I know, I'm late. We had an entertaining weekend and a busy week.
On Friday Dylan and I headed up to Ponderosa, the Sattelite area, to boulder with a guy that is new to town, Jerod (sp?). He is from back east and moved out to ABQ for the climbing, yes there are other places I would choose ahead of NM for climbing, maybe his older brother being here had something to do with it as well. Any way, we had a good time. I managed to do a problem that I'd tried periodically over the years but not managed to do previously. Dylan learned that as you dig down in the dirt it gets colder the deeper you get. It was also our first time out with the new child carrier, Dylan enjoyed it enough to fall asleep in it towards the end of the day out.
On Saturday the family headed to El Rito so Linda could climb with the Gym's adult team that she is a part of. Our group was about 12-15 people, there were 2 guide groups out, each with about 10 climbers and perhapse another 10 climbers as well to go along with 8 dogs. If you've been to El Rito before you'll know that this is a huge number of people to be in the area and there was definately some friction between the groups. Dylan had a good time hanging out with Anna K. aka: Accorn. I did not bring climbing shoes to make sure that I took the day off and Linda came OH so close to sending Pocket Rocket 5.12-, which would have been the first time she had climbed the grade in a day. Oh well, there will be other routes and oppotunites and she still wants to get back to it to finish it off.
On Sunday, I headed up to Palomas Peak to climb with Chris, Jesse and Matt L.. Chris is just starting to climb again after taking a break of a couple of weeks so he was just climbing easy with Jesse. Matt and I did a warm up with them than went to work on a couple of routes on the slab and the franks walls. I'd been wanting to get back to Sanke Dance for OH about 3 years to finish it off since I'd done it with one fall on my second attempt. I hung the draws and the opening crux seemed a lot harder than I remembered and I was no sure I could even start the route. I did find some better beta for the top where I'd fallen off before, so that was encouraging. It seemed as though sending mostly then revolved around doing the boulder problem at the start. I was nervouse starting up it the second time because you don't really have an opportunity to relax before the tough moves begin. I managed to pull the crux much more easily, more like I remembered it feeling then just executing the sequence to the top. It was nice to have sent a route that equals the hardest that I've done, 5.13d and a couple of other people who have done the route have even suggested 5.14a, so at least it should be solid at 5.13d. Snake Dance is a good route with a boulder problem start to a good rest then a serise of moves that gets progressively harder untill you are over the lip of the overhang. Matt was working on Entertaining Mike Tyson 5.13b which is a short, powerful route that I'd wanted to try and do on my first try. With beta from Matt I was able to pull off the flash. EMT is a really fun route that packs a lot into about 25 feet of climbing. All in all a pretty good day of climbing.
Linda and Dylan got a call from Ali in the morning to say that she and Paul were taking their daughter, Charley to the Bio Park. Charley is 3 months older than Dylan and we see them ever couple of months, we should try to get together more often as Dylan really like the "older" ladies.
and fish are super interesting as well,
I've finally started to let Dylan control his own food more which naturally leads to a bigger mess at times. Sometimes I wonder if he isn't trying to kill himself with how much he stuffs in his mouth at once. Here he is taking a tiny bit of banana,
On Monday, Linda test rode a nice Look 585 ella to work an home. She really liked how the ride felt but was not so hot on the lack of standover, she does not like to get quite so intimate with the top tube of her frame, so we are still looking. I rode out with Dylan in the trailer to meet Linda and Betty and ride home with them. On the way out I managed to roll the trailer, pretty scarry moment I must admitt, got to be careful of those bridges with 6" steel thresholds that you have to make 90 degree turns off of. The 5 point harness worked great, Dylan didn't budge and the wheels and the handle stick out enough that the actual carrier didn't even touch the ground, but he did get a little scarred, though he willingly got back in after I took him out to check on him and let him walk around a bit.
As further proof to those out there that are concered that he may have been hurt of knocked silly, here is some video that I took later that evening,
OH, PS the new truck arrived today, so if you all know anyone who needs a vehichle, we are looking to sell my old Tacoma 4x4, extended cab, V6, topper included.
and this is from our trip to Hueco last month that was essentially to celebrate Linda's 40th birthday. He is enjoying his snacks while everyone climbs
Hueco Tanks State Historical Park is renowned for its native american rock art. Here are some guys dancing,
and here is some dating advice
The sunsets are hard to beat out at Hueco even if it can be a royal pain to deal with getting reservations to get into the park.
