Summer is here in Myanmar, and summer means Thingyan (the Myanmar new year), and Thingyan means it’s time to go on our second annual 10 day sport climbing trip. Thailand has traditionally been the destination for sport climbing in SE Asia, but the karst wonderland of Thakhek in neighboring Laos is the up and coming new crag on the block. As devout Thingyan climbing pilgrims, Katie and I decided it was time to cut our teeth on Southeast Asia’s newest rock mecca. Continue reading
Culture of Generosity and Thar Bar Wa
In 2015, Myanmar was ranked the world’s most charitable nation by the World Giving Index. For those who live here, this isn’t necessarily surprising. When major flooding hit during the monsoon season last year, the community mobilized immediately. Students organized volunteer efforts, donation groups patrolled the streets soliciting donations from cars and pedestrians, and trainers at my gym interrupted my lat pull-downs to show off pictures of the rice they’d delivered to affected villages. Continue reading
Myanmar’s Second City, Our Second Home (Mandalay in Photos)
Mandalay is Myanmar’s royal city, and we are Mandalay’s loyal weekend warriors. The ten-hour night busses that take us to Mandalay and back to Yangon make for grueling transportation experiences. On a typical Mandalay trip we will spend two nights on busses and one night at a hostel. When we arrive back in Yangon early Monday morning, we emerge from the bus in a zombieish haze and essentially head straight to work from the bus station. After more than ten trips like this, Katie and I have the details dialed: Our favorite hostel, number of melatonin tablets to take on the overnight bus, cheapest motorbike rental shop, everything is dialed.
Gettin’ Hitched: The Riley Wedding
Thanks to the unreal amount of support we received from our family and friends, Katie and I had the most amazing wedding. We couldn’t have been happier with how things went, and we were overwhelmed with the amount of love poured out by everyone we know. For those that were at the wedding and missed the video, or for those who are just curious, the video below is a factual account of how the Riley wedding came about.
Gettin’ Hitched: The Riley Wedding ☟
Gettin Hitched from Andrew Kyle Riley on Vimeo.
Shwe Yangon: The City in Photos
A selection of photos from nine months in the Golden City. Brought to you without the consistent drip of sweat, the frequent itch of mosquito bites, or the slow growth of mold on seldom-used shoes. Lacking the metallic exhaust, the savor of bean curry, the snap of burmese, or the curious glances. Yangon in photos.
South China Sea in Photos
Hong Kong ➢ Macau ➢ Taiwan
in photos
Hong Kong is an island/city/quasi-nation box of cramped high rises stuck between the hills of the island and the channel separating it from the mainland. Also, there are a surprising amount of spiders.
HK
Ancient Art: Climbing in Moab
When you climb enough you develop an implicit trust in the gear you climb with. When you don’t climb for a while, that trust disappears and everything gets a lot scarier. Casual, safe falls onto a rope become grippingly terrifying. So, when I got back to the States, after working in Bangladesh for six months, Beans and I decided to take a trip to the desert to get scared on Ancient Art.
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Golden Land Fiction
There are feathers in my toilet. Have you ever discovered something simple that made you rethink every decision you’ve ever made. I flushed the toilet; new feathers and water replaced the old feathers and water. I turned on my shower. Please, no. . . feathers coming out of my shower. This can mean only one thing. A bird somehow, some-way made my rooftop water tank its final nesting place. [Emergency Recall]: Flashbacks of washing my hands, taking a shower, cleaning out my coffee cup, and NO! NO! you did not rinse your toothbrush off with that dead bird water.
Living with Chaos
There are two sport routes that I have projected for longer than a calendar year. The first was Monkey Puzzle at North Table Mountain; a 5.9 vertical route topped by an amazing V4/5 roof boulder problem. After I finally sent Monkey Puzzle, I sent several routes of equal or harder difficulty relatively quickly. It wasn’t only that I had finished the route, it forced me to become a better climber. “Chaos” at Anarchy Wall in Clear Creek Canyon was in the same category. I wanted a route that would force me to bump up against my ceiling. Chaos didn’t disappoint; I attempted the route so many times (somewhere between 200-300 burns). It wasn’t just powerful. Due to the infrequency of ascents, several of the key holds had no chalk on them, making the beta difficult to decipher. It was a tedious process, working on a sequence for a couple of weeks wondering if the sequence would take me through the crux, hitting a dead end, and then wondering if it was bad beta or a lack of strength that was protecting the chains. I was constantly doubting, and also doubting which doubt to doubt about. Is it strength? Is it climbing ability? Is it conditions? Is it beta? Adding to the difficulty, the holds are too small to grip when it is warm outside. The ideal temperature window for Chaos is 35-40 degrees; also known as winter.
In said winter, I was finally getting close to sending the route. However, I also had a Myanmar job contract looming. Only a few weeks remained. I had to do it, or I would leave the country with no firm timeline for returning. I started going to Anarchy Wall at every opportunity: after work, in the dark, on the weekends, early in the morning. Whenever I could get Katie, Jeremy, or Erin to come out to the wall with me, I was on it. I really didn’t want to spend months in Myanmar thinking about how close I had been. . . ☟
My Gneiss Living Room from Andrew Kyle Riley on Vimeo.
Bouldering Nonsense. . .
Bouldering nonsense: video of friends having a ridiculous time climbing in several front range locations: including Rocky Mountain National Park, Eldorado Canyon, Morrison, and Loch Lomond. Loch Lomond is a new area that some of us (mostly Abner, Julia, and Jeremy) developed over the course of the last year. There are several moderate problems in the V4 to V7 range on Gneiss blocks. The blocks tend to be on the shorter side, but the rock is good quality. The problems are fun, and you cannot beat the alpine setting. Check it out the photos, topos, directions, and other details on the mountain project page here: Loch Lomond.
Bouldering Nonsense ↯
from Andrew Kyle Riley on Vimeo.