Americagasm

My good friend Steven came up for a visit and got a great taste of World Wall One by sending one of the best (if not THE best) 12d at the crag Californicator.

The 4^th of July holiday does not hold a particularly special place in my heart by any means.  My memories of this day are centered around sticky summer encounters with popsicles followed by warm evenings set atop my grandfathers’ brown and tan Econoline replete with ladder on the back, small fridge and non(read: never) working sink, dusty velvet couch seats and noisy venetian blinds (my brother and I thought it was the coolest thing we had ever ridden in).  We would huddle on top of this beast with bags of popcorn and wait for the fireworks to start in the middle of a dry flat Texas field.  This is back when we lived in Texas and visits to our grandparents house in Amarillo were frequent staples of our 3 month long summer sojourn from school.  

We even got a visit from Waterfalls who showed up just to remind us that he's not fat and old.

Flash forward 20+ years and I find myself shaking out on an enormous jug halfway up my project, the disturbing traces of a recently detonated mortar reverberating off the tree clad slopes of the valley between Mt Si and Little Si.  It sounded like a war zone but the intensity of it all only added to the building climactic crescendos of either failure or success.  This time around success had to be measured in feet, and unfortunately the send still eluded me. 

I spent three days this past weekend working on my project that I had been apart from for over a month due to wet holds.  I kept telling myself that by the time the holds would be dry the weather would have turned to shit (meaning too warm to hold onto the texture-less side-pulls at the top).  But like some miraculous series of astral collisions that create a black hole, so too were the pattern of weather events that lead to us having extremely good climbing temps for the entire duration of the holiday weekend.  I quickly climbed back into my old high point and started to fuss around with the top crux trying to implant in my mind the sequence and saturate my muscles with remembrance.  The second day on, a miracle happened and instead of falling where I typically had I actually made it three moves farther!  I was so stunned and over-gripping so hard I couldn’t have even imagined sending at that moment.  The irony being that for the last 15 attempts I had kept saying ‘Yeah, as soon as I perch on that brick I’ll have it done.’  But in typical ‘me’ fashion I not only ate my words but relished in them.  I was very psyched to have broken through that wall (mental and physical) but also really bummed that I hadn’t put it down, especially considering I had a brilliant photographer above me, my visiting friends cheering me on below, and my amazing girlfriend belaying me.  I mean, are these not ingredients for top performance?  Perhaps I got a little too excited.  The last go was a fitness burn and I didn’t even match my new highpoint but the seed was finally planted.  Third day on?  OF COURSE!  I couldn’t let this wave of psych elude me or resist the urge to ride it so on day three we were back at the base of Pornstar.  I didn’t really know what to expect from my body or mind having already put everything I had on the line for two days but I warmed up well and felt like I could give it a legitimately good burn.  I did, I fell.  But I was still buzzing, I managed to perch on the brick yet again but fell going for a small crimp not having flagged hard enough.  I shooed my fears and weariness away and on my second attempt I climbed well, but felt tired (I was actually kind of pumped at the top of Abo, yikes!).  It was a surprise to everyone including myself that I climbed into the crux cross through to the pocket and yelling at the top of my lungs fell again.  Matching my high point from the previous day, it would seem disappointing but in fact it was so validating to know that it hadn’t been a fluke.  I utilized this opportunity to test out some new beta and it worked like a charm.  I also had been missing a better crimp for my left hand so I came down from the defeat armed with two new pieces of knowledge.  Yet another lesson in patience and a reminder to try EVERYthing before you commit to an iron clad sequence.  This burn would have surely done me in but I was WAY too jacked up from coming so close yet again to give up so easily.  It was overcast, almost cold, and the rock felt amazing.  I set an alarm for exactly one hour and fifteen minutes from the time I came down from the route and waited.  Trying new beta this late in the game is sometimes fatal and sometimes redemptive.  My last go of the day I felt a fire burning inside of me.  Not only did I feel good physically, I felt excited to climb (a feeling that had come and gone in the last few months of climbing on this route).  I tried to harness my excitement, reining it in and focusing it in order to give me that killer instinct I need to climb something at my limit.  Long story short I fudged my new beta and gave up all too easily.  I was pissed.  I was filled with disappointment in myself.  Usually when I feel this kind of disappointment I can justify it by having someone to blame but the room was empty and I had only myself to point the finger at.  Maybe I just didn’t want to send that burn.  Maybe my mind was jumping ahead of my body or vice versa, or maybe it was just bad new beta.  I jugged up in a rage and instantly pulled back on sailing it to the top, a dance I have done too many times to feel good about. 

The conflicting emotions that ensued after a long weekend of failure (success?) were ultimately contradictory.  After so much invested time all I wanted was the end result, and I went blind to the fact that this was a victory.  I am no longer falling where I used to, and now I am falling just shy of success.  I used to think that I had this project in the closing stages but now I realize how wrong I was, it’s not over until it’s over.