Updates

Couple of nice updates around here.

1 - Sam finally did Anchorpoint. So did Blake. Well done you two, it was only slightly terrifying that you both topped out direct instead of traversing left on jugs at the break. I'm glad we made it up there to see it.

2 - Peter did Beautiful Soup and Soupmaker. While I'm not totally sure why, he did Soupmaker instead of just trying Keymaker and then couldn't do Keymaker. Either way, he'll do it next time I'm sure.

3 - Ian did the Ivory Face and Purple Dragon. For those that don't know, Ivory is a very pretty wall up by Fat Pants. While it's a cool looking face, and obviously hard, it has a striking similarity to the dead vertical crimping nightmare, Ice. Curious to see if this will see any repeats.

Purple Dragon is a midpoint start of the Corner Project and while the true prize still awaits, I think it is absolutely fantastic that Ian is finally working on hard, independent lines. It's something that Nic, Remo and I were hoping for when Ian moved to town and it's nice to see his efforts focused on this.

I remember showing Ian the Corner Project a handful of times and each time he was very unimpressed. I'm not sure what changed but I'm happy he's up there trying it. That's one of the big disappointments for me this year, that I haven't been able to work on that particular wall a bit more.

Aaron and Dobbe - It seems they had a great day up at the lake on Sunday and spent time falling off of nearly everything in the park. Jenga, Moj, Alpine Club and I'm sure many more. I believe numbed out hands may have been responsible for the failure on Super Slab.

Quote of the day: "Our hands were so cold that on the bump move on Jenga, our brains couldn't work fast enough to open our fingers up. We just kept punching the hold!"

Nice work boys.

As for me, Katie and I had a great afternoon up on the East Bluff. It was nice to have a bit of solitude and calm. I always enjoy the days that I get out with Katie and this was no exception. The time we're able to spend together means the world to me and while my job is taking me a bit further from climbing than I'd like, it's nice to know that I can have a nice, quiet day of climbing with my wife.

We went up to Fat Pants on the East Bluff so I could try it out. After a lackluster flash attempt I figured out the moves on my second or third try and then spent the next hour or so puttering around on it. Eventually after a prolonged effort that included stupid beta, machine gun efforts and numb fingers, I was able to finish it up nicely.

I can honestly say that this is among the top three new problems that has gone up this year and it was a good effort to put it together. I can also say that I'm extremely glad that none of the detached blocks are on, as they would have made a surefire classic into something much less.

Fat Pants joins Muffin Top and Tipping Point in the quality over quantity category. I'm glad it's here and people should go do it.

Now, adressing Peter. A couple weeks ago you made a comment about how there haven't been any pictures. You know what happens when you complain here? I hold out even longer. Instead of getting good pictures, you get this:






I'll post pictures when and where I want. Until then: