Monday, October 21, 2013

Five Fun Fall Days

Wow, after driving over Hwy. 2 so much over Spring and Summer I began to get bored of the drive with the potential new granite hidden behind thick green bush, and lots of it. This time though, with fall colors raging it was pleasant and awe striking drive. The crash of white granite with orange leaves made for some amazing Scenery!
Washout Boulders, Leavenworth WA

The weekend began with a long drive through traffic down to Portland to stay with Lisa for the Portland Boulder Rally comp. The comp went alright. I managed a good flash of one of the top ten problems and then it went downhill from there. I began bouncing all over the points spectrum falling on the last moves. Lisa did well but was one away send away from finals. Results can be found here RESULTS  After the comp a bunch of us decided to play pool and kick it till 2:30. Afterwards, because three of the climbers had plane flights at 6:00, we stayed up till 5:00 AM and dropped them off at the airport.
PBR Women's Final #1

Sunday morning after getting a few hours of sleep Lisa had to do the PCI clinic so I kicked it at the SW Circuit for a couple hours and then decided to go to Carver, the local bouldering area. The temps were great and I managed a two sends and got close on Angry Squirrels, a v9 traverse and got to the crux of the Cedar Project, v10. After returning back to Portland it was a very long drive back up to Seattle to get some sleep before heading out to Leavenworth. I was already feeling sore by this point but decided to push hard anyways and get in some more climbing.
Lisa prepping for the finish of Angry Squirrels, v9. Carver, OR

Me feeling the perfect, basalt, slopers of The Cedar Project, v10. Carver, OR
Leavenworth was fun with most of the time being spent at the washout boulders and the bulge boulders. On the second day Lisa put together the Lion's Den, an excellent v9. I then managed to send Kelly's Bulge, v9, and Lisa did all the moves save the first. Next time. We finished Leavenworth at Filibuster where using a knee scum I was able to get farther on the finish!! Should go down next time I'm on it!!
Lisa finishing The Lion's Den, v9. Leavenworth, WA



Working the moves of Johnny's Bulge.
Filibuster, new beta with the Knee-Bar pad. It works!!
That night we drove to Index to jump on the river boulders. It was a cold day and after sending a tricky rail feature I finally jumped on All of the Above v12 and did the intro moves. For more punishment we moved over to Haga and I finally stuck the big move out and moved a lil off of it! Yeah!!! After playing around on it for a bit I raced home, took a 15 min shower, and zipped off to work to belay kidos for an hour and a half!
Lisa on the Tricky Arete. Index River Boulders, WA

Working the intro moves of All of The Above.

Monday, October 7, 2013

Summer

I've been bad at updating the blog lately and will try to get better as things work their way into a routine. For starters I finished off my Undergraduate College education at UW! With all this free time now... Yeah. Right. I feel just as busy if not slightly less so than last fall. Working only part-time at Stone Gardens has left me 4 day weekends filled with climbing, training and job apps. Dang applications take forever to fill out! Back to summer though, when I wasn't doing HW I managed to get out to Squamish and rope up a couple times with the SG crew. I didn't send anything hard but did complete a few new things and send a handful of new sport climbs. I also did one new 13a at Little Si keeping the tradition alive!!  Below are some pics from over summer!
 With a fire closing Lil Si, Nevermind became the place for Seattle sport climbing.
 A new project for me in the Apron boulders of Squamish, Black Hole v11
 Chekamus!!
 I also managed to check out the Booka Boulders, Thanks goes to the Oly crew for their hard work making the aproach trail and scrubbing the unique lines!
 I finally returned to Newhalem as weel (twice!). Here Kevin is about to put away 12c for a day, 12b
 Ah Rat Cave, Only managed a few hours this year. Made progress on Tuff Nerd and Lisa had a no fall day!
 Due to a family emergency a year ago, we finally closed down the Tenino house, which was home for 23 years...
 It's now fall in Leavenworth, more on that to come!!