The weekend again. For four days I sit in my cubicle wondering what the weather will be like and who will be available to get outside. Fortunately for me my two loyal climbing partners (Dom and Laura) are always on top of things and anxious to go out climbing whenever possible. So there we were; throwing words around like 'zero', 'chance', and 'precipitation'. Needless to say we pulled into the Little si parking lot only to be met with a medium sized chorus of rain. A long the way to World Wall we ran into several groups of climbers retreating but paid them no heed. World Wall was absolutely soaked. But that didn't stop me from hopping on Abo only to get to the last few moves and find my hands drenched with water and thrutching my way to the chains. I hauled my camera up and lowered myself halfway down to take some pics.
Dom on a warm up of Reptiles and Amphetamines(5.9)
Laura TR's Reptiles
Dom on the start of Chronic(5.13b)
Chronic
Chronic (one of the coolest moves IMO)
It was a short and wet sesh, but I had a great time far exceeding my goals for that day. I got on Chronic and linked through a couple of nice sections. Still haven't figured out the crux yet, but it doesn't seem impossible anymore. In fact, I made it to just beneath the chains before giving up due to 'wetness'(both in my pants and on the wall).
We headed to our retreat for the night which just so happened to be a really nice cabin that Laura's dad owns. Joe a.k.a 'Laura's Dad', is one of the nicest and coolest dudes I've met in rceent years and treated us to a plethora of wine tasting, good tunes, tons of tasty meats, and a rousing game of ping pong, fuss ball, and pool. We slept well that night, the sound of rain drops dancing on the tin roof.
We woke up to rainbows and sunshine the next morning; as well as another meat themed meal (YUM!). After our protein packed stay we headed farther east to Leavenworth. Last weekend we threw down on some sport and trad routes, but this weekend we were back for the boulders. Our first stop was Mad Meadows. A few quick warm ups on The Dish and some other random V.0's and we started off the sesh with The Pocket. I had flashed this problem several years ago but forgot how absolutely brilliant it is. Maybe the best V.4 in all of Leavenworth. Dom and I ran laps while Laura contemplated the possibilities of sending her first 'American made' V.4. Upon down climbing I turned the corner to find Laura at the lip! She got a little sketched out and backed off but returned and sent! Nice one! The slow loris strikes again...
Laura crimps her way past the crux on 'The Pocket'(V.4)
Dom on 'The Rail'(V.2)
We played around some more on The Rail and The Scoop and then headed to the main event. Pimpsqueak! Psyched to finally try this rig but nervous because of the landing and the upside down nature of the climbing. My first attempt was my most solid but I lost some good skin on my right leg and arm and never quite got the nerve up to commit to the last move before the vic. jug. Same story for Dom. It is most definitely one of the best problems in Leavenworth, can't wait to send it!
After that epic we headed back to the main boulders and played around some more on Pocket Rocket (another nice send by Laura!), Square Pusher, and Harry Spotter. Mad Meadows is a pretty sweet place to boulder with so much for every skill level. But we had had enough and head to the Carnival Boulders.
Laura on 'Giant Man'(V.4). Most of the boulders at the Carnival can't really be seen in this photo.
Laura on Giant Man again, pay attention to the right hand, upside down thumb crimp baby! That's how we do it in the Northwest!
Laura just inches from the victory jug on Giant Man.
Laura plays the sloper piano on 'The Rib'(V.4)
Dom crimping and sidepulling on The Rib.
The Rib
The Rib
The Carnivals were a lot of fun. The stand outs were The Ferret(V.3) which has some excellent movement the whole way, Against The Wall(V.1) which is a good sample of what the trad climbing is like around these parts, all smears and good flakes. Giant Man(V.4), and excellent slab climb, and The Rib(V.4), a very hard vertical climb that utilizes all kinds of bouldering skills. Laura nabbed another V.3 with a send of The Ferret and Dom and I both got Giant Man and Dom sent The Rib.
It was still early and the sun was shining down on us encouraging our every move so we decided to make three more stops. The first of which was the Scrambled Egg boulder, returning to tackle Dom's nemesis of years past Scrambled Eggs(V.8). For those of you who don't know the history of the problem, Dom pretty much sent this line a couple years ago but fell just after doing the hard parts because he missed a key side pull. It was agonizing! This was my first V.8 and I was very proud to have sent it as quickly as I did but I have not repeated it yet despite previous attempts. So we both had something to gain by heading back to this beautiful blue/gray giant. The quick and dirty rundown goes like this:
I was able to nab the repeat with some serious effort, but Dom was denied again unfortunately, even though he managed to stick the crux slimper a hand full of times.
The look on Dom's face says it all, these crimps are nasty! But the slopers are delicious...
Dom on Scrambled Eggs(V.8)
Scrambled Eggs, first movement.
We made another quick stop at the Atomic Energy boulder where we flailed on Dalai Lama and I made some good progress on Atomic Energy, before we headed to our last stop located in Tumwater Canyon. The Hueco Crimper boulder. I've done most of the lines on this beast and they are all super classic lines with great movement on fine grained granite that is both sticky and friendly on the skin. The one line I hadn't done was Joe's Crimper which I didn't even know was a real line on this boulder until watching a video on koanbouldering.blogspot.com here:
http://koanbouldering.blogspot.com/2010/04/rocks_26.html
I had always tried a different version of this line that starts in the same place but trends farther left into a nasty undercling and gaston. Joe's Crimper however was more my style and after figuring out the beta I sent it! A couple campus moves, a ninja style heel hook, and a walrus hump-out for the top and I was standing on top of the boulder. The first hard Leavenworth problem of the year, hooray for me! I also repeated Hueco Crimper(V.6) and the really fun gym-like V.2 'Missin' Nugget(?)', but tore a huge flapper on my left hand ring finger whilst lurching for and grabbing the flat jug of the V.4. I think my super hero name was Clotty (inside joke). Dom gave some valiant efforts on Joe's, and at one point had locked off the crux move but just wasn't able to stick the last crimper.
Dom gets horizontal with Joe's Crimper(V.7), at the Hueco Crimper boulder.
Bouldering was so fun this weekend. I even had a blast sport climbing in the rain, but the cherry on top had to be the delicious meats we were treated to at the cabin...
mmmmmmmm...
meat.
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