What better way to celebrate May the Fourth Be With You and Cinco de Derby than a few quality days in Leavenworth. This perfect storm of holidays also happened to coincide with my first trip to Mountain Home, which I have to say was pretty great. Lots of good quality problems in all ranges and a total change of scenery from Icicle. The problem of the day there for me was the low ball V4, Barn Door Arete. A great mix of core tension and a lot of figuring out what is going to work for you. It’s fat guy bouldering at its best which is why it’s right in my wheelhaus, in fact I will claim that I own that wheelhaus. Other notables for next time would be getting down to the South Seas as well as Darth Maul, which saw some good sends but wasn’t in the cards for me. “It’s a bloody hard V4” - Blue
We also made a short stop at Geronimo, the now famous Jessica Campbell problem from Western Gold.(If you haven’t seen this yet you should download it. There are some slow sections but overall it’s quality boulder porn in our backyard) Blue and Gabe both made quick work of it which is impressive to see(didn’t get a single vid of the sends but again Western Gold if you fancy). I struggled on the start but finally found a way up to the high slopers and touched the second to last hold. It didn’t’ go but I this along with Obesity are my 2 top projects for 2012. A lackluster session at The Sword not being able to pull off the ground to start Off The Couch rounded out the day
Sunday started with a Seattle reunion breakfast at The Sleep Lady and ended with some low quality flailing on the new washed out boulders. In between we hit the Egg boulders like Tina Turner on a hung over Saturday in the 70s. Smokestack Lightning, The Weather Report, Jerry Garcia and a lot of warming up went down. The Weather Report is pretty sweet and a great fat guy problem at V3. I blew my tips on the start hold of JG which is to say I touch them a few times. Look for a video of JG going down like power windows later in the week. The washed out boulders are pretty sweet. The V4/5 with a medium throw outside the Lion’s Den will be a good problem to come back too . The jump start V1 to its right is an instant fat guy 3 star classic with a nice shoulder move to a good top out.
Great weekend, great people, some not too bad weather and as much fat guy bouldering as this kid could handle. Maybe the only thing that kept me sane with the ladies out of town. Now on to the pictures you ogling monkeys…
Leah on Darth Maul
Leah, On and off the top of Darth Maul
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| Blue, Barn Door Arete |
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| Gabe, Geronimo |
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| Leah, Geronimo |
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| Leah, Joe's Arete (I think) |
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| Blue making sure Jerry Garcia doesn't fall over. |
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| Truc, Smokestack Lightning I |
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| Truc, Smokestack Lightning II |
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| Truc, Smokestack Lightning III | |
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| Truc, Smokestack Lightning IV |
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| Cheeky Seattle Smack Down Top Out |
