Leave a Message

The message was left with a few thousand folks at the premiere. My hat is off to Aaron Lieber for all of his sleepless nights and hours of jet-lag. The 6.0 girls are really raising the bar for women's surfing. The night was well documented!

A photo from surfermag.com with me front row at the bar with wife and friends.

 Aaron and girls, stoked!

 Laura Enever ready to party. photo Blake

 A classic shot of Transworld's Chris Cote with the one and only soon to be world champ! photo Blake

A great crowd for an awesome premiere. photo Blake

Check out more pics from my buddy Blake Kueny

www.ginger-vision.com

 and

on surfermag.com

Russell's Film Project

When I need a photographer or cinematographer Russell Spencer is my go-to guy. He's extremely creative and has an eye for the perfect shot. Whether I'm hanging 60ft. up on a rock wall or deep in the tube at Blacks, he's right there capturing the moment. About 6 months ago he went back to the basics by shooting film. It's an almost unheard of thing these days. The image explains my lifestyle. LIVING ON THE EDGE

Check out other pics and videos at http://russellandrew.blogspot.com/

Hangman's Onsight.

In April, I watched a video of Adam Ondra onsightintg Mind Control a 5.14c! This is just a few letter grades under the hardest climb in the world, 5.15c. This was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. It's very hard to walk up to a route and climb it flawlessly with having no prior beta (information). A few weeks after watching this inspiring video I met up with my buddy Todd Quinn. We drove down to Mission Gorge and warmed up on some 5.8s. Now that the blood was pumping, it was time to really push my limit. I found a climb called Hangman's rated 5.10a. The start was pretty challenging, but softened up after a few hard moves. It was an awesome climb that really pushed me to get it on my first try. I will be honest and say I got pretty gassed and considered letting go, but deep down I knew letting go wasn't an option! Here we are with a beautiful and successful onsight. Thanks Todd for your encouragement and support.

Todd setting up. The V3, overhanging, bouldery start is just to the left in the shade.

                           

Pretty psyched on the send!

                                                         
 Now for that inspirational video!!!

BD athlete Adam Ondra onsights Mind Control (8c+), Oliana, Spain from Black Diamond Equipment on Vimeo.

What Happened?

This is the question I've been hearing over and over again. I figure now everyone will get there chance to hear the complete story.

Last Wednesday around 6:00pm I decided to climb just down the road at Cougar Crag. I then called my buddies Cameron and Jon to see if they wanted to join me. Cameron said that he was pretty worn out and couldn't make it. Jon just didn't respond so, I sent him a text of where I was climbing just in case he wanted to join. I broke the #1 rule, "don't go into the wilderness alone!"

Around 7:08pm I reached a project that I wanted to try. This is where I broke rule #2,"don't try a hard climb with a dangerous landing without a spotter and plenty of crash pads." I climbed for for 30 minutes trying to reach a upper crimp. I got really close in the end and my last try I decided to dyno for it. I dove into the hold and held it for a second, then came unglued, overshot my pad and landed with my left foot on flat ground and my right on a rock. The pain was excruciating. I thought I broke my ankle and didn't want to look at it. Once I saw that it wasn't broken, I took off my climbing shoe, put on my sock and running shoe, and packed up my gear. I grabbed a few sticks for stability and hobbled my way to the bottom.

The next day I had x-rays taken and had it looked at with the results coming out in my favor. It was a bad sprain and I have to take a few weeks off from any physical activity. It's been a good week and I can now bear full body weight on my ankle. I just need it to heal a bit more to work on flexibility.

Thank you all for your support and hope to see ya in the water soon!

breathe...

Growing up around the ocean has afforded me the opportunity to explore the underwater world. It's a beautiful place, but at the same time can be very deadly. Our bodies are only made to withstand a few minutes with out oxygen. There is one man that has been pushing the envelope. Here is a video of the half fish/half man!!!