So Ill Days Uno And Dos

Well we're back from So Ill now after a slight epic getting home yesterday. More on that tomorrow but all I can say is that a bit of luck is ALWAYS appreciated.

Katie and I got down to the falls on Thursday afternoon and after admiring that the creek was totally dried up we headed down. We'd been a bit worried that it was going to be abnormally hot and sweaty down there but actually got rather lucky. Even with temps in the 80's all weekend the humidity was low and early morning sessions seemed to pan out well.

First thing we did was run over to Hypoglycemia though since Katie was excited to finish that one up. She'd been wanting to try it since spending a day on it back in late January. After warming up on the top out a few times and refining her beta just a bit she was having some good links on it. She hopped on for one final "last go of the day" efforts and it just clicked. Pretty soon she was rolling over the time into bird poop with a smile on her face.

She was very psyched and also very surprised at how quickly it all went down. She'd been fully expecting to spend much of the weekend there and seemed pleased that she could move on to other things. Nice work!

We went over to Zig Zag for a few minutes but I wasn't feeling it and wanted to save myself for the next day. I just couldn't seem to get the right gaston to click just right. Instead we went over to Reefer Madness and played around on some of the moderates there. Katie did Ghetto life once more and we played on a dyno I did years ago. It took me the better part of two days to do it the first time around. Katie did it first try. I really love going back to stuff that used to be hard for me.

We also went over to the reindeer and ran a couple laps on it. Katie was nice enough to pose for some night pics. Note that these were all taken without an off camera flash. I gots me some powerful headlamps!!




On Friday we made it down to the falls rather early and warmed up on the problems by Spleef Peak. Love those ones. A friendly local named Bryan played around with us in the perfect conditions. After warming up the three of us went to a short V6 power problem called "Berlier Problem" or something like that.

I picked out some decent looking beta and scrubbed the holds hoping for a flash. Sadly I came off on the last move as my foot picked. I was able to suck it up and did it on my second go. Aces. Bryan was also able to finish it up using some nice tall man beta.

Katie always seems to impress me. She never uses height as an excuse. It's always funny to joke about but she's really good about it. Bryan did this problem in two moves, not counting the mantle. I did it in roughly 4 moves and was pretty stretched out on it. Katie figured out beta that worked for her that amounted to 8 moves. In that span she matched 3 times and used 3 different heel hooks. Impressive.

Sadly, stringing together those 8 moves proved a bit too much on Friday and she had to wait for another day after falling on the last hard move multiple times.

Katie on Berlier Problem

Bryan started talking about Praying Mantle and seemed psyched so we joined him over there. Let me start this by saying Praying Mantle is more than likely a problem I will never, ever do. It's absolutely heinous. Jesus christ.

Bryan setting up for the crux of Praying Mantle

Bryan had some good effort on it but the time over there ended when he knee'd his chin at speed trying to get his foot up by his hands. Terrible, terrible problem.

I coerced the group over to Zig Zag for another round of efforts. Within a few minutes it was starting to feel better and better. I'd found a little lip inside the right gaston and was getting closer. Then the body position just clicked and I dropped into the left hand pocket with a bit of gusto. Surprised to be there I quickly jumped to what I'd hoped was a jug. It was. I went up left hand to the sloper and got my right heel high above me and immediately realized that I was plain fucked. I felt totally secure but had nowhere to put my right hand and sadly dropped to the pads as soon as I tried to match.

Punt Uno.

I rested for a bit and then quickly got back up to the sloper. Once more I fell off in full on punt mode.

Punt Dos.

By that point my shoulder was feeling like it was about one try away from being completely jacked from the repeated gastons and I ended up giving up. It'd wait for another day. Progress is always good and I was excited about getting up to the slopers.

We stopped for the day as we were totally wrecked at that point and had some errands to run. I also took Katie out to check out the Holies since she'd never seen em. Aside from it being completely socked in and heinously humid, Katie was excited to come back to try some of the problems on another trip.

I was quickly reminded that Jungle Book might be one of the coolest problems I've ever seen. It also might have the greatest start holds ever. My God those holds are perfect. Amazing. I'm psyched for that one.

More on the insanity of Saturday and Sunday tomorrow!