Big comp weekend

This past weekend(9/26-9/27) I got to take part in two sweet competitions in the Bay Area. The first one on Friday night was at the Planet Granite in Belmont. I felt really strong going into the comp havig flashed a v6 called The Twilight Zone in the happy boulders in bishop the day before. Just found out the score today and it turns out I tied for 11th place overall out of 313 people!!

Super psyched about it!!! The pic above shows one of the problems I liked but couldn't finish, it had three dynos in it two vertical and one horizontal. It would've been nice to get it but oh well it was fun anyways. I got to meet up with a bunch of peeps I haven't seen in a long while so it was nice catching up and getting to climb too. 

These are the top few scores for the men's category, the women's top score started lower so I didn't include it. But it looks like three of us tied for 11th place in the comp. I'm still not sure if I'll make it back to Ca in time to go to the next PG comp on the 17th of next month but hopefully I'll be back in time to see if I can  make it. 

This is a breakdown of my attempts for that night. They changed the scoring from the way they've done it in the past to enable fewer attempts before the climb is worthless witch is kind of nice because it makes moving on to other projects easier. Another high note is there was still plenty of beer by the end of the comp and that's one of the first time I've been to one where they didn't run out shortly after getting it in the building haha

Well time to crash, I'll share more adventures from this weekend tomorrow. 

The Irish King

Double days are full of win!

So today I went to rock creek for a morning sesh and then after eating and talking a long nap I hit up the buttermilks for some dusk climbing with Robin, Celine(some peeps I met yesterday) and Tod this strong Israeli guy.

I ended up getting a couple fun v4s at rock creek and after getting some beta from my new friend Tod I sent flyboy arête!! Heel-toe cam for the win! Haha

The 4s I got in Rock Creek were Pull Down Like De Jesus and Choice of Weapons. They were both really fun and I definitely had a blast pulling down on granite.

Unfortunately I dont have any footage of my flyboy arête send but hopefully when I get some people to visit and spot me I'll do it again and get the footage of it too!

The Irish King

My first rain

So I went to Mammoth on Sunday afternoon to just chill and camp for the night so I could hopefully climb at Way Lake on Monday morning. Unfortunately I got a rude awakening at around 3:30am and it started raining on my face so I had to jump out of bed and throw my rain fly on. Quite the adventure for so early in the morning. But it didn't stop there I woke up and it was raining off and on so I thought I'd chance the trip up to Way Lake anyways. When I got there it was dry so I used the restroom real quick looked at the trail map and what do you know it started raining AGAIN! It continued to rain for the next 45min or so when I was there waiting and then I decided to go back to bishop where it looked to be much more dry.

I first went to the Loony Bean Coffee shop to charge my electronics and check my FB and email then uploaded the vid of me at night after I put my rain fly on. After that I headed to the buttermilks and wandered around for a bit then I found another guy(Steve) who was doing a little dusk bouldering and and we messed around on the smooth shrimp boulder. We got some easy stuff, tried some hard stuff and then went our separate ways.

Today(Tuesday) I woke up at like 730, ate a little and headed to the milks. They were just across the road from me. =) I started by warming up with some guys(Jay and Alex) I met at the birthday boulders. I got to show them how to do birthday left and then headed to iron man, so I could work it before it got in the sun. I probably spend an hour with a Sweedish couple I met there and this guy Wayne who was briefly at the birthday boulders. I gave Iron Man two goes and was still falling then the Sweedish guy and Wayne sent it so I gave it one last try and SENT IT!! This project has been eluding me for the past two years and I finally sent it, the vid will be coming soon. After I left Iron Man I messed around trying to repeat Cave Route but couldn't repeat it for the camera. I also messed around on a couple other climbs on cave boulder and then headed to tut boulder to see if I could get any new lines there. I got some easy stuff like a V2 and V0 but couldn't get anything harder because it was so hot by that point. Luckily I'm camping in the milks so I don't have to worry about having to go far to climb. =)

Tomorrow I'll be headed to Rock Creek to climb with Wayne and then heading back to the milks for the, from what I hear, weekly local climber get together in the milks. So hopefully I'll meet a few more peeps tomorrow.

'Till then peace out!

The Irish King

The new adventure!

I am officially on the road living the dirtbag lifestyle that I have been thinking about for the past year or two. 

This was my base camp for the first week. But before I was in the tablelands in Bishop I went to planet granite's Bloc Party bouldering competition and then spent the weekend in Tahoe with some friends at the secrets. 

PG's Bloc Party was a blast with some truly difficult lines. It didn't help that I had only been climbing about one day every couple weeks so I went into the advanced category instead of open. These are the results of the comp.

http://www.planetgranite.com/climbing/competitions/blocparty/results/2014_BlocParty_SV_Results.pdf?utm_source=SEPTEMBER+2014&utm_campaign=September+2014&utm_medium=email

I ended up getting 5th in advanced but I hope to do much better in the next few comps. It was great seeing all the familiar faces of my friends at the comp that I haven't seen in a few months. Telling them all of my plans about moving to Bishop and they left me with promises of trips they would plan to come climb and visit me. 

This is the end of the comp when all of the awards and raffles were being done. I even won with my single ticket that I got for entering into the comp. haha I got a new guidebook, chalk bag and some jtree salves. But I gave the chalk bag to Carissa since hers was stolen at the comp and I didn't need another one since I have like 5 from previous comps. 

After the comp I headed to my brother Steve's house near Sacramento and headed to Tahoe early the next morning. Tahoe is great at this time of year, smelling the fresh pine in the air, feeling that coarse granite that will shred your skin in no time and enjoying conversations when the ganja and whiskey is flowing. Ahh good times. Although I didn't get to many high grade problems because my left ring fingers been bothering me I did still get some fun mid grades under my belt. I even managed to flash a few V4s and a V5. 

On Saturday night KJ made us all some fantastic grilled chicken after a good day of crushing. Who would've known that grilled chicken could taste so good after a long day of bouldering? A few beers and some amazing cooking will definitely put you in the mood to talk about everything and nothing in particular. 

Unfortunately I don't have many pictures of our climbing. I'll have to link the videos from YouTube once I've edited them. But the two area we went to in The secrets were the sticks and the mystics. Both areas had some good lines and all of the climbing was fun the best part of course was all the buds that I got to meet and climb with. 

Having friends on trips like these is definitely the most ideal. 

After our afternoon sesh in Tahoe on Sunday I headed to Bishop ready to embrace this new dirtbag life.