All About The Beta

Days like yesterday make me really realize that I'm just not that talented of a climber. I'm cool with that but wow, we had another fantastic day for the lake with me sending absolutely nothing.

There'll be a day that I'll come on here and spray and spray and spray. It'll be great. I'm very psyched for that day. Until then I'm happy to ferry others around to all the classics and watch them send. It's fun

Nic came through town on his way to Horsepens 40 for the Triple Crown. Along for the ride was Jeff Sillcox from Mammoth Lakes. Poor Jeff flew into Minneapolis and had to drive down to Alabama with a hyperactive Nic.

We all ended up meeting at Massive Vertigo around 2 or so. Katie and I had lightly warmed up at the North Shore and then played around on Massive Vertigo for about an hour before Nic and Jeff showed their faces. I got close but dry fired once more off of the left hand as I came into the decent sloper. After that I just sort of gave up until the two others showed up, hoping that some amount of motivation would magically appear.

Nic got set and without warming up nearly flashed it. Somehow he fell off going for the third jug on the topout. He figured out amazing kneebar beta and did it quickly on his second go. He took off his kneepad and gave it to Jeff who also made quick work of the problem and did it in about 3-4 tries.

Nic, trying hard 'n stuff

Jeff on the first moves

Nic threw the kneepad to me so I could give that beta a go and I did the move first try. Piss. I sat down and gave it a try from the start and did that move no problem. I just didn't have enough gas in the tank to release the knee. It was too solid! Off I came. I gave it a rest and then tried again but my energy was done and I didn't even stick the kneebar move. 

Next time. God I say that a lot.

I'm gonna try and make a cheap and easy kneepad tonight and hopefully it'll go down on Saturday. I cannot believe how much easier it felt with the pad. Blown away.

Nic had been eyeing up the line straight up from the start holds of Massive Vertigo since we first arrived. He somehow convinced us it'd be a good idea to try it and we lined up the pads.

I think everyone who's been to Massive Vertigo has eyed up the line but took one look behind themselves and moved on to safer things.

Nic just didn't want to move on. I went up top as Nic scouted it out once before committing. After getting a couple pics I came down and climbed in the tree to the right of the problem to spot his sorry ass.

Nic looking a bit skeered

Aside from one of his feet cutting on one move(which made us all pause a little bit) he made it up no problem and we had a new addition to the lake. Yay, Nic. Thanks for not dying! He named it 'Death of a Traveling Salesman' and put it at V5 X. Destined to be unrepeated until Jeff comes back and does it out of spite. I like Jeff.

We packed up and slid our way down the leafy talus field and hiked ourselves over to Alpine Club and Beautiful Soup/Keymaker. Nic was dead set on repeating both of those and I was hoping Jeff would help make my predictions come true.

Nic worked out the moves on Alpine Club again and ended up absolutely pissing on the problem and repeated it 4 times in a row. Punk. It was actually good for me to see someone do it over and over again. I've got ideas in my head and now I just need to get better at the whole rock climbing thing.

Nic on the first move

And the second...

And, boom!

Jeff got really close but we ended up going up to Keymaker before the light got too dark to work it. Jeff worked the throw a couple times and I got inspired to try it a little bit. I was shot and still feel like I'm not fully recovered from last week, but I wanted to try it anyways. I got close on the first try but I wasn't warmed up and my fingers felt like they were going to fall off. I didn't really try it again but Jeff started trying my beta and thought it was easier. He did the move a couple times and started trying Keymaker from the start.

He had a couple of really good goes but on his best attempt he made it to the small crimp above the rail and came about 2 inches short of the next hold on the Keymaker! So sick to see someone get so close!! Jeff said a couple times that he wants to come back and finish it and I hope he does.

Nic got power spotted through to the jug and tried the move on Keymaker again and came down somewhat surprised at how hard it was. Good to know it's hard!

One thing that we talked about a bit at dinner was how odd it was that we've got this one world class hard problem at the lake, seemingly out of nowhere. We're incredibly lucky to have an area this good with so many classic problems to try. I often forget how good we have it and days like this are a nice reminder of that.