Note from Stacey

I have been on some little adventures lately. Saturday, I went for a bike ride with Dave at Crystal Springs, and Sunday I took a little “climbing road trip” to Cragmont Park, in Berkeley. The bike ride was beautiful but humbling. Dave can walk as fast as I ride right now. In fact, as I was riding, I was passed up by quite a few joggers. (Well, if I cannot take pride in my pace, at least the view was pretty, with the hills and water nearby.) Today, I went with Mark, Sandy and Heather Ostrau to climb at Cragmont Park. Cragmont is the perfect low-key place to climb. There is no hike, and it is easy to set up anchors for the ropes. Heather was on my youth team and I have not seen her climb for a long time. I was so impressed with Heather and Mark. The climbs were slabs, which means that in order to climb them, we had to look for footholds and balance–as opposed to pulling ourselves up by the handholds. We all worked on a 5.8 and a 5.10a. I got up the climbs okay, slipping just once on the harder one. I was glad the drugs I am taking for my transplant do not seem to affect my balance too much. While we were climbing, Carrie called me with an update from the USA Nationals in Boston. Her son Joshua re-captured his title as the Boys 11-under National Champion in Difficulty by doing a 5.12b climb in the final round. He also won the Speed title for his third year in a row! I was honored that they called me to give the news right away! Joshua’s younger brother, Yuri, also competed and took 18th in Speed. Not bad for an 8-year-old rookie! Stacey, from Belmont