Heat Wave!

It was quite toasty here in SoCal last weekend - temps jumped up to the 90s without much warning.
Due to my landlords suddenly deciding not to renew the lease with my housemates and I in Pasadena and some frisbee drama leaving my feelings pretty bruised, we decided to take a more relaxing weekend plan. We slept in Saturday morning and Luke went to the gym to set some routes while I stayed home and did a little homework and some apartment searching.

On Sunday, we headed out to Woodson in the morning to get some climbing in before it got unbearably hot. We went to Hard as Nails first to try to boulder the line, which we both previously did clean on TR. Head games were very much in play as it suddenly seemed a lot harder to do the thin moves without a rope. It's going to take some more work to do this one.

Then we headed to Hear My Train a'Comin, where we set up a TR so Luke could try the whole line, which he sent after a couple false starts! I was glad that he was on toprope and not soloing it (not that he wasn't awesome, but it's pretty long!). I didn't get as far, but I was improving on my beta and getting a move further than I had been getting last time we worked on Train. Luke thinks the moves will just keep getting harder because the fingerjams are on the big side for him.

We finished up by working a little on AIDS Victim on TR, which follows a thin seem with a couple of very necessary crimps to either side. Luke re-worked the beta and sent it clean on TR, while I worked through the first crimpy move (last time I tried I couldn't even pull on the crimp - this time it felt pretty good, so a good improvement there) and got to the top with a couple of falls. My fingers were suffering from the abuses of Train, so I decided to stop after my one try. I did, however, get an awesome perfect thumbstack in one of the pods. Yay learning stuff in Indian Creek!

Overall, a good session - it's always fun to go to Woodson to work on hard cracks - each one requires something new and different.

We'll be leaving tomorrow night for a long weekend in Bishop. We'll be going with a couple other friends, so hopefully we'll come back with some sweet photos!

Getting Psyched for Indian Creek!

I finished my last final of the term yesterday, which was pretty awesome. It's always a huge relief to get even a brief reprieve from the work and stress of the term. This one was especially stressful at times with a certain neuro class that had WAY more work than the units I'm receiving for it. But that's over now - back to English classes next term!

Anyways, we're leaving on Friday morning to head out to Indian Creek! So while Luke still has to work through Thursday, I get the coveted task of taking some time off to relax and getting all our stuff ready to go. That and wrapping Luke's birthday presents (it's his birthday on Sunday, but we're opening stuff early so we don't have to cart it all the way to Utah). So it should be a pretty nice next two days.

We're definitely really excited about this trip and have a HUGE list of routes we want to climb, but we could always use more suggestions (favorite IC route, anyone?) or ideas of places to go/things to see if we take a rest day. A friend has already suggested hiking to Druid Arch in the Canyonlands as a sweet activity.

And finally, a little update about this past weekend (sorry, no photos!). We went to Mt. Woodson on Saturday, initially planning on heading up to Crucible and the Test Tube, but upon arriving, we decided we were a little tired to walk all the way up the hill, plus the weather didn't look super stable, so we decided to focus our attentions on two routes lower down on the hill - Hard as Nails and Hear My Train a 'Comin. We went to Hard as Nails first. It's a beautiful splitter thin finger crack, so a very different experience for Luke and I. We both toproped it twice with some resting for our fingers in between. I struggled with my feet the first time, wearing my still fairly new Cobras, but the second time, wearing the Katanas instead, was much easier - it never ceases to amaze just how good those shoes can be.

On our way back to the road, Luke decided he wanted to try Right Long's Crack (an offwidth) so we headed up to that. Although he didn't send, he definitely made some progress, figuring out that he needed to execute a kick-over move to be able to move his hand-stacks up the crack. It was pretty fun to watch (as the belayer :-D ).

Finally, we stopped by Hear My Train a'Comin on the way down, by way of Blackfinger, which Luke sent twice. The funny thing about Train is that each of us requires a completely different sequence since the locks are so finger size dependent - Luke makes a long reach from his second lock to a crappy one above, which he has to trust to get to the jug, but I have to start out with a jab for a lock Luke didn't even think existed (using a different foot on the starting foothold) and need to trust that to keep moving up, which I didn't really manage to do that day. Luke, however, was successful in finally reaching the jug, so next time we can put up a toprope so he can climb the whole thing.

Sunday was my birthday, so we took a day off and did some fun normal-person stuff. We headed to downtown San Diego to "Extraordinary Desserts" which is pretty much the best dessert place EVER and had an amazing piece of cake, then went out to a movie - Vantage Point - which was pretty good, followed by a trip to the San Diego Zoo (which was fun! we hadn't been in a long time), and back home to make dinner - attempting a recipe for homemade stuffed pasta using won-ton wrappers, which was only somewhat successful.

We'll hopefully have tons of stories and photos when we come back from our trip!

Jaws!!!

Despite the continued rain-on-the-weekend trend in SoCal this past weekend, Luke and I managed to catch some dry weather on Mt. Woodson on Saturday!

I was feeling a little under the weather from the day before and the ridiculous week I had (ultimate frisbee has been the bane of my existence recently), so I chilled on the crashpads wearing all the jackets for the first couple minutes while Luke warmed up on Baby Robbins and Jaws. Then I felt better and warmed up by climbing Baby Robbins twice, and it was time to throw myself at Jaws. On my first serious attempt, I made it to the top, although I started about 4 feet up on top of the stacked crashpads. I was shaking when I made it to the top, but it did feel really good. Something just clicked and the jams felt way better than they ever had before. I took a break before trying again and on the very next try I sent it from the ground up.

So there goes the first major step towards becoming a more awesome trad climber (and eventually climbing equinox!!!) Luke mentioned that he was excited to go spend some time working on equinox, so hopefully we can do that our next free weekend!

After Jaws, we walked up to the top of the hill and headed down the other side to look for some new cracks. We found Test Tube and the Crucible, which we definitely want to try next time. With no new cracks in sight and the wind and clouds making the weather more questionable, we decided to head back to the car. On the way, we stopped at the "cave area" and Luke played around with the steep holds before we continued down to the car. (Photos above are of Jaws, photo below of Equinox)

Luke also climbed Jaws without the crashpads a couple times, which was pretty awesome, too!

Lizzy

Plastic and Cracks!

The past weekend saw a lot of rock climbing and even more sore muscles.

After fueling with pasta and cheesecake in Pasadena on Friday night, we headed up to Ventura on Saturday morning to compete in the citizen's ABS Regionals comp at Vertical Heaven. When we arrived in Ventura and got out of the car, the air smelled disgusting - I was concerned about having to breath it all day, but amazingly I either got accustomed to it or it smelled better inside the gym. We checked in and got some free stuff in a Mad Rock bag and sweet T-shirts.

The comp itself was 3 hours long, with 60 problems, 15 each in Rec, Intermediate, Advanced, and Open categories. It being my 2nd comp ever, I struggled a bit. I tried basically all of the the intermediate problems, flashing 2 and making good progress on a lot of others, although I didn't end up sending them. Luke was climbing in the Advanced category and did pretty awesome, winning 2nd (a free headlamp). We were able to garner some more free stuff - lots of t-shirts, stickers, and a chalkbag via a raffle and them randomly throwing free stuff to the crowd before the finals.

We were a little surprised at how few really good climbers were there, but apparently the comp didn't really matter for people who wanted to go to Nationals. Lisa Rands and Alex Puccio were the strong women, placing 1st and 2nd in the women's open category. It was really cool to see Lisa climb AND she put her bag next to my bag on the floor so I ran into her a lot. There were some pretty crazy problems, too - including one involving a jumpstart to campus moves to a bat hang to an upside down dyno... a little ridiculous but a crowd pleaser for sure.

We had dinner with Hartley, Jamie, and Nicole, and headed back down to San Diego, sore but stoked for a day at Woodson on Sunday.

It was a great day for climbing - sunny and warm (although a bit chilly in the wind atop Robbins boulder). We climbed Robbins Crack first - I soloed it for the 2nd time and felt a lot less freaked out than the first time, which was good. Then after doing some easier cracks that our companions could actually climb, we managed to find California Night for the first time! Luke sent this and I was making pretty good progress, but wanted to save some energy for my nemesis, Jaws. I also made the stupid mistake of running a track workout in too-small shoes last week and my big toe has been painful and oozing a little blood since, so I couldn't fit my right foot into my smaller shoes.

Then the boys enjoyed some time climbing steeper routes in a cool cave area before we headed to Jaws to finish the day. Luke and I soloed Baby Robbins and relaxed in the afternoon sun on the top - by this time we were both pretty worked from all the climbing we'd done this weekend. Luke's left arm was really hurting and my tips were worn down practically to bleeding!

Then it was time to throw ourselves at Jaws. Luke sent it first try, which was pretty awesome. I got pretty close to the top on my first try, but fell as one of my off-jams slipped out. But it felt pretty good. The next couple tries felt awkward for me and I never made it as high as my first go... maybe next time when I'm less tired it'll happen. Then I just have to keep sending it to get ready for IC...

I'm pretty sore still today, but luckily its a rest day for me - just classes and homework, so hopefully I can recover before this coming weekend. I'm also feeling pretty motivated to work hard at my Tuesday/Thursday ARC bouldering sessions so that I can climb better at the next comp we go to, whenever that may be.

That's it for now,

Lizzy