It was another Black Mountain weekend for Sonja, myself, and lots of other socal climbers. We started off with a 30 minute hike out to the new area around the hillside. We stopped at the midway boulder to warm up and break the hike up. It was at this point that I realized I left my camera back at the car and had to hike all the way back! A lucky start to the day.
So I managed to find my way back eventually and started warming up with the crew. This midway boulder has three classic lines on it. An easy V1 face, a more challenging v4 climb up the center, and a V7 on the left side. I did all three and they are all tall climbs with great movement! Definitely worth doing if you’re in the area. From here some of the crew split up to seek out new blocs to scrub but we headed down the hill to Where the Wild Things Are to work on the sit start again.
Anthony gave a repeat attempt to the stand start and came very close but fell on the last move, which might be the crux of the climb. It is a powerful yet technical climb that gets easier when you figure out the intricacies of the beta. On my second attempt at the sit start (which is likely V10 or V11) I climbed through the lower crux and made it all the way to the last hold before falling trying to match it. The crux revolves around one hold at the top of the arete; this hold is decent but isn’t incut at all, it’s a sloping hold that doesn’t feel as good as you’d like, especially when you are pumped. So after that burn I had to take an extended rest to recover from the long climb. My next attempt I got to the same spot up high on the arete, but this time I managed to match the sloping hold even though I was pumped. I didn’t feel like I could make the next move but it was so enticing to go for it since the jug was right in front of me! I made a desperate attempt to grab the finishing jug 20 feet off the deck which resulted in an uncontrolled fall onto the pads below. I think the fall would have been fine except that the pad I landed on bottomed out into the large rock it was covering. The fall tweaked my back, hurt my side, and I think I jammed my pinky at some point. I couldn’t climb anymore so Sonja and I had to cut our weekend trip short and head home. We stuck around long enough to see Ian give the sit start a really solid attempt, falling up on the arete. Then Julian Bautista made a really quick FA of the sit start. Mike and Nic sent the stand start which was awesome to see but I didn’t catch video of their sends.
My back is feeling a little better today but I won’t be climbing this week for sure. I had some water therapy yesterday (jacuzzi) so hopefully the recovery will be quick.