Yesterday, as beautiful as it was, saw the departure of David, which brought a damper on an otherwise amazingly lax day. David has been with us, keeping the psyche alive with his comical antics and invigorating passion on and off the rocks since the beginning of the trip, in October. I was lucky enough to witness some of David's epic sends first hand, such as Loaded With Power and Deans Journey, both in Hueco Tanks. I feel honored to have been able to go so far across this nation with such good company, and will truly miss his presence in the months to come. With any luck, we'll be seeing 'Skittles' again in the dense, rainforest of British Columbia, to continue the mission of gaining knowledge and strength on all the different types of climbing this continent has to offer. Be well, be safe, and be happy, David! Go crush some sandstone, and then get your 'sweet hawk' back up Squamish this summer! Cheers to you!

In recent news, I headed out to Dales Camp today with Øyvind and Camilla to watch Øyvind lay down the Xavier Roof, only to find out that when it's 73 degrees outside, the last crimp before the jug becomes the worst hold on the climb! Two solid burns from bottom to top, but the send was not within reach this afternoon simply because the winter is slowly making it's way off the mountain. Lesson learned, Xavier Roof is a late afternoon problem. Next time, good sir. Next time!

With the sun ruining any chance of having a big send day, the rest of us decided to beat the heat in town at the local Starbucks, splurging on the caffeinated beverages, air conditioning and wireless internet. Today was apparently the right day to show up at the Seattle based corporation, because it seems like every 30 minutes an employee is walking around with a tray of samples including chocolate croissants and chilled caffein, coated in chocolate and whipped cream. Hooray for free samples! I now sit happily at the handicapped accessible table with Chris, Gord, Dev, and Thomas, typing away franticly due to an abundance of espresso that keeps getting handed to me like clockwork, without the first complaint coming from either myself or any of my tweaked-out compadres. I will now wrap this post up, due to the fact that my fingers are getting to jittery to type, and yet another frozen frothy beverage awaits me to my left. Cheers!