Happy Halloween!

We sliced into the orange craniums of the pumpkin patch,

We scooped out the innards, the brains we did snatch.

The faces we carved with our saws and our knives,

Then we filled them with fire, now kids run for their lives.

But we caught a young lobster, he sits in our pot,

Our stoves are a blazin', our oven is hot.

We're ready to cook him, we'll eat as we please,

but he's too cute for an entree, let's just order Chinese.

Defeating the "Farmer"

After our last weekend ended in a bust due to severe condensation that left the rock unclimbable, we headed out on day trip to the Falls sans the little man, who spent the day playing with Lao Lao and Lao Ye (Yoli's parents).  

The fall season is in full swing. Leaves are falling, temps are dropping, and long standing projects are starting to go down. Sometimes we go to Jackson with no agenda, but today the plan is clear. Yoli is determined to beat the Farmer (5.12a), a route she had been fighting for two years.

Jon on the classic route, "Cheerio Bowl"

Some routes are a battle of attrition. These routes are similar to boxing against a highly skilled opponent who ducks and weaves while you throw all your best punches and you end up collapsing on the mat from utter exhaustion, without having landed a single blow. 

Other routes are more like sluggers. Sluggers let you dance around the ring for a while, but when you come in close to do battle, they hit you so hard you can't even remember your own name. The Farmer is one such slugger. The first few rounds with the Farmer, you dance around the ring and throw your jabs. "This is easy" you think to yourself, "I got this". In round four you start to land a few punches, but the Farmer is unfazed. In round five, you come out of your corner at the sound of the bell and all hell breaks loose. The Farmer hits you with a stiff left, followed by hard right, then a smashing left hook, and finally a bone crushing right uppercut that knocks you unconscious before your body even touches the mat.

Yoli had felt that uppercut on numerous occasions in the past, but she had learned something from each encounter. She knew all his tricks now and the time was right. She warmed up by climbing up to the crux section and then lowered to the ground to rest and go over her beta in her head. When she was rested and ready, she climbed smoothly to the crux, and then with ultimate precision, dodged every knockout punch and clipped the chains, defeating the Farmer once and for all.

I also had an agenda. I wanted to take a good look at Elders of the Tribe (5.12c R) and maybe get on it. It just so happened that some other people were interested in climbing it too. While Yoli was destroying the Farmer, someone else was working Elders and putting up the draws. Perfect. I watched another guy working out the moves on Elders and I soon had a pretty good idea of where the cruxes were. The climb was a bit runout (hence the "R" rating), but in all the right places.

Jon crushing his first lead outdoors!

I jumped on Elders  and hoped for the best. The first and second bolt went smoothly. From the second bolt, I hurled myself up to a pocket, followed by some difficult moves and then I clipped the third bolt. Then the cruxes begin. From the third bolt I climbed through a series of small crimps followed by a good rest at the last bolt. After hanging out for awhile on good holds, I try the crux, but realizing it is much harder then I anticipated, I retreat back to the good rest at my last bolt. I rest for awhile, but realize that my window is closing so I press on. I manage to pull through the difficult crux with energy to spare and I'm one move away from clipping the anchors, but I can't find any good holds! All I have is this horrid left crimp, no feet, and no right hand hold! Agghhh!!!! I try and try to figure out a way to the chains, but my arms start to give out. I fall.... inches away from the flash. After a brief rest on the rope I try the last section again and find a good hidden hold that I failed to see on my flash attempt. At first I'm a little frustrated, but then I realize that I just came super close to flashing a 5.12c and happiness sets in. It's a good day.

Yoli and I hike over to Hidden Treasures (5.12a) to try our hand at some heinous crimps. Our friend Sophie had sent this climb earlier in the year, but she must have tendons of steel! This climb is so crimpy that I end up pulling on draws and stick-clipping my way up the route so Yoli can try it on top rope. Yoli also ends up pulling on draws to get through the crux so we can clean the route. I think we need to train with Sophie from now on! 

With tendons still throbbing, I headed over to Umbrella Girl (5.12a). This route is short in stature, but has some cool moves with steep climbing that left me pretty pumped at the end. With great beta from the gang below, I was able to get the flash.

Yoli and finished up the day on Who Let the Snakes Out, a fun super overhanging route with a ginormous jug rail that goes through a horizontal roof. It brought back memories of Hot Tuna from Stoney Point and various boulder problems from Hueco Tanks. What a great way to end the day!

"First Bites"

My first time lapse video capturing Micah's first tastes of real food.
Avocado, Banana, Sweet Potato, Green Beans, and Butternut Squash!

Dear Micah (6 months)

You are growing up so fast! This month you really mastered sitting. You can sit up by yourself for a long time now and play with your toys without falling over. You have been working hard all day and night to learn how to crawl. In fact, you went through a week of not sleeping at night because you would get up on all fours in your sleep and cry because you can’t crawl. After weeks of trying, you finally figured out how to scoot forward by army crawling! You love to talk and now all your coos have turned into real words. Once you started babbling syllables like “yaya” and “baba”, Mommy tried so hard to teach you to say “mama”, but you had your mind made up on what you wanted to say first. Every time Mommy would say “mama”, you would scream, “dada!” Daddy was so proud and beamed every time you said his name. You jabber all day in your own language, sometimes we think you are trying to repeat what we say. You have a lot to talk about and love to chime in on conversations. Your first tooth started coming in a week before you turned 7 months. You love to eat solid foods now. Your favorites are avocados, bananas, and sweet potatoes. You hate pears and apples and make faces every time we try to feed them to you. You love to feed yourself and always put your hands in your mouth after we feed you a bite. Your favorite things to play with are tags, straps, and buckles. You like those much better than your toys! You love to be outside and we go out to play every chance we get. You went on your longest trip yet this month, a five day vacation to Red River Gorge in Kentucky! Daddy made you a swing out of wood and you laugh and smile when you swing in it. You’re still really serious most of the time. You seem to be taking everything in when you are anywhere new and exciting. When you get hurt, you only cry for a minute and then you’re back to normal.  You’re pretty much a perfect baby. We couldn’t be happier with the way you are!

 

The Falls in September

September was a packed month for the Robinson family. Between all the weddings and CR's demanding school schedule, we somehow found time for not one, but three trips to Jackson Falls. As the temps steadily cooled, each trip was even better than the one before. We took advantage of every beautiful weekend this month, knowing that a long winter is just around the corner.

Sunday, September 9

After returning from a three day weekend in Las Vegas, we decided to do a day trip to the Falls on Sunday, and met up with some friends who camped out the night before. We returned to some unfinished business at Battle Axe Tower. I spent the day trying to link up "The Reckoning" and got closer and closer to sending it with each attempt. CR put in a couple of laps on "Bursting Out", but seemed to have a hard time figuring out his beta for the thin, crux section. Although we weren't able to check off any sends this trip, it was an absolutely perfect day to be outside climbing with good friends. 

Start of "The Reckoning"

"The Reckoning"

Saturday, Sunday - September 22 and 23

With barely enough time to unpack from our trip to the Bay Area the weekend before, we once again crammed our temporary home into the Subaru and took off for yet another beautiful weekend outdoors. The weather was simply too good to pass up.

Heading down with Daddy on the rope ladder

Tony on the finishing move of "King Snake"

After quickly setting up camp, we headed straight for the Battle Axe Tower to meet up with Calvin and Tony. As predicted, we find them on "King Snake", trying to get the redpoint for the third weekend this season. There is a zen like feeling to the area as we made our approach in. We soon realized that Tony is at the last bolt of the route, with only a clip and a final committing move to the finishing ledge for the redpoint. We held our breath and watched in awe as he made the final moves for an inspiring send. Come to find out, it was his first lap on the route that day and he sent it from the ground up, putting up the draws.

I was feeling fairly confident about my project "The Reckoning". After a quick warmup on "Tons of Fun", I decided to finish warming up by putting up the draws and working out my beta. To my surprise, I was actually able to link each section on the first half of the route fairly easily. I fell at the first powerful crux move, which I have always done with a difficult left gaston that puts a lot of strain on my bad shoulder. I decided that in order to link everything up and get through the redpoint crux, which for me is the last move to the anchors, I needed to climb the rest of it as efficiently as possible. So I changed my beta at the crux and solidified my sequences on the rest of the route. My next go was almost perfect...until the end, when my foot slipped trying to get in a knee bar. I took a rest and belayed CR on his project, "Bursting Out". This climb has a super hard, sequential crux move on crimps so small that they really should not even be considered holds. CR made good progress and was able to finish the climb with one fall, which is the closest he has ever been.

After a full rest, I hopped back on "The Reckoning" for one last attempt. I flowed through each sequence perfectly and everything just fell into place. Once I got to the final move, I was able to get a full rest with a knee bar, work through the sequence in my head, and finish the climb flawlessly. Finally. It felt good to start off the season with the send of one of my favorite routes at the Falls.

The rest of the gang joined us the next morning and we decided to head to the Beaver Wall for the day. However, Calvin had some unfinished business to attend to first. After getting so painfully close to redpointing "King Snake" the day before, he decided to leave the draws for his return the next day. After a good night's rest and a rejuvenating group massage, he made quick work of his project. Unfortunately, we missed the proud send, but when he arrived at the Beaver Wall, his ear to ear grin said it all. Way to crush, Calvalicious!

Group massage to prepare Calvin for his send

"The Hulk" crushing one of his hardest redpoints to date.

We spent the rest of the beautiful day climbing at the Beaver Wall. Don't be misled by all the napping pictures below. We really did climb hard and these naps were all well deserved.

Sophie, Angie, and I worked on a fun route called "Everybody Needs Friends" (12a). While much shorter and more straightforward than "The Reckoning", this route is a completely different beast. It is comprised of a series of powerful boulder moves, one after the next, without any rests in between, and finishes with some big moves to good holds. After working out my beta for each section of the route, I realized that I need to start bouldering more in order to train for something like this. Power and endurance are not my strong suit at this time. Christian, on the other hand, walked up to "Frizzle Fry" (12b) and flashed it after almost pitching off at the anchors, as many often do on this route. He then did a couple of burns on "Red Corvette" (13a) with Tony O and took some big whippers at the crux to show off for the camera. 

Saturday - September 30

Taking whippers at the crux on "The Farmer"

A beautiful weekend in the 70s was the perfect setting for another daytrip to Jackson Falls, this time, with my parents. After multiple attempts to get them out on a climbing trip, they finally succumbed to the pressure and decided to join us. Perhaps the idea of spending the day playing with their grandson had something to do with this decision. We hiked down the dog walk with Carine and Doug and headed to the Hidden Peaks area to tackle some old projects. After a quick warmup, I got on my nemesis, The Farmer, a 12a that starts with a fairly easy layback flake for the first 2/3 of the route and finishes with a V3/4 crimpy crux. I have come so close to sending this route many, many times last year. Although the season is just getting started, I was feeling fairly strong and was confident about getting the send.

On my first attempt, I stopped just before the crux and studied it closely, trying hard to remember exactly what I did before. Although I could not recall my previous beta, I was able to do the crux on my first try. Miraculously, the crimps seemed to have gotten larger and the powerful, big moves did not feel as hard as I remembered. I was hopeful that this was going to go down on my next go. Unfortunately, that was not the case. With each attempt, I fell over and over again at the crux. The holds seemed to be shrinking and my footwork was becoming more and more sloppy. After four tries, I was running on empty and came to accept that my nemesis would once again remain unfinished.

CR, in the meantime, got on his project, "Space Cowboys", a 12b with a crazy hard stopper crux which gave him a lot of trouble previously. After relearning the beta, he was able to get it on his second go. Despite a foot slip at the crux, he hung on strong for the send. Doug also made quick work of it and sent it on his third try, and subsequently went on to flash "The Farmer" and "Detox Mountain".

My parents had an exciting day hanging out at the crag with us. They were amazed at how beautiful all the foliage was and loved watching all of us grunt and scream as we climbed up the rock. But most of all, they enjoyed spending the day with Micah!

Here are some more pictures to highlight our day...

Hiking in and pointing out the plants to stay away from

Eating avocados...yum!

"You want a kiss, Grandpa?"

Refusing naptime

Too much excitement for one little guy!