More Black Mountaining

Another full weekend was spent at Black Mountain. The weather was on warm side, but a lot was accomplished. Saturday was mostly spent hiking, exploring, and cleaning boulders. Ian nearly died a couple times, once from a bee that tried to hide in his Monster drink (Ian is allergic to bees), and once from a tree that hit him in the face (Ian was trying to beat up the tree, so it was self defense). Not too much climbing was done but we did put up a spicy V5 uphill from the Lion’s Mane boulder. In the evening, we climbed on the Wild Things boulder until well after dark, hiked out at 8:30 and ventured up to Boulder Basin.

To cap off the day Ian wanted some night shots of Big Greenie. If you haven’t been to Black Mountain, Big Greenie is a beautiful green slab roughly 20 feet tall with committing moves at the top. I’ve climbed the line many times and I don’t think I’ve ever fallen but it’s been over seven months since my last ascent so I was hoping to get a daytime run before attempting it at night. Unfortunately we had already used our sunlight for the day; it was 9:30 and pitch black outside with very little moonlight. I had my headlamp on and Ian had setup several flashes for the shots. I slowly worked my way up the wall trying to pull out beta from my fuzzy memory as I went. As I neared the top, I could only see as far down as the dime edges I entrusted to keep me afloat, the ground lost in the darkness below. I couldn’t remember my sequence for the top so I high stepped my left foot to my waist and put some faith in my toes to reach the top of the wall. It was certainly the longest time I’ve spent on Big Greenie; a little more epic than expected but I somehow made it to the top.

Sunday was spent climbing at the YMCA area with a large crew of folks. Lots of sends went down, some old lines, and some new. Nick did Ghost Dog, Alan sent Beowulf (with not one but two kneebars), and Aron got a likely FA of a rad line on the Ghost Dog boulder. Later in the day Alan put up an amazing V9 to the right of Light as a Feather. It follows a cool rail feature up and right, leading to a long committing throw to the lip where your feet cut, forcing you to take a ride over the rocks and trees below.