apAdventures

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 pjv

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. 🙂

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.

It was January of this year when we first went to the boulder problem “That Hi-Pro Glow,” V6 at Hueco Tanks. April was psyched because the moves seemed do-able with a little bit of work. Unfortunately, 11 months went by until we got around to re-visiting the problem (so many choices when you’ve got over 2000 Hueco problems to choose from). Fortunately, after 11 more months of climbing, the problem seemed quickly send-able for April.

Beta:
That Hi-Pro Glow is a super fun Hueco climb in our opinion. April starts it out with two hands matched and a left heel on the heinous sloper starting hold. The first several moves are hard as you work your way around a blunt arete. If you don’t keep your core tight and you blow a foot it drains all your energy just trying to get back in control. Most people just fall off. If you get established around the arete there are a few options but most people quickly pop to a sloper and…whew…”the hard climbing is over…” not really….

April quickly works out her beta for getting to the final sloper and then starts giving it some sending goes. One go, two goes, three goes…more and more goes – climbing it smooth around the arete, but keeps falling at the big pop to the sloper – too pumped to get the height she needs to grab it.

The tour is about wrapping it up and getting ready to move on to the next area. Ok, last try. Two hands and a heel on the slopey start, holding the tension as she works around the arete, left hand on a shelf and right hand on a good pinchy sidepull – wing span at full extension, right foot pushes and POP….right hand smacks the sloper! YES – this problem is in the bag for April….um, we think. There’s still a decent amount of climbing to get to the top of the boulder….kinda highball….but hey – it’s only V0ish at this point.

April is working her way up, we’re all cheering, she’s pulling on jugs. As I’m watching April through the video camera eye piece, I see she has one last move to go to the lip…to a huge honking big as a bucket jug – wait a second – she looks pumped as hell. But how could anyone possibly fall from there? – I’m thinking. As my brain is computing the answer to that question, my finger switched the camera off and I went into emergency spotting mode. (Brain processing next thought): Well at least she’s falling feet-first….hmm, are there pads under her?

April’s highball crash landing placed her perfectly on the pads and in the arms of a spotter (who just happened to be standing in the right place at the right time – THANK YOU DAN FROM L.A.) Ahhh, the adventures of bouldering. She’ll be seeing you next time – you Hi-Pro Glow (with a little more juice, let’s hope).

After a long week of driving (J-Tree to Tucson) and climbing (Hueco Tue and Wed) and driving (Hueco to Tucson, Tucson to Hueco) and climbing, the time is 4PM on Sunday afternoon, the place is Martini Roof, the problem is Baby Martini, the climber is April….and…SHE SENDS….AT LAST! Who says you can’t pull a send out of the bag when your arms are blown and it’s time to hop in the car for a 6 hour drive home? This was the ultimate conclusion to a great week of climbing.

Here are four videos that we put together to show some of the fun climbs, cool people and excitement of the week.

Or did I mean “Two Days With Gene?” No no (that’s a boulder problem name)…I’ve got Hueco on my mind again why? Because we went back again! Yeah. We took a little vacation and went to Hueco mid-week on Tuesday and Wednesday! Our good friend Nate who we met climbing at Hueco last year mentioned that he was coming to Tucson for a “conference.” Any climber knows that when you go to a conference for work or whatever you have to figure out the closest climbing destination and plan accordingly. Of course Nate did and his two good friends Matt and Justin joined him for a few days at Hueco Tanks. We had a great two days bouldering on N. Mt. and going on a tour out to E. Spur. Nate and the guys had a nice 4 day stretch of climbing before they were totally burned out and returned with us to Tucson for the conference. I won’t report on any of the highlights yet because we are leaving for Hueco again tonight and I’ve gotta get ready. So, we’ll catch up on the posts when we return next week and detail the excitement soon. It’s gonna be nuts!

Quick Weekend Summary:

We signed up to volunteer at the Annual Hueco Tanks Interpretive Fair. It turned out to be a lot of fun. Luckily the weather was pretty nasty on Saturday morning so we didn’t feel too bad about not climbing (Sat morning). The Interpretive Fair is an event in which anyone from the public is allowed to enter Hueco Tanks (without reservations) and participate in the weekend festivities. There are many cultural exibits and booths to explore which give a great insight to the parks history. We were assigned to park cars throughout the morning and into the afternoon. When we were relieved by another set of volunteers the sun came out and the sky cleared up! By that time we were all psyched to go and to our advantage the park was open until 8:00PM. So, we were off to work projects and eventually we took a lantern down to the Martini Roof for some evening bouldering.

On Sunday we spent the entire day on N. Mt. doing tons of problems. No major sends to report of (except I finally did “Speedbump” V7) but there are some BIG potential sends on the horizion. Hopefully April, Grit, Vince, Tammy and I will come through by the end of the year and tick some SICK lines. Don’t worry, our video camera is fixed and we’re fliming for our next movie.

After telling story upon story about the bouldering mecca Hueco Tanks, we had to prove to our new friend Grit (from Germany) that we weren’t lying. She’s been climbing for three years but has never tried bouldering and was really psyched to see what the best bouldering in the U.S.A was all about. Turns out, Grit is a true boulderer.

It all started at a little get-together we had Thursday night with our climber friends. We got so psyched that we decided to leave for Hueco the next day and take our chances with the weather. Some friends said, “Dude, why go? It’s gonna be like 110 degrees out there.” I said, “No way man, it’s gonna be cloudy and about 80. Perfect for summer climbing.”

Turns out…it was cloudy and PERFECT!!! We spent Saturday on North Mountain re-visiting the classics and showing Grit just some of the hundereds of amazing lines that Hueco has to offer. On Sunday we joined some really nice new friends on an observation tour which led us to “The Gunks” and to the “Sausage Factory.”

Here are a few photos of the weekend but the video should capture the fun and excitement better. We’ll have footage up in a couple days.

Well here we sit in our favorite sandwich place in Las Cruces, NM, on our way home from Hueco. Sadly, we are not talking about my send of Baby Martini (my first V6) because, well, I didn’t send it…nor am I going to send it any time soon because we’re not coming back for a while. I’ve decided to leave this unfinished business for the time being because if I attempt it anymore, I may actually begin to hate one of the best boulder problems in the park. I’m so close, so very close. Last weekend was my best attempt I think, and had I not fudged my beta….who knows, maybe it would have went down. But…on to bigger and better things…..LET’S CLIMB SOME ROUTES NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 5.12 here I come, haha.

posted by arr

Paul and I spent Fri and Sat of Memorial Day weekend at Hueco….deadset on sending.

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