THE SEMESTER IS OVER!

Finally, I have a few weeks to focus on what’s really important. Climbing. But, with the semester resolving itself around hours and hours of grading and writing I’m behind in catching you up to whats been on the up and up.

We went to Joe’s Valley, Utah over Thanksgiving break. I had some big plans, and Dayna was looking to try something hard. We both found something to project. I finished off the one problem I knew I could do, and semi-flailed on everything I thought I could do. Dayna crushed a few problems and then came so painfully close to finishing the classic ‘Kill By Numbers’ that we both almost cried. However, we met some rad individuals in camp and out and about. (Be on the look out for this guy Trevor, and his stick fetching dog Lucy, he may or may not be joinin’ up with this here collective) After a few days some pals from Flag showed up, left-over turkey in hand, and helped us flail about. All in all Joe’s is hard. People say its soft, and for the one-arm-crimp-masters I’m sure it is. For us roof danglers, its hard, like really hard. For some reason though I forget this, and expect big things to happen, only to realize that I can’t crimp hard enough, lock-off long enough, or maintain skin, like at all. So, I’m jumping on the January bandwagon of training.

 

 

The one climb I managed to do, and film:

 

 

 

Though Andrew stole my thunder, and has already, more elegantly, posted on his plans for winter training, I’ll be doing something similar. So that’s that. I could discuss why deciding to train is a big deal, since coming back from a shoulder explosion and being scared of over doing it, but that makes no difference. I need power. I don’t have enough, and I want more. End of story. So this winter I’m going to try and find some, even if only a little. (This is the ‘pulling the trigger’ section, I really just needed something that rhymed and made some kind of sense…)

 

Well now that that’s all said and done, bring on the winter festivities. We’re headed back to Kansas at the end of next week, and aim to hopefully climb a bit in Missouri and Arkansas. It’ll happen. Till then, enjoy the holidays!