I sent my first 5.7 tonight. Although there were two instances of dogging on the rope and shaking my arms, trying to restore feeling to my fingers, and my right elbow is still having words with me about it, each time the problem was never actually not knowing what to do next: it was, each time, not being strong enough to do it.
This may not sound like a major advance, but trust me, it is.
And we will just pretend that all the whimpering and crying were on purpose.
And I came home to a preliminary sketch for the All the Windwracked Stars cover art. It's gorgeous..I can't wait until I can show you a final version.
This may not sound like a major advance, but trust me, it is.
And we will just pretend that all the whimpering and crying were on purpose.
And I came home to a preliminary sketch for the All the Windwracked Stars cover art. It's gorgeous..I can't wait until I can show you a final version.
(What's dogging on the rope?)
It's cheating.
You have to work on stuff you can *do* to build technique and strength. *g* Working at the edge of your ability sometimes is good, but constant failing is not helpful.
*fails a little more*
I can barely handle the 5.2s in the bouldering room at Granite Arch (our local climbing place).
My mountain goat of a 7-year-old daughter, however, she's another story. Her strength-vs-mass ratio is way better than mine...
- yeff
*g* I can't do any of those.
No small part of the fun is clambering the boulders.
I didn't have good shoes on Saturday, so I took a small fall, slipping about four feet when my wedging failed. Scraped elbow and bruised small of back. If I'd not had a camera bag, I'd have been more secure, but if I'd failed, well it would have been bloody.
Monday, with better shoes, I made a much harder climb, more wedging, and a lot further to fall if I failed, once I got to where it was all knees and fingers.
You really should come visit. We'll go look at flowers and pictures, and then retire to the jumbled rocks and show you what it's like in the great outdoors of the high desert, where there are no ropes.
TK
(And hey! I used to live forty minutes from the Valley of Fire and twenty minutes from Red Rock! I've done some desert bouldering.)
None of which, of course, doesn't mean I shouldn't come visit, and bring my climbing shoes.
OK, gang, everybody together for a chorus of "The Bear Went Over the Mountain"!
I don't know the name of the cover artist yet, actually.
Know anyone who needs an honest, thick-skinned slush-pile reader?
I mean, I knew there were paid people who read slush as part of their other duties. But I didn't realize that slush reader was a job description.
As a climbing guide told me once, those who pick up where they left off after a fall improve more quickly than those who start over from the bottom after each fall. So, it sounds like you're doing the right things.