Some days stand out. The bouldering feels even better than normal. The colors are brighter. And the forests, moon, and the even the empty space in between, all feel right. Tangibly right, like you could measure the rightness, or hold onto it, or even become a part of it. Maybe that's just how Fall is. Or maybe it's an effect caused by the stark contrast between a day in the sun, and the full week spent under fluorescent lights at school. Whatever it is, we've had some amazing bouldering sessions during the last month.
On the first day that felt like Fall, Charlie used the good conditions to get the first ascent of "Always on Time" V5 at the Rock Shop.
I got the second ascent, and this is the photo of it :) It's so much fun to catch this move!
Ashley and I also climbed Charlie's line "Drop It Like It's Hot" V6 just to the left. Really good, and surprisingly difficult. It's a stand out problem!
After that we spent two wonderful days on the Elemental Wall at Torrey Valley.
Under the lichen it's a wall of amazing pink and black streaked gneiss.
We did a couple different traverses on the left half of the wall, and on the first day I did this line from a stand start at V3. The next weekend we added a new SDS to it that makes the problem much better, and more difficult. "The Final Blow" V6.
Torrey Valley is beautiful.
And then we got back to Neverland. We hoped to see the eclipse, and we lucked out.
My photography skills weren't up to the task of documenting the pale orange moon or the incredible milky way that came out. But my daughters finally get the fact that they live on a planet floating in a ridiculous amount of space.
We also wanted to catch the leaves before they were gone.
And do some great bouldering. This line was our second warm up. It felt a bit harder than I expected, maybe V3?
The bouldering highlight of the trip was our sends of "Hair of the Dog." A line Davin put up that is all of V6 for short climbers.
I added a new line called "Mr. Smiley" V4, and a line near the summit of this formation called "Dry Fire" V4 that had always had a pool under it on previous trips. Both short, but very high quality climbs.
The next morning we woke up to quite a sight. We were above the clouds.
With mountains emerging like islands.
This is the type of thing I love being able to show my daughters!
It was just the trip we were looking for.
And that brings us up to yesterday. It was rainy in Lander, but the clouds opened up at Sweetwater.
We warmed up with four fun new slab problems.
And a couple laps on Jesse's "Cherry Bomb" V2/3
I repeated "Skin in the Game" V6 from a lower start, with both hands matched on the undercling crimp, and Ashley repeated it too. Later I caught "the move" on my project three times. Turns out the next move is really hard too, but I'm now confident that I can complete this line. It's right at the edge of possible for me, so it feels perfect, even if it is a bit sharp.
And that catches us up with all of our notable ascents for the last month.
I hope that you're getting magic bouldering days too, and that we all have many more of them before the snow hits!
