I hadn't climbed outside either since IC, and had only climbed in the gym 2x. I got back after a 4 week absence and there were only, I think, 4 new lead routes at Pipeworks. Demoralizing and depressing. I really do enjoy climbing in the gym, but the enjoyment is dependent on the number of new routes to try. I'm not much of a gym projecter...1-3 times max is the limit of my attention span. So I've been riding my bike, doing spin classes and pilates classes.
Last weekend I went to SF for a day to check out the Cherry Blossom Festival parade. We biked from the Mission to Japantown and back, and everything went fine up until we were headed to Dolores Park to drink beer in the afternoon. My front tire got stuck in the transit rails and I went down pretty hard. Mostly just a few bruises and a couple of scrapes, but I must have whacked my ankle, sprained it or something like that on the way down. I could barely walk on Monday, so I went in and had an x-ray. Fortunately, nothing is broken, so naturally I didn't rest it but a day or two. It kinda still hurts.
This past weekend I went to the Valley to meet up with Joe to do some routes. It was kind of epic finding a partner, so I was psyched to get in touch with the crusher. We went to the cookie saturday, TRed Outer Limits to start, and then Joe tried the Cookie Monster to the top...I guess the 13C section is all chossy, dirty, and glued together. He figured it out on his 2nd go, but painful tips made him less psyched to try to redpoint. I tried Cookie Monster 2x. There are two big moves on it. I fell there both times. Blah. I should try to get a little more sport fitness, but I kind of just don't care. Then Joe ran a lap on Crack a Go Go with his Freerider soulmate, Nick from SLC. Then a TR lap on Red Zinger, which I was hoping to do clean. I made it thru the tips section and fell in the .5 offset splitter section. I figured out a way to get around that section with a face foothold and a big move into the pod...hopefully I can remember what the hell I did.
So beer and pizza and Joe convinced me to do Free Blast Sunday. Joe wanted to do the friction slabs and make sure they were wired so that he could feel better about Freerider. I wasn't terribly excited about it...I don't think that Free Blast is a super classic amazing and delightfully enjoyable route, but whatever. In the end I decided to just pull on gear to do it quickly and support Joe, which actually made it significantly more enjoyable. Sadly, Joe whipped on the first slab pitch and threw an amazingly impressive wobbler, after which I had to make fun of him. He took it well, but was rightly demoralized. Guy can crush 5.13 crack onsight, but can't do an .11- valley friction slab. I empathize, but it is kinda amusing.
Fernando and this other dude were behind us, which was kind of cool. I hadn't seen Fernando in a while, and he's always pretty psyched. At the base they were talking about doing the Salathe in a push...but they were moving pretty slowly. Joe and I were definitely moving more quickly. We said they could pass, but they never really caught up. Oh well...it was cool to chat with Fernando at a couple of the belays.
So yeah, I don't really like the Free blast that much. Perhaps if I could waltz up a friction slab, I might enjoy it a bit more. But it's always fucking windy, it's typically a cluster fuck with other parties, 200 feet of friction slab wears me down mentally, and my feet are always killing me by the end. I think I prefer rock climbs with holds on them, or if there is going to be a friction slab, maybe something easier and single pitch, or better yet a v0 slab boulder problem. Mind you, a DO-ABLE v0 boulder problem and not a sandbagged one.
Oh yeah - and the half dollar pitch really sucks. That pitch is so lame. I freed it following with a pack on and a shit load of gear, which I guess was productive. But it still sucks, and I was NOT in my happy place when I was in that goddammed chimney.
In addition, words of advice: if you book a site in the pines and don't show up the first night, call or they will sell your site for the second night, despite taking your money. Fortunately this nice group of RVers let me pull into their site and sleep in my car. So in the end it worked out. I just felt bad because I told Lyn and company that they could crash in my site. oops.
Today I'm pretty sore, despite feeling good after we got down. I think that if I'm really dehydrated throughout a day of climbing I end up a lot more sore than I would be if I had been drinking a lot of water.
And now I'm in my cubicle, fantasizing about gym climbing and other such low-commitment endeavors. I think I might be over trad climbing for a little while. It kinda hurts.
I'm working on my "professional development", something my advisor informed me I need to do. This coming Sunday I'm flying to Albuquerque for a conference (Western Division of the American Fisheries Society) for which I earned a travel grant of $600. I'm going to be presenting some trout work, so it's gotten my ass in gear to write this manuscript as well. It's definitely coming along, which makes me happy.
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