GOING VERTICAL...CLIMBING THAT IS

We learned this past week from climber, Alex Honnold, arguably “the most accomplished big wall solo free climber in the world” that scaling that vertical environment (unroped) is all about attitude (as Bob Rosenberg so eloquently articulated in his Thought for the Day); that your diet is important (like the chocolate cake served at the meeting that day); that when it rains on the wall… you get really wet; that most of the work comes from your legs (pushing up the face and utilizing your arms and finger holds for balance); that you better be able to hold your entire body weight with the tip of one finger; and that night climbing is also a big part of the sport if you are going to climb El Capitan, Half Dome and the face of  Mt. Watkins in 19 hours straight (normally done by climbers, a week for each wall at a time).

Alex is a remarkably modest and cool headed 26 year old who calls his van his home, domestically and tenting it otherwise as he climbs worldwide literally all year sponsored by so many of the great outdoors familiar name brand outfitters.

It was truly an honor and privilege to have Alex grace our podium as our speaker this week with his repertoire of breathtaking photographs, awe inspiring and sometimes very humorous remarks to an engaged membership’s extensive Q and A. We owe a special thank you to PP Frank Poelman for arranging Alex, almost a year in the planning.

In two weeks (Monday June 25th) Alex will be back, on the other side of the podium, in the audience, to enjoy the remarks of our speaker and his good friend, Conrad Anker. Conrad, also having graced the cover of National Geographic magazine and having discovered the body of the great climber Mallory on Everest, is fresh off Mt. Everest having summited for a third time just a few weeks ago (May 26, 2012) but this time without supplemental oxygen!

We look forward to another adventure program as we venture one more time into the altitude with the right attitude on a journey with Conrad Anker.

We welcome two new members to the Club, Kelly Huffman and Pat Derickson, bringing our new member count to 31 so far this year and now gold stars overtaking our red stars on the New Member display board! Kelly and Pat, we are delighted to include you in our Rotary family. (Read all about Kelly and Pat in this The Pulse below).

Yours truly has been blessed with truly talented The Pulse reporters this year and this week’s meeting recap below is another exemplary account by one of them, your most capable John Wood.

Many thanks to Don Baird for sponsoring this week’s meeting, to Explorer Becki Roberts for her Business Journal SBA lending award, to Mountaineer PP Rob Scherer for more ink than the Obama/ Romney campaigns combined with his Comstock’s Magazine centerfold feature story and the Sacramento Bee, to Couch Potato PP John Hamlyn for his very quotable quotes in the 6/18/12 issue of Time magazine’s cover story about Justice Kennedy, to Cal Bear PP Brain Van Camp’s gentle jab and presentation to Stanford’s Hamlyn of a “Stamferd”  labeled ball cap direct from China’s Three Gorges Dam tourist concession stand and to Couch Potato Judy Payne adding to her Paul Harris just because she was feeling good about life!  A most generous week indeed.

We look forward to Larry Booth’s Sons Day this coming Monday the 18th (and a break for yours truly) as the “young men” commandeer the gavel for the day.

Enjoy a terrific week and strive for those summits and vertical walls, now that you have the swing of it!

Ken Noack, Jr.