Technical Difficulties

My computer blew up about a week ago and I'm still waiting on the replacement part to get it going again. So why isn't Eric posting? Because he's lazy. He has some perfectly good footage of me falling off Thunderbird at the Buttermilks, but he's too busy hanging out on the wrong side of the country and training for some crazy half marathon. So instead of you getting to watch me pull a Nate (falling off the easy finishing moves of a problem), here are a few pictures from the last couple weeks:

Herm working on The Mystery (V12)

photo - Jeff Sillcox

Kelly McBride sending Center Direct (V10) with Daisy the miniature cow grazing in the background. Check out her blog (Kelly's, not Daisy's) for more photos of the Fort Collins crew crushing Bishop.

photo - Jeff Sillcox

Winter at the Buttermilks

photo - Jeff Sillcox

Wills wearing some boring clothes on Thunderbird (V11)

photo - Jeff Sillcox

Lisa sticking the crux on Center Direct (V10)

photo - Jeff Sillcox

Moonrise over the White Mountains

photo - Jeff Sillcox

Lisa topping out Pope's Prow (V6) after sunset

photo - Jeff Sillcox

So I'm finally starting to tick projects off my list, sending Beautiful Gecko (V11) and flashing Los Locos (V7) last weekend and finishing off Thunderbird (V11) this weekend after falling off after the crux several times. Of course, as soon as you start sending stuff, you get a bunch of other projects. So my list of problems I want to do in Bishop still sits at around fifty.

Tramway & Jupiter

Despite the weather looking crappy for most of the US, I finally made a trip down to Southern CA to check out the Tramway. Saturday was brutal. The temperature never made it into the 30's and it was snowing lightly for a lot of the day. Somehow I managed quick sends of Angus, Soul Caliber, and Left Hand of Darkness (all V9ish) without freezing to death. I think the perfect friction and Eric's beta may have had something to do with it. I had a couple close calls with flashing my first V9: I overshot the finishing crimp on Soul Caliber and then crushed it 2nd try. Then I fell off Left Hand of Darkness with the top in my hand.

Calling dab on myself and then sending Angus (V9)

video - Eric Lang

Left Hand of Darkness (V9)

video - Eric Lang

Sunday we drove back towards San Jacinto and bailed on Tramway because of a bunch of new snow, so we checked out the Jupiter Boulders. The rock is very good polished granite in a weird setting. There is an unofficial urban-redneck firing range a quarter mile from the boulders so there is constant gunfire to go along with the highway noise.

Click the photo for the weekend's gallery of the Tramway and a couple problems from the Jupiter Boulders.

Eric on Soul Caliber (V9)
photos - Jeff Sillcox

Dodging bullets on Air Flash Gordon (V8) @ the Jupiter Boulders (yes, the video says it's Unemployed Black Astronaut and I'm too lazy to fix it)

video - Eric Lang

The Fragile Peach

Nate on The Fall Guy (V9) at the Buttermilks (top picture, I'm not sure what's going on in the bottom one) - photos - Jeff Sillcox

Nate "Salt 'n' Pepper" Peach and his friend Nik were in a bad car accident on the way to Joe's Valley a couple weeks ago. Nate broke his neck and collar bone and will be in a neck brace for six weeks playing a lot of video games. Nik walked away and was climbing the next morning in Joe's (this was his sixth car accident this year so he's had a lot of practice).

If you're going to flip a car end over end five times, try it in a Forester... might keep you alive even if the airbags don't go off.


Nate training for the next time an old man comes at him on the wrong side of the highway...


And finally, before we move on to the climbing portion of the blog, here's some footage of a very similar accident...

---

One of the better problems we did in Joe's was The Wind Below (V8), a very tall steep face with big moves between big holds. I managed to flash up to the last hard move and jumped off because I got scared and pumped trying every move three different ways before committing. After botching a move on my second go, I looked at the top of the boulder and decided I wanted to be up there and sent. Ben and Jeff H. did it quickly also and Nik tried dynoing for the lip at 20+ feet a few times before realizing that his nine lives were running short.

Nik on The Wind Below (V8)
photo - Jeff Sillcox

Here's a little gallery with a few other shots from the trip (click the photo for the gallery):

photos - Jeff Sillcox

Eric showed up right when it got really cold and sent his nemesis from the spring, Resident Evil (V10) in an anticlimactic two tries.

Eric sticking the first move of Resident Evil (V10)
photo - Jeff Sillcox

Then it was a whirlwind trip back to the east coast for Thanksgiving and route setting for a comp at Vertical Extreme with Drew "DUI" Davis. I set a V8 version of Black Lung and got black lung from breathing shredded tire dust all week. I won't go into details of the comp, but I will say that Drew and I should probably retire from route setting after putting on such a perfect comp.