Horseshoe...

Well, today we ended up just sticking around closer to Compton, and Wayne's house, which put us at Horseshoe again. I was pretty cool with it too, although I did a have a few things that I would have liked to finish at Fontaine Red.

Anyways, the weather was gorgeous and it was an awesome day to go and work on ticking off a few of the things I put on my list. The morning started with us cruising up to the warm-up boulder, and quickly getting our muscles worked out and ready for a day of some hard sending. Directly after that Wayne spotted an interesting V6 on a boulder directly behind us called Static Tang. The line starts on two crummy crimps and pops out to a gaston with your left. From there you do you a hand foot match with your rights, and then bring your right hand over to the gaston. Next, you pull up hard onto the foot and nail a pretty decent 3/4 pad crimp with your right, get your feet righted up and hit another 3/4 pad crimp and throw to the top. Pretty sick problem and everyone made pretty quick sends of it. I was surprised and sent it second go!

Next, we headed over to the Leatherface boulder and I worked at a few of the moves on Leatherface V7, a cool problem on my ticklist. Not feeling too psyched on it, I ended up thrutching my way through Chainsaw V4, another problem on my ticklist! Sweet! Day one back at HCR and I've already dented the to-do list. After this we headed over and worked a few problems that I just wasn't feeling and towards the end of the day I found my self back a Trouser Chili V4 (on the tick list for '09). This problem gave me a helluva time earlier in the trip and it proceeded to to so again. I worked the beta from the end though and found a cool sequence that worked and was able to put it all together right as the sun finished setting.

Pretty sweet day I'd say. I've already been able to make a decent dent in the things to-do list, and I'm going to be on my way out of HCR tomorrow for Murray. I do have plans to hit up a few problems tomorrow morning for my last dose. Hopefully I'll have some good luck and will leave HCR in high spirits!

Video is Up!

Check it.



Big up to Wayne for being a bad ass at editing and what not. If it weren't for him, this would just be another soundless, crummy video clip but this is instead something much more! Thanks!

Tomorrow we are off to Fontaine Red again and I will hopefully be able to finish up Always Lead the Possum V6 (it was soaking wet last Sunday). Keeping my fingers crossed. We're also going to check out an area called Fred's Cave/New Wave Wall, which is notorious for such lines like One Inch Pinch and Chunk up the Deuce from Dosage V. Pretty psyched and hopefully tomorrow I'll have some problems already gone from my tick list for 2009!

Tick List 2009

Well I've put together a list of things that I would like to be able to tick off this year for climbing. It's mostly routes, but there are a few boulders for the trips that I intend to make down to the HCR area. Here is what it looks like:

Routes:

.12b
- Cro-Magnon Warrior - J-Falls
- Tasmanian Devil - J-Falls
- Space Cowboy - J-Falls
- Remove La Ropa - J-Falls/Promised Land
- Balance of Power - J-Falls/Promised Land
- Nagual - King's Bluff

.12a
- Hidden Treasure (!!!) - J-Falls
- Everybody Needs Friends - J-Falls
- Lavender Eye - HCR
- Detox Mountain - J-Falls
- Tacit - The Red River Gorge
- Energizer - J-Falls
- Cranial Implosion - J-Falls
- Cowboys and Crossdressers - J-Falls
- Team Honda - J-Falls/Promised Land
- Industry - J-Falls
- Prelude to Harvest - King's Bluff

.11d
- The Vow - J-Falls
- The Reckoning - J-Falls

.11c
- Access Denied - J-Falls
- The Twist - J-Falls
- Blue Velvet - J-Falls

.11b
- Splinter Faction - J-Falls
- Stand and Deliver - J-Falls
- Fancy Feet - J-Falls

.11a
- Captain Crunch - J-Falls
- Yuppie with a Gun - J-Falls
- Horseshoes and Handgrenades - HCR
- Flingin' Hog - J-Falls

.10d
- Fragile Egos/Into the Sun - J-Falls
- King's Jester - J-Falls
- Wild at Heart - J-Falls

.10c
- Group Therapy - J-Falls
- The Minstrel - J-Falls

.10b
- Psychotherapy - J-Falls



Boulders:

V8
- Numerical Methods - HCR
- Orbital Mechanics - HCR
- Project V8 by Miho - HCR
- Zig-Zag - J-Falls

V7
- Cloud of Stars - HCR
- Black Snapper - Fontaine Red
- Leather Face - HCR
- David & Goliath - J-Falls
- Space Invaders - J-Falls

V6
- Always Lead the Possum - Fontaine Red
- Newton's Law - Fontaine Red
- Pinball - J-Falls
- OBD Direct - J-Falls

V5
- Gak Traverse - Fontaine Red
- Bag Piper - J-Falls
- THC (sit) - J-Falls

V4
- Chainsaw - HCR
- Trouser Chili - HCR
- OBD Left - J-Falls

V3
- Cold Fusion J-Falls
- THC - J-Falls

Hidden Treasure

My friend Carmen that I climb with from Nashville e-mailed me some pictures today of me climbing on Hidden Treasure .12a at Jackson Falls. Pretty cool pictures and it shows just how small and thin it is in the crux.

Pulling off of the rest hold and onto the face crimps:


After you traverse right, clip, and traverse a little more you come to a point where you have to continue up. For me it's a big reach with the right followed by a high foot with the left. This is the crux for me and is what's holding me back from a send.


Here is after I've worked the crux and am moving up through more small, but larger edges and to the top:



This is definitely one of the routes that I'm most psyched on at The Falls for the spring. Hopefully, the weather is going to stay good for us and we'll have lots of good temps and dry weather! I'm also getting together a tick list of projects I'd really like to send during the year 2009. I've got big expectations and hopefully I'll be able to do the list some justice!

Font Red

Sent Rings of Your Anus V3, second go, and La Beak V4 in about 5 goes or so. Worked Always Follow the Possum for a while and fell off of the last move a couple of times. Towards the end I really got the beta dialed in and it should hopefully go early in the day the next time I'm able to make it to the Power Wall! It's looking like we're going to have to take a few rest days because of exhaustion and weather so updates may be sparce. Mom, I will call you tomorrow!

Rest Day and Today

Well, yesterday we were intelligent enough to take a rest day, which really seemed to play out well for our bodies and worked well since most of the boulders were soaked with moisture from the previous days rain. Lindsay, Wayne, and I ended up heading out to some property Wayne's family owns and did some scoping out of the cliff lines and boulders on the property. Unfortunately, there wasn't a load of potential (at least in the sense that I've been spoiled with lately at Horseshoe), but there are definitely some cool lines that would deserve some attention on a top rope.

Today, we are all going to be heading out to an area called Fountain Red to do some bouldering and it's looking like its going to be chilly (30 degrees but feels like 20 right now). The humidity is kind of high right now too which is scary, but hopefully it will start to go down and things will be perfect! I'm really hoping to tick off a few of these problems today: Rings or Uranus V3, La Beak V4, Always Lead the Possum V6, and Black Snapper V7. Hopefully all will go as planned! We've been editing the video from the past week too. Its looking sweet!

Random Pictures...

The luscious Brian Martin was ever vigilant and creative with photos during this trip and here are some of the awesome shots he dumped on my computer! Hopefully, he doesn't mind me sharing this goodness! Props to the man for the awesome job! He's got an eye for it!

Lindsay cranking out a V2 warm-up on Sloping Joe's:



K-Mart working his bum off on Miho V7:



Lindsay making quick work of Udaho V3:



Udaho V3:



B-Mart topping out Chuckwagon V6:



Wayne crimping hard, two-finger style, on Memento V5:



Tim, with the tongue action:



Joel pulling down hard on Slopadon Milosevic V5:



Wayne, getting crazy and liebacking Wild Flowers V3: