The Journey Begins...

One time while climbing, I believe up in "The City" with my buddy Dan, he mentioned to me his desire to climb El Cap before the age of 30. At the time I just thought, "Wow, that would be quite the undertaking. But at the same time extremely cool." I didn't anticipate that the ambition to scale that wall would grow so strong inside myself but alas, it has...

As the story goes, Dan and I climbed quite a bit together and had awesome adventures. We've saved each others lives, tackled great odds, put up some first ascents which were sketchy to say the least. Each has his strengths and weaknesses, but I love climbing with Dan. He is solid. But as fate would have it school became a bigger priority, we both have gotten hitched to great ladies, and although we still climb together when we can work it out it has gotten harder.
In the interim I have climbed with a whole assortment of folks, and loved every minute of it. I thought I would show of few pics of those who I have climbed with (not close to all-inclusive). I figured I better give a shout out to all those in the pics below.

Ken, Chase, Brittany on a trip to "the creek".

Nic, Morgan, and Jesse all at the first of my climbing in Logan.

Shann, Jess, and Dutin having a ball up in Logan Canyon.

Chels, Loller, and Cletus

(side note - Loller, Cletus and I would climb till we couldn't see any more it would be so dark out. One night Cletus' mom was so worried she sent the cops up the canyon looking for us and they pulled us over. Good times.)

Jeff, Elliot, and Chase. All good times to be had for sure.

Then Garrett, who nearly died on the trip that is photoed here.

One of my other really good partners, besides my wife of course, was Darrin. D, Chels, and I would climb almost every day of the summer up in Logan Canyon. We had so much fun. I could usually convince D that we could get our homework done later. It was great times. D and I climbed a whole bunch together and had several fun experiences, like the time he tried to rip down the entire mountain on himself, but only succeeded with a boulder the size of his upperbody. What came of it? Merely a fleshwound, and a decent amount of blood. Awesome.

Well I sort of internalized the goal of climbing El Cap and have thought a lot about it as I've continued climbing. Just earlier this year I texted Dan and I asked him if he still wanted to do it. He said he hadn't been climbing a lot, but the desire was still there. I said great, how about in two years time? That is the year that I believe both of us will be turning 30. I knew D has had the desire to climb it for a great while as well. And so D is also on board.

And so it begins. A year of personal training (2011). Next year teaming up, Dan, D, and myself, and working through the system of playing and living in a vertical world (2012). Then the following year tackling the monolith of Yosemite (2013), after bagging a few routes in Zion and maybe some other places as well.

Here she is!

To say the least I am super stoked and plan to work at this while living life and supporting the fam. But it is out there and all y'all can hold me to it. There is of course some flexibility in the plan, but we are all super excited about it!

More to come on what I am doing to train and what I am learning about. Enjoy!