I started my longer (longish) weekend by hanging out with family and friends in Seattle. A good meal at the Wild Mountain Cafe is always a nice start to any vacation coupled with bouncing my now 5 month old 20 pound nephew on my knee. Damn that baby is cute. My bro did good (oh yeah, I guess his wife helped too). Saturday was all rain and overcast malaise battled back by salmon sausage, a second viewing of Avatar, and some time spent battling demon ninja hell-spawn and wiping BBQ sauce out of the corner of my mouth. Sunday morning I bid farewell to my mom and the dog, and hit the road alone for a mission to meet good people out at Leavenworth.
A few lung crushing ballads later and I caught up with Jimmy and Lisa at JY. With hopes of a 'new' problem in our sights I 'warmed up' on Yosemite Highball (not recommended for a warm up) and then worked Right Angles with Jimmy and Lisa.
Lisa gets the "GRRR!" out on 'Right Angles'(V.8)
Jimmy and I eventually wandered over to a short problem and a somewhat new addition to JY called The Strainer. Overhung, slopey, good holds, hard top out. We got to work. Jimmy sent in a few goes and I was face to face with the top out after a few goes as well but excitement got the better of me and I ended up slapping for nothing and sliding backwards into Jimmy's loving embrace (thanks Jimmy, you saved my life!) A few moments of futzing about and another harrowing fall from the top out and I finally zeroed in on the last little knob at the lip and sent. Good thing too, because my skin was taking a beating/scraping!
We then headed to Forestland to find the 'large' group of Oly' heads who had made it up the day before. We got to Sunny and Steep before finding a large mass of bodies entangled amongst crash pad sofa's, I-pod stereo's (I know, I'm so ashamed), and cans of Rainier (can't hate on that!). It was an awesome vortex of 'chillage' and we got sucked in for a few laughs before the vortex packed up and headed out for some good old fashioned mountaineering, er, uh, I mean rope climbing.
Jimmy, Lisa, and I bathed in the sun while trying the stand start to The Teacup and then made for the shade of Mt. Home road. The prow was all we had in mind and after running into Adam at Forestland I finally got the correct name of this rig, Geronimo!
All I have to say about this problem is that it reminded me in one move why climbing is so unique and special. I had struggled on this line for a while and finally all that changed by just getting a heel hook in the right place. A good reminder of how climbing can be a huge struggle until one day everything falls into place and suddenly the veil is lifted and success comes flooding in. A beautiful process to take part in and one that reminds me of the core principles of life itself. This is probably just the euphoric ramblings of a happy climber, definitely one side of the spectrum; the other being absolute failure which holds it's own humbling beauty.
Anyway, long story short, I finally sent and was super psyched!!!!!
Here are some pics:
An action sequence of Lisa on her high point, followed by Jimmy making it look easy. Geronimo!(V.9)
After the prow we looked around for some new boulders that may have been lurking in the forest and the exposed slope. We found some amazing boulders that all contained lines that were just a few holds short of a mega-classic. We looped into the forest and upwards and stumbled upon a boulder no more than 20 yards from the road that had chalk! YeS! Could it be? Was this Filibuster? The boulder was overhung and had a deep crack in the middle of the face and looked as if it had recently lost a hold. There was a right-most line that started on underclings and crimped up the corner. We didn't try anything opting instead to come back, finding another sweet line on the slabby right side of the boulder. After our adventures we made one last stop at the Star Wars boulder where progress was made on Emperors Lightning and I almost sent Yoda (I think it was Yoda, the one mover). I latched the notch perfectly but was so amazed at that I actually hit it that I let go. Oh well, two out of three ain't bad...
Lisa demonstrates 'the move', on Yoda.
Jimmy also demonstrates 'the move' on Yoda.
It was a lonely drive back to Oly', but I blasted some sweet CMA, MOs Def, and G&E to make up for a lack of social interaction.
Thanks Chuliches!!!!!!! Looking forward to next weekend already.
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