Send Report: Fridge Left V8 #
The astute reader of this new blogI’m pretty sure that this is a definite description with a failed existence presupposition. may have noticed that I did not do my daily post yesterday. The stated reason (to myself): it was Veteran’s Day, a national (and so University of Washington) holiday, and so I could treat it like a weekend and not blog / write that day. The real reason: I really treated the day like a weekend when my friends Emily and Bora suggested that we seize the rare good weather for a quick day trip to Leavenworth. At this point, I’ve mentally committed to the climbing season being over, but it had been a little too long since I’d been out with them, so it seemed like a perfect bonus day.
We began at Mad Meadows, where both of them had problems they wanted to try and where I had not been in a long time.More on why in just a minute. After warming up and then getting shut down by a problem called The Jib that Emily cruised up, I was happy to quickly put down the V6 sit start to Spongebob Squarepad. I hadn’t been up there since doing the V3 stand in… October 2019 O_O and it was nice to feel strong and make quick work of the stand. Bora also sent his project right next door, and so the question became: where did I want to go?
Some back-story: this Fall, I wanted to have a season of trying hard boulders. It felt like it had been a long time. In 2023, I sent a lot of classic V8s in Washington—including the most aesthetic boulder around—and even one that’s been upgraded to V9 in one session. Somehow, a mix of weather, travel, and general life stuff made 2024 a bit of a “down” year on the climbing front. The first half of this year was spent doing a lot of multipitch and learning to trad climb in prep for going up Prusik.Also calling today’s post a “send report” because boulders don’t deserve trip reports the way that bigger objectives do. That was an amazing experience and I’m happy to have acquired those skills. But the cumulative effect was that it felt like I had not progressed on the strength / try-hard aspect of the sport in almost two years.
So I set the main goal of finding a V10 project and was happy to have productive sessions on Johnny AppleseedDid the “big move” and took it to the top in my first and only session. and The Current. But it’s also nice to stand on top of things sometimes.
So I checked out Fridge Left V8: a very slopey line that I’d never pulled on because it didn’t exactly seem my style, is condition-dependent, and usually has a crowd on it. But I stopped there one day when it was empty and cold. Even though it was my third day in a row climbing, I got pretty close and knew it could go. I went back a bit later and—at least I thought—a bit fresher, and had another “great” session.
After finding some actual beta improvements, I did the crux move to a high left crimp but punted while moving to the lip from there; from a place I literally thought you could not fall from. I didn’t get back to that high point the rest of the day. Instead of being happy with the progress, I was surprised by how dejected I felt. I don’t normally take detailed notes or anything, but wrote in my “scratchpad” note on my phone: “Why do I care so much?” It seemed silly: we’re talking about a 15-20 foot piece of rock. No objective aspect of the world hinges on standing on top of it.
Why do I care so much? Because it came to symbolize a feeling that I was no longer progressing in my climbing,Again, at least/only in the try-hard aspect of the sport. despite still investing a lot of time in the craft. Maybe I actually am old enough to be “past the hump”?
Flash forward—backward?—to yesterday. I was a little tired from the morning’s climbing, but the Fridge was relatively empty and we were there. Might as well pull on. I tried to keep expectations low and pressure offFor instance: didn’t set up a tripod/camera at all the whole day. and just see how it felt. My first two quick “warm-up” attempts felt surprisingly good: I didn’t hit the first couple moves perfectly, but there was good friction and I definitely still had muscle memory for the positions.
After a long-ish rest, I told Emily and Bora that “it’s time to go to the top”, pulled on, and found myself executing my sequence and getting my left hand into the key high crimp for just the second time ever. This time, however, pressing out the right arm for a hand-foot match felt easy and in no time I grabbed the lip and pulled myself up on top of this mini-nemesis. The endorphin-rush-induced euphoria was, as always, palpable.
But there was also a deeper satisfaction and contentment with this one: maybe I still can try hard and maybe I still will make progress. Time will tell.
All in all: a great day to end the season. The three of us were an unprecedented three-for-three on separate projects. Feeling inspired for some winter strength training!