Monastery and a Pitch

Wow. The Monastery has to be right there on my list of least favorite crags that I've ever been to. The majority of the climbing there consists of a real loosely metamorphosed granite. Meaning that the rock is easy to pull out and that the majority of the climbing is on small pebbles and chunks of mica. In other words that majority of the climbing is choss (crappy rock/crappy climbing). The other portion of the rock I've been on is less than vertical and tends to be tiny holds on super sandbagged routes. We got on a supposed super classic .10c while we were at the Monastery oan Sunday and Drew and I were shut down cold on it. IT SUCKED! Other than that route I got in one pitch of 5.8 climbing. I hate it. I feel like my physical ability is deteriorating.

This after noon after eating my face full of food and then eating ice cream Drew and I headed out to the Marble and Downhill Boulders to do a real quick session and the reality of the summer is finally setting in. I'm in worse shape now that I was when I came out here...

I guess I just need to suck it up and climb my butt off here over the next three weeks and get ready for the fall. Anyways, here are a few pictures of the .11b I'm working up at Cottontail. I really think that I should be able to get it in the next few goes. I've only thrown on it four times too, so it would be a considerable improvement in time/tries over the other .11b I got earlier this summer.



Clipping the bolt after the second of the .10c cruxes on the route. From the bolt below the little bulge you have to traverse left along a line of crimps (that reminds me a lot of the crimp section on Hidden Treasure at Jackson Falls) and then bump up to a left hand crimp then get a high right foot and go for a good hold with the right. You can see those two holds that are chalked right by my left knee.


Here I'm clipping the last bolt and about the move up into the little alcove to the right where you pull off a slopey hold and then heel in with the left foot and get into an iron cross (a full arm span extension move) and move up on a pinch to a crimp and out slopers to the anchors.