Monday, March 14, 2011

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

The Haps

Well my car broke down in Boone, Nc on my way back from doing an Evolv shoe demo at App State.  Which ended up not being so bad. With Pat and Jessa's hospitality I climbed for two days while my car was being fixed.  We hit Lost Cove the first day and Grandmother the next. The weather was soooo nice too.  The day I arrived it was dumping rain, the same kind that just dumped on HP40 last weekend.  Then the sky opened up and rocks were dry!  Yes!  I had always wanted to do Matt's Prow and Zen Master ever since Triple Crown of 2009 when I hurt my ankle and was unable to climb any the day after the comp.  From what I saw they are the best of the grade at each boulderfield.  Here are some iphone photos.

Matt's Prow @ Lost Cove

Zen Master @ Grandmother

So, I finally made it back to chatty after a nerve racking 4.5 hour drive back to chatty as I had literally driven my car out of the shop's garage and hit the road.  Sheesh!  

Not two days later I was headed to HP40 for the HP Rocks festival and comp.  Amanda, Alli, and I left Friday around noon.  The temperature was 65 or so and the skies where darkening.  I thought it'd be cool if we stopped at Little River Canyon and The Citadel on the way to get some real rock climbing in.  That is opposed to squirming our way up slippery slopers.  It ended up being a killer day. Amanda did her first lead route, which was Booger .11b.  Boom!  Then I put some burns in on The Word gaining beta each go until I was confident in sending next time. 

All I'm gonna say about HP Rocks is that it rained for a solid 20 hours and the ground was soggy.  Daniel Woods has a clone (Tyler Wilcutt who is now Krusty the Clown).  And the dance party friday night was a mockery of frat parties with all kinds of grinding and dance floor face sucking.  This one guy, and I'm not even kidding, it's a good thing he had his pants on because the girl he was humping would probably be pregnant.  I'm talking hands on the floor and tapping that ass type dancing.  And Nate got it allll on video.  Hilarious.  





Well, yesterday Tim Hinck and I went to the Concave to take care of business.  I sent The Word .13a first try and quickly shifted my attention to Silverman .13b, which was Tim's objective for the day.  This route is all about the recovery.  You can break it down into two sections separated by a three move traverse on decent holds that lead you into the red point crux, 11moves of nonstop pulling on overhanging terrain.  He is pretty freaking close to sending and I hope to follow.  We both got the one hangy, falling a few moves after the rest and sussed out some efficiencies that will save us energy and help us get that much closer to the top.  I'll probably start trying Word Up now too as it also is a pure endurance style route.  PSYCHED!!!!!!!

Cheddar.