Montague's Ride

Its been almost 7 months since Ive posted and a lot has happened in that time.  Im back climbing almost as hard as I was before the accident and Im psyched about the future, training 6 days a week and getting ready for some new adventures.  Last night I booked my ticket to go to the Red River Gorge over thanksgiving break from school and im super psyched! Ive never been and from what everyone says its probably the best sport climbing in the country! I stopped working about 3 months ago and I finally got a new job working at a coffee shop in Boulder.  Starting to save up some money for the trip and a new motorcycle haha, only have had mine for 6 months and it feels like time to move on to bigger and better things (I’ll post a pic soon).  Besides that working at school had been my main mission and Im happy to be a senior and get out of school to start a career. ClimbX will hopefully be hooking it up for the trip so I can be sure to appreciate them as an asset. A couple buddies of mine will be joining me at the Red so im thinking were going to have some send trains going down the tracks! 

Until later, Mav.

Good times here in Boulder. I got back a few weeks ago been workin a lot and climbing a lot at the gym. Europe was sick and got some good climbs done but its for sure good to be back in the states, Boulder is definitely my home.  Even so it has not been treating me great. Three days ago I was bouldering at MCF when I got to the final hold of a normal problem, with normal finish, and a normal jump back down to the ground.  But for some reason this time wasn’t normal.  After I let go of the wall and fell through the air and all was good, I had done it a thousand times before. Pop. I hit the ground and my ankle was a 90 degree angle facing inward. Before I had even realized what had happened, as if by instinct, my hand popped my ankle back into the socket.  The sound was louder than anything I have ever heard.  Both my buddies Ryan and Ben heard it loud and clear.  I immediately took off my shoe and was walked to the bench.  The rest of the story is simple, went to the hospital, got some X-rays that showed it was not broken but severely sprained, and made it home to have a shit night sleep.  

Its been 3 days and the swelling is still huge! Not to mention it looks like I have tonsillitis so thats all I have to say for now. 

Hello everyone!

After a few days of relaxing and checking out Barcelona I am headed to France. Last weekend chris and I went and camped out in Terradets, we found some long amazingly beautiful routes covered in dripping limestone tufas and pockets and just pure crazyness.  Spain has some really amazing rock and so so much of it!  

I finally got my E-motions over here thanks to ClimbX so im off to Fontainebleau in the morning to go meet my buddy Paul and im super psyched to get on some hard stuff! 

It was quite an epic weekend starting in the early hours of my first day here. On saturday morning Chris and I woke up early to catch the first train up to the area of Lleida. Our plan was to camp out at a large campsite in the town where we were climbing, Sant Llorienc de Montgui.  

We started early friday at the train station where we barely made the metro to get to the main train station.  We got there and had to put our bags through the scanners where, with 5 min until our train, we found out we are not allowed to bring camp fuel on the trains here.  So we quickly gave the attendant our fuel and just made the train to Lleida. Our plan was to get to the town and grab some food at a little store, set up our camp and climb all day but we were a little unlucky in doing so.  

The small town had nothing but a tiny bar and no stores, so we walked to the other side of town only to discover that the camping area was closed for vacation for the week. We figured we go to the refuge in town to stay instead but they were also on “vacation.”  So we decided to figure it out later and grabbed a quick coffee at the bar and walked to the cliffs.  

After a moist foggy day of climbing we ended up eating dinner in the same bar before we set up our sleeping bags near some picnic tables underneath a small roof. We figured we would wake up and catch a train to terradets to climb for the rest of the weekend.  

We woke up to heavy, dense fog that covered out sleeping bags in dew. We decided the weather would be the same in terradets so we walked to the train station and discovered that there wasn’t a train back to Lleida for 4 hours. 

There was a near by town that had trains much more frequently and it was about 7 km away so we decided to hoof it instead of waiting 4 hours. It was quite a hike but we eventually got picked up by another climber who graciously drove us the last 2 km right to the train station!  

So a pretty epic weekend overall but awesome to get on the first rock of many of my trip!

Should be headin up to Santa Linya tomorrow for the weekend and a few more weekends in spain then up to Font to see my good buddy paul who I haven’t seen in more than a year! The psych is high!

P.S. still waiting on the arrival of my sweet new ClimbX shoes and I have more pics to come!

Finally I have arrived here in Barcelona! Super psyched to be here but also a bit jet lagged. I met up with my buddy chris this morning after a long flight and got settled in, ate some “breakfast”, and headed out for a long stroll through part of the city. Its gorgous out here with 65 degree weather and blue skys!

Tomorrow morning we are getting an early start and taking the train up to Lleida and Terradets to get some limestone climbing on. We’ll stay up there for the weekend and see what next week brings !

Adios por ahora

4 more days until I leave for Spain and I am psyched to say I have a new pair of the great E-Motions on their way here so I can do some hard, aggressive stuff over in Europe! Super psyched to have ClimbX behind me and can NOT wait to get over there and start climbing. Ive been training and doing a small amount of climbing in CT hopeing to be in tip top shape for the tall routes I am about to encounter! 

For now Im sitting in NH getting ready to leave back to CT and prepare my last few things before I go.  Im meeting my good bud Chris on Friday and we are headed out for the weekend to start the insanity. 

Takedown Street baby

J

Its Thursday and that means I only have one week before I leave for Espana and Europe! Super psyched!  Besides getting everything together I found some cool people to climb with over here in CT land.  They were nice enough to show me some amazing boulders around the area! The rock here is way better than I expected and there is endless potential for new and really hard stuff.  FAs all dayyy. But really hike 5-10 min and you have 100s of possible new stuff! So psyched! and not only that but temps are great and the snow is holding off so conditions are perfecto. That picture I just posted is the huge crack in the earth dubbed “The Gash” and its amazing very closely resembling the autobot boulder in RMNP but 5 times larger! so sick. With only a week left and lots to do… Lets do it!

Wow a lot has been happening around my life lately.  Good xmas and new years.  I headed up to Portsmouth, NH to visit Sweet D and Ryan and the whole Hills clan! Emery farm was amazing and I had a great two days.  On wed morning I drove north to waterville valley to visit the parents and do some hiking and skiing! snow was pretty good and so were the temps.  On new years eve i drove over to weston, VT to the Bennett inn to celebrate the new year with some friends from school.  Drove back on saturday and been hanging around workin out a little since.  Last two weeks are before i leave are here and Im getting more psyched everyday.  Lets start the insanity. 

My brother has been doing some editing with his new camera from xmas and here is one of the pics.