Progressively Sneezier

Saturday morning started out fairly normal. After a bit of packing we made it up to the lake around 10 or so. We had possibly the best entry onto the ferry yet by pulling up and just driving right on. Perfect day. Perfect temps. Perfect Ferry ride.

Perfect. Almost.

The whole ride up I kept on getting more and more of a stuffed up nose. I thought nothing of it, really, and just sort of figured it was worse than normal allergies.

We parked and started the hike out to Anchorpoint so Katie could try it again. It'd been a while since she tried it last and she had no real idea how it was actually going to go. Since we'd been up there last Katie has gotten stronger and has found some new motivation so I was pretty optimistic. I figure she just had to try hard. Katie, on the other hand, thought it was going to be one of those projects that she'd come back to over and over and never send.

Obviously we had different expectations.

We laid out the pads, made a futile attempt to warm up and, as always, just gave up and started trying our respective projects. Katie hopped on Anchorpoint and started re-figuring the moves out. Pretty quickly she was back to where she was before and she started playing with different feet with varying degrees of success.

She sat down for a couple minutes, put on her Solutions and stuck the move! After slapping up left a couple times she jumped off with a surprised look on her face. She rested and gave it a couple more goes to remember the move but was having issues keeping her right foot. After putting on her V10's she absolutely HIKED the move over and over again. Eventually she found her way up to the good edge that signals the end of the hard climbing and jumped off.

Her tips were getting raw by then so we figured we'd pack up. By that point my little sniffle had turned into a nose dripping epic of sorts and we went into Baraboo to get allergy meds and food. After that brief detour we were trying to decide whether or not to go back to Alpine Club. The temps were as good as I could have asked for in August and that was hard to give up. On the other hand it was painfully clear that this wasn't allergies, but that I was gonna be laid up for a few days.

I made the call, with a bit of prodding from Katie, that we'd head back to try Alpine Club. We figured that at worst I'd be at the same spot I was before! I could do no harm!!

The hike in was quick and we avoided as much eye contact as possible which made it much more pleasant. We hadn't been up to the problem since we cleaned up the vines that were suffocating the area. I gotta say, it's WAY nicer than it ever has been. Good air flow, a little bit of sunlight and far fewer bugs at the problem. I encourage everyone to check it out.

Anyways, onto the problem. I pulled on for the first few times to warm up and felt really good on the first move, which has never been easy for me. I don't know how everyone calls it a V4 move. After a bit of a warm up I gave some pretty good burns at the crux. I felt relatively strong and Katie kept telling me that I looked stronger on it than she's ever seen, which was encouraging.

Pretty soon though I devolved into trying different beta and from there it was a downward spiral into sneezing, dynos and failure.

I gave one final all out effort solely because I needed to have at least one good go. It was by far my best effort on the problem and I came very close to doing the move. I think all I need is a bit more lockoff and better temps. This year for sure.

Sadly, Alpine Club decided to fight back and I got a bit of a split on one of my tips. Oh well. It was worth it.

Saturday marked my 10th day of working on it and it's getting to the point of being emotionally invested in the problem. I haven't been at that point with anything for a long time now and I'm excited to try and do it this fall. At the same time it's hard to keep going back to the same thing and make no progress on it. Katie is definitely a good influence on me, constantly reminding me that it's supposed to be fun, and she makes it far easier to work on the problem.

I haven't wanted to do something as badly as I did when I was working Sandstone Violence before Jason did it. I'm finding myself quietly training specifically for it, something that I very rarely do. I want it. Bad.

Sadly we didn't take any pictures while we were climbing. That said, I will have a GREAT post up tomorrow. Look for it. It's Rad. To the MAX...