Today was a good day. We got to climb 🙂

We started out the day as usual: got breakfast around the corner. They food they have here is DELICIOUS:

We also got some banh my to go:

We had gotten up a bit later this day, so I was somewhat anxious to get going and get to the crag. After food, Sean had to go to the bathroom, so we went back to the hotel. Then we head off to the climbing store, and half way there, Sean left his backpack at the hotel. So I had to go back from the store, give him the key, and let him in. Oh silly Sean. It was a rough start to the morning, but finally we both made it!

We went to the climbing store, took our safety test, PASSED this time, and they rented us a rope. WOOOOOOO

So then we took off on our scooters to the crag. We first filled up on gas, but this time we went to an actual gas station. It cost us only 80,000($4) to fill up both tanks. About 5 times cheaper than the time we got ripped off yesterday.

We finally arrive at the crag. It’s a pretty cool place! They had a little restaurant at the beginning of the crag, incase you got hungry. The signage to get there was pretty good as well.

Here’s a picture of us hiking into the crag. Notice the cows and chickens everywhere:

Here’s a picture of the crag itself:

This is called “butterfly valley”. We ended up climbing on the far left, at an area called the “upper mantle”. We basically climbed to the top of the treeline on cliffs on the right.

We started on an easy 5b(5.8/5.9). I lead it, and then sean lead it. As Sean was leading it, a cute couple came by. Turns out there were from Chico, around the Shasta area of California! What a small world. We talked a bit. I let them barrow my book; they asked if I had bought it, and I said something along the lines of I like buying them so I can have a collection of books that makes me look like I’m really into the outdoors. In a manly/bro-y sort of playful-mocking voice, they said “Oh yeah, you like to impress the girls huh? Like did I tell you about that one time  I went climbing in Vietnam? No big deal”. But yes, pretty much. That’s my deal.

Just as this conversation was happening, Sean said “FALLING!”. I had an inking that he was going to possibly fall, so I had taken most of the slack out of the system. However I should have been paying more attention, and not getting distracted by girls(the #1 cause of deaths in climbing). Anyways he fell, and I caught him. It wasn’t too big of a fall(I didn’t get lifted off the ground, he maybe fell 5 feet). But his first fall outdoors in a while!

Here’s a pic of him climbing this route:

Next we went over and did a 5c(5.9). I don’t have any pictures of it. It was short and sweet, with a few fun moves. Sean and I both lead this one. Great climb 10/10, would recommend.

Next we did the highlight of the day for me: a 6a, 5.10a. After yesterday, I was eager to “prove myself” by climbing a 10a. Because it should be easy, right?

I lead it; it was hard, but not too hard of a lead. The struggle however was setting up the anchor I literally thrashed around and fell like 10-15 times. It was a really awkward last move to get to the anchor. I could reach it and clip in the rope just fine, but getting close enough to clip in my PAC was another thing. You had to shove your body in a little cave, and then move and stretch out to the left to reach the anchor. I basically “aid” climbed to get close enough that I could clip in with my PAC, and then setup the rope for toprope.

Then Sean climbed it. He fell a few times but made it up. Sean did what I will now call “Sean’s way” to get to the top; basically going left, right, and swinging, making his own route to the top. Sean answers for nobody!

Here’s a pic of Sean on the climb. Sorry for the terrible focus, I didn’t have my zoom lens and my auto-focus was fucked up:

Finally to round off the day, we did a short 10b route. There were some New Zealanders next to us that had been working a 5.12a/b the whole day(these guys are basically in another league/doing a different sport).

The route was hard because the last move had a tricky balancy mantle. I had a short fall 2-3 times on the bolt, but finally I was able to do it after the worlds hardest crimp. Here’s a pic of the route:

Basically you start on the boulder on the left, and go up to the bush. The mantle move is out of this picture because I take bad shots.

We called it a day after that, as it was starting to rain. We headed back, in the rain, on our bikes. I felt like I almost skidded out a few times; rain is dangerous on scooters! We took it slow to avoid any accidents.

After we got back, we booked a kayaking trip. Which we will be doing today. We then around for like 30 minutes trying to find a bank. Who knew it would be so difficult to find one! On our way, we met-up with this cool guy:

We eventually found a bank on the street. Whew!

Then it’s time to eat. But first some smokes and me trying to look “cool”:

I really just look like I’m kissing my hand. I, much like Bill Clinton, smoke, but “don’t inhale”. I honestly do it just to wake up(because I feel I’m still jet lagged). Or that’s at least what I tell myself.

We went to a cool rooftop bar next door, and I had a really good meal again, bun cha. It looked different then the bun cha I ordered in Hanoi though. Here’s our food:

And a coconut milkshake. Woo!

They always give us silly straws at all these places for some reason…

We got into a 2 hour deep conversation about finance. We talked about me leaving AppDynamics, and if it was the right choice. I keep thinking I made a mistake leaving there because I left a bunch of money on the table. But we actually crunched the numbers, and saw that it was a wash for me to join LinkedIn vs AppD. Although it would have been a lot better for me to stay at AppD because they got acquired, there was no way for me to knowthat would happen(nobody did), so at the time, with the info I had, I still made all the right choices. Which is all I can ask for.

We then went back to the bar with the laughing gas(the one we went to on night 1). They remembered us there! I considered buying everyone in the bar a round of shots(it only costs $30 even with 18 people), but I decided to wait on it for another night. It’s going to happen though.

We did more laughing gas. Except this time we REALLY went in. I filmed a video of me doing it and considered putting it up here, but it was MUCH too embarrassing to show the world. That’s a first for me. If you wanna see it just ask and I’ll send it to you.

After that, we got some more food at the “Full Moon Party Hotel”. Here’s me looking super content eating it:

Anyways, that’s all for today. I’m 20 minutes late, got to shower, and go on our kayaking adventure. Talk to you tomorrow!

Today was a memorable day. A day of disappointment, and a day of adventure.

The plan for today was to get up at 7, go get food/ pack lunch, and then head over to the climbing shop to rent a rope and then head off to do some climbing.

We got to the climbing shop after breakfast, and they asked us to take a test to show that we know how to safely utilize rope and equipment. No problem I thought. We had only brought one PAC between us(personal anchor system; Sean had forgotten his), so I struggled a bit during the test to figure out how to safely anchor. I wanted to try an achor without my PAC, because I’d probably let Sean use it. I ended up using two slings to anchor myself which was perfectly fine.

Then Sean did his test. It didn’t go so well.

He got to the top, but struggled to figure out how to anchor in. At one point he connected a sling to his gear loop for an anchor(a big no-no); he looked, according to the instructor, unconfident in his abilities. I was also coaching him through most stuff on how to setup the anchor. Also, when he was lowering me, he had the climber side and the belay strands flipped around. Another big no-no.

Safe to say, the instructor denied renting the rope to us. Pretty damn humiliating if you ask me. We came all this way to climb, and they said we weren’t even fit to use a rope.

This was a lesson in humility. After the machete ridge incident, I realize that I need to be a lot more cautious. I had underestimated how rusty Sean’s was; he KNEW all the stuff we needed to do, he just hadn’t utilized the skills in over a year, so he was really rusty. To try and rush out to the crag and climb when he didn’t have the proper abilities would have been dangerous for him and me. It’s better to play it safe and not do the things I wanted to do if it means keep Sean and I  safe.

This was really hard for me to “let go” of all these grand plans for climbing.

Now that’s not to say that we arn’t going to go climbing at all this trip; but we probably won’t do Screw Loose(a climb I’ve really wanted to do).

I talked to Sean about it; he felt bad, I felt bad for making him feel bad. But I think we got over it. I wasn’t mad at Sean. He didn’t do anything wrong. This was more on me for again putting someone into a position for something they might not quite be ready for.

Luckily, the guy who tested us, Travis, did everything in his power to make sure we could get to the level of climbing where he felt confident we knew what we were doing. He personally offered to teach us later that afternoon(around 2pm), and do 1-2 climbs with us to get us ready.

So that’s what we did.

In the meantime, we decided to explore the island a bit. So first we rented some scooters. The scooters were empty fuel-was, so we decided to get some gas.

We rode down to the pier to a place with a “petrol” sign. We pulled in, a guy asked if we need gas we said yes, good so far. He started filling up our scooters with bottles of watered-down looking petrol. Nbh, they did this in Thailand. But here’s where the problem happend: we didn’t ask him how much it would cost beforehand. It ended up costing us $20 to fill up both tanks. More expensive gas then even the US! Safe to say, that was the biggest rip-off of the trip.

Finally, we set off for a local place called the “Cannon fort”.

It was an old fort on the top of a hill. According to Lonely planet,

The tunnels and gun emplacements here were first installed by the Japanese in WWII, but were also utilised by the French and Vietnamese during subsequent conflicts.

Here’s an overview of where the fort was:

There were some great views on top of the fort:

We also took some fun pictures with the “locals”:

A note about these cannons: They can fire up to a range of 40km — that’s about 20 miles! Wowza!

We also saw some pretty cool trenches. And munition depots. There was also this long tunnel with a “track” in the middle of it; we assumed it was for moving the cannon through the tunnels to the different “rooms” inside to load it, repair it, etc.

Here’s us searching for weed in the tunnels:

Here’s Sean being a goof:

Andddd some wildlife:

After that, we went back to Asia outdoors, and met up with Travis to check in about the class later that day.

Then we took another adventure to the “Hospital cave”. This place was used as a hospital during the Vietnam war I believe, and later was used as a secret meeting place for communist leaders :O

Some of the locals. This guy was clearly being treated for shell shock:

Sean contemplating why he was here:

Here’s one of the biggest caves in the hospital

Here’s me meditating:

Past the forbidden zone:

And me crawling like a crab:

After that, we went back to the shop. On the way there, Sean got in a little accident. He was supposed to be behind me following me to the outdoors shop, but I waited a few minutes and he didn’t show up. I then texted him “are you okay” and this was his response

I fell ove4 near the hotel. I’m alright but there was a bit of fuel leaking so a guy told me to turn it off. I’m going to walk the bike over

Apparently he was doing a low-speed uturn and fell over. He bruised his knee a bit, got a scrape on his hand, but otherwise he was fine.

Whew.

Anyways, we met up with Travis, followed him to his home to pick up some gear(apparently he lived in a hotel by the bay), and made our way to the crag. We got like like 4-5 times trying to find the climbing area(because it was pretty well hidden). It ended up being behind a guys house; you had to pay 10,000 to enter it. It was a pretty cool little cave area! Travis taught me a new way to clean an anchor on top-rope and lower down; Sean also did the same climb twice(leading it) to get practice on how to lower. It was a great afternoon.

I then tried to do a 10.a, just as the sun was setting. I wore a head lamp, and tried to rush up the climb. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to do it; I had to bail and leave a couple quick draws, which Travis was nice enough to go up really quickly and fetch. Also during this climb I had to take a small fall.

But anyways, not being able to complete the climb  was really frustrating, because I believed 10a to be completely in my ability range. I’ll probably go back and try it sometime later this week(if not day 4, another day).

After that, we rode our bikes back to the beach(in the dark I might add!). We decided to go get some pho for the first time this trip(it wasn’t that good tbh), some more street food banh my(fucking delicious), and go for some more drinking.

We walked around the pier at one point, and a man walked up to us and asked if we wanted some “boom boom”. Finally my first time hearing it in person! I was kinda happy people actually talked like that lol

In one of the bars we met up with an Irish man; he claimed to be 36, but it looks like the years had taken a toll on him. He was travelling alone, and we chatted him up; apparently he was a carpenter, had lived in SF for like 10 years, and now was trying to go to Canada(after he was done with Vietnam). He got a giant laughing gas balloon(yes we did them again today), and it looked quite funny:

Anyways, after talking with us for about 30 minutes, he kinda went off and talked to other couple. I guess we weren’t interesting enough for him? Oh well…

We also did some “Seesha” which I learned is just another word for hooku. Sean took this “cool” pic:

Anyways, that’s it for today. Time to climb!

First off, Merry Christmas to everyone in America!!

Today was a travel day. We spent the day going from Hanoi to Cat Ba Island in Ha Long bay.

Started the day out at 7 am, writing my blog (which I posted yesterday). We went to a coffee shop, got some money, and then went to a place to eat in the Old Quarter. It happened to be right down the street where we had spent the previous night!

I got some chinese braised beef on rice. It was probably the most delicious thing I’ve eaten in Vietnam so far.  Here’s a pic:

(Yes we are drinking beers at like 10 am).

After that, we got on the bus. This bus would take us to another bus, which would take us to a boat, which would cross a river, which would take us to another bus, which would finally take us to a hotel. Quite a journey!

Here’s a picture of the bus:

Some quotes I overheard on the bus from an anonymous source:

“This bus is nicer than some hotels I’ve been at”

“I don’t wanna do anything today, I just wanna sit on this bus”

“I’ve messaged some girls that have more red flags then some soviet-bloc countries”.

Very entertaining quotes, whoever sad those ;D

Here’s Sean very suprised looking when I took a photo of him on the boat:

We finally arrive at our island. It is BEAUTIFUL. We find our room, and its on the TOP floor, floor 9. Here’s a pic with me on our balcony view:

I have a bunch of great pics on my camera I brought, I just got to try and figure how to upload them. The wifi here isn’t being cooperative.

EDIT: Here they are:

After that, we wander around for a while. We get some street food includuing crepes(YES!!) and ban my. So. Fuckiing. Good.

IF you can see the paper that it’s wrapped in, it’s like literately someone wrote on it in pen in Vietanmese. Maybe they’re recycling old homework?

Then we walked around some more, Sean bought some shorts.

We went to the Outdoor Asia shop, where we were going to figure out where to go climbing, but it was closed. The lady told us it’d open at 7 am the next day, so (today) we’re going to go check it out.

We also got some tips from some locals about things we should do — motorcycle rides, kayaking trips(to a island with monkeys), among other stuff.

Then we spent a while at a resturant (called the “Full Moon Party Hotel”) and ate a bunch of food. We asked where we could buy santa hats, and the manager there pulled some off a tree for us to have. Yes!(We payed him $5 for them which is a lot):

Also, fun sidenote, look how tiny these elevators are! We basically take up the whole elevator with our packs:

Also I found this rock in the town Square. If anyone can read Vietnamese and knows what it says, let me know:

Finally, to close out the night, we went to a really cool bar. There we met some guy from spain who was travelling for a month. He was being a little touchy to me — brushing up on my leg, sitting really close to me, throwing me glances. I don’t know what his deal was(I was just talking to him and trying to be friendly since he was alone and looked like he wanted to talk). Maybe that’s just how friendly Europeans are?

This bar was GREAT. First off, they had Hooku with the funny writing “No weed in it”:

They also had LAUGHING GAS. Yes you heard that right. You could buy it for 100k($5, expensive!), or you could get it for free with a beer between 10 and 10:30. So that’s what we did. Two giant ballons of laughing gas later — I didn’t feel much different. After holding my breath, I felt a little tingly — like if you were high on weed, minus the phycological effects. But after about 1-2 minutes it was gone. Still pretty fun though. Sean wants to go back again, so we’ll try it another day.

Here’s some more picture of food we ate. Deep friend beef spring rolls:

Here’s a funny knock-off frozen toy we found:

And finally, here’s our bathroom. It combines a toilet and a shower — not really seperate. This is pretty common in Asia, and honestly, it kinda makes sense. The whole bathroom generally is a gross place, why not just wash it off?

Okay, I’m off. Got to shower, pack, eat, and go climbing. It’s supposed to rain at 6 pm today, so I think we should be OK for climbing!

This weekend I went on a trip with Eric, Megan, and meet up with Tom and his friend Collin on an epic weekend in pinnacles. It did not go as planned, but it was still a lot of fun; however, there was a very dangerous incident that occured that could have proved fatal under slightly different circumstances which overshadowed the whole weekend(at least for me). Let me give a day-by-day report.

The plan for the weekend was as so: we’d arrive Friday night, camp, get up early the next day and do machete ridge. It’s an AWESOME 6 pitch “climb”(really more of an alpine adventure) that traverses over a bunch of spires on machete ridge. It’s not very hard — maybe 5.7 on the hardest pitch; it’s all sport, and doesn’t require any trad gear, but knowledge of how to rappel.

Here’s a post on mountain project about it:

https://www.mountainproject.com/route/106912474/old-original

I was SUPER excited as I had never done anything like this before. I was capable of all the technical aspects — rapallling, setting up anchors on bolts and natural protection(trees), how to combine ropes for rappelling, fourth class traversing. It seemed totally within my technical limit.

The main unknowns in my mind where 1) how much time was this going to take? and 2) how do we do this with a backpack? Seems kinda annoying.

Since the days are short around this time of year(sun rises at 7, sets at 5), I figured we’d get an early start and just spend the day(10 hours) going along the ridge. Well –closer to 9 hours, since it’d take us an hour to hike in. That should be plenty of time, right?

As for the backpacks, I only had my 22 liter, and my giant backpacking backpack(60 liters). My idea was we’d try hauling the backpack up on the hard pitches, and carry it on the pitches that weren’t as hard. Failing that, I’d just carry it up all the pitches.

So that was the plan anyways. Basically nothing went according to plan.

Here’s what happened:

We arrived at the campsite on Friday night. Traffic was really bad — (an hour! to get from the easy bay to SF). We stopped by whole foods(to pick up food –they only had vegan marshmallows — lol what?), and the habit for food. By the time we were at the campsite we were behind schedule a bit — it was 10 PM, and the plan was to wake up at 6, get ready in an hour, and take an 1 – 1 1/2 hours to hike in, so be at the base at 8-8:30. So that’s okay, we’ll just get a little bit less sleep, NBD.

That night I had trouble sleeping — probably because I woke up at 10 am that day, and was excited about the next day. Also I should mention it was COLD — below freezing; Megan’s car said it was 28 degrees the next day when we left, so I can only imagine how cold it actually got.

Anyways, we wake up at 6 the next day, before dawn, and make breakfast and whatnot. By the time we leave it’s already 8 — an hour behind schedule, but hopefully NBD right?

We arrive at the trailhead around 8:15-8:20. We do the hike in, passing another group that was doing an alternative version of the route that starts elsewhere and has aid sections — I had briefly considered us doing that but went against it, mainly because I didn’t want to add to much new stuff to the plate on this day.

It took us a while to actually locate the ridge; after hiking in and getting to “machete ridge”(the north end), it probably took us another 45 minutes to locate the start — we did it with surprisingly little trouble(with respect to finding climbing routes anyways). By the time we got to the base of the climb it was 10:30 — 4 1/2 hours after we had woken up, and 2 1/2 hours behind schedule. I thought we could skip a few parts of the traverse and that’d save us some time(like middle tour).

I should also note that I had changed our route to have an alternative start — we were starting on bullseye (1 pitch) to derringer(2 pitches), and that would meet us up with the normal start of old original. This was an extra 2 pitches to our climb. One comment said this would take a “full day” on the mountain project forum.

I led the first pitch with little trouble, without a backpack on. Not really too run out, not too hard, kind of fun. Great!

At this point, I should mention the gear we were carrying. I was carrying a couple of cams, nuts, a couple of quick draws, lots of other random gear(anchor building, a bunch of alpine draws, rappelling gloves, etc) a  mirrorless camera, a lens, some food, 1.5 liters of water, sunscreen, a cap, some other small things here and there. My pack was pretty damn heavy. I had also brought my 70m rope.

Eric had(and was carrying) a 70m rope, a 30m rope, and a few quick draws. I assume he also had food, water, and things for a day out as well.

We both had our backpacking packs and they were pretty heavy.

So after I completed the first pitch, Eric followed me. The way we were setup, I was attached to eric but a rope, and then Eric was also attached to Megan. So basically I’d lead, he’d follow, and then he’d belay Megan. I’d had this done once before on a trip in Thailand, and it wasn’t a problem. And after the “incident”, I don’t think I would have done things differently(in terms of that), however my inexperience of thinking of a system like this may be what lead to the issue that occurred.

The incident

Once Eric was at the top of the pitch with me, he had instructed Megan to clip my backpack onto the rope with an overhand on a bite:

That way we could lug up the backpack. We started lugging it up, and it was HEAVY. It took both me and Eric coordinating our movements to get the backpack up. After a bunch of work, and after we got it 1/2 way up(Megan says it was 3/4 of the way up but I suspect it was less based on the distance left in the climb and us not seeing it), it got caught under a “lip” which we couldn’t pull it past. We pulled and pulled, but nothing.

We decided it was futile to try and pull it up, so Eric decided to descend down to it and bring it up on his back.

I think I had been pulling the backpack up with a ATC — or on second thought, we might have just been pulling it up with our hands, and dropping it would have lost our progress.

In any case, so we didn’t lose our current “progress” of pulling the backpack up, I put the rope on a clove hitch on a quickdraw that was attached to our anchor. Now that I was hands free with the backpack, Eric started his decent down to the backpack. Eric still had his rope that was attached to me, so I was simply lowering him on a GriGri. Eric was ALSO attached to another rope that was going down to the backpack, and then down to Megan. Note that Megan was tied in at the bottom — a very important note.

Now at some point, Eric couldn’t descend anymore  — this was because the green rope, which was attached to him, then to the clove hitch at the anchor, then to the backpack, and then to Megan. This rope was taught between him and the clove hitch at the anchor. It looked like this:

Notice how eric is tied into two ropes — the purple one going to me, which I’m lowering him on, and the green one which is clove hitched to the anchor so it can’t go anywhere.

Now again, Eric was taught on the green rope and couldn’t lower anymore. In my mind, the problem and solution was simple — simply undo the green rope from the clove hitch, and Eric will be able to continue to lower. I have him on the purple rope, so he won’t fall. The rope will simply slide to the ground and let him continue.

Now I made this decision in about 2-3 seconds. I neglected to remember that the backpack was attached to this rope. I somewhat forgot that Megan was attached to the rope(she was on the ground, so I assumed she was “safe”). And as I type this, I realize how dumb it is to think that undoing the green rope will allow Eric to descend — the whole reason he’s descending is so that he can grab the backpack, which is attached to the rope!

So anyways, I undo the green rope and let it drop. Then I see it quickly falling. I hear megan yell “the backpack is falling!” I realize I had made a mistake(oops, dropped the backpack), but didn’t realize how bad it was. The backpack probably took 3-4 seconds to completely fall. During this time I processed the information that Eric might get yanked pretty hard if/when the backpack gets taught, so let me make sure I’m holding on tight to the break hand of the grigri.

What I DIDN’T consider:

1)The backpack might land on Megan(pretty bad)

2)The backpack might bounce off a cliff, AND TAKE MEGAN WITH IT(very very bad).

To be honest, I had kinda forgotten(in those 3-4 seconds) that megan was down there really and was a concern to be reasoned about — perhaps because I hadn’t had a lot of experience with 3 people climbing at a time.

In any case, number 2  is what ends up happening.

The backpack slides down and lands on the ledge with Megan, and the CONTINUES to slide down past her to ledge 2. Megan says a few moments after she saw the backpack falling she realized she might get dragged with it. She decided to brace herself and grab onto whatever she can.

Now what happens next is somewhat interesting — Megan said she felt a big of a tug/pull, and that was it. When we went to retrieve the backpack, it seems like it had landed on ledge 2.

Eric said he might/might not have experienced tension on his side of the rope as well — he can’t quite remember.

Surprisingly, when Eric went down to get the backpack, it was mostly fine. I couldn’t notice any serious tears or breakages in it. In any case, either before Vietnam or after I will be retiring this backpack(or perhaps sending it into Opsery to be fixed!). It has gone on ALL my backpacking trips — through Iceland, my 2 months abroad, to being sprayed with human feces in Chile, to my belt loop being used as a tourniquet when my friend fell off a cliff, to falling off this cliff itself. It’s had quite a time.

Also, miraculously, my camera and second lens that were in there were fine — yay for putting stuff in cases! However, my phone screen had shattered. Perhaps the fall wasn’t as bad as I thought for the backpack, or perhaps my cases just really protected my camera.

Now to some serious stuff.

Analysis

This event could have EASILY been fatal. The only reason it WASN’T was because that ledge #2 was there. If it had not been, and if instead there had just been free air that the backpack had fallen into, Megan would have certainly been yanked off the cliff. Because the distance of rope between her and Eric was pretty high, she would have taken a pretty bad fall before be caught by his end of the rope.

It was also strange that Megan only felt a slight tug on the rope — that would only happen if the distance of rope between her and the backpack was precisely the distance between her and ledge 2. It would have made more sense if she felt a STRONG pull and was pulled off(because the distance between her and the backpack was shorter than her and ledge 2), or didn’t feel much pull at all(because the distance between her and the backpack was MORE than her and ledge 2). However, she described it as a pull, and she said the rope was taught between her and the backpack once everything stopped. I don’t dispute her story, but it seems *very* lucky that the rope was *exactly* the length of the cliff, in that it’d cause only a slight pull rather than yanking her off her feet. Perhaps I don’t understand the physics 100%, and under/overestimate how much of a tug the backpack would cause; but it doesn’t matter, because theoretically(and in a very probably case), the backpack could have fallen into free space and could have yanked her off her ledge.

It’s also worth noting that this is basically a greater than 1 factor fall(probably close to factor 2) involving the backpack — it fell twice the distance as rope was out. If you think of the backpack as a climber, and Megan a belayer, the backpack fell that distance(to Megan), and then that distance again, to ledge 2. This is not good for your rope — they’re only rated for some many falls that are > 1. You can read more here:https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/questions/508/climbing-rope-is-rated-to-x-uiaa-falls-what-is-a-uiaa-fall

Here’s a better explanation(I think) of fall factor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_factor

It’s basically just distance of rope out / distance of fall. The only way you can have a > 1 fall factor is if you fall past the belayer, and the greatest fall factor you can have is 2.

Now it is the case that the backpack was much lighter than what these ropes are tested for(40lbs vs 180 pounds), and the factor fall might have been much less because the backpack was sliding, and it might not have fully extended the length of the rope because of my misunderstanding of the series of events. But I’ll leave it up to Eric to make the decision about what to do with his rope.

Analysis to prevent this

Now how do I prevent something like this in the future? For one, this isn’t the first something like this has happened — I had a very close call with my friend Sean in Thailand where he was trying to lower off a rappel. You can read more about it here:

Chiang Mai day 2

I just re-read my reflections from that incident, and I would like to say a year later, I think I do follow them. I do do buddy checks. I do have 2 points of safety. I do tell people to put their rappel extension through both leg loops(I actually taught Megan this one just yesterday!). So I’m glad I take my own advise seriously.

Now onto what happened here.

This incident has my questioning my ability to lead other people on these types of trips — people are putting their trust in my, and their lives in my hands(literally). I keep letting them down with foolish mistakes like this. This one especially foolish. If I had just thought for a few more seconds about the consequences of my actions, something like this could have been prevented. I would have realized — 1 the backpack was still on the rope, and that 2 Megan was attached to said rope.

Saying to myself, “just think about your actions a bit more before you do them” is not going to solve this for two reasons.

1. It’s hard to form a habit to “think more” at the right times, and it’s too vague of a rule to follow to prevent this.
2. Even if I had thought about it longer, I had forgotten that the backpack was on the line to begin with. How this slipped my mind I don’t know, but thinking more might not have solved this.

Regardless, I will try to be more mindful about the things I do when I go climbing. There’s many times I have put a helmet down and it’s rolled off a cliff, or I’ve kicked rocks that almost landed on people’s heads(that was less than a month ago), or other things of that nature. I’ve formulated rules to follow to prevent these specific things(never take off your helmet, be very careful when you’re stepping around on a climb above people), but the root cause is not being mindful.

Eric had a good suggestion on how to prevent these situations: any time you’re doing something you haven’t done at least 5 times, think about it 5 times.

This is pretty good advise. I’ve built an anchor more than 5 times, so even though it’s crucial to get right and dangerous if you fuck it up, I’m confident in my abilities, so I’m not going to do it 5 times.

Lugging up a backpack is something I have NOT done 5 times, so I should definitely think about it 5 times. Or in this case, when I unclip something from a clove hitch when I have another rope that I’m belaying someone on, I should think about it for more than 5 seconds.

Another rule, which I think might be easier to follow than being “mindful” is to be very careful around loading/unloading systems.

In the case with Sean, he was loading a system to check if it was ready to rapell down — obviously it wasn’t, and it could have been fatal if it wasn’t.

In this case, I was unloading a loaded system(the backpack was loading the system).

It intuitively makes sense — if you’re loading a system, you’re most likely putting something into the system for the system to protect — most often this is your life you are loading. If you’re unloading a loaded system — well you better have a damn good reason, because there’s a reason the system is loaded(probably to prevent something from falling).

And to make sure this rule actually checks things that might actually be problematic, I have to make sure I do basic safety checks — that is, to test a system(load it) before fully committing whatever it is to that system. And when unloading a system — though I can’t think of many cases where you’d want to unload a system that is actively being loaded — make sure that there’s nothing depending on that system that you don’t want to fall.

In a greater sense though, I just need to be more mindful. This is something that I not only struggle with in the rock climbing world, but even in my day to day life.

I also want to believe that because we were rushed for time, I was trying to be a bit more quick about things, and never giving things the full amount of thought they deserved — if we hadn’t been so rushed, I think I would have spent more time about this problem. But in the moment I was still hoping we could complete machete ridge, and I wanted to get Eric down as quick as possible so he could get to the backpack. So I wasn’t thinking at my full capacity.

Futhermore, there is a few more rules about leading in general that I want to follow.

For 1, we’re not carrying big-ass backups up a route anymore. Tom’s friend Collin suggested something which intuitively makes sense to me — the leader carries no backpack, the follower carries one. And nothing too big, maybe just a 22 liter. A 2nd 70m rope would *not* fit in 22 liter pack — we’d have to ask around on how people carry this second rope. But some people suggest just to trail it off the end of your gear loop while leading, or just tie into both ropes at the same time. These both make sense — but if this incident has shown me, maybe I should get some professional advise on how to do this, rather than just reading some internet forms.

Next, I don’t want to do 3 people for an adventure like this. It was too many people, and it really slowed us down.

Finally, if I’m going to do an adventure like this, I want to be able to make sure the other person with me is capable of moving *quickly*. What I mean by this is they’re competent in following and doing all the things required for following, belaying, ect — I shouldn’t have to remind them how to do any of this stuff, and anything they do, in terms of setting things up, rope management, ect, should be muscle memory. This also applies to me — obviously lugging a backpack up the side of a hill is not muscle memory.

Once this criteria are met, I’ll try again on Machete ridge. There’s also another “traverse” in Pinnacles that’d I love to try.

Perhaps I’ll try climbing around with a backpack and trailing a rope just to get a better feel for these things.

One more note I’d like to make about time management: this trip had horrible time management. I think I was afraid to tell Eric and Megan that we should wake up REALLY early and ideally be at the crag at sunrise. In a perfect world, I’d have asked them to wake up at 4am with me, and been more strict about leaving the camp on time. That would have given us the chance to arrive at the crag at 7:30, and may be prevented us from being rushed, and perhaps would have prevented “the incident”. I think I need to treat rock climbing with a bit more respect — it can be a “leasuirely” activity, but trips like this need to be respected as a hardcore alpine-like activity, with alpine starts, and an “this is dangerous, respect the mountain” alpine mindset.

To summarize:

1. Be mindful
2. Be careful and thoughtful when loading/unloading systems(and question why you’re unloading a system)
3. Better time management, more strict about time management
4. No large backpacks, no backpacks for the leader!
5. Get more efficient/comfortable with belaying/clipping/rope management
6. Only 2 people on complicated trips
7. Only experienced/comfortable people on complicated trip.

So now that the incident has been summarized, onto the rest of the day…

The adventure continues

TBD. I’ll work on this tomorrow.

Today is a special day. It’s my 25th birthday.

Today there is a lot to reflect on. It’s 10:57 pm right now. I’ve lived 25 years, and if life goes well, I got about 50 more good years.

Looking back, the last 5 years have been crazy. So much has happened:

I got internships, met friends, was in the newspaper; lived on my own, found love, won a hackathon, graduated college. I moved to San Francisco. I lost love, I got my first job, first raise, first promotion. I almost had a vasectomy, and then didn’t.

I’ve had a plethora of relationships, and a plethora of one-night-stands.

I went on my first backpacking trip, then another, then another. I fell in love with rock climbing. I re-fell in love with running. I ran two marathons, climbed a 5-pitch sport route, ascended the US’s highest peak, and witnessed 2 too many near-death experiences.

I traveled to a city on my own. I traveled to a country on my own. I traveled the WORLD on my own.

I got a new job, and just last week, I lost my position.

Now what does 25 mean to me.

25 is the beginning of life. 25 is the beginning of getting serious.

A month ago, on May 22nd, I made a promise to lose 30 pounds. Or, as I’m calling it, 25 at 25. For many reasons, some of them bad, some good. The main reason is to get better at rock climbing: the less weight you have, the less you have to pick ujp. I also want to be more confident. I want to push myself, and see what I can do with my body. I want to see what I can achieve.

I’ve already lost 14 pounds, in 5 weeks, which is not too shabby. I started at 189.6, I’m now 174.6. I believe in myself, regardless of whether others do, or even if others think it’s a bad idea.

I also got a personal trainer. I’ll try to pick up weight-lifting. By January 1st, 2018, I expect to be the fittest I’ve been in my whole life.

And that’s why fitness is such a great goal. It’s the one thing you can COMPLETELY CONTROL. You can’t control losing your house. You can’t control falling in love, or even finding love. You can’t control how much you can get paid. You can influence all these things. But at the end of the day, your fitness, and your health, and what you eat is 100% under your control.

Once you achieve your fitness goals, then you can say yes, I can do anything, as I conquered the one goal that requires me to do everything.

And my speculation is this: once you can accomplish anything, then of course you become more confident. And people see that confidence and they’re drawn to it — in your career, in your personal life. (It’s just like playing life on a bit easier difficulty).

And I hope this new found confidence will reflect in those that I date — no longer going for one night stands, or saying, “sure, an open relationship sounds fine”. I spent time on myself, mentally, and physically, and you’re damn right you’re going to date just me or nobody.

And this means dating people who share my fitness goals — no more (as my one friend put it) voluptuous woman. If I’m going to put this sort of effort in my fitness goals, I expect you too as well. It’s important to me that my significant other and I can do things together, and that doesn’t work when we’re on different levels of fitness.

There’s another big thing going on in my life right now. I’m moving: by Wednesday, June 28th, I’ll be living in Oakland, CA.

I’m dreading the move right now. I’m afraid it’ll push me farther from my friends, I’m afraid I won’t go out as much, I’m afraid I’ll get depressed.

But these are also blessings: it’ll make me focus more on myself, my fitness, my career goals. It’ll also make me focus on my security classes, and side-projects, and finally break into the security industry which I’ve been telling everyone I’m planning on doing for the longest time.

Moving to Oakland will also test me on a saying I’ve always held dear, but never really applied: “live below your means”. My Dad always used to say it(as I feel most dad’s do). But it’s a good piece of advice. Yes I could live in SF, yes I could stay in this fancy studio, but is it really worth the exorbitant price I pay? I think being humble is important to your character; and, at some point, if you do find yourself needing to live by such means, you’ll already be used to it.

I think this move also signals a change in my behavior: cut the fat out of my life.

I think life, like fitness, is about bulking and cutting. My first 3 years here in SF, I took every opportunity and said “YES“. But now is the time to say, okay, which one of these things do I really value, and which ones do I not care about. I think, for at least the coming months and year, I want to focus on:

-Focus on my fitness

-Building deeper relationships with friends and significant others

-Focus on my career

Everything else can go by the wayside.

And my way of cutting the “fat” out of life is to hit the reset button. I find it easiest to do this when you have a catalyst — change your routine, shake things up; like quit your job, move, travel the world, experience something life changing. This time, I happen to be doing two of those — changing jobs, and moving.

(I’m sure this “reset” technique is why I have problems maintaining relationships — family, friends, significant others. But that’s for another blog post).

So once again, let me press that reset button, but really hard this time. I want to make some big changes in life, so I’m going to have make some big sacrifices.

And I will start saying NO more.

No I don’t want to go to that party, I want to study for my class.

No I’m not going to drink that beer full of worthless calories.

No I don’t really want to go on that hike, I want to go climbing.

No, I don’t want to go on a date with you, it’s not going to go anywhere.

I think I read it in Steve Job’s biography, and it really stuck with me — that you need to cut everything out of a company, minus 2-3 things — and really focus on those things. That’s the only way the company will create good products. And I feel like that’s very true to life as well.

So what do the next 5 years hold? Things I want to accomplish:

-Move my career into security and start doing a job I LOVE and not just LIKE

–Buy a house(see: live below your means)

-Find a girl, and truly fall in love. Anything else(read: marriage, heart break, divorce) is optional

-Do a triathlon, then do that damn Ironman.

-Get really good at climbing.

-Find a city that I love, that is not the Bay, and move there.

But anyways, It’s late now, almost 12:30 AM, and I’m being melodramatic. While I am planning on doing the things I say, the words I have said that are not quantifiable you should take with a grain of salt. I will make my goals happen, we’ll just have to see if it’s an explosion or a slow burn 🙂

Now let’s step out of this close-up picture of immediate problems, and look at bigger picture.

I think though I may be on a “cut” phase of life, that I still have much to grow.

I was walking down the street the other day after a date that didn’t turn out how I hoped, and I was thinking of how it could have been better. Was I not interesting enough? Was I not cute/hot enough? Did we not have chemistry? Was she not interesting enough for me? Did I not find her cute? Did we not have much in common?

Which led to the thought: well what do I like? what do I stand for? Who am I? And I realized, I still don’t know.

I’m 25. And I’m still thinking about myself, and who I want to be, and who I am, and what I like, and what I want to do.

And of course you’ll always be growing, but I was still surprised by still how much I still don’t know about myself. I still ask these questions with a passion, with a loneliness and hunger, as if something was missing from me, and I had to find it.

And that’s exciting.

I often think of a comic I saw from Southpark(I know) in times like these.

While I’m not sad from anyone dumping me, I still have strong feelings such as these for life. And knowing I have still have as much of a fire for life as I did 10 years ago, knowing that I still have goals, desires and dreams, and the willingness to achieve those things. Knowing that I still have that fire, is the most beautiful thing in the world.

And having that fire allows you to experience ecstasy

And having that fire allows you to feel beautiful anguish

And having that fire allows you to create beautiful things

And having that fire allows you to experience beautiful things

Because having that fire is what it means to be alive

And that fire is why

Life is just beginning.

I have lost and broken many things on this trip. I feel I won’t return with anything I left with.

Here’s a list of things lost/broken so far and I’ll update it as I lose/break more shit:

Broke two sunglasses(broke the flying fisherman’s on Queenstown mountain, broke my replacements over time).

Blue backpack towel(left on aquapakcers boat, NZ)

Orange backpack towel(replacement for the blue one, left somewhere in NZ)

Backpacking pants(left in Queenstown, NZ hostel)

Tips to the trekking poles(so they don’t stab shit).

Broke one trekking pole in half(see my Ben Lomond post from Queenstown).

Left headphone earbud lost.

Lost 1 cable to charge phone. Broke another one.

Lighter. Lost on the Abel Tasman trail somewhere.

Blue spork(snapped in half, Mt.cook national park, NZ).

T-Mobile sim card. Probably lost somewhere in Bangkok airport. I won’t be able to receive texts from that number till I get a replacement(probably in the states).

Blue hat(RIP!). Left somewhere in Koh lanta, Thailand.

Toiletry bag, including: 4 razor blades, razor head, 5 days worth of contacts(this is probably the worst loss because now I gotta send myself some replacements somehow when I get to Japan), flood, toothbrush, toothpaste, soap. Left somewhere in cave lodge.

Broke weed pen when I dropped it in the ocean on NYE in Koh lanta. Still kinda works though.

Lost stuffable backpack. RIP. I really liked that thing, and I don’t think I can replace it until I get back because its pretty specific. Lost probably in Krabi.

Rivets on left backpacking shoe came off. It makes tying the shoe weird, and I’ll be watching it. Date unknown.

Anyways, I’ll update with more and I inevitably break shit.

Today, once again I almost died.

Today was January 1st, 2017. Unlike all you Americans :p , new years for me is about 15 houes before yours. 

So today I woke up in a bungalow I had booked(I had also booked a hostel, but I was fearful that I wouldn’t get the required sleep if I came home new years day).

My bungalow:

Sorry for the dark pictures, for some reason I felt I didn’t need to turn on the lights lol

Anyways, bungalows are great. It didn’t have AC, but honest I don’t care that much.

So anyways, this is the day I decide to ride a scooter. About 150cc I believe it was.

Now I should mention I’ve never ridden a scooter before. But damnit I want to try. I’ve been toying with the idea of trying to get lessons or whatnot, but everywhere I asked they said they don’t give them. Oh well.

For the record, scooters/motorcycles are EVERYWHERE in Thailand. Moreso then cars. 

Anyways, so I get to the hostel after walking back from my bungalow, and apparently the hostel rents scooters. 200 bhat($6/day). So the Convo goes like this.

Me: “I’d like the 150cc scooter”

Him: “OK, 200 bhat”

Me: *gives him the money*

Him: *gives me the key*. It’s that scooter, parked right outside. You can have this helmet *gestures to helmet on table*.

And that was it! No paperwork, no taking of passports, no insurance. Real safe I know lol.

So I watch a few YouTube videos on how to ride a scooter and I’m ready to go.

Basically they’re all automatic, and there’s a throttle on the right handle that you turn to go faster. And then it stears like a bike and has breaks like a bike.

Here’s a pic of the one I was riding:

So I do a couple turns in the small parking lot we have, and then I just go fuck it, and head into traffic.

Tbh, it was way easier than I thought itd be. Just like riding a bicycle. Except faster.

So I start driving all over the island. First I go south, and stop at a great restaurant with this view:

Then I drive around, and eventually need to put some gas in my scooter. Not knowing where the gas opening is, or even what type of gas to use, I have someone else do it for me.

There are these street vendors that sell gas by the liter in glass containers. They look like this:

So naturally I go to some guys stand like this, and just buy one and he fill s up the scooter. I assume it’s either very marked up, or mixed with shit or both. But it’s not my bike, and as long as it doesn’t explode it’s good gas for me ???.

So anyways, more driving ensues. I meet a bunch of people having a dance party somewhere(if you daw my snapchat you know what I’m talking about). Saw some great views.

At one point I went down a dirt road(which is ill advised in a scooter, I know). A bunch of local kids saw me and started giving me high-fives on the scooter ??. Too cute. 

I continue on my journey around the island, and eventually I need more gas. This time I stop by a legit gas station. Some locals see me struggling a bit(really I had it under control), and when they saw me with 300 bhat in my hand( $10) they start laughing. 

“100 bhat full tank” the lady says. She fills the tank for me while I put the money in, all while laughing in good jest with her friends. To be honest, if some guy came to a gas station with $500 you’d probably laugh too saying it’s too much.

So I continue again on my journey. I go in freeways, over bridges, basically all over the place. I cover every inch of that island with my scooter. So much fun.

During my last leg, I’m making my way down to the lighthouse on the southern most tip. For reference, ko lanta looks like this:

And I was making my way down to the tip of the shaft, so to speak ???

Then. 

Disaster struck.

I was driving down the road, and I went over a smallish pot hole while going around a gentle turn. I was probably going 25-30ish mph. My back tire started to skid. I thought maybe it was water or something(wtf brain, how does that make any sense). So I slow down gently, trying not to skid out.

Then still thinking it’s water and the skidding would stop, I stsrt to speed up again.

Nope. Bad idea.

So I pull over and see wtf is going on.

Anddddd it’s a flat. Well shit.

I’m not in the middle of nowhere, but I’m in between two towns, a good 20 minute walk. And if I had to walk the bike, it’d probably be an hour or more. 

So fuck.

I try and go on Google and see where the nearest mechanic is. No such luck. Google maps is also useless.

I don’t know why my first inclination in times of trouble is to go to technology to figure out my problems. Time and time again my travels have proven just asking someone something will get you the results 10x faster, and with 10x better results. Be it asking for stuff to do, booking a room, food suggestions. People > technology, and this is coming from someone who works in technology. I think it’s the fear of social interaction that freaks me and and makes me run to a computer screen.

Anyways, I go to the closet house and have this conversation.

Me: “You speak English?”

Him: puzzled look

Me: “flat tire” *points to motorcycle*

Me: “know where to fix?”

After a few different iterations of this same conversation:

Him: “Down street, make right. Green house” *points to a green house*

Me: Thank you! Côp kun kraap.

So I take my bike and wheel it about 100 meters down the st. Mind you, these things are fucking heavy. Probably like 500 pounds or something like that. So with a flat it’s a PITA.

Finally I get to the green house. Here’s my interaction:

Me: “Hello?”

I see a man laying on the ground in his house relaxing. It’s Sunday, new years day. And this is some guys house, not a bike shop or mechanic shop or anything. They have chickens out front and clothes drying. So of course he’s relaxing.

Me: (louder) “Hello?”

A small child comes out.

Me: “Flat tire. Can you fix?” Point to bike.

She looks at bike, says something in Thai to her dad. The dad comes out. He’s wearing like just a towel and no shirt. 

He motions for me to wheel it up to their outside garage.

Remember how I said those bikes were heavy? I consider myself a strong guy, but I struggled to get it up this slope. I kept slipping, struggling to get it up. The guy sees me struggling and helps.me push it up. Together we get it up to his house.

At rhis point, he pushes some lever on the bike to prop up the back wheel(not the kickstand). Obviously this guy’s knows bikes. 

He also had 5-6 bikes out front. My guess is he’s a mechanic of some sort. I count my lucky stars that’d I’d break down near a mechanics house.

Anyways, he gets to work, ordering his kid to turn on the pump. 

Now a little background for people who don’t know how tires work(I’m looking at you Casey Wessel). They basically have an outer rubber casing, the thing that comes in contact with the road. Then they have a “tube” on the inside that goes between the rubber cover and the metal rim of the wheel. This is the part that gets inflated. I don’t know the technical terms, sorry.

Anyways, he pops off the rubber part with a flathead, and begins to inflate the tube with the pump. It deflates, as does my hope. Obviously it was punctured by something I ran over. And now the only way to fix this is either to patch the hole somehow(which never works), or put in a new tube. And I’m doubtful this guy will be carrying spare tubes for the make and model of my bike in his personal house.

Here’s a pic of the bike while this is going on. It’s the only pic of the incident I have and it’s kinda blurry, sorry.

Anyways, the whole time he’s working on it, I’m standing there like an idiot unsure what to do. He tells me, “please take a seat”. 

At this point the motherfucker takes out a handsaw. Yes, a handsaw. I’m not sure what you need a saw for when working in a bike, except to trap silly tourists by destroying their vehicles. I didn’t get the feeling this guy was going to fuck me over, but I was perplexed why he needed the saw.

Then he starts sawing through the tube of the old tire. Oh, so hes going to take that one off and put a new one on. Cool. Guess he does have a spare. But how is he going to get the new tube on if he needs to saw this one off??

I don’t wait to find out, becuse like the guy said he wanted me to take a seat at the front of his house, so I wouldn’t be able to see what he’s doing. Maybe people watching him makes him nervous. Anyways I go to the front of the house and wait out my fate. 

The little girl comes around ahead, hops on one of the motorcycles that’s in this guy’s front yard(it looks like a project by the way it’s half run down). She starts it, smiles at me, I laugh and give a smile back.

Then more waiting.

Finally after about 10 min, the guy calls me over. The tires back on, fully inflated. I check it and it seems fine. 

I thank the guy, and hand him 1000 bhat. Note this is 5 times the daily rental price of the bike.

While I was waiting, I looked how much these repairs cost, and it’s usually 100bhat($3) for a new tube. However, this is a guys house, it’s his day off, and I’m some shitty tourist asking for help. And 1000 bhat is only $30, so i dont feel bad letting that money go to a good cause. The guy says thank you and I’m about to head out. Then his wife calls after me waving the $1000 bhat. I assume she thinks it’s wayyy to much, but I just wave her off saying keep it and whatnot.

Besides. I need to pay back the karma gods for letting me break down in such a non-dangeous way in front of a mechanics house lol.

So anyways, the rest of the day is uneventfully. I drive down to the tip of the shaft ?, go into a national park(which costs $8! Outrageous), check out a lighthouse, and drive back. Here’s some pics from the lighthouse:

Tomorrow I’m going on a snorkeling tour. If it’s anything like the one me and molly went on, it should be a lot of fun. Plus I’ll get to use my swim suit for the first time for this trip!

And as I write this from a bar, this cat is just sitting here on the bar staring at me. Soaking in the… somehing. Cats and dogs here are so cute, and they’re EVERYWHERE.

Anyways, that’s it for now.