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So I plan to turn 60 this year and feel the need to do something special to celebrate. How about –

60 new trad / sport / bouldering leads in 60 areas.

60 new climbs means a new bouldering route, a new sport lead or a new trad lead – no top roped climbs will count . The definition of 60 areas I’m working on, but I definitely plan to expand my usual range.

I’d really like to hear everyone’s recommendations for classic climbs in your area – it’ll make it more than a tick list if we’re working your local favorites – and better yet if you climb with us. Thanks!

I’m giving myself until the end of the year since my climbing partner has been somewhat out of sorts since 12/29/2013 due to recovering from a rotational elbow dislocation. We’re coming up on 6 months since and she seems to back near full strength – yay!

Trip Planning

• Tahoe Area
• NW California (Bigfoot Country)
• Oregon / Washington / SW Canada
• Wyoming / Colorado
• Utah / Idaho

Click me to see pictures of the climbs so far

Keeping Score / Trad Routes

1. 05/28 Benton, CA / Benton Crags / Locals Only / Get Lost, Trad 5.7 single pitch. Seemed easy; 70m rope is just barely enough!
2. 06/20 Sonora Pass / Chipmunk Flat / Eastbound Wall / Cornflakes and Classics, Trad 5.7 single pitch. Face to crack to chimney – nice variety. First ever trad lead fall. Beautiful, high quality granite and no crowds!
3. 06/21 Mammoth Lakes / Horseshoe Slabs / Rodeo Rider, Trad 5.6 single pitch. I don’t recommend it, few opportunities for gear placements and the first one is really sketchy.
4. 06/26 SF Bay Area / Castle Rock SP / Waterfall Cliff / Leading to Death, Mixed Trad, 5.9. First ever 5.9 trad lead. Watch out for poison oak!

Keeping Score  / Sport Routes

1. 04/11 Lone Pine, CA / Alabama Hills / Gunga Din / Alabama Dome / Southern Man, Sport, 5.9; straightforward. Anchors are over a lip which affects the rope pull.
2. 06/21 Mammoth Lakes / Horseshoe Slabs / Horseman, Sport, 5.10a; great lead for me, heady crux at the first bolt and another crux up high. Highly recommended.

Keeping Score / Bouldering Problems

1. 03/10 Bishop, CA / Happy Boulders / Headbanger’s Cave / Beer Tumor Right V4; personal best, a great day.
2. 05/23 Mammoth Lakes, CA / The Ravine / Various V0’s; recovering from sore elbow, good spot to warm up on varied climbs.
3. 06/16 Marin County / Mickey’s Beach / The Beach Boulder / V0; beautiful sea shore. Low tide would be good. Our crash pad got a saltwater dunk.
4. 06/19 Sonora Pass / Donnell Vista / Vista Corner / V0-R; perfect hands crack, kinda highball but you’re leaning in and can’t see the ground so it feels secure.
5. 06/19 Sonora Pass / Switchback Boulders / Warm Up Wall / Climb 8 in SuperTopo / V1; slab with thin diagonal crack. Hard RH side pull then balancy reach with the LH. Later in the week, we returned and met Kerwin Klein at the Switchbacks. He pulled in talking about rehab for nerve damage and a beer belly, then proceeded to crush everything we were projecting…
6. 06/23 Bear Valley / Hell’s Kitchen / Roadside Boulder / Northside Crack / V0-; “Perfect, short splitter”. My admiration for proficient crack climbers grows and grows.

“Generally speaking, pain is what makes the body a particularly important concern for the individual” – A.J. Vetlesen

“Yes. Now that my fill_in_the_blank hurts less, I’ll probably stop doing what I did to make fill_in_the_blank feel better – until it hurts more again. Rinse and repeat…” –  Me

The shoulder is a marvel of range of motion + ability to apply force in many different directions. When it all works, it’s awesome. When it gets sore –  different story.

I suppose I’ve done everything I could to damage my shoulder – 1) years of playing tennis wherein the only thing I really liked to do was serve as hard as I could then get to the net for a volley –  long ground stroke rallies are for the patient. 2) more years of playing volleyball wherein the things I liked to do most were serve as hard as I could and then spike the ball hard whenever I got the chance.

And now 3) I’ve taken up rock climbing and hard (for me) bouldering, which puts another severe load on the shoulder, although it’s more pulling and pushing rather than a throwing motion.

Long story short, one shoulder is sore (I’m right handed so there’s a clue which one) and I’m now forced to take care of it.

After a couple Google searches and a conversation with my soft tissue repair guy (whom I can’t recommend highly enough; he’s repaired me many, many times over the past 7 years), I’ve settled into this (almost) daily routine:

1. Internal rotation, external rotation, scapular retraction exercises –  all with strength bands of various resistance levels. At the moment the external rotation is very weak and painful, but getting better. 2012/05/28 update – external rotation is now pain free at low weights; big improvement. Now I have to not overdo it on weight or reps per the article below…
2. Shoulder flexor exercises by doing push-ups. Thanks to Alyssa’s sharing of this article, I now know how effective push-ups are for shoulder rehab.
3. Bat wings
4. Supraspinatus and Subscapularis lift. Stand holding a light pair of dumbbells in front of your thighs, palms facing each other. Keeping your thumbs pointed up, raise your arms up at a 30-degree angle to your torso until just above shoulder height. Hold for 1 second, and lower to the starting position. Do 2 sets of 8 to 10 repetitions.
5. Scapular wall slides
6. Light dumbbell military presses.
7. Lots of ROM stretches
8. Foam roller sessions to release the lats.
9. Yoga stretches

And, eat a low-inflammatory diet, take fish oil daily, get lots of sleep, and – probably most important of all – work on climbing endurance more often than climbing power until it all settles down.

Examples of shoulder articulations.

It all seems to be working (it was up until a couple days ago when I applied my “if some is good, a lot more must be a lot better” mantra, anyway). Please do your own research…

I’d also like to hear what’s working for you in the Comments section below!

Namaste, Rick

P.S. – 2012/05/28 – found a nice T-Nation article on sore shoulders.

P.P.S. – 2012/09/18 – found a good Men’s Health video on the “The Surprising NFL Shoulder Exercise”.