Feb

12

Arriving in Hueco Tanks

Rock Climbing / Travel

Driving

10 days on the road so far. We took 5.5 days to get to Hueco Tanks (4000 kms, 7 states, 35 hrs) – casual timing, we know, but shorter days of driving are easier with a baby. Our little girl mostly slept but took in some of the landscape here and there too. The drive included: Visits with friends and good eats in Columbus and Nashville (highlights for sure); Accidental tours of 2 sketch towns in Arkansas (the opposite of a highlight); ‘Whataburger’; ‘Pappy’s BBQ’ in Monahans, Texas (photo below); 80 mph speed limit (in Texas); 22 different state license plates; The alphabet game and similar car-ride pass-the-time activities. What we have learned so far: we have an awesome car and we packed way too much stuff!

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Jan

23

Tour de Bloc 9: Climber’s Rock

Rock Climbing / Tour de Bloc
Dave Voltan on problem #3

Last weekend’s Tour de Bloc was a lot of fun! It was also full of surprises. First of all, even though the field was super strong, two returning veterans of the Tour de bloc scene (Dave Voltan and Gary Posey) managed to clinch a spot in the finals, while one of my favourites and a regular finalist (Seb Lazure) just missed finals by 8 points. Matt Moreau is a new force in the Tour this year and he showed up and took 3rd place (eking out ahead of Eric Sethna by 2 attempts). In fact, the men’s final ranking was very close – and all about attempts. Fred Charron repeated his amazing performance at the last Tour de Bloc, finishing in 2nd place (1 attempt ahead of Matt). And, in a throw-back to the old days – Rockhead‘s team member and G6 representative Dave Voltan came out on top by finishing 3 final problems in only 4 attempts (one fewer than Fred)! Congrats buddy!

For the ladies, the field was also big (about 40 competitors!), including none other than Thomasina Pidgeon from out west and a whole group of super strong women! Every year the women’s field gets stronger and more impressive! Iyma Lamarche continues to impress on the Tour scene, taking her first win (yep, she beat Thomasina by 7 attempts). Way to go Iyma! Unfortunately, I didn’t get any decent pictures of the women’s finals :(.

Congrats to Voltan and Iyma for their amazing performance at the Climber’s Rock competition! Here are a few photos of the men’s finals!

Fred on problem #2 and #3.

Matt on problem #2.

Eric on problme #4.

Here are the official final results:

Women’s Finals:

  1. Iymma Lamarche (4/6 & 4/6)
  2. Thomasina Pidgeon (4/13 & 4/11)
  3. Kerry Briggs (3/5 & 4/7)
  4. Kacy Wilson (2/2 & 2/2)
  5. Marieta Akalski (2/4 & 3/5)
  6. Su En Neo (1/1 & 3/4)
  7. Amanda Berezowski (1/2 & 3/8)
  8. Kaska Kowalska (0/0 & 3/11)

Men’s Finals:

  1. Dave Voltan (3/4 & 3/4)
  2. Fred Charron (3/5 & 3/4)
  3. Mathew Moreau (3/6 & 4/5)
  4. Eric Sethna (3/6 & 4/7)
  5. Keith Mackay (3/6 & 3/6)
  6. John Bowles (3/8 & 4/12)
  7. Gary Posey (2/7 & 3/8)
  8. Jo Skopec (1/3 & 2/3)

 

A few more pics:

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Dec

17

More Water Splashes

Experiments

This post is mostly for Matthew. Last post was a review of a water splash i had done a long time ago, but I wasn’t able to get the focus and the quality I was looking for. Well, i’m glad to say that this time, I was able to figure out a way to trigger my SB-600 with a shutter speed much faster than 1/250th of a second. In fact, these pictures were taken with my SB-600 fired at 1/5000th of a second. The nice thing here is that I was able to shoot at ISO 400 with a f-stop at about 22, which keeps everything in focus (more or less). Hopefully, Matthew, you prefer these ones! I do!

For the others interested in climbing pictures, stay tuned, there is a climbing comp coming up in January and, in February, we are going on a three month road trip to the Southwest. I can’t wait! Until then… indoor studio shots. Enjoy!


More splashes from today:

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Nov

20

Water Splash revisited

Photo Monday

Almost exactly two years ago, i shot a very similar shot I had called Ice meets water. With time, I accumulated a few more tricks up my sleeves and I wanted to revisit this shot with what I’ve learned. Here is the result:

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Nov

07

Tour de Bloc 9: Joe Rockhead’s

Rock Climbing / Tour de Bloc

This past saturday was the first competition of the 9th Tour de Bloc season and the first thing I noticed was how big the women’s field was compared to other years (about 35 open competitors)! I found that to be a real good indicator of the tour’s success and the popularity of bouldering in Canada, which is exciting to witness.

This competition also proved to be interesting because there were so many new faces to the finals! My two favourite competitors to watch on Saturday were Kacy Wilson and Fred Charron. They both put up super impressive performances, gave it their all, and showed that they are real contenders for the number one spot. Also, I particularly enjoyed women’s and men’s 3rd problem, because of their very intricate beta reminiscing of the European-style problems we are used to seeing on the World Cup series (Thank you Tonde!). It’s unfortunate that no one could manage to finish men’s third problem, but great fun nonetheless!

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