Hola everyone. This has been a long week. Things have been pretty tense at school and along the same lines for grad school. Fortunately this weekend I was able to go climbing with some friends from Denver, Maryann and Bob. I met them this morning in Castlewood Canyon, East of Castle Rock. The weather was perfect. About 60 degrees with no clouds and a little breeze. Hard to believe it's February.
We climbed a ton of really good problems. We went to the Fountableau area, which has its name because the boulders are similar to those in the French bouldering mecca of the same name. I've wanted to climb there for a while and just never got to it. The first thing you notice about the rock is that it is uniquely featured just like its French namesake. It really does have a crazy resemblance/exact replicaness(not a real word). We made it to a bunch of stuff but I spent the most time on a route called "Cave Direct" originally grade v6. Apparently back in 2009 a "crucial," according to the guidebook, foothold broke now making the problem more like v9. Thank you for that. Every single move is hard, and every single move is on tiny holds. And its steep. Pretty epic climb but really hard. I decided that by the time I left today I wanted to either climb the bottom half to the dyno, or hit the dyno. I left having done both, just no linkup. Successful afternoon. Either way the problem is bad ass. The bottom is really stretched out crosses and balancy stuff. Then a long pull to a shitty rail to match on, then you dyno up and left for a really sharp jug to top out. (I understand that only Matt and a few others are the only people that will follow that a little)
Now I'm here, finishing the video and dreading working on Chapter III of my masters research paper tomorrow.
There is one section of video that looks really strange. I know about it. The sun moved a lot during the shot and fd it up. I salvaged it the best I could. I would have tossed it but it was the only video of the problem's send.
This is what my life has come to.
Several sequences of attempts at Cave Direct
Maryann, Bob and Myself
ALSO! Karate Man has been back to his rigorous training routine of...well of whatever it is. Here are some pics because I of course filmed him again.
