The last month has flown by. It was great having Abond and Ting over from Yangshuo. We hung out a lot enjoying the climbing and surrounds of Squamish. I joined them as they did their first wall and first mountain peak. Despite Abond hurting his finger pulley early on in the visit they had a great trip and Abond has all the moves on Dreamcatcher wired for the next visit. I've also had a fair few more days on The Cobra Crack despite some finger issues myself.
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| The streets of Squamish. Abond, Ting and I. |
The lower crux is coming together well and I am able to climb it from the ground reasonably solidly now. The second mono undercling crux has become very solid off the rope although I haven't executed it from the ground yet. I did however spend a lot of the last month stumped on the third exit crux. My problem was based on a big reach between two jams over the lip and very low feet underneath. I couldn't work out which hand was the best to go with as I could do the second crux with either hand ending in the good lip jam. Neither way was working, my joints got swollen and bruised and I definitely wondered if I was actually going to be able to do the section at all.
The first crux. Sequence wired.
Failing during the old sequence of the second crux. Now I hold a jam underneath and go right hand to the lip jam.
The solution was to go sport climbing. I took a week off and played on some steep power endurance sport routes north of Squamish. This gave my fingers a break and helped with my route fitness. I returned to the Cobra yesterday with Ben and had my first lead (preplaced). I got all the way to the mono undercling move feeling a lot better than when I had previously toproped to that point. After lowering a couple of moves I climbed through the second crux and took at the third crux. A couple of trial and error shots and I found a way. Its powerful but doable. Right hand in the lip jam left in the really high jam, a bad foot jam in the crack underneath. The crux is the initial slap to the slopey arete with the right hand. It was the first time I had done this as a complete section and I even managed to climb the first half of it after climbing through the second crux. Psyched!
I am still a long way off but for the first time I can see it really is doable. Maybe after a couple of years rather than months. We shall see.
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| Route map of the business. The totem cam is the one I will be doing a very big runout off through the second and third cruxes. |
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| Cross training for Cobra. Lifting Boulders. |
