Volasail

Long story short: on my last trip to San Francisco for work, I brought my climbing shoes and entered a friendly little climbing competition.  I entered the Men’s Intermediate division (v3-v5, middle of three divisions).  I placed 22 of 69 people.  Not bad for my first-ever comp, and being a little out of shape.

But here’s the weird part.  If I had instead chosen to enter the Men’s Advanced, my total score of 19,280 would have put me in 17th place in that division.  Huh?  Shouldn’t they average out the scores and then divide?

I don’t get it.

That’ll teach me to be an underachiever.  Yes, I should be in the Men’s Advanced group.  Yes, I can fly a plane.  Yes, I can perform open heart surgery.

Robert Miramontes (author of the Bouldering Guide to Joshua Tree) put together a cleanup day this past weekend at the Tram.

40+ folks showed up to “climb&clean.”  The Miramontes’ (Rob and wife Christina) passed out trashbags and even gave everyone a raffle ticket.  A few local climbing companies donated gear for the raffle.  I went up early Saturday AM with wife and baby.  This was Ava’s first trip up the mountain, and she did great.

I managed to tick 2 of the 3 climbs I wanted to do:  “Like A Virgin“, and “Standing on the Head of the Dragon.”  (the 3rd is “Methane“, but it was too hot to work on this problem).  Part of the “cleanup kit” included rubber gloves to cleanup…anything that we found that we didn’t want to touch.  I decided instead to use the gloves as part of a photo shoot in homage to “Like A Virgin.”

(please forgive the crude inuendo)

Cruised down south to hang with the in-laws this past weekend.  Spent most of our time driving from grandparent to grandparent so they could all see the baby.  Now that all 7 great-grandparents and both sets of grandparents have seen her, hopefully next week’s trip will be a little more relaxing.

Despite the hectic schedule, I managed to find time for climbing.  Since it’s so freakin’ hot, the only option was to wake up at 5:30am and get to the boulders before it got too hot.

I usually hate climbing at Santee — I’m not a big fan of dime-edged feet and relying solely on the quality and stiffness of your shoes.  However, my buddy Jon took me to a new boulder I’d never climbed on: the “20 Point Boulder.”  It had a few very unique and gymnastic climbs — very rare for the area.  I ticked one v4 and began working on a traverse that a friend had told us was a v2.

My only guess is that the problem lost a foothold somewhere during a recent fire, because that climb was not a v2.  By the time I figured out the sequence, the sun was roasting the rock and I failed to finish.  Unfortunately, I then spent the rest of the day thinking about the climb…which meant another early morning trip to Santee.  I figured out some new beta and sent early Sunday morning.

20-Point Traverse.  V4.