Monday

Rest (mostly)

A small snowy bike ride home, and then I just hung out keeping warm.

Tuesday

Climbing @ Movement, 2 hours

A good session with Chris – I’m not sure though if I managed anything I’m proud of. I’m struggling on the lead wall – even a 10d is giving me fits. Oh well: trust the process. Mostly happy getting so much mileage, as Chris and I don’t waste too much time.

Sloppy ECR’ing

This was a pretty bad idea. It heated enough to really turned most of the snow into mashed potatoes, but I did my very best to ride it and have some fun, which I mostly did.

Wednesday

Green Mountain

Up Amphi/Saddle/Greenman, and down West Ridge/Long Canyon/Gregory. A nice slushy time up there.

Thursday

Boulder @ Movement, 2 hours

Ugh, what a terrible session. Couldn’t really top anything, although many attempts were made.

Green Mountain

Up Gregory Canyon, and down Greenman/Saddle Rock/Amphitheater. Trails are a big soggy mess.

Friday

Tried to go on a bike ride, at least. Got a flat around the first noodly turn on Lee Hill which I fixed, then broke a spoke simply riding up the hill five minutes later. Sigh. This is, at least, the fifth broken spoke on this wheel, and it’s high time to retire it.

Saturday

Bouldering @ Movement, 2 hours

Not a lot to report. Finished the V4 on the steep wall that I failed on last section. Felt much easier, but still… hard. Ended the session on a V0 in the cave, where I purposely cut feet on each move, which leaves me with quite a pump after peeling off.

Freeway/Third/Exit Boulder

After my bouldering sess., I went out into the OSMP to bumble around. Warmed up on Freeway, then up the Third on already fading light (sigh). Felt somewhat uncoordinated, so didn’t go very fast – I was barely paying attention on just where I was going except thinking I should amble generally in the “up” direction.

I also had fuzzy plans to look at a boulder I wanted to play around on that was… somewhere… between the Third and the summit of Green Mountain, but I couldn’t actually remember where. It’s a forgotten block I remember passing a few years ago. Once on the summit of the Third, I looked west but couldn’t even imagine where that boulder could actually reside. Somewhere maybe near the east summit of Green Mountain. Maybe. And I forgot my rock shoes/chalk bag at the gym, so.

I turned my attention to a boulder right at the back of the Third. Everyone taking the descent trail down the Third passes it, and I’ve passed it many times with a brief pause, thinking that it’s probably climbable, but knowing no one that has. So I thought I’d give it a try.

It took me a few tries where I backed down (always being able to reverse with complete control), until I was comfortable to go for it completely, and top it. I felt somewhat tenuous at the top, wishing I had my Otaki’s and some chalk. I have a hard time grading things – I just don’t have enough experience with local boulders, so I gave it a grade of, “VO” – felt damn harder than that, but I was tired from two hours in the gym, I had approach shoes and not rock shoes, no chalk, I’m weak anyways, etc, etc, etc. It’s up on MP, if you would like to weigh in.

Afterwards, I shuffled back to the TH.

Sunday

Fixed up my bike by swapping out the original wheel with the wheel from my Ogre. The Ogre has thousands of miles on it, but I also know that the wheel was hand-built correctly, and the original wheel was machine built half way around the world. The Ogre’s wheel is 2mm wider, but I couldn’t tell the difference. Nice ride. Yay.