October Report

First of all, it's about 1AM, so there's probably some grammar mistakes here. 

I have been hit with a case of involuntary funemployment, so I have had a bit more time for rock climbing. The current routine that I've been implementing is climbing at Mars Roof, Puzzle box, and the hinterlands at least once a week. At Mars roof, I've been working on Lolita. I have been trying this boulder on and off for the last 2 years or so, but this is the first season where I've put in legitimate sessions dedicated to this boulder. There are several reasons to why I was so hesitant to put in work on the last two exits. 

1. The start. The typical start beta for both Lolita and Suplexing  revolve around a right hand stab to a 3-finger gaston off of a finicky left foot toe-cam. 
2. The headwall encounter. There are two typical betas- one revolves around setting a left hand to a 1-1/2 finger mono stack to a throw to a decent sloper. The other method revolves around going foot first and setting a toehook at the lip and moving your right hand to the sloper. For me, I had two troubles. The first method is very skin intensive and wouldn't be very suitable for repetition. The second method is quite finicky and is more suitable to someone who fits a larger box (i.e. longer legs), and I'm more prone to small-box beta. 

I finally decided to put in work on this after implementing some alternative start beta this spring. At the time, I was preoccupied with climbing at the burrow and the watchtower, so I did not put much time into the climb. During the fall, I was working Flesh Eater, so most of my attention was placed onto it. Now I have some more time, and I'm able to make my way over to the headwall, where I keep falling off the toehook, which I hear is quite typical. My difficulty right now with this boulder is two-fold. The first is a  snatch-like move to a good right hand pinch off of a bird beak. That move is quite difficult. The second issue is skin. Some of the holds are quite skin-intensive for me, and I am currently in the process of healing splits. I think it is quite pointless to do redpoint burns while my skin is healing, but I think it will be good to build up the fitness for this boulder problem. Last Wednesday, I reached my highpoint of setting the toehook, but my toehook slipped as I got my right hand to the sloper. But progress is still progress, regardless of how small it is. 

Toehook frustration

In order to keep up my body power, I started also climbing a bit more at Puzzle Box Roof. I typically do not climb at this roof a lot, as I opted to focus a bit more on climbing at Mars when I was climbing at the draw regularly a few years ago. Because of this, while I have done the standard lines here, I would say that I'm far away from understanding the style here. The style at this roof is big, open-handed holds, which require a lot of body tension and power, while minimizing the finger strength requirement. I'm not good at this style, so I've been coming here after my project sessions to better learn the style and dial in the lines. Currently, I've been trying to run multiple laps of the boulders here in order to build up my body power, but the most I can usually do is do the original starts, and then fall near the end. At the end of these sessions, my body is very sore, but I have hope that the fitness laps I'm trying to run will result in me improving my body power and ability to climb on sloping/non-pocket holds. Recently, I've been focused on dialing in the Cosmic Tricycle and R God is Neither as my base fitness so that when I tackle the other linkups on the roof, I will be in better shape. I hope to see some improvements as the season is coming to a close. 

In the hinterlands, I've been mostly focusing on Dermestid/Carcharodon, which is the direct exit to Flesh Eater, which climbs out the blue streaks on the left sides of the roof. The landing slopes away slightly as the roof changes to the headwall, so there is an awesome feeling of exposure. I went out there today with Bobby and I was able to negotiate the roof moves, so now the next step is to set up a rope to sort out the headwall and dial in my sequence. I feel a bit closer on this then I do with the climbing at Mars roof and Puzzle box, but I think the time that I've spent out at the Blue Ridge Reservoir has drastically improved my power-endurance. I've also spent some time at the Reservoir roof, where I was trying Swivelhip. I haven't been back since the second week of October, since rains came in and made the road very undriveable, but with the good weather, I hope I can get back out there soon to put a bit more work on it if I can lock down Dermestid or Lolita. 

Sorting out the beta on Dermestid

Swivelhip