Oldies.

I was looking through some photo albums and became quite reminiscent. Or maybe thankful is a better word, for the people I have had the incredible fortune of meeting as well as the experiences I have been lucky enough to have.

After a day of climbing on Yam, I was going for my best "Tony Yaniro", one of my hero's at the time. I think this was after Kahl Wall or maybe something on the east end. I was about 17 years old. Yamnuska shaped my ambitions as a young climber, after my first route there (Grillmair Chimneys) a couple years before, I felt like a real climber and above me lay thousands of amazing pitches and chances for greatness. If I could do 5.10 on Yam, maybe I could do a 5.9 on the north side of Mt. Temple..what if I could do  5.11 on Yam...!? I remember being so thrilled here..

Leigh Dolanz, One of my dearest friends at the Sad boulders in Bishop California. Leigh and I did a few trips here on the cheap over the years. In this picture, I think we are mid-session on 'The Bird", an obscure sandbag on the rim.

First road trip with James Von and the red rocket in 96', we climbed Grillmair Chimneys with 12 hexes and some stoppers then drove to Squamish listening to The Police's Zenyatta Mendatta and a mix tape of off the track Hendrix tunes compiled by Jon P- That summer we lived the dream doing our irst crack climbs, first real aid pitches and having our first 'dirt bag' experiences. Magic.

Cave Route at the Buttermilks, V6 - 1997

In many stages, James and I built this wall in my parents basement. Underwritten by junkyard dives, salvaging trips to construction sites and penny pinching techniques. We would recreate our projects in Bishop and Squamish here.

Grout Road Bridge, I think I spent about 400 days climbing here. No Joke.

"When I was 16 I thought I knew everything there was to know about climbing mountains and we just so happened to be in California and in the famous halls of Yosemite on a family vacation. Already infatuated with everything in sight, I gazed upon the 1000m walls of El Capitan and told my dad at once what we were going to do, I said "Pops! I will make you a harness. I've got a few biners and some rope- lets go and climb that thing!". Without much protest, we were at the base of the Captain staring up into the void. My Dad with his homemade harness and me leading off with nothing more then two allowance's worth of climbing gear and a dream in my mind. I looked down at my dad at a hard section and I could see him egging me on, I slipped and he caught me with the rope. Just like that our summit fever was gone. We retired to a burger stand nearby and talked about bigger ideas, it was one of those great memories I have of him. He was supportive like that, with his actions"
- A exert from a previous post about my dad, Paul.

Jon on the first ascent of "Edmonton's Most Macked"..I think he rated it new wave A2 but I can't be sure. A small (as you might imagine) group held the torch for the fledgling aid climbing scene in Edmonton, bagging a bunch of first ascents on the bridges around town for about 3 years with such names as Apparitions, pipe dreams, just hook it and more. Pounding micro sized pitons into incipient seams and hooking air bubbles in the concrete to expose lines all ended in a blazing fire ball of red tape, court appearances and midnight gear retrieval sessions from our high points...

Another Yam route.

"Buildering" around Edmonton, this was a sweet dyno problem from the horizontals on the wall in the background. Lloyd King and I had a circuit of these all over the university and downtown.

The late great Mike Pollard in typical bivi fashion. We had driven out to try Dirretissima on Yamnuska and spent the day drinking coffee at the Summit Cafe due to an April snow storm. I was hellbent on making Heuvos Rancheros here amidst the comforting smells of oil and brake grease...Awesome.

Sometimes if you forget where you came from, pull out those old photo albums for a glimpse of someone you may have forgotten about.