CATS and Book Signing

A busy couple of nights this week. Wednesday, I decided to visit CATS as a cold front had whipped up the wind along the Front Range. This was the first time in literally many months. After a quick warm-up, I set to work on the Sportiva problem described as the "girly" V8 in James' blog. Well adjectives like that are pretty sexist and obsolete given the likes of Alex Puccio, et. al. and as the father of a girl, I'll be happy to see them go away. Nor is it V8 which I expected anyway. After some tries figuring out the two cruxes, I sent it on the 4th RP try. I was pretty psyched for a one-session send since the problem is likely solid V9 and would probably be a Hueco V10. After that I worked on the Bear problem "V10" which feels very doable if I can get the second move down. I also worked on the roof a bit, finding a ridiculously hard but very good crimper problem, V13 or V14, as a long-term project. Better than Organic, probably harder than Petzl. I wrapped things up with a short (ca. 25 move) 12b traverse, kind of a hard flash. I hope to get back there more often as the training possibilities are probably the best around.

Last night I was at Neptune Mountaineering, eating pizza with Sophia and watching some slides of Boulder Canyon climbing presented by Bob D'Antonio. This was a book-signing for the new Boulder Canyon guidebook and was well attended. Bob is a real workhorse when it comes to both writing and route creation and really has, along with only a few others, transformed Boulder Canyon into a genuine destination area, ironic, considering its proximity to Boulder.

The weather has clearly turned much cooler so I am hoping for success on Flag soon.