Saturday

Often times I have a hard time thinking of the lake as a true bouldering area. Part of it is that you always seem to trek to one area and kind of stay put. Contrast that with other areas where everyone is climbing on different problems in different places all at the same time.

For the first time in a long time this past weekend felt like the lake was coming into its own. In total there were 11 people up on the West Bluff bouldering. At any one point we had people at Dog Walk, Black Sheep, Dumpster, Wrong Way on a One Way, Anchorpoint, Double Elephant, Alpine Club/Beautiful Soup and Massive Vertigo.

Problems got done. Projects got sent. New stuff was found.

It was a damn fine day.

Katie and I parked by the cabins after a quick hike to check out the new stuff Remo found(which is really cool. I'm psyched to see/try the Get Up project after you send it!). Just as we were making it to the trail Runnells, Tony and Sarah were coming down from Double Elephant where Tony and Brian had just finished it up.

We all went up to Beautiful Soup and just as we were unpacking Chris/Sarah and crew were coming up. Katie took Sarah, Ben and Erin over to Dog Walk while Chris and I went up the hill to try Keymaker a bit.

We watched Brian and Tony for a bit before shoeing up to try Soup again. After one slight miscue each we did the crux throw on Beautiful Soup on our second try. Personally I was really psyched I could still do it as I had tried it last year and failed.

After that we just started boosting each other up into Keymaker, trying to figure that beast out. After a few tries we'd each whittled down our beta a bit to our own totally different method. Myself jumping/campusing to the crimp and Chris using the high heel.

A couple boosts in Chris just took it to the top! Very sick to see it go down that quickly for him and I have zero doubt he'll do the whole problem extremely soon. On my best go I was able to get a pause on the second crimp and felt the body position click in a bit.

Watching Chris on this thing is super inspiring cause it's just made for him. It's really cool seeing a problem/climber seemingly built for the other.

All I can say is I'm really excited to get back on it now. Its taken top priority for now and that feels good.

Towards the end of our time at Soup both Brian and Tony were getting heartbreakingly close to sticking the jump move, coming up just short of reeling it back in. Finally Brian stepped up to the plate and stuck the jump move with a good dose of try hard. He calmed himself down, matched the crimp out right and avoided a punt on the last hard move to the jug.

Done and done! Brian seemed happy to have done it and we were all happy for him.

After a brief stop at Alpine Club they headed off to Dog Walk while Aaron and I threw ourselves at Alpine. I'll be honest, Aaron isn't known for being a technical climber. Aaron is strong, like bull. I can say this stuff cause he can take it. He's tough.

I've NEVER seen anyone so close to doing Alpine Club as Aaron is now. Dude basically stuck the crux 3-4 times in a row and looked like a damn rockstar on the problem. It's one of the most impressive things I've ever seen and I can say with the upmost confidence that he'll do that problem soon. It's incredible.

After picking up there we walked over to Anchorpoint and met up with the rest of the crew. Sarah sent Recreational Vehicle which is awesome! Seems that her and Ben were also excited about Anchorpoint. It's nice to see others getting more and more psyched on what the lake has to offer.

We didn't stick around too long since Katie wanted to try Massive Vertigo once more. This time, after some beta refinement, was a bit better. Fairly quickly she'd worked out an entirely new sequence that seemed to play to her strengths and allowed her to get the kneebar a bit more securely.

With fatigue setting in and light fading she gave a couple of all out efforts and on her best go she fell on the last hard move before the jugs. Sad but encouraging at the same time.

On our way out we met up with the rest of the crew coming down from Dumpster Diving where pretty much everyone sent it and moved on. Once again, so nice to see people going out and just climbing new problems in new areas.

So notch it up. Another good day at the lake. More problems got sent, no one punted and new problems are on the horizon. This year has had a different flavor than the last couple. People are getting out more and the projects seem closer than ever. Excited to see where this leads.

I'll leave you with another gem of a video. Go Katie go.

Devils Lake Bouldering - Jenga from Steve Schultz on Vimeo.