Updates, Random Occurrences, and Future Plans

Its been a while since I posted so I figured I would put a little blurb up on what has been going on.   A lot of my time has gone into planning the 6th Annual Colorado College Rumble For Ritt Bouldering Competition (wow that was a lot of capitalized words).  It happened this Saturday and for the first time it was thrown off campus at the Sport Climbing Center.  Attendence was above what I expected, with a large turn out from local Colorado Springs climbers, which was awesome.  A lot of the reason we wanted to do it off campus was to bridge the gap between our two climbing communities.  Big props to all that helped out with prizes including Mountain Chalet, The Sport Climbing Center, Organic, Verve, HG Productions, the Access Fund, and Rock and Ice.  

Besides that I have been climbing outside a bit too.  Able to snatch the second ascent of a cool line down in the Southlands called Living on a Prayer.  Felt it was about V8, but it could be a bit harder.  Spent another day getting shut down by Muddy Waters.  Came really close on my first go, barely missing for me what is the crux move and then pulling back on, doing the move and finishing the problem.  Now if I could only link those two sections.  As for the pass, Byron and I finished up filming a brief interview/intro thing that will hopefully get put together with video from my Bloody Arete send and put on MVM.  But as for the last part of that, I do not know if it will work out or not.  Today I went up and put a few goes into The Green Lantern.  At almost 70 degrees out, it was about 50 degrees too warm for me to hold those holds.  That being said, it felt surprising do-able and I look forward to next falls cooler temps.

And as for the future, I am only psyched about where my plans will be taking me.  After school gets out, I am meeting up with Brayton and heading to the east coast for some bouldering and mini-route climbing.  Rumney, Farely, Great Barrington, and P-Way are on the hit list.  But with limited time there who knows how much we will see.  Regardless, I am very excited to climb with Brayton again and see some new and amazing looking areas.  After that it is off to Washington State, where I will be spending a little over three weeks in different parts of the Cascades, mainly with the intention of exploring a lot and putting up some cool new lines.  I have a few ideas of places to head already where I have found or been told about large alpine tallus fields (no Colorado, you are not the only ones with them, and these ones are not filled with butt-dragging traverses out of caves).  After that it is off to Wyoming to do some geology work with a professor of mine on climate and ecosystem reconstruction during the Eocene Climatic Maximum.  Then August will hold some work in store to make a few more dollars before returning to Colorado for a week of climbing and lab work before school starts again. Plus throw the trade show in there for August.  PSYCHED!

Here is a random photo from the archives of Freshman Noah (as opposed to Big Noah or Little Noah) crushing the problem right of Skinned in the Woods, which goes at around V4.