High Country Escapes

Whew, this heat has been over the top. It's time to get out of town and enjoy the high country. We spent some time in Crested Butte and checked out the Skyland boulders. That's a beautiful bouldering zone and the biking was spectacularly good, too. Can't wait to go back. Like so many other cool places I want to have a place there once the lotto comes through for us.

Other than that it's been alpine bouldering around here - I've been accumulating projects at Area A and hopefully a few of those will get finished really soon. Hopes were high for this past weekend but my energy just wasn't high enough to finish Seurat. We did get on some different warmups in the switchback talus so that was good fun.

The Blunk shot some pics at Seurat last week and here's a sample - the Old Man cranking into the layback:


Maybe these should be on JJ's foolish faces installment?

The crew takes advantage of some good June temps on Flag.

Last night was one of the better June evening Flag sessions in memory. Cool temps and a light breeze made conditions good and the crew was in full swing. We warmed up down at the Nook's Rock area and did the 30th Birthday problem. 3oth!!! HAH... that was a long time ago now for some of us old guys. The problem has cool starting moves that felt reasonable this time unlike the last time I tried this a few years ago. Colin's beta of foregoing the foot cam and just using the footholds and core tension to avoid the swing was good for me. We briefly worked the north side pebbly traverse on Nook's and that is now on my short list. Felt better than I remembered it looking.

Next up was Cloud Shadow where a couple attempts on Dandyline (sp?) put that on the list as well. I walked over to Rear End Rock to fondle the low-start underclings on Left Bulge. Felt pretty hard... enough that I quickly abandoned any thoughts of trying it right then. Up the hill we went to Just Right and bloody hell that felt hard. Fail! OK, let's move on to the Amphitheater and some moderates. Good fun; the Gill Direct actually felt V4 for a change. Like I said the conditions were good. The best sports action of the day for me had to be spotting the guys on Career Ender - no one fell but contemplating the potential tackle-into-the-pads spot was interesting. Personally I passed on the problem... ummm, it was too dark by then. Yeah, that's it.

Done with Cryptic Magician

This morning I did a couple of good problems on Flag that I haven't done before. First the Left Bulge on Rear End Rock was good fun. After checking out the topout by way of a jumpstart I started trying the middle version (left hand undercling, right hand crimp. I thought going left hand up to the good hold was really awkward and hard. I quickly decided going right hand up with left on the undercling was easier and managed it after a few tries. Seems like pretty solid V6 to me and the moves are fun. Next time I'll have to try working the low start.

I had started out on Rear End Rock since it was not too warm yet but now it was time to take care of unfinished business on Cryptic Magician. I had fallen off the final move of any consequence three times now and each time this sharp problem left me bleeding from at least one finger. Today was the right day and it went first go with no blood. Get on this thing when you have thick callouses for best results. Good problem - interesting moves and a bunch harder than it looks like it should be.

Hey, another way to waste some time!

Well I finally established a blog... with no plans at all to actually update it on any kind of regular basis. In the meanwhile here's a photo of that ultra-classic Kahuna from one recent session just a few days before the dreaded 50th birthday celebration. Fred Knapp photo: