The Last Weekend

 

We headed up to Black on Saturday to find out if we could drive up the mountain. Luckily the gate was wide open so we drove straight up to the Corral. There was still some snow on the ground from last week but the boulders were dry. It was 40 degrees when we arrived but the sun was out so the conditions were perfect! After warming up we worked on the mid-day lightning project which is just below the corral next to Dark Horse. This wall is amazing and it has features that beg to be climbed. Unfortunately it still feels hard! Not sure how this one will go but somebody needs to do it!!

Anthony walked over to Dark Horse and finally stuck the crux move but didn’t pull off the send. The sun was still shining and then all of a sudden it went dark! The clouds rolled in to envelop the mountainside and it quickly started to cool off into the thirties. We headed downhill to Morphic Resonance in hopes of finally sending! I fell at the same spot on my first try (the move to the crack). But on my second try I managed to stick the crack, match it and continue on to the jugs! Very psyched to finish this one. I think it is V10 and not an easy one at that.

After Morphic we continued downhill to Lobotomy which is an unrepeated line that Ian put up a year ago. We were unsuccessful on the crux sequence and it was getting really cold so we decided to bail. When we drove away at 3:30 it was 33 degrees and this is what the Corral looked like:

We had planned on driving to Joshua Tree Saturday night but we weren’t too psyched on climbing out there and didn’t want to spend the gas money so we headed over to Idyllwild to get some pizza and camped at the Republic. The drive back from Idyllwild wasn’t easy with visibility at 10 feet!

After a good nights rest we awoke in the clouds with temps in the low 30s. The sun peeked out long enough for us to warm up but as soon as we started working on our projects it disappeared behind the clouds. Anthony was able to do all the moves on Metamorphosis V11 and he was close to sending but I think it was just too cold to have a chance at this long climb. We bailed at 1:30 when it was still 33 degrees.

I think Black Mountain is getting dumped on right now and is likely done for a while. In better news, my extended video of Black Mountain bouldering will be posted this week (maybe tonight) so check back for that!