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December 19, 2005
POP!
Damn. Oh well. It sucks to get injured but I couldn't be more happy showing off my battle injury. I was making my best link yet on Dark Age (V11). I started matched in the undercling and was going to make it into See Spot Run (The V6 finish). I had my left hand on that weird sidepull on the arete. I move my right hand down to the horrible pinch and then over to a right hand sidepull. I've never stuck the sidepull before but yesterday I was feeling stronger than ever. I stuck the hold and then the most disgusting cracking noise ever!!!! For a split second I thought, "I should keep going." Nope...the pain quickly set in and I was off, swearing, "Oh Shit, it's my finger Apirl...Shit."
Today I spent most of my day at the doctor. I got an x-ray because I was sure I broke my ring finger. See, isn't it good that I don't wear my wedding ring climbing? So, to my surprise they said, "negative." I was like, "what? it isn't broken? But I heard it crack, it was a crack not a little pop." They just said, "It's a negative sir." Oh well, I"m off to the hand specialists, maybe an MRI or something like that.
In summary: Dark Age = 1, Paul = 0. When I recover from this Dark Age is going down! Mark my words...
Posted by Paul at 06:36 PM | Comments (0)
December 12, 2005
Pittsburgh visits Hueco
Another Hueco weekend for us. This time, with our dear friends from Pittsburgh, Jason and Kathy and their friend Stuart. Needless to say, a great weekend was had by all. Some notable sends:
Fri, North Mtn:
Unnamed Slopey (v4) - Jason
Nobody Here Gets out Alive (v2) - Kathy
Sat, East Mtn:
Tri Hard (v4) - Paul
Ostracizer (v2) - Jason & Stuart
The Ventral Fin (v5) - Paul
Sun, North Mtn:
Everybody Wins (v3) - Kathy [First v3 for Kathy!!! WOOHOO!!]
Lobster Claws (v5) - Jason
Lithologic (v4) - April
Right El Sherman (v2) - Paul & Jason
Local Flakes (v2) - Jason & Stuart
Extremely Close Sends (one or two moves from sending!!!):
Mexican Chicken (v6) - April
Fern Roof (v10) - Paul
Brutus (v5) - April
Crimping Christ on the Cross (v10) - Paul
Dragonfly (v5) - Jason, Stuart & April
Big Nose Milley (v9/10) - Paul
Once again Jason, looks like you've got some unfinshed Hueco business still. Start planning for your spring trip back. :-)
Posted by April at 08:02 PM | Comments (1)
December 07, 2005
3-2-1 Lift Off
"Where have you been the last couple weeks," has been the common question we've been asked recently when bumping into friends at work or while climbing. Our answer is that we spent a nice amount of time with my family in Pittsburgh celebrating Thanksgiving. It would be too much text if I started describing all of the delicious meals (including Thanksgiving dinner) we had so I'll just mention a dinner conversation that we had which led us into mischief. When we were talking about a place to take a hike one of the days I mentioned going to Laurel Hill State Park near Seven Springs Ski Resort. My Dad said, "Oh yeah, that's a nice place to hike. I remember when we used to camp there and shoot off those model rockets you'd build." I said,"Ohhhh yeah I miss shooting those things off." On the way home from our hike the next day we stopped off and bought a little model rocket. A couple days later we were standing outside in the bitter cold hurrying to get the ignitor wires connected to a 9V battery. My Dad counted down, "5-4-3, no, no, we used to go from 10. Ok...10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 GO!" I put the wires to the battery and whooshhhh. The rocket soared off over my parents city neighborhood. It was awesome.
The rocket soared way up, almost out of sight and then the parachute popped out. The rocket fell back to Earth nice and slow until it touched down right next to some guy's truck. Whoops. Close call. That guy was actually working construction and watched the whole launch and probably wondered if what we did was legal. Actually, was what we did really legal? ha ha. This was just one of the many fun moments and memories that we got to share with my parents over a great Thanksgiving vacation.
Posted by Paul at 09:18 PM | Comments (0)
December 04, 2005
Full Contact Spotting
So there's this problem at Hueco called 99 Heroin Balloons (V8/9). Super rad, tension-y, explosive, committing moves. Super aggressive full contact, football player style, spotting required! Here is a little video clip of Paul and Justin getting tackled by gravity and by a sketchy landing.
Posted by April at 11:35 PM | Comments (0)