Great last day at the climbing gym
Yesterday I made a sort-of impromptu trip to the climbing gym. We had gone on Friday, which was our planned last day at ARG for awhile as we’ll be heading to Virginia this weekend. However, at the very end of the session (i.e. right before we had to leave) I found this very cool V4+ overhanging problem in the cave that I managed to play on for two minutes, which was apparently enough to get me so excited about it that I couldn’t stop thinking about it and had to go back. Plus, all the cave problems at the south gym had been up the longest, so I knew they were going to be taken down soon.
After a brief stop at the hot sauce festival (some yummy hot sauces in very hot temperatures!), I took the bus down to the south gym. I had a really awesome session, mainly working on the cave problem. At first I was getting stuck early in the route at an awkward position that I seemingly couldn’t move out of, and no matter how many times I tried I couldn’t figure out how to get past it. After a brief break though I had a few more ideas, and toe-hooking a small sidepull-ish hold was enough to do the trick. I still ended up having to cut my feet which is always inevitably followed by some crazy swinging, but the hold I was moving to was big enough that it didn’t matter.
After finally getting past that part, I was able to work the problem up until the last few moves. Alas, by that part in the route my arms and fingers were already so tired (plus I had been climbing for awhile already) that I just didn’t have enough in me to finish the route. Plus, the last few moves were more powerful moves (rather than more technical like the beginning), which of course makes it harder to finish for people like me that are short with poor endurance. :)
Towards the end of my session they started taking down all the cave problems. They gave me a chance to get on the problem one last time, but I passed. I wasn’t going to finish the problem that day, since at that point I had moved on and was pretty much done climbing altogether. I’m sure if I worked on it for a couple more days I would’ve finished it, but really, I was already proud of myself - I consider it an accomplishment enough for me that I was able to work that far through the problem on my own.
Plus, my arms and shoulders are SO tired today, way more tired than they’ve been in awhile. It was a good last session!
So what’s in store next? Chill bought some new holds, so we’ll be setting and training at Marisa’s wall this week until we leave for Virginia! The holds are awesome, but they are also hard crimpers, pinchers, and mini-slopers. Fingertips, get ready!