Boulders, pho, and self-improvement

Alabama Sky.

Oh, my gosh. It's been two weeks.

Life is getting hectic here in college land. Bouldering season is finally upon us, and so are midterms. And bills...always bills.

But I have gotten out a bit since my last post! Two weekends ago, we did indeed return to Horsepens, where we night bouldered, camped, and bouldered some more in a big happy group. After a long — long — battle with the Panty Shields (V3) topout, I finally sent it. It was one of those "I'll try it just one more time, but it probably won't happen, but I'll kick myself if I don't" kind of successes after three sessions and many frustration tears. And it finally went!

We also got on a really cool V3 called The Thespian. The beta is straightforward for some folks (watch this guy do it at 1:44 — just nope. NOPE.), but between Caroline, Lucy, Elaine and me, some heelhookey, toejammy, footmatchey madness occurred. I can't wait to get the last move on this one — by the time we returned to it at day's end, my skin was, well, not.

Some other fun/weird climbs attacked by our crew included Bum Boy (V3), Millipede (V5), Hammerhead (V5), and Lowdown (V4).  I'm reluctant to attribute sends to specific people since it's been so long and my memory is not the greatest, but I'm ~*~pretty~*~ sure Elaine sent The Thespian, Lucy sent Bum Boy, and Evan and Nick sent Hammerhead. Caroline got her longstanding V2 proj, The Stranger, too (!), and I just remember Remi being tall.

So tall. So low.

I didn't get tons of photos like I said I would, but I did get a few pretty shots with my new Samsung Galaxy S5 Active (*which I love*):

Evan bein' burly on Hammerhead.

Lucy bein'...really good at climbing...on Bum Boy.

#nofilter!

So that was fun. And then this past Sunday, folks wanted to go to LRC, but it rained there, so we (Evan, Nick, Thomas, Lucy, and I) went to Mount Yonah for a pre-pour halfday instead.

I didn't get any pictures.

Yonah is a granitey ouchfest located near Cleveland, Ga. It's better than Shaking Rock but bereft of Horsepen's boulder magic. It does have routes, though. And it's only about an hour from Athens, so it's the place to go when you don't have all day to climb.

But let's be honest. We hardly climbed. We took forEVer to leave Athens after a groggy Kroger meetup and an impromptu stop at Dunkin' Donuts (they didn't have peanut butter for their bagels! Is that not a staple among bagel condiments? But Thomas shared his almond butter <3 #magnanimous). It was a nice relaxed morning — one of those days when you warm up for 10 minutes, chat for 15, move to another boulder, chat for another 15... it was great. We spent a few hours bouldering, but I really didn't have it in me after an exhausting week of being a stressed-out, sleep-deprived, future-fearing college student. Lucy flashed a V4 (crusher!), which I don't know the name of, and that's the only thing I really worked. I got every move except the first one, which is a sit start (ugh) to a pretty-good hold that I just couldn't make myself grab onto because I hate pain and it was pebbly which means potentially hurt-y and why am I a climber again?

Other than that, I just goofed around on juggy things and kinda-sorta practiced mantling on tiny boulders. I don't even know what the others were working on outside of my little sleepy-eyed world. I believe the Yonah triumvirate was worked, maybe, I dunno, I was staring at a caterpillar. I took a nap kind of, and something stung my butt. I was just not feeling the whole climbing thing. Also, I didn't bring any food.

So imagine my euphoria when we left mid-afternoon (it never rained) and ate delicious Vietnamese food at a restaurant with a decidedly Vietnamese name! (Hint: it was great.) And then we were gonna go to Stone Summit to try on shoes, but Google was wrong and they close at 5 on Sundays, so we tried on shoes at REI instead. Which was almost as awesome because Athens doesn't have an REI and it is an amazing place, like an adventure Walmart but prettier. So like an adventure Target.

And then we went to this Chinese bakery, and it was super cute, and I couldn't eat anything, but here is a photo of a mooncake:

And we were all home by 9 o' clock.

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Also, here is the ice cream I had for second breakfast yesterday:

Recipe: Slice bananas. Freeze them. Blend, with a little vegan milk if your blender is terrible or you're a soft-serve person. Sprinkle on buckwheat for crunch and class. Cocoa powder optional (as all things are).

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And I still haven't explained the end of my no-poo adventure.  Basically, I went at it for a few months with vinegar and baking soda, and my hair definitely luxed up as I freed it from the effects of chemical shampoos. It kind of "transitioned" to being not-disgusting, but I am just too active — and Georgia is just too humid — for me to maintain the twice-a-week routine. It never smelled bad or anything, but whenever I had a rinse-only day, it dried pretty flat and just didn't look good. And if I didn't scrub really hard in every spot with the baking soda, it was not gonna look clean either. I dunno, maybe that's health.

I will say, though, that the first wash after three months without shampoo left it looking the best it ever has. Seriously. It was full and shiny and beautiful until I put a cap on it and went to work for eight hours. But since then, it has never looked quite as awesome. I am back to whatever was sitting in my bathroom at home-home for now, and I'm hoping to make some sort of natural shampoo and conditioner once I get some time slash money. Then again, it's getting cool, so I might be able to pull it off now. There is a gallon of vinegar in my bathroom cabinet...

Additionally, I have casually taken up doing yoga with Adriene in the comfort of my sister's bedroom. I do it in there because mine is too messy. But I'm working on that, because I hope that organized surroundings will give me a sense of control over my mental chaos. That's part of why I'm doing yoga; although I know it will help me gain balance and flexibility for climbing, the real draw for me is its emphasis on internal wellbeing. I feel a bit conflicted about it because of the culturally appropriative aspects of Western interpretations of yoga, but after reading/listening to multiple qualified parties' thoughts on the issue, I think I can practice it while maintaining respect for the religion and culture from whence it came.

And I recently began reading 9 Out of 10 Climbers Make the Same Mistakes by Dave MacLeod. Evan insists that it will make me a better climber, and the first 50 pages have already prompted me to change my mental game. I will elaborate, you know, eventually, but for now I leave you with these words, which I am trying to keep as my longwinded training sort-of mantra:

"The ideal attitude is that failure is an absolutely integral and central part of any worthwhile endeavor...Failure can and should be relished as a psychological tool to motivate, a practical source of essential feedback for those who don't have a coach and even the spice that makes eventual success taste so sweet when it finally comes."

Back to the boulderfields

After last week’s 5.11 freakout, I was determined to climb some boulders, close to the ground and far from the terror of leading.

And I did — twice!

Saturday morning, I headed to Little Rock City (at 5 a.m., on three hours of sleep, of course) with Caroline, her boyfriend Remi, and our friend Jared. We drove through lots of drizzles on the way up, but nobody mentioned it. I think we were afraid of speaking rain into being, but Soddy-Daisy pulled through. The air was humid and misty when we arrived, but besides a little moisture that quickly dried up, it was the best — and coolest — climbing weather we’ve had all summer. Although I wished toward the end of the day that I had brought a jacket, the air’s chilliness got me psyched for real fall weather and “sending temps.”

The first thing Evan asked me when I told him after the trip that Caroline and I had worked on Pancake Mantle (V2) was, “Did anybody cry?” Not this time. We only spent about 10 minutes here before moving on with a collective eye roll. Caroline and I did not send, but Jared did, and I got a leeetle farther than last time — now I can make it over the pancake, but I’m just not strong enough for the mantle. Guess I’ve got to add some pushups to my pullups.

I don't remember this problem, but it looks like Caroline maybe crushed it.

Speaking of, remember my casual goal of doing five pull-ups in the near future? Well, I did it last Thursday! So now my goal is 10, you know, eventually. But I should probably start training in other ways too — might now be the time to approach the campus board? Those funny rings hanging from the ceiling? What is a kettle ball?

Anyway, Jared and I sent Two Can Sam, one of the V3s I accurately predicted I would send before Pancake Mantle. Supposedly the beta for that climb includes a silly/painful/unnecessary hand jam in the middle, but I’m happy to say we all worked it without forfeiting our knuckle skin. Caroline basically finished the thing but got sketched out on the topout, which is pretty confusing/scary.

Remi worked Red House (V7) for a bit and encouraged the three of us to try Super Mario, LRC’s most beloved V4. It is longish and kind of overhung and traversey, and it combines several climbing styles, which makes it hard but a good study piece for learning *~*how 2 climb*~*. We worked it out of sequence, but I know we’ll all send it before the season ends.

Caroline working the middle of Super Mario

While we were in that area, scary death acorns kept falling on us from above. No one was hit, but it was a very flinch-y time. We met this older (than us) guy who was bouldering alone and had the air of someone who had climbed All The Things over several decades. He was quiet but friendly, and he gave us beta, and I didn’t ask his name because I liked the mystery of not knowing. I will just think of him as the Burl Wizard of Little Rock City. Or something.

And I found this lordly mushroom!

One of the best parts of the day was when, after much try-hard-ing, Remi sent Tennessee Thong, his first V7 in about two years. Remi’s one of those guys who used to crush really hard before life happened. Now he’s getting back into it at the big-boy level. He’s great to climb with because he’s super-encouraging, and you always learn something new from him.

Nearby, we worked Swingers (V3), which I first tried back in April and was excited to finally get on again. And it was cool to see how much stronger I’ve gotten since then! The start isn’t very nice to particularly-not-tall people, with a high right heel-toe cam and a low left smear, so Jared and Caroline weren’t psyched on it. But it’s now one of my favorite climbs at LRC, and I am pretty sure I will send it next time. It’s not the kind of climb I would ordinarily find myself enjoying — overhanging with a low start and muchas matches  — but for whatever reason (I think it’s the big pulls and the oh-so-solid heel-toe cam), I love this problem. I ended up using this crazy heel hook swingy beta at the lip that made me feel like a Boulderer. It was great.

And then Remi left his phone on a rock and I lost my debit card* and made the mistake of buying gas station bean dip in a can because I craved hummus but IT’S NOT THE SAME AND IT’S NOT EVEN GOOD** and there was road construction and we didn’t get back until almost 1.

So I went to bed at 2 a.m. and got up at 4:30 for my first trip to Horsepens 40!

I’ve been wanting to go for ages, but it’s so far away that people won’t usually go for a day trip, and the camping is expensive (but worth it), so nobody wants to do that either. But I’m so glad I finally made it out there because, in Evan’s words,

It. Is. Magical.

Evan, Lucy, and I met Elaine and Matt at this enchanting boulderfield, and wow. I didn’t do any research ahead of time because I had heard so much about how amazing Horsepens is and wanted the magic to come at me full-force. That was probably a good move too, because I didn’t have any projects to get frustrated on. I was alternately enamored by how beautiful Horsepens is and despairing at my sore body and

Ripped. Up. Tips. Guess I overdid it on Saturday… I mostly stuck to slopey V0s and pretty much quit climbing around 3 p.m. Everything was just too painful, but it didn’t matter because all the climbs are interesting here, and it was wonderful just to sit and bask in the Horsepens majesty. I wish I could show you what I’m talking about, but I didn’t actually get that many photos this time around. Don’t worry, though — I will definitely have some camera loot after Boulderween (!) this October.

Sunday was much hotter than Saturday, but my hoodie did come in handy as a pillow when I took a series of afternoon lizard naps.

Evan worked the Inspect Her Gadget (V5) traverse at the start of the day, and I attempted the campus-start V4 variation. Maybe I could have stuck a move or two with a higher pain tolerance/more skin, but I quickly moved on to easier climbs.

Elaine and Lucy worked Spirit (V3), which I couldn’t even start because the first holds were so pebbly and vindictive. Everybody sent The Stranger (V2) but me, but I consoled myself with mental reminders of my bodily soreness, sleep deprivation, and lack of skin. Still, we all worked a V3 called Panty Shields. I didn’t quite top it out, but it’s a cool technical problem that I will totes send next time.

Elaine has the most photogenic beta.

I thought it was my last climb of the day until Elaine got on Earth, Wind, and Fire (V3), a slabby crackish classic that is pretty tall and pretty scary (hello, tree spot). I just had to try it. I’m still super iffy on crack techniques, but it was such a cool problem. I’m not sure why I didn’t freak out on this one, because I had definitely panicked a little on Groove Rider (V3), another high and slabby climb which I only attempted once.

Elaine crack-a-lackin' on Earth, Wind, and Fire

We all had fun on Merlin, a super fun V1 named for its resemblance to the eponymous wizard's headgear (told you this place was magical). I know it was easy, but I was proud of myself for climbing so high sans rope. And then I did it again using the arête! Honestly, the downclimb between the hat and the adjacent boulder was the scariest part.

Evan head-scummin'.

Evan sent Popeye (V5) at the end of the day but for the most part worked “easy” stuff with the rest of us. The rock at Horsepens is special, man, and even the zeros play with your head. Everything is a challenge.

Spinachy.

They say, in fact, that all of Horsepens is super sandbagged. I can’t say whether that’s true or not, but it’s definitely tricky to figure out beta, even on the easiest warmups. The climbing is so fun though, and the place is so beautiful. Not just the rock, but the facilities — everything is painted red and yellow and labeled with these cute signs that reminded me of Del and Marte’s place at the Obed. And there are bathrooms and showers and stages and food (marked by an all-caps declaration: “FOOD”). Oh yeah and also horses.

Oh, and guess what I just found out (like, halfway through writing this post). I’m going again this weekend!!! I know you’re not supposed to use more than one exclamation point if you want to be taken seriously on the Internet, but Horsepens deserves all the punctuation!

(,./;’[]\!@#$%^&*()-+={}|:”<>?)

I’ll try to keep my skin this week, and I’ll (probably) get lots of photos this weekend. In the meantime, I’ll try to actually post something related to the “Eat” side of this blog, and when I have time I’ll update you on my hair (no more no-poo :( ).

Until then — happy sending! May the temps be ever in your favor.

*Debit card has since been recovered. In my camera bag. Post-cancellation.

**I should have known better ‘cause I did the same thing on the way back from the Obed.