Progress
So remember when I said winter was over here in the southwest? Well, I spoke too soon. Monday a cold front blew in and yesterday we awoke to FREEZING and WINDY conditions. I’m not at all exaggerating. It was 25 degrees when we headed to the office around 8:30am to snag some North Mountain walk-ins. Because I had been waiting sooooo long for cold temps on Bloody Flapper Traverse, v9 (which bakes in the sun), I felt it would be stupid not to get on it. So we filled the thermos with hot chocolate, bundled the bambinos and headed out.
The short hike to the climb carrying Ivan was enough to get me warm. I pulled onto the easy parts of Bloody Flapper Traverse and felt amazing! Light as a feather! I quickly did the v4 ending using some new non-condition dependent beta (a sequence that replaces reliance on a greasy sloper that I inevitably slide off of when it’s warm and sunny with a bigger, dynamic bypass of the hold). I then started lower on the climb, trying to link the harder crimpy moves into my new finishing sequence. My performance however quickly deteriorated as I got colder and colder and colder. I couldn’t climb enough to stay warm and I couldn’t rest enough without getting colder. I finally called it and we headed back to the van. It was close to noon now and our thermometer said 30 degrees, without wind chill. And, while we’d been out a light dusting of snow covered the mountain tops. No wonder I was cold!
We made another thermos of hot chocolate and warmed up in the van a bit before heading back out to part two of our day’s mission: Slashface, v13. Lucky for Paul the sun finally came out and the wind stopped. Another classically perfect Hueco climbing day was now our’s for the taking. Paul had excellent progress on Slashface. First go, starting at the beginning, he stuck the “big move”. He’d stuck the big move a few weeks ago but not from the beginning of the climb. THEN, starting from the big move he did the “crossover” AND “held the swing”. This was a first for holding the swing. All climbing jargon aside, what this means in layman’s terms is that Paul can not only finally do all the moves on Slashface, but has it linked into 2 segments. Woot whoot!
From Slahsface we moved over to Mo Mojo, v11/12. Paul was too tired though to send after all the Slashface attempts. Maybe next time. So then we were off to Ultramega, v8. It’s been logistically annoying for my project to be on North Mountain and Paul’s to be on East Mountain, so Paul recommended I give Ultramega a try to see if I liked it. Normally I wouldn’t get on a brand new v8 this late in the season, especially in the middle of a trip. But Ultramega being at the same angle as our climbing wall at home, with relatively straight-forward left, right, left, right beta, Paul convinced me it was right up my alley and I could probably tick it off relatively quickly. I think he’s right. I put all the moves together and linked major sections in just a couple hours. And now it’s all I can think about. 🙂 Ok, ok, I’m still thinking about Bloody Flapper Traverse too. And this other v9 that I’ve been dabbling on a bit here and there that I haven’t even mentioned yet. As well as handful of other climbs…. I could go on forever here. 😉
Sticking the swing on Slashface, v13
Making my way up Ultramega, v8
posted by arr
This entry (Permalink) was posted
on Tuesday, February 24th, 2015 at 4:34 pm and is filed under Bouldering, Hueco Tanks-Texas.
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