One Punt, Two Punt

Katie, RV and myself all took a half day up at DL yesterday. First things first. Conditions are PERFECT! Get up there!! Rock is dry and there is only a little bit of snow left. Do it!!

We ended up deciding on a casual day up at the North Shore and Monolith areas and brought Moose with us as such. We needed to tire her out and did it work!!! Haven't seen her that wore out in a while. Good for a good nights sleep at least.

We pulled into the parking lot and Moose promptly threw up on RV. Apparently the curvy roads didn't agree with her. She also ended up throwing up on his Jet 7's. We all had a good laugh and renamed them the Vomit 7's, or V7's.

A very tired Moose after the drive up.

I stopped to put a little love note on Remo's car and then we had a nice warmup on the classics. I do love those problems.

Love ya Remo.

Meanwhile a very excited Remo came up with Vince in tow. They'd already had a good day and Remo sent the Wave Catcher project, aptly naming it 'The Wave Catcher'. Nice work. He also resent Sex and Chocolate but backed off of the direct.

Good day.

After warming up we hiked our tired legs up to Monolith where Katie started trying Bark Biter again. It's kind of a mind game with her on this problem. She hiked the crux last fall but didn't commit to the topout. It's on her list this year (more on that soon) so we went back to it.

RV apparently has it out for me though. We were stacking the pads so she could reach the start holds and he threw his big one over to us and I got jacked in the forehead by one of his buckles. Thanks bud.

Hate ya RV.

She quickly made it to the crux but didn't feel secure on the move to the jug. A couple times she downclimbed the tree but she eventually got psyched enough and really went for it.

Pop goes the Katie.

She took a nice, scary fall and smoked the tree and fell to the right of the pads. RV and I thought she hit her head but it turns out she was ok. Just shaken up. In the process I stuck my arm between her and the tree and my right index finger and forearm are a bit bruised today.

She took a break and RV decided he wanted to try and flash it. He saw and an anonymous strong climber flail on it a couple years ago and was super nervous. Said climber sketched their way up making it look much scarier than it should have been.

I gave him some beta and he promptly flashed it with some heavy breathing on the topout. It was a nice send and he was pretty happy.

Katie got back on once more to get it out of her head but downclimbed before committing. Leave it for another day.

Then it happened. RV said "I just want to try Venus Rising a couple times to see how it feels.". Let the saga begin. He tried it a couple times and fell off at the top. I look forward to him getting more and more frustrated as time goes on and eventually he'll begin his yearly ritual of taking a month and a half to repeat this problem.

"And it begins..."

We all also decided that the arete to the left of Venus Rising should be called Penis Rising. Just so ya know.

With that we moved around to Sex and Chocolate. The holds didn't feel quite as great as last time but both RV and I had one go each where we got super close. Unfortunately my foot cut just as I was jumping and I came screaming and swearing down the arete. I actually left chunks of rubber down the arete and on the foothold. Entertaining.

RV punted even harder than I though. He stood up one go and airballed the hold by about 4 inches to the right. He had the height but had the aim of a skinny little white boy. Not sure what's up there. That was his best go by far and he couldn't find the mojo again.

Katie also had some strong efforts on the rig and got to the crux, surprising herself.

Afterwards I made RV pose for some interesting pictures. That boy needs some brighter shirts...





I also got one more of him, well, you know....