Monday – Wednesday

I was moving this week – and things are a blur. Mostly gym every other day, but no real running.

Thursday

Freeway

This was a spur of the moment trip between packing/moving. I ate too much beforehand and sorta rolled up and down the route.

Friday

Bouldering @ Movement, two hours

Saturday

Green: short up, long down

I took the Saddle Rock Ridge trail up, which is the shortest/overall steepest way up I know to summit Green Mountain – about 1.9 miles; then down the West Ridge/Long Canyon/Flagstaff/Crown Rock trail, back to the trailhead which is the longest way I know to get down – about 6. Weather was absolutely atrocious – rain the entire time. I was thoroughly wet by the end of it all.

Sunday

Bouldering @ Movement, 2 hours

A good session – most everything I wanted to get up, I got up. Plugged a few V5 and V6 holes I was having, as well as a repeat of the V7 I nabbed last time.

Freeway x4 + Green Mountain

I trotted up to the base of Freeway without too much of a goal in mind – usually I just do laps while listening to a podcast. Having done it around 250 times, I can do most of it without having the task be on the forefront of my mind, but it’s damn good training on steep ground. Well, I couldn’t find my headphones, so I thought it funner to see if I can’t work out going hands-free, with a future goal of linking the entire route hands-free.

Well, after two laps going pretty much entirely hands-free with just a few touches here and there, it seemed realistic to give it a real go. There’s honesty only a few real cruxes to get this done. One is right off the deck. Scrambling up the first pitch is a little thin, but I’ve worked out a path that uses a bunch of good pockets for footholds. Once at the crack, I defer to the left and go up what’s mostly featureless slab and just trust my shoe’s rubber. Then a jog to the right, and another to the left gets me into the red gully.

I take the same two ledges I usually use that jog left again and those get me to the main ridgeline to the jump – I found a series of good footholds to make it up Both are pretty exposed and balancey. Above the jump about a pitch farther up, there’s a awkward step around that I’ve figured out how to navigate without hands – this most likely was the spot of a very unfortunate accident a few months back. That leaves the last pitch – the def. crux for a hands-free ascent.

There’s some good blocky scrambling to the dying tree. From there, I foot jam my right foot up sorta high, then reach with my left onto the ledge up a step. It’s a full-on beached whale move onto the ledge, and then: it’s all over.

Felt strangely accomplished and was going to end the day there, but I left a bunch of water bottles and a coke at the base of the climb, so I went down to get that. And, well: I’m at the base, might as well climb the route again! And well: climbed in hands-free once again, so two hands-free ascents of Freeway. Weird!