Action is more interesting than inaction. - Wow, awesome weekend, and I'm too fried to write about it.

Drove out Friday to Spokane for SpoCon, a new SF convention. Lovely weather.

Nothing much was happening Friday afternoon, so I went to the local climbing gym, Wild Walls, which has two staggeringly tall and beautiful pinnacles constructed inside a turn-of-the-century armory, which by the size of it was designed for storing steampunk ICBMs. The routes were set quite differently from Stone Gardens's -- longer moves, bigger footholds, and a lot of liebacks. If I knew more about Spokane climbing I could maybe draw some conclusions about gyms designing their routes to reflect the local crags; but I'm not sure that's justified.

The con itself was great -- the attendees were an entirely new crew to me, after so many years of attending cons out here on the coast. Inland really is a different world in a lot of ways. I fell in with tobybishop/louisemarley and we had dinner and talked a bunch; also spent a little time with the eternally charming super-smart Mark Ferrari.

Today I had a reading at three, so I went climbing before. (A week ago, avt_tor answered my plea online for someone in Spokane to climb with by hooking me up with felicitoussk8er (aka Sharon) and her husband Steve, both experienced and amiable climbers.) They were incredibly nice -- Steve took me to Minnehaha Park, crags to close to Spokane that you can see downtown from there. I climbed three routes and loved them all -- the rock very similar to Cascades granite.

Steve and I both got sunburnt, but he got me back with twenty minutes to spare before my reading. I washed off in the bathroom, pulled on fresh jeans and a white blouse (the antithesis of the ripped cutoffs and filthy cross-back I wore all day), and read to a surprisingly large audience. John Dalmas came! And told me he loved the story (I read "26 Monkeys, Also The Abyss"). Then dinner with Steve and Sharon and C.J. Cherryh and Jane Fancher, and then four and a half hours home.

I loved Spokane, loved Steve and Sharon, loved everything about it. Now I want to go back!

The routes, just for reference later.

• Bat Crack -- pretty little crack climb up a slab, smooth and easy, toprope, flashed 5.7, Minne grades are old-school, so this was harder than a 5.7 at the Exits -- maybe a 5.8? It was pretty easy, though.
  
  
• Star Baby -- even prettier friction slab 5.8; the route can go either to the left or right of the two bolts, I stayed to the right, then traversed over to the left when the holds petered out; awesome overhanging crack start.
  
  
• Dihedral, a 5.9, which I sucked at -- it starts with the same 12 feet that Star Baby does, but I just could not get it working a second time; I ended up falling and penduluming six feet to the left, so I climbed from there. Hit what was the crux for me, and could NOT get it. I was shaking from muscle fatigue, and it was really hot, and I kept either losing my nerve or just flat failing to get over a ledge. I did finish it, though I felt as though I was ugly-ass awkward all the way up -- and after such graceful earlier climbs!

Now I'm home and listening to my cat eat.

I really haven't posted that much lately. Status quo in my life is overwhelmingly positive, which I don't always think to tell people.