a hard earned jarritos/ aka FUCK YEAH!

i had kinda a bad ass day yesterday. instead of sittin on my duff, i headed out to the fins, solo. i guess technically i was going soloing, but i was on a rope the whole time. i figured out a top rope solo system that works nicely.

the fins is an oasis of sorts. beautiful rock, and shade, all afternoon. but to get there, one must arrive at the base around 12:30 or 1:00 pm. the hike up has no trail, and my car will not even make it up to the low parking area. (the rains in june carved a deep, one foot plus, rut/gash in the road on a hill part....) so anyways, one has to lug all their gear up a hill for quite a long time, in the sun. 

i got up there, and proceeded to stick clip my way up the route. i felt it would be easier than walking/soloing up the back side and dropping a rope in. when i got to the top, i realized i had forgotten something at the base... my belay device. my shiny new reverso was sittin right on top of my pack... 50+ feet below me. i was using an ascender type device called a shunt, and a prusik, to get up the wall, and then i had to inch my way down, using these primitive ascenders. it was kinda freaky.

but yeah, i got down, loaded up my pack with the rest of the rope, my water, anything with significant weight, tied it off a foot of the ground on the rope, clipped the shunt to my belay loop and headed up. the shunt is a strange looking device that works with double ropes, and works like an ascender.  it can also be used in this manner to self belay. one just has to keep the rope tight to make sure the shunt slides up the rope. this gives a great amount of freedom to work routes, but unfortunately the route must be pretty close to vertical. that works well in this case, as my route is barely overhanging.

i got up to the crux moves, and sat there for a long time. one move had stymied me on every other attempt, and today i was gonna do this move, i didn't know how, but i could feel it was gonna happen. 

the crux sequence starts off a pretty big left hand crimp. high step, then reach above to an undercling crimp, step to bad smears, then reach up left to a really terrible crimp that is very small, and very sharp, and i can really only hold it with a half pad thumb catch on a small edge under it. then step the right foot way high into the good left hand crimp, back step the left foot on a tiny edge, and gun up right to a shitty half pad two finger side pull. i found a few intermediates that helped a lot, and with some outrageous and furious yells/screams i stuck that move! (hence the jarritos!)

no... i didn't link the crux together... and i tried the upper bit, which may be 5.13b/c on it's own, figured out some better beta, but i had to stop when my left index finger started bleeding. (i told you that small crimper is sharp!) but yeah, the battle is going well. now i know what to do on all the moves. it took 5 days to figure the sequence out, which is the longest it's ever taken me. now it's on to step two, linking all the moves, then send!

daniel woods topping out men's final #4

oh and on tuesday i went to the mammut bouldering championships in slat lake city (on top of the shilo inn parking garage) and watched some amazing climbing. daniel woods owned the men's comp, and flashed almost every problem, and did the other 2nd go. most of the field didn't do a single problem! on his flash of the last problem (picture) he was doing the campus sequence to get around the big red eye, which involved a few 180 spins arms only, anyway he swung around, almost caught the next hold, sat there locked off on his right arm for a second, then busted out a one arm pull up, stuck the hold, and did the rest super easy. amazing. that kid is so fucking strong.

oh, and my cactus that i thought died seems to be doing better now. i put it in a spot with more sun, gave it a little miracle grow, and it's spines are starting to stick up again. poor shriveled up cactus...