i just dropped kyle and greg off at the airport. yesterday was their last day in the park. we warmed up in gusty winds and sought shelter in the stegasaur (8) corridor. it's a cool fin feature in a roof that leads to 2 tenuous moves on the face. it took a couple go's to figure out the sequence, then we promptly ran the train on it. after that we met up with mike and steph as greg worked out the first half of dean's journey (10). then we went to the east side of north where kyle dispatched of 99 heroin balloons (8/9) rather quickly. it took a few more go's for me, but i ended up getting this awesome power-compression, overhanging prow.
then on to the front side where we tried a couple other things in the late afternoon. where we met dave g and chad g and somebody olson. ryan, i think managed out an ascent of el techo de los tres b's (11?). the climb used to be a 13 before a hold was chipped/broken last week. there are 2 people i was aware of that were working it, but both of them were surprised to return the day after it happend to see that it might possibly be a little easier now. it's still an awesome climb.
other than that, greg and kyle had a good day on friday as well: sending all their respective projects. kyle got black mamba (10) and greg got pfos (his first 9). they also both quickly dispatched with chris's arete (8)... among other 7s & 8s for the trip. great job to both!
my day on friday was a step into new realms. ever since i started climbing i have watched climbing videos. and ever since i've watched climbing videos i've rarely been able to climb on problems that i've even seen in person. but that's changing apparently.
we took a crew into the spur on east mountain and i was able to do purple flowers again (this time completely clean (felt good, still had to try). then we spent the bulk of the day on 2 classic, harder problems: the flame and rumble in the jungle (both i think may have been downgraded to 11). and i climbed on both. i was able to climb the flame into the crux move, (even though i haven't yet done the move, even in isolation) which is a hard left hand stab into "the ear" that's facing the "wrong" way. and now i've got rumble down to almost 2 sections. i have to do a double step-thru to link the beginning and the end. it's basically doing two 8s maybe back-to-back = power-endurance. we have another tour scheduled for tuesday. i'm resting today and probably tomorrow, so i should hopefully be able to make some progress on both. at least do "the move" on the flame, and hopefully get further into rumble from the beginning. we'll see. either way, they are both super-cool; and the vibe is always positive.
it's fun, this whole climbing full-time thing. one week left at hueco :(
stay motivated!
[fingers crossed: more pics soon]
rumble!
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