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.
Happy Birthday to me! November 10th was my b-day but finally I was able to co-ordinate my schedule with FedEx and I picked up my birthday present.
Thank you April for getting me a new crashpad! It is really cool. It was hard to tell what it looked like from the pictures on the So ILL website but the real thing is way nicer. I can’t wait to try it out next weekend in Hueco. Awww yeah.
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!
AKA “The Coolest Girl We’ve Ever Met”
Normally I’m psyched to detail the weekend events and list the highlights of all the amazing things we got to see and do but unfortunately we had to end last weekend with a sad goodbye. Grit, our new friend from Germany is heading home very soon and our trip to Joshua Tree California was the last weekend adventure April and I got to enjoy with her. We had a great couple of days in J-Tree, visiting with friends, climbing routes, bouldering and hanging out.
I remember driving out of J-Tree after saying goodbye, looking in the rear view mirror seeing Grit walk away with her crashpad. How sad…actually…it wasn’t long until we started talking about ideas for a trip to Europe and plans to visit with her again. We’ll just have to make Grit jealous and show how much fun we’re having at Hueco by posting pics and trip reports so she decides to move back to the U.S. ha ha. WE’LL MISS YOU GRIT!
I promised I’d put a picture of KT’s awesome artwork up on our site today. Today? Wow, it’s late, like 1AM late. I’m trying to do a million things tonight before we leave for J-Tree tomorrow but one thing I couldn’t forget is showing off the amazing wedding gift that KT gave to April and I. Sorry for the bad quality for some of the pics. but it was really hard to get the lighting right inside our house at night. To fully appreciate the work that went into this creation you have to see it with your own eyes! Thanks Katie!
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.
For our 1 year wedding anniversary we decided to start a new tradition that we will now refer to as, The Anniversary Hike. This first annual anniversary hike took us to Yosemite National Park. Following is a brief summary and 1, 2, 3, sets of photos, from the amazing things we saw and did on our trip.
Thursday September 29th:
Flew from Tucson to San Francisco via Las Vegas. Won $23.00 on the airport 25 cent slot machines. Spent $23.00+ on airport food. Arrived in San Francisco at about 1:30AM.
Friday September 30th:
Drove into downtown San Francisco and walked along the Embarcadero from the Bay Bridge to Pier 39 (San Fran. Bay waterfront). Highlight was the Sea Lions. Drove out of downtown San Francisco across the Golden Gate Bridge to highway 1. Visited Muir Woods (giant redwood forest). As the sun started to set we drove from Muir Woods to Muir Beach so April could see the Pacific Ocean for the first time. It was just like the movies: the sun was setting, the waves were crashing, we were walking hand in hand, barefoot, and all of a sudden as we climbed up on some boulders to get a better view of the ocean April says, “Dude, this beach reeks!…Oh God, it’s a dead rotting Sea Lion.” We quickly did a 180 and continued our love stroll the other way. After the sun set we started our drive to Yosemite National Park. Stopped for some “Chillin’ at da Holiday Innnnnnnn.”
Saturday October 1st:
Woke up late and arrived in Yosemite Valley at about 1PM. Threw on our hiking shoes and grabbed our packs. Paul says, “Let’s do Glacier Point, I think it’s only 4.7 miles one way.” As we started out, the first trail marker showed the distance to Glacier Point as 8.2 miles. Hmmm? Must be that means 8.2 miles for the round trip, right? No……we were going to Glacier Point via the Panoramic Trail, not the Four Mile Trail. Paul then says, “Ok, let’s do a little math. At a a speed of 2.0 mph (pushing it, with a 3200 ft elevation gain) we could potentially knock off this 16.4 mile hike in about 8 hours putting us only 2 hours in the dark (with headlamps). April says, “Do-able, lets go.” The hike was amazing, the views were spectacular, the temperature was perfect. The hike takes you past Nevada and Vernal Falls, and a hidden, several hundred foot waterfall that neither of us had seen before. You get views of Half Dome first from the back side, then the side profile, and then right at the end you see the front side. At a brisk pace we were back at the car by 8:15PM, just in time to get wine and pizza (thanks to our 3 miles of trail running, heh heh).
Sunday October 2nd (Anniversary Day):
Woke up semi-late, with plans of a nice breakfast, leisurely stroll through the village and a short hike. As we lay in bed we get the map out and start looking at options. April says,”Whoa, there’s a trail to the top of North Dome!” Paul says, “Let’s do the math.” Next thing we know we are on our way up Yosemite Falls trail heading to North Dome…another 16 mile day…we’ll save the nice breakfast for tomorrow. 🙂 Again, the trail is amazing, the views are spectacular and the crisp fall weather is perfect. We make our way to the summit of what we think is North Dome (turns out North Dome is the next bump over, probably a half hour more). Hauled the wedding cake up with us and ate it with front row seats looking straight on at Half Dome.
On the way back we stop at the Yosemite Falls junction and decide to hike out towards a generic sign that said, “Overlook.” We get to the cliff’s edge and notice stairs heading down to the top of the waterfall. Yikes this is a little risky for “hikers.” The steps continue down and down until we get to a point where a handrail leads around a corner. The handrail ends above the 2000 ft. void, yet for the brave soul who ventures to the end of the handrail (April), another handrail continues around the next corner with stairs for your feet no wider than 6 inches. “I can’t believe this is a ‘hiking’ trail!” The exposed staircase leads us to an amazing observation deck. As if that little adventure didn’t top the hike, later we had to deviate from the trail to avoid a bear and right before dark we saw a burning red sunset cast on the rock walls of Yosemite Valley. We were back at the car by 7:00PM and enjoyed a fancy dinner at the Mountain Room restaurant all slimy and grungy. This Anniversary Hike will be hard to beat.
Details later….
