oh yeah...bouldering is hard

I finally made it outside to climb today.  I've been saving up to buy a crash pad and received it yesterday.

48x41x3.5

With no work today I made the drive down to Athens, Ohio to get on some good old sandstone.  Unfortunately, it has rained a lot in the past few days and the area was still muddy and the rock damp.  Sandstone becomes brittle when wet and is likely to break if you put too much force on it, so I spent some time wandering the area looking for something dry.  I settled for a boulder that looked "dry enough" and chose routes that I thought had solid holds that wouldn't break on me (of course I still managed to chip a couple pieces off, thankfully they aren't integral to the route).

Bouldering on real rock reminded me of two aspects of climbing I have forgotten about while climbing at Kinetic; a) real rock is sharp! and b) no one has taken the time to tape the route, meaning that you have to spend more time thinking about foot and hand placement, thus making the climb more difficult if you interpret the wrong moves or don't take the time to consider hand and foot placement.  Bouldering ranges in difficulty from V0 to V15.  When climbing indoors I average around V5 or even V6 on a good day.  Outdoors I climb V2.  I'm plenty strong to climb hard routes, but I don't have the technique or mental sharpness to climb moderate routes yet...but soon!  Below is a picture of the route I sent:

The route runs from the bottom right along the lip of the boulder to the bulge in the upper left of the picture.  From there you mantle to topout.  Another aspect of outdoor climbing that is rarely practiced indoors is the topout.  Topping out is what it sounds like, you get on top of the boulder.  In most gyms you just climb to the final hold then drop down once you reach the top.  Some specialized gyms have "topout boulders," freestanding structures that you can climb on top of with a set of steps or large holds you can climb down on.  

The V2 boulder took a while to finish, but once I understood the route it flowed very nicely.  I need to get outside to climb more and it looks like Spring Quarter will be a good time to do so.  The weather is unseasonably warm in the Midwest, but that also means that intense storms are more likely as well.  There have been a few storm and tornado warnings in the area.  Though I doubt a tornado will touch down in Columbus the thought still worries me and I'll have to put together an emergency preparedness kit just to be safe.  

One of the guys from Kinetic told me about a trip to Horse Pens 40 in Alabama in April that I will be training for.  Gonna have to hit the books hard before and after the trip...but it will be worth it I think!