Monday was my last full climbing day at Hueco. Rich and I got a late start; we didn’t head into the park until 11am. Lev and Rich Castillo tagged along. We warmed up near Bloody Flapper, but none us actually sent that horrible problem. I then tried Free Willy once, but the last move didn’t go down. Plus it was kind of painful so I didn’t bother working it. We then hiked to the top of the chains where we had planned to meet Louis, a French-Canadian dude who is great company. Him and I were going to try Dark Age, V11 together. However, he didn’t show; he ended up taking a long nap back at the Ranch. Rich was taking a rest day and Lev and Castillo went to film someone on Babyface so I worked Dark Age on my own.
On my last trip I tried the first few moves of Barefoot on Sacred Ground, which shares the start to Dark Age. The sequence I had come up with before didn’t really apply so I had to come up with entirely new starting beta. For the first 20 minutes I couldn’t figure out the initial moves. Do I go left hand to the next hold or right hand and cross the left up to the sidepull-pinch? The latter sequence made it hard to pull to the hold around the corner so I settled for the former beta. It took me some more time to figure out that I needed to do a scrunchy heel hook to get established on the left hold and ready to move out right. I then tried various sequences to get to the holds on See Spot Run (Dark Age finishes up this high ball, but classic V6). After about an hour and a half of working out the moves and resting I gave it a redpoint burn. It didn’t go because I mistakenly turned my right heel to a toe for the throw to the See Spot hold. It was something that just felt right while I was climbing, but turned out to not work. Sigh… So I rested for a while before my next burn. I knew I’d do the problem, I just had to wait. Then a bunch of school kids showed up, making a bunch of noise. They left, but then the sun started to send blinding light through the corridor making it impossible to see the hold I had to throw to. So I waited some more… After more than an hour I was able to get on the problem again. I cruised through the bottom moves and hit the See Spot hold well. I hadn’t been on this terrain for a long time. I got myself into a position where I couldn’t reach a right hand crimp. I was on a worse crimp just to the left of it which felt very unsecure. After some fighting, I managed to top out. Phew!
Out of nowhere I managed to tick Dark Age on my third day on, which was also my last day in Hueco. I’m actually quite proud of this send because I basically arrived at the problem with no beta and barely able to do the first few moves. I had to unlock the sequence entirely on my own. And then after only a few hours of work, I muscled an ascent. I think this is the first time I’ve sent something that hard in that short of time. What a great way to end off my trip to Hueco.
Now that I’m home, I’m already thinking of getting away again. There are still plans for Rich, Gary and I to rent a house in Squamish for the season. I can’t wait for that to happen.
Sorry for the lack of photos in this post. Hopefully the video will do you good enough. And if you still want more to look at check out Gary Foster’s new blog. He’s known for his bad grammar, but it reads quite well. Take a look.
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