Update

So climbing in Washington was a failure. I ended up spending the night with good friend Ander Rockstad in Salt Lake City due to snow in Seattle. Great weather in Boston, snow in Seattle. In November. It remained wet and cold for most of my trip home. Maybe my trip home in December will be luckier. Maybe. In other news, MZ put together a nice video of three climbs I have done recently and one I should have done:

1127 Reasons to Climb

For those who know, I post this in remembrance of all the good times we had in 1127. For those who don't, I hope you enjoy all the out of context moments recorded here. Just to have one thing straight, my underwear are wet because I got hit by a water balloon. HD on Vimeo.

Bradley

Today I got to check out an area I have been wanting to go to for a long time: Bradley. I have to say that I was very impressed. Excellent rock, good lines, and plenty to work on. I climbed some classics up to V8 before setting my sights on The Prow. I made progress each burn until I was able to unlock the trickery of this climb. However, I totally punted and fell off the easy climbing with numb tips. Too bad, cause my skin was wrecked after that and I could not finish it up. Tomorrow I head to Seattle for Thanksgiving. The forecast is looking surprisingly good for the Northwest in November so hopefully I will be able to get out and scale some rocks.

Max projecting the sit start to the Book of Bitter Aspects

Rumney

Max and I planned Sunday as a different sort of day. Instead of meeting for brunch at 11, we were on the road at 8. After warming up in the Blackjacks, we headed up to Waimea. Despite being PERFECT weather for sport climbing, the crag was deserted. Not one person! Max put some effort into The Fly. A couple showed up for a second. Neil came by and flew through a warm up. Max convinced Neil to give me a belay on Riviera so he could shoot. I failed. Neil had to leave. Max hung on the rope for 45 minutes. I napped. Max came down. I did Riviera. Max tried The Fly more. Joey belayed me so we could finish filming. Max tried The Fly more. We left.

Farley

On Saturday Max and I got a very late start to Farley. Max just wanted to get some moves in on the rock to get warmed up for more serious climbing on Sunday. I had the goal of finishing up Prince Paul. I had gotten my beta dialed on Thursday only to be thwarted by wet finger locks at the top. Well, it turned out that getting the final finger lock was hard and it took some solid effort to get to the top of this rig. Dave Wetmore, who had a great day of his own, was there to grab the ascent on tape. With 15ish moves over 24 feet, this guy climbs a bit like route and sending definitely came down to feeling fresh enough at the top to still try hard.

Farley - Sunday

I recently had a little scare recently with my shoulder. Got it checked out by the doc though and was able to return to climbing after a week of rest. Had work off on Thursday for the vets and went out to Farley with Alex, Nate, and Grady. I worked out more moves on Prince Paul but the finger locks at the top were wet and I was not able to finish it off. We made a bit of progress on War on Terror. I also was able to climb Pterodactyl Sit. This is the first hardish crimp line I have climbed in a while, so that was nice marker of fitness. We finished the day off on the seldom climbed Monkey Butt Love. Its a cool sloping arete with a rad dyno to the lip.

Grady on War on Terror

Grady on Monkey Butt Love using his tall man beta

Alex using the standard dyno beta on Monkey Butt Love

New Five Ten Shoes

Metrorock held a shoe demo the other week and Dana was there showing off Five Ten's new shoe lineup. While I have tried many of Five Ten's new shoes over the last couple years, I have consistently gone back to the Moc, 5X, and Dragons. All these shoes have been around for a few years now (and in the case of the Moc, much more then that) and I have been happy none have fallen to Five Ten's different approach to shoe production and marketing (in with the new, out with the old). However, I have to say that this year was a bit different. I think Five Ten has really created a diverse set of climbing shoes with some of their best models ever.

Five Ten Supermoc:
This is essentially a trimmed down version of the classic Moc. I use my Moc for two things: thin cracks and gym climbing. The super Moc is better suited for bouldering and sport climbing. It has a very thin sole (think the old school Mantra S) and a nice fitting heel cup. The main complaint I have heard from people about the Moc is that it cannot heel hook. I tried heel hooking on many different type holds and was only able to pull it off once (on a move that also nearly pulled my Dragon off). This shoe is also extremely comfortable but remember to size down if you want to maintain a performance fit since it is unlined leather.


Five Ten Hornet:
When I asked Dana about this shoe he said it was designed for "steep limestone with small pockets and tufas." Wow, well that is pretty specific. But luckily this shoe performed amazingly well on a variety of terrains. I am a big fan of soft shoes and this shoe is essentially a cross of the Dragon and the new Super Moc; its a soft, thin, downturned shoe with an excellent heel cup. People always talk about pulling with your toes in downturned shoes but I have never be able to do that like I did with this shoe. I was able to keep my feet on the wall while using very small footholds on a roof that I was not able to do with any other shoe. Furthermore, the innovative lacing system aligns the natural arc of your foot into the shoe. No more torquing on your foot once you pull the shoe on to get your shoe to sit comfortably.

Five Ten Quantum
I was also impressed by this new shoe. It is a nice mix of the Anasazi Velcro and Dragon. A stiffer, lace-up shoe with a slight downturn and an excellent heel cup. Not to mention the purple makes it one of the best looking shoes I have ever seen.

Unfortenatly I did not get to try on the new Dean Potter shoe but it looks sick for offwidthing!