Sunday 13 February
Had Thai last night (Saturday night) on Sunset Blvd (nothing special - poor neighborhood, dirty) before finding the nearest Wal-Mart to camp. I had heard that it was ok for RVs to camp in Wal-Mart carparks; in fact I heard that the founder of Wal-Mart specified in his will that it must be allowed; but when I got there it was so busy and lit-up that I gave the idea away and drove off in search of somewhere more innocuous. I wanted to stay in the area because I had planned to spend Sunday bouldering with Andrew at a local spot called Stoney Point, so I didn't want to drive way out of town to camp. I found a carpark out the back of some charity organisation where they had loads of company vans, so I parked amongst them and blended in pretty nicely.
Sunday morning I drove to a quieter area and had my cereal in the van, then around 12 I went to Andrew's house for a much-needed shower and to head to the climbing spot.
The area turned out to be equally popular for boulderers and top-ropers alike, and we had a great afternoon jumping on random problems. I think the hardest problem I did was V3, so I'm definitely not climbing strong at the moment. Hopefully Tuesday I'll be able to get out on a rope and start the long road back to climbing fitness
Perhaps the most memorable problem was a V2 line that is usually sent using a dyno move off 2 good sidepulls and high feet, jumping to a bad sloper with the left hand and flying campus through with the right to a good jug. I tried this sequence but static a few times, and couldn't hold the sloper and get high enough feet to reach the rail. After a few goes I tried the flying campus move, and stuck it after a couple of false tries. Sick moves! It was a very satisfying feeling piecing the correct complexities of subtle body movement together to achieve the send. I'm sure 90% of my friends reading this blog don't care at all and can't imagine the feeling, and I doubt they've even read this far (so hi to those non-climbing friends who've read this far!), but to those who know what I'm talking about; let me just say it was a good moment!
Back out to the good old reliable mountain pass pullout for dinner and sleep! I cooked my first dinner camping out (so sick of eating crap in restaurants) - polish sausage, pasta, carrot, capsicum, and pasta sauce.
I get it Scott. Ticked Urban Ethics, sad now, really enjoyed that time working it all out.
ReplyDeleteGood work Chris! You feel kind of empty in a way after sending a project. Only way to fill the gap is to find another project! That, or turn to hard drugs...
ReplyDeleteonly a straight Serotonin pathway one, on Powerplay and Hangten too.
ReplyDeleteYeah totally know what you mean mate, when you are working a move and you subtly change the position of your body the timing of the realease of the hands/feet the sucking in with your feet as long as you can. Remeber this awesome font 7b which was a huge backwards horizontal dyno off a small vertical wall with small crimps throwing back under a big horizontal roof to a reasonable hold on the lip (couldn't see what you were going for) and the secret was actually in realeasing the feet off the footholds at the right time and one after the other so the massive swing out was manageable. The feet and both hands had to come off but it was all in how you realeased them. Must of tried that one move about 20 times untill i got it right, dynos can be really technical too not just pure thugery! Take care mate and get your ass out to somewhere where people are climbing all week long. Bret.
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