I’ve had a case of the summertime blues. Hanging in Colorado Springs without the Pierre man, my greatest friends, or my most prized mountain bike, makes time stagnant. Not too much seems to have that magical feeling of awe. I feel just like I had as a child stranded in the middle of the summer with all my friends away on vacation, waiting for school to break up the monotony. The best of climbing in the Springs [Colorado Springs] are short days in the garden on the ever-exciting sandstone classics and eleven-mile’s short powerful climbing. Since both are basically afternoon only [climbing], I’ve managed to catch up on rest and some quiet time.

     I got a good humbling at eleven-mile. Finding most of the climbs to be rather easy to one gigantic move. I watched my friends run laps on these climbs, but I couldn’t for the life of me do that one move. I lost interest. I quickly moved from one climb to the next. Until I sampled Only Entertainment a climb that was originally rated twelve plus but has since been upgraded to thirteen minus. I wish I could say that I made quick work of it, but I had not. It was a sequence of powerfully thin-moves that made up a sustained crux. Not to mention the slab start was minimally protected, with just enough features to balance your way precariously high above your first bolt with nothing but ledges to uncomfortably break your fall.

     With some time and effort I put this climb behind me, and since it wasn’t an onsight… I even managed to get video footage with my friend Nelson Cariyannis. Nelson has his own style of filming and it generally revolves around a lot of effort. The end result justifies this, but I won’t be surprised one day when he complains of chronic hernias. Nelson and Keith being more inspired to skate than climb headed to the park and I of course went along to dabble in something new.

     Summer storms allowed us to get out for a short period. We pushed around until we lost interest, which was probably within the timeframe of an hour or so. We grabbed dinner and talked about final cut pro, since Keith had to create an entry for the photo competition at the Squamish mountain festival. He would be going up against some of the most talented photographers of climbing. He wanted to make a strong showing, even though he was more excited to be a spectator.

     Not having had much experience with final cut pro Keith asked Nelson to help him. We ended up spending a day in Denver running over ideas, and then Keith went back for a more concentrated day of work. It wasn’t coming together easily, since neither Keith nor Nelson had ever had the task of creating a slideshow in this format. Time was depleting and stress was at an all time high. Keith and Nelson feeling the time crunch went without sleep for the last thirty hours before having to depart for Vancouver, since Keith and I were traveling together I was caught up in the crunch to finish the project and found myself many hours short of my mandatory eight hour standard of rest.