Vikki Weldon

The past few weeks have exhibited both an extreme high and low for climbers; the girls in particular. Angie Payne proved herself as one of, if not the, strongest female boulderer in the world today by completing the Automator (an established V13) at RMNP in Colorado. Angie is on a rampage this season after coming back from a year long hiatus due to an ankle injury. She’s a a champ on the stone and a true inspiration to me.

The climbing world also suffered a severe loss with the death of Belgium climber Chloe Graftiaux  earlier this month. Chloe won the Vail World Cup this year and was  ranked 3rd in the Boulder World Cup series this season. It was an untimely and unfair death and my condolences go out to her family and friends around the world.

I feel that these two events have shown us the highs and lows that the sport of climbing has to offer. We can work hard and achieve what has never been done before, and we can also suffer the consequences of a dangerous sport. Now I know that Angie was bouldering and Chloe was alpine climbing, and both offer different dangers and challenges, but there is a common thread of success and consequence in all forms of climbing.

These two events, as well as my own experience in the past week has ignited a little flame in my soul.

This past Tuesday I headed out to Squamish with my boyfriend Ryan for an evening bouldering session. The goal for Ryan was to complete an absolutely beautiful and asthetic V10 called Hydra in the North Wall boulders (a problem that I cannot do a single move on..sigh), and for me to continue to work on Worm World Low. Ryan made progress on the problem (and sent it quickly on Saturday when we went again. The photos below are from Saturday).

Ryan crushing Hydra V10, The North Walls

Hydra V10

"Sasha l'avion!"

It ended up being dark when we walked into the Grand Wall boulders to World World. As I walked in I was completely devoid of enthusiasm. I’ve been working this problem all summer and am completely stumped at one move every single time. It’s frustrating. Instead of approaching the problem with a clear mind and psyche, I was already anticipating the frustration and failure. I was not appreciating the cool night air or the wonderful person by my side, and the fact that I was engaging in the sport I love most. Nope. It was a grumpy girl brushing the problem and pulling on her shoes that night.

As I worked the powerful sloper moves on the bottom of the problem, I felt my right wrist was weak. Usually I tape my wrist for these moves to help support it, but alas, no tape in my bag that day. I managed to do the crux move from a lower down move (I won’t slay you with details on the problem), something I had not managed to do before. Instead of feeling excited with the progression, I was indifferent. The next moment, I was trying the same move and felt an intense pain in my wrist. Busted. I could barely open my hand and could not hold on to any holds. The day was over and I immediately fell into a depressive state.

I’m no stranger to injuries. Just this spring I injured my shoulder and am still recovering from that. As a youth climber I suffered serious finger injuries, and I still feel the lingering effects from those as well. It sucks. Simple as that. Injuries are a pain in the ass. Yet they also come with the sport.

The next few days I was overcome with regret. My wrist ached constantly and all I wanted to do was go back out and climb. It’s funny how you don’t appreciate something until you’ve lost it (cliche alert!). I went back out to Squamish this past Saturday to watch Ryan kill it on The Hydra and to watch him session a crazy hard testpiece called The Squaminator (V12), also in the North Walls. Awesome to watch people crank, not so awesome to be sitting with your ass on the ground and your shoes in the car.

But the next day. A sliver of hope! I taped my wrist up like a mummy and tentatively climbed a few moderates. Not completely pain free, but definitely not as bad as I thought. After not even a week on the ground I felt rejuvinated. It was so good to just climb. I was with amazing people (Thomasina Pidgeon as well as her little girl, Cedar) who inspire me and make me happy. It was fun. Plain and simple fun. The way it should be.

Thomasina hanging out at Paradise Valley

Cedar brushing holds just like her mama!

Rock Lady Boulder, Paradise Valley

Crushing at the Rock Lady Boulder, Paradise Valley

So I just wanted to share with you all the lesson I have learned and hope to keep learning. Appreciate the ability to be able to do what we love. Push yourself to new heights and keep in mind the consequences our endeavours can have. Angie Payne and Thomasina Pidgeon are my heroes. Chloe Graftiaux was a soul lost to us too early. Climbing takes you to heaven and hell and back again. Enjoy the beauty, push yourselves, be healthy and be aware.

It’s Sunday night, and I’m sitting cross legged on my bed, starting at my school schedule for tomorrow. August 23rd, back to school. As much as I love BCIT and the nursing program, I am feeling a lump of resentment in my belly. The song  horribly sung by Adam Sandler in the movie Billy Madison comes to mind…”Back to schoooool, back to schoooool, to prove to daddy that I’m not a fooooool”. Blah. It’s still warm and sunny out darnit. I want to rock climb, roll in the dirt and jump in some lakes.

The past two months have been busy. Too busy to write a blog post apparently. Here’s the quick recap: Half-way through the summer I realized I wasn’t making any money and quickly snagged a job as a nanny for two blonde-haired blue-eyed wonderful little monsters and spent the rest of the summer as a kid. We made cookies, went swimming and played in countless water parks. I love being a kid. I grudgingly finished up my summer courses, putting in a little less effort than I should have, but passed with some sort of colours (wink) and squeezed out every bit of enjoyment I could from the two and a half week holiday I had off from school.

Somewhere in the middle of that my mum came out to the coast and we set out for a three day kayaking tour just off of Vancouver island. It was a beautiful trip. We camped in Pirate Cove and ate lunch at Blueberry Point. Sounds like a children’s story book. Told you I love being a kid.

Momma Weldon showing off her pipes in the front there

Of course there were the countless days I squeezed in at Squamish. While I continued to work with the kiddies I resorted to driving up for quite a few night bouldering sessions. The best moment was out in the North Wall boulders with a few of the team kids, Sean and Ryder, as well as my good friends Gary Foster and Jamie Chong. We head up to try a V7 highball called Styx that Jamie had done a few weeks earlier. It was a new and crazy feeling to be pulling hard moves up high with only a spot of light from my headlamp in front of me and the encouragement of my friends pushing me up from the darkness below.

I’ve also been putting in quite a bit of effort on my boulder project, Worm World Low. A new friend, Allen from Texas, got a fun shot of me working the finishing moves. It still feels quite hard and far away, but as the weather cools and I continue to work it, I hope it goes down soon.

WWL, V10 (Work in Progress)

I’ve also been coaching once a week at the Edge for kiddies with a passion to keep up with the plastic crushing in the summer. One day we crammed 5 people into my little Gopher and headed out to Chek. The four teammates included Ryder, Sean, Alannah and Ayesha. Four psyched individuals with a newfound passion for climbing outside the gym. It was great to see them crush, and refreshing to climb with such joyful and fresh spirits.

E-Crew taking over the Crag

Ayesha "Weesher" Khan crushing stone to make pebbles on Timber Queen

"Yeah no big deal, just stopping to smile for ze picture" Alannah Yip on Timber Queen, 5.12c

Finally, this little summer recap ends with my little trip of the summer. I left for Cow-town on August 13th for a week long trip home to visit family, friends and the ol’ faithful Canadian Rockies. After a summer of bouldering in Squamish, I was keen on a week of limestone sport routes. Yeah yeah, I’m no hard core trad crusher like Will Stanhope or Hazel Findley (who are two wicked strong peeps by the way). I love to boulder and I love sport and I wish to love trad. It’ll happen one day, I swear.
Anywho, back in Cow-town, I managed to get 5 solid days of straight climbing in.
DAY 1: Out to Planet X with brother, Mike, and sister, Stacey, as well as an Alabama friend, Todd Clark, who I met last year in the Red. We had a bit of a ringer the night before at the Drake, the local pub in Canmore, so we were all light and dehydrated. This seemed to help Stacey, who crushed her project, Shooting Packer, a super fun 5.13b. I on the other hand was suffering a tad from the altitude change. Lack of water and lack of air makes Vikki one useless rock climber. It was fun nonetheless.
DAY 2: Back to Calgary to celebrate the end of an era. The Calgary Climbing Centre (CCC) was having one last hurrah for the A-frame bouldering cave. I bounced around and cruised on the walls that I was raised on for one final night before they were torn down the next day. The replacement is a massive free standing boulder. Upon leaving on Friday, they already had the metal frame up and were texturing and t-nutting the panels. Keep tuned Calgary climbers. Check out the CCC webpage for more details to come.

We also went to the river to skip stones. A big thing to do in Calgary, skipping stones..

Honing some prostar stone skipping skills at the Bow River in Calgs

Todd's a Juggler, don'tcha know

Day 3: Acephale. What a wonderful place. A nice 45 min-1 hr. hike puts you up to my most favourite place on earth. It was a brilliant day, with many old friends and loads of strong beasties. I managed to squeak in a send of a newer route called Ice Box (5.12d/13a?) which is on the far right side of the Upper Wall. It’s a super technical and powerful route. Tons of fun! We had some funky weather that day as well. Throughout the day, fog billowed down from the tops of the cliffs as if someone had placed a dry ice machine above the cliffline. We ended up in our own little cloud bubble, which was surreal, yet also frustrating as the surrounding moisture found its home on the rock. As the end of the day arrived, I felt my heart strings tugging as I realized another year would pass before I would be able to visit this crag again.

Luke Muller and my dog Logan rocking some sick top-knots

Day 4: TALL STOREY! Woah, what’s that? A multi-pitch? No way. Oh wait, it’s fully bolted. Ok, phew, not quite at my trad days yet folks. Stacey and I geared up (16 quick draws yo!) for a freshly bolted 8 pitch 5.11c classic up in Echo Canyon (Grotto Mountain) on Wednesday. Our older brother, Chris, had done the route a few weeks before and raved about it. It was my first multi-pitch where I wasn’t with someone who was hugely experienced. It was a beautiful day, on fantastic rock, pulling rad moves up high in the air. Can’t say more than that. It’s a great feeling when you can share such a unique love  for a sport with your siblings.

Day 5: Last day on. Back to Planet X. I was exhausted from the day before (A 9 hour day from car to car), but was psyched to get one more day in on rock before I had to leave the following day. Yet before I knew it, I had fallen asleep on the smooth river stones after my warm up, which had felt terrible. Apparently I was ready for a day of cheering on good friends from the ground. But apparently my buddies were not so stoked on that idea, and I was awoken by my little bro, Mike, who was clapping at me (yeah, clapping, I know right) to get a belay and shortly after encouraged to get on Shooting Packer (the route Stacey had sent earlier in the week). I suprised myself immensely when I made it to the chains. I love suprising sends. They’re so much more fun than the expected ones.

So there you have it. Five days of pure fun. My last morning in Canmore, I woke up with smoke in my nose and in the air. Apparently when BC has over 400 fires raging in the province, Alberta gets a whiff of the smoke now and then. It was disappointing not being able to say goodbye to my favourite mountains as they hid behind a veil of smoke. But never fear Rockies, I’ll be back to give ya a hug.

Anywho, that’s my blog update. Unforunately I took no pictures of climbing on this trip. I was too busy having fun doing it instead. But enjoy a few other randoms I managed to take.

Peace out boys and girls.

Where'd all the mountains go? Thanks BC for all the smoke!

Logan stopping to smell the flowers

Water droplet on the pretty petals

Me 'n ma dawg enjoying the smokey summer breeze

This past weekend I spent both days under the shadow of the Chief in Squamish. I haven’t bouldered in Squamish for a few months, and to be honest, I hadn’t been that psyched to spend that much time there this summer. I was tired of the same old problems and areas. But this weekend, I headed out with a group of psyched climbers, keen on finding some different boulders. With the help of the new Squamish Bouldering guidebook authored by Marc Bourdon, which contains tons of new problems, we had an amazing weekend!

I tried a ton of new problems, and rediscovered my love of the Squamish boulders.

I also began to work on a beautiful and often climbed V10 at the Grand Wall Boulders called Worm World Low. I have done the stand start, which is a soft V9, and had dabbled on the low start a few times last summer. I have never put a huge effort into a boulder problem. I most often focus on sport routes in the summer. Last summer I put my heart and soul into Division Bell, up at Chek. Yet this summer, I’ve been bouldering alot and I think it would be amazing to try something hard and to put a lot of effort into it. Worm World Low is perfect, because all the hard moves are made with your left arm, which saves my still recovering right shoulder. So I’ve made it my goal to try Worm World Low and just see what happens.
Also, lately the girls have been KILLING IT in the boulder fields. Thomasina Pidgeon recently climbed The Summoning Sit, a sick V12 at the Murrin boulders near Squamish. Angie Payne just sent No More Greener Grasses, a stiff V12 at Mount Evans. Alex Puccio also recently sent Centaur, V12, and flashed a V10 called Fireball. It’s just amazing to see such power and strength come from these dedicated climbers, and I know they are all capable of pushing the boundaries of female bouldering. I’m inspired and psyched and I want to climb as hard as them. One step at a time!

Here are a few pics from the weekend.

Ryan working Stalling Tim, V10

Jamie running a lap on Killing Me Softly, V6

Enjoying Prime Time Sit, V5, at the Murrin boulders

Ryan Chilling with the Chief

FREE RANGE TURKEY_dispatch #7 from camp4 collective on Vimeo.

Finally, I recently came across this short video clip of Yuji Hirayama, one of the most impressive rock climbers in the world. I say impressive, because not only is he a talented and intelligent climber, with the capability to onsight 5.14 routes, he is also one of the most positive and happiest people. This video showcases this attitude and I was so inspired by Yuji’s philosophy. So check it out, feel the psych, and go climb some rock!

This just in! Sean McColl just finished second place in the World Cup today in Eindhoven. Ryan and I just watched it live through a link on the IFSC website. Sean finished agonizingly close to the first place winner, with a one fall difference between the two. Anna Stohr finished first for the women, even though she wasn’t able to finish the first problem. She just floats up the wall. What an inspiration.  Check out the full results at the IFSC website.
Way to go Sean! We are cheering for you!!! Keep it up and have a blast.

Now time for Squamish!!

Howdy. Here are a few fun climbing snaps from a weekend trip to Pemberton Ryan and I took a few weeks ago. It was perfect weather and we both had a great time, climbing on the classics of the area.
Into the Light is a beautiful problem and according to Ryan, “probably the best boulder problem in B.C.” Phew! What a claim! It sure was fantastic though.
We were also lucky enough to bump into a friend from Squamish who gave us the low down in a beautiful little gem hidden beside a waterfall. It felt like we were in a fantasy world, hiding in the little alcove right next to a raging waterfall. Such a trip.

Well, that’s all for now. I just hope you enjoy these photos.

Side note: Stacey (my big sis!) finished an impressive 24th place in her first open bouldering world cup in Vail, CO this weekend. Ryan also competed and finished an equally impressive 26th place. One fall from making semi-finals. Balls! Next time! Sean McColl finished 16th, falling out of the final 6 after the semi-final round. I’m sure the big guy ain’t too happy, but hell, he has a whole summer of Euro fun to make up for it. Have a wonderful trip!

Until next time,

xoxo

Morning Blossoms

Olson climbing "Into the Light" Classic!

Into the Light once again

Brushin off 'em rocks

Dazed and confused on "White Bread Lover"

Into the Light. Step 1

Step 2!

Gushing Waterfall. Classic Unnamed

I’m really really excited to announce that I’ve been accepted as an athlete for Team Five Ten. Five Ten has been making shoes since before I was  that big annoying bump hanging off my mama’s belly. I can remember back when I was a wee lass and had just graduated from the Boreal Ninjas, I was quickly drawn into the world of Five Ten. I would continually climb through pair after pair of the ol’ Dragon’s, refusing to take them off my feet even when my big toe was scrapping against the walls. I just received a box of shoes, which I opened with the gusto of a 5-year old at Christmas time. I’m back wearing Five Ten’s! I’m ecstatic to be an ambassador for such a fantastic and respected company.

In joining the Five Ten team, I have had to resign as a member of Team Mad Rock. Mad Rock invited me to the team in 2003. I can still remember my teenage voice yelling in excitement in my head as I stammered out a trembly ‘thank you..’ to Timy Fairfield as he offered me a spot on the team. In the past 7 years, Mad Rock has supported me endlessly, and I cannot thank them enough. I feel they are a wonderful and innovative company who truly cares for their products and their athletes. I wish them all the best in the future!

Hey team.

Just sneaking around the interweb and saw a few posts about the final results. Couldn’t find the full results (not sneaky enough) but here are the top 3 in each category:

Women’s

1. Clarrie Lam

2. Elise Sethna

3. Melissa Lacasse

Men’s

1. Sean McColl

2. Yves Gravelle

3. Terry Paholek

These are the provisional results apparently, so don’t get all cranky if there is a mistake.

Stacey ended up finishing 4th. A strong finish for a girl making a comeback in the world of competition rock climbing. She admitted she was a tad bit upset, but when I chatted with her she was all happy and ready to enjoy friends and bubbly drinks at the afterparty. There seems to be a theme with the comeback girls lately. Angie Payne made quite the show last weekend at the ‘Battle in the Bubble’ in Boulder, CO, just barely conceding to Alex Puccio on the final problem. She’s apparently been out for the game for quite a while due to an intense injury. It’s all very inspiring to watch these girls perservere and come back strong.

On another note, I also heard that the prize money for this competition was given for up the 6 places in the Men’s category and only up to 3 places in the Women’s. Don’t quote me on these exact numbers by the way. In any case, it is an interesting situation. There were 44 men registered in the competition while only 15 girls entered. That is a whopping big difference. And in that respect, then perhaps it is fair to give more money for guys? BUT..think about it. Girlies don’t have a choice to be girlies. They just are. They cannot control how many of their sex enters into a competition. They try just a hard as the guys to earn their ranking at the end. So how come they should get penalized for this? Also, prize money is normally given out equally to both men and women through out the TDB circuit. Prize money is not controlled by the TDB, but rather the gyms that hold the comps. And there normally is alot more men than women at any given competition. So it seems to be out of the ordinary, and may be why it is causing a bit of an upset.

Just something to think about. I’m sure there will be lot’s of debate on the subject. There are always two sides to the story. In my opinion, I would say that it is unfair to give less money to the girls. But I am a girlie. So I’m a tad bit biased. Anyways, your thoughts ladies and gents?

The first day of the 2010 Canadian National Championships are finished folks! Here are the results. Keep your eyes peeled for tomorrow’s finals results!

Just a note…check out who is dominating the women’s field. Big sister’s making a comeback!!

Just stumbled upon this little blast from the past. My big brother, Chris, climbs ‘Be On Four’, a beautiful highball with a treacherous landing in the forest of Squamish. Chris was the one who started this whole ‘Weldon family of climbing’ thing we have going on now. My mother proudly boasts that she felt him swinging on her rib cage when he was in the womb. Having become more up to date on my anatomy, I now know this is not true. But truly, he is a pure rock climber, heart and soul.

I always find my siblings inspiring. My sister, Stacey, is going to compete at her first Boulder Nationals next weekend since who knows when. She’s been plagued by numerous injuries (those damn Weldon genes can be ruthless), but she never gives up and now it seems she’s been making a big comeback. Just check out the east coast Tour de Bloc results. She’s definitely been leading the pack in the majority of the competitions she’s been competing in.  Can’t wait to see how Nationals goes for her! And of course, Mike, the little (or I suppose, fairly large and hairy) power house pulls up the rear as the youngster of the family. I’m continuously overjoyed to go climbing with my little bro. I’ve never met a more positive force in my life. He’s back in Calgary for the summer, so he should be psyched on a solid season of pulling down in the gorgeous Rocky Mountains.

Weldon Sibs (minus Chris) clowning around in Maple Canyon (circa 2000ish)

I love my bro’s and sis.

(Chris is still smelly though)

Just a quick heads up that Blurr has their new 2010 spring line up and running. Looks like a great bunch of comfy and fantastic clothes once again!

Based out of Squamish, Blurr is an enthusiastic that has truly made its mark on the climbing world. And now having hooked up with La Sportiva, the Canadian brand is making it way across the waters to Europe. Pretty sweet!

Here’s a little blast from the past of some unique  advertisements that Blurr had out in the climbing mags and a link to an interesting article about them!

Which one is your favourite boys and girls??