So Ill - Day Two - Muddyness

Moose being her awesome self

So we woke up to a bit of a different story on day two of our trip. Most of the snow had melted and the ground turned into a muddy mess of crap.

A muddy parking lot instead of a snowy parking lot.  Not sure which is better.

Once again, we were pretty much the only people there and had a nice bit of solitude in the morning. Just as we were finishing breakfast a couple cars showed up and our solitude was broken! Bastards!! Not really, but it was kinda fun having run of the place.

Chris reading about the escaped convicts in the area.  Reassuring.

We packed our shit and made our way down the rope ladder and looked around at an almost snow free canyon. That meant dry rock, right??? I ran over to Zig Zag to check if that was dry and pretty much everything was soaked. Might be workable later in the day but not right away.

After checking out the falls for a bit and finding the old moonshiners tree ladder we eventually made our way to the welcome boulder to warm up a bit. We messed around on the big super friendly jugs for a while and got nice and warm.

The creek with the falls in the background.

Ze Falls

Chris being awesome

It was fun watching everyone jump from rock to rock trying to dodge the gaping mud pits. I was personally surprised none of us bit it, specifically myself. I seemed to have the most close calls all weekend.

After that we made our way to the only true dryish block in the canyon, Body Karate. Chris wanted to try his hand once more at the problem and Katie and Sarah were each interested in trying their projects as well.

When we arrived there were a couple of guys up there trying Hypoglycemia. It worked out well since Katie finally relented in seeing that she wasn't cheating by using a high heel for the first move, she's just much smarter than Chris and I.

The guys up there were super nice and supportive. Everyone got some good goes in and it was fun to session with some people, even if I wasn't feeling 100%. Chris had some fantastic burns on Body Karate and got amazingly close but couldn't quite pull it out. Each time he'd get to the last really hard move going to the jug he left foot would pop violently and he'd be off.

Katie put a couple of really good burns on Hypo and was also getting heartbreakingly close to sending. The whole time she was trying to link water was slowly dripping down the giant fin that caps off the problem. We tried everything from sweatshirts to socks to keep the water at bay but it was to no avail. On her final effort she got to the last hard move and accidentally slapped her left hand into a puddle of water. She kept going and stuck the next move but came off trying to move her feet around.

The highlight of the day may have been watching Chris's face as he saw a local run lap after lap on Yosemite Slab. His face was priceless.

Sarah was not amused by the river running down her project.

After that we couldn't keep the water contained any longer and had to leave. A quick hike found us at Zig Zag and THC. I gave both problems some well deserved lovin' and things started to look climbable! Chris and I both did THC rather quickly and I'm pretty impressed with the problem. It doesn't look like much but it climbs really well. It all comes down to two separate big moves on good holds. A slopey traverse leads you to the biggest jug in the world and we both dropped off from there.

The thought of skittering down the wet mossy boulder wasn't too appealing. Katie and Sarah started giving some efforts and Sarah made rather quick progress on the line and was making it to the second throw after a couple minutes. She had a couple double clutch moments where she went up for the sloper, missed, and then tried again. Someone needs to work on their aim...possibly as much as I need to work on walking without tripping.

Katie also made some good efforts but it was really interesting to watch the two ladies of the trip try this problem. Sarah is 5'10" with a positive ape index and Katie is 5' 1/2" tall with a minus 2 ape index. Both have totally different styles and it was fun to watch them climb together. Very different beta and very different strengths.

Pretty soon it was getting dark and we went back to camp to relax.

Later that night we were sitting around the campfire as a truck drove down the road. All of us jokingly threatened the truck to keep driving so we could have our solitude. Possibly the best was when Chris started talking about carving up a shiv if they drove into the campground.

About a half hour later two people and a pup came walking past the camp. The two people called for "Rocco" and Chris yelled out "Brad?! Hayley?!". Turns out it was Chris's roommates from when he lived in the Red. We chatted for a while and made sure Brad and Hayley knew that Chris wanted to "Shiv" them. Funny little moment.

Be sure to check out Brad's site here.

On a side note my finger feels better and better each day I climb. I just have to rest it well. The excitement and psyche for the new season is starting to boil over. RV is back and I'm excited to start training again. There is so much to do this year it's not even funny.

Rain this weekend. Hoping it'll melt some snow!!