Red Feather West Revisited

Jacob and I had to get back to the unnamed problem we didn't quite do last weekend. This time Ashley, Aaron, Shaun, Scott, and Jared came along. We went back to the warm-up area. "Huggy Bear" was climbed again. Ashley climbed a little despite doctor's orders not to, but mostly she hung out on her new government rebate sponsored Organic pad we picked up at the Mountain Shop. We're doing what we can to help the economy pickup steam again.

After warming up, we went to the "Fat Man in a Little Coat" boulder AKA "H.I.P.S." Aaron flashed our unnamed project, but the rest of us got shut down. We moved on to the problem "Fat Man in a Little Coat", but no one had much luck. It feels like I might be able to physically do the problem, but it is so committing. The crux is at the top, and everything is slopey and insecure except the high left foot. It feels like it would be easy to fall backwards, and have the left foot stay in place leading to an out of control back first landing. One day I'll commit fully, and maybe it will go. Here are some photos of the attempts on "Fat Man in a Little Coat." It's an inspiring line.
Scott

Jacob

Aaron

Ashley's Surgery and Red Feather

Ashley went into surgery on Thursday morning. She had a fibroid tumor that grew a lot while she was pregnant with Autumn. It kept growing for the last three years, and had gotten to be the sized of a softball. It weighed about two and a half pounds. Now it's been removed, but the surgery was difficult. Ashley lost a liter of blood, and got sick from the anesthesia. She's feeling much better now, but she's not supposed to climb for four weeks. I missed her at the crags today.

While Ashley was home today, I took the daughters and the dogs to climb with Jacob at Red Feather. Jacob gave us a tour of what he calls the Warm-up area, and the H.I.P.S. (Hidden In Plain Sight) boulder. It was a great day.

The Warm-up area has some very fun slightly highball warm-ups, and a great dyno to another dyno problem.

Jacob climbing a perfect warm-up.

The Dyno to another Dyno problem.



From there we headed just up the hill and Jacob did the F.A. of a problem he had cleaned on a previous day. It follows two cracks to an insecure feature squeezing mantle. He named it "Huggy Bear" Using his beta I got the second ascent. It's a great problem, but I didn't get photos.

Soon afterward we hiked a bit further to the H.I.P.S. Boulder. At normal hiking speed you could get to this boulder in about 10 minutes from the road, yet it was only developed recently. It has at least five high quality problems on it from easy, to how the heck did Ben climb that? We both got close to sending the problem pictured. It's a really good problem. My projects are multiplying.

A Beautiful Mother's Day

Days don't get much better than bouldering on a cool sunny day in Poudre Canyon. We didn't send much, but we enjoyed the atmosphere and climbed until our fingers couldn't take it anymore. At the end of the session. Aaron, Alex, and Ashley got on the new "Tsunami" and then "Surfing the Tsunami" which traverses into "Tsunami" from the left. I call it the new "Tsunami" because it used to be a V7 with a big move to and from a sidepull pinch. The pinch has broken, and left an incut crimp. This shortened the move, and the problem is now V5 with a heal-hook. Aaron and Ashley both did "Tsunami" and came very close to doing "Surfing the Tsunami." With fresh skin it will go.

Aaron on "Surfing the Tsunami"



Oh by the way, my Mother's Day gift to Ashley was an Organic Chalkbag.

Another Good Thing About Bouldering

We got rear-ended on I-25 tonight. Our bouldering pad, which we keep in the back of the van, might have saved our daughters. Luckily no one was hurt in the whole accident. A few cars were totaled though. The pad is still stuck in our van. The other car got hit by the same guy after we got hit.

Pad


No pad