Huck You and the Disappearing Fish

First Ascent Fever: Troy Neu, Tom Smartt and myself.

Yesterday Toma and I hooked up with Troy for a Fins session. The weather is getting very warm and the Fins are the perfect place to climb in the heat of it all.

The walls face east and go in to the shade at 1 p.m. making for great climbing temps. It's not uncommon for me to pull out my beanie and light jacket to stay warm at times as the temps can easily be 20˚ cooler than that of the desert floor below.

With help from Tom and Troy, I was able to finish bolting a new line on the Solstice Wall named "Huck You". It's an .11a 6 bolt arching route that has a somewhat big move at the end, or "huck", to get to the anchors. We all shared in the fun in doing a shared First Ascent. Thanks for being so patient guys. I think it was well worth the extra time though as it will make a great addition to what I hope will be a complete wall someday.

Afterwards we moved on down to the Discovery Wall to: 1) get Trot back on Martini so he could annihilate it and; 2) add mid-way anchors on a route.

We got the mid-way anchors in on an open project called Route of Discovery. The reasoning behind this was that this route has fantastic power moves for the first 50', then cuts hard right on a traverse that no one has been able to free yet. It's seriously blank, I'm not kidding. Easily upper 5.14 but no one has got it yet. So with permission from route equipper(s), we added anchors at the 5th bolt making it a rad 4 bolt .12d/.13a that will now very likely see much more traffic and people sending. The original route is stil there so it's still open season for the full Route of Discovery. We'll think of a name for the bottom pitch soon.

Troy hit the Martini route and almost sent (he did do it clean on toprope though). For the first time out there this season I think he did great. Added to that is that fact that he spent the whole day before moving into his new house. Hey, just another reason for him to come out there again!

On the way home Brittany called me asking me if something had happened to Ethan's goldfish because he wasn't in his fish bowl. I told her I had fed the critter the night before but hadn't checked it the next morning. After much discussion and investigation we are convinced that our damn cat ate it the bloody thing!

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Lagoon!

Last weekend was spent at the madness which is called Lagoon. It was nice to be in 85˚ weather but I forget how crazy it is there until we go back. Cousin Legend (whom Ethan worships) came with us this time which gave me a break from the rides. Madi hung on all day keeping up with the madness.

Highlights: Madi's ice cream cone that was bigger than her head; Ethan, Legend and Britt going on the Wicked; watching mom and the kids get soaked on Rattlensnake Rapids; putting down some serious grinds at Dave's Famous BBQ in Layton!

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F.U.N.

Rick doing "The Virgins of Howe", .11d

Tyson pocket pickin' on Ghosts in the Shell, .12a

Tom rapping into the Solstice Wall (the wall is not a slab, btw)

Sunrise from atop the Headwall at the Fins, looking south. Big Southern Butte is on the right skyline

This past Sunday I was able to complete a project route named Al's Diner at the Fins.

Redpointing .13a for me is something that is well within my abilities but often times eludes me. Just like everyone else I've got the same excuses, (family, job, injuries, age, blah, blah, blah) that keep that carrot just out of arms reach. This time, however, the carrot tasted pretty sweet. Plus, it got me thinking more about the whole concept of "projecting" a route.

In the 11 or so years that I've been hugging rocks, I've seen some climbers get so wound up about sending their projects that it's made me wonder if they've forgotten why they started climbing in the first place. I've seen grown men and women on the verge of tears because they fell and didn't send. I've seen seemingly mature adults throw toddler-like tantrums when success was not the outcome on a route.

Which brings me to my point: Isn't this supposed to be fun? I will admit that I too get bummed when things don't work out but the most important lesson I've learned is that even if you are successful on a route, life goes on – you still have to mow the grass, pay the bills, clean the cat box, etc. To me, what makes a better person is someone who can learn from their failures and keep smiling. It's not worth getting bent out of shape when things don't go as planned. Which bring me to another point – Don't "plan" on anything other than walking away from the crag with a smile on your face.

Oh, and Tom also walked away with a smile on his face too – and the redpoint as well on Al's Diner! Good work T-Rock.

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Reconnecting

Scott crankin' down as Izzy-dog ponders the meaning of life

Scott dishing it up on Al's Diner, .13a

Yesterday Scott Gardner, Tom Smartt and I hit the Fins for an excellent mid-week session. It was Scott's first time up there and I believe he walked away with a very good impression of the place.

It was Scott's 3rd time back on rock this year after about a 6 year absence from climbing (he was mtn. biking hardcore during that time) The dude is an animal. The warmups out there are mainly 5.11 and Scott seemed to get to the anchors pretty easily, which is not an easy feat out there – especially if you have never been there before. It was inspiring to watch someone who has been climbing way longer than I have but has been out of the game a bit just seamlessly flow back into the movement, rhythm and mental structure of climbing. I can tell the technique, but most importantly passion, is still very much alive in Scott when it comes to climbing.

The definite climbing related highlight yesterday was Tom's sooooo close send of Al's Diner. The last move on the second crux is so critical on getting into a very hard to see left foot and then being able to hang on while stepping up on that tricky left foothold to get your right foot up onto a crimp. Your right arm is burning and your core muscles are very worked by then. He was seriously about 1/2 a move from exiting the crux. Pretty impressive for a "kid" that wrenched his ankle this April and hasn't done a whole lot of climbing since then. I tried Al's on lead but had a few hangs to get to the anchors. It was a high gravity day from me. However, I wanted to kick myself in the ass as on my next run as I opted for TR but then sent Al's clean – on TR though. Freakin idiot.

BTW, in regards to the title of this post: It was a pleasure climbing with Scott again (and Tom, like always) and catching up on friends that I haven't seen in years. Scott's always been this friend of mine that I've thought of as "someone who gets it". By "it" I mean that he understands reality – he isn't living to keep up with the Jones', keeps his shit together and hasn't succumbed to the mundane even though (like me) he has a family, house, job, etc. Plus hanging out with him reminded me that Britt and I need to make more of an effort to reconnect with old friends because we have been really bad at doing so. We've had some memorable times in the past with some of these people and we'd like to keep the friendships alive and healthy…even with life as hectic as it can seem.

And next time Al's Diner is going down.

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Breakfast of Champions

My friend Tom and lil' Madeline powering up with some Cinnamon Toast Crunch
before a big day on the rocks.

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