Monday, March 26

bolting and training

With my time in Vegas (for now) narrowing, I've been trying to stick to my priorities list and stay motivated as I begin to feel my journey whipping into its next step. At the top of that list is usually my health, which for one reason or another has been suffering a little over the last month or so. Not completely sure of the cause but I've not been feeling 100% for a while. My climbing hasn't suffered too much thankfully, but it's been a little harder to get out of bed in the morning, for sure. I feel like the demons are on their way out, so wish me luck!

Week before last I spent a handful of days hiking up to Mt Potosi. As I mentioned before, this has never really been my favorite crag but solid partners for the area were plentiful and with an unrepeated 9a, I figured why not? I checked out Legrand's 'Bachelor Party' for a few days. It's essentially an extension to a gymnastic and mega steep 14b that I did last year called 'Hold Your Fire'. The upper section involves quite a bit of power out roofs with many 2 and 1 finger pockets. It features some cool movement, although it is literally 95% manufactured. As in, from the ground the the anchor I can count the number of natural holds, on one hand... Regardless, it's a hard rock climb and good training-- I was hoping to get psyched and potentially take it down, but despite some promising links, my motivation for it faded quickly. Perhaps another year when I have more time to play with but for now, I had other things on my mind.
my machete of choice... the corona
I'll be teaching a cairn building clinic this weekend at the Rendezvous if you're interested.

After a little trail work, and lugging the mandatory back breaking backpack for miles, I started bolting a killer route on some limestone far above Vegas. A couple days ago I finished it up, installing anchors always feels so good. It's a rad piece of stone, with drip features up brilliant bullet rock. It still needs some cleaning but it's looking gnarly hard and I can not wait to climb on it... unfortunately I might have to wait... I've got only a little more than a week left and I'm partnerless... ahhhh! something to come back to though I guess.

I did get out for a few days of bouldering recently too. Norah Siller and I semi-epiced among a sea of social trails on our hunt for Juniper canyon. I did one of the hardest V7s ever, a few easier gems and Ethan Pringle's awesome, 'Stand and Deliver' V11. I spent a sandstorm-windy-day in Gateway yesterday, mostly trying to convince Zeke to sit on my crash pad to prevent it from sailing away. He was not cooperative.
Norah on 'The Cubicle', not your average V5



Stand and Deliver
In between I've been spending long hours tucked away in the garage, doing tireless laps on the treadwall and problems on the Moonboard. Trying to stay as fit as possible for my upcoming trip to France is very high on my list of priorities, and thankfully, I feel as though I'm doing alright.

So from here I've got a few more fun nights, some long days climbing and the Red Rock Rendezvous (next weekend!) between me and my departure from Vegas. I'll spend a week or so catching up in Boulder before I leave for France in early April!