Today I went out to the wall to end a week long climbing drought. It was a regular sausage fest; a real boys afternoon out. Ivan, Jed, Jeremiah, Gary, and myself were all freezing our nuts off (haha, trad pun) and fighting the apocalyptic cloud of Al Queda released mutant-hybrid 'no-see-ums' whilst trying to get some pitches under our belts. For the last six days God has taken a piss on our beautiful little island; releasing in torrential feats of strength, downpours that only seemed fit to bathe a giant in. But, to my surprise the crag was bone dry (with the exception of a couple of starting holds). To warm up my extremeties I took a lap on Medicine, then hopped on Murphy's Law, the project I so long neglected. I slapped my way through the technical and burly first boulder problem (5.11a/b crux) and then stood on the thin ledge releasing the tension that had built up in my forearms. A few more feet of technical crimping and then the route gets overhung. I pulled through the first two clips of steep climbing and set up to make the big second crux move. Left hand on a flat slanted crimper, right hand on a deep sidepull. Feet high up on slanted ramps, I pulled the deep sidepull all the way down to my waist locking off to reach my left hand way up to the 'non' hold; a two finger divot in the rock with a wide thumb catch. Tweaking my right knee inwards I prepared to drop knee and barn-door my body towards the next hold; a four finger half-pad crimper. I barn door too much. I fall into nothing. And....so it goes. The project remains a project...
On my last try of the day I broke the very miniscule lip off the divot-the crux-fucking-hold!!!!-which leaves me to ponder the miracles of 'enhanced' routes. This was the first time I've felt really strong on the crux and now, after the break, I'm not sure it's doable??!! Guess I'll just have to sack it up, or...GET THE DRILL! Hahahahahaha!
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