My god was I lazy yesterday. And all week. Never one to rest on my laurels, today I pushed it and went even lazier. Perhaps even challenging The Dude himself in the running for laziest man worldwide. Today I fell asleep mid-day with Motörhead blasting in my headphones. Now that’s lazy. Or maybe it indicates that I’m really really tired, from such a stressful week? Yeah…

Much like alpine climbers who stop wherever they feel like it and try to claim a completed route – the “modern ascent,” “new bail,” or proverbial “end of the difficulties” – I’m looking for a justification for my failure.

I came up with three possibilities:

1. I inexplicably ceased margarita consumption for the last several nights. Likely a record of some sort. It’s not even that I’m trying to cut back – after all, nobody likes a quitter – but I just haven’t felt like drinking. Weird, likely a shock to my system, but some things defy logic, like crop circles, curling as an Olympic sport, and Dolly Parton’s titties.

2. Did my biggest gimpy hike yet earlier this week – to Sky Pond and back, which is 9 or 10 miles round trip. My awesome PT, Jeff Giddings, had encouraged me to push myself a little and see how it felt. Everything I’d been doing had been feeling great, so leave it to me to then overdo it. Made good time on the way up (decent gimpy time, that is – I used to do personal trail-run time-trials there, damnit), but took twice as long coming out, and was hobbling pretty hard by the time I returned to the parking lot. It was a little much just yet. OK, now I know.

By the way, anybody notice that the farther you get from the trailhead, the cooler the people (usually)? It baffles me that people can be so rude in such a spectacular place. Must be an indication as to how unhappy they are, but I wish they wouldn’t be such dickheads. “Excuse me, comin’ thru!” with a big smile and a “How’s it goin’?” too often results in a scowl and an unwillingness to clear the trail. I’d think they’re just offended that a dorky gimp is passing them, except it used to also happen when I’d run the trails. I don’t get it. In the past, it used to so annoy me that I’ve come soooo close to lowering my shoulder into someone (the thought then makes me laugh, and I go back to enjoying myself), but I’m kinder and gentler now. It probably especially annoys me because I go to places like this to escape people like that. I know, I should feel sorry for them and rise above it. But I’m still not ruling out the shoulder check option. Namaste.

3. I sent my stupid little “proj” last weekend. This, in my temporary new life as a sport climber, perhaps justifies my subsequent laziness. At least I’m not as lazy as Josh Wharton (he might try to defend himself with “Ohhh, but I have a broken back and wrist,” but buck up dude!). Josh and Erinn, his wife, just moved to Estes and, more importantly, they got cable TV. I always did like them. This project of mine is a whopping 70 feet or so, probably easier than Scotty D and I think it is, and is one of three lines up by some crag we got lost trying to find and that we know absolutely nothing about. Don’t even know the names or ratings of the routes, just that this line was the hardest of the three (via its direct variation, anyway – there’s a JV way around the hard part). Neither of us could onsight it on our first few tries. Several days prior, I flailed again, Scotty sent, and then I broke off a key hold off, making it harder. So, I maintained, Scotty hadn’t really done it. Nor had Wharton. Thus, clearly, I needed to send.

Erinn and Josh, on their merry way to the crag (me: "I think it's this way...yeah, yeah, I've been here before, I swear").

Last weekend I called up Josh: “Hey dude, how’s the back? Yeahyeah, anyway, can you belay yet? No? Oh. Uhhh, say, what’s Erinn up to today?”

The long-suffering Miss Erinn had probably thought she got some respite from belay duty, what with Josh in the Stormtrooper suit, but hey, what are friends for? I’m classy like that. Here’s the damnedest thing: Erinn says she likes belaying. Finds it relaxing (every climber guy just said, in unison: Duuuuude, does Josh know how lucky he is?!). She’s an elementary school teacher, meaning she deals with chaos all day every day, and so she says it’s peaceful to simply be in a beautiful place with her husband (or her husband’s deadbeat friend…so I hope), enjoying the surroundings. No shit. How cool. And somehow, I felt good climbing that day, too – maybe it rubbed off. Namaste.

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That Motörhead video I linked to, up top, is so good I’m embedding it. Quite possibly the best ever metal song — or whatever genre you call it — fuck it, as Lemmy himself is known to say, “We are Motörhead. We play rock and roll.”