White Christmas

I had a killer Christmas this year hanging with Sheyna up in the crisp Colorado mountains. We stayed in a big house up on Peak 7 in Breckenridge, hit the town, rocked the yuletide, and shot some cool photos. I'm headed back down to the Frontrange tonight to pack for a 3 week trip to Hueco Tanks, TX on Tuesday. Mountains > Desert, the way I like it.

Above: A late night photo session in town. I took a gnarly board edge to the knee a split second later from the first (upper) photo. Yowzah, you can see it coming! Below: Three ways to see a pine.

Pickin'

This morning Chuck Fryberger swung by the cabin and we filmed a segment for his upcoming climbing film (Spring 2010). I've been writing some new music lately, a genre I like to dub as: "Acoustic Techno Fury." Badass. Anyway, we shot an interview, talked jive, and recorded some "Fury". Good times.


above: video frame courtesy of Chuck Fryberger.

Serving Optics

Daniel Woods at 'full crux' on the classic highball boulder problem, "Jungle Bar" (V11) 8 Day Rain Sector, Rocklands, ZA. Daniel has one of the best 'power crimping' hand strengths in the world. It is pretty sick. If there is a hold, he can pull on it. Colorado's boy represent.

Serving Optics

"Sunseeker." V13 Mt. Evans, CO. Carlo Traversi. A voluminous alpine storm hit us only a moment later. Certainly, was of those cases where I am glad that we pushed our luck and made the long hike in, despite certain rain. It worked out that we got this shot just in time. Mount Evans is a very special place that always manages to capture my imagination and my heart. One of Colorado's finest.

New Work

I delivered a whoppin' 20 photos into this month's Urban Climber Magazine. Including: A 2 page spread "First Burn" at Mount Evans, a full page 411 News column about Jonathan Siegrist, Paige Claassen and Kyle Owen "Drive" columns, a 2 page gallery spread on "Psychedelia", 3 spot images in the "City Life" feature, the full length feature article "Climbing Giants, the making a Rocky Mountain Highball", a Mike Spaulding "Unearthed", and a Jon Glassberg "Reads UC" column. Totally stoked.


In this month's Climbing Magazine, you'll find the story and images of Matt Wilder's newest trad route, "Cheating Reality" 5.14R. A truly amazing accomplishment and I was amped to have been there to capture it! Pick up these issues.

So it goes, chuggin' along here in B-town, and preparing for some huge media projects this winter/spring. Full bore baby!!!! Thanks for following - A

Good 'ol Kentuck.

I've just returned from a nice 2 week trip down to the Red River Gorge. I worked on the house, shot some photos, and dedicated some time for myself to climbing and scampering around the southern woods. I'll tell ya folks, it feels good to be alive. Especially after the flight back, which ranks top 3 worst flights I've ever taken. Never again Northwest Airlines through Memphis!


I boarded a 2 row prop plane, on the tarmac, in the dark and pouring rain, with a bunch of young, drunk rednecks (read: hammered after a NASCAR race), who constantly joked about kicking out the emergency exit door to puke (one dude actually puked in their seat.) It sucked. Obviously the 65 year old stewardess and I couldn't do a damn thing about any of it, as I'm sure some kind of a fight would have broken out in this already old and rickety crop duster. Cool right? Yup.



On our last day in The Gorge, we had the Motherlode Cave to ourselves, which was a pleasure for shooting! On Dan Mirsky's first attempt, see photo above, I was shooting the climber, and the contour of the cave, as silhouettes, in order to expose the sunset behind him. Suddenly, Dan fell from the last move and he took about a 70 foot whipper!!! The biggest I have ever seen, surely.

So, with the 'shot in mind' in the bag, I decided to expose, on his next attempt, the texture of the cave I was sitting in. Pretty wicked place to hang out. Dan sent the route on this attempt. Sick.