Wednesday, December 5, 2007

The Fragile Peach



Nate on The Fall Guy (V9) at the Buttermilks (top picture, I'm not sure what's going on in the bottom one) - photos - Jeff Sillcox

Nate "Salt 'n' Pepper" Peach and his friend Nik were in a bad car accident on the way to Joe's Valley a couple weeks ago. Nate broke his neck and collar bone and will be in a neck brace for six weeks playing a lot of video games. Nik walked away and was climbing the next morning in Joe's (this was his sixth car accident this year so he's had a lot of practice).

If you're going to flip a car end over end five times, try it in a Forester... might keep you alive even if the airbags don't go off.


Nate training for the next time an old man comes at him on the wrong side of the highway...


And finally, before we move on to the climbing portion of the blog, here's some footage of a very similar accident...




One of the better problems we did in Joe's was The Wind Below (V8), a very tall steep face with big moves between big holds. I managed to flash up to the last hard move and jumped off because I got scared and pumped trying every move three different ways before committing. After botching a move on my second go, I looked at the top of the boulder and decided I wanted to be up there and sent. Ben and Jeff H. did it quickly also and Nik tried dynoing for the lip at 20+ feet a few times before realizing that his nine lives were running short.

Nik on The Wind Below (V8)
photo - Jeff Sillcox


Here's a little gallery with a few other shots from the trip (click the photo for the gallery):

photos - Jeff Sillcox

Eric showed up right when it got really cold and sent his nemesis from the spring, Resident Evil (V10) in an anticlimactic two tries.

Eric sticking the first move of Resident Evil (V10)
photo - Jeff Sillcox

Then it was a whirlwind trip back to the east coast for Thanksgiving and route setting for a comp at Vertical Extreme with Drew "DUI" Davis. I set a V8 version of Black Lung and got black lung from breathing shredded tire dust all week. I won't go into details of the comp, but I will say that Drew and I should probably retire from route setting after putting on such a perfect comp.

4 comments:

Abbie said...

This one might win the award for best post ever.

Jeff Sillcox said...

Yeah, Nate shirtless usually makes my day too.

Andrew said...

Dear Sirs,

After reading the preceding account, I must conclude that is it but the latest (albeit the most impressive) installment of disinformation presented in the American media about the attempted assassination plot on the life of a young gentleman (in the truest sense of the word, not in the ill conceived view that labels anyone vacating their bowels or bladder in one side of a public lavatory as such), our esteemed friend and colleague- Nathaniel Peach.

What’s in a name? While the origin of Dennis Coles’ nom de plum arises from the stocking mask he wore in early Wu Tang videos to avoid detection of the police, the name of Peach has much subtler connotations, which will not be explained further here.

The facts are simple. On the 29th of Oct, 1971 a young, talented slide guitarist, Duane Allman, was struck down in the apogee of his faculties by a truck bearing peach flavored fruits. Months later an album of unreleased previously recorded material was compiled and released as Eat a Peach for Peace. It goes without saying that this incident did not occur in a vacuum, that elsewhere in the world at this time the powers that tamed a continent being misused by its original inhabitants was fighting a bitter struggle for it’s independence somewhere in the jungles of former French Indochina. This was long before ever single piece of plastic available in your local Wal-mart was manufactured in those nether regions of the continent that has more vowels than consonants.

Sometime between the time when the White man first set foot on your shores (alas, I have given up my location!) and the composition of the song Synchronicity by the Police, a young Ron Kauk donned a red kerchief (Cochise remembered) became one with his La Sortivas and Mother Earth- synchronisticly- and ascended the now famous Reach for a Peach in Tuolumne Meadows, which used to be called something else by the original peoples, it’s just that nobody really cares.

Press FF on the tape deck. The next track after Synchronicity II is ‘Every Breath You Take.’ I know what you are thinking, that if you listen to this song played in reverse you will find the death sentence of our young protagonist. Wrong. This song was the crime scene of the weakest tribute ever made to a great fallen Hop Hop artist by one of the fakest.

Listen, If you are not seeing the story unfold by now, you never will. Connect the dots, do the math, do not pass go. Dan Brown is currently plagiarizing a book Umberto Eco wrote about it 15 years ago, but in a more popularized version, where Tom Hanks will play Peppa, and Meg Ryan will play the lovely Megan. Sleepless in Seattle II, strait to home video.

Peaches while delicious when ripe, are at their most fragile, and bruise easily.

Unknown said...

Through an intense and highly sophisticated investigation, I have managed to discover and obtain a copy of the song that the elder gentlemen was listening to on that fateful day, as he was dirving so haphazardly on the wrong side of the road. You can listen here...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvAnQqVJ3XQ