The Trip Of Northern Agression - Hammerhead

Earlier this year when we made our way down to boulders of HP Katie spent some limited time on Hammerhead. It ended up making her list on this trip of stuff to finish. Not wanting to spend a whole lot of time on it due to the crazy painful holds she wanted to try and figure out some better betas this time round.

After a bit a work she did just that.

Hammerhead, for those of you that haven't been on it follows good, albeit painful, holds out of a cool horizontal roof. It's a fairly obvious compression problem in a phenomenal location, looking over the main grass field and stage at HP40.

The line itself is very cool. I just wish the holds didn't have pebbles all over the place.

Katie tried a couple of different things on the first day we got down there and eventually she abandoned her heel hook method and tried the toe hook. She couldn't quite get the pull to reach the left rail but I suggested a different method. Instead of following the left rail she came over to the right rail and hit the first slot with her left. This allowed her to cross back over with her right and float over into the good left hand pocket.

Like butter. So smooth.



She came back on her second day to get it dialed in. Within a few tries she was linking to the topout and soon enough she hit the upper holds and started getting her feet up.

As she rolled over she employed the formerly extinct method of topping out. The ever elusive "tripod" technique.

She set her chin on the rock and went to town. Just inches from pushing over the balance point she squealed a bit and came crashing down to the pads.

PUNT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh it was a good punt. And so were the other 3! Punt after punt after punt. Eventually she stopped for the day hoping for a rest day.

She got just that and we came back on our last day. She was a bit nervous but was able to play on it with someone else now that a boy was trying it. Oddly it was the first time we'd seen anyone else on it. Fun.

She hopped on and linked up to the topout once more looking ever so strong. Then she punted. Again. Looked totally solid but just couldn't push through.

She calmed herself down a bit and got on for the second try of the day. Once again she linked to the top, started rolling over and squealed a bit and said, "I can't!". I replied with something to the effect of "You sure??".

She stopped, reversed herself back towards the top and pushed the hell through. As soon as she stepped up on her foot she was done and running up the topout.

Nice fucking work. It's always good to see someone push through like that and it was a proud moment for her.