The Ultimate Warrior's Way

Does the Ultimate Warrior's armbands remind you of anyone's special elbow taping procedure?

Good session at TRC last night with Guillaume, Brian, Eric, and Chloe; Tom and Rick showed up later to join the fun. Spent most of the night swapping leads with Guillaume and Brian on the roof routes. Brian is showing much progress, both in attacking the routes and the ability to take big falls (not unrelated items, by the way), working a couple of 10s (red, black) and flashing two 9s. Believing Guillaume's business about it being the perfect warmup, I hit the purple 11; passed through the scary clip at the apex of the arch but my power failed on the crossover and pull-through at the lip. G took a whipper off the same spot, but in his second go powered through the entire route after battling through alternate beta, a downclimb reroute, and a jammed knot (if you shake it more than twice it's not, uh, clipping...). Awesome!

G and I also hit up the new red 11 we tried last time (the Mad Russian route): scary body tension moves on the overhang past the vertical first half, well above the last clip. I thought I was climbing strong, clipping the fourth bolt and heading out on the overhang, and falling off the lip (big fall), but Guillaume got on and put me to shame. He not only figured out the move to clip the next bolt and pull the route, but did so in style - high right foot, right hand on a pinch, left leg flagged way out right and clipping laid out horizontally to the left. Add another move to the oeuvre... Eric and Chloe were working hard all night on TR, 9s and 10s I think - Eric's bouldering is starting to improve his efficiency and transitions between holds.

We all finished up with a little bouldering in the V4-5 range, good problems with big reaches, (mostly) good holds and lots of hooking. Good sendoff for Guillaume, who was bummed about giving up a month of pulling on plastic to be stuck near the Gunks; some people just have it tough...

UPDATE: Online sale on climbing gear @ EMS. For Eric in particular, the 5.10 Galileos are on sale for $104; a cheaper alternative as a second pair, assuming you're going to keep your theoretical Flash whatchmacallits is the Evolv Defys for $63 (see the rc.com thread).