Exploring

Katie and I had another nice couple days out this past weekend. Fall is completely in swing and the lake was two scoops of crazy on Saturday. So busy and so many people there that it was incredibly hard to get around. Especially with a pad.

Ian was apparently guiding which sounded like the worst possible thing to be doing that day. Can't even imagine.

We met up with Peter and Blake at a newish area in between Anchorpoint and the 500 Ft. Field. I'm not sure if it should be a new area officially but it sits in kind of a grey area currently. If you stand in the right spot you can see Recreational Vehicle and Half Dome at the same time.

I ended up posting most of the problems under Anchorpoint but found out later that Remo had done a couple this spring and posted them in the 500 Ft. Field.

Either way, it's a very very cool little area with a handful of fun, safe moderates with good landings and interesting holds. The stand outs are for sure Empty Space and Loompa Land. Loompa Land is a classic, tricky V3 with really cool movement and Empty Space is a great V2 over a nice landing.

Empty Space, also great.

Loompa Land is probably the best in the field.

We also did a couple new ones, the Duke and Dutchess, just up the hill from the other problems. On top of that there is a very hard open project on the opposite side of the Empty Space boulder. I forgot to get a picture of that but I'll post it up sometime soon.

Duke goes up the right face and Dutchess the left.

Eagle Eye goes up the center of the face and Pine Needle arete starts where Katie is.

The chunk of rock that Peter broke. Fatty.

I think my favorite part of this new little field is that it connects one of the last bits of unknown on the South end of the West Bluff. As it stands right now you could have an absolutely killer circuit day starting at Anchorpoint and walking all the way over and down to Dog Walk and Pete's Pebble. You'd never be more than 50 feet from the next problem and nearly all of them have good landings.

Katie hitting Peter....God knows why.

That day in 2005 that Peter, Rhoads and I found Dumpster Diving we walked past a staggering amount of rock and I am BLOWN AWAY that we missed so many boulders. In all we walked within 50-100 feet of these problems:

Empty Space
Loompa Land
Crimp Toehook Proj
Duke
Dutchess
Eagle Eye
Pine Needle arete
Half Dome Proj
Snake Dike
Flower Power
Black Sheep
Can We Cane Em?
Moo Stache
P.Stachio
Magnum PI
Railroad Spike
Pete's Pebble
Storm Troopers/Right
A View To Kill
Headstone

Plus, many others that I just didn't list here. It's kind of absurd now that I write that all out. Christ.

On Sunday we went out to Dodge and met up with Sam and Aaron. Sam finished up Split Personality rather quickly but was kind enough to have one last breathtaking dryfire on that last left hand crimp before the lip. After that I did Irrationality after a protracted effort that included far too much bitching and whining. Fun movement on that thing but damn it hurts.

Suck it Jugs.

After Camp B we drove over to Strong Men and went down in the wrong spot. I'll be honest and say that there are some Dr. Seuss style pricker bushes over there. Fucking terrifying. Katie found the correct approach on the way out and it was much less death defying, btw.

Katie made awesome progress on it and figured out some great beta for the rig. I'm expecting she'll do it next trip out there, once things cool off a bit. We finished up at Grounded For Life and called it a day.

I noticed something about Grounded that I hadn't thought about before. It's had start hold creep over the years. Originally it started on the flat crimps in this picture and it's gradually moved down a bit. I'm sure it's part natural progression and possibly also some erosion that's made that a bit more possible. Interesting nonetheless.

See the original start hold towards the left side of this pic

Also, it looks like another flake broke off the start of Out Past Curfew. Here's a video of Sam being awesome.