Last weekend Nicholas flew in from DC and Scott picked him up for a Smith Rock Trip. On Friday Dom, Laura, Jeremy and I all crammed into the little Honda and began our trek to smith Rocks. I've been to smith before once about two years ago, and had a bad first impression of the place(to blancy, to crimpy, to scary). Two years later(read +2 years of training) I wasn't too phsyed but ready for some sport climbing. So early Saturday morning waking up with a crazy dog barking and 5 generators going, we headed off to meet Scott and Nic in the parking lot. after our greetings we headed over to Picnic Lunch Wall to do some warm ups. Scott did an amazing warm up of a 5.10a redpoint on TR, his hardest to date! I got bored of waiting so I asked Jeremy for a belay and jumped on a cool 5.12a Dom was talking about. A couple minutes later and 10 painfully frozen fingers, I onsighted 5 easy pieces(the first pitch only) 5.12a. Now I'm thinking Smith isn't so bad. After this send I did the 10a slab and realized how much I dislike/uncomfortable slab climbing is because I feel like there is nothing to hang on to.
We moved to Morning Glory Wall and met up with Ryan Palo and I tried to onsight the extension to Cool Ranch Flavor. Well I fell in the middle of the extension due to forearm failure but the 5.11 portion is an excellent climb with a tricky/pumpy crux. Jeremy did the full 9 gallon buckets with a hang at the crux and did an amazing job here for his first trip to smith.
After a little break we played on Chain Reaction and then finished the day on Phoenix Buttress and afterwards Scott and Nicholas surprised us at camp with Pizza. THANKS!!!!!!
On Sunday it was cold and windy so Teagan, a nice local gal, showed us Northern point which is similar to Vantage I'm told. After doing some blancy and good climbs I managed another 5.12a onsight which the finish was soaked due to the rain but I was NOT going to let go.
I now have a new appreciation for Smith and realized 'bicep' routes do exist here and the balancy ones are fun if I can trust my feet. A video is coming soon as always. Spring is almost here so get ready for the '09 Season. -jimmy
3 comments:
Your onsight of Five Easy Pieces straight off the bat was one of the most impressive things I've seen you do on a rope. Good to see your training indoors is translating well to the rock. I think your capable of much harder routes this season.
dom
NICE write-up Jimmy! I'll look forward to seeing the pics/footage + hear about your future trips to Smith! You and Scott GRADUATED BIG time @ Smith...congrats!
I managed to send "5 Easy Pieces" today and "Blue Light Special" (a favorite .11 in the park for me!)...I also had a milestone of my own- I started my new project "Aggro Monkey" 8a...I was nervous, but managed to work out the crux a little bit hanging a lot (I still have another 1 1/2 yrs to match the time it took me to send Chain Reaction!)lol.
See you later man,
NM
Jimmy,
sounds like you had an amazing trip! Good job on the onsights and really getting your head in the game, harder routes are in your future for sure. I hope I can get out to Smith and do half as well.
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