Final days

My time in Chattanooga has nearly run out.  It has been a great few months, and I have done about as many boulder problems as I could hope to do.  In 3.5 months, I have done 60+ new problems (which is 2x as many as I usually do in a 12 month period)!  That is a lot for me, but there is still so much to come back to.  I am most excited to get back to Laurel Snow and finish off some old projects (and hopefully some new ones as well).  Maybe next year! 

Some of the Boone crew peeps made another trip here for spring break.  It was a pretty fun time, with lots of climbing and beer.  The race to 100 V5s is entering the final stretch, with Jay Tilley taking a slight lead.  Erich Purpur has to step up his game in the next 2 weeks if he wants a shot at the title.  Fortunately, he has about 30 problems stowed away to choose from.  I believe the official count is in at JT: 90  EP: 85.
Early in the week, Erich and I took Tilley and Dalen out to Cumberland to check out the hottness.  It was pretty sick!  Erich and I both knocked out our projects.  He did Salo's Roof (V9) (he gave it v8) quickly and easily.  I tried Slurpee (V10) for a while and finally stuck that first move, made it to the second big move and stuck it too, then fell....  Considering the fact that I only stick the first move 1 out of every 40 tries, I didn't have high hopes for doing the problem.  Did it next go (see video)!  Then we went to LRC to play around.  There was a Boone climber reunion at the Super Mario Bros. boulder (seriously like 15 of us)!  That was pretty fun to see everyone again.  Later, I tried The Shield a little bit.  I had never been on it before, but I really liked trying to climb such an amazing feature.  Very physched to get back out there next year!  I have been making it a goal to try problems that I would normally avoid.  Throughout the week, I tried The Shield,  Psychosomatic, Interplanetary Escape, Dugout Traverse, an unknown highball (see video), The Brain, Osiris, and several easier problems as well.  Normally I wouldn't try them because they look scary or easy or hard or slabby or strange or chossy.  They were all really fun though.

Nate and I went out to a cool spot yesterday to try The Brain, Down Payment, and Osiris.  He did The Brain (V5) second go and we headed to Down Payment (or is it called Eviction Notice?)  We couldn't do it.  That thing is hard!  I think I have projected that more than anything else since I've been here.  Oh well, maybe next time.  Off to Osiris.  This boulder is amazing.  It is a cool overhanging face that is full of compression moves and a tall topout.  We built up a landing over the river that was flowing at the base of it, and went up to clean the topout.  I wasn't sure if I wanted to try it or not until I checked out the top.  I decided not to try it.  Way too scary for my taste.  Nate got on it and did it first go of the day!  It looked like it climbed so well that I decided to try.  I gave it some good efforts and took some good falls before I finally reached the topout.  Then I fell again.  That is the only place on the boulder that you really don't want to fall.  I landed pretty hard, almost overshooting the pad.  Thanks to Nate for preventing that! I had to lay there for a few minutes to let my heart slow down. That is easily the biggest/worst fall that I have ever taken.  I checked myself for injuries and found my shoulder to be a little off.  It hurt to lift my arm past a certain point, but I couldn't tell how bad it really was.  I decided not to try again, but then I figured that I wouldn't get another shot at it if my shoulder turned out to be injured.  With all of the adrenaline, I figured I could get another good go.  I got to the crux and my foot blew.  I quickly got back on and made it up to the topout again.  This time I had an idea of what to expect, so I had better body positioning.  I still had to grovel, but I pressed through it!  Climbing on Osiris (V10) is definitely the most epic (and sketchy and terrified) that I have ever been on a boulder.  I'm really proud of myself for trying this one and not giving up!

I'm going to take some time off from climbing to see what happens with the shoulder.  Hopefully I'm just being paranoid.  Here's a video of some stuff (I just learned that the unknown highball at the start is called Golden Throttle):

Chattanooga Random from Brian Clevenger on Vimeo.