After another 2 days rest spent hiking and a day trip to Juf, i think one of the highest Swiss villages at 2100m or something like that, it was back to business. Since id managed to climb an 8a bloc here as in Font i wanted to dabble with something harder, problem was what? I had to consider that at best with no rain days i had 3 or 4 good sessions left ensuring proper rest etc. I hopped back on Pura Vida but got no more joy from the end section, it truly is desperate involving crimping the smallest of gnarly pockets or alternatively cutting loose on a dreadful crossly sort of sloper hold at full reach. Hard 8a+ i think this one.
Next up back to Electroboogie. Stunning feature, great pinches and sloper's atypical to much of the climbing in Magic. The problem is 8a+ rated pinching is not really my forte and i find this climb very hard. Id like to have the time to really work it in good temps but with days running out this was not now.
Almost as an after thought i remembered Jack’s Broken Heart an 8a+ next to Octopussy. Considered low-end for the grade i think so it could be a good introduction problem, it has a lot of crimping and body tension so my style i hoped. Downside was i had been told it was sharp but hey right now i had some skin so it might work.
Next session i went straight up to Jack’s to give it a burn. Its basically a series of moves leftwards between some good and not so good edges before the crux involves putting a heel next to your RH in a slot, weighting it very gently because otherwise it pops, whilst at the same time locking off a very sharp crimp with the LH enabling you to reach over the lip of the roof to a good pinch (The pics below show this part of the sequence). Within a few goes i had linked the moves together from the start into this heel move but as i was reaching for the pinch my heel would blow at the last minute and id find myself back on the mat. It was starting to get irritating because i felt if i could get the heel to stay and reach the pinch the rest of the problem was ok so it would be on to finish it from here.
I decided to work the heel move individually a few times to get it wired before going from the start again - big mistake. The LH crimp i knew was sharp but in fact its one of those holds that's so sharp you do not even feel it when it cuts you. After 4 or 5 goes pulling up to the heel i noticed blood on my finger and realised i had managed to bore a really deep hole in my index finger pad. Not good and game over.
So once again the dreaded skin problems have stopped play. To make the issue worse a storm of sorts is forecast for this weekend here that may/may not last into Monday. Our last day climbing is Monday so time is pretty darn short. I really want to climb this problem, yes the grade does mean something, but aside from that i really think the moves are cool and its just a shame the thing is so sharp. What this means is i'll likely have to tape up tomorrow and try and block the pain out and see how i go. If that doesn't work its going to come down to Monday being "last chance saloon" when at least i might have some skin back and the hole in my finger may have healed up.
No comments:
Post a Comment