High Altitude Training

I would like to say I've been too busy training to blog, but the truth is that I've just not been doing it. But today, my climbing partner Dave is going to jump in for a "guest blog."
Here's the word from Dave...

Dave here, Logan's climbing partner. We haven't been doing a lot of training together lately, mainly because of the busy summer schedule here at the gym. We have been training on our own whenever we can however. Biking, hiking Pinnacle and the occasional climbing session at the gym. That's all about to change though.

Logan and I are about to set off for Colorado to knock off a couple 14'ers. (mountain peaks that top out over 14,000 ft). We will be attempting Crestone Needle via the Ellingwood Arete route and if all is going well we might try and link up Crestone Peak as well. The Ellingwood route is a beautiful arete that offers about 2000 feet of climbing up a prominent arete that tops out at 14,197 ft. A lot of the climbing is 4th class scrambling with a number of 5th class technical pitches thrown in along the way. We plan on getting in as many actual climbing pitches as we can by doing the direct start and avoiding some of the ledges that this route is known for. Even the 4th class stuff is serious though due the massive exposure and altitude.

Once we get to the summit we'll make the decision whether to attempt the link up or not. Our decision will be based on a number of factors including weather, time of day and how we're feeling. The ridge line between the two peaks looks pretty intimidating, almost more so than the route up. A lot of down climbing and rappelling only to climb back up some pretty gnarly knife edge ridges. It's only about half of a mile between the two summits but this will dramatically increase the length of our day. I'm hoping we can do the whole link up in under 12 hours of climbing and hiking. Sounds like a long day until you realize that's not even half of what we're planning on climbing at Horseshoe Hell.

Speaking of Horseshoe Hell, We are officially registered. Our team name this year is "The Climbing Elvii." Andy Chasteen, the organizer of Hell, sent out a message about 1 hour after registration opened and said it was well over half full already. Proving once again that this comp is one of the favorites among climbers all over the country.