Jamie Chong

I left off with a description of our first day in Hueco. Our second day was just as much fun. While I wasn’t feeling that strong, Simon crushed everything he got on. He sent three V10s (one was flashed) and redpointed a V11. I don’t think I’ve ever had a day like that before. Simon’s endurance is phenomenal, but to achieve it he works only two days a week and doesn’t go to school. Simon, your a bum. Freaking strong though, and I’m jealous that you get to climb so much.

We didn’t have any reservations booked for this weekend so Simon and I signed up for volunteer tours. The park hasn’t been as busy as I had expected so getting a guide was easy. On Saturday we went to East Spur with a great group of people. We did some warming up on the Donkey Show boulder then meandered to The Maze. James and Matt, two dudes from Colorado, worked on Better Eat Your Wheaties, a hard V8 that Simon flashed. I gave burns on Crown of Aragorn. There was one move I couldn’t do, obviously the crux, but hopefully I’ll be strong enough to do that move by the end of the trip. A while later some of us tried Jingus Bells, a five-star V5. I didn’t get on this problem. I still have bad memories of twisting my ankle after falling off the dyno during my first trip to Hueco (popped a pinky tendon that same day).

Our group then moved to the Gunks to try New Religion. I played on Full Monty, another problem that I want to send this trip. I’ve done all the moves except the last one so hopefully I just need another day. Simon attempted Focus, but couldn’t get past a sloper that was baking in the sun.

Today we went to East Mountain. I’m doing my best to have my skin endure the tip-torture it receives everytime I touch rock so I took it easy. To pass the time, I took a lot of photos, including a few of some fellow Canadians we met earlier this week. Later we moved to the Dragonfly boulder which also hosts Full Service, a benchmark V10. I’ve got this problem on my tick list so I threw myself at it. I’ve been on it before so the sequence leading up the crux wasn’t too hard for me. However, making the move to the football hold has always eluded me. I just can’t reach it using the standard knee-drop beta, but I found another sequence. I came real close to redpointing it, but I didn’t have quite enough energy. In fact three of us, Simon, Oliver, and I all fell going to the football hold. Consequently we booked another tour for Wednesday so we can all go redpoint!

Sonnie Trotter and Sean McColl are joining us on Tuesday. I’m looking forward to climbing with those guys. Then on Friday Vikki Weldon and Jason McColl arrive. Climbing with five friends is gonna be so much fun!

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 7th, 2008 at 8:04 pm and is filed under Climbing, Hueco, Roadtrips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.