I just returned from a short stay in Seattle where I was able to get out climbing on two separate occasions. If you follow this blog then you know I'm pretty much addicted to World Wall One. I'm not the best sport climber, in fact, I'm still chasing the dream of climbing 5.13, but the World Wall is a great place to train for rope climbing. Soaring gray/white/tan/and even black streaked walls make up this behemoth of rock sticking straight out of the side of Little Mt. Si.
I've been climbing at Little si for almost 4 seasons now and I have managed to tick almost every single route in the 5.12 range, barring some exceptions like Sweet Tooth, Totally Spent, and Propaganda. For the past two months I have been putting in a lot of effort, frustratingly so at times, on a route called Californicator. I had this thing absolutely wired but would always get to this one spot and fall. The move that was constantly shutting me down required some weird foot work and body positioning, and is not power dependent at all. You have to do this particularly technical crux coming right off of doing the majority of the hard climbing of the route as well, but you do have a somewhat decent rest just before you engage in the move so it shouldn't be that hard, right?
Well, not if you're a basket case like me!!
It took me only 6 or 7 burns to get the route down to a manageable one hang. Then the re-occurring nightmare scenario set in. 15 consecutive redpoint attempts yielded the same result:
I would climb the bottom section flawlessly, even using my own slightly harder beta at the third bolt crux, and growl my way through the powerful move at the sixth bolt crux; move left and start resting at the 'typewriter' hold (a long rail with two good incut parts to it), then the anxiety of failure and the pressure of success would come barreling down on me mentally and physically as I reached out left to grab a flat crimp, shuffle my feet over and try to fall into a small but incut sidepull at chest height. This is where I have been falling for the past 21 attempts!
But not on Saturday, September 4, 2010!!
The weather was perfect, sunny and cold. I made plans to meet my two good friends and climbing partners Dom and Laura at World Wall. I hadn't climbed with them in ages and it was really nice to see their enthusiastic faces once again. We caught up on the social comings and goings of Olympia's vast and diverse climbing community, talked shop about new jobs, student teaching, and family and eventually got to climbing. I made the obligatory and somewhat traditional warm up of Aborigine while Dom and Laura did a hand ful of routes. I watched as Laura went for the lead of her project Rainy Day Woman, which will soon become her first ever 5.12a. Then it was my turn. The mood was very light, and as I started climbing I noticed the constant chatter below me and felt good that the spotlight wasn't being blasted too brightly on my attempt. I felt very light and confident on the bottom part, sailing through sidepulls, big lock-offs, and double sets of underclings; before I knew it I was at the typewriter feeling surprisingly good. I've been trying a different style of shaking out when it comes to rests called 'G-tox'. You basically shake each arm out but instead of dangling them by your side you make a conscious effort to shake each arm out above your head for some allotted amount of time (5 secs.) or however long you can manage as well as dangling it by your side. Not only is it scientifically proven but it also focuses your attention on something other than the outcomes of failure or success, hell, it may just work like a placebo!!
In any event, I was really milking the rest and felt better than I ever have and launched into the last crux. To my surprise I stuck the move, it really threw me off a little bit at first but I moved quickly and got my foot up to a good black chip, reached high for a nice crimp, and then made a huge lock-off to the victory jug!! I was absolutely dumb-struck to have made it this far. Now I just needed to shake out and keep it together for the last little crux section, which is no harder then .11b/c, but can feel very precarious when pumped. I finally felt as recovered as I was going to get and made a big lock off to a back-handed undercling, got my foot on a small jib and pulled myself in with a crimp switching the back hand undercling to a regular undercling and stood up grabbing a very friendly finger jug. It was over, a wrap on a sloper, some ticky tack moves over a bulge on crimps and I was clipping the chains.
Dom suggested I write a poem about my experience with the route, but I think I'll just post some pictures of all my friends climbing it:
Third bolt crux!
Lisa clipping off of a set of double underclings.
Antonio heads into the 6th bolt crux!
Dom sticks the finger jug out of the 6th bolt crux, just before you start to head left.
Nick hangs out at the victory jug. It's almost OVER!
I was thrilled to send this route and I feel like it definitely marks a major point of progression for me in my climbing. It is definitely the hardest thing I have ever done on a rope.
If you have stayed with this post this far then you might as well keep reading.
I know my account of 'the epic redpoint of a 5.12d' isn't as engaging, exciting, or eloquent as perhaps Jamie Emerson's recent blog post about his fight with Evil Backwards(V.14) or even Sean Mc.Coll's re-telling of his battle with Punt-X(5.14d) in the Gorge Du Loup, but hey, it's all I got, and in my mind my battle is no less epic or important.
As a follow up to my success on Saturday I returned to World Wall on Monday, yesterday, with Dom, Jimmy, and Andrew. I had the strongest day out climbing that I have ever had. I'm still chasing that elusive 5.13 benchmark, but I managed some really strong repeats:
I warmed up on Technorigine(5.12c), then stepped left and repeated Psychosmatic(5.12d), then stepped back right and repeated Californicator(5.12d), I even made it through the first crux of the Californication(5.13a, californicator into techno) extension before falling going to the mail slot. I'm very stoked on this line at the moment and really hope that I can make this my first 5.13a, a very proud .13a in my case. I even managed a lap on Rainy Day for good measure, after taking a 25 footer off of a second lap of Techno almost ripping my arm out of my socket (yikes!).
All in all, it was an amazing two days of climbing for me and I hope I can keep getting stronger and eventually climb Californication and Chronic this year.
Stay tuned...
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