2 new FA’s in May, Yay!

As the sun continued to do its thing, the wind decided not to. Luckily, we decided to head to Lost Horse where several possible lines were all in the shade. We ate lunch, felt tired and sloth-like, so we decided to hike to the lines to see if they inspired us. One line did. The irony was it wasn’t the main thing we wanted to check out, but after rethinking how the line would go, courtesy of Jill, it became the main focus. Off we went to get the pads.

an overview

Revisiting a Thunder Egg…

Having still no solution to my van dilemma, we headed out yesterday with a fellow friend from the gym, Alex. We managed 3 pads, including the Shogun, and our gear in his Subaru  Impreza, and made it to the park just after 10. The Joshua Tree musical festival was going on that weekend, but we headed into the park for high 70′s sunning. We went to the Thunder Egg boulder again for some punchy short warmups. We previously visited this boulder for the second time on May 7th. This 3rd visit was to warm up to try again the low start to the Thunder Egg problem. We worked out a total of 6 problems or variants worth doing on the backside, assuming you want to go there in the first place. The established unnamed v2 on the backside away from the road, page 66 per the guidebook, gB, had multiple holds break off, but it still goes at v2 or 3. The v0 starts further right at a hanging thick flake. Here is the harder line as we started it with the obvious broken section:

start holds we used with the obvious broken section above the right hand

SB bouldering

This last weekend we went to Santa Barbara to boulder for Mad Rock, who was having a photo shoot for their upcoming catalog. Though I climb in Evolv’s, I went along to get free food and a tour of the stone. Seriously, the first day I just hung out and enjoyed the time spent. Jill was posing for photos and, when opportunity struck, tried to send some lines under not-so-good conditions. The occasion was also used for shooting images for an upcoming article in California Climber magazine on the Santa Barbara stone. Gramicci was involved dishing out attire for the climbers. The two photographers were Anthony Lapomardo, contributing photographer, and Dean Fleming, the Editor-in-Chief and publisher for the magazine. Below are a few images from our two days.

easily doing the crux start moves… she then pops to the sidepull (in previewing the photos, I noticed they are very soft. Even though these are low quality jpegs, they look much sharper than what wordpress is reproducing here. I’ll have to look into this…)

Update: Ok, I figured out why the image is so soft. My original low quality jpeg is 200kb, so I downloaded the image off the blog site and it’s 15kbs! wtf? As a newbie to blogging, I’ll have to pay more attention to details. *See at bottom of post…

a friendly bat visit and some confusing problem starts

Previous to my finger injury/unintended therapy work, we visited the Thunder Egg boulder before heading to my project lowball traverse that I’ve already mentioned. The Thunder Egg boulder has 6 established lines based on the gB. We warmed up on the northside 3, or tried to. There’s a stand start on the right face of the main overhang, p. 66 of the gB, and it goes at v1. For us, the stand felt like 5.4, so instead, we did it as a sit by grabbing a large key hold just below a lip and another hold lower. The next two lines on that overhang both start as low as possible, either at the corner or slightly left where it’s steepest.

we did a line starting one move lower than where Jill is at, right hand at where her right shoulder is.

not so season’s end… and a new outlook on the finger

So, my last post explained what I did to my finger. After a few days, I realized that what had happened may have been a blessing in disguise. My right middle finger, the one I hyperextended between two holds, was always hampered by swelling, calcium deposits and poor range of motion. What had apparently happened, is my finger now has full extension. It’s still swollen and feels a bit unstable for crimping, but I think it will bounce back real quick… if I take care of it, and give it some rest with limited action. That said, we headed out to josh yesterday for an afternoon and night session.

Jill has always wanted to try a crimp line I had showed others years ago namely Natasha Barnes and Buck Branson, near Khandahar in the Planet X area. Since then, others have jumped on the line including Christina Pilo. Both Natasha and Christina are thin crimping experts, and the line is just overhanging with slightly incut but sharp and thin crimps.

(btw, i’m not sure why i wasn’t capitalizing the first word of a sentence, but from now on I’ll make a concerted effort to use proper punctuation)

So since my happy accident, we’ve gone to josh for two separate day trips, both to the Planet X area. Our first day was at the Love Nest, on Tax/Patriot Day. Here are some images of two problems we did that day which I’d done years ago, not in the guidebook. Both are on a boulder that faces north but sits on top of a flat formation stone on the south side between Snakecharmer and the Woody problem. The backside of the boulder is obvious and looks like crappy grainy rock. The downclimb is down the backside or jump off to the boulder on the right in the photo below.

Jill is on Mojave Green, v5, having just done the first move

here is the start, showing the holds. it can be done in a sit or crouching style

season’s end…in not so glorious fashion

josh season seems to be coming to an end real fast as the weather has now consistently stayed in the 70′s. but it’s not the weather so much as it is doing something down right stupid while setting for trade in a climbing gym. friday, the 12th, Jill and I were setting at rockreation, costa mesa, when I hyper-extended my right middle finger between two holds. it was such a stupid thing, not because I noticed the poor placement of holds, but because I didn’t do anything about it. while forerunning a problem, I cammed my finger between the two holds, both on routes I had set, and tweaked an already swollen finger.

we have plenty of projects that are doable for the next month or so, all in shade and/or deep in boulder fields, so it will be a wait and see game as to when I’ll be able to pull again without thinking about it. bummer… Jill is healthy, so at least one of us can still climb.

here are a few of countless lines we’ve found:

the line can go along the crack arching to the right then up, or straight up along the seem to the top. 20′

this boulder sits atop a hill in the northern territories. cool stone.

 

in the beginning… park entrance area problems

recently, we hiked out to the Lonely Stones 1 (behind the formation on left at right turn after entering nw entrance) to try a few lines that looked very good. short, yes, but rock quality spurred us on to visit. at the Dream Sequence boulder, there are really only a few good steep lines. others are of the more typical off angle technical problems on poor holds. not that these aren’t worth it, but it was an afternoon set, and with limited time, we went for the steepness.

here is the first steep problem called Unnamed (1 star), it’s the left most problem on the overhanging side at v1. the problem we had with it was what constitutes the start. we started matched off a thin crimp that made the first move feel quite hard. it’s one move, so be warmed up if you’re not a crimping machine.

we started matched at the left hand