Rock Climbing – Thoughts and Training
Back in early April, I went out to Red Rocks again for the umpteenth time. I’m starting to feel like it’s my second home; in fact, the style and rock quality has lost a bit of the novelty I initially felt when I went on my first outdoor climbing trip almost exactly a year ago. Obviously, this means I’m becoming a more seasoned, experienced climber who knows what to expect from outdoor bouldering/sport climbing
Had a great time last month in Red Rock with the usual gang, where we did a bit of sport and bit of bouldering (with day 3 rained out). Although I didn’t do much projecting, it was great to see a few friends do their first outdoors sport lead, and also to go back and finish some boulders that had given me a lot of trouble 6 months ago.
On day 1, we went to Black Corridor to do some sport climbing. I suggested this location since we had a few people new to outdoor climbing, and I had heard that it was a convenient area with lots of options up to 5.11+. Mountain Project describes it as a zoo, and well…it was basically as crowded as your indoor climbing gym at peak hours, with every route occupied when we first got there. We started in the upper area, where a few of my friends climbed Dancin’ with a God (5.10a) and one of the 5.9s to the left of Dancin’. My objective for the day was to work on my onsighting skills, which is my favorite style of climbing, and so after warming up I set my sight on Oils Well that Ends Well (5.11a). I had onsighted a few 5.11a’s prior to this so I expected to feel confident on this route, but immediately felt shaky and insecure after the first bolt. I ended up deciding to bail after realizing how low to the ground I was and the groundfall potential, and even after downclimbing a move and telling my belayer I was going to drop, I ended up kicking him accidentally. After thinking a bit, I decided to move on and try a different route, and am really glad I did so. My expectations can sometimes add a lot pressure to myself, and I didn’t want to tilt myself when the day had just started, so I decided to try Sandstone Enema (5.11 a/b) next to Oils. In hindsight, this was a great lesson to learn, as not all climbs are going to be “worth” climbing; Oils involved a seriously small and tricky crux before the second bolt, and there were honestly better ways for me to spend my pysche and energy. Sandstone Enema ended up taking about 3 tries as well as a decent amount of time to figure out the crux sequence (and I would is a pretty solid 5.11c), but I had a lot more fun figuring out a crux that didn’t involve groundfall potential. Later on in the day, I tried again to onsight a 5.11 b/c (Hips Don’t Lie/ AKA Punchdrunk) that I ended up getting on my second go.
We went to Kraft Boulders on day 2, and I was able to send Jones’N (v4+) on my second go. This boulder gave me a lot of trouble the last time I came to Red Rock, and I was unable to top it out after working it exhaustively for 2 hours in the sun. I would say that I felt stronger on the boulder this time around, but there’s no better way to put it than that the holds felt better to me for some reason. I think a combination of more experience, better head game (from more experience topping out boulders), and overall being slightly stronger made the previously enigmatic, slopey topout feel obvious and juggy. It’s nice to see that all of my recent outdoor climbing experience has had a postitive effect regardless of send or fail. After Jones’N, I worked on The Pearl (v5) and managed to put it down after a few tries. The start was much trickier than I expected after seeing the holds, since the starting holds are quite large and featured; the left hand starts in a large crimp hueco, and the left hand has a positive sidepull feature to pull off. It was the feet placement that was the most difficult to figure out, and as the first move involves doing a large right hand reach to a not great intermediate crimp. At first I wasn’t even able to start the problem with both feet on the rock, and eventually just had to pull my body as close as possible to the rock with my left hand hueco-crimp. I think over all I could put in some more hours to bouldering/doing moves on slightly overhanging rock. After The Pearl, we moved to Monky Bars area and I tried my hand at Monkey Bar Right (v6). This was probably the hardest boulder problem I’ve attempted so far, and I’m happy I was able to suss out all the moves, making it to the last hard move before falling, multiple times. It’s an exciting, overhung problem with large committing moves at the end, and definitely feels like something the moonboard was designed to train you for. Definitely looking forward to going back to put it down.
Overall, I was able to enjoy the sport climbing without letting my unnecessary expectations negatively affect my experience, while also enjoying watching my friends push themselves mentally and physically. Even though most climbers say that having fun is the ultimate goal, all the talk about beta and sending and projects clouds that perspective and can make it hard to see why we tied in in the first place. For myself, I am still trying to find the best balance between striving for my personal goals while remaining in the moment and positive around my friends and climbing partners. It helps when I have set expectations before hand internally on what type of trip I am expecting. I especially enjoyed our third day where we did no climbing whatsoever, and played basketball at a local community court for almost 4 hours; I was reminded how much fun it is to just hangout with friends on a sunny day with nice weather, as well as how fun other hobbies can be. A reminder to not get too caught up in the climbing bubble.
Richard Zheng 