Red Rocks- Part 2

After enduring a dishearteningly long day at the mechanic, the van was (hopefully) in tip-top shape and we were able to focus on climbing again.  Unfortunately, the friends we had made in Red Rocks were all slated to hit the road in a few days.  Their departure made us antsy, not to mention that we were no longer splitting the cost of the overpriced campsite, and we started talking about moving on.  Before we could leave, we hoped to send a few more climbs.  

It was another incredibly warm day at the Kraft Boulders, when Chelsea and I headed out to the end of the canyon to try to finish her project, Monkey Bars, and mine, Monkey Bar Traverse.  We waited until later in the day for the temps to cool down and started putting in some effort.  We were both feeling a little low energy.  I still hadn't stuck the last hard move on the traverse, and decided I needed to focus on figuring that sequence out before taking burns from the start.  I had been trying to make a huge jump move to a precise incut hold.  I pretty quickly determined that after doing the traverse there was no way I was going to be able to make a powerful, long move like that.  I set out to find new beta.  I figured out a new sequence, that involved a match which made the next move much smaller and fairly easy with solid feet.  After a few more tries from the start, I sent the problem!  The send go again felt wonderfully smooth, and I stood on top of the boulder feeling elated.

After I sent, Chelsea was feeling the psych and jump on her project, Monkey Bars.  Before we knew it, she was topping out.  The moves that had been hard before flowed well, and Chelsea executed each sequence perfectly.  Solid day!  We decided to spend two more days in Red Rocks and see if we could complete a few more things. 

The following day we hiked back out to Oak Creek Canyon so I could try to do All Nightmare Long.  I jumped on from the start and got about halfway through the problem.  The problem is powerful, and definitely at my limit, so after each try I had to rest for 20-30 minutes before I felt strong enough to give it another go.  I had the moves totally dialed, all I had to do was execute.  On my best go, I made it almost to the top, to the moves that should have been easy, and popped off for some unknown reason.  I had been feeling incredibly good up to that point and I'm still not sure quite what went wrong.  Unfortunately, I was completely gassed after that attempt and couldn't summon enough strength to send the problem.  It was a great learning experience, however, and it was awesome to project something at my physical limit and see myself make progression on it.

On our last day, we went back out to Kraft.  Chelsea quickly put down Potato Chips, a climb that she had been unable to start at the beginning of our time in Red Rocks.  I decided to give the Pearl one last attempt.  I had tried it briefly on two previous days, and honestly wasn't a huge fan of the movement.  The climb gets 3 stars, the highest quality rating in the book, which is surprisingly stingy in doling out stars, but I wasn't feeling the quality as much as I was feeling pain from the sharp left hand pocket that you start from.  

My first few attempts were really awful.  Then the rock cooled down a bit and i started making progress.  Soon, I was matching the good crimp and going for the huge jug.  Not too long after I stuck the jug and took it to the top.  I was glad to have this one under my belt so I wouldn't have to try it any more!  With that, our climbing in Red Rocks was wrapped up.  There is endless more climbing to be explored, and we will definitely be back in the future.  But the time had come for us to hit the road again and see what was around the next bend.

Adventure On. LP