Monday, June 7, 2010

Fallen Arches: Crack Tour begins!

Well, that California trip was awesome! I had a blast with my old friend Jeff in the Valley even if the conditions were not the best...
Jeff the lean-green machine!


And Joshua Tree was killer too. Especially those bacon strips cooked on the fire... In a last minute effort, Sonnie ended up sending Stingray. Proud! It was way cool to watch! Way to go Sonnie! (see his blog for a little report: www.sonnietrotter.com). I was feeling strong on Stingray, but I think I would have needed 1 more week to heel the gobies and to get a little more rest to have enough energy to send. . I'll be back
for that one for sure. It was a great painful finger crack... just the way I like them.

Sonnie getting psyche for the Send!

A couple days ago, I flew back from California to SLC to meet with my girlfriend. We had a couple days to kill before heading to Squamish for the rest of the Summer... we went to Maple Canyon for 2 days so Nad could send her project in the Pipe Dream cave. She sent Deliverance 5.12c on her second try that day. It's her best send ever!!! I'm real proud of you babe!

The next 2 days were to my choice (since Nad had chosen the 2 first days in Maple...) so we went to Little Cottonwood Canyon. I wanted to check out Fallen Arches. It is a .3-.4 Camalot finger crack with some hand jams here and there for rests. The crux is a long reach from a pinky-pinchy jam to a decent slopy-hand-jam... and is right at the end of the pitch. This route was freed by Steve Hong ~25 years ago and, in the 90's, was also the first 5.13 to be flashed by an American: Todd Skinner. Good God! These guys were super heros... Anyway, I was really pleased with the route... It is a really pretty line and I was actually really surprised at the rock quality. Although I didn't repeat Todd Skinner's feat, I did send the route really quick... On the first day I greased out of the crack on my first go at it... It was soooo hot! The temps were in the 90's!!! I checked out the bouldery crux sequence on top-rope and called it a day. The next morning we woke up with with event hotter temps... I warmed up on the route and didn't feel too good in the heat... I was sweating a lot and had to chalk at pretty much every moves and I was slipping from the jams... I took a hour rest and when a little breeze showed up, I went for it... I'm quite not sure what happened but I just crushed it! PSYCHE! This is a real All-American-Classic-Hard-Crack!

Resting before the send!

The Send!

Now let's go to Squamish for some more Finger Crack Climbing! And maybe some bouldering...

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