The spring season, short but fantastic!
The snow lingered this year but in late April we got a few weeks of excellent weather and made it count. Me, Taylor, Jut, and a few others went to Nine Corners on several occasions and put in a lot of work on the hard lines.
Overburdened is one of the hardest and most beautiful climbs at Nine. I used to walk past it thinking “no way, never”, but over the last couple years I’ve finally started putting real work into it and making bits of progress. Last year it seemed on the verge of possibility, but always just barely beyond reach. Not any more!
I met Taylor Treadgood in mid-April. Expanding the network! Taylor’s a great dude and extremely strong climber from Albany. Together we started putting serious effort into Overburdened. Taylor unlocked the moves pretty quickly, and it was apparent he’d be sending within a few sessions at the least. Very inspired by what I saw, I gave it more try-hard than ever and managed to do all the moves multiple times. Sweet!
The next week I met up with Jut and we continued where I’d left off. Jut made amazing progress as well, doing the match move for his first time. Then I had my best breakthrough yet. I did several 2-3 move link-ups multiple times, finally getting to the point where there are no sequences I haven’t done. All the progress! All that’s left now is to climb the whole beast start to finish… and I can do it!
Also, big congrats to Taylor, who DID manage to send in early May! I couldn’t be there, but he captured the climb on video, so here it is for anyone who’s interested. This ascent makes Taylor just the 4th person to send Overburdened… incredible accomplishment. Way to go, man!
It’s now the end of May, the black flies are out and temps are in the 80’s and rising. Climbing in the Daks is over for the time being, but there is absolutely no question now: Overburdened is getting sent this fall. Can’t wait!
I’ll also add that I sent Cherokee Challenge (finally!). CC is a highball crimpline put up by Jut a while back and it’s always called to me. It isn’t difficult (maybe V4) but there’s a crucial 3-finger sloping pocket in the upper crux that’s ALWAYS wet. I’ve climbed to the crux several times in the past and been forced to downclimb all the crimps due to that pocket/seam holding water. Anyway, I lucked out on an afternoon in early May with Jut and found the holds to be dry. Jut gave me all the confidence and encouragement in the world by sending it first and even chalked the seam like crazy. Conditions were prime — and I couldn’t do it. Argh! I love highballs, but for some reason the techy nature of the crux was messing with my head. I got within one move of the lip 3 times and had to downclimb. So much punt.
I couldn’t let such a promising spring end like that though, so I took one last trip up a few days later. It hadn’t rained, so I knew the holds would still be dry. I chalked up and decided I wasn’t backing out this time. Cruised it! Hitting the lip on this one is a pretty sweet feeling! Got a little vid too — nothing special, just my iphone propped against a rock. As far as I know though, it’s the only video of this climb in existence right now, and the line is really quite good, so for what it’s worth here’s how she looks…
K, that wraps up spring. I hope everyone else is having a great start to the year as well! Now on to summer training and hopefully some summer climbing. Peace out for now, peeps. Happy crushing!
climblife 