The Southerly Way - Horse Pens Day 3

We'd been checking the weather forecast regularly while at Horse Pens and things were looking up for Day 3. It kept saying mid 40's and partly sunny. Perfect.

Well, they were closer at least. As opposed to saying 45 and sunny and it being 36 and snowy, things were much more optimistic come morning. For one, there were actually some blue skies and a bit of sun! Fantastic.

RV warming his shoes by the fire

The sheriff says its GO TIME

We started off the day by warming up near Slush Puppy and had a great time running from problem to problem in the sun. It was nice to get some unfrozen climbing time in and just relax for a little bit.

Warming up on a cool little mantle

Eventually I moved up to the one move wonder that RV was working on the previous day. I wanted to boot up and give it a good flash go so I set everything up, tried hard and failed miserably. I just couldn't get the distance no matter what I tried. I got close to the sloper but could never reel it in. Oh well.

On the first move

Failure...

Ba-DONK-a-DONK!!

Confuzzlement

RV and I switched spots hoping for better results but he came up empty handed as well. No dice for us so we moved back down the corridor to finish up Slush Puppy. RV wanted to try and finish it up and Katie was excited about trying it.

RV was fighting through the pain in his fingertips and Katie was working on re-warming up. RV made it back to his high point but was having a hard time finding motivation until Katie started walking up the lower moves with ease. We joked a lot on this trip about the "Well if SHE can do it" type of reaction that Katie and I see, mostly in the gym. It happens regularly and it's always entertaining and at the same time, a bit sad. It always speaks volumes about the power of an ego.

Pretty soon both of them were getting close to the left gaston and RV had latched it once but came down. After a quick shoe switch to a bit of a stiffer left boot in the Testarossa he went up and sent the problem. I threw a quick lap on it and reaffirmed how much I enjoy it.

The Sheriff and her shoe baby

iRVine on Slush Puppy

Katie prepping her 'spottin booties'

'Spottin booties' in action

Katie was having a tougher time reaching the high gaston though. I was wondering if it was going to be an issue with her short stature. She was able to reach a worse gaston a bit lower but was having a really hard time getting that extra half inch. She came down announcing that it was her last go. After getting back to her high point once more, she bounced her thumb up and caught the lower part of the gaston and somehow pulled her body back in. She quickly got the rest of her fingers into the hold and reeled it in. After stepping up on the good right foot she stood up and swore a little bit after seeing that she couldn't reach the jug, like everyone else can! She pulled a couple of tough moves and then rolled over the topout with a smile.

Rampant sex appeal was everywhere

Katie on the second move...

Starting the big move...

Big ol reach

Katie came down happy and asked me what she did to get up there. She really had no clue.

We took a break and went to have some soup back at camp. Upon coming back I was supremely psyched on trying to do Supa Coola, a fun but short sloper problem around the corner from Bum Boy. I'd tried it years ago and gotten royally shut down. Couldn't even pull off the ground. Sad really.

I came back this year and before I even tried the move I knew it could go. It just felt better. RV and I started trying it and pretty quickly I was starting to get good distance on the tricky first move. The crux is pulling up on a bad sloper and a slopey crimp and then firing to a good open handed edge. After that it's not too bad, just kinda odd. I started to get close and after a REALLY painful dry fire, I hit the good edge and went to the top.

At the start...

Stuck...

Starting to get all awkward 'n' stuff...

BEACHED!!

I was really happy to have done the problem so quickly and it was nice to finish it off. Super fun problem!

With that success behind me we moved the pads over to Five-O just next door. RV had been interested in it earlier in the day and after climbing on Supa Coola I got in the mood too. We quickly figured out the opening moves and moved on to the crux squeeze sequence. Every time that I thought I'd figured out the move something just didn't quite work. It looked relatively straight forward but neither of us could figure out the one link move to get up into the slopers.

My extremely successful flash go

Such good slopers

At the start of the crux

Massive Failure

RV trying his voodoo magic

Trying all sorts of stuff

Didn't quite work

RV on the big move before the crux

Stuck

With energy and skin draining from us we each gave it a couple more all out goes but came up empty handed. RV though came up bloody handed.

Who's blood is that??

Ahh, yes...that's it.

With us being done and the sun shining again Katie decided that she wanted to try some more stuff to finish up the day. She channeled Aaron(you woulda been proud) and gave several problems repeated efforts, one after the other. Here's a quick montage of her efforts. Might want to put 'Eye of the Tiger' on in the background. It was an impressive amount of effort on a bunch of problems.

On Hammerhead...

Gunning for the pocket

Who's that sexy man??  Me.

Hottie

On the traverse

More traversity goodness

Setting up for the BIG move on Mulletino

Thinking of how rad the Thief is

Getting ready to deal with some pain

On the lowdown

Looking all sultry n stuff

Little brusher boy

Copa Cabana, Uno

Copa Cabana, Dos

Copa Cabana, Tres!!

Katie ended up finishing the day on Copa Cabana, a really cool V3 that climbs up a blunt arete. She came really close to flashing it and then gave it 5 or 6 more goes to finish it. We both agreed that he best go was the flash attempt and that her energy waned after that. Funny how that works.


We packed up our stuff and left HP 40 in our rear view mirrors, hoping for better weather in Chatty. More soon...