Single Right.

Short-ish.
Sharp-ish.
Tall-ish. V1-2ish.
Matt-ish.
Dyno-ish.

Conglomeration.

09/25/09 -- Montserrat...
Conglomerate...
Breathtaking. Less than an hour outside the city. Free. No people. No garbage, very little graffiti. Our route was named Fragel Rock. The approach was 45 degree uphill slog (1 hr+?) requiring fixed ropes in some places. 7 pitches of bolted sport. But the route wanders quite drastically, so we used twin ropes.
Last two pitches are 5.10d then 5.11b. Imagine a full body massage given by a grizzly bear in a bad mood. That's what I felt like afterwards.
That was before the descent. The descent is an maybe an hour of steepness that also required fixed ropes, and left my legs feeling like rodney king.
At the top there was helipad.
I could have used a chopper at that moment to fly me back to the car.

Barcelona.

Sorry for the uber-belated post. Work+climb=no time.

09-24-09 arrived in BCN today. Went with Fernando and Otso and Uma to get chorizo bocadillo and cafe. Then to La Fuixarda to climb. It's an interesting locale, and I immediately started to understand why europeans climb stronger than americans.

Looks like a tunnel next to a rugby stadium...

But suddenly, it's a free outdoor climbing gym, replete with huge traverses and overhanging sport climbing!

Outside the tunnel, it's blast rock (still pretty decent) with the 5 meters being cement with drilled pocket holds. Just like Mt. Charleston.

I led/tried to onsight the following:
5.10 - tunnel
5.10 - tunnel
outside tunnel on walls that are half artificial:
5.11ish - one foot slip on humid slab ... otherwise no problem.
5.11d / 12a - almost flashed.
5.11ish - onsight
5.10 - setup tr for some kids that couldn't make it to the anchor.

Lost City again.

I'm ambivalent on the anti-guide stance of the locals. Everybody and their brother knows about the place. I guess I don't really care since I have a local to climb with.

Warmup on the magnum boulder. I got a yellow card for burning a beginner on the slab. Apparently "burning" somebody means walking up to something that people are working on and hiking it. It's poor form and betrays a petty ego stroke. Don't burn people - unless they're your friends, in which case feel free to burn away.

Below Theresa on one of the v1s on the back of the Magnum boulder.

Learned about some new problems, but can't remember all the names.
Hungarian traverse v2
something around the left of the hungarian traverse - v2
boulder next to magnum - v4
boulder next to magnum - v6 - couldn't do it.
Matt's v7/8/9 project which is on an orange arete reminiscent of tigerstyle. couldn't do that. did ok on the beginning.
Cagefighter - v6 - couldn't do opening move, but could do all the other moves to the top out. Matt is able to waltz the start which I couldn't fathom. Fur and gristle outperform springy reach.. usually does.
Then we watched Zach D try Thumb War v10.
I didn't even touch that one... looked very painful. But complaining about the pain and the landings at the gunks is considered poor form by some. It's sharp conglomerate, like sticking your hands inside a pitbull's mouth, and you're landing on sharp talus, and wading through poison ivy, spiders, mosquitoes, fat millipedes, snakes, and possibly ticks. Not to mention other desperate tri-state area boulderers. Aside from that, problems actually have pretty good movement and can be technical, which I enjoy. I was a little shaky today due to lack of food and sleep and an abundance of beer and sake the night before. If you're going climbing, don't do that to yourself. Trust me.

Fried anorexic chicken.

Before setting out for Flagstaff, we got food for the road at Albertson's. The proper way to eat fried chicken from Albertson's Supermarket:
1. Purchase fried chicken 4 for 3 deal. Get stuff with bones in it like wings, legs, or thighs.
2. Enjoy savory fried chicken while seated in moving vehicle.
3. Chicken bones magically disappear via window to feed mold, ants, and crows.
Above, John warms up on the Triangle boulder.

Anorexic thwarted me yet again, although I made significant progress. This time I was able to check the foot cut at the crux, and even made it to the exciting heel over the head hook at the top. I just need a little more endurance/core, more precise foot work, more focus, and a good night's sleep. In short, I need more everything. I am convinced the insomnia is holding me back a full v-grade. Wait, that's wus-talk. V6 isn't that hard.

Anorexic attempts. from Hotel Sierra on Vimeo.

Right before leaving, we hit some moderate sport at the Pit, which is a pretty stellar little crag. I feel the limestone on the faces is of a higher quality than Charleston, and the approach is a mere 10 minute hike on an easy trail. Not too crowded either. Tried the Joker 5.12d, but couldn't put it together, especially after an entire day of bouldering. Got to the 4th or 5th bolt before throwing in the towel.


Upon arriving back in vegas, a paella dinner prepared by P awaited us. Met somebody with a unique name too: "'Rainy' ... like the weather", he said. Now that I think about it, it's a pretty cool name.

non sequitur

My friend Matt has impeccable taste in human sized rabbits. Wait, that came out wrong. My Adirondacks bouldering trip was rained out by Hurricane Danny, in a rather normal stroke for northeast summer weather (i.e. rain every weekend and sunny w/o warning during the work week when I'm trapped in deafening air conditioning and wage labor.) Going to Flagstaff tomorrow... I hope to shed the albatross of rain and send Anorexic.

Raku - P birthday

Amazing dishes, each one a visual and flavorful masterpiece. It's my favorite place in Vegas. Bouchon is amazing but I personally prefer the raku style of numerous small and varied dishes, reminiscent of spanish tapas.
This cold appetizer was ridunculous! Several of my favorite things all together: a poached egg, salmon roe (ikura), and sea urchin (uni). Ovum, sperm, gonads. Of course it's delicious. At $7 it's definitely a bargain.

Matt's woody.

Checked out Matt's woody (no, not that one)... for lack of a title/brand, I'm dubbing it "The Classroom" because you go there to... - wait for it - to get schooled. Horrible joke, but it sort of works since Matt is a teacher. A friend of his was able to drill real rock holds which provided an interesting experience. For one thing, the real rock holds were much cooler to the touch temperature-wise than the plastic holds. I don't know how it's possible but there's definitely a difference when grabbing a piece of real rock. There are close-ups of the real rock holds at his website. Maybe there's a difference because there's a liminal amount of flex and give in the plastic holds that doesn't happen with stone.
A dyno. I know it's not really climbing, but I can't help it.

Magnum area.

Sunday my old crew visited the magnum area in the gunks for some conglomerate bouldering. Warmed up on some zeros on the back side of the Magnum boulder. Above is a tallish slab. Hope those crystals don't break under the weight of your toes.

V5 Resurrection - sent. Very nice movement here with varied holds. The best part is the bump to crimp with your left toe naturally latching a toehook without you having to think about it. I know - talking about a cool move with no accompanying photo is totally rookie. Sorry about that.

V7 Poo-pah - couldn't get the go go gadget extension to the pinch. A move that Mark somehow made look easy. According to him it required a tension in the left oblique and a counterintuitive twist, and some "P90X" workouts (apparently they are good for a beach-body AND climbing Poo-pah). My mind-body could not mimic the thusly communicated concept. The V8 topout on the second ledge looks exhilirating but the talus filled landing and dearth of paddage was mildly discouraging.
Small note on the etymology of "poo-pah": I hear the individual that named this problem was hanging around some prostitutes somewhere in Queens (a perfectly respectable activity) and one of them referred to another as a "puta", which is spanish for prostitute. However, since this boulderer did not know spanish, he heard it as "Poo-pah", which must have made an impression on him since he decided to name a boulder problem after the word. Anyway, from what I saw, Resurrection and Poo-pah were the best of the area in that grade range. Although next time I want to try the overhanging boulder by Resurrection with the heinous sloping topout where all the v9 or v10s lay. There's also the arete/prow facing Resurrection ("Henry's Arete") which is apparently much harder than it looks at V8, and has been known to pop unprepped tendons. Needless to say, we left that guy alone. We concluded the day by flailing on the v5 "Old Gringo" on the front of the magnum boulder, all the while succumbing to poor technique, greasy holds and battalions of mosquitos.

Safari.

Ibex! Oryx! Siberian tigers! Giraffe!
Here I take the "Out of Africa" tour guide's recommendation and feed the giraffe with a carrot held in my mouth. The dextrous tongue still licked me though.
Back in Flagstaff for dinner, Pilar noticed that practically every establishment in town is "voted the best [fill in the blank] of Flagstaff!" But it's such a small town, there's only one of each anyway. Of course you're the best if you're the only one. Trying to get past the self-promoting best-of buzz, I found a website called http://www.hottieandthefatso.com/ (kudos for that title). They are two flagstaff locals that rate restaurants. I enjoyed their reviews, as they were straightforward and honest. At any rate, they said the best restaurant was a german restaurant called the Matterhorn. Intrigued, we went. It was excellent. How can you go wrong with a pork chop, a fried egg, and anchovies? (answer: you can't). Guess I shoulda taken the photo before chomping on the potato pancake.
The Optimator on tap was quality; it was like thomas hardy without the super thick caramel aftertaste.
Returning to the hotel with nothing to do, we drank and blew bubbles.

4 hours to Flagstaff.

What can I say? I love Priest Draw... probably because when it comes to bouldering I love everything I suck at (slopers, horizontal roofs, toe hooks, etc.) The four hour drive from Vegas is sort of boring. Luckily Pilar volunteered to drive the entire Route 40 stretch. Lots of cops with their fancy 2 inch sirens that are hard to spot. Four hours and two turkey sandwiches later, we finally arrived at "the draw". I started warming up on some zeros and ones. And then the thunderstorm started. Noooo! Pilar and I fled to the Bat Roof to wait it out and struggle with despair. Well at least I despaired, because I wanted to try Anorexic again, and the top out would now be wet and slippery.

But it didn't matter because I didn't get it. Stymied by the crux foot cut, my screams from trying to hold the foot cut echoed through the draw for a good second. Undaunted by my fledgling core strength and terrible campus abilities, I hurled myself at it from the start over and over again. I can't figure out how people (shorter women?) put a left heel hook into the starting hold. It looks super positive that way, but I just can't get my foot in that shit.

Afterwards, we went into town and had so-so tacos at locos tacos or tacos locos or something like that. I fucked up and ordered a "Grand Canyon raspberry wheat beer." What the fuck was I thinking? Then Pilar ordered what tasted like an alcohol free margarita. In fact, it had such a paltry effect on the spaniard, she promptly drove to an Albertson's supermarket, purchased a bottle of Freixenet champagne, and started swigging directly from the bottle in what she termed was an effort to "get totally fucked up."

The decider?

We finally convinced Shawn to visit Robbers' Roost at Mt. Charleston. In true SM fashion, he immediately eyed the hardest stuff and said, "I wanna do that." Or maybe it was more of a pointing gesture followed by, "That. Me climb. Hard." I just realized his initials also stand for sado-masochism. Huh. So we set up basecamp with all new and shiny products: rei lawn chair, new stick clip, even a Bose speaker for the ipod.

Here's SM on Contortionist Corner 5.12c. It's an overhanging dihedral that's a little heady because you could encounter some limestone if you blow a clip. He's screaming because he's attempting to get finger jam or stack into an overhanging pocket.

Contortionist Corner 5.12c from Hotel Sierra on Vimeo.

I like JB's shot because it accurately depicts the steepness. I was able to hangdog through it, but it cost me as my tricep became so exercised at the end, it wouldn't stop twitching until 3am that evening. I wish I knew the biochemistry behind that, as it's probably lack of something like potassium or magnesium or sodium. I foolishly thought my quadruple espresso from Starbux would tide me over. Speaking of JB, he did a marvelous job on an 11b or c on the opposite wall although sadly no footage. And that despite the bright Bufon soccer jersey!

We also attempted America's Most Wanted 5.13c. SM hangdogged through to the chains, but I was pretty much shut down from the opening moves. Steep limestone roof technique took a raincheck on me that day. I like this photo by JB, but it would be easier on my ego if I wasn't pusillanimously clutching the chain with my right hand! The severe overhang combined with a tad of dehydration had my abs cramping up in no time.
Below, superboy gazes into the empty space that awaits.