Exuses, exuses.... I know I have been lax in my posts/ e-mails/ phone calls as of late, sorry. I also am currently living in squaller and ingesting a bit more coffee than usual (in fact I'm sucking down my 2nd morning cup right now). Why? Well, perhaps laziness... but I would like to say that I have slipped a bit TOO far into my addictions. Ah, climbing! I am now, thanks to an over welmingly high vote at the MUAC AMG meeting, one of two climbing wall officers at the Massey rock wall. This means my Tuesdays and Thursday nights are completely booked, as that I get home from work around 5:30 and need to be at the wall by 6.
My responsibilities are to unlock the wall, get out all the "house" equipment such as shoes, harnesses and our 5 gallon bucket filled with chalk. I have to vaccum the in house padding (to pick up the last 5 gallons worth of chalk that the masses have sacrifiesed to the gods of sticky hands and black shirts). After the domestic stuff, I defininitely enjoy the rest of the night. I am responsible for instruction, setting new routes, belaying and catching cute young ladies as they fall off the bouldering problems!
Mondays are reserved for the MUAC meeting, from 6:30-? (usually 9ish). Wednesdays are generally not a planned day for anything.... but usually I either try to catch up on ALL my social stuff, go climb outdoors, or just come home and crash after a good dinner as that most nights I'm scarfing down moderate meals between MUAC obligations. Fridays are almost always taken by packing and driving. Perhaps there wouldn't be a problem if I just stayed home for a weekend.... but there is just SO MUCH to see and do here! For that reason, Saturdays are usually spent far away from home and Sunday night the routine is usually- get home between 10 and midnight, unload all the adventure crap from the company van, and pass out. This leaves an explosion of camp/ clim gear sprawled out across the living room floor.... and the cycle begins all over again.
I know.... poor me, I am to busy having fun.
So this past weekend was much the same. Me and Claydon headed up to the Cormandel Peninsula, 6 hours north of Palmy, to check out rumors of a nice sea cliff on a cool beach. I guess I should say hot beach as that the geothermal action there is such that you can dig a hole in the sand and the water which fills up the hole will be hot as blazes! The closer to the ocean, the cooler it gets.... so you can dig a few (if you have the patience) and jump around from hot to cool.
The cliff (actually turned out to be MANY cliffs) were stunning. The rock is comprized of black, orange and white bands of Ryolite, which is a tight grained metomorphic rock of volcanic origin. The beaches are bleach white, sing when you walk on them, and are copletely hiiden from the rest of the world by these multi colored, horizontally banded cliffs which form 60 to 250 foot cresents. The walls are dotted with tree ferns, native flowers and small bushes, and the beach is litterd with native palms and contorted, wind swept plantlife. Even if the climbing WASN'T exquisite (it was), one could loose themselves for days on end just sitting there watching the world drift by.
To break up the drive back to Palmy... we headed back early Sunday and stopped half way, in the Taupo area. We had planned to do some lead climbing at a small litte cliff in Kinloch which we have frequented before... but apon arriving noticed that every time we had gone to this particular cliff we were walking past some large green blobs. We decided to peak underneith a bit of the green and discoverd that there was some beautiful, virgin boulder problems (2 minutes from the car even)! After an hour or two of the ol' scrubby scrubby, we had cleaned off 2 of the boulders well enough to produce 4 first ascents. By then it was starting to get dark, so we headed into Taupo to do what we had planned from the get go.... soak in the free hotpool.
Needless to say it was ANOTHER late night home. I did the ol' huck and chuck of all the gear (destined to stay on the living room floor until Friday afternoon), had a quick beer to with Clay to celebrate a safe journey home, and crashed.... again. So... I am not looking for symathy (I KNOW I won't get any after THAT story), but I simply wanted to explain why I have been a bit less "in touch" as of late.
Luvs you all..... keep living life to the fullest!

Ok, grab a cup of coffee or something.... this will probably be a bit long due to lack of entries for a while.
For starters, it was GREAT to be home. To all of the folks I DIDN'T get to see.... I am truely sorry. I figured 3 1/2 weeks would be MORE than enough time.... but apparently I once again got caught up in the whirl wind of life. For all of you who offered beds, work, etc... thanks very much. I know I ended up NOT taking advantage of such hospitalities as much as I had planned, but to be honest I never realised how much I missed my fam until I was actually there! Once I had them, I really felt perfectly happy to hang on to them while I still could.
So the meat of the vacation was bumbling around... hiking, rock climbing, catching up on cold beers and the friends that go with them. I did do some work, both on my own and with the old crew, to make the spending money neccisary to continue my extravagent adventure lifestyle while I was home. I have to say, it was good to see the old crew and laugh about the new one a bit (6" chipper jokes will NEVER get old for a bunch of tree guys!).
The big social event of the whole vacation was OBVIOUSLY the Holmes Safari. For any of you who HAVEN'T been in the loop for the past 8 years.... Holmes Safari is the greatest party in the world. It is thrown annually up in North Conway by my bestest bro, Nick Steglich. I guess it is a birthday celebration for him, but it has also become SO MUCH MORE. It is THE time for all of the "Holmses" (a ever expanding circle of friends, all some how relating back to Nick- the man, the myth, the alien)to get together, party like rock stars (or rock climbers!) and catch up on what's been going on with everyone else for the past year.
This year was good as ever. I headed up a few days early with my friend Kim in order to get some proper climbing in with out feeling I was being TOO anti- social. We showed up Thuersday night, split some of the firewood I had cut on the "pre-holmes prep mission" and them preceded to drink by the fire with the other early birds. Friday was spent oogling gear at IME (my favorite gear store), buying new toys and then off to Cathederal Ledge for some multi-pitch trad climbing.
We chose to do "Bombardment" as our first climb which was 2 piches- one of scary, un protectable slab and one which was a BEAUTIFUL, but somewhat scary, cresent shaped crack that sliced up the rock face for 90 feet. At the top of this climb, we opted for "Upper Refuse," which is 4 piches and tops out at over 450 feet but is technicaly a fairly easy endevor. After the first pitch, which I lead, it started to sprinkle.... "aut oh!" The second pitch was Kim's lead and half way through it.... it started to POUR! We had 2 options- bail and leave gear on the wall or push on through the storm and get to the next major ledge where we could safely rappel down from a large pine tree. Good on Kim... she said "F*ck it... I want this thing!" After a bit of "un family show" words later and a wee bit of slipping and sliding... we both got to the ledge and rapped off to the ground. What had started as a beautiful, fun climb was quickly becoming a rather impressive waterfall before our eyes (literally BEFORE our eyes, as that we were rapelling straight through it!).
The rest of the weekend (the actually party portion) ivolved a lot of short adventures to the river (it was hot as blazes!), a few short bouldering/ top rope missions and of course, socialising (a.k.a. drinking). It was great to see all the old faces and welcome all the new ones. I knew I was looking foreward to Holmes, but after being away from everyone for so long it was that much more special for me.
Anyways.... I can honestly say the trip was a complete success. I got back on the plane (ah... the plane) and headed off for another 48 hour mission knowing that it had all been worth it. There was a slight change in shedule due to bad weather in Aukland, so I got the pleasure of an unexpected 2 hour lay over in Figi (wow, what a "swell" airport). Apon arriving in Palmy, I was picked up by my buddy Claydon who promptly handed me a cold NZ beer and a good cigar. After unloading the car and a quick kiwi lunch (ah, good ol' fish and chips) we decided the best thing to do while I was still sleep deprived, slightly buzzed from all the airline bloody marries and the recent addition of the cold beer, and DEFINITELY starting to feel the effects of the jet lag was to...... go climbing. There has GOT to be something wrong with me! Anyways, we went to my local boulder and i sent a problem Claydon had been working on for quite some time. In the spirit of fun first ascent names I decided to call it "Jetlagged!"
That's me...... thanks for reading it through.

Ah, back in New Zealand.... "happy as Larry." So I headed home for a month to catch up with friends and family. It was good.Despite being home fotr a full month, I STILL didn't get to see everyone I wanted to.... but it was still a damm good trip. I (obviously) did a HEAP of climbing, caught up with most of my mates and spent quitwe a bit of quality time with the fam. I will be honest... I had planned on doing a lot of couch surfing while I wa home to avoid "family overload<" but once they had me in there clutches..... I didn't WANT them to let go. I was really good to get to be a part of the clan again.

Ok... I'll openly admit, it is fairly late right now and I've had a wee more than one tasty adult beverage so far tonite.... so this isn't a very detailed or long post, but at least it it someting. I'll update a bit more when I am not quite so asleep at "the wheel."