We’ve heard tales of beautiful white splitter granite and huge alpine walls.  As well as tales of Patagonianesque weather.   Currently it looks as if their is a high pressure system building that is going to lead to sunny skies starting on Friday and lasting till Monday.  We have our fingers crossed.

The mighty Southern aspect of the Devils Thumb massif.

If all goes as planned we will be jamming and scrambling real soon.

On June 21st Kate and Madaleine started up El cap with their eyes set on making a free ascent of the mega-classic Freerider.  This is no easy task.  El cap has probably been free climbed by  less that 100 people and only by 3 American females (Lynn Hill, Beth Rodden, and Steph Davis, am I missing others?)

Kate had wanted to climb Freerider for the last 4 years after following me up it.   Since that time she has been gradually increasing her skill level to be able to realize her goal.  Her and Madaleine have made free ascents of Moonlight Buttress in Zion, and Half Dome in Yosemite, which are steps in the natural progression towards free climbing  El Cap.

After 5 days of climbing on the “Big Stone” they reached the top exhausted, thrilled and having poured their heart and soul into the climb.  I couldn’t be more proud of the fine ladies!

2010.06.22 Kate and Madaleine on FreeRider - Images by Mikey Schaefer

I was surprised to say the least when I heard from the editors at Patagonia that they had selected a photo of mine for the cover.  I’d almost gotten the cover a couple other times but at the final creative meetings it had always been changed, so I kinda figured the same might happen with this one.  But low and behold my image made it through the whole voting process and actually landed on the cover!

It also goes to show the amazing eye and ability of the photo editors at Patagonia.  This is a photo that I would of never picked for a cover as it  really didn’t stick out to me.  But I had faith in the editors eyes and I couldn’t be more pleased and amazed with how well it printed.

Everything I had to do to make this short was new to me.  On our drive out to the crag with Sonnie I was still trying to figure out the movie mode on my D90.  It was all definitely trial by fire!

Then their was the Final Cut Pro epic.  This literally was my first time ever using the program…  I felt like a gumby scrapping my way up a 5.8 in Yosemite.  I try not to think about the hours I spent staring at my laptop having no idea what I was doing.  It was a test of my patience and perseverance to get the thing done.

So here is a link to it.

]]> http://mikeylikesrocks.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=359 http://mikeylikesrocks.com/blog/?p=346 http://mikeylikesrocks.com/blog/?p=346#comments Mon, 21 Jun 2010 01:41:47 +0000 Mikey http://mikeylikesrocks.com/blog/?p=346 It’s been a while since I’ve posted, partly due to being busy and partly due to just being lame.

That being I’ve been up to plenty  lately.

Kate and I left Washington in Early April and headed down to Moab to climb and for a work gig I had lined up.  My motivation to climb around the desert was low, but luckily the snow had melted enough to be able to climb up at Mill Creek while there.

I also had to the opportunity to work  with Sinuhe Xavier, who is a Director of Photography that works for the Bandito Brothers, a rad production company based out of L.A.  Sinuhe landed a gig working on the set of 127 Hours, an upcoming movie directed by Danny Boyle, who was the director of Slumdog Millionaire.  It was a rad experience to say the least!  I can’t wait to see the movie and the small piece I worked on.

In between work days I was able to cruise down to Indian Creek and snap some pics and give Kate belays.  The shot below was from a blustery day spent at the 2nd Meat Wall with the super-crusher Will “the Thrill” Stanhope

Will Stanhope a little run out at Indian Creek

At the beginning of March Kate and I made are way to Yosemite where I had another work gig lined up.  This time working with Jimmy Chin assisting and shooting for a National Geographic Magazine assignment.   Jimmy and I have been putting some serious miles on our shoes and some time in our aiders.   We  finished our first month of shooting and have another month of shooting in the Fall.  I can’t wait to be able to share some of the stuff we shot!

After almost 2 straight weeks without climbing I went for a mission up to Tuolumne Meadows with Alex Honnold for a quick run up the ultra classic Cathedral Peak.  Though I brought my camera it hardly felt like a work trip.  We were both giddy to be up in the mountains after almost a month straight of being confined by the huge walls of the Valley

I think Alex's expression sums up our day!

I’ve now got a couple days off before heading up to El Cap where I’ll be rapping in to spend a few days with Madaleine Sorkin and Kate while they attempt to climb the Freerider.  And then, nothing major on the schedule for almost a month!!!!  I couldn’t be more excited!

Patagonia’s spring edition of their media gallery, The TinShed, was released yesterday with a heap of new stories and videos.  There is some great stuff in there to check out.  There is one though that really sticks out as an absolutely amazing piece, and that is Jeremy Collins’ Border Country movie.   And I’m not just saying that cause I’m in it.  Jer did an absolutely amazing job with the animation, production and storytelling, you check it out here:  Border Country

As like the rest of the Patagonia catalogs, the online catalog looks great.  I hope this is a trend that not only Patagonia continues with but other manufactures start doing.  Website are great and all but they aren’t great for the casual viewer.  If you are specifically looking for something websites are hard to beat but if you aren’t looking for anything in particular the catalog experience is way more interesting.

Have a look:    Patagonia Fishing Catalog

I’ve got a much larger cover shot coming out in the next few months but I’m not privy to sharing that one yet….