jhodzic

I do other things than just climb…

Note: This is an old post whose content was created for fun, with little to no proof-reading or editing. Please read this post keeping that in mind.

Recently, there was news that Lt. John Pike, the cop who pepper-sprayed UC Davis students/community members who were peacefully protesting on November 18, 2011, received 38,000 in worker’s compensation for allegedly being “depressed” due to death threats that he received after the incident. This is 8,000 dollars more than the students- who he violently and unnecessarily pepper sprayed in the face several times- received. This is an outrage and it pained me very much to hear the news.

I stood 2 meters from Lt. Pike when he pepper-sprayed the students and took a photo portraying the moment. I received some attention for my work and a journalist, Jim Romenesko, reached out to me and asked me to write a piece about what I felt and experienced that day. Jim recently contacted me again to get a quick comment about my feelings over the settlement.

Here is a link to my original post, almost 2 years ago, and on the bottom is the comment I gave him concerning Lt. Pike’s worker compensation.

http://jimromenesko.com/2013/10/24/how-i-got-that-photo-by-jasna-hodzic/

If you’re unfamiliar with what happened, please visit this link, which has The California Aggie’s original coverage of the event. (something is up with the cropping of the photo though. if you click it, it goes to the right size)

http://www.theaggie.org/2011/11/19/community-responds-to-police-actions-supports-non-violent-protesters-httpgoo-gl3bjgu-occupyucdavis-ucdavis/

I also have a series on my website that portrays the entirety of the main events surrounding the Occupy UC Davis movement starting a few days before the pepper-spray incident and ending with the demonstrations on the Quad and the eventual shut down of the US Bank on campus, achieved by many of the same protesters.

http://www.jasnahodzic.com/OCCUPY-UC-DAVIS

Let us never forget what happened.

FALL!

Note: This is an old post whose content was created for fun, with little to no proof-reading or editing. Please read this post keeping that in mind.

IT IS FALL!!! Finally, the best season of the year has arrived! You know what that means, right? It means biking to campus with the goal of riding over as many leaves as I can, blissfully hearing the “crunch” each one makes and mentally tacking it as a personal victory for the day. It means escaping schoolwork to go to the arboretum or the greenbelt and basking in the perfect light that emerges at just around 6. It means layering in warm clothing and finally being able to bust out my beanies ( I love beanies.) It means crisp mornings and perfect days.. really it just means a lot of good things, to put it simply. It also means ROCK CLIMBING A MUERTE! !!! Fall is the BEST season to climb and honestly the best conditions are just ahead of us.

Continue reading “FALL!”

Trinity Aretes

Note: This is an old post whose content was created for fun, with little to no proof-reading or editing. Please read this post keeping that in mind.

After three weeks of dog-sitting I was aching to get back to some good old fashioned sport-climbing. (that’s not at Castle Rock.) I had already done my granite return tour of Tahoe and Yosemite- where I plan to climb a lot in during the fall (especially Tahoe)- and after coming back from Spain and France I was already feeling some limestone climbing withdrawals. I had heard of a place in Humboldt county called Trinity Aretes that apparently houses CA’s best hard limestone climbing. Conveniently, one of my very good friends lives in Arcata, about 1 and a half hours away from the Aretes. Equally as convenient, she also climbs and was willing to take me up there! So, the very next day that my parents came home I was off on the 101 North, driving to go see one of my good friends and climb at a new place- I was stoked! ( all the photographs were taken by Tyler Kappen).

Continue reading “Trinity Aretes”

Chilling at home and climbing around Castle Rock State Park

Note: This is an old post whose content was created for fun, with little to no proof-reading or editing. Please read this post keeping that in mind.

For the past 3 weeks I’ve been forced against my will to stay in the South Bay Area! I have no responsibilities until school starts on Sept 26th except for one… dog-sitting. My parents went to Europe (as soon as I got back) and I was deemed the most suitable candidate to watch my dog, Scottie.

Continue reading “Chilling at home and climbing around Castle Rock State Park”

Yosemite!

Note: This is an old post whose content was created for fun, with little to no proof-reading or editing. Please read this post keeping that in mind.

Driving from the Sierras… to another part in the Sierras… man, life was good. I finished up climbing in Lake Tahoe for five days and was on my way south to Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite to visit my friend Colleen, who works there, and to climb on some more granite. This time, however, I was going to mix it up a bit. For the past 8 months I’d been basically exclusively sport climbing- climbing up single pitches and pushing myself to new, harder grades. This time I was going to follow up Colleen, a decently experienced trad climber, up some trad multi-pitch climbs whose grades were much less easier than the things I’d been climbing in Spain and in Tahoe, but that were logistically more difficult and involved different techniques. Essentially, to move forward in climbing, sometimes you have to technically move backward.

Continue reading “Yosemite!”

Back to California- Berkeley, San Francisco, Davis, Sport climbing in Lake Tahoe and eating Fajitas

Note: This is an old post whose content was created for fun, with little to no proof-reading or editing. Please read this post keeping that in mind.

“Shit! How the hell am I still on these holds? My feet are literally on nothing! I can’t believe they expect me to use this sloper .. though it is sticking…”

My inner dialogue while climbing on granite for the first time in basically a year went a littttle bit like that… with even more expletives. Outwardly, I was climbing awkwardly. I was gripping down way too tight on some holds that looked terrible but had a bunch of friction. I was nervous, placing and trusting my feet on small crystals or just smearing them on nothing; in other words, I suck at climbing on granite.

Star Wall at Donner Summit… instagramed!

Continue reading “Back to California- Berkeley, San Francisco, Davis, Sport climbing in Lake Tahoe and eating Fajitas”

Les Gorges du Tarn

Note: This is an old post whose content was created for fun, with little to no proof-reading or editing. Please read this post keeping that in mind.

Chris and I didn’t realize it at the time, but we coincidentally planned our France climbing trip in decreasing order of approach times. At Céüse we did the famous 45 min- 1 hr grueling uphill approach every day and then at the Ardeche our approach was flat and about 20-30 minutes long (once we figured out how to do it and didn’t have to employ kayakers to get our gear across the river), though it did involve easy traversing on cables for a small part of it. There were also scorpion sightings, humongous river otters and hoards of French tourists in mega-industrial “campsites”- it was pretty intense. The approaches at the Gorges du Tarn were quite a bit different… on average they were about 2 minutes long. In fact, a lot of the best sectors are right off of the road which runs parallel to the beautiful (and cold!) Tarn river. In fact, the whole setup was pretty similar to the Ardeche; in other words, a ridiculous number of limestone crags surround a river in a remarkably striking Gorge. However, the differences were only improvements- the rock quality is way better and there were much less tourists.

Continue reading “Les Gorges du Tarn”

Video: A climbing life, opus 4

Best sport climbing top out… ever?

Sensepell

L’actual campió d’Europa Romain Desranges ens envia un video on apareix fent “Digital crack”, el 8a més alt de França, 3800m d’alçada. Un video de Fred Ripert amb imatges gravades des d’un drone!

European Champion Romain Desgranges sending “Digital crack”, the highest 8a in France at 3800 m. A video from Fred Ripert recorded with a drone!

Le champion d’Europe chamoniard Romain Desgranges dans “Digital crack”, le 8a le plus haut de France au sommet de l’aiguille du midi à 3800m d’altitude. Une vidéo signée Fred Ripert avec des images inédites issues d’un drône !

View original post

The Ardeche

Note: This is an old post whose content was created for fun, with little to no proof-reading or editing. Please read this post keeping that in mind.

We left Céüse on account of its delightful weather (aka rain storms every afternoon for 4 days in a row) and because we had two more areas left to visit on our 3.5 week long French climbing vacay… Les Branches in the Ardeche and the famous Gorges du Tarn.

Continue reading “The Ardeche”

Céüse

Note: This is an old post whose content was created for fun, with little to no proof-reading or editing. Please read this post keeping that in mind.

As soon as school got out I ventured beyond Spain’s borders to see what its next door neighbor, France, had to offer in sport climbing. They say that sport climbing was born in France so I had high expectations, though was pretty skeptical; I just couldn’t imagine anything topping Spanish crags like Margalef , Rodellar or El Chorro. Our first stop was Céüse, a cliff band that is perched on top of a hill near the French Alps.

Continue reading “Céüse”