Smith Rocks

Phil Kast sends Toxic, Smith Rocks, OR. - Lauren Barringer

Leif and Sven

Leif on his way to sending some 13, Smith Rocks, OR. - Phil Kast

Phil and I met Leif and Sven in Camp 4 over a game of chess. Leif was pretty good and we had a couple of rousing games. They only climbed about 2hr./day for reasons that would later become apparent. Anyway, after Phil screwed up his elbow there was a storm moving in (killed some folks on El Cap) we headed for home with our tail between our legs and Leif and Sven in the back seat of my truck. It was a long ride, but they really wanted to go to Smith. They stayed out there for most of a month before moving on to Hueco. In the mean time they put up all of the 13s and easy 14s that were to their liking. I am not much of a sport climbing fan, but it was fun to watch these guys climb.

The crazy part of the story is: Leif and Sven were on a year-long, round-the-world climbing trip. Garrett Dickman was in Corvallis with his new special-lady-friend Lisa from Canada who is also a climber and had been climbing recently in Austrailia at an area that Leif had been saying he wanted to go to. I asked her if she had met these two crazy germans and indeed she had! She knew them quite well, and from the avoidance of the really cool coincidence around Garrett it seems as though she had a bit of a thing for Sven. I hardly blame her.