Wednesday, March 27, 2013

New Limits and Happy Americans



Cyclops V6
Today was rad. Michelle and I woke up feeling pretty tired. We sluggishly left the resort after a nice breakfast. Upon arrival of the Kraft parking lot we made a b-line to the monkey bar boulder. To our surprise there was no one there. Michelle really wanted to get the classic V2 line that hits pretty much the cream of the crop on the boulder. She needed some power spotting at first and encouragement but she managed to pull out all the stops and walked up the problem. After that I played on Monkey Bar Direct V8, but I couldn't link the bottom moves to the top moves. I'm not too upset about it. It's a very hard problem that requires lots of tension, core, finger power and coordination. I like the problem I just don't feel like I was close enough to really work on it. It's just the reality of short trips. You need to be able to set goals that are attainable within a fairly short period of time and so far I think I'm doing a good job.


After the monkey bar boulder we headed back into gateway canyon to check out some boulders. It had a very spooky vibe because we were literally the only ones back there and after only being in the canyon for maybe 10mins we turned around and headed back to kraft. On the way back I spotted a boulder just past the Alexisizier. It was a boulder I had previously tried with Adam a few years back. Cyclops and Snake Eyes. Both roughly the same grade and same style. Decent hands, terrible feet to a big move to moderate moves and a top out. I knew snake eyes was far to tall for me and I have previously only ever seen really tall people do snake eyes. So I put some Dr.Dre on my iphone, chalked up and sent. Left hand in a sloppy dish, right hand on a good edge with a high left foot, push up with a left hand to a small edge, right hand goes into some small little pockets up to a glory jug and a decent top out. Stoked to had completed a problem I had previously though to be too hard or weird to do.

After that Michelle and I headed down to the Pearl where she was stoked to try clam bumper. A V4 with a nice mellow start on a jug followed by high feet small holds to a slightly precarious top out. She was a little weary about falling the day previous but after bagging monkey bars she was riding high on confidence and took a few nice falls on the pads. She was have some difficulty getting her feet high enough once on the crux and kept on popping off. I helped her scope out some different foot holds, threw some tick marks on them and BOOM, before you know it she was manteling over the lip, elated by her new achievement.





We then headed back to the resort for a swim. I like to play pool games with Michelle. My favorite being 'who can swim the furthest while being fully submerged'. I like to think I made it up but it's just super fun to be in a pool and literally play like a kid. After that we played 'who is better at swimming between the others legs' and 'who can push off the wall the hardest'. Michelle was sick of my horse playing so we hit the hot tub for a few mins. We caught up with Sarah and Scott who did an intense hike up a local Turtle Mountain in Red Rocks. Apparently it was steep and beautiful. They headed out to the iron chefs restaurant for dinner and we prepped our bbq dinner.


Michelle and I shared the bbq'ing duties and had a really nice dinner. We also came to a bit of a realization whilst bbq'ing. There was a nice man from San Diego who was also bbq'in and he didn't hesitate to open a conversation. We realized that Canadians are far more passive and unwilling to be conversational. We also made this observation previously when we bumped into climbers from New York, Minnesota  and even the clerks at the grocery stores. Perhaps it's because people here seem to share some sort of common ideology related to freedom, liberty and all that patriotic garbage. Maybe it has something to do with the weather...? Either way I think Canadians could learn something from them.  The next time you are caught sitting next to someone you don't know, introduce yourself and make a new friend. There is no us and them, there is only us.

After dinner Michelle destroyed me at Monopoly and went to sleep. What a ruthless beast she can be...

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