Rock Climbing Company: February 2010

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

To Suffer or Not To Suffer

A photo when I was living in Salzburg, Austria and climbing at Schlierwasserfal (I may have spelled it wrong) Anyway, this was a great day of climbing as long as we werent under the collapsing waterfall.

I am considering heading to a route that I put up last year to attempt to reclimb it for a video by Chuck Fryberger, the problem is that its next to a ski resort, has a hike uphill for about 35-40 minutes in deep snow, it will be 30 degrees and cloudy, and will be difficult to send.

On the other hand, snowshoeing for a sport climb would be fun. The folks filming are a blast to hang out with, and my hands and feet will eventually warm up. Right? Who knows, but it sounds like a good time. We will be cold, sweaty, cold, numb, and did I mention cold. The wall is north facing and overhanging, the chances of winter sun are slim to none. But we have to get this thing shot, so I am feeling like suffering. (today at least) When the video short is completed, I will feel better and I know anyone who watches it will enjoy. Here's to another cold and snowy weekend. Glad I will have all my warm and durable clothes from Arcteryx. Plus grandma Peacock will be just a few minutes away with some warm hot coco.

I am really glad that you have visited my blog.
Thanks and I hope to see and hear from you soon.
Rob Pizem

And last but not least, don't forget to check out my favorite sites:

http://www.scarpa.net
http://www.arcteryx.com
http://camp-usa.com
http://sterlingrope.com
http://ColoradoMountainJournal.com
http://www.wunderground.com
http://climbing.com
http://rockandice.com
http://deadpointmag.com
http://urbanclimbermag.com
http://andrewburr.com
http://ladzinski.com

Getting Ready

The weather has been so crazy this winter. It has been tough to make plans to go anywhere or do anything outside that required sunshine and no storms on the horizon.

I have had plans to go to Moab, and Zion smashed by winter storm after winter storm.

But there is a light at the end of the tunnel, I have been training and remaining focused.

My conditioning phase is coming together in these last two weeks and I feel confident that I will have success in finding a new route to climb in Zion starting after the first week in March during my spring break. It has been driving me crazy how the weather has continued to keep me in the gym for so many consecutive weekends.

Jane and I have been looking at running races to enter for next year and its a tough decision that is for sure. I hope to do my first half marathon this year, but I would like it to be off road. My knees may not like the bashing on the pavement.

The next two weeks will be filled with packing and prepping for another Zion adventure. Let's just hope the weather stays consistent for a little while.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Science Class Today

Today in chemistry class my students extracted copper from copper sulfate by combining the copper sulfate solution with iron. Who would have thought such a simple process can make so much money over the past 200 years. My students did it in about 35 minutes! What a modern world that we live in.

I am really glad that you have visited my blog.
Thanks and I hope to see and hear from you soon.
Rob Pizem

And last but not least, don't forget to check out my favorite sites:

http://www.scarpa.net
http://www.arcteryx.com
http://camp-usa.com
http://sterlingrope.com
http://ColoradoMountainJournal.com
http://www.wunderground.com
http://climbing.com
http://rockandice.com
http://deadpointmag.com
http://urbanclimbermag.com
http://andrewburr.com
http://ladzinski.com

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Looking Around

At the end of my hike last weekend I found this set up at the end of the road. One and half hours of cruising along only to find this at the end of the road. Notice the large no trespassing sign in the upper right. So, I turned around and headed back to the truck.

I thought that it was funny that they kept road signs up on closed forest roads. As far as I know you aren't able to drive them since they are gated and locked. Although the signs look amazingly new and well kept!

This is just after I made it through the fire burn area and entered the trees. I rested a moment, drank some water and saw the elk moving through the forest below. I snapped a photo with my limited camera. If you look hard at the upper center of the photo you can see the elk. (make sure that you click to enlarge the photo first)

This is where my hike began. On a windy and cold morning. I had to wear a neck gaiter to keep the chill out while hiking. Passing through an old burn zone. It was cool looking at how the rocks responded to the quick heating of the area as the flames past through years ago. some peeled like onions where others were slightly charred. I was heading to the mountains off in the distance.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Squamish Mountain Festival

It's coming, July 14-18 2010
Squamish, BC in Canada
Check out the great list of speakers and events!

http://www.squamishmountainfestival.com/Program.html

I am really glad that you have visited my blog.
Thanks and I hope to see and hear from you soon.
Rob Pizem

And last but not least, don't forget to check out my favorite sites:

http://www.scarpa.net
http://www.arcteryx.com
http://camp-usa.com
http://sterlingrope.com
http://ColoradoMountainJournal.com
http://www.wunderground.com
http://climbing.com
http://rockandice.com
http://deadpointmag.com
http://urbanclimbermag.com
http://andrewburr.com
http://ladzinski.com

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

In Season

The Season is the most creative new outlet for outdoor-sports storytelling since...well, since the Dirtbag Diaries, the last new-media creation of Fitz Cahall. Co-produced by Cahall and Bryan Smith, The Season is a 22-episode "web television" production that follows five outdoor athletes as they pursue their passions in the Pacific Northwest. I've seen the first three episodes (No. 3 went live yesterday at Arc'teryx.com and will be released Friday at Outside.Away.com and iTunes), and I think I'm hooked.

Fundamentally, The Season promises to deliver compelling stories—the element that's missing in most action-sports films. After episode one's stage-setting introduction, each new episode will unfold the story of a single character; they'll generally alternate in sequence, following five separate narratives. Episodes two and three convinced me that these stories will be worth following; the people are likable, and I'm curious about what's coming next for them. Cahall has honed his skills as a narrator through nearly three dozen episodes of the Dirtbag Diaries, but here he holds back a bit, allowing the individual athletes and the footage to carry the story.

That footage, all in HD, is spectacular. There's a crazy early shot in the second episode of sea kayaker Paul Kuthe playing—and rolling—in a whirlpool. And the overhead tracking shots are amazing. The Cable Cam system, developed by Bryan Smith and climber Matt Maddaloni (one of the athletes featured in The Season), mounts a remote-controllable camera to a pair of steel cables that they ran up to 750 feet over gorges and through dense forests. It's as if the shots were filmed from a miniature helicopter flying along a few feet from the action.

My one concern about The Season is the short clips and the schedule. I'm a long-format, New Yorker–story man; I like long movies (assuming they're good). These clips run 6 to 7 minutes, but over a minute of that time is eaten up by intro, sponsor plugs, and credits. That leaves 5 to 6 minutes of storytelling. I felt the clips were coming to an end just as I was really getting into them. Cahall told me, "I wish they were longer too, [but] that four- to six-minute mark is the magic number, just long enough to convey a story or plot but not too long that someone is going to get bored or feel guilty about watching it at work.

"It's also a reality of where the industry is at," Cahall added. "It's incredible what we can do, but we still bump into size constraints. Even with the massive advances in the tech specs, you can't overload someone's computer or connection speed."

I also wonder if this schedule (a two-week rotation of Monday, Friday, and Wednesday releases on the Arc'teryx site, followed a couple of days later by Outside and iTunes) is going to feel satisfying over the long haul. If I get hooked on one of the characters, I'll have to wait three weeks to catch the next episode featuring that person. That seems too long.

But we'll see. Right now, the content seems so good and the approach so fresh that this series seems likely to be a hit. Cahall said the early response has been "overwhelming...bigger than we had imagined." In a way, it makes me a bit sad: I've always been a words on paper guy, morphing into words on computer screens over the last few years. But it's still almost all words. New multimedia concepts like The Season, delivered right to your desktop, make me wonder if words alone are still sufficient. But so it goes. Times change. For everything there is a season.

Monday, February 8, 2010

The Evan has photos!

Check out the link http://www.dangpix.com/piz/index.html, for the latest photos of my new route The Evan in the south platte, Colorado. Dan Gambino took time out of his weekend to snap some cool pictures of the route. Enjoy.

I am really glad that you have visited my blog.
Thanks and I hope to see and hear from you soon.
Rob Pizem

And last but not least, don't forget to check out my favorite sites:

http://www.scarpa.net
http://www.arcteryx.com
http://camp-usa.com
http://sterlingrope.com
http://ColoradoMountainJournal.com
http://www.wunderground.com
http://climbing.com
http://rockandice.com
http://deadpointmag.com
http://urbanclimbermag.com
http://andrewburr.com
http://ladzinski.com

Update

As the weather has been inconsistent at being "good", I still have been able to get some work done. Since Chuck Fryberger Films wanted to film my latest route, we went out and braved the 30 degree temperatures in the south Platte region of Colorado and filmed me on the route. It was a long cold day and I went numb numerous times, but the end product should be fun.
I really enjoyed climbing on the route again confirming to me at least that it was worth establishing. I even found it to be pretty challenging in those temperatures. I look forward to filming the other part of the short in the next couple weeks as hopefully the weather warms a bit in order to be able to climb on another shady but steep route.

Oh yeah, I have signed up to give a slide show in Oregon, on May 7, 2010. It will be in Eugene at the local climbing shop. If you are passing through and want to see some great climbing pictures, a few good stories and a video short or two, be sure to stop on by. I will be there to have a good time and share some stories!

I am really glad that you have visited my blog.
Thanks and I hope to see and hear from you soon.
Rob Pizem

And last but not least, don't forget to check out my favorite sites:

http://www.scarpa.net
http://www.arcteryx.com
http://camp-usa.com
http://sterlingrope.com
http://ColoradoMountainJournal.com
http://www.wunderground.com
http://climbing.com
http://rockandice.com
http://deadpointmag.com
http://urbanclimbermag.com
http://andrewburr.com
http://ladzinski.com

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Route Names, Can You Help Me?

The last route that I established, I named after a friend who really wanted a route named after him. I never really knew how naming a route after someone could make them so happy, so if you are interested in getting a climb named after your or someone or something, feel free to let me know by leaving a comment and I will see what I can do.

I don't get to establish new routes everyday (that would be a dream job) but I certainly run out of names from time to time. I would be happy to know why I should name a route after you or someone or something special to you. Know that I am not going to name a climb something inappropriate, so save your breath on that one.

Have a great day and I hope to hear from you soon!

I am really glad that you have visited my blog.
Thanks and I hope to see and hear from you soon.
Rob Pizem

And last but not least, don't forget to check out my favorite sites:

http://www.scarpa.net
http://www.arcteryx.com
http://camp-usa.com
http://sterlingrope.com
http://ColoradoMountainJournal.com
http://www.wunderground.com
http://climbing.com
http://rockandice.com
http://deadpointmag.com
http://urbanclimbermag.com
http://andrewburr.com
http://ladzinski.com

The North Face Movie Review

TO BE THE FIRST TO CLIMB THE FAMOUS, NOTORIOUS EIGER NORTH FACE—THE DREAM OF MOUNTAIN CLIMBERS FROM ALL OVER EUROPE IN THE SUMMER OF 1936.Based on a true story, NORTH FACE is a gripping adventure drama about a competition to climb the most dangerous rock face in the Alps. In July of 1936 - less than a year after the most recent and fatal attempt, two top German mountaineers, Toni Kurz (BENNO FÜRMANN) and Andi Hinterstoisser (FLORIAN LUKAS), take up the challenge to become the first to scale the infamous rock face, the so-called Murder Wall.

So, I went and watched this movie on Friday night at the American Alpine Club in Golden, Colorado and was happily surprised. Unlike the typical climbing movies currently being made where there isn't a plot or a reason to care what you are about to see, this is the true story of mountaineers and it's awesome. I felt the movie was filmed in a way to make you feel like you were on the mountain experiencing what challenges and elation that the climbers were going through. It was filmed on location and in the Alps, which is always beautiful, and there was plenty of humor to soften the mood. A love story, a story of an unclimbable mountain and a story of overcoming the odds. I highly recommend the North Face movie if you are into the mountains, history, and mountaineering.

I am really glad that you have visited my blog.
Thanks and I hope to see and hear from you soon.
Rob Pizem

And last but not least, don't forget to check out my favorite sites:

http://www.scarpa.net
http://www.arcteryx.com
http://camp-usa.com
http://sterlingrope.com
http://ColoradoMountainJournal.com
http://www.wunderground.com
http://climbing.com
http://rockandice.com
http://deadpointmag.com
http://urbanclimbermag.com
http://andrewburr.com
http://ladzinski.com