Tuesday, February 24, 2009

80 plus degrees

Just finished up a hot day of bouldering. I still managed to get some good burns on my projects though. I hit it early, just after the park opened at 8am. First objective was Terre de Sienne. I warmed up and started getting ready to give it a go. As I was waiting for any sort of breeze to cool my hands a bit, Tim Clifford and gang showed up. I waited a bit longer for the conditions to improve and then decided to give it a go. On my first try, I stuck the first move with three fingers and didn't quite have it good enough to do the next move. My skin started rolling on the small crimp just as I was getting my feet positioned into the drop knee. Still this was the first time I stuck the move so it felt great anyway. I gave a few more burns and came very close to sticking the hold again on a few occasions but it didn't happen. I know I can do it now so I'll just rest tomorrow and get back to it on Thursday - hopefully there will be a bit more wind then. Tim tried it some and came close to sticking the first move.

I got back to the headquarters before 10 and hooked up with Glen and Heather for a tour out to the East Spur. I was psyched to get back out Coeur de Leon V13. My first two goes were ok but I tried slightly different beta which ended up being worse. On my third try, I went back to my original beta and came closer but still fell. On the fourth try, the problem went down. I was psyched to do it because I was pretty sure that I wouldn't get it done and probably wouldn't get back to it on this trip. I was sure that that was my last try as well because it was really cutting the skin on my right pointer finger which is crucial for Terre and my left bicep was hurting from the stressful underclinging. It's great that I managed to pull this one off. If I can only complete Terre de Sienne and Algerita, it will be an amazing trip. As it stands now, I've already had a successful trip and would still be psyched even if I didn't do anything else.

Hopefully the weather improves slightly for my last two days of climbing. I'm prettty sure now that I won't compete in the Rodeo because it will be hot and I will run the risk of hurting myself trying so many hard problems.

5 comments:

  1. Nice job on Coeur de Leon, Matt! Good luck on Terre de le petite Chien. My students are rooting for you too, they said.

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  2. ahhhh .... 'rooting' .... lost in translation ... Matt, please explain to Sandy what rooting is in Australia ... better still - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_English_terms_for_people#Sport

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  3. Sick Matt. Nice job man! I will be down Thursday night. Lets plan on maybe getting out Friday if your still around. later- A

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  4. Tim, Tim, Tim - little do you know about my promiscuous students.

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  5. :) LOL

    If you have a minute check out some shots from our wedding - http://picasaweb.google.com/DrTimONeill/14thSaturdayProSamples#

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