Jackson Falls

Well, we made it out to Jackson again this past weekend. It went fairly well I suppose. Drove out on Saturday night, after the pre-service weekend, and camped up above one of the falls. Definitely a pretty awesome camping spot. After that we went down and did a few boulder problems in the dark at the Reefer Madness boulders. Good fun, and I found a few cool little projects to work on.

Sunday morning we all ended up sleeping in until like 9:30 and then we headed right down the dog walk over the the Manky Alcove, where Kevin had a few things he wanted to get on. I started out with a nice 5.9 redpoint of The Essence of Manky. It's a pretty odd climb that works up a stem dihedral and then towards the top you have to end up liebacking on some good holds. Pretty cool all in all though. Next, we went over and I got the onsight of Creep Show, a 5.10a. It sucks. I don't recommend that route to anyone. Next, I really wanted to get on something that would be tough for me, and I sure found it. It's a pretty cool and really overhung route called Industry which is 5.12a. Stick clipped the first bolt and then flew right up to the third bolt, which I thought had been the meat of the climb. Unfortunately, I was wrong. From the third bolt up to the anchors involves pulling around a corner to get to a little slab and then it would be cake. Unfortunatley, my beta sucked at all times and I could never get to the top and ended up having to bail after my second go. I'm definitely gonna give it another go here sometime soon, when the weather cools off!

Here are some pictures from the climbing.


Clipping the first bolt:


Chalking up:


Kevin working up the route:


On the .10a. It sucked:


Right now is before a whole lot of grunting and whining started:


On the .12a. You can tell how overhung it is by looking at how my quickdraws are falling:


Clipping the second bolt:


Stuck, and hang-dogging it at the 3rd bolt.


A shot of me hoisting Taylor up to the 3rd bolt so he could try the top. If you look at how he is hanging you can again see how overhung the route is:

New route on the wall...

Well, I got home from work today and Lane wanted to hang out and do some bouldering on the wall. So, we messed around for a bit, and found some cool little lines. I also gave a line another try that I was working on some yesterday and was able to give it a send today.

I decided to call it Pinch Master Flex, and if you pay close enough attention you can see the start is a match on a cruddy bread loaf pinch, to a slopey little edge then an immediate bump to a moderately good left hand pinch. Next, you have to match your right heel and hand and rock up hard on the heel and do your best to lock off and hit a decent sloper (I couldn't lock off quite good enough either, and consequently my feet popped). From there you need to re-establish your feet and get ready for the crux, a move over to a left hand undercling pinch. From there move the feet to really get hard into the undercling, drop a knee to a jug, and then cross through the rest of the way on decent jugs.

Pretty psyched, and I think that it would probably fall somewhere in the spectrum of hard V3. Just a little guess. We'll have to see how everyone else does on the problem to verify that though. Here's a little video of the route. Watch out for vertigo though. Lane got all sideways with it half way through the video.

Pics of the First Bouldering Session

Well I put the holds on today and It has really come together well! It feels so great to be able to get a session in in the middle of the week for once! 12's best be watching themselves because I'm coming! Here are some pictures with K-Bo. (Hi Kevin's mom, in case you decided to check out the blog!)


The first hold...I ended up taking it back off. lol


Check that angle!


K-Bo, warming up with still minimal holds on the wall.



With most of the holds on:


Starting to find projects!:



Gotta lock that heel in before I try to make that move next time! I fell shortly after.:

It's finally done!

The wall is finally complete! It just needs some holds, which will go on tomorrow, and then it needs some climbing to commence! These pictures are from earlier in the day though, so now all of the panels are on and it is placed in it's place and it's ready to start getting sent!

Updates

Well, it's been two weeks consecutively with no climbing. I don't know what to do. I might just go insane.

In light of that thought I have been doing a lot of school work, working a considerable amount with my on campus job at the Center for Environmental Education, and then working at Pagliai's some as well. This past weekend was the first weekend for the Center's program called pre-service, which is basically where all of the elementary ed. undergrads come out the a retreat center in LBL and we teach them some really cool methods that they could use in their own classrooms when they're out and teaching. It's pretty cool and it was fun because I had the chance to work with my mom in the program.

Apart from that weekend I've also had a few projects going around the house. I had an old Schwinn bike frame lying around that I wasn't using so one day my friends Kevin and Stephen came over and we tore everything off of the frame and gave it a coat of some flat black and them we reassembeled everything. It was defintely a pretty cool little project and it was fun to learn a little more about bikes! Here are a few pictures of the finished product. I also bought a few new things for the bike including a head light, tail light, some new bar tape, and brake levers and calipers. The thing is gonna be pretty sharp when I get it all done. I'll be sure to get some more photos when it's all done.




Finally, the big project. I've been figuring and figuring and figuring some more and finally have started to get the bouldering wall project going. Yesterday, I busted ass on the project and made some considerable progress. Pretty much the current status is that the whole thing is framed in as of this morning and now I'm just waiting for this evening to roll around so I can have some friends come over to lend a hand in getting all of the supports up so it will be able to support it's self. I'm pretty excited and would love to be able to start setting some problems on it by the end of the week!




I hope everyone is doing well!

Jackson Falls 9/6

Well, once again I was fortunate enough to get back out to Jackson Falls again last weekend. This time the crew I went out with was Kevin Bogard, his cousin Steven, and then Kevin Martin who I got to know this summer in CO. It was without a doubt an awesome day!

Starting out we went to the Royal Arch wall and hit Archangel .10a for Kevin, and then swung over on top rope and tried the .11+ again. It was hard! I hadn't warmed up yet though and I think that might have contributed to some of the difficulties that I was having with the route. I couldn't get through the crux.

Next, we went over to Lovely Arete...again. This time I was just running through all of the beta in my head before I got on it and when I did start climbing well...I effed it all up to say the least, but some where out of it I was able to keep things together and I was finally able to send! I'm definitely excited to get that one out of the way, and it was really inspiring to see Kevin work things out and flash the route. Chump.

After that we ran over to The Gallery and I got a flash on a cool .10a called Earthbound Misfits. Definitely the best route of that grade that I've climbed thus far and would love to get back on it again!

Finally, Kevin Martin and I headed over to this super classic .12a called Everybody Needs Friends and went for the lead. After Kevin got the first two bolts, he came down for a rest and I ended up working it through the fourth and to the anchors. Definitely was a really cool route and really is cool since only a year ago my life's goal in climbing was the send a .12a, and what do you know...it's getting pretty close. Might have to do some readjusting!

Here are some pictures from the climbs!

Getting ready to start:


Opening moves:

Almost to the first bolt:


About to clip the second bolt and then start the crux:


Through the business at a rest of sorts:


Moving up towards the slabby topout:


Clipping the chains and red pointing!:


Cruddy, bad idea, .11+ warmup:


How I ended up looking most of the time: