Duluthness

This past weekend was maybe one of the most tiring.  Thanks to a large contingent of climbers from Duluth and Minneapolis that came down, we were busy pretty much the whole time.

Kraig, who I'd known from my last job, came down Friday night with a bunch of people.  We ended up meeting them at the North Shore where I was pleasantly surprised that the bugs weren't too bad.

After a couple of nice warmups the day started to go a touch south.  Pete from Duluth nearly topped out Big Bud but got a bit sketched and jumped off.  Unfortunately he hit the edge of a pad and broke his ankle in a terrible way.

Katie was instantly on the phone with 911 and reasonably soon he was off to the Baraboo Hospital.  I've never really seen anything like it and multiple people almost threw up.  Later in the day we morbidly joked around that Pete had a "Putter Foot" and that his foot was incorrectly facing "Northwest".  

I really hope he heals up well and can come back at some point in the future.  Maybe next time he can get 2 tries in before crippling himself.

After awhile Kraig left to join Pete at the hospital and the rest of us went over to Anchorpoint so that everyone could get on some nice, short problems.

Once we had our fill there we trekked up to Jenga just so everyone could live the joy of the false summit when you come through the trees and realize you're only halfway there.  Levi and Sean both finished that one up reasonably quickly and Katie gave a good amount of tries on Hippos, coming very close on that one once again.

The only other highlight up there was when I insisted over and over that Seam Project was completely safe and that the boulder didn't need a pad.  Then, in a daring show of irony, I promptly stepped up to show them how safe it was, tried the move, fell on my ass and hit my head on the tree.  How that happened I don't know, but my ass is just starting to not hurt.

We ended the day over at Massive Vertigo, Hipsters and Tunder Tighs where Andrew punted multiple times off the top of Tunder Tighs, Kraig hit his ass on a sharp pointy rock and everyone accused Massive of being some elaborate joke for visiting climbers.

On Sunday we took it a bit easier and spent the day at Burma.  Aaron and Dobbe met us out there and we had an extremely good time.  I always forget that Burma is a favorite of mine and it was a perfect spot for the group.

Everyone got on a bunch of stuff while Dobbe, Aaron, Katie, Kraig and myself tried a project in the cave, just to the left of Pinball.  We dubbed it the White Elephant Project.

While it may not be the most classic thing at Burma, it was fun to try new moves and the project is a startlingly accurate portrayal of traditional DL climbing.  At first the feet feel impossible and it feels crazy hard.  Then, as you get used to the moves it all kind of clicks in and things start to feel more comfortable.

I actually really enjoy climbing on this style of problem as it's not a strength of most people, myself included, so it's always a fun, low stress time.  Sunday was no exception.

None of us did the line but both Dobbe and Katie did the second move with Aaron, Kraig and I not quite able to latch it.

What was kind of great about it was that all of us were using completely different beta, yet getting to the same place.  There are a bunch of options with a ton of similarly poor feet.  Should be a decent little addition to the area once it's done but I fear that it'll suffer the same mossy fate as Pinball does since it requires a Greatest Show style of consistent cleaning.

Either way, it's always fun to try something new!

Here's some random pictures:

Here's a quick video of the idiocy from the past weekend.  Enjoy.