Injury rant (tired of these yet?)

Last Thursday I went back to the Walker Creek boulders and my pal Pascal tagged along. We did the usual warmups and then Pascal, being the badass that he is, proceeded to add sit down starts to all of my established problems. Oh, and he also did a straight up top out on Not a Prayer, instead of trending left into easier terrain as I had done. He turned that problem, which was V4-ish, into a V6 at least, I'd say. Nice work, Pascal. It was fun having someone out there to look at the problems with a fresh eye. I hope he goes back soon to try the ridiculous looking project just to the right of Not a Prayer.

So now to the ranting. I got injured when we were at the Boulders. Again. I somehow tweaked my upper back this time. So for 3 days I had shooting pain going across the tops of my shoulders and spine right a the base of the neck. That intense pain has gone away, but the base of my neck is still tweaked to the point where I don't dare go climbing for fear of making it worse. So here's my rant: I don't drink much at all, I don't do drugs, I eat well, I do yoga, PT, I cross train; in short, I'm that annoying type-A guy about being in good shape and trying to do all the right things to climb well. And yet I still get hurt. All of the time. Almost every time I go climbing, it seems. Maybe 15 years of hanging on crimps has caught up with me, but I know other people who are still cranking after 20+ years. And Chris Sharma has climbed a few more routes than me and that mutant's still going strong.

So it appears the answer is to start drinking, eat like shit, stay out late, get an STD, and buy an Xbox. Or, I hear there is some cardio value in a Wii.

I'm trying hard to stay motivated, but damn. I'm just sayin'.

Schizophrenia

Nope, you're not crazy or stuck in a time warp. I've gone back to the old format for this blog. After experimenting with the new style I realized that I didn't like the segmented posts on their own pages. So I'm taking it back to the old school format. I'll be working on updating the images sizes in old posts over the next week or so.

Walker Creek Boulders

I went for a hike with my friend Alex in the National Forest outside of Barnardsville a couple of weeks ago. I was totally psyched to find some boulders along the Walker Creek trail, including one pretty large boulder in particular. I've been back 3 or 4 times now to do some cleaning (there's lots of moss and a few loose flakes) and put up some lines. I've been calling the big boulder 'the sanctuary'; it's near a creek, is shady in the afternoon, and is a short hike in. So far, I've put up about 8 lines from V0 to V4/V5. There is a great warm up wall with a few Vo problems and a 25 foot (or so) v1-ish traverse. On the overhanging wall, the best lines so far are Chakra Khan (V3) and Not a Prayer (v4/V5). It's been a long time since I've been climbing well and these climbs were really dirty for the FA; both of those factors are possibly affecting my ratings, so I look forward to getting consensus. I've also begun work on a really hard line that'll probably be V8 or so. I'm having trouble just making the first moves!

Aside form the Sanctuary boulder, there are some more rocks up the trail at about 10 minutes in. I haven't gotten a chance to go back and clean these up yet. My feeling is there are probably more boulders out here if I found all of these right next to the trails.



A few videos (and I've already caught hell from numerous people for wearing the tank top, but feel free to add to the abuse) :

The Path (V2-ish), Sanctuary, Walker's Creek from Frixtion on Vimeo.

A fun problem that would be way harder if it weren't for the HUGE footholds. I almost fall off the top when I grab a bunch of dirt instead of rock.

Chakra Khan (V3), the Sanctuary boulder, Walker's Creek from Frixtion on Vimeo.

This is the first ascent of a new line on the Sanctaury at Walker's Creek boulders, Barnardville, NC. Sorry for the hands getting cut off. This more about showing the new boulder.