McKinney Falls

Went there on Tuesday to do some bouldering with friends. Climbed some of the classics but didn't send any of those. I got a V2 and flashed some V1's, but no serious problems. Apparently McKinney ratings are harsh, they say it's graded about a full letter grade below what an equivalent problem would be anywhere else, so I guess that makes me feel a little better. Regardless, I still need to work on my outdoor bouldering because real rock, limestone here in Texas, just feels so much different than those fake gym rocks. The gym really can't prepare you too well for outdoors. I think I'm gonna try to find different outdoor boulders to climb on this summer and see what happens.

In other gym related news I got a clean ascent of this crack route I've been trying. I only tried it two times before and got it clean on the third try, so it wasn't a very difficult route. It's unrated but I'd guess somewhere around a 5.11a, nothing too difficult but it's a different style of climbing then what I'm used to. I really enjoyed it though, using different types of holds and locks in order to climb straight up the crack, using a lot more friction climbing than anything else since you really don't get good places to pull from or stand off of.

Here's a picture of the crack, it's the one on the left hand side and is about a 50 foot route.

Well that's all for now. I might go to Reimers tomorrow or Pace Bend on Saturday, possibly neither but hopefully both, if I do I'll blog about those trips as well.

New Idea

I decided I'm going to change this blog to a blog where I basically just post on dates when I achieve something cool, or something I've been working at in rock climbing. I can't remember how long it's taken me to move up in bouldering or top roping grades, so I think putting the date down on digital paper somewhere will help me out, help me gauge progress. And since no one reads this blog anymore anyway, and we've got Facebook for important stuff, why not?

Ok so, past few months...started bouldering when school started at the beginning of the '09-'10 school year, started bouldering around a V2, and couldn't send a single 5.9 climb yet.

May 1st, 2010, the end of the '09-'10 school year, I'm bouldering V5-V6, and top roping 5.11's. Not a huge improvement, but whatever.

Most recent achievement: 4/23/10: Sent a 5.11b and a 5.11c that I'd been projecting for a while. These are both indoor routes so the grades are a bit subjective, the towers though are 54 feet so they are some pretty long climbs even if the moves aren't all that difficult.

Not a whole lot of progress on the bouldering front recently, I was hoping to get my first V7 before I left for the summer but with only 2 more weeks that's probably not going to happen. I have one more move and then the top out which I have yet to stick on the V7 I'm projecting in our gym. Like I said, probably won't get it within the next two weeks but if I do, well then that'll be cool and I'll post it on here...maybe, I may not even keep up this idea. :p