Rock and Ice General Blog
Blogs by Rock and Ice contributers.
Jaw as square as a cinderblock, shoulders like a bookcase and with his long black hair pulled back in a ponytail ala Steven Segal before Segal got the chin fat, Sam Elias is a matador of climbing, trotting around the globe, dispatching bull routes from Venezuela to Mallorca.
Sam is one of those rare and powerful people for whom climbing just comes easily. He stopped by RI HQ yesterday, fresh from a weekend at Rifle where he plucked 5.13s as effortlessly as a child gathers daisies, and this on the heels of a three-month overseas trip where he onsight soloed the first ascent of a tenuous 30-meter 5.12 off the coast of Olympus in Turkey (check out the video sickness here) and, on another day and with a rope, bolted his first line, learning first hand the perils and pratfalls of route development (watch that video here).
Sam regaled us with tales of his travels, which included confirmation that the old trad lines in the Czech Republic are indeed as runout and dangerous as we’ve heard. “You’re in groundfall range 90 percent of the time,” he said, visibly impressed. He was also impressed by his traveling companions on that trip, Yuji Hirayama and Daniel Woods. “Those guys are seriously strong,” said Sam, which is like having Mike Tyson remark that someone could “seriously punch.” But I knew that Sam wasn’t exaggerating, having just witnessed Woods tromp all over the problems at the recent Bouldering World Cup in Vail, lofting up moves with such ease he could have been teaching a class. Watch Woods crush it here.
Sam is living the wonderful life of a pro climber, and is appreciative, having one-armed his way up the Bachar Ladder of professional climbing by actual hard work that even included a stint at this magazine, where he manned the phone back in subscriptions. One winter day I watched him hang from ice tools for close to three hours straight attempting to onsight an M10 out at a local mixed crag. It was an amazing feat of endurance that got him all the way to the last move and when he finally fell he didn’t scream or kick or throw his tools. He simply lowered off and said that it was a good route.
Today, Sam has one of those coveted spots on The North Face climbing team and pounds Rocky Mountain asphalt as a Black Diamond ski rep during the winter. Last winter he also chugged up and down a campus board from early fall to January when he entered Ouray’s mixed climbing competition. Sam very nearly won, too, beaten only by the defending machine Josh Wharton who slapped the top buzzer ahead of everyone.
Life on the road, though, has potholes that no one can avoid. Yesterday when Sam stopped by he had hit an especially deep rut. Three hours west of his home in Boulder, he was in his Subaru Outback, cruising down Grand Avenue in Glenwood Springs, when he heard a shrill, mechanical whine.
“I did what I always do,” said Sam, who shrugged only slightly, “and assumed that the screech was coming from the car next to me. But when I pulled ahead the screeching didn’t go away. Then all the dashboard lights came on and my car went totally dead and without power steering I just wrestled it into the parking lot of a fly-fishing shop.”
Sam called a nearby Midas shop and they sent a mechanic with a tow truck. As Sam and the Midas guy pushed the Subaru around to hook up for the tow, the mechanic paused, reached down and picked up a large metal gear off the parking lot (see photo). He let out a long, low whistle. “This come from your car?” asked the mechanic.
“I looked around the parking lot and it was really clean, not a place with junk strewn around,” said Sam, “so figured the gear probably came from my car, and when we looked underneath it there was a hole in the engine the same size as the gear. When we got to the Midas shop, the mechanic couldn’t wait to run inside and show the gear to his buddies, who were all amazed.”
The mechanic diagnosed the Subaru as terminal, and paid Sam $50 for it. Sam took it all in stride, of course, shrugging the episode off as easily as he might shrug off a failed 5.13 onsight. For Sam, it seems, a broken car is like a sunset, a temporary inconvenience with a sunrise right behind it.
Sam is one of those rare and powerful people for whom climbing just comes easily. He stopped by RI HQ yesterday, fresh from a weekend at Rifle where he plucked 5.13s as effortlessly as a child gathers daisies, and this on the heels of a three-month overseas trip where he onsight soloed the first ascent of a tenuous 30-meter 5.12 off the coast of Olympus in Turkey (check out the video sickness here) and, on another day and with a rope, bolted his first line, learning first hand the perils and pratfalls of route development (watch that video here).
Sam regaled us with tales of his travels, which included confirmation that the old trad lines in the Czech Republic are indeed as runout and dangerous as we’ve heard. “You’re in groundfall range 90 percent of the time,” he said, visibly impressed. He was also impressed by his traveling companions on that trip, Yuji Hirayama and Daniel Woods. “Those guys are seriously strong,” said Sam, which is like having Mike Tyson remark that someone could “seriously punch.” But I knew that Sam wasn’t exaggerating, having just witnessed Woods tromp all over the problems at the recent Bouldering World Cup in Vail, lofting up moves with such ease he could have been teaching a class. Watch Woods crush it here.
Sam is living the wonderful life of a pro climber, and is appreciative, having one-armed his way up the Bachar Ladder of professional climbing by actual hard work that even included a stint at this magazine, where he manned the phone back in subscriptions. One winter day I watched him hang from ice tools for close to three hours straight attempting to onsight an M10 out at a local mixed crag. It was an amazing feat of endurance that got him all the way to the last move and when he finally fell he didn’t scream or kick or throw his tools. He simply lowered off and said that it was a good route.
Today, Sam has one of those coveted spots on The North Face climbing team and pounds Rocky Mountain asphalt as a Black Diamond ski rep during the winter. Last winter he also chugged up and down a campus board from early fall to January when he entered Ouray’s mixed climbing competition. Sam very nearly won, too, beaten only by the defending machine Josh Wharton who slapped the top buzzer ahead of everyone.
Life on the road, though, has potholes that no one can avoid. Yesterday when Sam stopped by he had hit an especially deep rut. Three hours west of his home in Boulder, he was in his Subaru Outback, cruising down Grand Avenue in Glenwood Springs, when he heard a shrill, mechanical whine.
“I did what I always do,” said Sam, who shrugged only slightly, “and assumed that the screech was coming from the car next to me. But when I pulled ahead the screeching didn’t go away. Then all the dashboard lights came on and my car went totally dead and without power steering I just wrestled it into the parking lot of a fly-fishing shop.”
Sam called a nearby Midas shop and they sent a mechanic with a tow truck. As Sam and the Midas guy pushed the Subaru around to hook up for the tow, the mechanic paused, reached down and picked up a large metal gear off the parking lot (see photo). He let out a long, low whistle. “This come from your car?” asked the mechanic.“I looked around the parking lot and it was really clean, not a place with junk strewn around,” said Sam, “so figured the gear probably came from my car, and when we looked underneath it there was a hole in the engine the same size as the gear. When we got to the Midas shop, the mechanic couldn’t wait to run inside and show the gear to his buddies, who were all amazed.”
The mechanic diagnosed the Subaru as terminal, and paid Sam $50 for it. Sam took it all in stride, of course, shrugging the episode off as easily as he might shrug off a failed 5.13 onsight. For Sam, it seems, a broken car is like a sunset, a temporary inconvenience with a sunrise right behind it.
- Duane Raleigh
