Southeast first half

                                                        Isaac on the Shield v12, Little Rock City

the fridge stocked with the bare essentials

Ian Cotter Brown on the Golden Harvest v10

Haley Waldrop quickly sends the Big Poppa v8

I've been on the road now for about 6 weeks. So far it has been as expected, awesome. The crew and I have been climbing at lots of great areas. We've gone to Little Rock City, Desoto State Park, Rocktown, Zahnd, Horse Pens 40 and the Citadel. There's only about 15 days left here for me, which is not nearly enough time. In the Southeast half of your trip can likely be taken out by rainy weather and poor conditions. In the 20 days I've been here I've had 8 climbing days. Maybe 4 with good conditions. These kind of odds make sending hard boulders really difficult. I wish I had tales of how I'm crushin' this and sending that. But I've really just been doing whatever I can. Perhaps I'm out of shape since it's the beginning of the trip, or maybe the grades here are more solid. I don't know. When you're used to climbing hard you feel a bit deflated when you've traveled so far to do your best only to find that you're bumbling around on moderates. Five years ago I would have been a mopey bitch about this. Now, I have a little less expectations for performance and more expectation for fun. So that has been the theme..fun. And there's lots of fun to be had out here in the south. As usual I wish that I had more time here so maybe I could do a hard boulder or two. But since I don't, good times will do.
      My friends and I have been mostly staying in Mentone, Alabama. This town holds the southern most ski area in the states. The Cloudmont Ski Resort in Alabama has one chairlift that gives skiers access to a single ski run that is 150 ft long...holy shit. Get Jeremy Jones down here now! I know ...not very impressive. But it's still cool to be staying in an Alabama ski town. This place has a great central location to all the best boulderfields in the south. We have even found great potential right in town that hopefully we'll have time to get to.
    I have been climbing with lots of great people on the trip too. We are hanging with Isaac who demonstrates every hard boulder he tries quickly and with style. We also got an opportunity to meet an Evolv athlete named Ronnie from Florida. Ronnie has a prosthetic leg. But that didn't stop him from crushing the Zahnd classic Harvest Moon v8. That was inspiring to see. We've also been climbing with Haley Waldrop. Despite being short she still crushes all the power lines in the south. It's always fun for me to climb with another short person that , ya know, feels my pain. The list of great people and good climbers goes on and on around here. I'm super psyched that I've got to hang out with all these people.
    On the video front I've been helping Ian Cotter-Brown of Rockwarrior Films get footage for his next video featuring the Southeast. There's been lots of sending going on an the video is piling up. I've been watching the editing process and the film is coming together really well so far. Keep your eye out for this one if you want to see some Southern classics.
     After all this planning I'm halfway through the Southeast part of my roadtrip. I have high hopes for better weather and more great times for the second half. As of the 20th I leave for New Orleans, Louisiana to visit my parents and go partying with old high school buds. From there I head down to Austin, Texas to chill with my brother. Eventually I'll land at the next big destination in Hueco Tanks, Texas. I am very excited for Hueco. I used to go there a lot but have not been in 5 or 6 years. It will be fun going back to all my old projects. Maybe they'll still kick my ass...but maybe not. In the meantime, the weather today is shit in the south. Heavy rain is forcasted for the next 2 days. Just in time for a much needed rest day. My psyche is being renewed as we speak.