apAdventures

So now that we’ve reached a high point in our home improvements (Porch, done. Guest House Bathroom, done. Main House Bathroom, done. Hot Tub Shade Roof, done.), it’s time to update you all with more serious matters: CLIMBING. HARD climbing. Although it may appear that we’ve replaced our beloved sport of climbing with “This Old House” episodes lately, this is hardly the case. Quietly, we’ve been sneaking away on weekends…cuttin’ ruts in I-10…throwing our crashpads down underneath some of our hardest endeavors yet. Our month off over the holidays worked out just as planned. Our muscles rested, our bodies rejuvenated. And now we’re back in tip-top shape and climbing stronger than ever. On what? Here’s the scoop:

Rewind 4 seasons ago to our very first trip to Hueco, and our very first glimpse on Martini Roof. If you’ve spent any time at all on this website, you’ve probably read at least a dozen-million accounts of us raving about all the fantastic climbs in the Martini Roof. First it started with Paul sending Left Martini, his first v10. Then me with Baby Martini, my first v6. Then me again on Big Iron on His Hip, v7. Not to mention Schadenfraud v5, Martini Hotbox v9, and Dirty Martini v9. Can you tell we love this place? From day 1, however, Paul has been drooling….and I mean drooling….over yet another Martini classic: Shaken Not Stirred (aka Right Martini), v12. Well, after 4 seasons the time has finally come to start giving Right Martini some attention. And the attention has been positive. *Very* positive. Every weekend I’ve watched Paul progress steadily. First working out the beta, then linking the crux, and now finally awesome sending go’s. The send is inevitable. This weekend’s highpoint on the climb made us both realize just how inevitable it is. But we try not to think about it yet….not until Paul’s right hand cranks up to the finishing hold on Big Iron on His Hip. Then it will be time for the ultimate celebration. “Martini, please. Shaken, not stirred.” 🙂

So that’s Paul’s news. Now what’s new with me. Back in December I had my sights set on one climb and one climb only: Mushroom Roof, v8. I was able to link the sections pretty quick and had started giving it sending go’s. Just to give it one last shot before the holidays, Paul and I took a vacation day from work on Monday, December 17th and headed to Hueco for what was hoped to be, my send. Alas, I did not send it that day. As a consolation prize however, I snagged a send on Left El Murray, v6 instead (of which I was TOTALLY psyched on). No big deal, I’ll just save Mushroom Roof for January. Then Saturday, December 22nd, 5 days later, the Mushroom Boulder was closed. Permanently. Indefinitely. Forever. I’m not going to gripe and moan and woh-as-me any further than this on this topic. I’ll just end it with saying I was heartbroken. As were many other climbers I’m sure.

So January 2008 comes, and with it my new quest to find my next obsession. I need another v8. But it has to be a good v8…..as good as Mushroom Roof. So I dabbled on some climbs here and there and surprisingly, landed my sights on the Bloody Flapper Traverse. I say surprisingly because this climb is crimpier, longer, and just a degree harder than Mushroom Roof. It’s a v9. Hey! Who says I can’t try a v9 without having never sent a v8?! There aren’t rules in rock climbing! Are there? I say no. And I say my send of Bloody Flapper Traverse is also inevitable. I too, reached an incredible high point this weekend on my climb. Although I think my progression may be a bit slower than Paul’s progression on Right Martini, I know that I can do this climb. Ultimate celebrations are on the horizon. Martini’s and bloody flappers! Now *that’s* rock climbing. 🙂

posted by arr

If you’ve ever climbed on the Mushroom Boulder you would understand how dissapointed we are, hearing that no one will ever experience a similar enjoyment of such a classic boulder.

From www.Climbing.com:
“Sometimes called the single best boulder in the world, the Mushroom Boulder at Hueco Tanks, Texas, has been closed to climbing to protect the soil, plant life, and possible archaeological resources under the rock.”

Hopefully by now we have been providing a convincing argument that our crazy amounts of driving to and from various climbing destinations is totally worth it. And yet again, I think we can prove it. After we used up our last Hueco reservations for the year, we said our goodbyes and set our sights on our near term holiday plans. Relax, rest, eat lots of food and recover for the rest of the Hueco season. However, as April and I sat in the car during the long drive back to Tucson last weekend, contemplating our next few weeks, one of us asked the classic question, “How about just one more trip?” Within milliseconds we had the answer. Next weekend. Turns out the only available reservations were on Monday (today). Hmmm, after about another millisecond of thought we figured out a way to make one last trip happen. So, as I sit here in the car on the way back to Tucson, I am still convinced that we are not crazy for driving all the way to El Paso for just one day. Once again we had an amazing time and it was totally worth it!

This stellar last day started off at the Mushroom Boulder. While warming up, our good friend Nate, whom we hadn’t seen for nearly two years, randomly strolled up. Coincidentally it was the last day of his short four day trip all the way from New Hampshire. A pleasant surprise!

When my feet started to get cold and I couldn’t wait to leave to try some problems at the next spot I said to April, “Hurry up with Mushroom Roof. Either send it or let’s go. I’m psyched to try some other stuff.” April replied, “Alright, I’m about done here. Today isn’t the day for Mushroom but I’m going to give one go on Left El Murray before we leave.” Many a hardman and hardwoman have claimed the ultimate classic Left El Murray (v6) HARDER than Mushroom Roof (v8), myself included. April has given Left El Murray much attention over the years, and to no avail. Well, today was an exception to all of the above. She crushed it.

The rest of the day was a combination of running into more old friends (the season is ON) and linking up hard moves on all the problems we touched. April & Raquel had a good little session on King Cobra (v6), while my bros and I slapped the finishing hold on Anal Intruder #10 (v11). After that, I managed to make my best link yet on Right Martini (v12). It’s now time for sending go’s! And the day concluded with some spontaneous interest by myself, April, and Raquel in The Bloody Flapper Traverse (v9) – a climb that I’ve dabbled on in the past but never managed to send….until today.

So now what? April and I are both climbing harder now than we’ve ever climbed before. To keep us in tune for the duration of the Hueco season, which has only just begun, it’s time to take a short pitstop. We’re going to rest up, enjoy the holidays with the families, let our tendons relax and get reacquainted with our muscle fibers, and continue the season stronger than ever. See you in January, Hueco.

posted by pjv

As I studied the razor sharp crimps of the partially chalked, slightly overhanging wall, home to the classic Right El Murray (v8), my friend Justin said, “Hey, are you going to try that climb? Good luck dude, because if you fail to tick it you’ll only go home half a hardman.”

I was like, “Uh, whatever macho saying you just told me doesn’t sound good. Where did you come up with that rule? I mean, I’ve basically written this crimp nightmare off of my tick list but for some reason I’m going to try it again today. I guess by the sounds of it, I have to do this climb to really get credit for completing the three El Murrays. Right?”

Justin said, “Check out the guidebook man, I’m not lying.”

“The steepest section of the wall is home to the Left, Center, and Right El Murrays. The Center El Murray has been justly dubbed Hueco’s Greatest Problem. Many a tough guy has had fits at the El Murrays, knowing that if he doesn’t tick all three he’ll leave Hueco only half a hardman.”

John Sherman, “Texas Tall Tales”
Climbing Magazine No. 116.

It was funny because after hearing Justin tell me that goofy phrase something in my brain clicked. I thought to myself, “I can’t leave this problem undone. I have to do it. I have to do it even if my fingers snap off. I can’t leave here today knowing that I’m half a hardman. I am a FULL HARDMAN!” Yes. Psyched. The moment of psychedness overcame my body and I yelled to April, “Hey, quit working Mushroom Roof, gimme the pads now! I’m psyched.” She was like, “Alright fine, but hurry up. My feet are getting cold watching you flail on your attempts.”

Oh well, it didn’t quite register what she said. I grabbed the pads, threw them down, chalked up and pulled on.

Thought process:
– Ouch, left hand fingers crimp side-pull, thumb digs deep into a sharp spike
– Right hand crimps something but first move is to a hold that doesn’t really exist and isn’t chalked that much but I pretend it’s there and crimp HARD. Ouch again.
– Ok, left foot up, the jarring movement of my foot grinds my left thumb and right crimp deeper, ouch. Oh well, go.
– One more left foot smack. Ouch.
– Cross over to another no-chalk imaginary crimp. OUCH! Oh man I stuck it!
– Don’t fall now! Or you will have to repeat those moves again
– Right hand to a sharp, fairly good, side-pull…breath baby
– Set feet and move left hand from very painful crimp to less painful crimp. Mini ouch.
– Now, setup, look, spot the final jug hueco with birds nest inside, leap and do not damage bird’s nest…STICK! Yeah. Let out loud yell for good measure and to unleash all the pent up pain. Whoooo hoooooo.
– Top out and say, “Damn, I’m never doing that climb ever again!”

Ahhhhhhh. Damn it feels good to be a HARDMAN!

posted by pjv

Here is a short video of our good friend Anke (from Germany – Grit’s sister) sending Local Flakes, V2 at Hueco Tanks. Local Flakes is a classic problem on the Mushroom Boulder, which has been Anke’s long standing project for the last few weekends. She cruised it this weekend! Nice job. Check out her sendin’ style:

Is it possible to “wear out” one’s favorite climbing area? I think this to myself as we speed towards Hueco Tanks Friday evening after work. I was excited, but not “Hueco” excited. Paul and I have spent a blissful summer bouldering in Flagstaff, where there’s no such thing as rules, regulations, and reservations. When the temps at Hueco drop from the 100’s to the 90’s, Paul and I usually ditch Flag and get sucked back into those beckoning Hueco huecos. So here we are, 1st reservations of the season arranged, rippin’ down Interstate 10 to the mecca. Have the restrictions finally started to get to me? Am I really not that psyched?! The world must obviously be coming to an end, I think. Obviously.

The next morning, however, we roll into the park – the mood picking up steadily with every foot closer to the park headquarters. We park, head inside, fill out the daily paperwork, catch up real quick w/ the Hueco staff, and head to the boulders. As with every ‘first return’ to Hueco, Paul and I are seasoned enough to know that hopping on last spring’s projects on the first day is just asking for a painful spanking. So we start this first day off with a little circuiting – hitting up all the easier classics, moving quickly and purposefully from one area to the next. Before we know it, the day is gone and we’ve covered most of North Mountain and have actually topped out on most everything we touched. Good start.

Sunday we decide to head out on a tour – only this time, as participants, not guides. We’re a little skeptical as to whether anyone else will be on this tour with us, let alone a guide that’ll be willing to take us out! You can imagine then how excited we were when 4 El Paso climber locals and 2 roadtrippin’ surfers from Calgary showed up, rearin’ to get to the rocks – a classic, full blown psyched-as-all-heck tour….in the heat of SEPTEMBER! This is GREAT! Needless to say, the day was absolutely stellar, full of good sends and good company.

So here we are on The Drive Home #146. Same drive, same excited chatter over the climbs of the weekend and the wish list for the many weekends to come. Have we “worn out” Hueco? Heck no! I must have just had a lack of sleep and been cranky last Friday night, haha. Silly me.

posted by arr

Our first weekend back after the France trip and we have another friend in town. Our friend Marcus (also from Germany, ahh! they’re following us!) and his friend Brian from Alaska are here on a month long roadtrip in the States. We all linked up at Hueco together for a day. Our friend Linda came along too – her first time at Hueco. Here are a few good photos Brian snapped:

Recently we’ve been psyched. Psyched to climb harder. Our frequent visits to Hueco have exposed us to people from all over the world climbing hard! April and I have been wondering what we could do, how we can train so we can get strong like the many climbers sending the classics all around us. “It’s time to up the ante,” as April put it. So, over the last few weeks we increased our intensity of training. We started pushing our limits more than ever. Check out Ben Moon’s advice www.moonclimbing.com for some ideas that we think really work!

While training or climbing over the past few weeks we both kept asking each other, “Hey, do I look stronger now? Am I climbing harder after all this training?” For sure, yeah, we noticed the improvement in our abilities but we’ve only been linking and doing individual moves on problems at or above our limits. For example, I recently tried “Right Martini V12” and for a first time ever, did all the moves. I can’t tell how far off I am from a send but I can definitely tell that I’m stronger than ever and progressing every week.

Last weekend I managed to send “Dirty Martini on the Rocks V12” but that climb kinda sucks and it is probably more like V9. April repeated “Baby Martini V6” while Iaughing and then nearly sent the awesome “Big Iron on His Hip V7.” After a couple other pretty cool accomplishments that weekend we still were not satisfied and we craved harder sends.
Well, today, I think we got what we wanted.

Paul:
Sent “Predator V10” 1st go (worked out the full sequence last weekend) and “ V6” (I could never figure out how to do this one previously). Repeated “Daily Dick Dose V7” (warmed up the fingers for Predator), fell off “Double Vision V7” several times and tweaked something! And repeated “Big Iron on His Hip V7” to test out the tweak. Yep, definitely tweaked something in the left hand. No more climbing today.

April: 
Cranked out her best climbing day….E V E R. Decided to try out “Daily Dick Dose” just cause we were there for me to warm up, and then went ahead and promptly SENT the damn thing. A Hueco classic and her first V7! We then moved on to the Martini Roof and she laced up for “Big Iron on His Hip V7”, a much better climb in my opinion that is harder and much longer, and the climb which she had been projecting the last few weekends. She fell three times at the last move, fingers an inch away from the finish hold. Then rested. Then sent. April’s second V7.

Stay tuned…the sending train is just gettin’ started.

Ouch! This hurts. Typing that is. My fingers are thrashed from a RAD Hueco weekend! No major sends to report but both April and I are getting close on our current projects. Recently, after working on problems way at my limit I have had to adjust my mindset for the constant days of getting humbled. Many times when the climbing is really really hard and I keep failing I step back and say to myself, “This is fun, right?” “Hell yeah it is!” I usually get psyched at the thought and try again, try harder, and fall off. I look at my torn up fingers and feel all the sore muscles in my body, thinking am I ever going to send this thing? For me, this is awesome! The challenge of the problem lures me in and I can’t get enough even when I’m bloody and dead tired.

Although my enjoyment may be unique, shared by only the community of climbers like me. I often wonder what an “outsider” must think. What if someone who doesn’t understand what bouldering is just happens to look on at what we are doing? Ok so here is the picture: we are barely making any progress, trying sooo hard, nearly killing ourselves when we tear off moves crashing into the ground. Swearing, hi-fiving, yelling and saying goofy things. For example, the Brits we sessioned with this weekend were psyched. They came to the US to experience Hueco but recently the weather has been horribly cold and they got off to a slow start. Yesterday, after making great progress on Power of Silence V10 and falling off one guy yelled, “It’s been so F-ing Bloody Cold this is the first time I’ve been warm on this trip.” After hearing that all of his super strong friends chalked up and got in line to reach the same high point. To me, the 3 moves they all made was inspiring. I joined in and made it as far as them. When I fell off and caught my breath we all shared beta, “Dude, where did you grab that crimp?” “Grab the left part and smear on that shitty foot” “Toe hook with the outside of your left foot” “No no, use your heal and lean” “This is bloody fantastic!” Obviously, to us, each climber did something totally different. We were all psyched and kept at it.

Ok so back to the “outsider.” At this point they would definitely wonder what 6 guys are doing down in a hole where it’s super cold, speaking a weird language with a few expliciives thrown in. They may ask “What are you doing? Is that fun? Is that a sport?” “What are you guys doing, just walk around to the top of the boulder if you want to get to the top (you wouldn’t imagine how many people really have told us that).” What’s even better is when they go to the top and say, “Hey look how easy it is.”

Recently I’ve been laughing about what a non-climber would think about my attempts at problems that are really hard for me. I can see where they would come up with those questions but it was today that I found a moment where I seriously thought any non-climber would appreciate the scene of people bouldering.

I stood at the base of Mushroom Boulder, a super classic area with tons of awesome problems. My attention was caught when a few cheers eminated from Mushroom Roof V8. A British girl (from the crew of Brits) was cruising. She naturally locked off the crimps on the steep roof, exhibited no strain and as she neared the top-out, caught the last good hold with ease, flexing her muscles which were comparable to the guys that spotted her. To my right a guy grabbed the lip of a tall problem, cut his feet, threw his foot up to the top and cruised over to celebrate his warm-up send. In the distance there were three people climbing the high-ball Mellon Patch V0. Three, all on the climb together! Jokingly they were pulling on each other as they climbed as if they were trying to cause each other to fall off. But, really they were so calm that it appeared as if they were on level gound playfully bumping into one another like playing a game of tag. Everyone was demonstrating skill that seemed so natural. It was as if we, humans, were meant to climb. It was a display of talent from people all around the world. I would even compare it to the show that olympic athletes put on that impress viewers who have no clue what snowboarding is or what’s possible on ice skates. Today I saw a demonstration of climbing that would impress any non-climber and maybe interest them enough to try, to have fun and join our underground sport.

Too bad this scene was only shared by us, many miles from the nearby city, on the boulders in the desert, away from the spotlight and away from all the “outsiders,” the non-climbers. Maybe someday people won’t wonder what our underground sport is all about?

Sorry for NO video footage or pictures. Our video camera broke and our camera battery has seen its last recharge.

posted by pjv

….Hueco reservations, that is. No need for New Year’s resolutions when you’ve got Hueco reservations for the next three months. I will climb more. I will climb harder. I will send only sick projects. – Not because I have incredible will power or the determination of an olympic athlete. Not because I’m willing and ready to make psychotic sacrifices. It’s because I simply enjoy climbing. Dedication is effortless when it’s for something you truly love. And Paul and I just can’t seem to love this sport enough. 😉 Ahhh, the sick sends are just around the next bend…er, uh, weekend.

posted by arr