeat. Fortunately, and I cannot speak to whether this arose from the evening-out mechanic of clipping the wings of an individual game’s winner while boosting the losers’ boards or our similar abilities at the game, but we kept our overall scores close throughout the experience, with Kelly winning on a tie breaker at the end. Which is the best outcome of such an extend series of bouts.

 

My City supports up to four players, and then it includes a backside on each board to provide a non-legacy version of the game. Since we played the game as two players, we’ll be able to go through the 24-game cycle again. It’s not something I’m clamoring to do in the near-term, and I don’t know how often, if ever, I’d be excited to play the non-legacy version of the game, given how much more engaging the full experience is, but perhaps three, six, or more months from now I suspect we’ll give it another go, and if Kelly trounces, me, I suspect I could make it through the entire series. If not, even eeking out a handful more plays before placing it within purgatory alongside Gloomhaven Forbidden Circles isn’t a terrible fate.

Other Stuff

Questions of an Election

stanarich

A friend from my past has been posting a lot of election-related stories that allege the Democrats stole the election. That Biden stole it. Not that some unscrupulous people did immoral acts, which is more believable as isolated happenings, but that some vast conspiracy occurred that solely provided extra votes to Biden. Meanwhile, after posting this person will put up his hands and say, “I’m simply pointing out questions and letting the facts play out – I won’t get involved in a he said she said situation.” However, does such behavior truly reflect letting the facts play out for themselves?

 

Disseminating opinions without much factual grounding at a rapid pace without doing much due diligence concerning them belies that perspective. Are we focused on the accuracy and robustness of the voting process (i.e., also investigating malfeasance or irregularities that cut against Republican votes — it appears that for many this concern is rather one-sided, justice is not being ferreted out but rather another partisan game is unfolding — are we focusing on the lawsuits that have been tossed out for being groundless)?

 

Trump told us before the election that he would question any outcome other than his winning and now he appears to be using federal resources alongside statements to social media, among other means, to achieve such ends. I suspect that there are issues with the vote-counting process at various levels. Anything happening on such a scale will have flaws, especially when humans are involved, but the assertion that there’s some concerted operation to steal the presidential election seems a tad unlikely, and to attribute specific instances of bad behavior to broad categories of people reeks of logical fallacies.

 

Each election there are issues — I recall dramatics re: Diebold with the Bush/Kerry election. In terms of purported statistical proof re: “bellwethers,” stats can be found to support most any claim. By bellwethers, since 2000 there are apparently 26 rural counties which had the same majority result as the presidential outcome, until this one. I’m guessing the data changes if you go back prior to 2000 and that you can find other trends that mirror this outcome as well.

 

It’s like the con where someone sends massive numbers of predictions out re: a tournament bracket with each batch varying the outcomes of the games with the promise to predict such games for your betting needs. Most will receive incorrect predictions, yet some will receive accurate ones, and some of those people will bite on the lure. People have seen Jesus in burnt bread and some such people have likely proceeded to pray to such a Jesus. Maybe they possess better access to reality than me, but I suspect otherwise (and pray for otherwise… for, as a side note, a deity who acts in such a way terrifies me, especially should such a being have domain over me). Let’s work together to not produce such people.

 

With so many counties across the country, you can find some county or another that matches the story you wish to tell. Also, there are narratives occurring beyond small rural counties in terms of who voted. I urge people to try to not let media or prominent voices ruffle them up, shifting the baseline of what is perceived as normal. We live in a world where people don’t provide all of the info they have and play up certain angles while minimizing others, often for some sort of selfish purpose. We must recognize who is partisan and for what reasons and discern how their biases might influence the veracity or robustness of their claims.

 

Hypocrisy is all around. More people need to step back and take a breath before perpetuating info in ways that don’t support its scope or accuracy. I’m not saying that I trust progressives or distrust conservatives or vice versa. People across the board can be shitty as well as inspiring. I’m glad that people are investigating the election results. There should always be such a process. What alarms me is the rhetoric the president has been mouthing all thus year and continues to speak. In terms of rushing, the day after the election, I seem to recall immediate claims of winning the election and a desire to not count votes (which is a reality that always happens — 100% counts don’t occur for all states the day of the election).I don’t need anyone else to distill or explain his words. Such messages speak for themselves.

 

None of these claims are a surprise, and I’m wondering what was done exactly to prevent such fraud since, from the president’s own words, this has been a concern for him for quite some time. The conspiracy theorist in me wonders whether Trump tried to steal the election and then was surprised when his attempt failed, and I can likely find stories to support this view, but that, I suspect, would be misleading of me despite what I feel to be the case.

Climbing

Account of Rumney

stanarich

The 10am departure turned out to be lazy. Lazy need not equal bad, but, in this case, it meant we arrived at the parking lot to see inventive parking. By see, I mean participate. Nothing too fancy on our part, we simply added onto the end of the established line of parking spots. As we geared up, people filled some nearby grassy areas. And then some more people did the same along another stretch obviously not meant for parking. One guy went all-out, in that he parked on a mound, the sedan nearly more vertical than horizontal. No idea if such a position harms a vehicle, though the owner of the car will know more on this topic than me come later in the day. Tomorrow, we shall aim at least an hour earlier. I suspect others will have learned a comparable lesson. An arms race recast into a quest for parking. That’s what our mountains have become, it seems, at least when they offer stellar climbing, multitudes of it, much of it varying in style.

New Hampshire has provided us ample people. For being the 41st state in terms of population, we’ve had our most up-and-personal experiences here. We stopped at a Qdoba, which technically was in Massachusetts, not too far from the border, but for the sake of the narrative let’s pretend we were in The Granite State rather than The Bay State. It was located in a strip mall. Or, maybe it was an outdoors mall. I don’t know where one classification morphs into the other one. There were many stores and restaurants. No music piped from speakers hidden in the bushes, though. but it did appear that there may have been more stores behind the initial ell-shape of commerce that held our destination. Like the Rumney lot, this place was afire. People everywhere. Cars everywhere. So many cars. It felt like another realm, where people had truly beat back COVID-19. Of course, everyone wore masks, so it’s not like they have a vaccine and have kept it on the downlow. Nothing to see up here, in NH, don’t mind the needle marks and our hale nature. No. Not at all.

We’re renting an Airbnb. The host saw us roll up and charged out to greet us. She then gave us a tour. Here’s the oven. This is the fridge. Important stuff. Insider baseball. No masks. I don’t know if I’ve been in any homes with people w/o a mask in months, until this trip. Going back to the crag, an abundance of cars equals lots of climbers. Some people work masks. Most didn’t. We’d didn’t. Souls everywhere. Hot breath spraying gobs of whatever. Everywhere. A whole new world. That is, life up here in New Hampshire is a whole new world, as in the old world. Before the plague. We’re in 0 AtP. Next year will be 1 AtP. Then 2 AtP. You get the idea.

We jumped on a 5.7. Jug haul. Fun for the grade. It starts with a large roof that you can pull with one jug and a high foot. Quite a roof. Looks pretty cool. Especially before you do it. From there you wander about grabbing jugs. I did clip from a crimp, though. I don’t think that I had to do so, but it felt right. Spicy. It’s almost—well, it probably already is—pumpkin spice latte season, so, yes, I clipped from a crimp. Spicy. Years ago, my first visit here found me on Armed and Dangerous, 10a or 10b or something. OMG. It was tough. I still could feel the trauma. I had top roped it last time. There are some smooth bands that you shimmy up to reach a small roof that was a desperate move for me last time. I can see it all so clearly. Then, at the top, you power into a roof and make multiple moves all while severely overhung. Panic struck, whenever I thought to get on the route again. Turns out that it’s soft. I was surprised. It went easily.

Cocky and redeemed, I jumped on a 10a. I almost peeled off when going to bolt 2 to 3. Nearly the whole climb was tough. Not many great holds. Positioning remained key, time and time again. Don’t-fall-here zones proliferated portions of the route. At one spot, I had to carry the rope with me to get it around a rock. We used this route as an entrance to second pitch 11b climb, which was tricky, quite tricky. It was hard and covered with spider webs. Kelly led this pitch. Spider webs clung to her hand for the remainder of our day. Only water, soap, and committed scrubbing could peel the webs from her flesh. After the thuggy 11b, we celebrated with a 10c that had one ridiculous move. By one, I mean that you did one powerful move and then discovered that the hold you struggled to reach actually sucked. As did the next hold, and then you had to keep going. There was no retreat. No downclimbing. It was wonderful, when it ended, that is. Seriously, though, it was a fun climb. Maybe not so enjoyable while you were thick in the crux. Looking back, the crux of this 10c may have been the hardest, most committing series of moves on any route during our trip.

Last, we got on an 11a. The guide calls it technical. By technical, I think they want you to feel good about trusting the glassy slab foot that you use to exit the dihedral. The dihedral isn’t too bad, for the crimp edges offer bite, but that foot. Ugh, that foot was something. I was not too happy about trusting it and then my foot slipped, but I held on and came back for more dicey, glassy love. Somehow it all worked out, and it serves as the first 11a that I’ve onsighted. Though, I see that people call it a 10d. Glamor achieved. Glamor downgraded.

Sunlight abandoned us so we returned to the car to visit a grocery store. The store at which we landed is awesome. It’s like a lowkey Giant slash Whole Foods with reasonable prices across the board. Lots of gluten-free products and various upscale offerings without severe markup alongside the usual stuff you’d find at Giant. Lovely. We grabbed enough food to get us through breakfasts, lunches, and dinners for most days of the week.

Day two brought us to Kennel Crag and New Wave. We started on a 5.9. It was terrifying. No fall zones. Committing moves. Sketch factor. A theme we’d experience repeatedly during our trip is that a 5.9 at Rumney requires more than a sliver of mental fortitude. Falls tend to not be safe, a reality compounded by each of them containing a stretch that is surprisingly difficult for the grade. After warming up on one of these ugh-filled 5.9s, we switched to a 5.10c that has a fun exposed traverse that rides an arete before concluding with a thin finish. At New Wave we jumped on a 5.11c that kicked my ass. I couldn’t get past a bulge. No, it said. Smack. Down I’d go, again and again. I had to pull on the draw to skip the section. Fun climb, but that crux was something. I was wiped after having flailed multiple times. I sort of stared blankly for a while. There, but not really there.

We dropped down to a 5.9+. Bad move. It was another one of those smack-you-in the-face 5.9s. 5.9, the grade of fear. The description for this route made it clear that it’d be an experience. A trad climber’s route. Lots of pushing and pulling oneself through a maw of dihedral, using cracks, and generally muscling yourself along using what pivoting and fulcrum points you can establish. Higher up you face a run-out section, and, of course, you’re forced to commit to some holds before you can reach the bolt. It was quite a workout. At some point, somehow, I managed to pick up a fist-sized patch of blood on my knee. Its source, unclear. The route abraded my knee, but nothing that would have bled enough to produce the splotch. At the time, I assumed it had come from me. But, later, I began to doubt this source for my knee wasn’t too damaged and the stain looked to be darker on the exterior than the interior of the pants. Thus, I likely picked up the stain from the wall. Maybe it was ruddy dirt rather than blood. Not clear. But, I’m pretty certain that it did not originate from me. Very odd, and potentially quite gross. At least I looked like a bad ass, I guess. Or, maybe I resembled a klutz who leads his steps with his knees.

We closed by getting on an 11b. Fun route. Not too difficult, though you did need to fight through one section that required a bit of commitment and trust as you pull up and then push down on a sloping, questionable hold to top a ledge. Not a bad day. We headed down to the car feeling aglow.

Day 3 was a rest day. Full workday. Lowkey. I went for a run during lunch, finding a long, covered bridge. It was surprisingly fun to charge along this wooden expanse. Strangely unsettling too, as if I had been transported into a low-budget horror film. Something unknown and unknowable might lurch from the periphery to take me down. Robed cultists could manifest at each end of the expanse. Anything was possible, including a lovely midday jog. The night brought Gloomhaven via Zoom. We lost our current scenario, again, for the second time. I love that we lose occasionally. Makes me rethink my character and contemplate those of my friend’s. There’s a reason our society finds itself drawn to films like Groundhog Day.

Day 4 provided another full day of climbing at Orange Crush. We started on a 5.9 and then a 10c. Both were fun, nothing too dicey, with interesting moves and a bit of height, nothing too tall though. These were our warms up for the main affairs, a two-pitch 11a and an 11c, though, on the 11c, if you stopped at the mid-anchor then it’s probably more fairly characterized as an 11a, which is what I did. Kelly, however, did take the route to the top.

While warming up, a group climbed some of the routes below us. One guy pontificated, “Liberals want to preserve forests in some natural state as if they can be pristine.” On and on he went with his understandings of the world. People group demographics together and then ascribe particular viewpoints to them, as if they’re collective and unyielding. He describes what could be considered my preference for forest management in broad, inaccurate strokes. Through the broadest of strokes his statement aligns with my position, if grossly simplified. So much of how we as a nation discuss politics falls into this trap of simplification. It’s easier to understand and discuss varying ideas by compiling them yet it’s also disingenuous to the actual conversation that should be happening. Such is life, I suppose. I also remembered this baseball jock from high school who argued with a classmate about women not being smart or at least good at science. Name famous women scientists, he urged to support his position. At the time, his viewpoint had seemed wrong, but I lacked the means to explain the flaws in his logic. She floundered, he named like five famous males, if not more, for each female name she could come up with. So many systematic flaws exist in our biases.

Tropicana, the 11a, was my main goal this route. I needed to redeem myself. In July 2017 I first visited Rumney. The trip occurred not long following a hiatus. I had been resting my elbow and forearm due to a loss of strength that had arisen. I had taken like 6 weeks off and my strength and endurance had taken a hit. Thus, I did not perform well during this visit, as seen by my attempt on Tropicana where Sean had led the first pitch and then I had been unable to bypass the first crux. It wasn’t a high point in my climbing history… I led the first pitch. Not too bad. I did have to try hard. Relief was inspiring upon reaching the anchors at the ledge. I belayed Kelly to me.

It’s surreal to see a person come over the lip into a balcony for a multi-pitch climb. The person appears naked and alone in a sea of sky. To reach the ledge, you perform a mantel move with the body thrusting backward to make room to bring up a high foot to leverage against while pushing and twisting to leverage over the edge onto the ledge. The dramatics of this motion add to the incongruity of the scene. This sight does not feel right. It feels bizarre, like seeing a human in flight. The world recedes so that the person appears foremost in the foreground, everything else shrinks away except for the rock immediately surrounding the person and the limitless blue around her as if the air has become transformed into an unyielding halo. I cannot explain how odd this visage is to me. I don’t know if it’ll ever become normal or expected. Each time it happens, even many pitches up on a multi-pitch climb it strikes me as wild during each of its iterations.

Kelly ended up lowering to the ground from the top of the second pitch. I wasn’t excited about leading with her that far below me, especially since you start by moving up a ledge, so I top roped the route. Something had happened when we lowered, causing the rope to curl up on itself. I’ve never seen a rope so twisted. This top rope climb was the scariest part of the day. Kelly was 60’ below me, so there was already a lot of dynamic slack in the system. The curls of the rope stretched for many feet ahead of me, tightly spun upon itself it became a battle to remove the rope from the quickdraw carabiners. I saw many feet of rope caught up in these twists. I envisioned a crazy catch where I’d be violently spun by the kinked rope as it worked itself out as my weigh pulled on it. I wasn’t sure how weakened its integrity might be due to the twists. This pitch was several overhung so I wasn’t sure how easily I’d get back on the wall. So much uncertainty. I climbed hard and remained anxious, but got to the top and lowered and we sorted out the rope.

I was also excited to get onto Black Mamba. During my second trip to Rumney, I had top roped the climb, and watched friends send it. I was not there, physically or mentally at the time. On this day, however, I felt good. I managed to reach the anchors with one take. Maybe a take and a fall. I now forget. The route yielded to me on the second attempt, and I got a video of the attempt as well. The crux is a bit cryptic. There are chalked bits of rock everywhere, including a massive, positive flake out left. I do not use this mega-hold, though. It’s a trap. Rather, there are two crimps that you can use to bring up your feet to then reach a mildly ok thumb-like hold that lets you move your feet up again so that you can reach a flat, sloping section of rock on which you can press to get a high foot that lets you reach, or lunge for as I did during my send burn, a mega hold from which you clip. The remainder of the route isn’t easy, but it’s also not terribly difficult and you can rest before performing the more trying movements. I did not have the mental fortitude to do the traverse left to reach the first bolt of the extension. The rest of the route looks beautiful, though, so I’ll have to return another day. Kelly did each pitch clean, in sections, having rested at the anchor. So, perhaps, she’ll enjoy another romp up it some day in our future.

Day four of climbing was a half day. We visited The Meadows, getting on a sketchy 5.8 and a sketchy 5.9 before doing a rather fun 10b, an ok 10a that was harder than the 10b, and then closing out on a 10d that was excellent. The 10s were all long routes, like ~100’. Thus, we got in a good chunk of mileage. I’d like to return to this area to try out the 11d and 12a as well as a long 5.9 that looked like a lot of fun. The 10d was only that grade for a couple of bolts, whereas the long 5.9 appears to be consistently 5.9, which might make it a more fun climb overall. Time shall inform me whether my suspicion accords with my appreciation of reality.

There’s something to be said for a day of cruising easy routes. Feeling that fluid movement without the attendant drama of struggle. To enjoy what you can do without pushing to discover the boundaries of what can be done. Most days of life for most people align with taking it easy or at least moderate. Why must we perpetually push at the boundaries while enjoying a past time?

The next day, we worked all day.

Day five of climbing would be our last day at Rumney, encountering an omen on our way there. Each time we drove to the crag, we passed a pottery with a sign outside declaring that the potter is working today. We envisioned the potter as having been enslaved, always forced to be on display. A zoo. However, today, the sign was not out. Did the wind blow it down? What happened? Inauspicious, surely. From the lot, we hoofed it to Jimmy Cliff to get on a decent 5.8 and a wonderful 5.10a, another route that had scared me during my initial visit to Rumney. Both went fine, and I much enjoyed feeling vastly more comfortable on the 5.10a. We then visited Waimea, the climb as well as the area, and climbed it without problem. Then we jumped on a 5.12a that was difficult, but I could see getting, at least except for the last move which I ended up cheating. We then both aborted on Flying Hawaiian. This was another route that had stymied in the past. And, it did so again this trip. Some routes simply aren’t for all people.

The next day, we headed home. A fun, glorious trip. We shall return, one day.

Climbing Other Stuff

Talking Head

stanarich

We checked out Talking Head Wall. I had been once before, about seven years ago. The person I had been at the time resembles someone other than myself. When compared against this prior version of myself, core traits remain intact, yet that individual feels like a stranger. Different pursuits and understandings occupying another sort of occupational role and house situation.

My time in the DC area marks the longest span that I’ve spent in a location as an adult. How I perceive history once coincided with location. College years spent in one place followed by a span in another town which preceded another jurisdiction. I would refer to blocks of history in terms of former residencies. Having been here for a decade, different demarcations serve to define the life voyage.

Further, I had more limited outdoors experience all those years back. Heading to a crag felt momentous, an odd event that carried with it loads of uncertainty and stress. Not that climbing lacks such portents for the incarnation of whom I am. Given a deep-rooted fear of heights, any trip outdoors carries with it the sense of peeling back the boundaries of exploration in terms of self-discovery, growth, along with the literal prospecting of discovering the characteristics of a given route.

Now, with numerous climbing trips in the historical record, today felt akin to so many other climbing days, making the drive feel less poignant in terms of striking out to new experiences. Rather, with Kelly beside me, the morning felt like home. With our hands touching as I sped down I-66 with cruise control maintaining our pace, everything felt in place. All uncertainties ahead of us sparkled, my experiences ahead embedded with her presence. I’ve learned that having her nearby makes happenstances and possibilities ahead glitter as they unfold. As if feldspar, mica, and other crystalline structures make up the atoms around me and ever catch the light.

Generally speaking, these years comprise an era of magic and comfort. Each day, I’m confused by how good everything is despite the shitstorm of the world at large. Near the crag, we passed this house alongside the road. It was a modest domicile, well-maintained. A fine place to call home. Yet, a gigantic confederate flag hung from its porch. I just don’t get it. I mean, I do, but I also don’t. That people shout these symbols from their yards baffles me. I’m truly intrigued and hunger to talk with them, to try to get into their heads as much as tease out to what degree they might be willing to engage. Fascinated as much as disturbed.

Just moments prior we had been at a gas station. Approximately twenty motorcyclists had gathered there. One guy was filling his tank, with the others congregated in a corner section of the lot. They spanned numerous demographics. White, black, Hispanic. Old and young, and ages in-between. It was remarkable and pleasing to see people of varying backgrounds basking in the nice day (for August) as they ride through Shenandoah together. Stark it felt to see that flag a few miles from where we had seen this congregation.

I wondered what the neighbors think of the flag. If they’re not of a similar mindset, it must be a bummer to see that relic each day, especially with it being prominently displayed. Its presence mars the community. For, I think about the area as a whole harboring people who think its meritorious to wave that symbol, which perhaps is unfair to the community as a whole. I suspect that if I see this flag that it does represent a view shared by a portion of those who live nearby, yet surely that percentage is small, and that many residents shake their heads and think, ‘well, damn, this is now how we’ll be viewed as a whole.’ At least, that’s the hope I caress as I continue onward toward the crag.

Climbing went well. Crowded, yet we never had to wait for a route. We popped from one opening to the next, getting on a couple of the “classics” for the area. The grades on the more interesting routes, that is to say the 10s, felt stiff though there was a fun 5.7 with a move or two at a roof that I enjoyed, perhaps more than Kelly did, which isn’t meant to convey that it gave her any problem. The rock all looks like it should cleave from the wall, yet it seems to be solid, despite evidence otherwise. For one route lost a massive boulder in which a bolt had been drilled. You belay next to it, with the bolt staring up at you, a reminder that this sport is inherently dangerous.

We saw some people we know from the gym. They’re friendly. Sharing smiles with people invariably elicits joy. They could harbor hate symbols outside their homes, and I would never know, though I recognize that the odds that they have such possessions is close to null. A family of nine climbed nearby. They kept largely to themselves, though we bantered a touch with the father. Seven kids, all young. It was remarkable. He’d set up a top rope and they’d all give it a run. The older children watched the younger ones. I offered to hang his rope for him, but the timing didn’t work out. Despite this proliferation of youth, climbers in their late twenties were louder and more, and let’s say, “present” than this family, with their gear strewn about and their conversations along with the roar of passing cars on the nearby road the backdrop as you climbed. What people recognize as appropriate or not, all varies, based on background, happenstance, and openness, among other factors.

After a fine day, we stopped at a nearby 7-11 to wash our hands and grab some drinks. Multiple customers entered without masks. As we collected ourselves back in the car, preparing for the drive home, we saw these two guys pull up who just look sort of like trash, as has been defined as a concept for me by society I recognize. Tattooed. Dirty. Disheveled. Oblong. Noisy. No masks and one wore a gun in a holster. Odd. I’d love to interview these guys, but the risk of some sort of conflict arising feels manifest, thus making such an exercise undesirable. I can imagine a world from what I think might be their perspective, but I don’t want to work from stereotypes. I want to give them a chance, and several meanings undergird these words.

That safety concerns related to COVID have become politicized disgusts me. Debate to what extent society needs to shut down. Debate how to conduct research or restrict travel. Hell, debate what you want to call the virus, but to make peoples’ health subject to your political vent plummets straight into immorality. What had been muddy at first has become one of the clearest facts: wearing a mask decreases the spread. And, even if this fact turns out to be incorrect, it’s such a minimal thing. That people have politicized this topic is terrible. Talk of senselessness and you have a prime exhibit here. It saddens me that people with money and power prey on those without either, which, I recognize, is simply how society has worked and shall likely continue to work ad infinitum.

Yet, whom I was decades ago varies from this person today. Personal sensibilities alter. Experiences spark altered conceptions. Dialogue spurs adaption. As we accumulate memories and wisdom, as we stumble and flutter, opportunities to redefine ourselves emerge. I wonder whether a civic duty is to engage with other voices as much as possible. To try to share perspectives. To view one’s past as a sounding ground that produced the present. To recognize that we’re bound together in this life stuff with others and to seek to share insights, for any person might be able to inform another person’s view. Everyone is capable of change. In this regard I am not unique.

How any two people see things need not converge. You can see windmills whereas I see dragons. Yet, should we not be able to converse and share our vantage points? Even interactions with Kelly can be rife with conflict, in terms of what we prioritize or notice. We can consider each other’s behavior to be completely absurd, even unattractive at time, yet what impresses me the most is when we pause and manage to give the other a chance. Which is to say to provide each other some respect.

You don’t need to agree with a viewpoint or give credence that it makes sense to feel some way in response to some stimulus, but rather if you can simply recognize that a person might feel some way in response to some stimulus and accept that aspect of the person then you gain ground nonetheless. And, if in the end, your perspective does make sense, then simply living and not arguing might carry the day ultimately, and, if not, it doesn’t matter.

For, the true story is not the conflicts we win or lose but the wisdoms we accrete. Might it be that people simply fail to get outside of their bubbles and all it takes is new experiences and continued opportunities that might get us from being fearful of the world at large to seeing everything as simply more of the same general life stuff through which we might explore? People push each other way. They simplify their lives to excesses to drive out the need to change. What strikes me about rock climbing is that it helps me break myself down, to undergo stress and redemption, which can arise from success as well as failure on a given route. It reminds me that in daily life to not shrink from fear. One day, perhaps, I’ll work up the nerve to interact more with people who express quite contrary perspectives from my own. For even in my past, such a human exists with whom I can banter.

Other Stuff

Refocusing

stanarich

I’ve entered a covid-19 slump. It’s not that my mood has declined or that repetition of daily cycles has begun to wear me down. At least, I do not believe that such things are at play. Whatever nags at me may lurk below the surface. Of its impetus or scope, I may remain blind, for I admit that the details of this quasi-malaise remain unclear. I do comprehend that each day feels rush. Weeks, as well. That August has arrived reeks of the surreal. Time has accelerated rather than slowed. I’ve compressed more activities into my days, and sans time spent in an office, everything sort of blurs.

The weekends have been busy. My memory of them lessens. They have become blinks of the eye. Imagine that you find yourself in a new location. You only have a second to intake your surroundings. A blink of time, and then the lights go out. You’re asked the draw what you saw during this fleeting span. Within such parameters, I’d be lost. The broad strokes I could provide, but the details would be absent. So resembles my storage capacity for the weekend. They’re clumps of experience, concrete in their overall abstraction yet vague when I scan for their intricacies.

Similarly, the workdays lump together. I rush through them, and they comprise the bulk of each week. Given their ongoing persistent and somewhat repetitive rhythms it seems like I retain more lucid accounts of them, and thus I have the impression that any summary of each week finds that what I can relay regarding work outbalances play. Merriment declines when I face this fact. Depression does not lumber into my days. It’s not dark yet. And, I wouldn’t say that it’s getting there. However, I need to slow down and appreciate the stretches in-between those spent earning financial flow.

One method to appreciate and retain memories shall be to write more. I fell off the narrative wagon once climbing roared back into the scene. The sport occupies much of my free time, in terms of going on trips as well as preparing for them. Similarly, we’ve visited the gym several times, which transforms spans of hours into concentrated blocks of activity. Since we’re not socializing at the gym and you only receive a limited block of time, we see little downtime. Efficiency dictates much of the experience, which has altered how I perceive climbing gym sessions: more work than play. Don’t misunderstand. They’re insanely fun, as usual. I love jumping on a new route to see how it goes, as well as projecting one that stymied me on a prior attempt. The magic remains despite the business-like process which we now follow. Though, I do look forward to engaging in interactions beyond waves and passing hellos that feel more furtive than shared.

Additionally, I endeavor to separate myself from mindless addictions. Much time each day finds me staring at banal content online. RSS feeds. YouTube feeds. News articles. Various websites. Onward go the distractions. Not much of it is meaningful and the content doesn’t last in meaningful ways. I appreciate laughs spurred by videos of cute animals and other related fodder, yet my intake of such distractions could decline while still allowing for such delights to inject smiles into a given day, or even every day. I’d rather go for a walk, take care of chores, interact with a friend, or do most anything else that distracts me as much as the Internet might yet would also provide something more sustainable and fulfilling than moments lost into a phone. Even the downtime, as an example, spent playing Gloomhaven with friends, waiting for a person to select a card, feels more poignant and connective than another minute lost online. The Internet ever lurks at the periphery, enticing me back into its embrace. The hours accumulate and disperse. Simulacra.

Mindfulness is a goal. As is taking moments to appreciate shared laughs, curiosities, quiet pauses, and everything else under our grand sun. That I tried to see Neowise delights me, even though all I managed to espy was a blur that may have been a nebula. Not a bad fate to mistake a nebula for a comet! What a wild universe in which we’re embedded. This weekend shall be replete with splendors. We climb on Saturday and shall catch up with some friends. More time shall be spent with Friends on Sunday. I foresee a run, some cleaning, a touch of gaming, cooking, and various other endeavors. The hours shall flow through activity, and I look forward to it all.

Climbing

Observation of a Route

stanarich

There’s a route at the gym that does a great job conveying certain lessons. Whether the setter intended to provide these experiences, or I am simply appreciative of happenstances that have struck me, I know not. Nor do I care whether what I perceive aligns with the designs of the setter. As with literature, being aware of an author’s intent may influence your take on it but need not dictate your understanding. What we gain from any stimulus remains ours, and we may share how we conceive events so as to influence others, which is the same point of reference and influence that I accord to any designer, namely being one voice that calls out from the thicket that any one of us might heed or ignore or accord merit to at any gradation within the continuum thereof.

It’s a 10c, and fairly graded at that. The initial moves are not that difficult, yet you can pump yourself out should you move inefficiently given that it’s an overhung route. Not steeply. Not severely. Enough, however, to feel unforgiving at times, especially if you max out at the grade. What I appreciate about the route, and this has nothing to do with whether or not I enjoy this climb, is that when you reach striking distance of the fourth bolt, you’re not in an ideal position. To linger in this stance would invite rapid fatigue. The next hold is a sideways three-finger pocket. This hold does not appear to be all that exciting and that it is not a hold onto which you can pull down directly, I can see many a climber electing to clip the rope into the nearby carabiner before moving onto it. However, that is a mistake, for despite its apparent awkwardness, you can lean into the hold as you bring up a foot, thereby providing a rather relaxing position. It looks awkward, and requires you to rotate into a restful stance, but it’s an easy clip and a restorative moment that alleviates your forearms should the below sequence had pumped out your arms.

The lesson here is that if you go higher, the route rewards you with an easier clip, helping you continue on your journey to the apex of the climb. For, the next stretch is a little technical and overhung and requires use of some smaller holds, all of which can cause your forearms to burn. Then, after clipping the next bolt, you face a large span in-between your current location and the next, massive hold, which looks to be a sloper. I have witnessed many a climber take here. Rest, and then do the big move to discover a gigantic hold, a lovely jug on which you can rest, for you can make good use of holds as feet to provide a nice relaxing position from which you can recharge to charge the anchor above. Many times I have overheard a climber lament, if only I had done the move, I could have sent this route. Two lessons here, each near each other. Move, fight the pump, search for better lays of options ahead, for sometimes the saying rings true, when in doubt, run it out.

Other Stuff

Silver Linings

stanarich

A few silver linings have arisen from 2020’s middle finger to Earth’s denizens, especially those of us who live in the country leading the charge in failing to adapt to mitigate COVID-19’s assault on our civilization. Go USA! Anyhow… So, specifically, the biggest gain has been the recapturing of segments of lost time.

Not needing to be in the office, I don’t squander time commuting or navigating related trappings. I can also make better use of the occasional flickers of workday downtime (e.g., it’s not like I necessarily made great use of five-minute gaps in-between meetings). These minutes stitched together provide ample swaths of freedom to focus on various hobbies and increase my cardio and general fitness training. For example, I have workouts that take a couple of minutes fit nicely into the various gaps throughout a workday – farewell tennis elbow, at least that’s the plan. What was once a thirty-to-forty-five-minute process, lunch has become retrieving food from the fridge that’s eaten as I work. Or, put another way, lunchtime involves a run, and then the sustenance bit need not overtake the day, unless that’s the plan.

Time spent at the climbing gym has taken a serious hit since hanging out in an enclosed space with other people, all of us breathing heavily as we exert ourselves, is no longer a wise way to spend three or four days a week. Visits typically lasted about three hours, which means a minimum of ten hours repopulate each week, mostly during weeknights. One or two nights can still see some form of exercise, such as HIIT, and then solo gaming, catching up with friends, reading, writing, or dabbling in some other pursuit (e.g., learning to cobble together videos) occupies the hours.

All in all, 2020 has become a year of learning, relaxing, exercising, and focusing on leisure alongside supporting friends and delighting in life. Staying fit has become a forefront goal; I want to retain my shape for climbing as well as keep myself as healthy as feasible so that the odds of surviving a possible COVID-19 infection remain as favorable as feasible. Asthma and allergies along with not being in my twenties or thirties aren’t going to aid me in battling the disease. Given that nebulizer treatments aren’t unknown events maintaining pulmonary health is key. Thus, I’m the lightest I’ve been during the past twenty years and am keen to keep this outcome alive.

I wouldn’t desire this fate, and this entire pandemic situation is terrible, but at least good can be wrung from it. Were someone offer me the opportunity to arise from a coma to discover Hillary Clinton is president and no novel coronavirus had overtaken our world, then, sure, let’s get the rehab going. But, outside of such an unlikely twisting of reality, whenever anything happens options arise and trying to squeeze out positive outcomes goal forever worth chasing.

Posts navigation