Sachi Amma sending Realization

It's awesome how much attention Realization still gets over a decade after its first ascent. The thing looks so hard! This great video of Sachi Amma sending it really shows off the climbing. Simple shots and simple edits often make for the best climbing videos.

Before the climbing starts Sachi shares his thought on climbing and visiting new areas. "I just feel good when you go to new area, slowly you feel that that is your place." Home is a weird concept in a world where everyone seems to be moving, and visiting a climbing area, learning the nuances of the rock and surroundings, and projecting something is certainly one way to find one's place.

Nice send Sachi!

Patagonia saves me from Black Friday

I've been meaning to update this blog for a while, now that I've stopped traveling and am settled in at Berkeley. I thought I'd write a trip report from some weekend excursion to Yosemite or Bishop, but between arriving here and getting injured six weeks ago I only made it outside once this semester. The idea of posting here kept getting pushed back, especially as I've been flirting with the idea of starting an economics blog. But, thanks to Patagonia I have something to write about.

Ironically, one of my most vivid memories from India is walking into a Mumbai Starbucks on December 16th and hearing Christmas carols. I was transported to the West: suddenly realizing it was Christmas time. I had been so focused on the experiences of India and immediateness of friendships and life there that I hadn't thought about the biggest celebration of the year. I sat down with my latte beaming, looking forward to flying to London the next day and spending Christmas with family and friends.

Of course, you can't forget about Christmas in the States. Commercials started weeks ago, and stores were putting displays up as soon as Halloween ended (mind you it's not much better in the UK). Now that Black Friday has passed the season is in full swing, and with it the whoring of what was once a pagan celebration into an excuse for gluttony and greed, decidedly un-Christian values.

Sitting in that Starbucks, the first in India, I missed the Christmas season. Now, living it again, I'm not so sure. It's not that I'm not looking forward to the day; after a too-brief visit to Houston this weekend I'm excited to spend quality time with my loving family. It's just that the defining parts of our lives are experiences, relationships, and the stories that those combine to create, not the gifts we receive or the luxury we buy. In a country where despite being the richest in the world we only just managed to get everyone healthcare (and even now its patchy); where since the Great Recession the top 1% have captured 95% of income gains despite only having less than half of the losses during the fall; where we are needlessly squandering the potentials of millions because of an inadequate education system and ridiculous tuition fees, we are failing to give everyone the opportunity to live these defining moments and enjoy those special relationships.

So, why does our society give a crap about sales this weekend?! I guess it's retail therapy; you may not get your slice of the pie but on Black Friday at least you can have a sweet. Pessimism aside, consumerism really does make me think negatively about American society, and my role as someone who very often buys into it.

And that brings me to this Patagonia film. Watching it tonight reminded me that so many other people realize the shallowness of much of our society, and they aren't buying into it. In the midst of Black Friday and the run-up to Christmas it helps to be reminded of that. The half-hour it took to watch was time well spent, and I'm sure anyone who watches it will get something out of it, even if it's not the same thing. Enjoy.

Aside from being occasionally sickened by some aspects of our society, I'm really enjoying being in Berkeley. The change of pace from last year is a good thing, and I'm looking forwards to focusing more on what I'm interesting in after I finish my general education requirements this year. It's awesome to be in a place producing research like this paper, which was written by a Berkeley professor of economics, Emmanuel Saez, and is the source of that statistics I quoted above. It's worth a look even for non-economists, and the fact that I have the opportunity to interact with people who are doing research like that makes me excited to be here. The one thing that would make Berkeley better would be my injured finger healing, but it's good to focus on other things too.

I'll continue to post here very infrequently, and only when I have something worth writing about.

P.S.  I originally posted this after Black Friday 2013 but ended up taking it down after a day.  I reread it today (Feb. 27th, 2014) and after an edit decided to repost it.

Smith Rock, Oregon

The longer this trip goes on the worse I get at blogging regularly!  So, to update what I've been up to in the last three weeks: after three weeks of climbing in Yosemite I had exhausted the camping options there and left for Lake Tahoe (the park gets so many visitors you're limited to 7 nights of camping during peak season, we avoided this by changing campsites and spending a few nights camping outside the park).  To be honest though, I was ready to leave the Valley.  It was getting warmer and warmer, and while I didn't think it was possible, even more packed with tourists.  Tahoe on the other hand was relatively quiet and much cooler.  My friend Matt, whom I originally met in Hueco in February then climbed with for most of March in Utah, was there staying with his friend Dan so I joined the two of them and enjoyed four days of new boulders and good conditions.  

The climbing in Tahoe is so dispersed and spread out that it's easy to find a new area and as a result most of boulderers there end up cleaning boulders and doing first ascents of new climbs (cleaning involves brushing off moss and pulling off loose rock that would fall off when climbed on anyway).  I haven't been involved in the development process before so it was cool to be a part of it and do some first ascents of a couple of easy problems myself.  The picture above is me on an FA of one of those easy problems we cleaned.  Below is a gif of me breaking part of the starthold on a relatively new problem somewhere else in Tahoe.  Rock isn't always solid, and usually the newer a problem is the more likely parts of it are to break.  It's always annoying when you fall off because of something outside of your control, but it's part of climbing, and in the end you just have to accept it.

From Tahoe I drove up to where I am now, Smith Rock, Oregon.  I've been to Smith once before 3 summers ago for a climbing summer camp after sophomore year.  I remembered how good the climbing is, but I totally forgot about the beautiful scenery.  The cliff bands of volcanic rock are ringed by a small river that winds through the valley it has created.  When you're climbing you can't see out of the river valley so your world is limited to the river, the cliffs, and the beautiful trees and wildlife that surround you.  Here's an instagramed shot I took my first day here.

I'm heading back to Houston on Tuesday for a week so I probably won't blog again until I get to Squamish, British Columbia, at the beginning of June.  Till then, bye!

Bishop and Yosemite National Park

Three weeks later and I'm finally getting round to writing a new post!  I'm in Yosemite now where I've been bouldering, hiking, and doing a little roped climbing.  I drove here from Berkeley where I was visiting Cal and sorting out some stuff for university next year, and before that I was bouldering in Bishop where because of a sore tendon I wasn't actually doing much climbing.  However, even without the climbing Bishop is a great town.  Nestled in one of the largest valleys in the US between the Sierra Nevada and White Mountains; Bishop is visitor friendly and has the best coffee I've had since I started this trip.  So good that I stocked up while I was there and am still drinking it.

As great as Bishop was, it can't compete with Yosemite in terms of views.  I took the picture below from Turtleback Dome, a granite bulge at the western end of Yosemite Valley.  You can see the almost 3000ft El Capitan on the left, and Half Dome between El Cap and myself.  The whole valley is surrounded by huge granite walls with waterfalls cascading down them into the forested valley floor.

The camping is great here too.  Most of climbers stay at Camp 4, which for a long time was the center of american climbing.  People were first doing ascents of the big walls in the valley back in the 50s and 60s equipped with hemp ropes, hammers, and pitons.  Into the 70s and 80s Camp 4 remained the place to be, and was the base for hundreds of now famous ascents.  So as well as being a nice, forested, and very social campsite, Camp 4 has a rich climbing history.