Photos by coldclimb

Here we see Ben Bates (bigboulderboarderbinerben), his brother Tim, and me (ColdClimb) on my house traverse. During the winter, this section is the crux because the butterflies are taken down due to the wind. Both of these guys made it through the harder sections, but as of January 6th 2004, the traverse of the entire house remains unrepeated except by me. Hopefully, one of you will one day claim the second ascent by coming and meeting me. ;)

Pic taken by me on a fifteen second timer. Made good time to stick the windowsill dyno and get myself up there to pose. Fun stuff!

This is me, in my house, in the chair that I spend a large amount of time in. The best part about this pic is that the light is coming from my computer monitor!

Doug Widdis (Polarwid) on belay as I second in Archangel Valley the day before he packed up and left Alaska. Turned out to be an awesome sunny day, and we took full advantage of it. Hopefully we'll get a chance to climb again sometime.

This is Jeff (heelhooker) on one of the thousands of boulders in Archangel Valley. We never did work out this problem, but we sure had fun trying.

This is me on one of the 5.10s on the Dermotologist's Dream Wall. The chickenheads are everywhere, and they make the rock look quite awesome, but the routes are still hard. Pic taken by Jeff (heelhooker) while Kristian Sieling belayed.

Kristian Sieling woke me up at about 9:00 pm to go check this place out. This pic was taken at around 10:30 or 11:00 pm. Climbing in Alaska the day after the solstice is awesome! Especially on rock as stellar as this.

Just a cool shot of a huge section of mountains in the Hatcher Pass area. This is taken from the peaks across from the Lane Glacier. Most of this pic is the Lane Valley which flows down into Archangel Valley just left of center and way in the distance. Pic taken by me a few days after the summer solstice while standing on the frosted moss and wearing a T-shirt. Good times!

Ben Bates (bigboulderboarderbinerben) rapping off local motion in Archangel Valley with Pinnacle peak standing out nicely in the background. Next summer we'll have to work that one into our schedule.

1973 Buick Riviera, 455-4 V8 engine, and cool plates to boot. I love my car, but now I gotta get something to take off-road to the crags, and perhaps to hold a pair of "ROKLIM" plates as well.

Ben Bates (bigboulderboarderbinerben) rapping off of Toto with the sun nestled behind him in the clear blue Alaskan sky. They say you don't get many days like this in Archangel, but we hardly saw a cloud the whole time we were camped. Paradise!

John Borland (ColdClimb) dynos like a madman on this crazy boulder problem. Get a running start, and race up this ~80 degree fifteen foot slab. Fun stuff!

John Borland pulls into the mantle on this 25 foot highball builder problem with ready and attentive spotters watching carefully below (yeah right). When one's partners can't ever climb, one must resort to desperate measures.

Pic taken by Ben Bates (bigboulderboarderbinerben). Many thanks to Phil for approving this one as medium. :)

Contrary to the description of the Nugget Boulder, there is an easier way to the top than the chimney, but for some, the hardest part may be psychological. There's easy climbing up the rear boulder, and a small gap jump over 25 feet of air. My scanner killed the pic, so I salvaged the silhouette.

Standing on the top of the Gargoyle formation. This thing sticks out from the rock at least 70 feet, though you can't see the bottom in this pic. This was taken at around 1:30am on the 24th of June. Although it doesn't look like it in the pic, there was plenty of light to see by, and even run down the mountain. Gotta love summer solstice in Alaska!

Pic taken by Kristian Sieling.

John Borland (coldclimb) stepping high and reaching for the fingernail crimp to pull through this unknown boulder problem on a sunny Sunday afternoon. I had just finished climbing with Doug Widdis (Polarwid) and found a few boulders to work out. A great ending to an awesome day.

You just gotta love the way the schools are nearly always built with nice routes. This is me just past the crux mantle on one of the many routes at my school. Check my pics for some of the others. The mantle is kinda hard, and after you stand up you're kinda stuck. A tall person with a good jump could dyno to the topout, but I wasn't about to, having lamed myself for a month coming off a similar pillar on the back of the school last year.

Pic taken by Elisha Davis (bellealimento).

As the sun was going down and the breeze was growing colder, I got this pic while setting up a TR on our last climb of the evening. I just like the way this pic turned out. Taken with a sucky digital camera that turns out good pics every once in a while.

This problem can be done in any of the rooms on the top floor of the Kapaa Shores Condos in Kapaa, Hawaii. I challenge anyone to repeat this, cause it's kinda fun. A bit twisted while rounding the corner from under the stairs to the upper floor, but still pretty simple.

Pic Taken by Elisha Davis, while Ben Bates watched from the kitchen. Neither of them managed to send it, by the way. ;-)

Here I am squinting into the sun on my millionth attempt at this awesome problem. This is a chunk of concrete on Molokai used as a foundation or something for an anti-aircraft gun in WWII. I don't know how it was made, but it has 1/4 inch ledges around it, parts of which are still ledges of some sort. I was attempting a dyno from these ledges to the top. I got it after about 30 tries. This is now my favorite man-made problem. See my rockclimbing.com hat lying in the background?

Check out a more distant view of this problem here.

Pic taken by Ben Bates(bigboulderboarderbinerben).

John Borland shows the Hawaiians how to look good in a rockclimbing.com ball cap and dive boots. This short, easy, but very good looking problem is about a mile down the beach to the right from this cool problem. Gotta love it.

Pic taken by Ben Bates (bigboulderboarderbinerben).

This is me (coldclimb) enjoying the best climbing I could find in hawaii. Most of this was solid, so we had fun in the cave for a while for a break from bodysurfing. This route hurts when you reach the mantle onto the ledge of knife-like miniature ridges and peaks. Gotta love it.

Pic taken by Ben Bates (bigboulderboarderbinerben).

Here we see me (ColdClimb) and bigboulderboarderbinerben on Lumahai Beach, watching the waves smash past our protective rock at chest level, and trying to get the timing down to sprint out onto the jagged lava fast enough to attack the moves before the next wave wipes us off the rock, removing various sections of skin and quite possibly vital organs in the process. The thought going through my mind at the moment was "huh????" I knew it was possible, because I saw passthepitonspete's perfect picture and I could see where he was when his pic was taken, but for the life of me, I couldn't figure out how the heck he got there. The guy's either totally insane, or he's got tons of guts, to battle the waves first, then face wet, slippery rock and a dangerous landing. Either way, he's a better climber than I am, because I never made it as high as he did, even after escaping the grasping fingers of the waves and wrapping both arms around huge chunks of wet rock in order to get off the ground. You've got guts, Pete.

Here I am, showing off my prehensile toes and enjoying the heat of the Hawaiian jungle while Ben Bates (bigboulderboarderbinerben) sits and watches, rather intently it seems. This was the best pic I got out of my whole trip, but I really need a better scanner. This one blacked out the cliff in the background, half of my friend, and my shorts, leaving me with only a good looking pic, instead of an amazing one.

Pic taken by Elisha Davis (bellealimento.)

Early one night, during a fierce October Mat-Su Valley windstorm, with gusts hitting 60 miles per hour and the temperature in the 30s, I was called for a butterfly house ornament retrieval operation, before the wind ripped them off the wall and took them away. I agreed on the condition that pictures be taken, as previously, I had no pictures of my traverse around my entire house. Being my lazy and shirt-hating self, this is what came of it all. A few nice shots of me climbing the hardest section of my house traverse shirtless and in pitch black, 35 degree, 60 mile per hour wind. Taking down the butterflies made it even harder, cause without them, the move to the second window is a swinging dyno from a three-fingertip crimp to flying feet and a windowsill death grip. Oh what fun!

Pic taken by Tom Borland

I just showed this pic to my cousin, who somehow got the opinion that I was going for a certain look here, so I have to dispute that theory.

This is the summer of 2002. When we went climbing this day, we had no rope bag or tarp, so I used my shirt to keep my shoes clean while standing at the base of the climb. Because of this, it got quite soaked and muddy, so I borrowed my friend's (bigboulderboarderbinerben's) shirt as a bug defense. He's slightly smaller than me, so if I had worn it as any normal button-up shirt is worn, and tried to climb, all the buttons would have popped and the sleeves would have either ripped, or cut my arms off. Neither situation is good, so I rolled up the sleeves and left it unbuttoned. Who's gonna care at a crag where the closest people are little specks in the distance, right?

Then on the way back down, we were doing a bit of bouldering, and paused on this rock for our designated cameraman, Tom Borland, to take this nice shot with the mountain in the background. Now I am forced to defend myself because this picture is just too cool!!!

Gotta love it!