Gaining Momentum
It has been too long since my last post, and a lot has happened since then. I have sent a handful of really fun 12's, and I wanted to take a minute and highlight a few standouts.
Field of Screams 5.12a: Once again, I have been really impressed with a Cannabis wall route. I went up to the wall after work last Tuesday, and I was feeling pretty tired after a morning battle with Guillotine, and a somewhat stressful day at work. My psyche was not super high, and to be honest I just wanted to get another climb ticked off the seemingly never ending list. (WRONG FREAKING ATTITUDE).
I met my friend Ryan Stott up there, and after a warm up on the first half of Tear Drop, I decided to get on Field of Screams. I was interested in the name, and for those who don't have the Ruckman and Ruckman guide, you might be interested to know a little bit about where the name came from. This was an old Jeff Pederson/Bill Boyle route. When Bill redpointed the route, he called out take and looked down, only to find that he had not properly fastened his harness, and that the waist of his harness was held in place by a piece of Velcro and nothing else. I can only imagine the heart jolt that one must have caused! After sharing that with Ryan, he shared a funny story about the route with me as well. He had gotten on the route last summer and told me about his experience with what he thought was a sharp hold. Near the top of the route there are a couple of finger locks in a thin crack. When Ryan got to that point he jammed his hand into the crack and felt two sharp points digging into his palm and the hold seemed to creak faintly when he pulled on it. He let go thinking it was just a sharp loose hold, and searched for alternate beta. Upon finding no alternative, he jammed his hand into the crack once again and felt those sharp pangs again, accompanied by the same creaking sound. Again he took, and looked into the crack only to find that he had been smashing his hand up against a bat, and the bat retaliated with a couple of bites.
Ryan's hand after the Bat.
I laughed at the story, and he showed me the picture of his hand after the bat bit him. With that for encouragement, I set off up the route, only to get shut down by the same finger lock moves near the top where the bat was previously found. I checked for bats, and upon finding none, I started trying to work the moves out. Try as I did, I just kept getting shut down trying to hang a draw. I felt a little run out, and I couldn't reach the bolt from what I thought was the obvious clipping position. I ended up lowering off my first burn without ever seeing the top of the route. That seems to be a trend for me at Cannabis wall...
I felt tired, and hot, and I had forgotten my water, but I didn't want to complain. I took a second burn, and once again I got shut down. I also got 2 flappers on my pointer finger from the finger lock moves adding insult to injury. I decided to try climbing past the bolt, and hoped that I would find a decent clipping position somewhere above the bolt. After a couple desperate/balancy moves I found one and clipped somewhere between my hip and my knee, and went to the top of the wall. After finding some tricky short man beta for clipping chains, I lowered off and gave Ryan a catch on his project.
After watching Ryan come agonizingly close to sending I gave it another burn, and fought freaking hard. I don't know what it is about Cannabis 12's but I seem to have to dig deeper there than other areas in the canyon. I was very happy to do this route, and I will recommend it to anyone who is looking for a good butt kicking!
The other route I wanted to highlight was Isotoner Moaner 5.12a/b: BRILLIANT FREAKING ROUTE! I hopped on this one for the first time this morning before work, and I loved it! After blowing a foot on my onsight attempt, I took my time just enjoying the rest of the route between hangs. It has some really cool long moves off of underclings that I liked a lot. It was a very straight forward route without too much trickery. The moves are all pretty obvious, just long, and some hard. The flow of this route was different than a lot of the twelves I have done so far. It flowed really really well. The only thing I didn't like about it, is that the hard section is pretty short, and everything else was pretty cruiser. I just wish the hard section was a little longer, because the moves were very fun. That being said, I still loved this route. It was nice to just relax a little bit this morning, and just enjoy rock climbing without stressing too much about the goal. On my first burn, I tried a couple of sequences twice, and lowered off. I climbed through smoothly and sent without too much drama 2nd go, and just felt happy at chains. I didn't feel bummed at all that I didn't onsight it, or anything like that, I just felt happy.
From Chains of Isotoner Moaner
7:30ish am
I'm not real big of "selfies" but I wanted to do something to capture the moment. I am always happy climbing, but something about this morning was just special to me.
Guillotine 5.12d/13a
In other news, we finally got Episode 2 of Every 5.12 done and live. You can click on any one of the 3 links above to see the Episode. We have been really busy filming for another project that Three Peak Films is working on, called The Send Bros., (http://www.facebook.com/TheSendBros). Now that all the actual filming is done for that, we should be able to crank out more Episodes of Every 5.12 with much more frequency. For now though enjoy Episode 2, and let me know what you think of the goal. Also if you want to see any routes done in an episode, or if you would like to go climbing, let me know.
Checkout our instagram hashtag #everyfivetwelve as well as @threepeakfilms and @jamestaftsimmons.
Lastly, I just want to give a HUGE thanks to all of the support and encouragement that I have gotten from so many of you! It makes it a ton easier to get out of bed at 4:45 each morning to hit the crag.
