This weekend I went on a solo mission to finish up my bouldering projects for the season - namely Ride the Lightning, which, much to my dismay, was soaking wet from rain two days prior.
After arriving to the park bright and early on Saturday and discovering the state of RTL I set to warming up in the cold weather on a classic v2 named E-Z Cheese which I had never touched. After 3 laps on said classic I was too hot to wear my down jacket. I then went to work on a line that I wanted to do simply because it had shut me down on the last visit: Hobit Direct - a v4 sit start ‘variation’ (shares a topout) to the park ‘classic’ (read: lowball polished crack traverse) Hobbit Hole.
After applying some burl and figuring out that adjusting the marginal starting left heel hook up to a much better left heel, I managed to send it, but not with much grace.
After deciding I was officially warm with minimal skin loss I went to look at a v6 I had read about on mountainproject called Bulletproof - a beautiful friction sloper traverse with a nice flat landing that only climbed about 8 feet off the ground until you were standing up - perfect for solo climbing work. I took my time working the beta and figuring out each move one at a time. On my first real go I came inches from sending and was almost too psyched to rest. I came up with better beta to the finishing sequence, rested about 10 minutes, set up my camera, and sent!
After Bulletproof I tried to climb on some hard climbs such as Rio’s Problem (sharp v7), Terrorist (technical v6), and Zap (sharp burly v3) - none of which produced sends. At this point v3 felt harder than v6 so I decided to call it quits for the day.
All in all a wonderful day which could only have been made better by being out there with friends. Next time I’m dragging someone out there even if they’re kicking and screaming, goddammit!
