Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Hectic Hectic

It's been ages since I've put words on a page. Since my last post I've gotten a job and been really busy, not to mention blogger is blocked at the office so I can't do any writing there. It's also been a little frustrating that I have no photos from recent times so it has been a bit of a hindrance.

I've been spread pretty thin between work and climbing so time has been extremely limited for things like writing so let me see, what has happened recently? Rodan is coming along, slow but steady. I've been struggling to find partners to allow me to be able to make trips every weekend. As a result it's taking a little longer than I thought it would, but it is really hard and the fitness levels for it are hard to reach whilst training on a bouldering wall. I'll get there.As far as hard climbing goes, I repeated Stormwatch (8b) as training, skipping the rest I usually need. I climbed Axewound (8b) at WigWam which is very fun and has an awesome heel hook. I recently did Death By Chocolate (8a+) in an afternoon, first time I'd done an 8a+ in a day. I did an eliminate version of Fossil Fuel to exclude the kneebar from the beginning of the route to make it a little more pumpy. I did the second ascent of a new bouldery 8a at Chosspile called Bio Diesel. Did three 8a's in a day at Wigwam, big personal accomplishment there!

As far as some of the easier climbing and some of the more personal things that have happened, I did some coaching down in Harrismith and Swinburne in March and managed to do a couple of the 7c and 7c+ lines in the area. Andrew has a really cool 8b+ish open project in Swinburne that is going to be insane to actually do. The crux is a massive move to a mono and then a deadpoint to a crimp afterward. Really immaculate rock for the area though, a gem of note but not inspiring enough to make me want to drive down there for consecutive weekends.

Evan Margetts shot a cool vid of me on Just Behrly (7c+) in Boven. This thing has some of the worst holds I've ever used. Fun climbing though



Work has been amazing. I've been inspired whilst there and working up to 60hrs a week or more on occasion which a really fine by me, so long as I'm having a good time and smiling. Nielsen is an awesome company and an amazing culture into which I have been able to comfortably integrate.