Alpine Style

I have been busy bouldering at Mt. Evans and Rocky Mountain the past few days and it has been very rewarding. Projects are falling quickly this year that shut me down last year. I have also been making progress on boulders I had previously been getting my ass kicked on.


I love full household updates on the front page of 8a...
J McNasty?

The alpine boudering season demands a lot of time and commitment to get the most out of each session. The daily routine, when I'm not living the dream, has become:

Wake up early (8ish)
Drive food into the system
Leave for Evans or the Park (9ish)
Creep along one lane roads for an behind tourists / develop ulcer
Arrive in bouldering paradise (11ish)
Half run the hour long hike with a 35 lb pad
Climb on everything / destroy myself (12ish)
Hike out / glacade like a pro (8ish)
Drive home doing double the speed limit (9ish)
Inhale food / edit video / edit photos / shower? / facebook / etc...
Sleep (1ish)

This is essentially the daily routine give or take a few trips to the Sunflower or the occasional Hapa happy hour. Life is good when all you do is climb and work for and with climbers...

Brion, Nate and I went up to The Park on Friday and battled the snow and the cold and a ridiculous amount of grapple. The result was a very long anticipated ascent of Wildcat (V12) by Voges and myself! Very excited about that one since last year it killed me. I put together a little video of the send and a fantastic clip at the end of Nate's first Glacading experience. Priceless.

Wildcat (V12)

On Saturday we all headed up to Mt. Evans to climb with basically everyone that was in a 200 mile radius of the mountain. We met up with a crew and after quickly dispatching Mental Pollution (V10) we all headed back to Area B and did the Hume Problem (V9) in a couple of goes each. Area B has a couple great projects that need to be done and from what I hear are the best of the best in Colorado.

We went back to A and I finished off a problem from last year I wasn't able to complete called Public Execution (V10) and on the way out we hit up a crumbling sloper problem called Tactical Error (V10). I almost separated me heel from my leg in the process but Brion snapped a couple cool pics to make it all worth while right?



Tactical Error (V10)

It felt really good to get some work done at Evans and now I feel like I can focus on the harder stuff there like No More Greener Grasses and some choice boulders at Area D.

Today we went up to The Park to try and do Blood Money (V12), a Daniel Woods problem near Upper Chaos. I was able to do it in two parts and I am really excited to get back and finish it off. Nate made serious progress on Wildcat and we all did the classic highball in Lower called Skyscraper (V5).

The Park is still buried in snow from the wet spring and the only boulders that are really out are the Green 45 and Autobot. The waiting game begins or we need to buy a couple of shovels...

See you out there. Bring shovels...