Aaron's Status

8:59 pm

I guess my identity has turned into climbing person, but I can’t help that everyone in my family climbs so we’re doing it all the time.

We just climbed yesterday outdoors at the Qs, but today was the kid’s weekly climbing class at our gym and we always go with him to climb at the same time. It was a real whirlwind of topline work for me today.

I feel like topline routes stress my back less than boulders, so when I’m feeling less than great physically I tend to “take it easy” by working on the rope. My only plan for the day was to attempt a pink 5.11 on the “lead wall,” which is the most overhung of the topline routes and a climb that I failed once or twice previously.

Of course on the first attempt I got it, so, check. We then moved to a black 5.10 that my friend wanted to have another go at and I did sort of a “victory lap” on it, which was trickier than I remember. We moved on to a newer purple 5.10 with a really crazy mantle/kneeling sloper ending and I flashed the fuck out of it, then we found two new routes that had been set, a 5.10 and a 5.11+.

I flashed the 5.10 and my friend also flashed it; it was a fun one with several two-finger pockets hung upside down so you have to use your thumbs in them. Not really that hard, though, I’d say for our gym it was quite a soft 10.

The 5.11+ was on an auto-belay so when my friend decided to move on, I took a stab at it and… Flashed it. Pretty wild white route with a more difficult start with very small footholds and the final hold is set upside down so you have to use your two thumbs on it.

As a cool-down I victory lapped the slopey V4 that I got previously for another friend to give him beta ideas, and then another couple were working on a spicy V3 that I previously sent so of course I had to victory lap that one, too, to, uh, show off I guess.

After that we packed off to Connecticut to hang with the in-laws, had chili dogs, I took some artsy candids, and we watched Brennan Lee Mulligan be hilarious. A good but tiring day overall.