For people who are friends with me on a certain social networking site, you can check out some videos I posted of great climbs I managed while in Arkansas. As with the previous trip, I managed to climb harder than I have before. It is thrilling to go down there, get on the boulders, and perform well. My training continues to strengthen me, and I benefit more, all the time, from experience. Among the most exciting climbs I did - I managed to flash Separate But Equal, a tall v6, and Leatherface, a v7 (although for that one, I may have started on the wrong holds). I also managed to climb Numerical Methods, a v8 that I couldn't do on the last trip, and I did on my second try this trip. I think my best effort was flashing Orbital Mechanics, a v8 in the Power Cave at the North 40.
This problem is a ten or twelve foot, dead horizontal roof, and it is sometimes described as "soft v8 if you have good beta".
I watched a guy work it last trip, and thought it was just too damn technical and complicated for me to get excited about. I scoffed, "What a load of (crap)!", and refused to even try it. This time, a fellow Minnesotan, Zach, wanted to work on it, and my project (see below), was wet... again. So I headed up there with him, and noticed that, instead of using all kinds of complicated footwork, bear-hugging, heel-hooks, toe-hooks, etc., that I could just grab a series of sharp, sort of downward facing crimps (plus a couple of sort of slopey things) that led out the left side of the roof. "This would be powerful!", I thought. But the moves in this line, while more powerful, perhaps, than the regular sequence, were obvious! So it became a somewhat powerful crimpy roof problem, rather than some nauseatingly complicated thing.
The feet didn't face in exactly the right direction, and it's horizontal, so I had to engage my abs. It ended up being exactly as I imagined it for the ten minutes that I stared at it: long reaches between decent good holds, tight abs (!), and then, I let me feet cut near the end, when I knew I would be able to campus the finish. I let out a scream, but managed to hold the last incut crimp. I decided to try to get my foot on, and shifted my fingers a little on the crimp. They had gone a bit numb, and I needed to get a little bit of feeling back. I struggled to put a foot on, made it, pushed onward to a couple of better holds, and threw for the finish.
It was a thrilling and fascinating experience. The holds were quite painful, and I had to consciously ignore the pain. It felt somewhat tenuous. I had the feeling, for the crux first three moves, that there was a razor thin line between me and falling. Before I set off, I said to myself, "Precision. Power." It seemed to help - I hit the hand-holds, and placed my feet as I had intended before I set off (except for the second move, where I almost couldn't find the crimp I needed because it looked so different from the ground to when I was climbing). Often, when I can't do something, I will just say out loud, "All this is going to take is for me to try harder". I decided to give it everything on the first attempt, and had the foresight to have Zach film it.
I got on the Prophet, a 14a sport climb at the ranch, and did most of the moves. It actually climbs quite well, despite looking like a potentially annoying technical exercise (it is, a tiny little bit, but seriously, it's pretty cool). I think, if I went down there with a motivated partner, who also wanted to work on it, or who had some other project, I would be able to do it in a week or so.
I on-sighted a medium 5.10, and a medium 5.11, and mixed up the hard stuff with lots of problems less than or equal to v3. Climbing with the people down there was a great experience, as always. I always feel, immediately, like I am part of whatever group I join. When I did Leatherface, for instance, I was just walking through the woods on my way to do a tall v1 by myself before dinner. I happened upon a group of screaming Oklahomans working this snaky little problem with beautiful orange rock, and in-cut crimps. I asked if I could join them, and they said "claro que si". We talked, and, after being excited by how cool they were making the problem look, I was inspired to try it. I asked one of them to film it (who I would later discover, was a videography major in college. It's obvious when you watch the video that he's better), and managed to do it on my first try. Satisfying!
A couple days before this, on a whim, I got on what I thought would be a problem too difficult for me to do: a problem called Glass Bowl, which is a v10. Within twenty minutes, I managed to do all of the moves on it! I two-pieced it within half an hour! It felt well within my ability.
Anyway, I worked to link it for the next hour, but to no avail! For a while, I got better and better on it, as my skill increased, then it leveled off for a while, and then it declined (Figure 1). You would think this would be discouraging, maybe, but it was nothing of the sort. It was invigorating! It was the beginning of the trip, practically, a Tuesday, I think, when I would be there until Sunday. I had plenty of time to rest, and get back on it to try for the link. I rested the next day, and came back on Thursday.
Figure 1: The sum of knowledge and strength necessary to do the route are estimated (not having completed it) at 550. Notice that high levels of strength and knowledge are believed to sum to a level sufficient to complete the boulder.
For those of you that don't know, v10 is hard for me - I haven't climbed that hard before, and, I never expected to be able to boulder that hard, ever. It still takes a little self-encouragement to convince myself that I may be able to do it.
It was hot on Thursday, and the rock was cool, because it sits in the shade, so water condensed on it until it was dripping, from dawn to nightfall. I rested still, thinking, when it dries up, I will be in even better shape. I read more in my truck, tried to stay cool in the ever increasingly unbearable heat of mid-day, and did a few v4 - v7's, thinking that I didn't want to stop climbing completely in preparation for a problem that may never dry out.
As feared, it never did dry out. I walked the ten or fifteen minutes from camp to the boulder morning, noon, and night, for three days, and it was never dry again. On the last day, I stopped by the boulder one last time, determined to give it a shot, regardless of conditions. It was completely soaked, and I only had a single pad! I managed the first move, but it felt awful. Soaking, disgusting: yuck. I didn't want to have done v10 enough - I wanted to enjoy the process of it. In any case, it is close to my bouldering limit, so I probably couldn't have done it in those conditions, anyway. But I remember thinking - "I don't want this amazing problem to feel like this when I climb it. I want it to feel good".
This, more than anything, made me turn away, discouraged and defeated. I would not do it this trip. As soon as I could, because the mid-day sun was beating down even hotter today than it had the days before, I got my draws down from the Prophet, and jumped in the truck to head back to school. As I left, I felt like I was leaving something, or someone, behind that I would never see again. My chest ached and I tried to think about other things. I made the long, slow journey back.
Now that I am back, I wake from nightmares of going to crags with close friends, getting close on problems, only to find them wet the next day, and unclimbable.
Video of my sixth, or so, attempt to link the problem.
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