Well the past few months here in Europe have been a bit slow, mostly climbing in the gym and trying to stay syked. In December I took a two week trip to Hueco Tanks with some of my good friends from Maryland.. the crew being Philip, Ryan, Boz, James, Charlotte, and myself. I went there having bouldered maybe four times in the past 7 months so I wasnt expecting much in terms of hard boulders, just a good time with friends and some amazing climbing. I didnt bring a lot of money so most of my trip was spent on North Mountain, where you dont have to pay $20 every day to go climbing. The first few days I didnt climb anything super hard, just repeating some of the easier lines and trying some of the harder problems to see how they felt. After trying a few I figured my best bet would be Fred Nicoles "Le Retour de Goupil" on North Mountain. This boulder is more of a route if anything and involves a lower crux to an easy traverse into a 6 move crux sequence on small crimps. After working the moves out with Boz I found a really nice kneebar and heelhook that made the moves a lot easier for me, so i decided to start trying it from the bottom. I suprised myself by doing it first go from the start, really unexpected. A glimmer of hope, I thought, that maybe I do have a chance on some of the harder problems. The next few days were spent working a really cool roof called "El Techo de Los Tres B", a shorter, more powerful problem involving hard tensiony moves on some pretty bad holds. Although it felt relly hard I could do all the moves on it individually, so maybe it would be possible. I also started trying another problem called "Bleeding Brothers", a super short 6 move power problem with huge span moves between bad holds. A hold broke on it last year so it felt a bit harder then before, but not significantly. It turned out to be quite an epic with my foot slipping about 5 times at the very last move, but on my third day on it I managed to do it first go of the day. Definately a proud boulder for me, and probably the hardest one I did on the trip. Both James and Philip finished up 'Diaphanous Sea' which was really inspiring, a super effort on both their parts. James had been working it a lot over the past few weeks and had fallen a lot of times on the last move, and finally on his birthday ended up pulling the a muerte and fully comitting to the last move, barely latching the jug but just enough to get the send. Good work James! As the week passed I was getting tired from only climbing on North all the time so I eventually took a tour to East Mountain one day with some of my friends from Washington. It was super cold so I decided to try a really really amazing problem called "The Butter Pumper", a short technical boulder with slopey holds and a crazy kneebar crux move. I worked this last year a bit so I already knew all the beta, so it went pretty quick, maybe six tries. After that, my last few days were spent once again on North, trying to finish up El Techo. I was doing pretty good on it and was getting close, but it the end Ii didnt have enough time to finish it up so no send for this trip. Perhaps next year, assuming they wont close it like they did the Mushroom Boulder. All in all though it was a good trip and got my syked on bouldering again. I met up with a lot of other friends as well like Layla, Mike P, Paul, Brian, Future, etc. and it was cool to see all of them in good shape and crushing. Seeing as i live pretty close to Font now, Im definately gonna try to take a few trips there over the spring.
The Butter Pumper, V12
