Now that the hubbub of purchasing/finding Christmas gifts and tweaking GiftListIt is over, I can spend a bit of time organizing things like my photos. I’d like to show you a picture of what I think will make a really great boulder problem at Rocks State Park. The problem with the problem is, in order to do it safely I’ll need at least on more (if not 2) mats. 

This is definitely in my list of things to do in 2008. I’ll need to wait until we’ve had a period of warm dry days — the area this is in has a lot of ground seepage so things are always damp.

Dave took some great pictures of some bouldering we did at Rocks State Park on Thanksgiving Day. The picture above is from that album. Check out my picasaweb gallery for the rest of the pictures.

I’ve been meaning to note a few things related to climbing. First, I’ve been making some real progress on my goals earlier this year. Goal 5 was to complete a 5.11, which I knew I’d do but maybe not so quick. I’m pretty sure I sent my first 5.11 early last month, which was actually a 5.11b. It was super bouldery with a roof-like start but very short, so it played off my strengths. I’m still really weak on endurance related climbs. I’ve been working on a few 5.11’s since then but have not done a clean ascent of anything in the 5.11 range. The crazy thing is that I can flash most 5.10’s, so I don’t get why I can’t get a 5.11 with a little work. Most have been crimpy and small with some very technical footwork. There’s this one called slap and untickle over at Earth Treks timonium that seems so possible but I just lose my strength halfway through. I was feeling really strong last week and tried a 5.12a, made it about 3/4’s of the way through and couldn’t figure out how to get past this nasty sloper that wouldn’t hold any weight. That’s two of more of my goals knocked out right there.

On the other side of climbing, my bouldering has been going well, but I feel like I’m really hitting a wall there. Roped climbs seem to have an easy solution: I just need more endurance. But the boulders, well, they sort of evade an easy solution. I just don’t know where I need to go to get better. I’m pretty strong so it has to be some type of technique. Or something. But it’s completely unknown to me what I need to do. I’ve climbed a variety of v5’s, but still need a few tries on each to complete. I’ve done one v6. v7’s are totally lost on me.

Earth Treks is doing a little seminar next month on some weight training techniques to improve your climbing. I think I’ll probably head over to that to see if strength is a factor, but if I really want to improve on bouldering I think I’m going to need to start doing it more often. 1 day a week doesn’t seem to get me past this wall.