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 urged by some people to write about a rather scary experience Dave and I had at Rocks State Park a week or so ago. We were climbing at the bottom of Breakaway wall and I heard a rather large rock hit the ground behind us. I proceeded to do one of those, “woah’s” in which Dave knew something was up — even though he was about 40 feet off the ground climbing. After asking what happened and me explaining that a big rock just came tumbling down, a water bottle comes flying off the edge of the cliff and topples down. Needless to say we both started yelling and, unfortunately, no one had the courtesy to say sorry or even acknowledge us, leaving us both a little worried about what would come toppling over the cliff next. I understand that rock sometimes falls but a deliberate act of throwing a rock down on climbers is a little scary. I can only hope we scared the rascal that threw the rock and water bottle just as much as he scared us. Probably not though…

Beyond that, I’ve been very successful climbing routes in the gym this week. I flashed a 5.11a this evening and began working on a 5.12a that spit me off three times on the first try and once on the second try. I was burnt out after that and wasn’t too successful on my third or fourth tries. I’ll be sure to give the route a try sometime next week and hopefully surpass one of my previous goals which was to simply “work” on climbing 5.12’s, not necessarily send them. Boulder-wise, last week I flashed a couple v5’s which was nice but no news on breaking through the v7 barrier that I’ve been stuck on. Soon, soon.

After spending a couple weeks away from the gym, instead opting for outdoor routes and bouldering, I went back last night and finished up the 5.11c/d that was giving me a fit back in September. First try was a bit awkward and I had to relearn some of the route. Second try I sent it clean and felt really strong after. I’m not sure where the endurance came from since I have not really had much time to climb recently. I won’t complain about it though.

The weather looks drab on Friday. I was really hoping for some good weather and the possibility of some more bouldering over at Rocks State Park. Last Friday Dave and I went there and had an awesome day. We setup two top ropes along Breakaway Wall and climbed 5 different routes. One of my best days climbing, ever!

Dave, Emily, Chris, and I went over to climb in Rocks State Park for the first time last Sunday, the 14th. I’ve been there a couple times to hike and see the view from the king and queens seat, but climbing there is a very different experience. The rocks are very high and the walls have some really nice features.

Normally when I visit a crag, there’ll be a few climbs easily marked out from one of our guidebooks. The problem with Rocks is that it’s really big so I felt very overwhelmed. It’s really hard to know which wall you’re looking at. The bottom isn’t easily accessible and from the top it’s simply impossible to see where the good climbing is 50ft below you. I climbed down to the bottom. Emphasis on CLIMB — it wasn’t the easiest with a bunch of gear. Funny enough, Emily dropped Dave’s water bottle and the bottom split so he had to drink from the bottom. Dave stayed at the top and we yelled back and forth until we found a great beginner wall, Breakaway wall. We stuck to the right side of the climb on a route called Vertical which was rated 5.6.

Setting up anchors for the top rope was an interesting process because we were simply on a little shelf at the top of a big wall with more rocks above us. We found one great one and one decent one but when you’re used to tying your rope around a couple trees it can be freaky to trust a smaller crack or rock to support things. But hey, that’s why we have a backup rope!

After setting things up and managing to get everyone and all the gear to the bottom I tied in only to realize we setup the rope about 20 feet too far to the left of the climb we wanted to do. The choice was clear, climb and know I’ll have a big swing if I fall or scramble/climb back up the side. Either way would take some time and I knew the climb would be very reasonable so I went for the actual climb. It’s a little freaky being that high and knowing if you fall you’re going to be a little pendulum. It worked out though. At the top I fixed the ropes and everyone else got their climbs in. We didn’t have time to do more than one climb each but now that I’ve been there once I think we’ll be a bit more prepared for next time. I also want to find a couple of the bouldering problems I’ve been reading about. More pictures can be found on my picasaweb album.