This machine runs on beer

Typical Monday gazing out the window thinking about the weekend again.  I mean, that’s a good sign right?  I can’t stop thinking about what my life would be like if I didn’t have to worry about making money.  I could truly enjoy each morning, each waking moment of my life. I never have felt like this will be a life that I outlast. It always feels as if something is fading inside of me.  Like my life has already been lived and I know the tragic end.  I can see the weepy eyes, and feel the sadness of my lost soul.  I am here to impact the lives of others for a brief moment and then be swept away.  Where to I know not.  I cross days off my calendar taped to the thin veneered surface and I’m not sure I really understand the importance of this action.  The cancellation of another day.  The meaning?  What is the meaning?  Time passing in an obscure fashion and I keep track as if it means something.  It means I’m getting closer to the weekend when I can start my life again.  The continual flux of death and re-birth is played out in my life on a weekly basis when I start work and end work for the week.  What am I looking forward to?  The end?  The send?  A payday, retirement?  Women, a woman, the fame?  A fortune?  A cure? 

It was a split weekend between Tha’ NOX and ledgelife.  Myopic in hindsight the self-preservation button was pushed repeatedly and all of a sudden we were meandering throughout baskets of gadgets and tables of displayed odds and ends, macraméd hanger covers, various electronic relics of the past, and the obligatory island of mishap toy’s basket.  All we needed was a piece of wire, and it materialized, magically.  The NOX was amazing as usual.  Newcomer Jon Moen accompanied us and it was cool to show someone with such an extensive background in climbing a new crag.  The air temps were pretty damn ideal for climbing and the rock felt great, even the bits that were in the sun.  I was feeling ambivalent about a small finger injury I believed was starting to manifest in the middle finger of my left hand.  But there was no hiding behind the destiny of either injury or no injury so I warmed up as usual on the exquisite and delicate moves of Skip it or Clip it.  My mojo kept building as each move felt perfect and to my surprise my finger didn’t hurt at all.  I got to the midway point and decided to just keep going because the extension is absolutely some of my favorite climbing in the state(??). 

Andrew warmed up on Skip It as well which was his project and looked pretty damn smooth on it, I thought he would just sail right up it but came off just beneath the chains at the redpoint crux.  It was good to see him climbing so confident and strong, everyone just seemed psyched and even Jon was getting right into the NOX vibe with a warm up onsight of Clearcut a stellar 5.11d with cool movement on incredible black and tan rock.    

As a secondary warm up I managed to polish off Groove Tube and it felt downright casual.  I’m not really sure what kind of commentary I should make about the grade, it seems quite low in the grade for a 13a but it is quite technical and powerful in spots and if you had asked me last weekend I would have definitely said it was 13a.  I love grades, but the downfall with assigning a route a number is all of the other information and subjectivity that can be lost when referencing it.  Groove Tube in no way shape or form is on the same playing field as Black Magic but they’re both given the same grade as if, somehow, they’re comparable.  I don’t enjoy debating grades or people making comments like ‘Oh man that was SO SOFT’ because for one, it’s pretty disrespectful to the route, the equipper, and the other people around who may be working the route who find it quite challenging.  So I’ll end this banal diatribe by saying I really enjoyed Groove Tube, I thought the movement was fun and engaging and it taught me how to sprint when I needed to and rest when I needed to.   

Jimmy keeps dialing in his beta on Fight Club and had a very good burn climbing all the way into the dyno but coming off due to an overdose of lactic acid.  GET PSYCHED JIMMY!! 

In my post-send euphoria I decided why not go for Groovin’ in tha’ Woods??  So I sacked up and went for the Artifact repeat but holy shit it felt SO MUCH harder than last season when I managed to pull off a flash.  This time around I climbed it like a Clydesdale, my footwork was horrible and it made all of the lock offs absolutely miserable.  I re-tooled my beta and gave it a second go.  This time I got through to the last move but was redlining so hard I lunged for the jug and came right off taking a somewhat exhilarating and scary fall, glad Andrew had the yellow-fever dialed in.  It was actually the first of a series of scary falls that ensued that day.  Right afterwards Andrew got back on Skip it or Clip it for the send burn and while pulling slack up to make a clip had his foot pop and came plummeting downwards ass first.  We were both lucky to have avoided the rectal exam that I would have given him with my head had I any more slack out for the clip.  YIKES! 

As the day wound down Jon gave some good efforts on both Superdrmega and Skip It full.  I finally repeated Artifact and tried like hell to shake out the fatigue from my forearms before attempting the Groove extension but it just was not in the cards and my hands literally opened up on the barndoor gaston move.  On the bright side having to climb difficult sequences while pumped gives you an opportunity to figure out more efficient beta which is just what I did, so I’m stoked to come back soon and finish off Groovin’ and then finally start working Fight Club.  The real victory of the day belongs to McDonalds who finally deflowered my BigMac virgin butthole.  I’m not gonna’ lie, that shit was tasty and I was starving. 

Sunday was lazy.  Lazy as a pitch drop.  Lazy as an unmanned sail boat in calm seas with no wind.  Lazy as a donkey in a clover field with nowhere to go. 

And yet, when I finally did get to the ledge and strap my shoes on I climbed pretty well.  I felt great warming up on Techno, and I literally had so much energy I shook myself off the top of Breaking Bad (psychosomatic into black ice).  The company was fantastic; we had Tex, Berger, Waterfalls, Billis, Dillon, Chris, Tom, and a very, extremely, almost fatally hungover Forest.  What a motley bunch of gangsters.  Climbing-wise everything felt great until you breached the 60-70 foot mark and then the heat of satan’s glare reigned down upon your lily-white innocence showering you in sweat and mank.  I was not to be deterred.  After my standard ‘2 pitch’ rule I guzzled the life giving brew of our forefathers and felt DIALED on Breaking Bad.  Again, this is what I climb for, that feeling, that hyper-sensitivity where you don’t just grab holds but caress them, molest them, memorize every dimple and crease and edge.  Every move, every foot sequence feels effortless and for small portions of the climb you almost become a part of the rock.  Breaking Bad itself is a bit of a stretch, route-wise, but I dig it and I still have one more link into the black ice extension before I’m done.  Whether it’s a link between two climbs you’ve already done or a brand spanking new pure king line, clipping chains never gets old.  EVER!

More forefather brew guzzling and it was off to dispatch Power Bottom (propaganda into bus the rhythm).  I’ve worked this route for the last two weeks or so and had kept falling at the very last exit moves from the crux.  It’s a nasty little dihedral that gets thinner and thinner until you just have to press your entire body into the corner and reach up to a massive jug rail.  Propaganda is of course one of the most brilliant routes in the state but coupled with this extension it’s hard to say this is a classic, however it is a pure line that combines some good power-tech endurance style climbing.  I was psyched when I squirted my little hand up to the jug rail finally latching it and feeling all the muscles in my ass seize up.  I was all happy and confused and glistening as if the dihedral had just given birth to me.  The more logical name for this link is Proper Rhythm but I like my name for it seeing as how I had to use all of the power in my bottom to get me to the top!

Tex got ridiculously close to sticking the final crux move on Extended Illness, he will put this rig to bed very soon.  And a pallid and somewhat nauseas Forest actually got two pitches in, one of which was a pretty solid burn on his project Techno.  The last couple of hours on a Sunday session on the ledge are always angsty for me.  I feel fidgety and nervous, as if this will be my last time climbing here forever.  No matter what I’ve accomplished or how much I’ve climbed I always get a little last send-Sunday energy and warm down on something terribly unsuitable for warming down on.  In this case it was Chronic and I felt hosed right out of the gate but managed to just motor through it and get the repeat.  My chronic age is now old enough to drive!! 

So it’s pretty safe to say that the summer season here in Washington has started.  Anytime you find yourself sweating more than the wall is seeping is a clear sign that we have entered the summer domain.  What does this mean for hard projecting?  Well, nothing really.  Now is usually the time to get on the hard projects and build up that greasy power-enduro strength,  then when the Fall temps roll around in a few months it will feel piss-easy because you’re used to the holds feeling as if they’ve been greased with a roll of salami.  I’m quite pleased with how fast a lot of my projects have been falling lately.  I think I’m ready for some long term failure now on an objective that will be and has been very challenging for me.  My goal for the summer season is to break through that 5.13c ceiling.  I have a few baskets to put all of my eggs in and I’m really motivated now to accomplish something that I never have.