Saturday, September 13, 2008

Hangover helper

Spent the morning and early afternoon with Brian, Joana, and Joe - who was in town for just the weekend - at New Rochelle. Slow start in particular for J+J, something about bourbon from the night before...

Joe has improved exponentially, better hold strength and sense of body positioning. He and Joana tackled some wicked 10s (black, pink, blue) with tiny crimpers and awkward stemming and body smearing. I saw Joana fighting her previous evening on the slabs out back - we'll call it a draw...

The Brain led a couple of good routes, an older 10 (yellow) and a new 10 (purple) up the steep arch, both of which pull the roof at roughly the same spot. He's starting to get the steep stuff wired. He also sent the awkward small stemmy black 10 of Joe's - way to handle that deviously placed crux right before the anchor. I played around on some different things: a "5.9/5.10" test route for the climbing team which seemed *much* harder to me, an awkward 11 up front (suspiciously downgraded from a 12), and a green 12 up the Mad Russian column. Didn't send any of them in one go, but all the moves are there; will attempt to send 'em next time. Tried Meg's pink 12 on TR - can't get past the gaston-high step-lunge for the tiny crimper move past the 2nd bolt, but will resort to watching G figure it out first...

I'd like to work on endurance a little more, and luckily there is a new mega-traverse that winds around the gym. Also up from the team tryouts, it's open feet with specifically marked and numbered hands (2/L, 3/R, etc.) all the way up to ~80 holds. For the record, it now stands at:

BL: 22
JK: ?
KL: 25

Guillaume, ball is definitely in your court...

4 comments:

brian said...

Good climbing; I'm pretty sore today (thanks in part to the pullup ladder that Joe convinced me to participate in at the end). Thanks for the catches Kenway!

I also climbed the red/blue test route on the double-roof wall. Set by Obe, and someone mentioned it was 5.8/5.9 (5.8 up to the marked hold about midway up, and 5.9 the rest of the way). Much like the test route Kenway tried, I thought the top was a fair bit harder than 9?

Finished with a 10+ (black) and 11 (green, overrated) on toprope.

Some pics here.

kenny g said...

Nice pics Brian. Sorry for the incomplete info, couldn't remember who did what (which green route did you do?)...

brian said...

lol, no worries. Just placing some signposts for my Alzheimers-riddled brain.

The green 11 was next to the smeary pink 10 that J+J climbed.

g said...

I WANT TO CLIMB!

I would love to make progress on the 12; but I doubt it.