Just Another Traverse

Saturday afternoon, I finished a project that I have been working on for number of days, Just Another Traverse on the Red Wall at Flagstaff. Ted Lanzano did this earlier in the year and rated it V9/10, a nice bit of understatement. After about 5 days and at least two dozen attempts, I would propose V11. The traverse starts with a couple of moves on thin crimps, followed by a very powerful and crimpy solid V10 section getting to the pod on the left. A strenuous shake leads to a final four-move crux which I fell from on Thursday. Basically V10 to V7 and much harder than any other V10 I have done this year, even harder than the Left Graham Arete at V11. It's a great problem that I would highly recommend.

As I write, there is 4 inches of snow on the ground so climbing outside may be done for a while. Cold weather and snow may stick around making most of the local areas unclimbable for at least a week.

Here's an interesting piece about sponsorship in the big leagues. It can't be long before climbing is seriously affected as well. The economic picture is so terrible, especially in employment and retail, I would imagine that the climbing industry is very worried at this point. A report at the Outdoor Industry Association shows growth except that, "In specialty stores, equipment, equipment accessories and footwear each lost ground compared to last October." Here's another quote from the same report: "According to trendspotter and OIA Rendezvous keynote speaker Marian Salzman, the only businesses in which she would consider investing right now are soup and camping." Mmmm...soup