apAdventures

Hueco Tanks, Texas
Friday, May 27th
Noonish

According to the Yahoo weather report for El Paso, it looks like temperatures are forecasted to drop for Friday and Saturday which might provide April and I an opportunity to send. When I say “drop” I mean the temps are forecasted to be in the upper 80s, possibly 90 degrees. That’s better than last weekend of 100+ degrees. So it looks like we have a window to attempt to send our projects, Baby Martini (V6) for April and Theatre of the Absurd (V10) for me. Wish us luck so we can complete our unfinished business and top off 6 months of awesome bouldering.

posted by pjv

Well, no exciting climbing news to report this weekend…well, other than the fact that Paul and I almost got fried like eggs in a frying pan on the 100+ degree Hueco rock on Sat and Sun.

Yes, it was hot. VERY HOT. EXTREMELY HOT. Now, we usually like to act like we’re all tough and hardcore and stuff – and climb regardless of “conditions.” But, I gotta say, triple digit temp conditions kinda put a damper on things….just a little…ok, a lot. We’ve both been devoting all time and energy to two particular boulder problems: Theatre of the Absurd (v10) for Paul, and Baby Martini (v6) for me. We’ve been training, eating good and healthy, getting lots of sleep, and getting fricken psyched UP. But needless to say, you can be as psyched as a chocolate lab finding a new pile of shit to roll in and still get completely shut down when the thermometer is reading HOT. Oh well. Maybe it’ll snow next weekend………cause we’re going back to try again. 😉

So what do you do when it’s too hot to climb? Go and play mini golf.

posted by arr

Our plan was to start into a summer of sport climbing and lessen the number of bouldering trips we take to once a month. Well…plans change. Last weekend ended just shy of an amazing finish to our almost every weekend of bouldering, for the year so far. Both April and I were so close to sending our newest projects we decided to reschedule our sport climbing and book more Hueco Tanks reservations for at least one, maybe two more weekends. April linked all the moves of “Baby Martini” V6, to the final crux. She reached the crux with almost no steam left and was faced with a huge throw to a sloping hueco. The move is hard for me but April, being smaller, must throw herself at full extension, keeping a toe hook in order to barely reach the “bad” part of the hold. She is able to do the problem in two parts but needs to train a tiny bit more to link the entire problem.

I gave “Theatre of the Absurd” V10, another series of sending attmpts. I realized that I must surpass a specific stage before I can send a problem near my upper limit. The stage that I’m speaking about is the perfection of all the subtile movements between segments of the entire boulder problem. I’ve been quoted recently saying, “I’ve done all the moves, therefore I’m ready to send.” But, last weekend was devoted to the stage of piecing all of the moves together, figuring out all of the efficient energy saving techniques so that when I return in two weeks I can successfully link all of the hard segments together and send, with style.

Last Sunday Vince, Tammy, Paul and I decided to warm up on the front side of North Mountain. There is a huge collection of V0s, V1s and a couple V2s near Mushroom Roof. After we ticked off nearly 10 problems we tried something a little more tricky. Here is some footage taken by Paul of Tammy and I, from the top of a really fun problem…

It felt so nice to go back to Hueco again. It was also nice to climb with Vince and Tammy again. April and I had been spending our weekends doing so many other things for over a month but we managed to clear our busy schedule and go back to our favorite bouldering destination. We geared our minds to believe that the weekend was devoted to doing a lot of new problems. It was a good idea because we couldn’t tell how out of shape we had become. We spent 3 days bouldering and the park was basically all ours.

Check out our photos…

The mission Nate was referring to is the Hueco Wanker 101. One hundred and one boulder problems…..in a day….with the long and pumpy Ghetto Simulator V2 as #101.

Paul and I had originally planned on climbing the 101 last weekend, but my stupid spastic back muscle prevented us.

Nate had given the 101 a shot about a month prior but was shut down by Ghetto. He’s getting ready to leave Hueco and head back to the east and this weekend was his final one there….his final shot at the 101.

Paul and I have managed to convert Marcus into a regular Hueco junkie now too, and the 101 was something he didn’t want to miss.

We just had to go. Paul, Marcus and myself crammed into the subie and were off.

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It seems as though every time I’m really starting to climb strong and kick butt, some annoying injury sprouts itself upon me. So once again, it’s happened. I’m sitting at home right now, taking a sick day (aka PTO, aka VACATION DAY :*( ) nursing a severe pulled muscle in my back that had gone into an *awful* muscle spasm Sat night. Bummer dude. So alas, there was no Wanker 101 action going on at Hueco on Sunday for Paul and I (Wanker = 101 Hueco boulder problems in a day, a list of problems v2 and under with the long and pumpy Ghetto Simulator being the 101st). In fact, we never even made it to Hueco. Sorry Nate! 🙁 We’ll have to plan for it again some other time.

In the meantime, I’m just going to sit here on our new couch, trying to remain as motionless as possible, and trying to supress thoughts of how soon I can get back on the rock again.

posted by arr

On Friday morning Katie, Joel, April and I woke up, packed the car and were off to Hueco for the weekend by 8:30AM. We had grand plans of getting up at 5AM and trying to get to the park early but after Sushi, a dip in the hot tub, and a few margaritas the night before we decided to sleep in a little.

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We just started playing around with posting pictures. Here are a couple from the wet weekend.

Our new REI tent! and Our soggy wet crew getting ready to climb on Sunday