Priest Draw/EoY Update

I'm still been working on Lolita at Priest Draw. I've now progressed to the point where the boulder can be segmented into 3 parts, which is where I usually am for the other lines on the roof when I haven't climbed on them for a while. Objectively, it's a good line, but I have not had a good experience due to the inconsistency of where I find the cruxes. I find it quite similar to my experience this semester, which is thankfully over. The material is good, but the presentation and experience has been all over the place. Besides constantly falling on this thing, I have also spent some time revisiting or doing new-for-me climbs. A few weeks ago, I decided I wanted to learn how to rope up headwalls for taller boulders. However, I didn't rope up for ascents of Turbid Waters or Siege of the Citadel, when it was probably better to do so. I did learn on another occasion, however. 

I also achieved my goal of wiring some sequences on the Puzzle Box roof a bit more. I was able to do R God is Neither's foot cam release sequence without doing a complicated recycle, which significantly reduces the amount of moves needed to do the problem. I was also able to finally figure out that I had been doing Cosmic Tricycle with some poor kneebar beta, and now I have a sequence that feels remarkably consistent. 

I also ended up visiting the Upside Down, and put in about 30 minutes of work on cleaning up the sequences on Demogorgon/Demodog. It's certainly a step up from some of the other boulders I have done in the Hinterlands, but it is lovely to see that the moves are not out of my conception.  

In my session last Friday, I fell at the end 3 times, due to ticking the wrong foothold that I use for a big right hand finish move. I'm quite good at getting in my own way on this roof. I also left a sign of my failure in the form of blood in the stacked mono pocket. 

I also went back to Mars roof yesterday and I regressed to falling at the toe hook. On the upside, I managed to sort out the start and make it consistent, and did the last move correctly a few times this session in isolation, so there is some progress. It's a little discouraging to regress back to something I thought I had figured out. As a reward for my troubles, I managed to rip open the skin on my left middle finger, which is due to the mono-stack pocket I need to use in my sequence, and also chunked out a sizable part of my right index sidewall in the bridge pocket. After the fiasco of burns on Lolita, I put some time in learning Suplexing Navajo, and finally did the remaining moves on the roof quite quickly. I like this one a little bit more than Lolita, as it is more straightforward. 

The last half of the fall season at Mars roof has been quite frustrating. None of the moves are all that difficult, but I do feel slightly morphologically disadvantaged on the lines I have left, so my experience will likely feel more difficult than they usually do. That being said, I feel like I'm mostly limited to my elbow tendonitis, skin, and weather. Unfortunately, I can only manage two of the three, and the tendonitis is mostly a matter of time, so I may not get a chance to finish a line on Mars roof this year, and perhaps fell just short of my goal to climb a double digit on 4 different roofs this year. In hindsight, spending time in the hinterlands during the majority of the season didn't transfer as much back to the draw as I hoped it would. 

If the roads close, I'll plan on sorting out my elbow and the rest of Mars roof early this coming year and the Puzzle Box linkups so that I'll have more fitness and power going into the spring.